2 months!

little nilly nora turned two months old this week, and how more appropriate to celebrate her 2 month birthday by a visit to the doctor and some immunizations! :)

{scene from the doctor's office:}

nurse: "well she must look like her daddy because she looks nothing like you!"
me: "yeah, pretty much. if i didn't personally give birth to this baby myself, i wouldn't think she's even mine."

and that's the truth. but she's cute though. like her dad. ;-) so i'll keep her.

so turns out our little girl's head isn't as gigantic as i imagined it to be. i used to tease chris all the time that she had his "big giant head," but now it looks like i can't really do that anymore. turns out, her head's a rather normal size. however, as far as everything else goes, she's definitely in the "big giant" category. she's in the 95th percentile for height, and 83rd percentile in weight for her age; which explains why she's busted out of the clothes in which she should be fitting and is, instead, wearing 3-month old size clothes. but this works for me for a couple of reasons:

a) the more nora eats, the less calories i have to burn off
b) lifting and carrying a 12lb baby around all the time is totally helping me see a return in arm definition.

of course, as far as the shots were concerned, she didn't quite like those all that much- poor baby. as sad as it was, it had to be done. i had the opportunity to study most all of the diseases for which she was immunized back when i took microbiology. after learning what i did in that class, there is no way i'd let my child go without getting vaccinated. even though she had to endure a few boo-boos for it.

2 month old nora, stylin' with her bugs bunny bandaids on her legs from gettin' shots.

so far, it seems like nora is developing a bit of a personality. like, a rather high maintenance sort of personality. she seems to want a lot of attention all the time or else. chris refers to her as "princess nora" and has a special "throne hold" for when she is particularly fussy- whereby he carries her around and around the apartment, narrating as he goes. example:

"and this room is the bathroom! it has a bunch of mirrors and lights!... you like that? hmm? ... no? you don't? ok then. on to the next room..."

and so on, and so forth.

that's the hold i'm talking about.

when she's not too busy fussing, she does actually smile. she actually squeaked out a few laughs the other day. a welcome (albeit brief) respite from her usual agitation. i'm thinkin she'll be a whole lot happier once she can move around on her own- she's been able to hold her head up and steady for a while now so she can check out what's going on around her; she's doing all she can to roll over (she's almost got it down); and during "tummy time" she's already doing push-ups and trying to scoot. all a little early, i know, but she's chris's daughter- she's got places to go and things to do! i have a sneaky feeling that this child might give me a run for my money here in the future... we will have to see. :)

 

 

 

 

the month of april.

so this april has basically been a blur of sleepless nights, changing diapers and doing baby laundry and it doesnt seem like there's been time for much else. but of the things that happened this month there are these:

chris is on a new schedule- after over a year and a half of working on the day shift, he decided to switch it up a bit and work the swing shift- which goes from 5pm to appx 2am. therefore, he gets home around 3:30am and sleeps until noon. he likes it. i think it's weird.

chris has another birthday- another one?! how old is this guy anyways? answer: 16. just kidding. he's 28. he only acts like a teenager occassionally. since i have oodles of time for reflection and contemplation when i sit and feed the baby a dozen times a day, i figured i could probably put a little bit more thought into his present than the prior years when i was working and schooling. therefore, i hid his gifts and made him go find them by means of a treasure hunt. he liked it, and i was amused. a win-win.

on daddy's birthday. nora is actually asleep. daddy is being silly.

easter- chris totally got the hook-ups from the easter bunny this year. i did not. i think that's because the easter bunny knows i'm currently on chocolate restriction for the time being. but the easter bunny did get infant gas relief drops for nora, because she's been a really angry, gassy baby as of late. so that was good (writing about one's self in the thrid person is awkward. so is pretending to be the easter bunny. no one really puts that one in marriage and parenting books.) anyways, since i didn't go to church that day since i'm still sheltering my baby from large crowds of potentially sick people, the highlight of my easter sunday was spending the whole afternoon and easter dinner with my family. unfortunately, chris had to work that day/night so he couldn't come. but it was wonderful nonetheless.

