Avery's 5th month

January 26th - We went to Aunt Donna's 50th birthday party. Avery seemed very shy, and was only happy in mommy's arms! I think a bit of her personality was coming out - we have a shy little girl on our hands! Either that, or it was the beginning stages of her teeth coming through. and she wasn't feeling too well.

January 28th - Avery started going to our neighbor, Adrienne's house. I think she really likes it over there! She never cries when Neal drops her off, and when it's time to leave she always cries (but I think it's because she doesn't want to be put in her car seat!). Adrienne has two kids, so it'll be great that she'll get to interact with other kids!

Just a few days shy of her 5 month birthday, Avery's bottom two teeth cut through! This explains all the drooling, hands constantly in her mouth, and diarrhea! I'm sure it doesn't feel good, but she just looks so dang cute with those two little teeth when she smiles!!

Her bottom two teeth!

Avery is a bit lazy (seems to be taking after her mama!), so the process of rolling is taking a while. No matter how we lay her down, she seems content. She's rolled from her back to stomach and from her stomach to back, but she doesn't seem too motivated to practice! 

She started laughing this month. Not the adorable belly laugh, but more like a heavy breathing laugh (very hard to explain!). It's still cute, though! Apparently mommy and daddy are funny, but not quite funny enough to get a full-blown chuckle out of her... yet! But I'm working on my comedy routine! From seeing other babies, I understand that injury really gets them laughing, so I am prepared to hurt myself to get a good laugh out of her (i.e. banging my head on a wall, stubbing my toes, slamming my fingers in doors, etc...).

We also started her on solid foods this month! We started her with rice cereal. When we started, I didn't think she liked it, but by the time we were finished, she seemed to enjoy it!

She seems a bit unsure about the rice cereal!

Avery's 5 months old!

5 months old!

Avery's 4th month

What happened this month:

• December 15 - Went to her Great Great Aunt Lillie's 90th birthday party. She found her feet that day and played with them in the car!
• Christmas - See below
• December 26th - 1st night in her crib (10pm-5am)! She tossed and turned from3:00am - 4:30am, but no crying!
• New Years - See below
• She really enjoys playing peek a boo!
• Cooing - Avery is cooing/talking so much! She's going to be a talker (just like her Aunt Kristy)!!!
• Grabbing - She is grabbing at everything within reach! toys, clothes, burp cloths, hair, etc. She's even learned how to pull her pacifier out of her mouth, and the other day I saw her pull it out and put it right back in! And along with the grabbing, everything that she touches immediately goes to her mouth. I just love watching her go through all the phases a child goes through, even if it means my fingers or clothes will be covered in her slobber!!

Avery is definitely the boss in our household. She decides when mommy and daddy wake up, when we eat and when we shower, just to name a few! And I honestly don't mind! I'm willing to starve if my baby girl would rather me play with her! :-) Before I got pregnant, I always heard a lot of moms talk about how they forgot to eat lunch or didn't have time to shower... I thought they were just exaggerating! Well, now I understand! Just the other day I was holding Avery and my stomach let out a gnarly growl! I looked at the clock and it was 3pm... I forgot to eat lunch!

Avery's first Christmas was great! Our 1st Christmas party was on Saturday, December 22nd. This was my immediate family. Then we celebrated Christmas with Neal's mom and grandma on Sunday December 23rd. On Christmas Eve, Neal, Keeghan, Avery and I went to church and then had our family Christmas at home. Then woke up early Christmas morning and drove to El Campo to celebrate with my extended family! She spent Christmas with her BFFs Lily and Aiden on December 30th! Then we celebrated our Kutac Christmas on January 5th. Needless to say, Avery had a very fun and extended 1st Christmas! I'm so grateful that we have such a wonderful and loving family and friends! Avery got lots of clothes, toys, books and a college fund started, just to name a few gifts! Oh, and she got a wonderful savings fund started for our family trip to Disney World!!

On New Year's morning (a mere three hours after the famous ball dropped in NYC, to be exact), I woke up feeling sick. I initially thought I drank too much (I only had two glasses of wine the entire evening, so I ruled out too much alcohol pretty quickly). Looks like I had a stomach bug. I was up every 15 minutes running to the bathroom and had a fever of 102. Avery was sleeping in her pack & play in our room that evening, but luckily I never woke her up! However, when she woke at 5am for her morning feeding, I was just heading back to the bathroom for another visit to the porcelain god. I built up enough strength to feed her (I had to take two breaks to run to the bathroom, but thankfully Neal was available for me to pass her off quickly!). While Neal went to Walgreens to pick up some Pedialyte and Gatorade, he started getting sick, too!! Thankfully, my sister was spending the night, so she took Avery with her to her house to get away from us sickos! Then that evening my mom came to stay with us so she could take care of Avery. We were out of commission for 24 hours! Getting sick is one thing, but getting sick when you have an infant in the house is SO much harder! I was so worried about her getting sick that we quarantined ourselves to our room, but at the same time, I missed my baby girl so much and knowing she was in the other room made me want to get out of that germ infested room and get a peek at that beautiful smile!

