To take away

A note about my cry baby post. As most of you know I am not the cry baby type so it was a little unusual for me. I guess I just wanted to give you guys a little view into my daily life so that you could get a glimpse of the challenges I face and why I might make certain decisions and that I don't want any of you to take them personally. I guess what I want everyone to take away from it is that I am trying to gain some confidence as Emolyn’s mom. So, the decisions that I make for us, based on information from doctors, nurses, friends, and my mom feelings, are what is right for Emolyn and I. Because I am her mom and thats what I want to do for us. I think this is the only time in your life that that is ok to say without being offensive. Thank you everyone for your love and support.

Look at me, I rolled over!

Last night/early this morning I laid Emolyn down on her back as I was getting her bottle ready and when I turned around, she was on her tummy! What a big girl! She can roll over! So it looks like so far she is doing great on her developmental track!

Here is a picture of her meeting her cousin Benjamin for the first time! I promise she was happy most of the time and seemed to calm down when he made "meow-ing" kitty sounds to her.

Happiness is green plastic

Emolyn's room, a work in progress

Well since it has been requested here are some photos of Emolyn's room, so far. See the room is not to my liking yet, who knows if it will ever be. But it is improving and I will share with you what has been done and what I would still like to accomplish.

View from the door. Our comfy wing backed chair, we feed her here in the middle of the night and then we fall asleep with her in our arms in this chair. Although last night she slept 6 hours! So our middle of the night feedings are becoming less and less.
This is the cool changing table Linda brought over yesterday. She found it at a thrift store I think a long time ago and has been using it as storage. She sanded it down and painted it for us and it looks awesome in her room! Now I want to get some matching baskets so it looks nicer storing her blankets and burp rags and bath stuff.

The awesome crib you see is a beautiful solid family heirloom almost! It was my aunt and uncles and my nephews and niece used it and now its our turn! My uncle took it completely apart and sanded it all down and refinished it so its like new for Emolyn. He did have to sand out the teeth marks from my nephew Benjamin, he was a biter. Notice no mattress, yeah thats on the list of things to get.
Emolyn has had brief moments in the swing and I think she likes it but she is still too little. And there are all her books, she loves to read!
Our fun curtains that match her bedding are hung after Randy came to instal the curtain rod and this cool antique dresser is from our friend Meredith who lived with us for like a month and left it for us as a gift (actually I think she didn't have room for it and I really liked it so now its mine!). That long hanging thing is a little holder I made for plastic grocery bags. I keep the bags in their and put dirty diapers in the bags so I can take them right out. Its working well for us. Also on the dresser is the cutest gift from the shower, a diaper tower. And Emolyn's hand and foot prints from the hospital, her night nurse Allison made this scrap page for us, it was so sweet!

I won't let you look in Emolyn's closet because it is a disaster. But here is her pack-n-play and her bulletin board, mostly she doesn't have anything of her own up yet but some great pictures of her family!

Oh here is a peak into Emolyn's clothing. This is here 0-3 months clothes drawer. People have been very generous.

Hot-Yuck

So it is officially hot out, gone are the 4 days I could keep my front door open because the weather was nice. I think the high was 96 today. I have been fighting starting the AC (I don't know why) but since tomorrow is supposed to be 98 I will be firing up the bad boy! Since it is so hot Emolyn has taken to not wearing clothes. She likes to be swaddled but gets too hot so she has to be naked to be swaddled. She seems to really like being naked which is unfortunate since she has a lot of new clothes. I wish I had a lot of new clothes :( But her clothes don't fit me so I am going to have to wait until after summer for our shopping spree! Here are some cute pics of my little gils chillin' with her daddy tonight!

Littler should be easier...

