2010 A New Year

I've decided that this is going to be a new year! I had a relapse the other day. I got a little overwhelmed and I felt a little out of sorts. I didn't know how to manage my feelings so I went to sleep. After I woke up I realized that things have to change! So I came up with a list of New Years Resolutions.
My first goal is to be more positive.
Several weeks ago I started listening to motivational CD's. I got excited about work. I got excited about getting in my car everyday and I got excited about life. This week I went to training and I got this great training and I got motivated to get involved in other things at work. I'm not sure what that is yet, but I got motivated. If I can keep up this momentum that would be great!
My second goal is to Go On A Date With My Husband Once A Month.
I probably should say once a week but I'm really trying to keep my goals in perspective. And we have been on one date in the last 5 months so once a month would be a really great jumping off point for us.
My third goal is to see a girl friend at least every other week.
My original goal was once a week but that might be stretching it out a little too much. I need time with girls. Not at work. Not with having to entertain Ava. Just coffee or something. I need to get out.
My fourth goal is to have my brother in law's family over for dinner once or twice a month.
They used to have us over to dinner ALL the time. Sometimes we'd get busy and we wouldn't see each other that often and since we've had Ava its been terrible. I hardly see them at all but I really want for our kids to be close but its hard to do that if we never see them! So my goal is to get re-connected and invite them to dinner at least once a month but my goal is twice a month.
My fifth goal is to start this UBC eating plan.
Its a great plan. You eat 6 times a day. And there is healthy food involved. My goal is to get healthy and to get rid of the last 10 lbs I have to lose.
My sixth goal is to figure out a career move.
Not actually moving my career but decide if I want to eventually go back to school or maybe just figure out what I like doing. I can imagine myself in the same position for the rest of my life. That just won't be happening. Whether I do something different at work or find another job completely thats my goal to figure out this year.
My seventh goal is to continue breastfeeding at least two more months.
My ultimate goal is to stop around her first birthday but two more months for sure. Its so important. She has been so healthy up until now. We are so blessed and so fortunate I want to keep up her good health and continue to give her the gift of breast milk a while longer.

So my goals are kind of selfish but at this point I think I need but a little bit more selfish so I can ultimately be more selfless.
Those are my goals. I'm excited. I want more girly time. I want to be fit and in shape. I'm very happy that I can get into my old pants again. I just can't button most of them. I would like to button them. I also can't wait to be a better mom to Ava and a much better wife to Phil.
I have been so fortunate in 2009 to have such a wonderful supportive husband. He was amazing through my pregnancy. Then he has been great to Ava. The first several months were rough for both of us but we both have gotten our footing and we work really well together and Ava gets the best care that any child could ever receive. Her dad just adores her and I do too. This has been an amazing year. Full of surprises and excitement with the birth of our wonderful daughter. I am excited to see what 2010 brings us!

5 months old!

Where does the time go?! Just a short while ago it was Labor Day, then Halloween and Thanksgiving and now we are already done and gone with Christmas!

Ava is doing so well I don't even know where to begin!

She began eating solid food (rice cereal and now we have upgraded to oatmeal because she loves the taste so much better). She loves food! I'm surprised I don't have a little porker on our hands.

Ava has been turning or rolling over since she was just about 3 months old. She can now stand to be on her stomach for a longer period of time and prop herself up on her front arms and lift her stomach off the floor. She also has just begun to figure out how to push her legs under herself so she can lift her butt in the air for just a second or two. She also wildly thrashes her arms about and kicks her legs so much her socks fly half way across the room. I swear she is determined to start a fire with her feet.

The day before Christmas Ava started sitting by herself. It was only for about 3 seconds but I was so impressed! Today she sat for a record time of 11 minutes (she probably can sit longer than that but thats the only one I actually timed). Its amazing how much she has accomplished in such a short amount of time!

Ava will also give daddy and me hugs if we ask for them by saying "Ava, give me hug". She also has begun to get shy. We had several people over for Christmas and she would bury herself in my stomach if she got too much attention. It was funny.

