14 months

Dear Maggie,

Oh my goodness you are growing up so fast. It's insane. Part of me wants you to slow down but the bigger you get the more fun we have together. It's bittersweet.

You are so big. At your 12 month check-up you weighed about 16.5 pounds. Grandpa and Grandmo took you to get the second half of your flu shot a few weeks ago and you weighed 19.5 pounds. You are quite tall and have a big belly and chubby little legs.

You are finally walking around. Now that you realize it's easier to hold on to things (which you love to do) while walking you've decided that's what you'll do. You look so proud when you walk. You lean back like a cowboy and kinda saunter around. It's so precious.

You can feed yourself with your fingers. It took a while but you finally did it. I knew you could since you had all the prerequisite skills (picking small things up, bringing your hand to your mouth), you just wouldn't. So I consulted the trusty Dr. Spock and left you alone with your food for five minutes at the beginning of each meal. You fed yourself the second time we did that. Now we are starting to work on using a spoon.

You have lots of little tricks you do. You still do 'so big,' although you only put up one hand. Perhaps you are trying to say,"Well, I'm not THAT big." You show us your pretty hair, ears, eyes and nose. You can point out those same things on most pictures of animals. You recognize pictures of dogs and cats. When the cats walk by you you say, "Meow." You know Gogo's name and say, "Gooo. . . go."

You know lots of words: Mama, Dada, Mommy, choo-choo, meow, puppy, dog, kitty, ear, eye, nose, good girl, big girl, NO, uh oh. You love to jabber away. It's so cute.

Basically you are the sweetest baby ever. And you are a great thinker. You listen, examine, remember. You work hard to learn more and more. You are so sweet and beautiful.

I had to bring you up to my work last week and you had so much fun playing with my students. They loved you and wanted nothing more than to play with you. They gave you their toys and markers and anything else you might want. They hugged you and wanted to pick you up but I said no way. It was so cute watching you play. You are the happiest, friendliest baby. You love kids and babies. It's almost Thanksgiving and we'll be going to College Station and I think you'll have a blast with all the other kids there (not to mention all the adults that will be vying to hold and cuddle you--good luck, you are too busy to cuddle).

Love,
Mama

11 months

Dear Maggie,

I cannot believe you are almost 11 months old. How did this happen? You are getting so big. When I lay you down in your crib you look huge. I remember when your crib seemed so big around you but now it looks normal.

You continue to be the sweetest little girl that ever was. Everyone loves you. I am shocked by the number of people who come up to meet you and talk to you. Men, women, children, old people. It's amazing and you just smile and laugh with all of them.

You are already a stealer of hearts. You have your Grandpa (my Dad) wrapped quite tightly around your little finger. Not only him but your Uncle Jeff and Gran (my stepdad) and GrandMo and Nana and Memaw. And of course Aunt Laurie and your Daddy.

But let's not forget Mommy. I love you so much. Seeing your face is always the best part of my day. I love everything about being with you. I love playing with you, feeding you, nursing you, watching you. You are very attached to me and will often cry if someone else holds you instead of me. People make fun of me because I rarely let you cry and will almost always come back and get you. But, what do they know? You're my baby.

You can do so much now. You can crawl, pull to standing and cruise. As of yesterday you can stand without holding on to anything (for a few seconds). And as of today you can stand without holding on to anything (for about one second, but still). It's amazing how fast it all happens.

You can also talk up a storm. You can say mama and dada and make tons of sounds and mimic sounds people make at you. And you love to just chat. It's just baby jabber but you talk, talk, talk. It's so cute.

You are so happy. You are almost always smiling and laughing. You will play with anything and you are good in even the worst situations. Like being on a plane for 4 hours. We went to Maine last month and you were an angel. You did great on the flight there and back and in the car. It was wonderful. And at least a dozen people came up to you on the outgoing flight (when it was just you and me; Aunt Laurie and Uncle Jeff were on the same flight as us going home) to talk to you or play with you or just marvel at what a good baby you were.

I go back to work on Monday. I am not looking forward to it. We have had so much fun this summer. Spending time you with has been such a joy. But I know how much you love Nana and Gran so I know you will still have fun and be well cared for.

