We have had lots of family over the last two months. Dallin and Donna stopped in for a little while on their way home from a trip to Illinois to visit church history sites. They had hoped to stay with us on their way out to Illinois, but the night before they left Donna became sick. They didn’t want to spread germs to our family, especially Kristen, so they decided to stop in on the way home a week later. Sadly, Donna was still feeling under the weather then. They stopped and visited for an hour or so and then decided to head on home. I know they were disappointed in not having more time to visit, but I did appreciate that they were willing to sacrifice that in order to keep us healthy. That was May 13. On the 14th, my parents arrived.
We all went to church together on Sunday. It was my first Sunday back. Kind of hairy trying to get three girls ready for church by nine, including feeding Kristen. I realized when we got to church that I hadn’t fixed Kristen’s hair at all and fortunately she had slept in a cute outfit because there just wasn’t enough time to change it. I was also teaching Relief Society, though I really should have given myself a break. It was a lot to handle. I didn’t feel confident or as prepared as usual. Amazing how a baby who doesn’t do much can take up so much of my time.
My parents had been in Utah watching Dallin and Donna’s children and were more than happy to escape from parenting duties. They were quite exhausted by the time they arrived here, which made a lot of us since I was still getting up in the night regularly with Kristen. Mom did craft projects with the girls making beaded bracelets and necklaces. The girls loved the one on one time. We went to play miniature golf with Grandma and Grandpa. My mom would have preferred not playing at all, but I think she enjoyed herself nevertheless. I pretty much told her she had to play. After golfing we went out to dinner at Olive Garden. That is always a fun place for us to go. My parents stayed until the following Wednesday morning when they got up early to make the trip home.
I have been exercising or attempting to for about a month now. When I walk on the treadmill, I get a gnawing pain on my right side every morning which keeps me from progressing. I don’t know if it is from being out of shape, from nursing, from being exhausted–or probably a combination of all three–but I don’t have a lot of oomph for exercising. I look at my body and wish that it were different, but I’m not following through on the exercising part.
Linda came for a long visit beginning on a Wednesday over the Memorial Day weekend. Sadly she came with laryngitis and woke up Thursday morning with inflamed and pink eyes. She was pretty upset, as was I. I didn’t offer to have her hold Kristen until Saturday when I thought she was on the mend and the rest of us weren’t picking up what she had. Chris made an appointment for her at the doctor’s office a couple miles from our home. The doctor said that her laryngitis was clearing up and the eye problems should go away. She flew home the following Tuesday. The highlight was visiting the Alpine slide in Golden, Colorado at Heritage Square. I stayed with Kristen while the girls, Chris, and Linda took three turns on the slide. They all loved it.
So more about Kristen’s growth and progress. At two weeks she had her first doctor visit. I can’t say that any doctor visit during the first year and a half is all that pleasant for a baby. At this visit, she had her heal pricked and then while she was screaming they had to squeeze enough blood out for the PKU test. She was definitely NOT happy. Amy and Misha were with me, but were playing on the toys in another area of the doctors’ office. They could hear Kristen wailing, as could most others and came to see what was happening. By this time I was cradling Kristen trying to calm her. Amy started talking to Kristen and Misha asked if she could sing to her. Mish just made up the words and the tune impromptu. What sweet girls. But the thing that really impressed me is that they were able to calm Kristen down and it was obvious that she recognized them.
Kristen smiled at me for the first time on May 16. Grandma Rice was actually the first recipient of a smile a couple of days earlier, and though Chris tried to encourage one out of her, he didn’t get a smile from Kristen until a couple of weeks later. He was pretty happy when she finally did smile at him. Kristen is a bit ahead of schedule with her rolling over. At approximately three weeks, I noticed that she was trying to roll over. I was amazed that she was even trying and definitely tried to discourage her from doing it so early; she wasn’t successful at it until about 5 weeks of age with Grandma Ball.
Kristen loves to look around and gazes specifically at the ceiling fans in our rooms. It seemed as though when she reached six weeks her eyes suddenly focused and she became more alert. Her neck muscles are strengthening and her skill in holding her head up and keeping it still is improving.
I had my six week check about a month ago. Dr. Isbill, the OB, gave me the go ahead to start exercising. My incision looked as though it was healing well and she was impressed that I had already lost 20 pounds. Impressive, I suppose, but I sure do wish it were more and faster. If my body mirrors other pregnancies, I won’t be losing a lot of weight until I stop nursing and that is not fun.
Amy and Misha came down with colds after Grandma Ball left–the first week in June. I quarantined them from being around Kristen. Amy is a lot better about remembering, fortunately the rest of us, especially Kristen were able to avoid being sick. By this time in Misha’s young life as a baby she had already been sick twice and caught a cold again at three months.
Kristen had her two month visit with Dr. Moffatt and weighed in at 12 pounds 3 ounces. She has grown 2 1/4 inches and is now 23 inches long. She is in the 75th percentile for height and weight. The poor thing got four shots in her legs–pretty traumatic for all of us as Amy and Misha were with me.
The girls are always coming up with funny things to say and I try to remember a write them down so that they can have a laugh at them later in life. A couple weeks ago, we were rounding the corner coming home past the mobile home park below us. A new trailer was being moved in and was still in two pieces. All of a sudden Amy says, “That house is having a heart attack.” I laughed and asked her why she thought that and she said, “It’s falling apart!”
Misha’s latest phrase when I ask her to do something and she doesn’t want to is, “I don’t feel good like to do it.” Not sure where she picked that particular phrasing up. I bought some strawberry flavored applesauce the other day and gave it to the girls for lunch. Misha had a taste and said, “Mmmm, Mom, this tastes better than the yucky stuff.” Meaning, of course, regular applesauce.
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