Cara Meets Nana

So my mom (who will be referred to as Nana) finally got a chance to visit and meet Cara and I'm pretty sure it was love at first sight:

Pretty sure it was love at first site

I mean it's hard not to love this little girl, but you could just see they bonded from the first second.

Anyways, we had a fun filled week with Nana and Cara. It's so nice having my mom come visit and help us. The point of the later visit was so we'd have a better schedule down, but we had JUST switched it around to something we thought would work better and so we really didn't have too much "down" and it was nice to have an extra set of hands and eyes around during the day.

Anyways, while she was here we made a trip to the Mall with her and my grandma, where we got to walk the shops and found some pretty cool gadgets and I got some Father's Day shopping done.

We also went to Target, Old Navy, and Buy Buy Baby to look around and get her a good Fourth of July outfit (and ended up with 3!). I also found a fan for the car seat like I was wanting. I didn't get it because I wanted to see if Larry thought it would be good, but I did find some finger puppet books and a thing that holds garbage bags for the diaper bag for when we go out (SUPER helpful!).

We got to visit with some other family, including my brother Shawn, his wife Amber, and their three kids. We also visited with Andy and Rachel in their new apartment (which was super cute now that it's decorated!).

She slept most of the visit, but that smile
Tells me she might have still liked it :)

The biggest part was going to the Zoo. I was SO excited for this part and Cara did so well. We decided to put her in the stroller without the car seat to see how she'd do and she...well she slept almost the whole time. The only time she didn't was when we took her out to eat some lunch. Other than that she was good. She woke up for a second so I took her out to show her the elephants, but then a wasp showed up and I got super protective and put her back. We had to watch the sun, but I did make sure any spots that were showing got sunscreen on them so she was okay. The animals were also decently active so it was cool to watch them. I can't wait until she's older and can pick her favorite animal out and she can enjoy the visit a bit more, but it was still fun. We all may have gone a little spend crazy in the souvenir shop, but it was her first visit and I had to commemorate it a little bit, right? Haha

Right as we got there...so snug!

After eating...she seemed to like being outdoors

Saying goodbye earlier today was hard. It was so nice having her here and getting out of the house. It was also nice seeing her interact with Cara, they were so cute together! I'm hoping we can find ways to visit more so she sees her grandparents more (only Larry's mom is in Utah so she doesn't get to see my side very often). I may have cried a bit once we got home and I seeing our guest room so empty was sad. Luckily my mom made her a Build a Bear that has her voice and we still have our weekly Skype calls so Cara will definitely know her Nana!

Our First Road Trip With a Baby

So being home a lot Larry and I joke about how nice it would be if we could win the lottery and so we could both just stay home and play with Cara. Well that got the wheels spinning in the head and we decided it would be fun to drive up to Idaho and get some tickets and see how Cara does on a road trip.

Hoping we're lucky :)

I was determined to keep with my pumping so we loaded my pump up with batteries and some storage bottles with an ice pack, got the diaper bag packed and hit the road. Unfortunately, around Ogden I realized I left an empty bottle at home so we had no way to feed her and had to stop at Wal Mart to get one (such a rookie mistake!)

Pumping on the road

I guess I should consider ourselves lucky that she LOVES car rides and will fall asleep on them every time. However, I'm not sure if I should consider it a good thing that she slept 7 hours in the middle of the day when she'd normally be awake to wiggle and play. She also didn't eat a ton on the road since she wanted to sleep the whole time. We stopped for lunch while we were up there at a little restaurant so we could try and feed her more, but at least get her out of the car seat to stretch a little bit...she just slept through it. But the waitress and cook were obsessed with her (hard not to be though, right? Haha)

Roadie diaper change, feeding, and burping

I do still worry about how warm she gets in the car seat, I may need to look into some sort of fan for her so I feel better about these trips. Do other mom's worry about these same things? Haha. I feel like I finally get the saying that babies don't come with manuals, I so wish I had a cheat sheet some days though!

So fingers crossed we win and we can have adventures everyday together haha. Oh and also that she'll still sleep tonight :)

Cara is ONE Month!

I am ONE month old!

