P-A-D: Days 80 - 86, First Week of July

Day 80: July 1, Turtle Time!

Does my girl have the best turtle collection or what?

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Day 81: July 2, missed it

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Day 82: July 3, Girl in a Towel Redux

I keep meaning to photograph our girl in the bath, and there is never any time. I finally get some good pictures of her, and the best one is this gorgeous shot of her after bath time is over. Oh well, I'm sure there are still a million more opportunities to come!

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Day 83: July 4, Happy Birthday America

A special dress for a special girl on a special day. Happy 4th!

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Day 84: July 5, High Five

Not quite a high five, but she'll figure it out...

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Day 85: July 6, missed it

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Day 86: July 7, Quiet Saturday Afternoon

A perfect, unguarded moment with daddy and baby.

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P-A-D: Days 62 - 79, End of June

Day 72: June 23, Raise Your Hand

This is her favorite sleep pose.

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Day 73: June 24, missed it

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Day 74: June 25, Girl in a Towel

So many spit-ups, we finally just wrapped her up in a towel to wait it out until she was finished. Here she is, sleeping it off.

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Day 75: June 26, New Gym!

She loves these birdies just as much as the animals on her swing. Thank you Fisher Price!

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Day 76: June 27, A-a-a-a-y-y-y

Wait, she knows who the Fonz is already?!

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Day 77: June 28, Look at my pretty- Yawn!

Wearing a new dress for Mommy's photo shoot is exhausting!

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Day 78: June 29, 11 Weeks Old

Just look at those eyes. Wow.

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Day 79: June 30, First Trip to the Mall

She was so considerate, sleeping at the restaurant until we were done with our meal. Her reward: lunch in the lounge!

P-A-D: Days 62 - 71, Mid-June

Day 62: June 13, Two Months Old!

Here she is, all decked out in her pretty Two-Months Birthday Dress. Happy Birthday, Kiddo!

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Day 63: June 14, missed it

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Day 64: June 15, 9 Weeks Old

At some point I have to stop keeping track of her age by weeks, because it just gets confusing for her to constantly be having anniversary days that just get wider and wider apart. Until then... here she is with her favorite buddies: Lion and Girl-in-the-Mirror.

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Day 65: June 16, Pink Lady

Today did not go as planned. We all had a rotten day. :( At least the girl looked cute for a few moments in her new pink sweater.

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Day 66: June 17, Another Side-by-Side Pic

Back on May 2, I snapped a picture of Eric with Kai and Nikka in almost this same exact pose. Once again, it's easy to see just how much she's grown.

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Day 67: June 18, Impromptu Full (almost) Family Photo

Fiona did not get the memo about picture day... But everyone else is here! Some of us are even looking at the camera...

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Day 68: June 19, Grasping

She held her first toy today! OK, so we had to put it into her hand. Which meant first prying her hand open because the moment you touch her hand she closes it into a fist. But that meant that once the rattle was in her hand, it didn't go anywhere for quite awhile!

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Day 69: June 20, missed it

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Day 70: June 21, What I See...

In those first few days of life, I often wished to myself that I had a way to photograph the girl exactly the way I saw her through my eyes. Today it occurred to me that I could at least attempt something close to this using my remote switch. Many bad angles later, I finally got something close enough to call it a day. There's just no better way to see her than when you're gazing down at her in your arms.

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Day 71: June 22, 10 Weeks Old

Asleep on the couch. If only she was always this calm...

P-A-D: Days 50 - 61, Beginning of June

And so the days pile on top of each other and no blogging gets done. *sigh*

Day 50: June 1, Is she really that big?

The turn of the month made me realize she had been home for well over a month, and I wondered how much she had grown. So here is a before-and-after photo: on the right, we are still at the hospital at only a few days old; on the left, we are comfortably at home and she is about 6 weeks old. Her head looks bigger now, she looks bigger, and I think she's longer.

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Day 51: June 2, Thanks Aunt Holly!

A box arrived today, and inside was a gift all the way from England - wow! Isn't that a gorgeous turtle? There just aren't enough turtles in the house for my honu keiki! This definitely helps. Thanks Aunt Holly for the beautiful, thoughtful gift! Oh, and did you see the kitty trying to sneak in a wee sniff? Nikka has been the perfect angel around the baby. Whew!

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Day 52: June 3, Trip to Bothell Landing

We visited another park today! We saw duckies and geeses and lots of fluffy, fooshy things floating in the air. Must be from a cottonwood tree, since that's what the little tufts look like: cotton. Right? And guess who forgot to bring the camera? Mommy! Oh well, here's a nice pic of baby Kailea after we got home.

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Day 53: June 4, PEPS Group Photo

We should have taken this picture at week one, but no one thought of it until today. Oh well. Here are our babies, L-R, oldest to youngest: Heather's Adelyn, Katie's Jack, Kyrie's Henry, Christine's Finn, Julie's Ethan, my tiny baby Kailea, and Lauren's Eleanor. The girls are all just chillin', while the boys all seem to be going for the action shot. Be sure to check out PEPS (Program for Early Parent Support) if you have a kidlet of your own!

