Visiting Santa

I took the girls to visit Santa at the mall yesterday. Amazingly, we managed to get a picture with BOTH of them smiling! Check out Caroline's "Marilyn Monroe" pose!



They also visited Santa at our church a couple of weeks ago. Actually, both Santas were "Santa's helpers", since Anna mentioned that they didn't look the same! Oops! We got some pretty good pictures of both the girls on Santa's helper's lap, as well.

4 Months Old!

Well, Caroline is officially 4 months old today! I can hardly believe it's been that long since we brought our tiny baby home! She went to the doctor today, so I have the new official stats: 14 lb 8 oz, 26 1/4 inches long. She's even longer than I thought! That puts her in the 75th percentile for weight and over the 97th for height. Wow! Her head is also in the 90th percentile -- plenty of room for that big, smart brain!

The doctor asked if Caroline was still happy on her liquid diet, and he was quite happy that I wanted to wait on solids. He encourages most moms to delay solids until around 6 months, but many are anxious to start earlier, so he always asks at the 4 month visit and lets them start if they're super eager. I'm not. I don't need the hassle! Caroline is very content on just breastmilk at this point, so there's no rush to add solids to the mix. I love the convenience of just being able to take my baby and my boobs and go, so I'm all about waiting!

We had big day yesterday. It was Baby Dedication Sunday at our church, and Caroline was dedicated. She did really well and didn't cry at all. In fact, she blew some bubbles for us while we were up in front of the church! My parents were able to come in for the dedication, which was wonderful, especially since they couldn't be here for Anna's dedication six years ago. Here's a picture of Caroline receiving her blessing in front of the church.



Right after the dedication, Anna and I sang a duet. It was Anna's first time to sing a solo in church, and she did a GREAT job! She was so poised and calm. She wasn't nervous at all! She sang her part perfectly, and her rhythm and pitch were impeccable. It's a miracle I even made it through the song -- once she started singing, I got all choked up! I don't think there was a single dry eye, especially in the choir. Anna has been the choir "mascot" practically since she was born, so everyone was amazed at what a big girl she has become. After we sang, she looked up at me and said, "Mommy, I want to do it again!" So I guess I need to look for more reportoire for her to sing in church.

I hope to get an audio recording of the service in the next week or so, and when I do I'll post it here for your listening pleasure. Until then, here's a (rather blurry) picture of the two of us singing together.

Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'...

Caroline is rollin'! It's actually been about 2 weeks since she started doing it. I put her on her tummy time mat one day, turned my back for a second, and then when I looked back at her, she was on her back. So I flipped her back over and watched her do it again. After that, she was a rolling fool. The next day, I managed to get this video:



She also loves to stand and bounce. I'm working on getting her one of those stationary bouncer things so that she can bounce to her little heart's content. I have a feeling she'll love it! In the meantime, she'll have to be happy with standing and balancing on Jimmy's hands. Check out this video!



Also, an update on her stats. Caroline is now weighing in at a very healthy 14 pounds, which puts her somewhere around the 50-60th percentile for weight. I also got out the tape measure the other day and discovered that she's between 25.5 and 26 inches, which would put her squarely in the 97th percentile for height. She's my tall and skinny girl! She loves to babble and is starting to make some "ga" and "ba" sounds in addition to the generic "ah" and "uh" and "oo" sounds she was making before.

Caroline is also starting to recognize people, I think, and with that is coming a tiny bit of separation anxiety. At Sunday school yesterday someone was holding her, and she was perfectly happy until she heard my voice. Suddenly, she wanted ONLY MOMMY! She's also reserving her biggest smiles for Mommy, Daddy, and Big Sister (whom she seems to adore recently!). Here's a picture of my beautiful girls together!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Has it really been almost a month since my last post? Time sure does fly with a little one around!

Caroline is doing great! We took a many-legged road trip for Thanksgiving. First, we drove to my parents' place in East Texas for T-day. We had a great time, with lots of food! Caroline spent the entire meal asleep in her swing, but she got turkey and pie vicariously a few hours later!

That night, we drove up to Jimmy's parents' house near Fort Worth and were treated to ANOTHER Thanksgiving meal the next day along with a few of their friends who were really excited to meet Caroline. She got passed around a lot that evening, and I think she got pretty over stimulated because bedtime was an absolute nightmare that night. But she did eventually go to sleep and was in a great mood the next day.

