I realize it's only been an hour...

...but I just had to pack up most of McKenna's newborn to three months clothes.  I didn't think that I'd be sad about it, but I am.  I can't believe my baby's not a newborn anymore.  I got a little choked up when I saw the little hat and onesie that we brought her home from the hospital in.  I have no idea how hard it will be when I look at all this stuff when she's going to high school or college, or getting married or having babies of her own.  

Nasal Aspirators are My Best Friends...

So the cold we thought McKenna had a few weeks ago, was pale in comparison to the cold she has this week.  I always feel so bad using the bulb syringe when her nose is stuffed up, but this week it has been unavoidable.  She looks at me as if I were trying to suck her brain out through her left nostril every time I try to help her breathe.  Sorry McKenna, it's for your own good.  

Because she's been so congested, I've had about 4 hours sleep total in the last two days.  The night before last was the worst one, she only wanted to sleep on me, and to sleep sitting straight up. I had to come down stairs at 4 am and sit with her in our leather chair.  Good times.  John read somewhere that we should prop up the head of her crib mattress so that she could breathe easier.  We discovered that gravity works, even in McKenna's bed.  

My idea was to put the pillow at her feet to keep her from sliding down... you can see that didn't work at all.  She seems to have a good attitude about life even though she's not feeling well, or maybe she just thinks we're ridiculous... who really knows. 

We also decided that giving her a warm bath might help with her stuffy head (in addition to the saline drops, humidifier, and baby vapor rub), she seemed to agree... what do you think?

Hopefully she'll be on the mend soon, but in the mean time, I'll continue to torture her with the nasal aspirator.  

Did I ever really leave?

My desk looks the same, except that someone stole my mouse... who does that? Even my wall calendar hasn't changed since I left. My due date is still marked on it, even though we all know that I didn't make it until then. This morning was rough. I didn't sleep at all last night, I had some pretty intense nightmares about work, and then I just stared at the ceiling from about 3am until it was time to get in the shower this morning. I guess I thought it wouldn't be a big deal to just leave my little Mac when she was 12 weeks old and go right back to work. I was wrong. This is hard. It's going to be a big adjustment for the both of us in the next few weeks until I get the hang of this again. It's a good thing I said I was committed to coming back before I left in July... I don't think I could have done this if I hadn't given my word before hand. Stupid integrity.

Reasons I'm a Bad Mother, entry #722 of ???

We've had a pretty eventful day today, we went to coffee with Mackenzie Turrill and her daughter Mimi, you can see pictures on Mackenzie's blog. Then we got home, McKenna ate some lunch, and I put her down for her first afternoon nap. She cried for a few minutes and went to sleep just as she usually does, then about an hour into her nap I heard her fuss for a few minutes, which regularly happens as well. I thought nothing of it, and didn't go check on her (here's where the bad mother part comes into play) and then 3:30 arrived, time for McKenna's next meal. She hadn't made a peep, so I went to go wake her up and change her diaper. Here's what I found:
Yes, that's my baby whose face is completely covered by a blanket, and about a foot away from where I put her in her sleep positioner (and yes, she does have a CU Buffaloes Ralphie Mobile, I know you all think we're crazy, but we don't care...she is lulled to sleep by the CU fight song, in the tune of a lullaby, "Fight CU down the field, CU must win..."). Good thing the blanket was just a receiving blanket and a really thin one at that. She doesn't seem to have suffered any ill effects:
She was, however, irritated with me for waking her up:

Also, McKenna absolutely hates tummy time, and I've been trying to think of creative ways to get her to do it, because at this point I fear I may still be carrying her around when she's 32. "Mom, I need to go to work, can I have a piggy back?" So, anyway, I read on some website that Boppy pillows work well to get kids who don't like tummy time to work on it, and then eventually they can be transitioned to lying flat on their tummies, and will learn to crawl, walk, pay their own bills, become Mensa scholars etc...

