Seven Months

Oh my sweet baby girl. This has been a really rough month for you! You have essentially been sick for the entire month. It all started when Nana and Papa were here. You got a cough and a super stuffy nose. That turned into a really bad cough and a really runny nose. Which turned into a fever. Which turned into pneumonia. We are now 3 1/2 weeks into you being sick. I think you're on the mend now. Nothing like a giant dose of gross-tasting antibiotics to kick it to the curb! (by the way - you really HATE the antibiotics. You gag and choke every time we try to give it to you!)

But on the positive side of things, you also managed to reach a few key milestones. You started solid foods (cereal, mainly) - but due to the aforementioned illness, you haven't really progressed much in that area. And you can also sit up by yourself now! Every once in a while you topple over, so we keep pillows around you when we're not sitting next to you, but overall, you are one strong little girl. You love playing on the toy piano - especially because you can sit upright and play it all by yourself now!

Even through all the stuffy noses and late nights not sleeping, you still manage to be one of the cutest, sweetest and most loving little girls in the whole world. Your little toothless grin would drag me out of bed every hour on the hour if you needed me.

iloveyoumadly.
mama

Six Months...and a few weeks

I can't believe I forgot to post on your 6 month birthday! You are really starting to become a little person. You can sit up by yourself for a good minute or so before teetering sideways, and you've started pushing your butt up in the air to scoot backwards when you're on your tummy. You can move all over the floor now! You've also started solids - rice cereal, mainly - but we've added a few pureed goodies. Your favorite so far is sweet potatoes. You actually lick you lips and waggle your hands when you see the spoon coming toward you! It's adorable.

We've been suffering through a pretty nasty cold the past week. Hads had it first and then apparently passed it onto you. Baby colds are the worst - you can't tell me you're miserable so all you can do is fuss and cry. Which is terribly unlike you. Your poor nose is so stuffed I can't even use the bulb syringe to get anything out! And the cough - oh man. That just keeps us up all night. I'm so afraid you're going to choke like you did in the hospital the day you were born. It's probably irrational to feel that way, but I can't help. Needless to say, I'm not sleeping so well.

Nana and Papa came out to visit this past weekend. They couldn't believe how much you've grown since this summer! Even with your little cold you were so sweet and loving, and so full of smiles for both of them. You are such an affectionate little bug. You love to hold people's faces in your hands and then gum them to death with your wet little mouth.

Grammy is flying out tomorrow to spend Halloween weekend with us. She's really excited to see her little girls again. You are so lucky to have grandparents that love you so much!!

iloveyoumadly.
mama

PS - the pic is courtesy of your big sis.

Wake Up Call

It's Saturday morning. You woke up at 5:30 a.m. You never wake up that early. I decided to bring you into our bed to feed you in the hopes that you would fall back to sleep. You didn't. You decided you wanted to chat and play with my face. So we hung out a bit in the bed. We finally went downstairs and made coffee around 7. At 7:30 you decided you were hungry again, so I fed you as we sat on the couch and watched t.v. You peacefully fell asleep in my arms so I brought you back up to your crib and just as I was about to crawl back into bed with daddy to get a few more lovely moments of sleep, your sister woke up.

Sigh.

iloveyoumadly.
mama

Five Months

I can't believe my little baby is 5 months old today!! Wow. It is so cliche, but it really has flown by.

The biggest change in you right now is that you are a ROLY POLY HEDGEHOG!! Holy cow, kiddo. As I mentioned last month, you started rolling over from your back to your tummy in one direction. And then this weekend you discovered you could continue on and go from your tummy to your back. So now we put you on the floor and you roll one direction endlessly until something or someone stops you! And everytime you pop onto your back, you look at us like "WHOA! When did you get there?" It's so funny. It's not so funny in the middle of the night, however, when your little arms and legs get stuck between the slats in the crib and you wake up crying. This has happened every night for the last 3 nights. I am very tired.

