Leaf Party

I woke up this morning and found that our Fruitless Mulberry trees decided to dump every leaf they had, without even making them change colors first! It was practically snowing leaves so I decided to take a photo op.







Amy is seven months-old now and I can't believe it. She has two teeth working their way into her mouth and loves to NOM on anything and everything. She is talkative and curious, but still sensitive and cuddly. I love her thin black hair, her big cheeks, her giant smile, her deep dark eyes and her squeals. This past seven months has been the most challenging in my life, but the most rewarding as well.

Amy the Devourer

The predator stalks her prey, choosing the weakest of the pack for ease of catch. She sneaks silently towards the bovine prey from behind. She can nearly taste it.


Then, in the blink of an eye, she pounces on the prey, latching on to its hind quarters with her powerful jaws. The chase is short, her strength overwhelms the surprised hiefer.


Amy relaxes now that her prey has succumbed to her might, and begins to feed. She is proud of her success, and as the passive observer, I too am in awe of her majesty.

5 Months Already!

Amy is 5 months old this week. The time has gone by so quickly, I can hardly believe how fast she is growing. Here are some Amy facts:

Height- 24"

Weight- Just under 15 lbs

She loves to scream as loud as she can, and make a very silly "ooooh heee" Donkey sound... lol

She loves loves loves her saucer toy, she's definitely a carnivore, because the DESTROYS the pig and cow toys on the saucer.

She loves to eat rice cereal now, and rolls over every chance she gets.

Unfortunately she has become quite fond of sucking her thumb at bedtime.

The bulb syringe is her arch nemesis, followed closely by her daily vitamin drops...lol

If a dog is playing with a toy near her, she laughs as hard as I do when I watch "Stepbrothers".

She demands to be entertained. If you just want to sit and relax, she wants your ear drums to bleed from her screams.

She is in bed by 8 every night, and wakes up around 3am for some food and again at 6am to enjoy her day!

She will hug me first thing in the morning, it melts my heart.

Her feet are still too small for all but 2 pairs of her shoes, hopefully she will fit into more before it gets cold.

Here are some photos showing her vast array of emotions in just a 5 minute period of time... lol

Angry


Curious


Thumb Sucking


Joy


Contentment

4 Months Old

Today Amy had her 4 month well baby appointment. Alphonso and I had wagered on how much she would weigh. I said 15lbs 8oz, and Fonzo said 14lbs. We both were off of the mark! She weighs a conservative 13lbs 11oz (I guess Fonzo was close...but don't tell him!). She is 25" long now (that's over 2 feet!!) and is in near perfect health! The doctor advised me not to start her on rice cereal just yet, asking me to wait a few more weeks, or until she seems eager to want to try foods or seems unsatisfied with breastmilk.

Another new milestone for Amy this week was that she finally discovered her feet. I went to get her out of her crib on Saturday and both feet were in her hands, she hasn't let go of them since! She loves her saucer toy now, she will sit in it, try to stand, squeal, smack and suck on the toys. Its so fun to see her becoming so baby-like and not so blob-like. Her favorite thing to do now is squeal and babble. She is a real conversationalist. I like to talk to her about politics, television and her daddy.

Speaking of her daddy, he is overjoyed because she finally realizes that he is playing with her! She screams, and laughs hysterically as he puts her over his head or blows on her belly. Seeing how happy she makes him really melts my heart. I have loved Alphonso for almost ten years now, and it is so amazing to see him as a father. I have a whole new type of love for him now, one I could have never known of until Amy came around.

Doheny Fun!

This weekend we took a family camping trip to Doheny Beach with Guy, Heather and Ella. The weather was picture perfect, the RV was comfortable, and the company was great! Our campsite was literally ON the beach! There was nothing but sand between us and the water. The adults seemed to have more fun than the children on this trip, but I bet next year, us adults will be the ones relaxing while the kids run amok! I got some fantastic photos to share with everyone, so here they are:


Heather and Ella enjoyed hanging out on the beach! Unfortunately Ella didn't go anywhere NEAR the water.


