time stopping moments...

perfection.

Ok so just to forewarn you I about to get all mommy gushy & emotional on you. I am sure you all have those times where you really stop and soak in the moment you are living at that very second. It seems as if I never really remember doing this until I met Josh and we fell madly in love & even more so now that we have Harper. I just had one of those moments and I realized how happy I am with my life and I am so lucky to have all that I do.

Harper and I decided to drive and have lunch with Josh this afternoon. We went and had some Mexican food which is my favorite. Especially on a gloomy cloudy comfort food kind of afternoon. Josh works about 30 minutes away from where we live so it gives Harp and I some girl time in the car. On our way back home I looked in the mirror that is attached to her headrest so I can see her since she has to sit rear facing. She was just as happy as a clam playing with her stuffed blue frog that her Mimi bought her. I thought to myself that not too long ago she could not even stay awake for the entire drive to or home in the car. She would always fall asleep. However, she is now 8 months old and such a big girl and can keep herself entertained for the entire drive. One of her favorite things to do is to turn her head up and to the side so she can see what I am doing. I am usually singing to the latest weeks performances of American Idol and she doesn't mind that I may or may not be a fantastic singer =). Anyway, on our way back I saw her looking up at me and I reached my arm back towards her car seat so I could touch her. When I did this, with her tiny little soft hand she grabbed my fingers and just held on. This was when I had that time stopping live in the moment kind of feeling. Her tiny little hand made my world pause and realize how amazing it is that this little girl is mine, how special she is, how much I love her and how fast she is growing up. Only a month ago she could not stay up for the drive, two months ago she was just starting to sit in a highchair during lunch and four months ago she would have been asleep in her car seat during all of lunch!

Now, I loved Harper from the moment I looked at the little stick and saw a plus sign indicating I was pregnant. I loved her a little more the first time I found out she was a girl, heard her heartbeat, saw the little lima bean on the ultrasound, or met her for the first time in the delivery room. My love then however, was nothing compared to what it is today. Now that she has her own personality, her deep raspy voice, her crazy wiggles of excitement, her love for animals & her dislike for most green foods. Now is the moment that I love her more than I thought I could ever love anyone or anything in my life. It is unimaginable. It is indescribable. It is perfection.

J's 30th birthday

My handsome hubby with his birthday cake!

We kicked off the month of April celebrating Josh's 30th birthday! We invited some of our close friends and spent a weekend at the Hard Rock Hotel in Tulsa gambling and partying the night away! We had such a fun time and it was also the first time we left Harper to stay overnight with my mom for a few nights & she did fantastic. Josh was able to take off 10 days for a little R&R vacation/birthday time so after we got home from the party weekend we spent the rest of our time hanging out and doing a small celebration on his actual birthday. It started out with a home cooked breakfast with blueberry pancakes and bacon. Then we went with Josh while he golfed (which was not a great idea to bring a baby on a very windy morning......). That afternoon J took me out to the gun range so I could experience and learn to shoot a gun. OH MY GOSH it was so emotional. I don't know why but the second I took my first shot I just started tearing up. It was loud, it was powerful, it was overwhelming. Don't get me wrong I am a moderately emotional person but I am not one to just break out in tears for no reason. I told him that I didn't want to shoot it anymore but I decided to put on my big girl pants and tried firing a few more rounds. I became a bit more comfortable the more I shot but still, guns are scary to me. I am not about killing anything, even if you are going to eat it. I am not a vegetarian either but just the though of actually killing something makes me sad. I remember the first time J went to buy a rifle at Bass Pro Shops. The salesperson who was trying to explain the different bullets pulled out this super pointy one. He explained that it would be good to shoot dogs with. The second that sentence came out of his mouth I again just started crying. Now I am not sure if he meant actual dogs or if he meant coyotes or something else but the thought of an actual pet dog getting shot broke me down. I literally had to leave Bass Pro while he finished up his purchase. Wow I kind of went way off track with my gun stories but oh well!

