Growing Girl!

Nadia has been promoted to a regular car seat! She had outgrown her infant one; actually we should have "promoted" her awhile ago. I bought this car seat 4 years ago, and I have to say I can't stand it! OOPS! It is really hard to fasten. I am sure in time I will get better, but I am adding a car seat to my birthday wish list as #1 it would be nice to have one for both of our cars and #2 if we do receive a 2nd one then this one is going in Paul's car as I have such a hard time putting all the pieces together. Honestly it's like a puzzle! I don't think Nadia is too happy about the new seat as it doesn't shield the sun from her eyes as much as the old one. She's also probably a bit colder as we had a cover over the other one. I should have put her in her snow suit today. I didn't realize it was less than 20 degrees out. OOPS again!

The one plus of her wearing her sweater is that it's much easier for her to sit up straight in the grocery cart. We went to the gas station, and I made funny faces for her through the window while I pumped the gas which amused her and meant she didn't cry (she's usually happy when the car is in motion but isn't happy when I get gas). 

Another evidence that she's a growing girl, is that I think our days of three naps are over. Yesterday she cried and cried, and I eventually gave up on the 3rd nap. So she fell asleep in my arms at 6:10 which was earlier than I wanted, but she had been up for 5 hours straight at that point so I just put her to bed. Thankfully she slept a full 12 hours before she woke up. I let her chatter for 15 minutes and got her at 6:30am. So I think I need to move the starting time to her 2nd nap to a later time if she's not going to have a third nap. I think I'll aim for 9am for the first nap and 1pm for the second one. She has been going down around 12pm for the 2nd nap.

I figured out a way yesterday to get solid foods in her mouth. I offer her a Puff or a Cheerio and then put that in her mouth with my left hand while I put a bite of veggies or yogurt or fruit in her mouth with my right hand. Today she's already eaten as much fruit and veggies as she had the past 4 days put together so that's a BIG improvement. I hope in time she'll get used to eating solids, and I won't need to offer her a Cheerio first, but for now I'm just glad she's eating. I'm going to wait a couple of days before I try green veggies again. I'm just going to work on orange veggies, fruit, cereal, and yogurt for the time being.

I have to say I can't fathom working full-time right now. I feel very busy with caring for her, cooking, cleaning, shopping, and working part-time. Tomorrow I have a committee meeting on campus. I didn't go to a meeting last Friday as I am trying to say "no" more. It was hard not to go in the sense that I usually go to every meeting that I am supposed to attend and I felt strange skipping it, but I know I would have been bored (it was the type of meeting where you just listen to presentations for 90-120 minutes in contrast to tomorrow's meeting which is interactive), and I am working part-time so I need to say "no" more. I think I've been doing well with that. I feel like I am only working part-time this semester which is good since I'm only getting paid 50% of my previous salary.

Wish List

Yesterday I started working on my birthday wish list. Many of the items are things for our trip to Antigua in May. I thought I'd put some of what I've come up with so far here so that I could get input in case I am forgetting something important OR if you have advice regarding any of these items. I plan on getting her sunscreen for our trip. Last summer I bought some 12 month summer clothing on clearance so I think I have enough for her to wear in May.

1. Swimsuits (2) (How do sizes run? She's wearing size 9 month in most things and will soon be ready for 12 month dresses).

2. Swim diapers (how many for a 7 day trip and do you recommend a certain type?)

3. Swim vest or life vest for Nadia (any recommendations on a particular one to get?)

4. Hat and sunglasses for Nadia

5. Liquid Image underwater digital camera mask (Has anyone used this or know of someone who has? It costs $99 and you can take pictures or videos while in/under the water. I had purchased a special bag to keep a camera dry in the water a few years ago, and it worked for a few years but either I did something wrong or it stopped working, as our camera was ruined in it last year. I know I could buy a special casing for my current camera, but given my "luck" with cameras - we had one stolen off of Paul's arm in Italy and then I ruined one in St. John a year ago, I am not inclined to invest any more money in our regular camera per chance something would happen to it. I was thinking of asking Paul to get me this for my bday to use while snorkeling, etc.).

Last night she went down at 7pm so that has started to become her regular bed time, which is an improvement! She was quiet until 6:30am. I let her chatter for 15 minutes and then went and got her at 6:45 before she started crying. I've been able to get a few bites of baby food (Gerber carrots and Parent's Choice fruit) in her mouth if I give her a Puff or a Cheerio first, but it's still proving to be a challenge to get her to eat fruits, veggies, yogurt, or cereal these days. She seems to only want milk, Puffs, and Cheerios.