I love you so much Maggie. You are the best, most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me. Everyday I thank God I have you.

All my love,
Momma

The Pie

Oh Magpie, what a little princess. This summer has been so much fun. Maggie now has a real laugh but, let me tell you, she is real stingey(?) with it. First she would only laugh about me "eating" her hands. Now she'll laugh if I say her name in a silly voice. But that's it. And it is the cutest laugh. Once she starts whatever I've done to get her to laugh, I do it over and over (not unlike a 3 year old) to get her to keep laughing.

Maggie is also deep into the separation anxiety. If she's tired and I am there no one else can hold her. No one. Not Daddy, not Grandpa, not Nana. No one. And even if she isn't tired she wants to be really close to me. She wants me in her line of vision. If I hand her to someone else and she's tired, oh my Lord, does she let me know. She stares at me in complete shock and cries loudly. And it's the real tears. I'll come back and there will be huge tears on her face. Poor little baby. But Mommies have to eat too and go to the bathroom and even sleep. It's true.

Pie is continuing going all over the place. She crawls everywhere in this crazy dog crawl-like thing. She crawls on her hands and feet. It's pretty cute. She's so sweet. She loves to stand up and does a little cruising but mostly just crawling and standing. Two days ago, for the first time, she was able to use her little push walker thing and actually walk with it. It's like a lawnmower/vacuum shape thing (in tiny baby size) that has wheels so she can push it and walk and have a little extra help. When we first pulled this out, there was lots of falling. The wheels would start going and she would not.

She still eats a lot. I have just started buying her regular (non-baby) food and making it myself. She loves fruit and veggies and salmon and cereal. She's getting much better about non-pureed food. At first she made the most god-awful faces when I'd give her a Cheerio or bite of fruit. You'd think I'd given her dog food.

I can't believe how fast she's growing up. She's almost 10 months. We'll be going on her first vacation soon, complete with her first plane ride, first time in the ocean and first swimsuit. It should be quite fun.

All Caught Up

Ok, I'm caught up blogging about your life up to this point. So now I can tell you about the day to day stuff. We just moved into our house on Cherry Court and you must like it because you, completely out of the blue, have started sleeping through the night. Not that I'm not thrilled. It's nice sleeping. Although I do love nursing and rocking you in the middle of the night. You are such a sweet beautiful baby.

Anytime I go to get you out of your crib you have a huge smile on your face. You are so happy to be awake. I've been letting you kind of try out feeding yourself. Or rather that is what we are working toward. I put your bowl on your high chair rather than somewhere you can't reach and give you your own spoon. Today you seemed like you got where we were heading with this. You picked up the spoon and tried to get it in the bowl. Then I helped a little and put some food on the spoon and you tried to get it in your mouth. It was cute watching you do all of this. You concentrate so hard and look so serious. It's amazing to think that here you are this cute little baby but your brain is working about 5 million times harder and faster than mine.

You have the sweetest little serious face. You look at your toys like that. You hold them in your hands and turn them this way and that and just kind of absorb them. And it's so serious. And then you'll look up to check that I'm still there and laugh like it's the funniest thing ever.

You have such a great sense of humor. This morning when you were nursing you were waving your arm around and I pretended to eat your hand. You laughed so hard but you were still nursing so it was just this hilarious huh, huh, huh kind of thing that doesn't really translate into type.

Lots of Firsts

Look at how cute you are. And check out that rock star hair. That, my dear, is a combination of freshly washed hair and baby lotion. Very cool. This post is out of order because the computer is not being cooperative and won't let me rearrange the pictures into order.

This is your first St. Patrick's Day (Hooray!!!) and your 6-month old birthday. It was such a great time. I was off for Spring Break and we spent the whole week together. You were perfecting your crawling skills and kind of beginning to remain standing by holding on to things. Your personality was really beginning to come through. You are such a happy baby. You are so satisfied with playing and being close to people you love and you will tolerate me hugging and holding and kissing you a lot. I love being with you. You are always such a pleasant companion. I love you so much!!!

Your first Thanksgiving. We were in Bryan/College Station at GG's house. We had just started a strict nursing schedule because you were so little. You had trouble sleeping there because you were so curious. But everyone just adored you. You are now almost 9 months old and you can still wear that Winnie the Pooh set (although it is much smaller on you). I love that outfit.