Guy was tired and needed a nap... hopefully his skin doesn't blister. lol


This is my favorite pic, its going up on our family photo wall.

She's No Newborn!

Amy is 3 1/2 months old now, sleeping through the night, and enjoying life! I am so incredibly lucky to be able to go to bed and not have to wake up until the morning! She falls asleep around 8 every night, and is up by 7 everyday! She greets me with smiles and loves to watch the world around her. She can no longer claim the title of Screaminator, to my joy. This week I was even able to squeeze her hair into a little bow! She looks adorable even though it doesn't stay in very long. She is changing so much, and as fast as she is changing is as fast as my love is growing. Being a mother is more awesome than I ever thought it would be. I love this darn baby.

Camera Shy

Amy loves to play "The Hand Game" as we call it. She laughs, squeals and smiles when we play this game and last night was no different! I was singing to her and wiggling her arms and she was REALLY loving it, that is until Alphonso got out the video camera to capture the adorableness on film. It was like as soon as she saw the video camera she was DONE with the game. It was hilarious.

SeaWorld!

This week Amy visited SeaWorld with her Aunt Caitlin, Grandpa Leon, Grandma Carol and me. I was prepared for her to be a grumpy butt all day, but to my surprise she was cheerful and really seemed to enjoy the day! She was quiet and spent the whole day just taking in her surroundings. She would nap, but then as soon as a show would start she would be WIDE EYED and listening with everything she had in her. I had a lot of fun, I hadn't been to SeaWorld in years! It was very overcast and cool all day long, so when Caitlin, Leon and I rode Atlantis, and got soaking wet, we were cold the rest of the afternoon. The ride was worth it though.
Amy did finally have a meltdown at the very end of the day while we were walking to the car, Caitlin was laughing at my poor baby's screaming while I was begging my mom to make her stop! I was powerless in the driver's seat. They will pay for their insolence, perhaps a poopy diaper will come in handy... (evil laughter)

A Mexican Tradition

We decided to honor the Mexican tradition of infant ear piercing today! We took a very cheerful and well rested Amy to the mall to get her ears done, she handled it rather well.... Here she is before the fateful event:

Here is how she reacted:

Because her head is so large, its difficult to take a photo showing both earrings at the same time. So here is a view of her pretty earring once we were home and she was calm:


She looks so cute with her pretty earrings and we are glad we put her through this misery now instead of when she is old enough to remember and cry louder...

2 Months Old

Amy had her 2 month check-up yesterday! She is growing well, and now weighs 11lbs 10oz and is 23" long. We discovered at the appointment that Amy did get at least ONE thing from me, heat rash! Poor little girl got her momma's sensitivity to the heat. She might grow out of it, but until then, she and I will be together in the shade with our sunscreen on! Amy was being so sweet to the doctor, smiling and cooing and kicking her sweet little legs with joy; it broke my heart to see her so happy knowing that any second the nurse would come in with 3 needles for my baby! When Amy got that first shot, and that sweet little grin turned into a bright red, teary face that was gasping between screams, I wanted to cry with her! Poor little girl was sensitive the whole rest of the day and had a rough night too. Turns out the taste of cherry flavored children's tylenol is almost as bad as the shots in her opinion. The face she made was absolutely hilarious when I squirted the medicine into her mouth! Next time she needs tylenol, I am going to video tape it.

As a two-month-old, Amy is a delight. Her hours of endless screaming seem to have relaxed a bit, we've had 5 days without hysteria, and are hoping this continues! She loves it when I sing to her and when her daddy talks to her. Alphonso likes to talk about tools and garage stuff with her, always cursing things that are made in China (he's trying to indoctrinate her early). She seems to think her daddy is hilarious, because she is always smiling and rolling her head around when he is explaining why old is better than new.... We are enjoying every bit of our little girl and I hope she is enjoying every bit of us.