six week mark- for me. technically, you're considered "recovered from childbirth" at six weeks... HA! "recovered from childbirth" as if you're back to your old, normal self again after that amount of time. not so. it just means that you're given the go ahead to do normal stuff again like running, and ab workouts, and chilling out in a jacuzzi. realistically though, my figure hasn't fully recovered from pregnancy- i've still got a pesky 10lbs hanging around that i'd rather not be there and am no where close to fitting back into my old size 4 jeans. at this point, i'm actually wondering if i'll ever fit back into my old clothes again... but what's life without a good challange, right? at least i can work out again- i've got my therapy back. ;-)

nora can smile- circa the middle of the month. like the type of smile where she looks at your face, and opens her mouth into a giant, toothless grin. CUTEST. THING. EVER! the past few days she's even cooed a bit. nothing beats hanging out with a happy baby (especially when you know what she's like when she's not so happy).

she's exactly a month old in this picture. this was a "she's smiling again, hurry up and get the picture" cell phone camera shot. awesome.

1 month old!!

our little nora is 1 month old!!! who knew that one month could be so long and so short at the same time? (yes, it can be both things at once. i don't care if it doesn't make sense.)

our little lady has grown up so much in a month... okay, maybe not so much "up" as she's grown "out". out of her newbie clothes and diapers- by her 4 week check up she weighed in at 10lbs 7oz... that's a full 2 pounds of gain since she was born! she also grew about 2 inches in that amount of time as well... i guess that explains why baby-girl's two favorite things are chowing down and sleeping.

we've definitely learned a lot during our first month as parents. i've listed some of the more pertinent things below:

• a "blow out" does not only refer to having a tire-crisis on the freeway
• desitin has magical properties
• chocolate, as far as baby is concerned, is the devil.
• dairy, as far as baby is concerned, runs a close second to the devil.
• cranky baby > cranky mommy. therefore, cranky baby wins, and mommy has to forego milk and chocolate.
• babies create a LOT of waste output, and therefore use a TON of diapers. like, way way more than we EVER expected.
• cars were invented for the sole purpose of putting fussy babies to sleep.
• according to many sources, babies are only newborns for 28 days (and that's just about how long they fit into newborn sized clothes and diapers).
• 4 hours of sleep in a row is a rare, amazing occurance.
• having bloodshot eyes and being incoherant is not necessarily an indication that one is under the influence of an illegal substance. it could also just possibly be a sign of a very sleep deprived new mother.
• spit up is non-discriminatory. it does not care if you're wearing silk or cotton, or if it's headed for your hair or your lap. it is coming up anyway.

as demanding as taking care of a new little baby is, nothing beats the payoff of watching her grow and learn. :) we're just starting to get smiles out of her. seeing one of those grins is worth all those sleepless nights and hours of fussing. :)

newborn nora

1 month old nora. complete with essence of squirm (hence the blurry left arm).

notice the diapers are the same size in both pictures- you can see how much she's grown! :)

vacation?

so i'm not going to do a "march" review because most of it would be a lot of "noel goes to the doctor again for a progress check" and "chris wants a vacation from work still" and "noel walked around a lot," and none of that stuff is very interesting. since we all know when the baby was born, i'm just going to sum up the last week of march, because that's when the interesting stuff happened.

so the couple days following nora's birthday, both of us were in the hospital. i wanted to go home THE DAY after she was born, but instead i was detained for 2 days, because my little girl couldn't figure out how to eat (you'd think that was innate, right? apparently NOT, and that's why lactation consultants have jobs). my doctor wanted to make sure that my baby wasn't going to starve to death when she got home, and so i stayed the extra day even though i SO did not want to. i didn't sleep very much at the hospital- maybe a grand total of 2 hours the whole time i was there- and by the time i was discharged i was so sleep-deprived i was delerious. chris was ok though, because he went home at night. as jealous as i was of his nightly reprieve, it made no sense to have both of us strung out to our wit's end when that was only requisite of one of us. and so, when i got home i passed out for a few hours while chris took care of the baby.