After the gun adventure we went by the meat market to pick up king crab and steak for dinner and it was sooooo delicious! I had not eaten crab legs since the beginning of my pregnancy and it was amazing. I was glad that I didn't ruin it for myself because the smell of crab when I was pregnant grossed me out so much and I never wanted it at all. I also baked a delicious strawberry cake and bought our favorite champagne Sophia. This champagne is what we drink every time something special goes on in our lives! We had a really fun day and I am so glad we were able to spend the entire day together because I am a sucker for birthdays. =)

7 months of parenting fun!

We love to put down a blanket, bring out the toys and play outside in the afternoons. We have had some pretty incredible weather lately! And this sun hat is probably the cutest thing EVER!

Today my little girl is 7 months old! You will hear every parent say this but oh my I can not believe this much time has passed & we are getting closer and closer to her being 1 year old!! I thought I would update on Harper's progress on this post and then in the next few days I will update on our life in general. =). After my last post, my "tell all" that very day I had so many of my mommy friends contact me. I think possibly they were worried. That was not my intention with the post. I just wanted to be honest about how things have been and to inform people on the good & the not so good of parenting. However, a good friends of mine Jessi actually called me that day and informed me that her son has Acid Reflux as well and we were able to share stories and tips to each other that made me feel a million times better. It is always nice to know you are not alone.

Anyway, on to the fun stuff! Like I said, Harper is 7 months old today and these are the things she is doing now:

• She is starting to mumble words together such as babababa & dadadada
  
• Sitting unassisted for a little over a month now (boy is that a game changer with her being able to entertain herself with toys!)
• When on her stomach she can scoot herself in a circle going counter clockwise and we are working on clockwise
• She recognizes & absolutely adores the animals. They gravitate towards her and she mostly loves our cat Dexter. She pets him quite a bit throughout the day & he loves it.
• She can feed herself puffs and actually makes it in her mouth 50% of the time
  
• She is starting to work on getting to the stomach position when sat down somewhere to play.....my days of plopping her down somewhere and knowing she will be there when I get back are nearing an end
• She can support herself standing up when holding on to the coffee table or furniture (yet has not grasped the concept that when she lets go she will fall)
• When we hold up her hands and she is standing she is working on taking steps. Now I am not saying she is anywhere near walking but she seems to be more interested in this than the whole crawling/scooting business (this could be because of her stomach issues & not liking the pressure of being on her tummy?)
• She smiles A LOT! She is a very very happy child now that we have the reflux under control. Every morning she is so happy when we come get her and same with naps!
• She is eating solids with every meal and loves to eat bananas, pears, peaches, plums, kiwi, sweet potato, avocado, butternut squash, acorn squash, carrots, summer squash, & spinach. I do lots of combinations with these and her favorite seems to be banana/avocado (Thank you Katie for this suggestion!!)

Updating on the reflux:
After we saw our pediatrician here in Duncan for the first time she prescribed her Prevacid. We were on this for a little over a week or two and decided it was not working well for us and honestly it was more of a hassle than the Zantac. It had to be taken on an empty stomach so when we woke her at 7:00 she had to wait 30 minutes to eat. The tablet was not intended to be cut in half and we had to do so for her dosage so we had problems with it crumbling to pieces, etc etc. After her issues of spitting up and fussiness came back we went back to our pedi and put her back on the liquid Zantac 2x day 1.5mL . What we also decided to do was give her solids with each feeding. Harper is on a 3.5 to 4 hour schedule eating at 7:00am, 11:00am, 3:00pm & 6:30pm. After I breast feed her she eats some solids after and this has seemed to really help her stomach! Also I will be honest that she naps in her car seat for her daytime naps and then she is in the crib during the night time. Having her sit upright in the carseat has really helped her. I do think she now could go to the crib for daytime naps but it is one of those things that I don't want to mess up something that is going so well! She takes a nap from 9:00-11:00am, 1:00-3:00pm and a short cat nap around 5:00-5:30. Another big help is having a schedule for her naps & feedings. She knows what to expect, we know what to expect and it just makes life a bit easier. We still deviate some days but in general having some kind of structure has been a great thing for us. =)

Playing outside with daddy

Our newest bump in the road has been teething....yuck! I will say that Humphry's teething pellets are a huge help (Thank you again Katie!) Harper has one little bottom tooth that has broken through the gums and is working on the other one now. Of course she is the baby that is super affected by the teething process. She was up from 2am-4am the other morning crying in pain and was very fussy for a few days along with a fever. I will admit that the tiny little tooth is just so cute!!