Christmas Eve we spent at my parents house and we had a wonderful Prime Rib dinner with my parents and their neighbors. It was very nice. My parents neighbors gave Ava a wonderful present. A Frosty suit! It was so adorable! Unfortunately Ava didn't appreciate the suit as much as the rest of us did.

Christmas Day everyone came to our house. Phil's family which included his Dad, his Mom, his brothers Brendan, Andrew and Andrew's girlfriend and then his brother Steve came with his family Billie, Luka and Juno. My dad was there and then Phil's friend James also came over for a little bit. Everyone left except Steve and his family left round 11am. It was a great holiday. I miss going to Southern California to visit the rest of my family but it was nice to be at home for Ava's first Christmas. She got some great stuff!

It was also great having four days at home with our little princess. Phil is such a great dad. He takes such great care of Ava. It was fun spending time with my favorite people!

Ava 4 months and 3 weeks

Ava is the best thing since sliced bread, well at least Phil and I think so. She is such a great daughter. We could not have asked for a better child.

She smiles all the time. She is such a happy baby. She is so much fun to be around. She can entertain herself. She loves looking at faces. She enjoys interacting with other people. She's not too sure about toys but I think she's starting to like them. She sure loves her hands and feet.

Her feet move a million miles per hour. She started sucking her thumb. She tries to put her whole fist in her mouth. Everything you hand her goes in her mouth.

Almost two weeks ago she started eating rice cereal. She makes funny faces when she eats it but she still eats it. So I keep feeding it to her. I don't give her much. Just enough to get her tummy full (so she doesn't wake up every two hours at night).

Ava turns over and can spend more time on her tummy. She started laughing, really laughing two nights ago. I make funny faces at her and she laughs. Its awesome! She can sit up for a few seconds on her own. She sits in her bumbo seat better without falling over to the sides.

I sang her "Silent Night" on the way home last night and she started "singing" back to me.

She is so much fun!

My story

I wanted to start out this blog a different way. Maybe this is no one elses business but my own but I wanted to share my story and maybe it will help.
I feel like I'm a pretty normal person. In my past I had some issues with depression and anxiety but those problems went away just before I finished college over two years ago. Since then I've come to think of myself as a pretty normal and natural person. I didn't have any more issues with either problem since.
Shortly after I had Ava I began feeling overwhelmed (for those of you who are on facebook you probably noticed that I felt overwhelmed quite often). I couldn't get a handle on anything. I figured it was just a normal thing and on the weekends I'd get caught up. When I went back to work I was always late. Always. No matter what I did I was always late. Well now into December I was still feeling this way and actually several weeks ago I notice that at work I would just sit there. I would have all this work to do but I felt so overwhelmed I didn't know where to start or how to begin so I would just sit. I stopped taking pictures of Ava. If I sat down I wouldn't get back up. I was mad at Phil all the time. Everything he did irritated me. If he breathed I got mad at him. If he looked at me funny I'd get mad at him. I thought it was just because I was tired and this is all part of being a new mommy.
Relatives from California would come to visit and I just wanted to stay at home.
For those of you who know I also sell Mary Kay products. Well I stopped calling my director and I slacked on getting my orders out.
Finally last week something happened. I had awful thoughts. I never thought I'd ever have again and on Wednesday last week all I could do was sit at my desk at work and cry. I knew something was wrong. I just haven't felt like myself. So I got help. I called my doctors and I had gotten an appointment for Friday with a family doctor I had never seen before because my doctor was out of town. The nurse called me back and wanted to get me in for an appointment the same day. It was such an awful day. I cried at work. I cried in front of my boss. I'm not an emotional person. I am not someone who cries. That is just not who I am. So I went in for my appointment. The doctor was very nice. It turns out that I had/have postpartum depression.
I was devastated when I found out. I felt like this shouldn't happen. I'm usually such a happy person and I love baby Ava more than anything but I'm glad I got help when I did.
This week has been much better. Phil and I spent the entire weekend snow in at our house. It was awesome. I've been on time to work this week. I've gotten so much done. I feel like a new person and a new mommy. I know that there are some things that haven't changed like I still go to bed when Ava does or shortly after she goes to bed. I don't get a whole lot done at home but I'm learning how to let go of some of the less important things and focus on being a good mommy to Ava and a better wife for Phil.