the following few days were a blur for me because i was still so low on sleep. i was so so happy to have chris with me at home- he did a good job of dealing with his wreck of a wife for that time. it was a week of learning for all of us: nora was still learning how to feed, chris was learning how to change diapers, and i was learning how to relax with an infant in the house, which is apparently something that i generally fail at (it's a lot harder to do than one would think, for reals).

chris's goal for his vacation was for us to successfully watch all of the lord of the ring's trilogy, from start to finish. he'd been planning on that for months. therefore, every night from around 9 to 11 we sat in front of the TV while nora slept right next to us. funny thing about those movies- the ring wraiths sound just like nora. once she woke up during a scene with screeching nazgul, and i didn't recognize that my own daughter was screeching along with them until after the scene changed (yes, our daughter is a loud screamer. the nurses at the hospital said she had "personality"). in any case, chris's goal was met, and we now have that epic series freshly emblazoned into the forefront of our memories.

by the end of chris's 9 day vacation he was ready to return to work. chris's coworkers had prompted him to take a full 2 to 3 weeks of vacation with the baby, but i know my husband better than to think that he would remain sane without working for that long. therefore, i urged him to take a shorter amount of time off, although i would have loved to have him at home longer. i suppose taking off from work to take care of a newborn isn't really a vacation at all. chris jokingly said: "man, i'm going to have to go back to work in order to get a vacation from this baby!" and so we affectionately refer to nora as our "new boss". which is actually pretty accurate, all things considered.

boss lady. 6 days into it.

also: this was taken in the middle of the night, because what better of a time to be completely wide awake?

birth story!

Nora Eve Staples arrived on march 19th, 2011 at exactly 1:30pm- all whopping 8lbs 6 oz and 20 inches of her (i thought it started to feel overcrowded in there). for those of you who are interested, here is her birthday post!

----

the week of my due date was the first week i had off from work. although we expected the baby to be pretty late (said my practitioner of first-time moms), i walked myself all around the town of alpine with the hopes that doing so would initiate labor a little sooner than really late. chris was getting restless and was counting on me (and the baby) to give him a vacation from work. i was getting restless and wanted the pregnancy to be overwith already.

on march 19th, around 4:15ish am, my water broke (talk about a rather abrupt, bizarre thing to wake to). i wish i could say i woke chris up with some witty aphorism about childbirth, but instead i just ended up nudging him awake and saying "hey my water just broke," to which he was like "what??? whoa! well lets go!" i told him that he should probably eat breakfast while i hopped in the shower, because i had this ridiculous idea that i was going to get all prettied up for the hospital. by the time i got out of the shower i had changed my mind.

labor is a weird event. i suppose in retrospect i hardly knew what to expect, although i had asked a million people about it. chris felt like he was somewhat prepared for the event, since he had some specialized EMT training on the subject- from which he felt "confident that he would be able to remain rational and emotionally stable throughout the entire process"- but still, he had never actually been present as a witness to a live birth. my personal goal was to be able to have as drugless a labor as possible. i figured if women throughout the centuries could have unmedicated births, then so could i. i wanted to tough it out as much as possible. i wanted to experience labor and childbirth in all of it's infamous, respected glory.

by the time i checked into triage i was in active labor and was making rapid progress. i knew that there was supposed to be pain associated with labor contractions; however, i had NO idea that active labor made women puke their guts out and convulse continuously. poor chris stood there for about five hours straight holding my puke bin (and my hair out of it) while i threw up; holding my hand while i breathed through contractions; and rubbing my back while i shook continuously between them. he'd say positive, reaffirming statements while i tried mightily to be as stoic as possible- which gets pretty challanging when whimpering, gasping and writhing around in pain seems FAR more appropriate for the situation (and we all know that doesn't help anybody). at some point, when the inner voice that was telling me to remain in control bailed out and started wanting me to cry for help, i decided to be honest.
"you're doing good honey," chris said to me.
"no," i finally broke down and cried softly, "no i'm not. this really doesn't feel very good... and i'm not handling it well. i'm sorry."
the labor nurse, who had overheard me, chuckled and said to "trust her" that i was "doing much better than most"... to which i told her that although she was very sweet, she was mistaken, and that i really wasn't doing well at all. i asked her if she honestly thought i could do it without medication- she said if i really wanted to do it, then she thought i had it in me. at that point i promptly turned to chris and asked him if he'd judge me if i got an epidural.