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Day 54: June 5, Who's that girl in the mirror?

Daddy was trying out various things to keep baby Kailea from having a melt-down during tummy time. A story didn't help, the mini Boppy pillow and matching mat weren't doing the trick, and those rings were boring. But what's this...? What's a mirror? And who's that girl in there looking at me? She looks just like me!

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Day 55: June 6, Missed it - argh! >.<

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Day 56: June 7, It's her again!

Kailea is just enthralled with looking in the mirror. She usually talks to herself, babbling and making all sorts of squeaks and grunts and yips. This keeps her from having the required Tummy-Time-Is-Over-NOW-Melt-Down for... a little bit longer anyway.

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Day 57: June 8, Eight Weeks Old

Here is a pretty girl in her pretty 8-weeks-old-birthday dress. Today we weighed 8 lbs. 7 oz. (only 4th percentile, but a gain of 2 lbs. 5 oz. from birth), we were 21" long (8th percentile), and our head was 37" around (20th percentile). We got a bunch of immunization shots today, and weren't very happy about it, but felt much better after sleeping all day!

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Day 58: June 9, Kitty Is No Consolation

Little Kailea was inconsolable for some reason or other, and didn't even notice that she was laying up against the kitty. Nikka was concerned about the crying, but very calm.

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Day 59: June 10, Cousin Ashley's Graduation Party

My beautiful neice is graduating from high school. Way to go Ashley! Kailea wore her best dress and charmed the pants off of everyone at the party. Everyone had fun, even baby!

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Day 60: June 11, Tuckered Out from the Babysitter

This was our first time leaving the girl with someone outside the family, and our first time leaving her without one of us present. Yikes! We went to see Ashley graduate, which was very hot, crowded, and uncomfortable - the perfect distraction to keep us from worrying too much about baby. Baby had a good time getting held a lot by Sabrina, Sabrina's kids, and Sabrina's friend Heather Puett - our professional baby photographer from last month. Apparently, all that being held was very tiring!

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Day 61: June 12, Parenting is Perilous

Here I am with my brand new wrist brace, diagnosed with a form of tendonitis called De Quervain's tenosynovitis, or Mother's Wrist. My second parenting wound (the first was the C-section scar)! Supposedly it's from overusing my thumb while picking up baby Kailea, but I think it's from holding the bottle during feedings. The girl really thrashes around most feedings, squirming and kicking and grunting as she tries to poop and eat at the same time. Keeping the nipple in her mouth through this is kind of exhausting. It gives me one reason to be relieved that I'm not breast feeding though!

Laughing in Disbelief

I've been waiting for just the right event to make my first post under the category of "Laughing in Disbelief". Maybe it should have been about the day of my C-section? But that was just too serious to be snarky. Today is so about the snark.

Yesterday I got a diagnosis for my newest Parenting Battle Scar: De Quervain syndrome, a type of tendonitis. I just woke up with it about 2 weeks ago, and it's gotten worse and worse. So now I have a diagnosis, a proper wrist-brace (my carpal tunnel ones don't do squat to eliminate side-to-side movements), and a course of action.

So why am I laughing? Well, the true title should be "Laughing in Hysterical Disbelief". Imagine my voice getting higher and higher, my grin becoming more and more Joker-esque as I relate this information to you. That's hysterical baby. And any time I am diagnosed with yet another ailment, I get a bit hysterical. Especially when pain is involved. Especially when this could be something I'm going to be dealing with long-term. Because I don't already have enough ailments for the Fates to just leave me alone? Because I don't already have enough places on my body with chronic pain? Because all of my other ailments being long-term or permanent isn't enough?

Yep, I'm hysterical. I realized I'd gone over the edge after reading this at Wikipedia:

One retrospective series documented resolution in 90% of patients within 1 year

The especially fun part about this? The built-in irony of the thing: caused by picking up baby, who will need constant picking up for at least a year, and the best/only way to fix this is by resting the tendon by not doing the things that caused the initial injury. So *if* I stop picking up my baby, I have a 90% chance of being better within a year.

Now I know why the Joker had that plan to infect everyone in Gotham so they would get his smile - he wanted them all to share his pain.

Oh, did I mention that the keiki is now demanding to be held 24/7? As if I wasn't getting nothing done already. It's hard enough to try to make a bottle one-handed, and now that hand erupts in fiery pain with most movements.

For 4-6 weeks. For months. For up to a year. (It depends on what site you read.) Unless I'm in the 10% who don't resolute within a year. What are the chances of that? About the same as being diagnosed with nerve pain in 5 separate, unrelated spots on my body maybe?

Hysterical? Who me? No, never!

P-A-D: Days 42 - 49, End of May

Once again, I've let the days pile up between blogs. As mentioned in my previous post, my blog is suffering from my sleep deprivation. I even missed a photo: May 27. >.< C'est la vie.