4 month doctor visit

Today Ava had her four month check up.

She got 4 shots, she is 10lbs 10oz and is 24 inches long.

She had a great appointment. Daddy took her. The doctor said that she is doing really well. The nurses just go gaga over her and waltz her around the office for 10 minutes while waiting for the Doctor to arrive. Ava is well loved by her doctor and nurses.

I could not get time off to go to Ava's appointment so I printed out a whole page of questions along with Ava's accomplishments. I've been so nervous lately because I figured out that she wasn't getting enough to eat and have now been giving Ava formula (well supplementing with formula) for a week. I just want to make sure that she's hitting all of the growth spots that she needs to be hitting.

Ava is amazing! We are very fortunate as parents to have her as our daughter. She truly is amazing.

4 months

I know! The month has totally passed us by! It has been a crazy crazy month!

I finally figured out how to get to work on time so our week goes something like this:
Get up at 5:30am feed Ava, dress Ava, mommy showers, then gets ready and we head off to Grandma's house. Drop Ava off at Grandma's house then off to work for mommy. Mommy gets to work pretty close to 8am. Then works all day, picks Ava up around 5:45 or 6pm (depending on traffic) feed Ava at Grandma's house then head home. Get home around 6:30pm. Phil has been great he usually has dinner ready when we get home. Then I feed Ava again and by 8pm Ava is in bed. Our day is short and long and all that jazz.

Ava has done lots of really awesome things this month! She has gotten so much better! She smiles most of the time, she sits up pretty well in her bumbo seat, she has amazing head control, she rolls over, she has a piercing cry when she does cry (mostly if she's really tired or if she's hungry), grabs toys, plays with toys when they dangle in front of her. She knows her name, she is beginning to understand that I'm mommy and that daddy is daddy. And on Friday when she turned four months she began to giggle. She thought it was funny when I blew on her stomach and was pretending to eat her feet. She also loves to talk. She talks all the time. She has a schedule which has been great. Ava is so amazing!

This month her friend Alison came over. We had fun weighing the girls on Phil's shipping scale. According to Phil's scale Alison weighed 15,95 lbs and Ava weighed in at 10.9lbs. Both girls are a week a part in age. It was fun to watch them play together. Ava rolled all over the place and Alison was attempting to sit up by herself. Ava enjoyed having Alison over.

I have gotten over most of my fear of the cats being near Ava. So I put a blanket on the ground and let Ava roll around on it. I'm still a little weary of cat hair and I don't like the cats on the blanket for that reason but...I'm trying hard. We are so in love with our baby girl. She is amazing. We love her more and more each day.

The day before Thanksgiving we had our Thanksgiving dinner with Phil's brother Steve and his family. Ava was able to see her cousins Luka and Juno. She had fun.

Thanksgiving we spent the entire day together as a family. We drove out on Pyramid Hwy and we saw the Moonrocks. We were gone several hours. Ava slept the entire time. The rest of the day we pretty much spent at home as a family.

The day after Thanksgiving we set up our Christmas tree. Ava loves the lights.
Ava is fun and amazing. We could not have asked for a better child. She is great.

3 months!

It has been a few weeks since I've last posted.

Our life has been full of fun things lately! On October 22 my Grandmother and Uncle came to town for my mom's birthday and to spend a little time with Ava! It was great to see them both!

During the week Phil and I worked really hard to get Ava's room painted and ready for the company we were going to have. We picked out some really great colors for Ava's room and while Phil was away on a dirt bike ride with his friend I decided to go ahead and paint on the walls in Ava's room. And boy was it pink! It was super pink!

