Official baby owners

As of yesterday, Spencer and I officially own Grace.  She is no longer a ward of  Orem Community Hospital.  Meaning, we paid off our last hospital bill.  Now, there's no way they can repossess her should any of our payments be delinquent.  :0)  Hooray!  It feels wonderful.  In honor of this momentous occasion, here are some recent photos of OUR little Grace.  He, he. 

Once Grace found this ornament, it was over.  She would not look at the camera for anything.  And...notice how she's balancing by herself?  Hooray!  She probably fell over three seconds after this picture was taken.

Our Christmas tree is very Grace-sized.

Practicing sitting up.

      

Wearing the Christmas dress Aunt Emily bought her.

Grace loves watching Spencer build fires in our often used (but unfinished) fireplace.

As far as Grace is concerned, there is nothing about feet that is not appealing.

Grace can't get enough of this little ball.  It was left in our house by the previous occupants.  I washed it, and now it provides endless entertainment for her.

And last, but not least, our mantel.  I'm really trying to be Christmas-y.

      

Or maybe she doesn't...

This past week we took Grace to an ENT whose perspective on her little breathing problem was quite different than our pediatrician's.  He stuck a little tiny camera up her nose and down her throat and proclaimed that the problem was acid reflux.  He came to this conclusion because the camera showed that her throat was really irritated and swollen--due to all the acid coming up from her stomach, I suppose.  I wonder if maybe it also had to do with a camera being shoved into it against its will.  :0)  

I had mixed reactions to the news.  First, I felt proud.  I had always felt that Grace had acid reflux.  Whenever I read anything about the symptoms of it, it seemed like Grace manifested each and every one of them.  Thinking I was just being a neurotic, paranoid mommy, I didn't give much credence to my personal diagnosis.  When the doctor did, I had a moment of pure joy thinking that I actually DO have intuition (and inspiration) where Grace is concerned.  

Hooray!    

Secondly, I felt silly.  When I was in high school, one Saturday morning I woke up early with (what I deemed) severe stomach pain.  I went up to my parents' room and told them of my stomach woes.  Seeing as my dad had not too long ago been operated on for appendicitis, he rushed me to the ER thinking I had the same thing.  I agreed readily to go along with this because I am always perfectly willing to believe that my health problems are more serious than they really are.  It could be just a dash of hypochondria or...maybe just a flair for the dramatic.  Call it what you will.  :0)  At any rate, I came home just a few hours later with my tail between my legs.  

Turned out, it was just gas.  

For some reason, Grace having acid reflux (which is quite common it seems...everyone I know is coming out and telling me that their niece, friends' child, brother, sister, dog, etc. had it) feels the same to me.  No, it's not some rare, malformation of her windpipe; it's just baby heartburn.  

Third, I felt relieved.  Acid reflux is treatable (whereas I can't imagine tracheomalacia would have been) and we've already seen some improvement, we think.  So, we're happy.  Now I just have to get down how to give her the medicine.  For some reason, I keep squirting it all over her instead of slowly expelling the liquid from the thingey (baby medicine dropper?) like I always mean to.  Grrr.  I blame the thingey.  Since, as we all know, I am a wonderful, intuitive mother.  He, he.

"Tracheomalacia"

Definition: Tracheomalacia in a newborn occurs when the cartilage in the windpipe (trachea) has not developed properly. Instead of being rigid, the walls of the trachea are floppy. Because the windpipe is the main airway, breathing difficulties begin soon after birth.  Congenital tracheomalacia is very uncommon.  

Symptoms    

• Breathing noises that may change with position and improve during sleep
• Breathing problems that get worse with coughing, crying, feeding, or upper respiratory infections
• High-pitched breathing
• Rattling, noisy breaths

Outlook (Prognosis)    

Congenital tracheomalacia generally goes away on its own by the age of 18-24 months. As the tracheal cartilage gets stronger and the trachea grows, the noisy respirations and breathing difficulties gradually stop.

So...Grace has this.  Luckily, her doctor didn't seem too worried about it at all.  We are scheduled to see an otolaryngologist (that means an ear, nose, and throat doctor--hooray for a new vocabulary word, though I wish I could have learned about it under different circumstances) on December 2nd to make sure that there aren't any complications.  I wasn't worried about it at all until I stupidly decided to look up "tracheomalacia" on the internet and found all of the possible serious complications.  Silly me.  Now I'm a little worried.  