Right? Less baby should mean less work? Only while I do think I have a pretty easy going baby there are several "special needs" she has. I hesitate in calling her "special needs" or "different" because she doesn't have a handicap, except she is small. I feel like people think she is some freak show "Hey look the tiniest baby in the world"! Its hard to hear people say "She is so tiny" before they say "She is so cute". Duh she is tiny, I know, I see her 24/7. (I can see my lack of frequent human contact is making me a little hostile.)

Back to the subject, Emolyn's "special needs". You know when a baby cries you want to jiggle it or rock it, you can't do that with her. Her central nervous system did not yet fully develop inside so its developing now. So she is extra sensitive to ALL movement, sound, light, etc. So when she cries because her tummy hurts all you an do it hold her close until she has a big fart and feels better, sometimes thats like 20 minutes of your baby screaming in your face and you know there is nothing you can do. If you move her too much she feels anxious and has that startle reflex all the time! We have to feed her on her side so she will eat more. She is getting worse and worse at breast-feeding every time I try because she has no levels of hunger, there is not hungry and starving. She doesn't want to waste her time breast feeding she just wants the bottle. So, alas, I feed her and pump so each eating takes twice as long as it would if I could just breast feed. And I have to supplement her milk with formula so she gets more calories so I couldn't breast feed all the time even if I wanted to. Less than 10% of her clothes fit which requires more laundry, she has a tiny little butt so the diaper has nothing to hold onto so her poo leaks out. If she is too stimulated she won't wake up to eat so I have to wake her up, and if she doesn't eat enough she won't gain weight and I will look like a horrible mom. And I can't do any normal mom things and I can't show off my baby because if she gets around any germs she has no stamina in her little body to fight off infection. So a cold would land her in the hospital. And typically babies with respiratory problems as infants will develop a susceptibility to respiratory problems later in life such as asthma or chronic bronchitis. So I have to protect her so much now to prevent life long problems. So please don't be sad about not seeing her or holding her because she will be around for a long time. This time is just so important for us to protect her. So here is a time line. Maybe to go out of the house and accept visitors in late June or July. Not to church before August. So there you go. The limitations of my house arrest.

I guess thats enough of whoa is me for today. Someone told me recently I was grieving the loss of my plan. My plan for a natural delivery on or near my due date to a healthy 7.6 lb baby who I could take home right away and bring to church and start my life as a mom doing normal mom stuff. But instead I got a beautiful healthy tiny little girl when I wasn't really expecting it. And I spent a month watching her be poked and prodded while others took care of her and I had to leave her everyday. I never thought of it that way. Grieving. But it makes sense. And now I have accepted my new reality and I gingerly carry around my fragile baby and listen to her scream in my ear and examine all her boogers for signs of infection and give her gross multivitamin drops that stain her clothes. My new reality is different but I get to spend it with Emolyn, who I think might have smiled on purpose yesterday while under a "kiss attack"! So now for what you all want. New pics:

Walking around town with her daisy dukes on!Sleeping on Dad
Sleeping in her pack-n-play. It only lasted an hour but she did it, we are advancing past only being able to sleep in the bouncy seat!

I almost forgot! Can you tell she has grown? She is 5 lbs 4 oz!

Emolyns "little" friend

Emolyn is bound to be friends with Delaney Arden Wilson because she has such a great mom! Delaney was born just 1 week after Emolyn on leap day! And even though Delaney lives in Illinois I know when she comes to visit they will have such fun! But one thing they won't be able to do is share clothes. Let me just show you Emolyn and Delaney, both in their Boppy pillows.

But what matters is what's on the inside. And Delaney's insides are sweet and gentle just like her momma. While Emolyn's insides are feisty and do not like to be told what to do, hence the lack of desire to pose for this picture.

But look at those blue eyes! Kelsie took Emolyns birth announcement pictures tonite, she was cooperative part of the time. We didn't get any sleeping pictures since someone didn't want to fall asleep. The girl sleeps like 18 hours a day and couldn't seem to close her eyes the whole time Kelsie was here. She was up for over 3 hours straight. Crazy girl. But it means she should sleep well tonight.