 



I wasn't sure which one I liked more for
Size reference. I'll probably keep both

 

I like: Sleeping, tummy time (but only for a few minutes), going on walks or on a car ride, and staring at things (seriously. She doesn't get reactions yet, but she loves to just stare at things. Especially our big windows in the living room)

This is her staring
At the windows and railing
She loves just staring at things

 

I dislike: Being left alone or in one spot for too long during my awake time, anything in my ears (she hates when we do q-tips after bath time and tries to pull them out immediately), bath time, and the time RIGHT before a feeding. Usually it's around the "5 minutes till we feed her" mark, but around 6 AM and 9 PM it's half an hour. She also doesn't seem to like bed time - that's one of her "awake" times right now (we're working on switching that around).

I am now: At her two week appointment she was 7 lbs 4 oz and 20.2 inches long. Up from her birth size of 6 lbs 10.9 oz and 19 inches long. The pediatrician seemed impressed that she was UP at all. Our unofficial weighing (we step on the scale without her and then with her to see the difference) says she is now almost 9 lbs and around 21 inches long. She fits newborn clothes and some smaller 0-3 month clothes, but she is just barely (like as of this week) starting to growing out of her newborn clothes. She's our tiny (but growing quickly) little girl.

Week 1 vs Week 4 !!

A Typical Day looks like: Wake up at 9 for a feeding, get burped, changed dressed for the day. She'll usually be awake until 10 AM so I'll read to her, do tummy time, let her lay on her back to squirm and look around (unless she's being fussy and NEEDS to be held). At 10 she'll sleep usually until I wake her up for her 12 PM feeding. She'll eat really quick, we'll burp and change her diaper and then she's back to sleeping (NO wake up time after that feeding at all). She'll sleep until 2 ish when I'll play with her or talk to her some more (or just walk her around the house - whatever makes her happy) and then we'll do the 3 PM feeding. After that Daddy is off work so he'll come visit for a minute and then he gets an hour of "him" time (where he can workout, play video games, etc.). Once done he'll come take Cara and I'll get an hour of "me" time (take a nap, workout, etc.). Then we'll eat dinner together and play with Cara. Then around 6 she gets another feeding and we'll go on a walk to the mail boxes and around the neighborhood to get her to sleep for bed time. Once asleep we watch Netflix or a movie together and hang out. Around 9 we go upstairs, feed/burp/change her to get ready for bed, then we get ready for bed and do everything we can to get her to sleep before 10:30 (because I have to get up at midnight, 3 AM, and 6 AM for feedings with her and I need ALL the sleep I can get before that starts). I'm thinking the awake time after 3 and sleep time after 6 is throwing her off her bedtime so we're going to have to work on that.

We're working on changing the above schedule though so we'll see how that works next month.

 

 

This Month I: Got to feel grass for the first time and hated it! I helped mom celebrate her first Mother's Day...and was so well behaved for her. We also did our first real bath on Sunday (5/28) and she had different feelings with it. She cried at first, then seemed to like it, then seemed to feel it went too long and got fussy again. She also hated being out of the warm water and freezing cold again - go figure - but she kept a foot in the actual water the whole time. It was pretty adorable! On the flip side we also experienced our first blow out (THAT was fun) and did some fun family outings to a few different places.

Mother's Day Family Pic

 

First Bath Pic

 

Parent's Notes: The first month has to be one of the hardest months (it's hard to say for sure since it's the first one). We had many challenges with figuring out feeding schedules, getting used to WAY less sleep, and what gets Cara to sleep at night. There were MANY moments of crying (on both Cara's and mom's end), but we mostly have it figured out now.

 

And now that I'm used to the sleep schedule and what makes her happy I can honestly say no matter the hard times watching this little girl sleep and develop a bit of a personality is amazing! It's ridiculous how much you can love a little being and how obsessed you can get with trying new things with them to teach them. I love when she stares at me and I can talk to her about all the things I want to teach her and what I want for her (and watch her hilarious facial expressions). She just seems to soak things in all the time. We love this little girl to death and it's been so exciting having her as part of the family.


Silly Faces Pic
 

Goals for next month:

• Working on sensations (mostly feeling different things, listening to different sounds like music, and smelling new smells since her sight and taste are all about as good as they can be for now)
• Getting her neck stronger (she'll lift it during tummy time to quickly turn her head, but she's not SUPER talented at it and when we hold her up against our shoulders she wobbles a whole lot)
• Working on grabbing/playing with small toys - like her rattle and crinkle toys
• Figuring out a good nap schedule to make bed time easier
• Read about month 3 so we know what to expect then (I read about the next month ahead of time so I've already read about month 2)
• Mom start to do workouts (and continue to correct her Diastasis Recti)