But...I've decided to continue having Grace's care in the hands of professionals instead of turning it over to the internet.  I read that in the Reader's Digest once--doctors hate it when you trust the internet more than them. :0)  So...we're hoping for the best.  I think everything should be just fine.  It's just kind of scary to have a doctor tell you that your cute little baby has any kind of problem that is hard to pronounce and has more than ten letters.  Scary mommy moment number one.  Our doctor said that her having this explains why she has not been gaining a whole lot of weight.  Everyone who sees her says she is so small and many have asked if she was a preemie with a low birthweight.  And, uh, we all know she was exactly the opposite.  Yeah.  

Grace is still just as cute as ever and is laughing a lot these days.  She also makes these really sweet little gurgling noises when she's happy.  We love those.  And...she rolled over for the third official time tonight. Hooray!  She's great and we love her.  More to come... 

      

It's a good thing I've never been interested in drugs...

I am a candy addict.  There's no use in tip-toeing around the cold hard truth.  :0)  I have been this way as long as I can remember.  I would like to present the following facts as proof of this assertion.  When I was a kid, my Halloween candy never lasted more than 2 days, tops.  I was always so envious of friends of mine that made it to Easter still having Halloween candy to munch on.  How they did it was beyond me.  I couldn't resist the stuff!  I couldn't understand (and still can't, really) how they could know that a delicious package of Starbursts was sitting next to some wonderfully colorful and tasty Skittles in their drawer and not pounce on the both of them.  A mystery!

And then, there were the friends of mine whose parents actually kept candy in plain sight in their house! (instead of in various hiding places throughout the house--all of which I was very good at finding)  These friends could walk past the jar of candy canes or bowl of Tootsie Rolls and do nothing!  They didn't take one or two and then stash three into their pockets for later!  Once again, pure mystery to me.  I've theorized that because I grew up in a candy-deprived household (meaning there wasn't constant easy access), it has made me all the more obsessed with it.  So, had there been candy strewn all around my house, maybe I would be a very different woman today.  Or...I would have just been a very fat, cavity prone child.  :0)   

Also, I remember my parents trying to teach us how to save our chore money.  We were instructed to not spend our money until we had at least five dollars.  I guess the idea was that the waiting would make us spend our money all the wiser.  Oh, you can just bet that as soon as I had five dollars, I was riding my bike to the local candy store (King's, at the time) and buying five bucks worth of Necco's, pink mints, Sugar Daddies, and Sweetarts.

And don't even get me started on the joys of holiday-specific candy!  Those are my hardest times!  Easter jelly beans, candy canes, conversation hearts, candy corn....ah!  I'm in heaven.

To this day, I have a hard time going into the grocery store and not exiting with a package of Starbursts, Mentos, or caramels.  I remember as a kid thinking (honestly, I really did think this) how wonderful it would be to be an adult and be able to have an unlimited supply of money to buy as much candy as I wanted.  That seemed to me to be the most appealing part of adulthood.  Forget independence, car driving, marriage, child raising....It was all second to absolute candy buying power!

Luckily for me, Spencer is not a crazed candy addict (though he too had a sugar deprived childhood--I guess that blows my theory).  This helps me to find some sort of balance in my crazy candy world.  However, much to my enjoyment, I have recently found something that Spencer "binge" eats.  Swiss Rolls!!  Never having been a big pastry eater myself, I am happy to let Spencer eat the majority of the box whenever one ends up in our home.  I grin as I watch him down 2 or 3 packages in 15 minutes or so.  I guess misery (or candy bingers...) love company.  I'm afraid my sweets obsession has begun to rub off on him after 2 years of marriage...he's been coming home with Swiss Rolls much more often than before.  :0)

  At any rate, I think I have a propensity to addiction.  Hence the title.  There have been many times in my life when I have decided to give up candy for a month or two.  And, I am proud to admit that I have been successful.  But...as soon as I'm done with my candy fast, I jump right back into eating as much of it as possible.  I sincerely believe that I took up marathon running simply for the benefit of being able to eat as much candy as I wanted without seeing the effects of it in my hips.  :0)  To bad my metabolism has decided to change...

Just recently I have begun a new candy fast.  Three nights ago I told Spencer that I wanted to avoid eating candy of any kind until Thanksgiving.  We even shook hands on it.  And then he sneakily tried to include ice cream, popsicles and any other kind of sweets in the deal.  Ha!  Yeah right!  There's no need to get ahead of myself here.  :0)  

I just wanted to report that since that day, I have been stone-cold candy sober.  Thank you.     

Happy Halloween!