Day 42: May 24, Tummy Time

Kailea does not enjoy Tummy Time. She began screaming about 30 seconds after this picture was taken. So much for 30 minutes a day...

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Day 43: May 25, Exploding Bag of Hand-Me-Downs

Eric has been coming home from game nights with treats since the baby was born, and this time an overly-full bag of hand-me-down baby clothes was included in the gifting. The bag almost immediately tipped over to spill its contents on the table, which I thought would make for an interesting photo-op. Thank you Horstmanhof family!

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Day 44: May 26, Girl asleep... finally!

Sometimes the girl cries uncontrollably, and there's not much reason to it, so there's not much you can do to fix it. We each have our own secret weapon for just such an occasion, which works... about 90% of the time. Eric's is the chest nap.

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Day 45: May 27, *sniff* missed it *sniff*

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Day 46: May 28, Cousins!

Getting cousin J.R. to interact with Kailea was a little easier this time around. Getting him to participate in a group photo, not so much. Good thing he didn't see me there with my camera! Cousin Ashley looks as charming as always.

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Day 47: May 29, My Secret Weapon

Similar in style and effectiveness to Eric's chest nap is my tuck-and-cuddle. The girl finds it very soothing to be hugged against me with her arms trapped, just like a swaddle, but allowing for more skin-to-skin contact.

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Day 48: May 30, Tummy Time Augmentation

This is a Boppy product, a little pillow to help prop her up to give her a little extra advantage in her fight to keep her head up. I think it works because she can see more this way, as her head doesn't have to lay on one side or the other. Her neck muscles are just fine, as she proves on a regular basis when pushing away from us during hugs. We are just having a hard time convincing her to duplicate this while she's on her tummy.

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Day 49: May 31, Cradle 'n Swing

Since she officially hates her bouncer but finds being rocked in her car carrier... agreeable, I thought she might appreciate a swing. The first try didn't go so well, although she did seem fascinated by the mirror ball above her. I think it rocks too fast for her, quite possibly making her queasy, as she started looking like she was having difficulty holding down her foods. The feature I like best about this swing is that you can position it to swing 3 different ways: facing left or right for a front-to-back swing, or facing forward for side-to-side cradle action. I thought the front-to-back swinging would be her thing because it's the same movement she gets when we rock her in the carrier, but she seems to (slightly) prefer the swing rocking side-to-side. She actually fell asleep for a few minutes. Thank you Fisher-Price!

Sleep deprivation is kicking my ass

Sleep deprivation is bad for marriage. Daily, if not multiple times a day, I find myself wanting to scream at Eric for the smallest things. Luckily, he hasn't been in the room at the time, and I soon get over myself.

Sleep deprivation is bad for baby. I spend most of her awake hours wishing she was asleep. While she does sleep a lot, most of her time is spent eating and/or dealing with eating: spitting up and pooping. So most of my time is spent giving her food, wiping her bum, and looking at her with a worried expression while I watch her little body try to keep her food down. This quickly gets very, very old.

Sleep deprivation is bad for my blog. Not only haven't I been blogging, but I skipped a day's photograph last week. *sigh*

Sleep deprivation is bad for my sleep disorders. I spend as much time as I can off of my feet, which my body takes to mean I'm "relaxing", which means it's time for my RLS to start up. Some days I can't nap or even sit down without having to deal with my legs wanting to constantly kick and squirm. Which makes for a very humorous picture, I'm sure, for anyone watching me holding the baby while she's kicking and squirming too. But the real problem with RLS is the medication I take, and trying to work in the after-midnight feeding while dealing with nausea and extreme sleepiness. We've developed a sleep schedule where I go to bed much earlier than Eric, he stays up late to give her a late-night feeding, which usually means I get a full 5 hours of sleep before I have to get up to feed her around 2am. Usually. This usually means that the nausea/doped-up feeling has passed. Usually. As an extra bonus, earlier this week I got real evidence of something I long suspected: I have REM Sleep Behavior Disorder. So much for the experiment with co-sleeping.

Sleep deprivation is bad for my pain. Spending as much time as possible off of my feet, means a lot of time sitting on my bum, which means my sciatica is kicking my ass more than every. Literally. Between my arthritic knees and my sciatica-pained butt, the only time I'm comfortable is when I'm laying down. Hence the experiment with co-sleeping. Since that's out the window… well, I'm kind of just screwed all over. Extra bonus? I somehow mucked up my right wrist, so moving it in some directions is painful, and moving it in other directions is excruciating. Sleeping, feedings, bottle washing, carrying baby… all are that much more difficult. No one said this was going to be easy, but come on!

Sleep deprivation is bad for my social life. Social life? What's that? Wait, I'm supposed to be able to leave the house? Not when I smell this bad and my eyes are drooping this low. With greasy hair and ripe clothing, I went grocery shopping and ran to the pharmacy yesterday out of sheer desperation. Boy did my ass pay for that.