Your giggle lights up a room. As Marina says, "Berit has the laugh of a little angel." It is so sweet and innocent. You are especially giggly on the changing table, when I smother your tummy and your neck with kisses, or blow on your face and hair. And your HAIR! I thought your sister had a crazy mane as a kiddo. Nothing compared to you, my dear. Yours is thick and stands straight up no matter what we do! Your hair actually stops people in public. At the grocery store the other day a young woman stopped us to look at you. She had a little girl about your age. She was AMAZED at your hair and called you a cockatoo. Her little girl was bald, so I forgave her. :-)

Thinking about you makes my heart swell!! Right now as I sit at my desk at work (clearly not working) I am tearing up. I walk that line all mothers walk - I can't wait for to reach that next milestone and yet I want to put you in a jar and keep you right where you are.

iloveyoumadly.
mama

I Just Found This...

Births submitted for the week of April 22
Daily Camera staff
Posted: 04/26/2009 12:06:00 AM MDT

Births
Boulder Community Hospital
LARSON - Ginna Larson and Nels Larson, of Boulder, a daughter, Berit Louise Larson, born April 14.

Apparently I forgot I submitted your birth announcement to the paper.....

iloveyoumadly.
mama

Movin' Right Along....or One More Way You're Just Like Your Sister?

You had your four month check-up with Dr. Cohen today. You're perfect. We knew that. Here are your stats:

Height = 25.5 inches
Weight = 14 lb 10 oz
Head = 16 inches

Just because it's funny, here were your sister's stats at the same check-up:

Height = 25.5 inches
Weight = 14 lb 2 oz
Head = 16 inches


I am sure this won't be the first time we compare you to Hadley. Sorry kiddo - such is the life of #2.

iloveyoumadly.
mama

Four Months

You are four months old today!! Seriously. Where is my life going.....?

Where do I begin with this update? Well, for one thing YOU'RE ALREADY ROLLING OVER!! I don't know if I am ready for this yet. Now I have to pull out the bumpers in your crib and watch you like a HAWK to make sure you're breathing through the night since you will ultimately only want to sleep on your stomach from here on out. This is very distressing. But hey kiddo!! Way to be advanced in your gross motor skills.

Did I tell you I dropped you on your head? Yep. I am the clear winner for the 2009 Mother of the Year Award. I will start this by saying you're clearly OK. No long-term damage done. And other than your refusal to let me hold you for a good 15 minutes after the incident, there wasn't any short-term damage, either. So here's how it all went down: we were in Minnesota for our annual summer trip. I was showing you off to Grandma and Andpa - letting them see how strong you were by letting you sit up on the table barely supported (seriously - looking back on this I have no idea what I was thinking), and you fell over on your head. Not to the floor - you hit the table - but there was a large thud followed by blood curdling screams. I started crying, Hadley started crying because she was terrified of what she just witnessed, and Daddy immediately grabbed you out of my arms as if I was some sort of terrorist. It was horrible. And to make matters worse, Grandma called me "SuperMom" in jest for the next two days. But like I said: you're OK. :-)

You were baptized while we were home. It was a beautiful ceremony in Grandma and Andpa's backyard with family. Uncle Brad came too, since he is your Godfather. It was so much fun. You slept through the entire ceremony - even when JR poured the water over your head (he actually got it to stand down for all of about 2 minutes!). At one point your darling big sister reached over from my arms and grabbed your hand - she held it through the rest of the ceremony. Everyone smiled at the wonderful relationship the two of you already have.

You were also a very lucky girl - you got to visit not only with all of your grandparents, but your great-grandparents, too. You saw Grampy and Nonny this trip. They both loved you and were so thrilled to spend time with you.