Chewing on frozen blueberries to help sooth the teething pain. This mesh thing is AWESOME & pretty messy!

My tell all of my parenting experiences thus far...

Playing in her exersaucer her papa and nana bought her for Christmas! This has been a lifesaver to help me get things done around the house while she plays in it!

Ok.....so if any of you reading this are somewhat close to me and talk to me occasionally you will know that I was blessed with a BEAUTIFUL baby girl but not an easy baby girl! Harper is almost 5 months old now and I will admit that this parenting gig has been more difficult than I was hoping, but not expecting, for. Things started off strong after she was born. She quickly slept pretty well during the nights and when she would feed at night she would go immediately back to sleep with no problems. I read many books and decided that between BabyWise and The Baby Whisperer were my two favorites. So of course I thought that as long as I followed these books ideas and suggestions that I would end up with an "easy" child. Things were going pretty well and I thought I was on the right path to easy parenting when all of a sudden she was crying nonstop! I would lay her down for her naps during the scheduled time and she would SCREAM! I thought that she was just testing me but it just would not stop. If you are a mom and you have read these books then it will tell you that yes it is difficult to allow your child to "Cry It Out" but things will get better with time. This was not the case for me. I recall one day Josh was working and Harper and I were at the house. I tried all day to lay her down for naps and it was unsuccessful. The poor little girl was crying so hard and so loud and I was doing everything in my power to make it stop. I would rock her, walk with her, bounce her, feed her, whatever came to mind I tried but none of it helped. I will tell you that I ended up in the closet with the door closed in the dark holding her as close to me as possible and we were both crying. At this point I knew that this could not be a normal thing. I understand that babies cry, but not to this extent.

I, for some reason, did not want to be perceived as the mom that freaks out about everything. I didn't want to take her to the doctor and be the crazy lady that thinks everything is a bigger issue than it was. However, I recorded her meltdown that day with my iPhone and showed it to Josh when he came home so he could understand what was going on and why I was so incredibly stressed out. We decided to go ahead and make a doctors appt for the following day (she was around 5 or 6 weeks old). When went to our pedi's office the next day he said that her symptoms were most likely from having acid reflux. Are you kidding? A tiny little thing like this can have acid reflux?? Well, apparently so. Along with her prescription of Zantac that she takes two times a day, I have had to change my diet since I am breast feeding. NO dairy, NO caffeine, NO spicy foods. The caffeine & spicy foods were no big deal to grasp. Dairy though, that has been a struggle! I absolutely love milk, cereal, cheese, ice cream, yogurt, cottage cheese....you name it and I love everything else that falls in to the dairy category. But to choose between continuing to breast feed my daughter or giving up a food group, I decided to sacrifice the food. I mean I had already given up some of my favorite things, i.e. alcohol, sunny side up eggs and processed meats while I was pregnant it was just a new adjustment.

With the medicine she is on it is very weight sensitive. As she gains weight her dosage needs to be increased. Unfortunately, I have to find this out the difficult way when she needs her bump in medicine by going through a few hard days of her throwing up, being very fussy and not napping much at all. The nice things is that the pediatrician I was seeing in Norman has triage nurses on call 24 hours a day. I would simply call the nurses & tell them what her symptoms were, they would contact our doctor and then they would write me a new prescription with her increased dosage. We have not yet gone to meet our new pediatrician in Duncan but I am hoping things are as easy with him/her!