Your first Halloween. We didn't do anything except have dinner with some friends and family and then hang out at the house with Grandpa and Grandmo. I couldn't find a costume for you which was a real bummer. All the costumes were way too big. It was crazy. This was the closest we could get and it was huge on you. But you were such a petite little thing that everything was always big on you. I finally decided to go ahead and donate your 0-3 month clothes even though you can still fit into some of them.

I love this picture of you. Even after you started smiling it took us forever to get a picture of one. In the time it took to take a picture you made this face trying to figure out what we were doing and what was that red light, etc. But I just love this one. You look so curious and teeny tiny. This was taken at GG's during Thanksgiving weekend.

Coming Home

This was taken as soon as we got home. I went straight to bed because you were fast asleep and Aunt Laurie and your Daddy I guess just stared at what a beautiful baby you were. You woke up around 11pm (we got home at 8:30pm) and nursed. It's funny even though we had things "prepared" for your arrival, I remember a sense of having no idea what to do with you. Where would you sleep? Who would watch you every second? It was so. . . huge. Overwhelming but not with a sense of helplessness. More like complete terror. It's funny to me that something so small can cause grown adults fear unlike anything most have ever felt. I was so grateful to Laurie during the first few days. I couldn't walk upright or pick things up for a few days and your Dad and Aunt Laurie helped with everything. And Aunt Laurie completely organized your room. Unfortunately I never got the whole nesting thing.Your Dad calls this picture "Puddle of Baby." You are so stinkin' cute.

Not really sure what happened here but this is seriously one of my all-time favorite pictures. It's like you lost all control of your face. You crossed your eyes a lot but I'm not sure about the rest of it. If you can make a face like that and still be adorable, you must be pretty darn cute.

You liked pacifiers for a little while but not for very long. I don't think we even have any anymore. But your swing. Oh you loved that swing. For the first several weeks of your life that swing was were you slept. All night. You liked it there and we didn't want to mess things up so we left you there. Eventually I put you in a bassinet in your room and then into your crib but that swing was a life saver (or sleep saver, I guess).

There was a lot of this. And for whatever reason your Dad loved to get pictures of you crying. His reasoning was that it wasn't historically accurate to only have pictures of you not-crying. Which ok, I guess. Plus you never knew when it was going to happen. You'd be fine, then crying, then fine, then hungry, sleepy, dirty, no clue, no clue, no clue. Sometimes I really don't know how we managed to keep you alive and thriving even.

Afterwards. . .

Richard held her first. I love the pictures of him holding her. Already such a good Daddy. I just realized that I don't have any pictures of Laurie holding her. I'm not sure how that happened.

Here are all my pictures of everyone holding Miss Maggie.

Grandpa and Grandmo.

Aunt Gwen with Uncle Mike looking on.

Grandma.

Nana.

Once I was finally done with all of my stuff, someone brought us food. I ate a couple of bites and passed out. Richard told me I looked like someone that had passed out on a subway. I have a picture somewhere where you can see me in the background and I just kind of hunched over, passed out. What can I say, labor is not for wimps.

Here is Uncle Jeff. He was there while I delivered but not in the room. He still loves to tell how I screamed scary movie screams and it scared him. I don't even remember screaming. He also accidentally looked in the tub post-birth and saw lots of blood, etc. and as Mark said,"You can look but you can't unlook."

Maggie's Here!!!

After she was born, Betty immediately put her on my chest, although at first I didn't even realize it. She also put a towel over her so everyone was asking,"Carrie, what is it?" I didn't even look, I knew it was a girl. From the start, Richard and I had known. I just said it's a girl. Can you imagine if I'd been wrong?

I don't really remember any of this, which really stinks. But at least I had these moments. I remember her turning purple because I had the water so cold. Sorry, Maggie. I remember Richard and Laurie being so happy and Richard telling me how much he loved me and thanking me for bringing our baby into the world.

She is so beautiful. Right from the beginning she was the most beautiful baby ever. She had a strong grip and bright blue eyes.