We dressed Grace up as a bunny rabbit for Halloween.  She wore the costume three different times: at Spencer's work Halloween party, at a Halloween party thrown by a sister from my mission, and almost to the friends' home where we spent Halloween evening (we took it off before we got there so she would stop crying).  She hated it every time.  It was as if she was saying "bah humbug" to all fun Halloween activities.  Little grump.  Someday she'll dress up and like it!  Following is a rare picture of her wearing the costume and not crying.  I'm pretty sure this was accidental and that she would be angry if she knew we caught her looking content while in the bunny costume.

She was, however, okay with wearing a "trick or treat" onesie during the day.  Victory!

  Happy Halloween!

Why can't trees learn to clean up after themselves?

Last weekend I spent a good 2 hours raking the yard.  And yet...

It still ended up looking like this by the next Saturday.  Argh.  I refer you now to the title of my entry.  So, I raked again.

And then we decided to have some fun.

This was working quite well until Grace decided to start grabbing the leaves and trying to eat them.  That ended her individual photo shoot--she then had to model with props.  

 

To the one

One who loves and gives so freely,  kind and true with warmth inside.

Beaming brightly through cold mis-caring, hoping, serving, till they collide.

Up and down the forces waver, standing tall the one will gaze.  

Often never, but receiving little more than others praise.

Without forgetting, always longing, faithful them the one desires 

Knowing what, and feel you ever, your faithful one sees whats inside.

To the one, so clear and focused, living the unwavering hand

full of love, from the sire, thy day is yet, and yets so grand.

A disconnected post...

Okay, so this post actually is the "To be continued" part of the "Home sweet home" post which you find further down the blog.  Even though I wrote that post today (Saturday the 25th), because I started it earlier in the week and saved it as a draft, it is posted as if I had written it last Tuesday.  Whatever.  So, go read that post first.  It's new and this one will only make sense if you do so.  Plus, it took me a really long time to do.  :0)

So, where were we?  Ah yes, Spencer and I were living in a Taco Bell.  So, after we discovered the horrible mistake we had made, we ran to WalMart and bought a much more pleasing paint color for the living room.  It is now a shade of light green which we find very harmonious with the dining room color.  At least we hope it is.  We like it.  However, my confidence in my ability to choose paint color is not that high anymore.  

Today I spent my day working on our yard.  I love working on the yard.  I had no idea it would be so fun.  When I was younger, working in the yard was a chore.  Now that this yard is mine and it's up to me (and Spencer...) to make it look good, I am surprisingly motivated.  I happily mow the lawn, rake,  and weed the flowers.  Ownership has really changed me, I think.  So, here are some snippets of our yard.  Here is our very yellow backyard walnut tree.

    Hooray for fall!  This next picture is of my chrysanthemums.  Wow, I hope that's spelled right.  Where's Anne of Green Gables when I need it?  They are the pride and joy of our yard, I think.  When we moved in, they were mostly dead.  However, due to my green thumb and consistent watering habits, they are now the lovely specimens you see today.  Okay, okay, really it was just the watering.   

Our house came with a lovely perk that we had not planned on---a hot tub in the backyard!  That hot tub came with an additional perk we had not expected---inclusion in our home warranty plan.  The sellers paid extra money towards the plan so that the hot tub would be a part of it.  We love them.  Having the hot tub under the home warranty plan means that whatever breaks on it (no matter how serious) will be fixed after we pay a mere $55 service fee.  Happily for us, the hot tub was leaking lots of water when we moved in.  So, the service guy came by and declared it quite broken.   Broken enough to need all of its "guts" replaced.  Meaning, we essentially got a brand new hot tub for $55.  Hooray!  We are now hoping that all of the appliances in our house break down beyond repair.  If anyone wants to help us with that, they would be quite welcome.  

   

Giving the base a new paint job is one of our many forthcoming projects.  Hooray for projects!  I suppose they keep life interesting.  

Well, today was Spencer's last outdoor soccer game of the season (don't worry, I'm sure indoor starts up next week...the never ending soccer game...), so in honor of that, I will post a picture.  Enjoy!

Anna Now Wastes All of Her Time Blogging

That's all I have to say.

A Sad Lack of Spencer

I was noticing there are no pictures of Spencer on this blog.  So...an ode to Spencer in picture will now begin.  Just above is a picture of Spencer's brilliant idea of having a "cans for cans" (cans of food for discounted recessed lighting cans) promotion campaign.  What a thinker... :0)  The picture before is proof of Spencer's stint as a UVU Rugby player this past spring.  He picked up the sport out of nowhere (very Spencer like) and ended up being a starter.  He played wing--which is much safer (hooray!) than being in the scrum.  :0)  Just showing off my newfound rugby knowledge.  His team ended up being second in the nation!  Yeah...always happy to brag about my husband.  Spencer is amazing.   

