Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Wordless Wednesday

One year ago


Now (well, on Easter)
A lot has changed.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

5 Months Old

Fiona is 5 months old today. I feel like someone hit the fastforward button in our lives. Yesterday, I weighed her on our scale at home fully clothed and she was about 14 pounds 8 ounces. You can tell she is starting to put on a little meat. Her cheeks are starting to fill out, she has a little Buddha belly and she has one little roll on each thigh. So cute.

She has started to get really interested in our food/drinks. I know she would probably do fine with starting to eat solids now, but I'm sticking to my guns and we're waiting at least one more month. She is obviously gaining weight just fine with only milk, so she doesn't need solids. I did find a high chair on craigslist for $10 so she is all set when we do start solids. She loves sitting in the high chair and playing with her toys.

(Ignore the massive drool spot on her shirt)

We also scrapped the baby bathtub in favor of baths in the big tub. The baby tub was way too much work and she was getting a little too big for it anyway. She loves playing in the water in the big tub. I can't wait until she is sitting up on her own and we can get a little baby pool for the backyard. She is going to have so much fun in the water this summer.


She is honing her rolling skills. She is pretty good at rolling both directions now. She tried to take a nose dive off the changing table the other day when Daddy wasn't paying attention. Luckily, he has pretty fast reflexes and caught her. Fiona is even practicing moving in her sleep, which has led to some bad nights of sleep for Mommy and Daddy. She scoots herself around the crib in her sleep until she gets stuck somewhere and wakes up screaming several times a night.

Since the weather has warmed up some, we love spending lazy time out in the backyard. Sometimes we just chill in the shade with some toys or else Fiona hangs out while Mommy does yard work. We are soaking up as much time as we can outdoors before it gets too hot to enjoy it. Fi loves it outside. She just looks and watches. She especially loves when the kids are on the playground behind our backyard; she just squeals and talks to them.

Her favorite "person" other than Nathan and myself is still Toby. She does all kinds of tricks to try and get him to look at her or come over. She likes to get big handfuls of his hair and just hold on and squeal. He's a trooper and doesn't even flinch. Her other favorite thing to do is makeout with Toby, which is so gross.

Here are some pictures of Nathan and Fiona hanging out.

Not sure what they were looking at, but it was keeping them both very interested.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Naptime Woes

So the past few days we have been having major issues with Fiona falling asleep. She has been really pretty good at getting to sleep in the past. Staying asleep is sometimes another story. The last 2 night have been miserable trying to put her to bed, and we have broken down, strapped her in the carseat and driven around until she was asleep. Desperate times call for desperate measures. That does not help during the day for naps since I don't always have the car. Yesterday I was finally successful rocking her to sleep, but she wouldn't let me put her down. So I ended up crashing in the recliner with her.
This morning I finally got her to sleep eased her into the crib was just leaving her room when the bleeping Fedex guy shows up and nearly pounds the door down. The dogs go nuts and the babies eyes pop open, she realizes she is in the crib and screaming commences. Fast forward 20 minutes, the baby is yet again just asleep and I am once again easing her into the crib and the neighbor next door (right outside her window) fires up his Harley (the loudest one I have ever heard). Repeat above with dogs barking and baby screaming. Now she is overly tired, won't go back to sleep and the crabbiest baby on the block. I cannot catch a break today. If the ding-ding man shows up during her afternoon nap I just may chase after him with a baseball bat.

Wordless Wednesday





Monday, April 13, 2009

Our Easter

We had a great Easter, yesterday. It was exhausting, but we had a great day. We started the day by getting dressed and giving Fiona her Easter basket from the Easter bunny. She got a handful of candy, which her Daddy graciously volunteered to eat, a sleeper, a teething toy, and a bear/blanket. She really could have cared less, but she looked absolutely adorable in her Easter dress.


Before we had to run out the door to Church we made a quick attempt at a family photo, which didn't turn out great. We took another one later at Mom and Dad's.


After Church we headed over to my parents' house for a crazy Easter dinner. I was a little worried about how Fiona would handle it because it was officially her first Mulcahy holiday. For those of you who don't know about my family, I am the oldest of 6 kids and my parents are both from families of 5 kids. My Dad's family almost all live in Omaha. Of his 3 siblings in the Omaha area the smallest number of children is 4. Everyone gathers together for the major holidays plus some neighbors/friends/honorary family members. Needless to say this ends up being a lot of people. I think my Mom said the count yesterday was 42. Not only are there a lot of people, but there is a LOT of food. No one ever goes away hungry. If you have ever seen the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, that in a lot of ways is my family. Also the husband's family is a lot like my in-laws, as far as contrasts go.
So we ate a lot, Fiona got passed around a lot (she did really well and only got a little fussy when she needed a nap), we had lots of fun talking and laughing and hiding eggs for the kids (I won't even begin to explain the probably hundreds of Easter eggs that get hidden and hunted). Fiona did manage to squeeze in about a half hour nap amidst the chaos. Then we packed up while the party was still raging on and headed over to Easter dinner with Nathan's parents.
His family consists of his parents, one sister, and his grandmother. Talk about switching gears. It was a nice break from the noise, and we had a quieter dinner with them, which was very yummy. I did feel awful because I let Fi get a little too tired from earlier so she was kind of a cranky baby. It was my fault and I'll have to be more careful next time, so she doesn't get too tired for round 2. We still had a nice Easter dinner with Nathan's family and his mother hid eggs around the house for Nathan, his sister, and I to hunt. I hadn't been an egg HUNTER in a LONG time. Being the oldest cousin, with LOTS of little ones, I have been an egg HIDER for many years. After that we took our tired/cranky baby home and put her to bed and we followed her shortly after, being exhausted ourselves. It was a good holiday. Now we just need a day off to recover.