My next biggest battle that is correlated with the acid reflux is our daytime napping. I have talked to so many of my other mom friends and their kiddos nap like a dream! Three to four times a day for 1.5 hours to 2 at EACH NAP! I am quite lucky if Harper naps for 2 total hours throughout the day. I am so extremely lucky that I get to stay at home and take care of my little one, but I feel like a failure a lot because it is very hard to get all the chores done around the house, have the errands run, dinner on the table when she does not sleep much. Fortunately she is beginning to get to the point where she can entertain herself for a little bit of time so I am able to get things done. Again, since my friends little ones were napping so well I figured it was something wrong I was doing so I gathered all the information and decided to try the Cry It Out Method again. You see Harper will go down for a nap just fine but she wakes up after 30-45 minutes and will not go back down. Like I said, I decided to try the CIO method and that lasted only 4 days. She was a wreck, I was a wreck, and my poor husband was wondering what in the world was wrong with us! She would cry until the time she was "supposed" to be getting up and it never improved. Because she was crying it would make her spit up and the back of her hair was wet & again, I knew that this was not right for us.

With some additional research online I have found out that it is very common for babies with acid reflux to only want to nap for 30-45 minutes. Their reflux will wake them up and if you try to let them CIO it only aggravates the reflux and makes it worse. So I just have to come to terms that I do not have the "easy" child. She will probably not nap as well as I would like her to until she gets over her reflux issues (they can start disappearing around 5-7 months and typically do not last past 1 year).

What I can say is that although being a mom has not been a walk in the park with my little cutie Harper I have found that when I relax, stop stressing over what a book tells me to do, and just take her for what she is I realize that I am the most blessed person. Harper smiles ALL THE TIME, she giggles, she loves music and dancing, hearing herself talk and is a very happy little girl. Being a first time mom is hard but at the same time it is the coolest thing to be. To see the day to day progress of her learning and developing is simply amazing.

I know this is an long blog post, it is just something I wanted to get out there. I want to end this post by stating that I truly have the most amazing husband that I could ask for. He has never made me feel bad for not getting something done around the house when we are having a bad day and he does such a great job of helping out when he is home with us. I hope Harper understands that she has a dad that loves her more than she will ever be able to imagine. She has already has him wrapped around her little finger and he will do absolutely anything for her. I just wanted to say....Thank you Josh!! Thank you for cooking me breakfast on your days off or going to the store to get me a Sierra Mist Natural. Thank you for playing with Harper in her room so I can try and get in a nap. Thank you for understanding when you come home and we have had a bad day. Thank you for being you and for honestly being the perfect husband, best friend and dad Harper and I could ever ask for. I love you so much and I love our perfectly imperfect family!

the past three months

Harper only 3 days old!

Harper at 3 months old!

I can not believe 3 months have already flown by! One of the things I have enjoyed is that I have not really known anyone that had a baby around the time Harper was born. Mostly for the reason that I am not sitting and comparing everything she is doing (or not doing) to others. I have told myself that Harper is her own person and she will do things on her own schedule. I do not want to be the crazy mom that is super stressed because someone else's child is rolling over but mine is not. That can't be healthy for her! Anyway..... the things she has been doing are:

* Focusing on objects and following them when moved from side to side/up and down

*Smiling all the time (this one is my favorite!)

*Supporting her head

*Holding her head up during tummy time

*Beginning to understand that she can make things happen (i.e. when she pulls the frog on her activity mat it will sing a song)

*Using her core muscles to try and sit up

*Bearing weight on her legs when I hold her up

*Makes intense eye contact. Especially when you are telling her a story or singing to her

*LOVES music....mostly the Black Eyed Peas

*Sleeps through the night since 7 weeks old!!! (7pm-7am with a 20 minute feed around 10:30)