So here was my first attempt at laying McKenna on the Boppy. As you can see from the photo, she has really good head control, but still doesn't want to use her arms... so I let her try until she screams. It's exhausting, for me, I don't think she cares at all that she tortures me with her sad little face. See how much she enjoys it? Look at the huge, gigantic smile on her face:

Maybe she'll never have any upper body strength, and she'll have noodles for arms that she has to swing and flip up onto things to get them to do anything, like Elastigirl from The Incredibles, only without the freakish stretching. These are the things I think about during the day. Sad, I know.

Also sad, I fear my posts are about to get fewer and farther between (sorry Jocelyn), I have to go back to work on MONDAY. Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. McKenna will be ok. Me, I'm not so sure, the jury is still out on that one.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

McKenna went on her first plane ride this week, the three of us went to California for a church conference that John attended at North Coast Church in San Diego called "Sticky Church" and for my Grandma's funeral. We spent the first half of the week in San Diego with my sister and her husband, and the second half of the week with my Mom and Dan. This is going to be long post... there are lots of pictures to share!

McKenna now smiles on demand, which makes for cuter pictures. Here she is before we left the house last Saturday. I think I said, "Are you excited to go see Grandma?" and this is the face I got from her:
We went to the airport around one o'clock on Saturday, and I literally had to wake her up to feed her before we got on the plane. She loves the car, train, and elevators for their white noise. Here she is on the train:


I gave her a little baby tylenol and had her suck on a pacifier when the plane was taking off, and she slept the entire way to San Diego:

Blair's in-law's own a bakery in Cardiff By the Sea, so of course we had to get McKenna her first doughnut, it's a right of passage for every 11 week old for those of you who didn't know...here's Aunt Blair helping her with her chocolate glazed with sprinkles (it's the one she asked us to get for her):
Speaking of rights of passage, we decided McKenna also needed to go to the beach. We strapped on her shades, and took her down on the sand in Cardiff. Here's a family photo and a picture of her standing in the sand (sort of):

After the conference was over, we went up to my Mom's in Orange County. McKenna got to meet Great-Grandpa. It's obvious from these pictures that they enjoyed each other. Grandpa calls her "Mac" which is pretty cute:


One of my oldest friends (as in length of time we've been friends, not her age ;-) ) came to see us on Friday night, McKenna took an instant liking to her as you can see from her goofy smile:

Aunt Blair bought McKenna this little pumpkin hat (which is already too small for her head, I had to wedge her head into it to take this picture) and Grandma bought her the candy corn PJ's to go with the hat, they say "Boo" on the bottoms of the feet:

After a whirlwind week of highs and lows, it was time to come home. McKenna got completely off her schedule, and I'm pretty sure she was having a growth spurt because she was eating about every two hours. She was in good spirits when we went back to the airport, she loves sitting up like a big girl! There's a video too, sorry that it's sideways, I can't figure out how to fix that...my smart husband is at work when I need him:

As you can see, she slept the whole flight home too:
When we got outside we had to wait for the bus for about 10 minutes, which felt more like 1o years, seeing as McKenna was the only one who had a sweatshirt. Both John and I were wearing t-shirts and I even had flip flops on. It was raining/snowing while we were waiting for the bus to take us to the Mt. Elbert parking lot by way of Mongolia.

Here was the weather report while we were standing on the curb (yes that says 39 DEGREES):

...and yes, those white dots in the picture are snowflakes :-(

When we got home, it was only 55 degrees in our house, we had to leave the fireplace and the heater on all night, McKenna even had to wear a hat to bed, you can see that she loved it!

All things considered, we had a good time and it was nice to see my family...sad that we had to come home to winter.

Smile captured on video...

So I did it. I finally caught her smiling on video. It only took like 57 tries and 10 weeks, but I got it. I don't think there is anything quite as fun as trying to get McKenna to smile, John and I spend most of our waking moments (or technically her waking moments, she seems to sleep slightly more often than we do) attempting to coax a smile from her. She's now cooing when she smiles too, which is a newly added and very nice upgrade. You may have to be patient if you want to view this video(I personally think it's worth it, although I am unashamedly biased), it's a rather large file, since I thought it was funny that she starts to pout at the end, so I didn't want to stop taping. These are the things I do when I don't have TV to distract me... I mean, talk about productive!!