so fifteen minutes later my anesthesiologist walks in and starts prepping for the epidural. now, i tend to have an irrational fear of things going horribly wrong in conjunction with things being stuck into my spinal column, even though millions of people get epidurals all the time with no ill effects. it was definitely an exercise of "let the professional who knows what he's doing do his job and don't be a crazy paranoid about it" with the incentive that if i could at least do that, all the pain would go away and i could finally chill out for a bit. so i hunched over, squeezed my eyes shut, clenched chris's hand as hard as i could, and wiggled my toes furiously while the pro did his thing. while all this was happening, i overheard the nurse say "woah... woah! dad, are you ok?!" - and although he was still managing to hold my hand, chris had slumped down in a chair by my bed with his head between his knees. apparently the sight of the giant needle in my spine had made him slightly woozy.

a cup of orange juice for chris, and an epidural plus IV anti-nausea meds for me (i was STILL puking, even after the anesthesia), and the atmosphere of the delivery suite calmed way down. we felt MUCH better (hooray for medicine!). i had made it to 7cm prior to my epidural, and getting that far tired me out. all the stress of the morning had drained chris as well (chris: "if it was anybody else going through this i'd be fine watching it. but it's so so hard for me to watch someone i love and care about go through so much without being anxious"). it was so nice to have a couple hours of rest before having to push that baby out.

pushing the baby out = much better than labor without pain medication, even though my epidural wore off in the middle of it so i got to feel all the good stuff. was it strenuous? yes. was it an epic ordeal to go through? absolutely. i don't know if i'd have had the energy left to do it if i hadn't have gotten some reprieve from the epidural. pushing took us about an hour, and since the nurse taught chris how to coach my pushing, he ended up having something to do during the whole time instead of standing by and watching helplessly (those ladies are so smart!).

i will never forget the moment our daughter was born. it's so surreal, looking down and seeing a whole baby exiting your body. she began wailing immediately as they put her on my belly- the first thing i saw on her new little purple body were the dimples in her elbows (me: "holy cow you're a fat little baby!). the second thing i noticed was that i had just given birth to what looked like a clone of chris, except a girl. "she looks like you!" i panted to my tearful husband as he followed her over to the baby table. not long afterwards i had her in my arms- bundled up like a little burrito and howling like a champ.

all in all, we were in labor for about 8 hours. i have definitely gained a new respect for mothers everywhere, and an appreciation for appropriately administered pain medication*. the labor and delivery staff at grossmont hospital are amazing, and i am grateful for the companionship of my wonderful husband, who never left my side the whole time i was there. now we are no longer just a couple, but a family of three. this is the beginning of the rest of our lives!

-pictures courtesy of great-granddad's cell phone camera (who waited in the hall while his great-grandbaby was being born)... because during and after the whole ordeal i could have cared less to bring mine out.

*the anesthesiologist came back in to see how i was doing about an hour after he gave me the epidural. "you sir," i said, "are my HERO." and i thanked him profusely.

gone with the wind.

chris and i were recently looking through old pictures. we came across these... (here, i'll just post one, and we'll call this picture #A)

which were taken about two months before we got married. chris's FIRST comment on them? "woahhhhh! look how skinny you used to be honey!! you've gotten so BIG now..." (me: *groan* & facepalm)

here we are now (we'll call this picture #B):

nine months pregnant and due any day. yes, i am BIG. i feel big. to illustrate exactly how this feels, it would be appropriate to have a tuba playing in the background while i walk waddle around, or at least a foghorn sounding. this sharply contrasts with the way i felt back in picture #A- insert flutes and/or chirping birds. shoot, let's also throw in some prancing deer for good measure.
 