The in-laws' house also has the benefit of Cousin Megan, who is 12 years old. Anna idolizes her, and she got to have TWO sleepovers with her -- one at Grandma's house, and one at Megan's house. Anna couldn't have asked for more!

Saturday, we drove from Fort Worth to College Station for a wedding. We gave ourselves plenty of time (we thought), but then we discovered that I-35 was completely shut down between Hillsboro and Waco. Since Caroline wakes up and screams whenever we stop moving in the car, she did a good bit of screaming during the delay. I felt so bad for her! Anyway, what should have been a 3-hour drive ended up taking almost 4.5 hours, and we got to the wedding with no time to spare. But at least we got there! There were tons of kids there, so Anna had a lot of fun. Caroline did great and was very smiley and flirty while she was being passed around at the wedding.

All-in-all, it was a great holiday week, but we're definitely glad to be home. Traveling with a baby is stressful, no matter how well it goes, and it felt amazing to be back in our own bed when we got home.

Happy Halloween!

Okay, so I'm a little late with the Halloween post!

We went trick-or-treating with my friends Gayla and Michelle and their kids. Anna went as a witch this year, and we decided that Caroline should be her little black cat. They were both adorable, and we had a great time.

Here are a few pictures of our crew.

The group picture is, from left to right, Hans and Gunnar (Gunnar is 3 weeks older and 5 pounds heavier than Caroline -- and they're betrothed, LOL!), Anna, Riley, Jimmy and Caroline, and Gayla with her twins, Ryan and Evan.



Here is a picture of Anna and Caroline together. Aren't they cute?



And here is a picture of Caroline and her "boyfriend", Gunnar.



Gunnar is quite possibly the most laid-back baby I've ever met. His parents can put him on the couch, and he'll sit there just staring at the ceiling fan, happy as a lark. Caroline lasts approximately 15 seconds (give or take 15 seconds!) before she's screaming to be picked up. We do not grow laid-back babies in our family, apparently!

As a further update, Caroline seems to have turned a corner over the last couple of weeks. She has gotten much less fussy, and she's going longer between feedings. I still wouldn't call her an "easy" baby, but she's definitely doing a lot more smiling and cooing lately, and she usually gives me 2.5-3 hours between feedings, compared to the previous 1.5-2 hours. She's also eating faster, so I can now usually feed her in around 30 minutes compared to the 45+ minutes it was taking before.

Unfortunately, with this kinder, gentler daytime personality has come a much more difficult time getting her to sleep at night. Bedtime has now stretched out to an hour or more of nursing her into a coma, followed by very carefully placing her in her cradle to avoid waking her. If she wakes up, we have to start all over again. For a while, she was also waking every 2-3 hours again at night, and that got old REALLY fast! But over the last few nights, she's gone back to her 5-6 hour stretches, so at least we're making some progress there. I could probably guarantee myself 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep if I'd let her sleep in her swing at night (she LOVES her swing!), but I'm really trying to get her to sleep on a flat surface for at least part of the day. Hopefully she'll grow to love her bed the way she loves her swing. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...right. But it's a nice thought!

Caroline is also lifting and holding her head up very well these days.



Anna adores her baby sister, and the feeling appears to be mutual. Look at those precious smiles!

2 Month Check-up

Today was Caroline's 2 month check-up with the doctor. She's doing great! She still seems like a skinny little thing, and today I found out why. She weighs 11 lbs. 10 oz., which is about the 65th percentile for weight (up from about the 40th percentile at 2 weeks), but she's 23 3/4 inches long, which is 90th percentile for height! It looks like our girl is going to be a tall one! She also has a 90th percentile head, which means she has plenty of room for her wonderful, smart brain to grow!

They don't really ask about milestones at the 2 month visit, but she seemed to be on target when the pediatrician tested different things. She wiggled around for him quite a bit, and when he tested to see if she would straighten her legs on the table, he was actually able to let go and let her "stand" briefly on her own. He said she was very strong for her age!