Clark (friend of mine from work) came over this morning so I could help him file his taxes (not that I've done ours yet). As you can see from the picture of them, she still likes to stick her tongue out a lot! Today I want to get back in the routine of cleaning on Wednesdays, and tonight I plan to go to choir rehearsal (I didn't clean or go to choir rehearsal last Wednesday).

Spectrum of Light

This morning I had Nadia on my lap while I was playing the piano. She kept turning her head, and I finally looked to see what was capturing her attention. She had fun looking at the pretty colors on the dining room wall. When her hands are extended straight out - that's usually a sign that she's excited as she puts her arms in that position and starts flapping away when she's happy or excited. Aren't the lights beautiful? I had a hard time picking which pictures to post as I took a LOT of them!

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I don't know what the deal is with Nadia eating solid foods. We seem to take a step forward and then a step backward, etc. Last week we had a few days of her doing a good job eating (Thurs-Sat) but now the last three we're back to her not wanting to eat anything aside from sweet potato puffs. I have to work really hard just to get a couple of bites of yogurt or carrots in her mouth. What is her deal???

In terms of sleeping she is sleeping at least 10 hours before she starts making any sounds. Last night she went down at 7pm and her first time of chattering was a little after 5am. Thankfully it lasted less than 1 minute and she fell asleep for maybe 30 minutes and then the same thing happened again. When she started talking for the third time at 6:30am, I could tell she wasn't going back to sleep, and since it had been 11 1/2 hours since she went down I decided to go get her before she started crying.

IVF Prices

When I spoke with the ivf nurse last Monday, she said she'd have the financial lady call me. She never did so I called her this morning. The good news is that the price for ivf hasn't gone up - $8,200; I was pleasantly surprised as I figured in 2 years it would have gone up. Our insurance will pay for about $2,200 of that so our cost after getting the refunds would be about $6,000. The bad news is that the other fees that aren't included in the package went up. ICSI (which we definitely need due to Paul's morphology issues) went from $550 to $650, assisted hatching (which we had for the frozen transfer but not the fresh transfer and I think we should use for a fresh transfer this time) went from $250 to $400, and freezing embryos went from $600 to $1,000. If we used ICSI and AH that would put our cost at $7,050. The perfect scenario in my mind would be that we had 3 embryos make it to blastocyst and we had those transferred (fresh) without any being frozen and had a pregnancy result from that fresh transfer, but obviously it was very wonderful that we had a frozen embie this last time since Nadia was that frozen blastocyst! So if we end up freezing an embryo then probably we wouldn't get any refunds. The total cost would likely be very close to the $8,200 we need to pay by March 12th.

The scariest part is the thought that we spend all that and it results in no pregnancies from fresh or frozen transfers. That's a definite possibility, but even knowing that I want to proceed as I feel we'll have regrets later on if we don't. I wish there was a shared risk option, but this clinic doesn't have those and even if they did I probably wouldn't qualify as usually 35 is the oldest you can be to qualify for one of those, and I'll be 37 by the time we get to a retrieval. It will be a really tough call at that point whether to try ivf a third time or switch back to trying to adopt (if we don't get pg from any fresh or frozen transfers from ivf #2). We have to resume our contract with Cathy by 12/14/09, or we're out the $4,900 we paid her in June 2007. If we resume our contract with her then we need to create new profiles and do our fourth homestudy. Ugh. I am hoping and praying ivf #2 results in a sticky bfp. That will make the decision easy!!!

I am still on a high about losing 5 lbs in 7 days! It will help keep my resolve strong. This weekend on one occasion I was eating carrots while Paul was eating Doritos and on another I was eating green beans while he was eating pizza. Pizza and Doritos would have been tastier, but I am very glad I chose to eat veggies instead!

Sixth Ring!!!

For those of you who didn't watch the game, the Steelers won last night! WOOHOO! We are the only team in the NFL to have won SIX Superbowls!!! This means I get new socks, which is good as my Steeler socks from Superbowl XL are getting pretty worn out. :-)

Last night Nadia went down at 7pm, and she first woke up a little after 5am. I let her talk then cry for awhile. I still have a hard time letting her cry, but I was exhausted and knew 10 hours of sleep wasn't enough for her either. Thankfully she did fall back asleep eventually and slept a little less than an hour more so I didn't actually get up and get her until a little after 7am. It helped me feel a little less awful about letting her cry when she greeted me with a big smile.