Ironically, about a day or two before we got sick, Avery started getting fussy, very clingy and wanted to eat a lot more. Turns out she was going through a growth spurt. Unfortunately for me, that means I was feeding... A LOT. And holding her more than normal. We had lots of contact to pass along my illness to her! Thankfully she never got sick! However, because I was so sick and dehydrated, my milk supply dropped, which meant she wasn't getting enough from me, and was always crying for more! We had to dip into my frozen stock pile, which I'm SO glad I have! I'm still working to build my supply back up, but so grateful I didn't dry up!

Avery's growth 1-4 months:

September 10 (1 day old)

October 9 

November 9

December 9

January 9

Avery's Third Month

This month has been the funnest and saddest month, thus far. For starters, I had to go back to work. :-( That was extremely tough for me! But it's also been so much fun because she's actually interacting with us more!

Firsts:

11/12:Avery started reacting to toys and she even reached out to it when I put it in front of her!
11/16: Avery got her 2 month shots and took them like a champ!! But she did sleep all afternoon.
11/18: She had her first MAJOR diaper blowout! It was all over her and me!!
11/19: It was our first mommy/daughter shopping trip! We bought Avery's Thanksgiving and Christmas dresses!
11/22 Thanksgiving: This was her first trip to El Campo! She spent her first Thanksgiving with family. We watched the Texans win and also had some fun "girl talk!"
11/27: It was my last day home with Avery before I had to go back to work. :-(
11/28: My first day back at work!

Girl Talk!

Watching the Texans with Aunt Kristy

Reflux:

As I mentioned a few months ago, Avery was diagnosed with reflux. She was put on Zantac, but that did not help at all! So, her doctor switched her to Prevacid. The Prevacid has helped some. She still spits up a lot, but it's definitely an improvement from the projectile vomiting that it was before!! We still make sure to have plenty of burp cloths and she wears a bib often! And we have to hold her at a 30 degree angle for at least 20 minutes after we feed her.

Back to Work:

Two days before I had to go back to work, I lost it. I cried a lot. I didn't think I'd make it 5 minutes into my first day back without crying! When I left for work in the morning, I didn't cry. I kissed her on the forehead (she was sleeping), and left. I got in the car, waiting for the tears to start rolling down my cheek, but I got nothing. Don't get me wrong, I was sad to be leaving her, but I knew she'd be fine! The first thing I did when I got to my office was put up pictures of my smiling baby!! I missed her and thought about her ALL DAY, and looked at those pictures whenever I started to get sad (I still stare at them a lot!!)  When I got home,  I was hoping for a grand welcome, but instead I came home to a sleeping baby!

The first two weeks were easier for me than it was for her. My mom has been watching her, and she informed me that Avery was havng a tough time taking a bottle. We never had problems giving her a bottle before (we were doing some test runs before I went back to work!). I think she was having some separation issues. She has since gotten much better! Sometimes I don't think she misses me at all anymore!! :-) My favorite part of the day is coming home to see her sweet smile!

TV:

This may make me sound like a terrible mother, but Avery loves the TV! The first time we noticed her looking, we were watching Ellen, and One Direction was performing. (They may just be her first boy band crush!! But give me a little more time, and she'll soon fall in love with NKOTB!)  She loves looking at the lights, sounds and movements!! When she gets fussy, the TV (or Christmas tree) usually calms her down!

3 months old 11/9/2012

3 months old!

Avery's Second Month

The second month seemed to fly by so quickly!

Firsts:

Avery went to her first birthday party at Hermann park to celebrate her cousin William's 1st birthday! She also attended her first Halloween party where she dressed in a black tutu and orange & black tights. On October 23rd, Avery gave us her first REAL smile, not a "gas smile," and she hasn't stopped since! She is such a happy baby!  Mommy and daddy went on their first date night on October 29th (mommy wore her pre-pregnancy jeans on this date!); Gramma D babysat! Avery went on her first restaurant outing on November 3rd to Chili's. On November 5th, I could safely say that Avery has been consistently sleeping 6 to 7 hours at night (she still has her difficult nights, but they're few and far between)!! Avery has also been cooing a lot; I think we've got ourselves a little talker!! :-)

At William's 1st birthday party at Hermann Park

Avery's 1st Halloween party!