Poor Caroline had to get 4 shots today, which offended her deeply. But she nursed right after and was eventually able to calm down. It took her a while, though, and she sounded awfully pathetic trying to nurse while simultaneously sniffling and hiccuping. The nurse in our doctor's office is so sweet and wonderful, but that didn't stop me from wanting to punch her in the mouth for hurting my precious baby! She said that giving shots is the hardest part of her job, poor thing. Of course, Caroline has probably forgotten all about the shots at this point, but I'm still mildly traumatized by them!

First bottle

With all the nursing problems we were having at the beginning, I didn't want to introduce a bottle to Caroline too early. I figured, since she could get the milk much easier from a bottle, she'd probably decide it was just too much work to nurse, and she'd start to prefer the bottle. But since we finally worked through all the problems we were having, I decided it was time to give it a shot.

It did not go well. We did everything "they" recommend when we tried it. She was hungry enough, but not frantic. Jimmy gave the bottle while I stayed in another room. He held her facing away from him so that she wouldn't associate the position with nursing. Apparently, he put the bottle in her mouth, and she looked at him like he must have lost his mind. Then she screamed. It was not just any cry -- it was a deep, gutteral wail that told us she was deeply offended that we would even TRY to offer her something as cold and impersonal as that plastic bottle, even if it WAS filled with Mommy's milk. She got a couple of drips from the nipple, but apparently Jimmy couldn't get her to suck on the thing even once.

After several minutes of trying, Jimmy finally gave up. Once he got her calmed down, I nursed her, and she looked extremely relieved. I'm not going to lie to you. I was more than a little relieved that she didn't just take to it right away and never look back. Yes, I'd love to be able to leave a bottle with her if I have to leave her in the church nursery or something, but if she doesn't take one, I'm sure we'll all survive. I'd much rather have a long and successful nursing relationship than to have her decide she prefers the bottle, though it would be nice to find a happy medium in there somewhere!

So we'll keep on trying. I'm thinking of leaving her in the nursery tomorrow night during choir practice and leaving a bottle with them to see if she'll take it when I'm actually out of the building. Anna never would take one at all, so it wouldn't surprise me if Caroline refuses it altogether, too, but I figure it's worth a shot to see if someone she doesn't know can get her to take a bottle!

Oh, and just as an update, Caroline is now somewhere in the 11 1/2 pound range! Woo-hoo! She's been gaining about 1/2 pound a week over the last 3 weeks, so she's doing really, really well now that I've stopped supplmenting her. She has her 2-month checkup on the 30th, so I'll get the "official" weight then, but I'm thrilled with her weight gain so far!

Do you think they're really sisters?

A lot of people have asked me where all of Caroline's dark hair comes from. Anna is so blonde now that it's hard to believe her hair was BLACK when she was born! But after getting Caroline's portraits taken the other day, I noticed that one of the pictures looks a lot like one of Anna's portraits from around the same age. Sure, there are some differences in their facial expressions, but I think both of them look like they're about to start talking and revealing all the secrets of the universe.

So here I give you Anna at two months along with Caroline at two months!

First Road Trip

Last weekend, we decided to take a road trip to Abilene for our college's homecoming weekend and Jimmy's 10th reunion. There were all sorts of choir events going on, and our old choir director is retiring this year, so we wanted to be there to see him one last time, as well.

The trip is usually about 5.5-6 hours from Houston to Abilene, but we figured it would take longer with a nursing infant. Boy, did it ever! Our first mistake was timing our getaway. Caroline typically nurses every 2.5 hours from the start of one feeding to the start of the next. So if I nurse her for 30 minutes, we have a two-hour window for travel.

The goal was to wake up, get the car packed, feed Caroline, and load her up as soon as she was done nursing. Unfortunately, that didn't quite happen, and by the time we finally got on the road, we had already lost an hour of our window. So we had to stop an hour or so into our trip to nurse. Fortunately, we found a great park where Jimmy and Anna could go run around, and the weather was delightful, so I just rolled down the windows and fed Caroline in the car. She seemed to like the breeze, and I got some great smiles and coos while we sat there.

Shortly after that stop, it was time for lunch, so we had to stop again. Then we had to make a pit stop about an hour later, and Caroline was ready to nurse again an hour after that. So 4 hours into our trip, we had already stopped 4 times! I was getting concerned that we'd NEVER get there! Fortunately, after the second time we stopped, Caroline decided to take a nice, long nap, so we made it to Abilene without having to stop again.

