Taking the good with the bad

Leila seems to have a very bad case of baby acne. It started last week and was just a little on her cheek. Then it spread to her neck, ears, back, chest and I started to worry. It looked so red and irritated so I called the doctor and got her an appointment. Kolt's family has a pretty bad history of severe skin issues, allergies and eczema, so I figured I couldn't be too careful. The doctor looked at her for two seconds before saying it was just a bad case of baby acne. Thank goodness! It looks awful but she's not in any pain or at risk of infection, so I'm relieved. I have some friends who's kids have had it and they said it should go away around 6-7 weeks. The good part of the appointment is she got weighed, and she now weighs 10 lbs 2 oz!!! She's growing up so fast and so well. She's not a chunker, but she's got little rolls that are just darling.

I've been trying for about a week to get Leila to smile to no avail. Then Wednesday night Kolt comes home from work and holds her for about two minutes and he gets a HUGE smile. Little stinker. Wide open mouth, nice gummy smile. It made me cry, in part because I was jealous and partly because I'm so happy. She's such a beautiful little girl! We tried to get her on skype with her Grandma Harris so she could see it as well, but by the time we got connected she had a tummy ache from her vitamins and wouldn't do it.

Then Thursday morning I got up with her and fed her and rocked her for a while. I could tell she was in a good mood and not only did I get several smiles, I got a giggle! That has to be the most beautiful sound in the world.

I'm getting the hang of managing the house and taking care of her at the same time. Wednesday we went for a long walk with her in the snuggli, then when we got home I vacuumed, cleaned the bathroom, kitchen, and straightened up, all with her on my chest in the snuggli, and she slept! Even through the vacuuming. Later on that day I went to the grocery store. I've been afraid to do that alone but with her in the snuggli, she just slept and I was able to get all my errands done.

She's had some rough nights of sleep, and some awesome ones. I'm hoping to get more into a routine at bed time and hopefully get to the point where she goes to sleep around 11, sleeps until 3, wakes up to eat, and then sleeps til 6, eats again, and then sleeps til 9 or 10. Through the night her routine is pretty consistent, but her bed time varies depending on how upset her tummy is. Stinking vitamins.

My weight loss has seemed to stall. Everyone kept telling me not to worry about the weight gain because breast feeding just melts the pounds off. I always knew this was too good to be true, and it looks like it is. Five weeks post partum and I flipping GAINED a pound this week. Argh, I could cry. So all I was able to lose with the breast feeding train was 22 lbs. Which is great and I shouldn't complain. But I was really hoping to get down to 10-15 to lose on my own. 27 is seeming like such a huge number. Since I can't really cut calories it's going to take forever. I see myself in the pictures with Leila and I can't stand how huge I am, it's like it's ruining those precious pictures for me. We're doing family pics when we go to Idaho next month and I was hoping to be much closer to my pre pregnancy weight. Once the doctor clears me to run, I'd better get on it. Thankfully my foot no longer hurts, so I'll have no excuses.

Spoke a little too soon

This week has been a lot harder. I wouldn't say Leila has colic, but we've had some bad bouts of tummy aches and I just feel so awful for her. Wednesday night I did everything I normally do at bed time, sang to her, fed her, played calming music, rocked her, for over an hour and it didn't do any good. Kolt came to bed at midnight and took over and she was screaming for another hour before we finally got her burped enough to go to sleep. I'm hoping it's only temporary, but who knows. I've heard that colic usually sets in around three weeks, and she's four weeks now. I truly hope it's just been a few bad days and she'll be ok. I hate feeling helpless when she's screaming.

I keep trying to figure out if she has a schedule or not. Most of the days this last week she'd settle down for a long nap at 10:30 but the last two days that didn't happen. She ended up crashing around 1 and would wake up long enough to eat then go back to sleep on Thursday. This is all well and good except that it means she's not going to bed at a decent time and sleeping well at night. Friday she hardly slept at all during the day and did manage to sleep for 4 hours straight last night. It does seem that no matter what around 7 or 8 in the morning she's awake and doesn't want to sleep anymore. I need to just start getting up then and when she goes down for a nap around 10 or 11, get some more rest. It doesn't do me any good to try and get her to sleep longer so that I can when she doesn't want to.

Leila is getting bigger everyday. We ran out of the new born diapers and decided to just go on ahead and use the size 1 that we have. They're big, but they fit her. She is still in some new born clothes but is slowly graduating from them and moving on to 0-3 months. She really is such a sweet heart, I'm so lucky to be her mother!