Superbowl XLIII is Today!!!

Today's the day!!! Well like I said two weeks ago, either I will be realllllllllly happy or reallllllllly bummed when I go to bed tonight. There's really not another possible emotion to have at the end of a playoff game (especially the Superbowl!) when your team is playing! I hope when I go to bed our team will have just won their 6th Superbowl - no other team has done that yet!

In keeping with the black and gold theme, you can see from the piece of food in her mouth that she was eating a yellow sweet potato puff, LOL.

Nadia woke up at 6am, and I let her get up as I could tell after letting her chatter for awhile that she wasn't going back to sleep. She had slept 11 hours and 20 minutes. I put her down for her first nap a little earlier than normal so that she would be getting up from that nap in time for us to leave for Sunday School at 8:45.

This picture was taken when I went to get her after her first nap. When I come in she's usually in a crawling position, and she gives me a big smile when she sees me. I love going to get her after her naps! Her smiles and laughter just melt my heart.

I finally got a picture of her two teeth that she's had for almost a month! I am sure eventually more of the teeth will be showing, but this is how much came through a few weeks ago.

What a Nice Day

January ended on a really nice note for our family. We had a really good day. Here are some things I am thankful for...

1. Paul was home today. Nadia and I enjoyed his company. :-)

2. Nadia did a really great job eating solids today. She gladly ate yogurt, carrots, and applesauce. Her mouth also opened WIDE in anticipation of sweet potato puffs.

3. She woke up briefly a little after 6am, but within 1 minute was back asleep and didn't wake up again until a little after 7am. I was soooooooooooo thankful to be able to stay in bed until 7am as that is a very rare occasion! This means Nadia slept 12 hours and 20 minutes last night!!

4. Her first two naps were 60 minutes, and her third was 45 minutes. That extra 15 minutes makes a big difference in terms of her mood. This means she was much happier today.


5. Nadia laughed a lot today. She loved her bath, being tickled, etc. At one point she was sitting in front of me, and Paul was sitting opposite of us. I helped her roll the ball back and forth to Daddy; she thought it was a lot of fun!

6. I love how excited she was when she saw Daddy. She looked up at him while he was sitting on the couch, and when he made eye contact with her she started flapping her arms and smiling as big a smile as possible.

Unpredictable

Yesterday Nadia took three good naps. I define good as any nap that is at least 60 minutes long. Because of that, I was able to keep her up until 7:40pm. She hasn't been up that late in months. Since she went down at 7pm on Wed pm and woke up at 6:3am on Thursday, I thought she'd sleep until 7am if she went to bed at 7:40pm. Instead she woke up at 5:25am. She cooed and chattered for awhile and that led to fussing and then crying. I kept hoping she'd go back to sleep, but she never did; so I went and got her about 6:40am. I had been soooo happy that I kept her up until 7:40 last night, but it didn't seem to help as she just slept fewer hours and got up earlier not later. Then to make matters worse she had zero good naps today. The longest nap was 45 minutes long. It's a case of feast or famine! So today wasn't exactly a happy day although I still did manage to get her to giggle a few times.

The highlight of today was she did pretty well with eating solids. If I take a bite of the food first and proclaim it to be yummy, then she's far more likely to eat it. She ate some yogurt and applesauce using that tactic. She also likes the sweet potato puffs. She actually opens WIDE in anticipation of one of those going in her mouth which is great after days of her crying when I tried to feed her any kind of solid food. It cracks me up to read the nutrition label on those puffs. It takes 3 puffs to equal one calorie. Wow. I can't think of too many foods that equal 1/3 of a calorie!

I didn't end up buying Nadia a Steeler cheerleading outfit. They were more $$ than I wanted to spend, and it's not like she can stand and cheer yet. I'll have her wear her Steeler hoodie and a new pair of black pants on Sunday afternoon/evening. She'll be in bed during most of the game anyhow. I will get her a cheerleading outfit some day even though neither the Steelers or Giants actually have cheerleaders, LOL.

Yogurt!