I absolutely love being your mommy. You are the smiliest, happiest baby I have ever known. Thank you for showing me that having a second child just allows my heart to grow exponentially for my babies. I am so blessed to have the perfect family.

iloveyoumadly.
mama

1st Day of School

Today was your first day at school. And daddy is out of town so I had to drop you both off all by myself today. Normally this wouldn't be an issue - and I am guessing from now on it won't be - but I was a mess this time. I bawled. Poor Helen (your teacher) had to hug me and reassure me everything was going to be OK. Thankfully she knows our family and can't wait to have you all to herself. Now if she can just get you to eat......

iloveyoumadly.
mama

THREE MONTHS!

My sweet B-Bear. You turned three months old yesterday. As you will soon learn, I have great intentions to be on time with this blog but rarely ever am. Just ask your sister...

You have had a busy few weeks! I started back to work about 2 weeks ago part-time in the mornings. And since you aren't starting daycare at TinyMinders until next week I needed to recruit a little help. So Nana came out the first week and spent every morning with you, working with the bottle, singing lots of songs. You loved it. You smiled at her so much - especially when she sang to you!

And then Grandma and Andpa came out for their turn last week. Grandma loves to play with little kids and she is so good at it! She spent hours and hours in the morning with you showing you blocks, and teaching you about the alphabet. And Andpa played the guitar (albeit not well - don't tell him I said that!) while you watched. It is so fun as your mama to watch how your each of your grandparents have something fun and different to offer you. Grammy is coming out next week for a few days and she will spoil you rotten with presents - so see? Each one of them is so different, but each one of them loves you so much!

You are starting to really reach some fun developmental markers. Here are a few that have happened in the last two weeks:

-Smiling!! Not just when we smile at you, but when you feel happy. And BOY! Is that frequent. I love it.

-Smoother muscle control. You found your hands recently, and you spend a lot of time trying to control how they move. We have this "Under the Sea" play gym that has toys hanging over your head, and you spend lots of time under there trying to grab the toys. You are getting much better at grabbing them when you want!

-Head control. You are holding your head up on your own a lot more these days. And when we put you on your tummy (which you despise) you can even raise it off the ground for a few minutes. GREAT JOB!

When you are a mommy you will realize how exciting each of these markers is. It's like a constant race to see what you'll do next - and all we can do is provide you the freedom to figure it out. We keep having to remind Hadley not to hand you things when you're trying to reach for them - she wants to help so much! But you've got to learn how to do it on your own. I think that might be one of the toughest parenting lessons out there - and my guess is that it's one we'll have to be reminded of frequently throughout your life.

iloveyoumadly.
mama

Check-up

So you went in for your first round of shots today. You did well - though I have to say I am impressed with your lung power! I've never heard you scream so loudly.

You are officially on-track to match your sister in impressive growth statistics:

12 lbs 2 oz (Hads was 12 lbs 5 oz)

24 inches (Hads was 21 inches)

You are in the 90th percentile for everything! WAY TO GO BABY!!

Two Months

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY!!

You are two months old today. I can't believe it. Things sure have changed in the last few weeks. In fact, today both daddy and I declared you to be the President of the "Happy Baby Club." You are such a sweet, even-tempered little bug! Just like your big sister was. Your smile just lights up the room. I am so completely in love with you.

You took your first airplane trip this past month. We went to San Diego to see Uncle C Bones graduate from High School. You were amazing! You were an angel on the plane - both ways - and you were the most perfect baby at all the festivities. Everyone was so impressed. Your Gramps got to have some very special hug-time with you and it was so precious.

You still won't take the bottle - it's freaking us both out a bit. I even spent a ridiculous amount of money on this European boob-looking thing that swears the most finnicky of babies will eat from it. Really? Guess not. I just hope your Nana - baby whisperer - can work her magic with you when she's here in a few weeks.

The other thing that is a bit intense is your karate-like arm and leg movements. It really wreaks havoc on your sleep schedule. When you were a newborn we decided not to swaddle you - it mostly had to do with the fact that while you were in the NICU you had all those wires on you and we couldn't. So when we got you home we never tried. BIG mistake. I think this is what prevented you from learning how to sleep on your back. So here you are, two months old, and I just started swaddling you. Works MIRACLES I tell you. Except you're so strong you bust out of it after about 5 hours tops. So I went online today, did a little research and found they make a swaddler just for babies like you. And they have it at Target. HUZZAH!! I will be heading over there shortly.