I'm getting really excited for October! October 1st-3rd we're going to Laughlin AFB in Del Rio to visit our friends, October 6th Piper is coming to visit for several days, Kolt is getting promoted to 1st LT on October 5th I think, and then we're going home for two weeks!!! September is winding down and soon the awesomeness that will be October will be here :) That will be so much fun, not sure I can handle it all.

I have a friend here, Annie, that I wanted to brag about. She works with Kolt and is also known as Capt. Nesbit. Annie is in Maryland for a training for her upcoming deployment in November. She was out jogging the other day with some other officers and apparently one of them had a heart attack during the jog. Like full on collapse, unconscious, the real deal, heart attack. Annie, being the AMAZING nurse that she is, kept her wits about her and performed CPR on the man. He went on to have bypass surgery and is expected to make a full recovery. Thanks to Annie that man is alive today. She is truly a hero in every sense of the word and I'm so proud to know her and call her my friend.

The whole weight loss thing kind of sucks. I'm down 21 lbs so far, but I gained (can't believe I'm going to admit this) 47 during the pregnancy. So I've lost almost half of it, not really doing anything besides walking and some sit ups. I try to eat well but I'm not stressing over it yet. I'm looking forward to my 6 week appointment so I can get the green light to start running. I'm not going to lie though, the 1 mile walk I'm currently doing leaves me winded by the end of it, so it's going to be a LONG road back to a 5k. I keep meaning to look up a race in November to run, but haven't done it yet. I read on my friend Chrissy's blog that she plans on starting to run too, so maybe it's something we can do together. I will of course ask Annie and Kolt to run it with me, but they're in a league SO far ahead of me I can't hope to keep pace with them anytime soon. Eventually, I hope, but not yet.

Reflecting back on 26

I am now 27 years old. At first I was kind of having a hard time with it. I know most people would laugh at me for any kind of discomfort for a twenty something age, but I finally realized why I was struggling with it. 26 was pretty much the best year of my life. So many wonderful things happened to us this past year that I'm hard pressed to believe that it can get any better. Here's a recap of 26.

-Shortly after my 26th birthday we FINALLY got Kolt's orders and found out we were moving to Texas. We had been waiting for that information for months and we were SO happy when we finally got the news.

-Kolt's COT date got bumped up from January to October. While it was scary and hectic, this truly worked out for the best for us. Kolt met our very good friend Annie at COT and we were able to move on with our lives that much sooner.

-Kolt had PRK eye surgery and no longer needs glasses or contacts to see!

-I got pregnant. We weren't trying and that was the best part. We had been in San Antonio just over a week when I found out. One of the best days ever.

-I had a mostly worry free and easy pregnancy. After two losses in years past, I was SO grateful to have a complication free pregnancy.

-We've made some great friends. The Nesbit's, the Amport's, the Sanders', and most recently the White's. These are some of the most amazing people and I feel so fortunate to have met them and become friends with them all.

-And of course the most wonderful thing of all, Leila was born. How can you ask for anything more than the perfect child that we have?

When I look back at my birthday last year and think about all that's happened since then, it seems like a whole different life and world away. Last year we were living in a small apartment in down town Salt Lake, childless, pre-air force. I have a hard time even remembering what life was like before Kolt joined the air force.

Over all 26 in all honesty was likely the best year of my life, so far. 27 is going to bring with it new adventures and challenges. Watching Leila grow up will be amazing, sending Kolt off to Afghanistan will not. I don't like to think about that, but it's a reality we'll be facing soon enough.

My birthday ended up being really fun, courtesy of the White's. They came up from Laughlin AFB in Del Rio to visit and we just have such a blast with them. We went to dinner, then we shopping for a present for me. I was hoping to get some sort of peridot jewelry for Leila and for Kolt since they're both August babies. (Kolt argues and tells everyone it's NOT for him, but it is as much for him as Leila.) We got to the mall and shopped and walked out with a darling new outfit for Leila, a new iPhone 4 for Kolt, and nothing for me. :( There was a necklace that I did like, but I want to shop around a little more before I make the purchase. But regardless, I had a good time. We're actually going to go down to Del Rio to visit the White's in a few weeks and Kolt is going to compete with Stephen in a shooting competition. It sounds like a really fun contest and Kolt will LOVE it. It happens to fall on a 4 day weekend for Kolt, so we'll probably spend several days there. I can't wait!