Gummy Smiles

Amy started smiling a lot this week! I finally caught one on camera, not the best quality picture, but its the first documented smile! I am so happy she finally started flashing me a big gummy grin every now and then. Before she smiled, her only emotions were angry, sleepy and hungry. Unfortunately, those three emotions all manifest themselves very similarly in a newborn... But now, after a long day of cranky screaming baby, or sleepy and uncooperative baby, I get a little bit of joy. She smiles when you make eye contact and talk to her. She seems to really enjoy giving me those big smiles, because I keep getting more and more of them every day!

INSOMNIAC CHILD
So Amy is an insomniac. Everyday, without fail, she refuses to nap. She will scream and cry for hours until for some reason, she finally decides its nap time. This video is a short tidbit of my insomniac baby today after she had been awake for 4 1/2 hours. She didn't go to sleep for a real nap until about an hour and half after this video was taken. Even at night lately she has been fighting sleep. She wakes up to eat, and is happy and cheerful until she falls asleep. That would be fine, except she doesn't stay asleep. She will wake up 2 minutes later and scream. Its getting tiring, and I am really hoping she grows out of this soon. My ears are starting to bleed from all the screaming. lol

The First Month

So since I have been procrastinating with this blog, a month has passed already in Amy's little life. Here I have complied some of my favorite pictures of her, and a few of my favorite anecdotes.

Changing Table Antics:
Amy is a feisty little girl. For some peculiar reason she decided that the changing table was the most awesome place EVAR. She can be in the middle of screaming bloody murder, if I lay her on the table she instantly quiets and starts looking around and making faces. Perhaps my child is a nudist and enjoys the feeling of the open air on her nether regions... The above photo is one of those changing table faces.


Jealous Dog is Jealous:
Poor Samson. Our 1 year old Mini schnauzer was the center of attention and love in our house until that fateful day when Amy came home. At first he was afraid of her, running away anytime she screamed. Now he isn't afraid, he is just bothered by her. If she cries he runs over to where ever she is and waits for one of us to come and comfort her. If she is REALLY screaming, he barks at her, I think he is telling her to stfu... lol. The most interesting thing he does happens when I am breast feeding her. He goes and gets a toy, shoves it into my legs or lap, or jams it under the couch and then cries for me to get it out. Its a guarantee, baby needs to eat, doggy wants to play.


My Big Girl:
Amy has gained quite a bit of weight! I am so happy because for the first few weeks my extreme paranoia and panic over if she was eating enough drove me batty. The fact that she is growing out of clothes and diapers has erased my feeding fears. She enjoys the bathtub now, this photo was taken after a bath. So far I feel I have mastered feeding, bathing and changing; now if only I could master the fine art of keeping a baby happy and making her sleep...

Double Birthday Surprise!

I woke up on April 29th 2010 and began to plan for my husband's birthday. I was going to make Key Lime Bars instead of a birthday cake and was going to visit Red Robin for dinner, because Alphonso loves their burgers. I had been up half the night with irregular contractions, but was doubtful about their significance...

A couple of hours later my mother was driving me down to Kaiser in Fontana to have a baby. Guess those contractions were a bit more significant than I thought. When I called Alphonso, I tried to be as cool as a cucumber, because he is prone to panic. lol... Unfortunately my cool-headed illusion didn't fool him. From across the room, my mother heard Alphonso say "I feel like I am going to f**ing die." I hadn't heard my mom laugh that hard in a while.

We arrived at the hospital and I was almost 4cm dilated, but they made me get up and walk the halls for an hour to get labor really moving. It was torturous walking down the halls while contraction after contraction came, but these weren't bad yet, I had no idea what I was in for...

After an epidural, and 12 hours of labor that ranged from comfortable to intense pain, a 2 inch episiotomy, and stress over the baby's fluctuating heart rate, Amy was born at 11:24pm on her Daddy's 26th birthday. Happy Birthday Alphonso. Sorry I couldn't have gotten those Key Lime bars made, I was kind of busy...