Friday night, we had a choir barbeque followed by a rehearsal. After an hour or so of rehearsal, it became abundantly clear that Caroline was not going to just hang out with me, so I decided to take her to the nursery that was provided. She stayed there for about an hour and did okay, but they did say she fussed some. By the time I got there to check on her, she was just starting to really wail, so I fed her again and decided to take her back to the hotel for the evening. I'm really glad I got to sing in that rehearsal, though, since I didn't get to sing in any of the events that weekend. It was amazing singing with our old college group. From the moment Doc raised his hands for the first time that evening, the sound was gorgeous, and it was like we had never been away.

Saturday morning, Jimmy sang in an alumni concert, and then Anna, Caroline and I went with some friends to pick out bridesmaid's dresses for my friend Joyce's wedding. Joyce's fiance was with us, and the poor guy ended up pulling childcare duty for my kids and my friend Angie's two kids. I started trying on dresses first, since Caroline was asleep in her carseat (a rare treat!). Of course, as soon as I got myself halfway buckled into the steel-belted undergarment the saleslady had given me (I swear, it had about 60 hooks on it!), Caroline woke up and screamed. She timed it just perfectly so that there were no women around, so Nathan had to take her out and figure out what to do with her. He did a great job bouncing and rocking and making little noises to try to settle her down. I told Joyce that any guy who would work that hard to comfort a baby he'd never even met before was definitely a keeper! nathan said he saw it as "practice"!

Saturday night, we went to an alumni banquet, where Jimmy got to sing with the alumni choir again. After that, we went to All School SING, and Caroline did great while we were there! Sunday morning, we drove to Sweetwater to attend church with some friends and then ate lunch at their house before heading home.

The drive home actually went MUCH better than the drive up there. I nursed Caroline before we left, and then we put her in the car and went. She made it about 3 hours before she woke up wanting to eat, and then she made it the rest of the way (over 4 hours!) without needing to stop again. We got home Sunday night around 11:00 after finally leaving Abilene at about 4:00 -- not too bad!

Portraits!

Today, I took Caroline to get her first portraits taken. I was feeling kind of guilty because I hadn't done it yet. I had Anna's done every month for the first year (the cheapy ones -- Wal-mart and Penney's, mostly), but with all the nursing issues we had early on, I just didn't have the time to go to a portrait studio and wait around with a cranky baby.

So anyway, I decided to go to a nicer studio to make up for not getting the pictures done every month. I'm so glad I did! I made an appointment for 9:00 a.m. and hoped for the best. Caroline is usually in a pretty good mood in the mornings, so I figured we might get one or two good smiles before Her Royal Highness decided she was done with the portrait thing. Fortunately, she was in a GREAT mood and was very smiley for the camera. At one point, the photographer had a highchair set up backwards with Caroline propped up on her elbows with her head up. Caroline thought that was the greatest thing, and she smiled and cooed and stuck out her tongue. The photographer and I were just cracking up!

So here are Caroline's first portraits. We got a few in her cute fall outfit, and then I got some naked baby pictures because you just HAVE to capture all that naked cuteness while they're little!

Here are a couple in her fall outfit. I'm into the brown and pink thing right now, and I just thought this jumper with the striped shirt underneath was adorable! Unfortunately, I had forgotten that overalls are a pain to photograph (the straps are always going all wonky and riding up and stuff), but I'll remember from now on! Even with the strap issues, though, they turned out really cute, and I still love the outfit!





These are the ones where she was so happy to be up on her elbows. If you can't see the tongue sticking out in the last picture, click on it to see it larger. It's a classic Caroline face!







And here's a classic pose that I just couldn't resist. Just look at that grin!



I actually got out of the studio for less $$ than I thought I would, given all the pictures I bought. The photographer took 100 pictures (yes, that's ONE HUNDRED pictures!), and I managed to eventually narrow it down to 8 poses, plus they threw in a couple of composite pictures and a CD with all 100 pictures on it. I was very impressed with the studio and the photographer, so we'll definitely be going back! Now I just need to find a time to take Anna and Caroline in together so I can get some sister pics!