 This is the cord cutting. I remember this. She didn't breathe on her own for a couple of minutes which doesn't matter as long as the cord is still attached. So we rubbed her body to encourage breathing and warm her up. She went from dark purple to a much more healthy pink. Then while I held her, Betty protected her skin and let Richard cut the cord. As soon as it was cut they took her out of the tub and swaddled her to let her warm up. I had to stay in the tub for much less fun things.

Labor and Delivery Pt. 7

This was when labor really kicked in. It was very intense and super painful. Nothing helped. Richard, Laurie and I laid in the bed and they talked to me, held me, rubbed various parts of me, etc. Mom, Gwen and my friend Rosalie took turns rubbing my feet or hips. And while this sounds wonderful, I couldn't even appreciate it (or rather I couldn't enjoy it, I was still grateful).

Everything is so hazy from this time until pretty much the next day. I remember being in the tub for a while. I remember trying to eat and drink but throwing everything immediately back up. Betty "accidently" breaking my water, which is so horrible. Laurie, Richard and I finally got a good thing going. Richard held, rubbed, etc. me while Laurie talked to me. She repeated the same things (Just let the pain wash over you; you can't do anything about it so don't fight it) over and over in the same voice and would touch anywhere on my body that she could see me tensing and tell me to relax that part. It worked great. Around that time Betty checked me and I was 7cm.

But I guess my contractions were getting further apart so Betty wanted to put some kind of cream or something on me to speed up labor. And RICHARD said no, we just want to do this naturally. The same guy who asked Betty when we first talked to her about possibly being our midwife,"If you take her to the hospital if anything goes wrong, why not just start at the hospital?" At this point, I started pushing not because I felt any urge to but just to see what would happen. And after a couple of minutes of that I decided I was ready to have the baby. Again I have no idea why, I never at any point felt any urge to push, I just kinda decided I was going to do it. I have no idea why it worked. I kicked everyone out, decided I wanted to get in the tub and did just that.

By the time I had stripped and gotten in the tub, I really was ready to have the baby. I remember feeling a burning sensation which Laurie told me later is common when the baby crowns. So I got in my cold water (I was hot, I refused to let them turn on the hot water) and started. I couldn't have been in there too long. I remember Betty and everyone trying to get me to push and me just ignoring them. Then Betty yelled at me and made me move around and hold my legs and push. I really felt like if the baby came out, my entire bottom would just burst open (sorry, but I really did). After pushing a couple of times, everyone could see the baby's head and were super excited. So Betty, in an attempt to get me to push harder, told me to reach down and feel my baby's head. At this point I don't know why but I thought I had delivered part of the head (oh silly, silly optimism) so I reached down and realized she was still entirely inside me, I was a little freaked. But in one big push a couple of minutes later, everything came out. I mean her entire body, the whole thing. It was quite shocking to everyone.

Labor and Delivery Pt. 6

The car ride was interesting. Although I hadn't been sick at the house, Richard had to pull over so I could throw up on the side of the road. So, yeah, that wasn't fun. When we got there Betty had already been there because another couple had just been sent home because she wasn't far enough in labor. So that just fueled my fears. If you are not at least 4 cm dialated, Betty sends you home. I was very scared about being sent home. So she put me up on the table and warns me that changing positions causes contractions. Very true. Then she did the pelvic and told us I was only 3 cm! But I guess out of the kindness of her heart she let us stay.

Richard and I had taken our birthing class with Betty and her big thing about early labor was to take something, like Tylenol PM, so you can try to sleep through early labor and save your energy for the hard stuff. So she gave me a shot of something and blissfully, I slept from about 7am until about noon or 1pm. I did wake up to hear the other mother come back and have her baby in about 30 minutes (seriously, it was crazy fast). And that made her and I the 5th set of mothers ever to labor/deliver at the same time there. Thank God I got the room with the tub. Well, I would have gotten it anyway, the other lady wasn't interested in/afraid of a tub birth.

Labor and Delivery Pt. 5

For the next 2-3 hours Laurie, Richard and I laid in our (Richard's and mine) bed. Richard talked to me and held me, Laurie took notes and timed the contractions and I had contractions. After about this time it really all starts getting hazy. At about 6am I called Betty and told her how long I had been contracting, how long my contractions were and how far apart they were. She said to come on in. So Laurie and Richard got everything ready and off we were.