And because I think it is funny, here is a video of Fiona talking and doing her dog pant.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Easter

I have always liked Easter. It is spring, which means some years it is nice outside. There is good food to eat and it tends to be a pretty relaxing holiday. Last year on Easter we told all the family that this cute munchkin would be making an appearance around Thanksgiving.

She is modeling a super cute new dress from Great Grandma.


So I decided to take a couple more Easter pictures the other day. Still no bunny ears. I couldn't get any to fit her little head. Still she took a couple of cute pictures. This was at the beginning of a cold so she wasn't patient for too long, hence the pacifier.






I can't wait for Easter to get here. I am excited about Fiona's Easter basket. I think the Easter bunny did a good job filling it.

I am even more excited about her adorable little Easter dress. My Mom whipped it up the other day, matching headband and bloomers too. She is going to look so pretty on Easter.

Monday, April 6, 2009

Duck, Duck, Oww

The other day, Nathan and I were out and about and my mother-in-law called to see if we could pick her up from work because she had a flat tire. No big deal. We were all packed into the car anyway. She works at a nursing home and we were driving around in the parking lot waiting for her to be finished. This is where the story starts to get interesting.
All over the property there are ducks. As we were aimlessly driving around, we were looking at the ducks and wondering at the fact that they are just left to wander in and around the parking lot. Then we spot what looks like a duck beat down going on. Seriously, there were like 5 ducks that appeared to be pecking, kicking, and holding down this one duck. It was kind of disturbing to watch and I may have said something silly to my husband like, "Stop the duck carnage." At my insistence that he save the duck and stop the carnage, he got out of the car and walked over to shoo the ducks away. Then simultaneously we came to the same realization...
It was mating season. I busted out laughing so hard I had tears running down my face by the time Nathan returned to the car. What initially looked like "duck carnage" was actually baby duck making (it looked more like a duck gang rape), which I think was more disturbing to see than a duck beat down.
Thank God, Fiona is not old enough to have noticed the scene and asked about it because I can only imagine the "birds and bees" talk that would have followed. Oh the joys of nature.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

4 Months

I really can't believe that Fiona is 4 months old. These months seem to fly by. She definitely gets more personality every day, which is exciting and scary at the same time. She is very opinionated and very stubborn. Let's just say she knows what she wants and she is pretty good at getting it. Boy are we going to be in trouble when she gets older and wants more than just attention/fed/diaper changed. I can already hear the requests for a pony. Every day she wraps Nathan a little further around that cute little finger, so I can already tell that mommy is going to end up being the bad guy a lot. I really love watching them together. He is such a good dad.

For the first three months of her life, it was all mom all the time. In month number four she has definitely warmed up to her daddy. She loves it when he flies her around like an airplane. She giggles and coos at him. Fiona also loves laying in bed and talking to him in the morning when she wakes up. This last week she has only let her daddy do bedtime. She doesn't want me to put her to bed, but she will fall right asleep for her daddy. That has been frustrating in some ways and wonderful in other ways (I get a little alone time while he does bedtime).


I took her to her 4 month check-up on Monday and she weighed in at a whopping 12 pounds 5 ounces, which is the 21st percentile, and she was 23.75 inches long, which is the 29th percentile. Moving up the chart on weight, but she is still a little peanut. Everything looked good at the doctor's. She got her 4 month shots, which was quite traumatic. She was laying there all happy, talking to the nurses. Then they stuck her and man can that kid scream. She had a pretty rough rest of the day/night and next day with a fever, a major case of the grumpies, and trouble sleeping. She seems to be over that now and back to her usual self. She had a hard time with the 2 month shots as well. We are not looking forward to the next batch. The pediatrician okayed her to start solid foods, but we are going to hold off for awhile. The ped agreed since she is growing fine and we have a history of digestive problems in the family, inluding celiac, that it would be best to wait closer to 6 months for her first solids. That is just fine with me, less dishes to do.

She has been a busy girl this month. She learned how to roll over. She mostly goes from her tummy to her back, but I've seen her go back to tummy a couple of times. Since she figured out rolling she is much happier during tummy time and when she starts to get angry she just flips herself over. She has really started to like to sit up and be more vertical. So we got her an exersaucer, which I thought she might be a little young for. She showed me. We have to wrap her in blankets and put something under her feet so she can use it, but she LOVES it. She had all the toys figured out the first day. She even figured out how to turn herself around to the toys she likes the best. Apparently, her silly mommy was holding her back.


Fi and I went to a Baby Maestro class with our MOM friends the other day. It is a class for little kids and their parent, where they sing and dance and interact with music. It was a lot of fun. Fiona seemed to really enjoy herself, which was no surprise because one of her favorite things to do is listen to music and dance. She was dancing to music well before she was born. We hope to get to go to another Baby Maestro class in the future, until then we'll keep getting our groove on in the living room.



Each month has been more fun than the last. I love watching my peanut grow. If she would just stop growing before she stops liking to snuggle with her mommy that would be great.