Every day she amazes me with all the little things she is doing to learn and develop. However the whole experience has not been the easiest. She has been quite the fussy one and also has acid reflux. This can make our days very long and heartbreaking. Who knew babies could even have acid reflux? Basically, if she lays down on her back she begins to scream bloody murder because of the pain. She will then spit up/throw up and sometimes when I get her up from naps her hair will be soaked from the spit up. My pediatrician has prescribed her Zantac. It helps most of the time but I have had to watch my diet as well. No caffeine or dairy. The former is not so bad....the latter is a killer. I love cheese. I love ice cream. I LOVE milk! I will admit that I do not always stick to it as much as I should but I definitely reap the consequences if I slack. Apparently my brother and I were the same way when we were young so my mom switched to formula feeding and we had to have soy formula. I can understand why she did it but I am so used to breast feeding (and the saving all the money) I figured I will just improve my diet, which will hopefully help me lose the last of the baby weight anyway!

I also told myself before she was born that I was going to put her on a strict schedule so my life and her life could be somewhat predictable. To my surprise I did a great job in the beginning. I was strong when it came to letting her "cry it out" for naps and working on a routine feeding schedule every 3 hours. But as life throws curveballs at me is when I tend to stray to my inital great ideas! With the acid reflux we have not had the most successful time with napping. She will nap maybe 45 minutes and then usually lets out a scream to let me know she is having pains again. If she does not wake up screaming she still wakes up after about 45 minutes with a GIANT smile on her face letting me know she is ready to be awake again. How can I leave her be when she is sooooo happy?? Plus the older she gets, the more personality she has. This makes it much harder to allow her to cry.

My absolute favorite part of the day every day is at 7:00 a.m. Not because it is 7:00 because I will tell you when my alarm goes off, I am not always ready to get up. But, when I walk into Harper's room and lean over the crib to tell her good morning she is the happiest girl in the world. She opens her eyes and gets this grin from ear to ear. It makes my heart jump with happiness every morning. She is so excited that it is a new day!! Josh and I actually race to see who can get to the crib first to get the first smile.

So...over the past three months I have had so much fun watching Harper grow and learn. Also, I have had fun learning with Josh how to be the best parents we can be. So far, I think we are doing a pretty good job!

The birth of Harper Adalyn Pluid

It has been quite some time since I have blogged. I have a lot of catching up to do but I will begin with the most important event since I last wrote. It is a bit long but I did not want to miss any important details!

The arrival at the hospital. My last belly shot!

Excited mom & dad to be in a few short hours!

First off and most obvious Josh & I had our first little girl on August 18th, 2010 at 12:20pm weighing in at 7lb. 7 oz. We had the date and time scheduled because we knew beforehand that I was going to have a C-section.

When going in for our ultrasounds our little Harper was Frank Breech (she was basically folded in half in my belly with her head by my left rib, her bottom was down by my abdomen and her feet were up by my right rib). Needless to say this created a lot of difficult breathing along with multiple kicks to the ribs & sides during the last part of pregnancy! When I was about 35 weeks pregnant at the doctors check up she still had not turned into the correct position for a vaginal birth. Our doctor gave me the option of either trying to have her and another doctor turn her manually & then they would induce me, or I could go for the c-section. I know it sounds strange that I would automatically go for the C-section but something in me knew the whole time that would end up being the way I would deliver her. When my mom was pregnant with me I was positioned the exact same way and she had a C-section with me. Like mother like daughter!

The benefits of having a C-section:
1. Knowing the exact date of when your baby will be born
2. I never had to experience any contractions or pain
3. I was able to have my bags packed, shower and put make-up on before the delivery
4. Being able to read about the procedures and talk to those who have gone through it
5. I never had to experience any contractions or pain =)
6. Your baby comes out with a perfectly shaped head
7. All my family and friends were able to take off work and be there
8. Being able to stay in the hospital 3 nights and utilize all their resources for questions
9. Did I mention that I did not experience any contractions or pain?

The disadvantages:
1. It is major surgery (but a very common one)
2. I was not able to get up and walk for a day (hooked up to an IV & catheter until the following morning)
3. The morphine kicked my butt!!!
4. Having a scar
5. My husband watched them do the surgery (creeped me out, I just figure a husband should never see my insides!)
6. Finding a comfortable position for breastfeeding without bothering the scar
5. Recovery takes a bit longer...but the pain medicine was my savior!

