While putting more of the baby book together, I found Elisa's footprint and hand print stamps from when she was almost 1 month old.
And I had this light bulb moment when I looked at her feet now. There is nothing like proof in a picture to truly tell you how amazing this is.
I don't know if every first time parent feels this way when they see how far their baby has come or not. I just know this melts my heart. I never truly thought I'd bring her home. I spent our entire NICU stay stealing myself for what I thought was inevitable.
I'm so glad she proved me wrong.
In this, baby girl, you are definitely allowed to say "I told you so!"
Yeah. I finally got around to doing Elisa's baby book.
You are probably going...she's almost 19 months old? You are just NOW getting to it?
Yup. I am finally at the place where I can go in and fill out "first months milestones" without wanting to bury my face in my hands and bawl. Milestones such as "learned to eat from the bottle" or "stopped having bradycardia" weren't as painful to write down. I don't think I was emotionally able to handle filling out milestones when in the beginning, she was so far behind and that wasn't how I imagined myself filling the book out when I bought it.
There are a lot of holes in her book, and I just think there will always be. You can't really fit her story into a pre-printed baby book meant for the typical delivery. Plus, the older she gets, the more my memories of when things happened fades.
So I am just waiting for the photos to be printed and then I can call it "complete." And it feels great. Now Elisa can look back at her unique story when she is older, and I hope she reads it and realizes just how special she is.
This weekend, mommy, daddy, grandma and grandpa and I went to visit my Uncle Mike in Springfield. It was a loooong car ride, but I did really well. I even stayed up REALLY late and slept pretty well, although Grandpa did wake me up awfully early the next morning. Mommy and Daddy coulda used more sleep. But I like my Uncle Mike and his dog Elvis. My mommy and her brother just have something about names that start with El...oh well. It's a nice name. :) In the picture above, Uncle Mike was playing with Elvis and I decided his lap was a cool place to be. So I sat down.
I also got to try my first ever ICE CREAM CONE!
Of course I made a mess! What kind of toddler would I be if I didn't smear it all over myself.
Grandma tried to get a picture of mommy, daddy and I, but it's really hard for me to sit still and the sun was in mommy and daddy's eyes, so this was the best one grandma could get.
Oh, and I don't miss my baba at all! Daddy is a smart daddy and thought it would be a good idea to warm my milk a little bit for my morning and night time drink and it helps a LOT. I don't even notice that it's not a baba and am still drinking a lot, although it's really different. I don't drink a lot in one sitting anymore, just a little bit all through the day. It's kinda nice because I don't have to sit in one place for too long. I can take a drink when I want it and put it down and go play and come back when I want some more.
And guess what??? Grandma and Grandpa King bought me a PLAY KITCHEN! I LOVE it!!!
So it's well past my bed time and I better get to sleep before mommy realizes I'm playing on the computer. Bye!!!
Yes, it is. You see, we've reached another milestone in growing up. We are saying "buh-bye" to the
baba.
"Say what?"
That's right. We've been cleared to go entirely to cow's milk, so we are going cold turkey on the baba.
I'm not sure either Elisa or I are ready for this. I remember well those early days, begging her to drink from her bottle.
Every cc through the bottle was a celebration and one step closer to going home.
Every bottle was a bonding experience. I still cherish that bed time bottle, the time she falls asleep on me and snores softly while I breathe in her scent.
Seems like just yesterday she took her first bottle. Now we have just had our last.
Well, we did it! We got everything done on our to do list and then some. The house that Le Ann, Sue, Dennis, and Andrew worked on only needs one or two more weeks to be 100% ready to move in. The house Mike and Joe worked on will take a little more time but not much.
We are going out to an authentic Italian restaurant to celebrate! Tomorrow we get up bright and early to head home. It was a great week!
To all of you who helped with financial support - THANKS!
The homeowner comes everyday to see the progress. Today he was so overcome with the progress he broke down and cried.
Mike and Joe hung light fixtures until they found out that one outlet was wired incorrectly and was very dangerous to work on! They got the crown moulding up and baseboards finished. Tomorrow they will do some tiling in the bathroom.
House #2
The theme for the day was "improvise" We need saw horses to pre-paint the window trim so we made some out of the doors that were still in boxes. We used paint cans to prop up doors so we could paint them. Dennis and Andrew worked on installing doors that didn't quite fit so it was not an easy process but the door is in and level! Le Ann is determined to get the walls right in the hallway so Sue can paint them tomorrow.
I've been forgetting to tell about the awesome dinners Amy has been making for us. Monday we had stuffed manicotti with salad and pineapple upside down cake for desert.
Tuesday was Italian pork roast, baked potatoes, and bacon, lettuce and tomato salad followed by turtle brownies. Then today we had pork tacos and fresh pineapple and strawberries followed by fruit pizza.....