Home Sweet Home

Some of you may know that Spencer and I recently bought a house in Provo near BYU.  We rent out the basement to three female BYU students and are quite pleased at their willingness to pay the bulk of our mortgage for us--at the price of sometimes keeping us up at night with their British laughter and loud, crazy music...sigh.  We actually closed on the house officially (funding went through, etc.) the same day that Grace was born (July 31st).  Man, do we know how to pack in the life changing events.  After putting in new carpet, refinishing the wood floors (no small task I assure you--sanding, anyone?), and tearing out all of the electrical outlets (thanks, Spencer... :0) ), we moved in about a month later.  The list of things we still need to do (tile the kitchen, finish the fireplace, DECORATE, I could go on and on...) will keep us busy for probably the next...10 years or so.  Roughly.  But, we LOVE it.  We love this house and we feel so blessed to be in it. 

It took a lot of work to get both us and the house approved for the two programs we used to help purchase the home.  The following pictures show just a little glimpse of the crazy "refurbishing" hoops we had to jump through:

 

  

 

I wasn't too much help, unfortunately, because I looked like this...and bigger.

I promise I did help out a little bit.  I repainted the front door.  :0)  Just don't look at it too closely.  I blame Grace (who is currently sleeping and can't defend herself) for any imperfections. :0)

Anyway, our first attempt at giving the inside of our house a little style by painting the walls ended in tragedy.  We painted the dining room a lovely shade of thyme green--which worked fine.  However, the "lovely" shade of yellow I picked out for the living room was a dreadful failure.  It turned out not to be "lovely" at all.  In fact, it was much more orange than we had expected and made our house look like a Taco Bell.  Which would have been just fine had we planned on throwing a Mexican fiesta everyday.   This is a picture of the horrible result:

To be continued...

Anna's Stages of Recovery

So, I think that I've gone through some pretty important stages of getting back to my normal self after having Grace.  Sure, I still have a ways to go, but I am happy with my progress.  I don't know how it goes for everyone else, but I think my stages were as follows:

• Stage One: The hospital.  Everything is good and happy.  If Grace doesn't sleep, we drop her off in the nursery and let the nurses deal with it.  I am excited when the nurses bring her in to be fed, even when it's 3 a.m.  I think her crying is cute.  Spencer changes all of the diapers.  
• Stage Two: Home. Friends and family are there to help.  People bring us dinner every night.  I see Grace as a time bomb that could explode into an episode of crying at any moment--crying that I have only a vague idea of how to deal with despite all the books I read.  Every noise I hear sounds like her crying, especially the shower when I'm in it.  I love her, but mostly, I'm afraid of her.  I'm relieved that people want to stay with me and help out.  I'm not sure how to "play" with an infant.  I am no longer as excited when she wants to be fed every two hours at night.  But...I am surprisingly fond of her little lumpy body that flops helplessly in my arms, even though I thought I would be afraid of her fragility.  I change most of the diapers.
• Stage Three: Still home and Spencer back at work.  I have to figure out how to cook again. I no longer hear babies crying in every noise.  I think of Grace's car seat as her sanctuary and don't want her to come out of it in public places.  I feel that as long as she's in it and being swung, she's safe!  I'm getting down nap time, but chills run down my entire body when I hear her little cry earlier than I had hoped.  I think I always have to be looking at her and playing with her when she's awake.  I put her down every night with trepidation, praying she will sleep long--even though she always does.  I still get nervous.  I don't want to leave the house. I strangely believe I will die if Grace cries in public and I can't calm her.  I change pretty much all of the diapers.
• Stage Four:  I begin to realize that I don't have to stare at her every waking second.  I can do things for myself at home again!  I realize that babies are fun.  There are ways to play with them and enjoy them, even though they don't talk back yet.  I let her come out of her car seat and realize that it's easier to hold her to stop her crying than to swing her car seat (and less exhausting!).  I realize I do know what I'm doing to some extent and I can get her to stop crying.  And I'm not publicly flogged when she does cry in public!  I like dressing her up and putting little bows in her hair.  I stop parting her hair like a boy's. :0) I find diaper changing a breeze. :0)
• Stage Five: The current stage.  I adore her more than I ever thought I could or would.  I get excited when she wakes up from naps and don't freak out when it's earlier than expected.  I want to take her around to show her off.  I realize she won't always sleep through the night, but I put her down and act as if she will (for the most part).  I talk to her all the time and dream about what she will be like.  I see her as my little friend.  I think her crying is cute again.  I start to think about taking up hobbies again.  I get things done even when she's awake.  Diaper changing is just a normal part of life.  :0)

Well, I'm not sure if these stages covered all of my eccentric new mother behavior and psyche, but I think they painted a pretty good picture.  I'm so glad that I've come so far.  And to think...it only took me a mere three months to feel normal again...  Bring on the next baby!  Ha, ha, ha...yeah right.