The process of the surgery was amazing to me. If you know me at all I am someone who thinks that ignorance can be bliss but when it boils down to it, I need to know all the details! I am pretty sure every day after I made the decision for a c-section I got online and read about others experiences, called my friends, watched a Baby Story on TLC every single time it came on and read whatever I could get my hands on. This is just my way of preparing so I do not have a freak out. I survived most of the entire process with out freaking out at all.

We arrived at the hospital and they put me in a room and got all my information to check me in, put in my IV and checked to make sure she was still breech. Then they rolled me down to the operating room where they numbed by back, then did my spinal. This was the point of me freaking out just a bit. I was all smiles and cool calm and a collective until the feeling of numbness came upon me. I HATE the feeling of being numb! They had to help me put my legs back on the table and then my doctor was asking me to wiggle my toes. Fortunately I was unable to wiggle my toes but that was the point that I started to panic. Oh my gosh what if I am paralyzed forever? I can't even move my toes! What if the feeling never comes back??? I kept saying "This is so bizarre, this feels so weird" My nurse then looked at me and said "You are not going to freak out on us now are you? You have been so great!" I then pulled myself together because that was when they brought Josh in the operating room with me. He stood by my side and held my hand the entire time. In his other hand was his iPhone which he used to videotape me throughout the whole procedure. Although I did not like the idea of it at first it is very cool to go back and watch now. Anyway, Josh was chatting with me and then the Anesthesiologist told me the doctors had already began. I had no idea anything had even happened yet! About 5 minutes later I felt some pressure on my stomach and then I saw a stream of something (soon to find out pee) go up in the air and hit me. Yup, the first thing my daughter did was pee on me! They pulled her out, wrapped her up and handed her to daddy. This was the moment I broke down. I can not even put into words what it was like to see her for the first moment. All I can say is perfection.



They then took her over and started cleaning her off and gave her oxygen so she would turn pink. The funny thing is that since she was breech she came out with her legs stuck in the air for about a day or so.

Harper with her legs crazy & the family checking her out in the nursery for the first time!

After they finished sewing me up they rolled me out of the operating room. That very second I saw the swarm of family and friends heading towards my room with me to see our sweet baby girl! We literally had 20+ people in our room taking turns holding Harper for the first time. It was such a special day that I will never forget. Harper Adalyn Pluid is one very loved little girl and I am a very blessed person to have such a perfect family.

Our first Pluid family photo!!

Pasadena

As my previous post states, Josh spend the month in Pasadena, California. He was able to come home for the weekend after being there two weeks and for me that was just not enough! So..... we decided to fly me out there to spend the last week with him and then fly home with him when he was done with his assignment!!! While there we walked around Pasadena and checked out all the shops near his hotel, went to my favorite grocery store Trader Joe's (much more eventful when I can actually drink their wine that is only $4!!), went to the Getty museum (which I highly recommend if you ever get the chance to go there) and went to a Dodger's game. I had so much fun and of course was able to spend less time apart from my other half which made me one happy gal!!

This is a pic of us in the gardens at the Getty museum. Josh took lots of neat flower photos so we can frame them and put them up in Harper's room

At the Getty there were many architectural aspects that boggled my mind. This photos below looks as if we took a picture of one tree. However, there are 11 more trees behind this one, lined up and trimmed perfectly so it looks as one when standing at a certain angle.
A birds eye view of the garden area at the Getty
I had to sneak in a picture of my handsome hubby on the beach!! We spent the late morning relaxing on Manhattan beach where the nicest man approached me and gave me a handful of shell's to "give our little one" =). After our time in the sand we ate at Pomodoro for lunch and then to a little treat of the most delicious ice cream cookie sandwiches (a dream for a pregnant woman!!!)
The pier at Manhattan beach. The rounded building was actually an aquarium, we did not go in and check it out but it was very busy!