Settling in

Well this week my mother went home and it's just been the three of us. I cried after she walked into the airport. Kolt looked at me and said "We'll see her again in a couple months, it's ok." I tried to explain that's not why I was crying. I mean, I will miss my mother, but I was crying because now we were officially on our own. No more moms around to do the laundry, or dishes. No moms to make three delicious meals a day. Just us.

We've actually done pretty well, although I will say our meals are struggling some what. I need to make out a menu so I don't have to stress about what to make every day, I think that will make things much easier for me. Kolt has still been home on paternity leave and we've mostly just been hanging out. However yesterday he went in to work for a meeting at 10am that I assumed would last an hour. At 1pm I get a text saying the leadership hadn't even shown up for the meeting yet and he would still be a long while. Leila and I did great though. She eats, sleeps, snuggles, repeat. Throw in an occasional diaper change and that was our day. I created her birth announcement and caught up with some friends with FB chat. It was basically like any other day before Leila came along, except I get snuggled all day now. Can't really complain about that. When Kolt came home is when she decided to get fussy lol. It actually lasted into the night and we are both dying today. Sucky thing is Kolt had to work an 8 hour shift today, Leila and I stayed in bed til 10:30. We didn't sleep much, but at least we got to relax. Now that we've gotten up and ready for the day, she's asleep, peacefully in her chair. Little stinker.

My birthday is tomorrow and at the moment, as far as I know, there are zero plans in the works. I had initially wanted to do a spa day, but none of my friends can go and I don't want to do it alone, so I'm back to square one. I've been debating asking a friend to babysit so Kolt and I could go out to dinner....but I'm not sure I can bear it. I've left Leila for an hour before but not any longer than that. I know she'd be fine and I'd be fine, but I wonder whether or not I'd actually be able to enjoy the night out because I'd be stressing about her. We'll see what Kolt comes up with but I kind of have a feeling 27 will be pretty uneventful. He unexpectedly had to go back to work yesterday and today, so any time he may have used is gone. But considering I got the BEST present ever this year, I can't really complain :)

We got Leila's new born pictures done this week. She is such a beautiful child. It's hard to see how much she's grown when I'm around her all the time but comparing her 3 day old pics to her 2.5 week pics, I can really tell how big she's getting!

Second week as a new mom

Leila had her 2 week appointment today. She's now 8 lbs 5 oz, up from her 3 day check up of 7 lbs 2 oz!! I'm so relieved. I've kind of been able to tell that she's been gaining as she has some little rolls on her legs now, but it's nice to know for sure. She's been sleeping for long stretches at night (one night up to 5 hours) and rather than enjoy it and rest, I've been worried. Now I'm hoping I can relax and catch up on some sleep.

This week has been pretty uneventful. Kolt's parents went home, :( that was really hard. His mother was such an amazing help to me, I hardly had to lift a finger the whole week other than to hold Leila. She cooked and cleaned and just made transitioning home that much easier. Besides all of that, I adore his parents and miss getting to be around them more. The only thing that made it easier was knowing we're coming home to visit at the end of October.

Even though Kolt's parents have gone, my mother is still here and that has been wonderful. She is also an amazing help with Leila and the upkeep of the house, but I am trying to do more than just sit around and hold my baby. We made banana bread yesterday, and I'm hoping to actually start making some meals. Mom also prompts me to go on a walk at least once a day which is good. I was so gung ho to start running, I failed to realize how hard it would be to get back into it. I have some sort of stupid injury to my heal/achilles tendon. It's hard to describe but basically if I put on a shoe that has a back to it, it HURTS. It's almost like it's bruised when pressure is put on it. Kolt thinks it may be because I've worn flip flops forever and my foot is in dire need of good support. I'm going to give it to my 6 week check up and then ask my doc for a referral to a podiatrist or orthopedist. I HAVE to be able to run to get this baby weight off! I'll keep everyone updated as to how that goes.

The weather here finally seems to be cooling down. Well, I say that and what I mean by cool down is highs in the low 90s lol. In fact today the high is 87! What a relief that is. I'm hoping soon to see the end of the 90's and welcome the 80's. It probably won't get down to 70's until October, but it gives me something to look forward to.

Leila continues to be such a great baby. I hope she stays this great, if she does then being a mom really won't be so hard. I always heard how difficult it was to have a new born and we have yet to see why. Hopefully we aren't jinxing it, but she only cries when she's hungry or has a tummy ache, and she never cries for very long. She's so snuggly and happy, we're so blessed!