A Sad Discovery

Since Grace was six weeks old, I have faithfully been doing Taebo (come on...it's the only exercise video I have) in order to work off the pregnancy (and leftover mission...) pounds.  I've been feeling pretty good about myself and feeling like this regimen has made a difference.  In one part of the workout, we do 24 push-ups.  I always felt quite smug as I pumped out those push-ups faster than everyone in the workout video.  Until...I realized they were doing full out push-ups and I was still doing girl push-ups.  Feeling like I had built up my strength enough to easily do real push-ups, I decided to try it out.  And I pumped out...one half of a real push-up.  And that was all.  I guess it's back to the work-out room for me.  That's what I get for being so smug.  

In the beginning

I thought I would throw in a phrase or two, being the aforementioned husband, of course.

Anna has been a champ with our little Gracie.  Grace is always smiling, laughing and happy.  Indeed she has her grumpy times, (which she most definitely does not get from her Mommy) but they are generally short lived.   Anna has a way of making whomever she is with happy. It is no surprise to arrive at a happy home, with a happy baby and a happy wife resulting in a happy husband.   Thus the pictures make sense, our happy little lump (Gracie).  

-Spener

What I Love about Grace...a.k.a. An Ode to Grace

I can't figure out how to put pictures with posts, so you'll just have to refer to the long line of Grace pictures I've already put up.  I know that mommies enjoy raving about how wonderful, talented, smart, and beautiful their children are.  I think it's about time that I join the adoring mommy club.  I love my baby.  I really had very little real experience with newborns before Grace (besides babysitting...which doesn't count) so I didn't know much about what to expect.  I read baby book after baby book hoping to be prepared for what I would feel and what I would need to know, but nothing could describe to me how much this little girl would get into my heart and how much she would mean to me.  Not to mention the special little quirks and abilities she would come with.  

From the beginning, it seemed like Grace had little insights into my emotional state and came knowing how to deal with me.  Interesting.  I thought it would be the other way around.  I will always remember one specific time when I was crying about something (could have been anything, really) and holding Grace in my arms facing me.  At first Grace was crying as well, but as my crying got more insistent, she stopped and started smiling at me.  It was as if she knew that I needed a little encouragement--that she needed to be happy for mommy.  There were other instances like this as well and Spencer has mentioned this happening to him, too.  Who knew that babies could cue into their parents' emotions and show a kind of empathy?

At this point (Grace is 11 weeks old), it takes so little to get her smiling.  All I have to do is look at her usually, and she smiles.  She smiles at me even when I've left her in her crib crying for a bit so that I could finish something I was working on.  She forgives so easily (or forgets).  She reminds me a little of our deceased family dog, Rita.  No matter how long we would leave Rita alone in the yard, as soon as we went out there again, she was overjoyed to see us.  Never reproachful; never bitter.  I feel that from Grace so often.  Sure, she has her grumpy days (she gets that from her mom...), but her happiness and excitement is contagious.  I didn't know she would be like that.    

And cooing!  I had no idea her little noises would make me melt so easily.  And they never get old.  

Other cute things about Grace: when the sun gets in her eyes, she bats at it and makes a face like she just ate something terribly disgusting.  She loves sucking on her hands.  For a long time, she hated swinging in her swing, but would happily sit stationary in it for long periods of time just watching Spencer and I do whatever we are doing.  She's just a very social little baby.  As long as she feels like she's being included (a glance and happy word thrown her way at random every few minutes), she's good to go.  

Well, I could probably go on, but I won't.  If anyone actually reads to the end of this, thanks for indulging me.  I guess if nothing else, this is good for my own records of my baby's first months.   

Hmm...maybe I really just need a journal.

  I just wrote a rather lengthy post, re-read it ten times, and decided to delete it.  I was unsure if I really wanted those particular thoughts and feelings out for public viewing.  The other night, I was feeling all sorts of excited about using this blog as a way to communicate with the world and with my friends and family.  I was feeling wonderfully motivated to create captivating compositions that would astound all of my readers (all 2 of them?) with my deep thoughts and philosophies.  Then I realized that my thoughts aren't all that deep and my philosophies are pretty incoherent at best.  So...maybe I'll just use this blog to post photos of Grace and brag about how cute I think she is.  And those deep philosophies and thoughts?  Maybe they're better kept in hiding.  

Hello Blogging World!