Anyway - aside from the two above small issues, you are a dream baby. We are so blessed to have such amazing beautiful little girls.

iloveyoumadly.
mama

The Evil Bottle

Here you are seven weeks old today and this is only the 2nd post! I must be busy with something....like being your mama. :-)

We've been trying to get you to take a bottle - daddy works with you every night. But you will have NONE of it. Apparently you're a bit attached to the boob. We've tried 4 different kinds of bottles and so far none of them are the answer. We'll keep trying. Marina said she would even come over one night so we can leave the house and she'll work with you. It wouldn't be that big of a deal, but call me crazy - I'd like you to learn how to drink from one before I leave you at daycare for 8 hours!

You are becoming such a sweet little baby. You are starting to smile and respond to me, daddy and especially your big sister. You love her! I can tell. Every time Hads gets close to your face you light up and try to touch her, smile and coo a little bit. It's adorable. I love seeing the two of you together. I really think you will be the best of friends - just like Aunt Ba and mommy.

iloveyoumadly.
mama

PS - you're not a puker anymore! Dr. Cohen prescribed Prevacid and all is well with the world. Hallelujah!

Welcome B Bear!

Hello My Sweet Baby Girl!

We welcomed you to the world at 7:29 a.m. on 4.14.09. After 13 hours of labor over night, you only needed a quick 14 minutes of pushing to come out. They laid you on my belly immediately, and just like your big sister, you didn't cry. You just grunted and grabbed my finger. I was so happy to see you!

The first few hours were really easy. You nursed immediately, you let the nurses weigh you and give you your first shots with calm. And once we were transferred over to the Mom & baby side, you napped for 4 hours! It was wonderful since daddy and I had been up all night trying to get you to come out!

Dr. Cohen came in to meet you around noon. He woke you up for your first check-up and was amazed by how relaxed and mellow you were. But it kind of went all downhill from there. As he was checking you out, you threw-up (which we later learned was something you do everyday!). Only you couldn't clear the mucus from your throat and you stopped breathing and turned completely blue. Dr. Cohen immediately called the nurse and they took you away to the NICU. Daddy followed, but I was in still in bed and couldn't leave. I was so scared. A few minutes went by and no one came back. Finally a nurse came to get me and took me to where you all were. They had you hooked up to a bunch of wires and were giving you oxygen. It was so scary! You were so unresponsive. Dr. Cohen was very concerned and ordered a bunch of tests, and checked us into the NICU for the next 24 hours. Everything turned out OK, but it was one of the worst few hours of my life.

As I mentioned above, you are a puker. You don't just spit-up. I mean, you full-on puke at least once everyday. The kind of puking where I need to give you a bath. And sometimes give myself a bath, depending on where it lands. I am actually a bit concerned, except it is clear you are gaining weight so you much be getting nutrients! (In fact, you gained an entire pound on a week!)

You are also VERY noisy. We had you sleeping in our room for the 1st week of your life, but I had to move you into your crib after a few days because you kept me up! You grunt and fuss all the time. You don't cry - which is great. And in general you still a very easy baby - but you are noisy. Thankfully I have learned your noises for the most part, so I think it is just gas. But you freak your dad out a bit. (You will learn that pretty much everything you and your sister do freaks him out - he loves you both so much that he worries about you constantly!)

One thing I have noticed lately is that you are very connected to me. Though it is sometimes exhausting (you need to me to hold you if you are awake), it is also precious to know how much you need me. If daddy is holding you and you start to get fussy, if you hear my voice or can grab my hand, you immediately relax. I am certain you are comfortable with daddy - you always quiet down when he picks you up - but there must be something in my voice that relaxes you even more. It's pretty amazing and another reason why I love being a mother - your mother - so much.

iloveyoumadly.
mama