how does chris feel in BOTH pictures #A and #B? heavy-metal music plus roaring tiger. he's a rockstar from mars. he's the same yesterday, today, and forever. yay for him. 
 
of course, after my non-verbal reaction to chris's commentary concerning the pictures from whence #A came  (remember the *groan* & facepalm?), he quickly assured me, "oh, honey. it's all right! you'll get back into shape in no time," which was sweet of him to say (his internal "mitigate potentially volatile situation" alert system must have been going off). however, the prospect of snapping right back into my old jeans again seems rather impossible at this precise moment. this brings to mind a scene from an old, classic movie:

 

scarlett: "twenty inches?!... you simply HAVE to make it eighteen and a half again mammy!"

mammy: "you done had a baby, miss scarlett, and you aint never gonna be no eighteen and a half inches again. never. and there ain't nothin' to do about it."

(Gone With The Wind, anybody?)

oh scarlett. i feel for you. at least mammy's being honest.



side note: i always wondered why all my older female relatives would laugh at this scene when we'd watch it at family get-togethers. perhaps, once you get over it, the irony is amusing? probably. i'll have to see.



true story. kinda sweet story. plus, a magazine review.

- which means if you've got an extremely low sap-tolerance threshold, you should probably click away from the post (although it's not too bad). we're not a sap-happy couple, generally speaking. i swear.

first of all, i am going to mention that being very heavy with child during the final month of pregnancy can leave a girl looking and feeling like she'll never look or feel normal again. this being said, one can also assume that it can leave a pregnant girl's husband wondering if his wife will ever stop moaning about how she'll never look or feel normal again- no matter how many times he kindly reassures her that she'll be fine and eventually get her groove back.

secondly, i am also going to mention that we do NOT have a subscription to sports illustrated at our house; however, i happened to pick up the swimsuit edition at work the other day just to see what all the hype was about* (some magazines that get sent to our office are not allowed out in the waiting room for propriety's sake. that particular issue is one of them).

so i get home after a long day, take a hot bath, wrap up in a giant towel, lay in bed, and proceed to peruse this magazine that i had just grabbed from the office. somewhere in the middle of the issue i must have fallen asleep, because i woke up to christopher entering the room, still in his uniform from work.
"hey honey!" he said to me. "whatchu doin? sleepin?"
passing by the bed towards the adjacent bathroom he glanced at the open magazine by my head and started to laugh. "whatchu readin there?"
"the sports illustrated swimsuit edition that i jacked from my work," i answered, suddenly realizing how silly my situation must look.
continuing to laugh he asked "and why would you be doing that?"
"oh, you know," i sighed, "to see what all the hype is about. seeing what 'hot women' are looking like these days so i'm not left out of the loop, being pregnant and all."
christopher smiled at me and said, "well if you wanted to see a hot woman all you had to do was look in the mirror."
i burst into laughter while he proceeded to the bathroom to wash his hands.
"oh please," i called after him, "i am a giant pregnant woman, lying here like a beached whale on the bed. even i know there is nothing 'hot' about that."
returning from the bathroom, chris bent down and kissed my forehead. "well i think you're pretty to look at," he said. "now come on. let's go get some dinner."

awww, now is that not chicken soup for the giant preggo lady's soul or what? mostly because i know he was really just being super-nice at that particular moment, for my sake. his usual "oh don't worry honey, i'm sure you'll get back into shape in no time" doesn't quite have that same effect. :)

*my review of the magazine: while it was somewhat less tasteful than a victoria's secret catalogue (which was expected- i get that sports illustrated is a man's magazine, not a lady's catalogue), i was pleasantly surprised to see that the models in the SI swimsuit edition had far more realistic figures than the VS models (it's like they actually eat real food in addition to working out- woah!). i don't think i even saw one jutting hip-bone in the entire issue. kind of refreshing, actually. i think i might just change my post-partum figure-standards from victoria's secret model to the seemingly more-attainable silhouette of a sports illustrated model (though exactly how attainable after having a kid remains to be seen).