This may be the first mission trip where we gain weight!
Here's the update from our hard at work crew in Nashville for today:
Joe and Mike finished all the baseboards at house #1 They also got the windows trimmed out and found a radio so they had tunes!
House #2
More painting, painting, painting
Amy did all the baseboards!
LeAnn touched up more sheetrock getting it ready to be painted
We should be done with the painting tomorrow so we will move on to hanging doors and trimming out windows! While others were busy painting, Andrew fixed the plumbing for the hot water heater.
It was HOT and our home is in a complex with a pool. We had to walk by the pool everytime we used the rest room and it was so tempting to just jump in but I think we would have left too much paint in the pool!
Last May, Nashville was hit by one of the worst disasters that hit Tennessee since the Civil War. Many homes were damaged.
Every year, one small group from my church, Quest 2819, make a trip to help rebuild. Since 2005, we've been on several trips to New Orleans, and last year we made a trip to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This year, we chose Tennessee. Sadly, this is the first year that I missed. But someone had to stay home with the 'Tinker.
So early yesterday morning, a crew of 7 headed out on a 10 hour drive. Here is the update from our crew:
Up and ready for our 6:30 am meeting with the contractor.
Mike and Joe went to house #1 to hang doors and do trim work. This house is home to an elderly gentleman who is soooo ready to get back home. And then he was in a wreck and hurt both knees. He is tired, frustrated, and ready
Le Anne, Sue, Andrew, Dennis and Amy went to house #2. The homeowner is a single woman who will really appreciate some quality work as some of the prior volunteers have not had the best of skills. We painted 3 rooms, repaired some sheet rock and cleaned up some. Most of the work for this home consists of small tasks but they are tedious and will take most of the week.
Amy made stuffed manicotti that smelled AWESOME! The manicotti smelled so good so we showered fast! (One of the perks of having a foodie as a chef. ;) )
House #1
House #2 with a view of the river in the background.
Just a quick update. Elisa heard my plea yesterday. She is 20.5 lbs, 31 inches tall with a 17 inch circumference head. She's 3rd percentile for weight, 28th for height and, well, still not on the charts for head circumference. She just has a small head. Oh well. The size of the head does NOT indicate intelligence because the girl is scary smart. One shot which she handled like a champ. The nice elephant cookie jar wiped away all of our tears and we passed out in bed with no problems. We have the official "blessing" to get off the formula and start the cows milk. Makes mama a bit nervous. But my baby is growing. It's only fitting.
This about summed up my day. Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday! Hopefully it goes much better. E's 18 month check up is tomorrow, though. Here's hoping for finally breaking that freaking 20lb mark that I've been begging for since she turned a year and we just have not managed to break it yet. The way the child is eating, she should. Plus, she outgrew her infant carrier so I'm assuming she's GOT to be 20lbs.
Oh please, E, give mommy something to smile about and be 20lbs!
The type A in me is really raring it's head. My house is a MESS. It's no one's fault but my own. My household paperwork is an absolute rat's nest of random piles. My desk is 10 inches high of paperwork that needs to be filed that there is no room to file it in because I haven't been able to rotate the old out.
My dilemma is working 40 hours a week. From 8-5. Yes, I work from home and yes Elisa is at home with me. It doesn't mean that I get to spend any quality time with her during that time period. So by the time work is over, I just want to play with her. By the time she's down in bed, I'm so exhausted from working and playing with her that the last thing I want to do is organize all that crap. When the weekend comes, there is always something going on to keep one very active 18 month old occupied and more family time.
My family is my priority! How do I balance my family life, work life and still get all that household maintenance done? Saturday mornings used to be my clean the house time. Not anymore.
I know if I just kept on top of it it would not be such an un-surmountable task but I have yet to figure out HOW. Part of me goes, I don't have the space. The other part of me thinks I don't have the right tools. I've changed to an electronic filing/organization system for my work items but I can't do that for my home items because I don't have a personal computer.
We have a good split of tasks between Andrew and I, but Andrew is not the organized one. That's me. And it is frustrating me to no end that this is so far behind. I feel like I need just a whole week to just really go through and get this all DONE. But WHEN will I EVER have time for that.
*sigh* Ok rant over. For now I guess. If any of my busy mom friends reading this have any suggestions, I'm all ears. Literally. That's all you can see of me from all this crap piled up.
(silly blogger doesn't render the embedded code right, so please follow the link to watch the awesome video!!!)
This is why we walk. In addition to being one of the babies in the video. One day, hopefully, there will not be a need for videos like this, because all babies will be born healthy and term.
A big thank you to all those who supported us. Digium, Paveguard, The Bobo's, The Erickson's, The Sokol's, The Sanderson's, the White's and The Edward's. I love you all.