Avery Smiling!

More smiles!

Sleeping at Night:

The first month I really dreaded going to bed. Sometimes I would actually cry thinking about how tough the night was going to be. She would go to bed around 10pm, wake up around 1am, 3am, and 5am to nurse. And after the 3am feeding, she would be wide awake until about 4-4:30am, which only gave us a 30 minute nap before it was time to feed her again. It was exhausting!! But now she's in bed around 10:30pm and sleeps until 5:30am. She then eats and goes right back to sleep until about 7:30am, then eats again and goes back to sleep AGAIN until about 10am! It's WONDERFUL!!!

Avery loves being swaddled when she sleeps!

Love:

It's amazing how much love this little girl brings out in me! Just when you think you couldn't possibly love her more, she looks at you with those beautiful eyes and your love just grows more!!! I never understood a mother's love for her children until I became a mom.

Maternity Leave:

Being home with Avery has been such a blessing! I go back to work after Thanksgiving, and it's going to be tough, but I am so grateful I got to spend quality time bonding with Avery. I am going to be an emotional wreck when I go back!! I imagined my maternity leave to go something like this: Avery and I would wake up and go for a walk every morning, we'd go sit out on the porch and listen to the birds, I'd do laundry and clean house while she napped, we'd spend quality time together in between naps and we'd cook dinner and wait for daddy to come home from work. But it didn't work like that! We'd be lucky to get a walk in because it was either too warm, too cold, or too windy (yes, I am an overprotective mom!). Instead of sitting on the porch we sat on the couch and watched some tv. I did a lot of laundry, but cleaning the house was more difficult because Avery likes to take short cat naps so it was very hard to get much done. I  got some great quality time with her, but most of it was during feeding time! And dinner?? Ha! The only time we had a home-cooked meal on the table was when my mom was here, and she was the one doing the cooking (thanks mom!)! Our favorite part of the day was when daddy got home from work and we could all spend family time together (and it helps that he was home to help change diapers!!).

2 months old!

Avery's First Month

I'm sorry it's been so long since my last post, but I've been a little busy lately. ;-) Although it seems like all she does is eat, sleep and poop, Avery has been occupying a lot of my time!  The first month was fairly uneventful, but here's what happened:

Firsts:

Since we've been home from the hospital, we've had a lot of diaper changes, even more feedings, and SO much laundry, just to name a few! We gave Avery her first sponge bath after her first doctor appointment on September 14th. We gave it to her in the laundry room, since it was the warmest room in the house! Two weeks later, as we were getting Avery ready for yet another soonge bath, her umbilical cord stump fell off, so we were able to give her her first real bath!! Another milestone that happened the first month was on October 2nd, she slept for 4 straight hours, which was awesome because she'd been feeding every 1-2 hours around the clock!

First sponge bath
(5 days old) 

First sponge bath
(5 days old) 

First time outside
(since coming home from the hospital!) (6 days old)

First photo shoot
(12 days old)

First bath!
(16 days old)

First walk
(Mommy had to get her blood pressure down before she could walk!)
(22 days old)

Laundry: 

Who knew one tiny little baby could create so much laundry! I do her laundry every other day. The problem is that Avery has reflux... BAD reflux... projectile vomiting. It's definitely not a pretty sight. But because she spits up so much, I have to change her clothes, and mine, often. And I can't even count how many burp clothes I go through on a daily basis! 

Crying:

We lucked out in the crying department. Avery rarely cries. The only time she cries is when something is really wrong, and even then she rarely has that "screaming" cry. The first time she REALLY cried, I thought I was the worst mother ever!! I didn't understand why she was crying. I changed her. I swaddled her. I shook her...just kidding! I was just making sure you were paying attention! ;-) And finally, I decided to feed her and she immediately stopped crying. Because she rarely cries, I am still trying to learn what each one means!

Adapting:

Having a baby in our home has definitely changed the way we do things! For starters, we eat meals around her schedule and sometimes we take shifts eating. Our cat and dog aren't too fond of her yet, but I think they're slowly warming up to her. And everywhere you turn you see a burp cloth or baby lotion or her bouncer or a bottle or pacifier. I've given up trying to keep the house clean!

Honestly, the first month wasn't as entertaining as I thought it would be, just exhausting! She mostly just layed around, while I catered to her every need (she's such a little diva)!

Her 2nd month has been more eventful! I'll have that blog soon!

I'm one month old! October 9, 2012

I'm one month old! October 9, 2012