I bought a few different things at the grocery store this morning in my attempt to get Nadia to start eating more solid foods. She always is VERY interested in eating whatever I am eating, and I had given her a few tiny bites of my yogurt several times which she always really liked. I eat light yogurt for breakfast, and I don't really want her eating artificial sweeteners. So I bought some plain yogurt today, and I gave her some before her 2nd nap, and she liked it. YAY! I also bought unsweetened applesauce, oatmeal with bananas (baby cereal), and sweet potato puffs (Gerber's Graduates). A friend of mine said her son didn't like rice cereal but did well with oatmeal, and I know she likes bananas so the Gerber oatmeal cereal with bananas caught my eye. Plus I had coupons for both Gerber items I bought. I am encouraged though by how well she ate the yogurt. It had gotten to the point she would start sobbing if a spoon was coming near her mouth no matter what time of day I tried to feed her solids or whether it was veggies or fruit or rice cereal. Hopefully she'll like the oatmeal and applesauce as much as the yogurt.

Thursdays are the day when Nadia doesn't get to play with her Daddy, but in general I think she gets more time with her Daddy then most babies do. He leaves for school about 8am and gets back about 7pm on Thursdays. Thankfully most of his days aren't that long! She gets SOOO excited when Daddy comes home from school. Her face lights up and she about jumps out of my arms. It's so cute to watch her little arms and legs moving with excitement. She loves her Daddy, and of course he loves her very much also!!!

This morning she didn't wake up until a little before 6:30am. YAY! Although I haven't been letting her get up before 6:00, she has still generally been waking up before then. For example, yesterday morning she woke up at 5:08. This morning I let her chatter for a few minutes in her crib and then went and got her at 6:30. So we are moving in the right direction! That meant she had slept over 11 hours straight as she fell asleep a little after 7pm. My goal is to keep her up until 7pm again tonight if at all possible. I think 7:30pm would be a better bed time for her, but for now I'll be happy with 7pm since for so long it was a challenge just to keep her up until 6pm. She's definitely not a night owl. I'll concur with Paul that she takes after her Mommy in that regard. :-)

Snowy Day

When Paul shoveled our driveway this morning he said we had 4-5 inches of snow. When I went to get the mail later I came back without getting it as the driveway was covered in ice. My university was closed today, but PSU was open. Paul didn't attend his morning class though. He left this afternoon for a seminar he had to attend at 5pm; he assumed the roads would be in good condition by then. However the interstate was still snow covered. Since then it snowed rather heavily for a period of time so I hope he makes it back safely this evening. The picture of our neighbor's house and Nadia's swing set/our shed were taken while it was snowing and you can see the snow coming down. I took Nadia outside in her new pink coat that is for next year that I got for $5. It's size 18 month and was thankfully too big for her now so hopefully it will fit her well next winter. Today she was wearing a pair of size 12 month pants, and they fit! Sigh...she's just growing up TOO fast!!! Because of the snow Paul's mom rescheduled the heart catheterization.

I am very pleased to report that I just put her down, and it's 7pm! YAY! She's chattering away up there so we shall see when she falls asleep. She was in such a happy mood this evening it was easy to keep her up. She was laughing over almost everything Mommy did. I will never get tired of hearing her sweet laughter. It is just such a precious sound! I think she was in a better mood since her last nap was longer than usual. She woke up after maybe 40 minutes, but I let her cry and within 5 minutes she was back asleep and didn't wake up for another hour.

I am also pleased to report that she did move forward once while crawling today although most of the time she's still going in reverse. The time she went forward her arms were stiff and she lifted them up and moved them in a crawling type motion although her belly wasn't off the floor at that moment. Although sometimes she still objects to tummy time, there are many times in a day where she chooses to roll over onto her belly which certainly wasn't her preference in the past!

Because of Paul's seminar, I wouldn't have been able to attend choir rehearsal tonight, but I am guessing it was cancelled due to the snow as there were a myriad of church closings being announced on the radio today. Someone from my previous church asked me yesterday if I would do a song in sign language at the sunrise serice on Easter, and I said yes so it will be nice to visit again on Easter. I figure even if the choir at my new church is doing something that day it won't be at 7am or whenever the Sunrise service is. I know it's early as they do the sunrise service and then breakfast and then Sunday School at 9:30 and then the 10:45 service.

Today I didn't follow through with my plan to clean on Wednesdays (except I did clean the kitchen floor). Instead I did schoolwork. I graded papers and wrote a performance review for an adjunct faculty member. I must say I can't possibly imagine feeling bored. :-) I have done really well with my diet though. Yesterday and today I estimate I ate about 1,200 calories a day. I have eaten 2 entire bags of frozen green beans, lots of grapes, etc. Now if I could only get Nadia to eat solid foods. We are not doing well in that department at all. She's even refusing fruit! She wants to eat what I am eating instead of baby food.