On October 30th we had a Pampered Chef Party. Lot of people showed up and Ava had three little friends to play with. Ava's cousin Juno came over to play, and Ava's friend Alison came over to play. My wonderful husband and his friend and my dad watched the babies while us girls got to view the Pampered Chef demonstration. It was really fun and wonderful of Phil to watch the kiddos!

My friend Monica came from San Francisco came to visit for the weekend. Phil's friend Nick also came down for the weekend. We had fun together at the Pampered Chef Party on Friday night. Then on Saturday we all slept in and went to breakfast. Then in the afternoon we thought it would be fitting to go up to Virginia City on Halloween. Our first stop was the Cemetery. We had a blast. We saw a couple getting married. It was interesting. Then we walked through the town. It was a lot of fun.

We had a lot of fun.

Ava has been wonderful! My parents watch her everyday while Phil and I are away at work. They do an amazing job with her. Several weeks ago Ava began rolling over. From there she has taken off to do amazing things! She found her feet and can now successfully pull off her socks. She can pull her legs under her while she is on her stomach getting ready for the crawling stage (which I hope won't happen for a few months!. She smiles, and coos and over the weekend Monica and I swore that we heard Ava say "hi" but maybe it was just wishful thinking. She likes her hands and now jams them in her mouth and makes loud sucking and smacking noises. She loves to fly through the air and she loves being held above our heads. She squeals with delight. She can sit for a second with out assistance. She can grab on to her stuffed monkey and she can grab blankets and pull them over her head. She pulls her nuk nuk (pacifier) out of her mouth.

11 weeks 6 days

This week Ava is 11 weeks old (almost 12 weeks)! I know I say this, but I really can't believe how the time flies!

Ava has gotten so much bigger. Her schedule is fine tuned, she is a much happier baby. She smiles, laughs (although I've only heard it once), coos and talks. Yesterday morning all three of us were in bed and Ava rolled over! I guess it has been something she has been working on for a few days and yesterday morning she mastered it all by her self! She rolled over! I'm ecstatic! Although it means no more leaving baby on the bed, I'm so happy she hit a mile stone. She has done really well.

She can hold her head up much better these days, she can sit up for a few seconds on her own without assistance. She enjoys sitting in her bumbo seat so she can see everything thats going on around her.

I don't see much of her because I work. I'm away from my baby for 10 hours a day sometimes more if I have to stop somewhere before I pick Ava up. She sleeps until I get her ready about 10 minutes before we head over to Grandma and Grandpa's and I pick her up by 6pm and shes in bed by 8pm. Its hard getting to spend so little time with my baby girl. She is so amazing.

10 weeks 5 days

As a new parent, things don't always work out the way I hope they do. I didn't get to update my blog like I wanted to last week. I don't feel like I get enough time with my baby girl and my family. I feel like I'm always rushing somewhere or I'm so tired I don't remember anything!

This week we had something really exciting happen. My in-laws, who have been living with us for the last year, finally moved out on Wednesday!!! We bought our brand new house March 2008 and my in-laws moved in September 2008. This week they finally found their own place and moved out! I can't tell you how happy I am that we finally have our house back. Today I really lucked out. Ava took a 5 hour nap and Phil went on a dirt bike ride. I spent 4 hours cleaning the carpets upstairs in our lovely house and they look almost new! I spent a lot of time cleaning today. Ava was such a great sport about it. I can't say enough about how excited I am that we have our house back.

Ava is getting so big! She smiles all the time. She now coos and this morning we woke up and actually had a "conversation". She smiled and cooed and told me lots of interesting things, I think. She is such a happy baby when she gets enough sleep and when she isn't hungry. We are lucky enough to have my parents watching her. My mom brought her to see me at work on Monday. We got to visit with several people around the school. She was going to come back but my parents decided not to bring her. I was really disappointed but on Wednesday I was really glad that it worked out that way because I found out from my boss that we had 8 cases of swine flu on campus. I'm glad that Ava didn't come to my work anymore this week. She will now have to wait 4 weeks after the last confirmed case of swine flu has gone from the campus. That could be a while. We have a very large student population and one of the quarantined students decided to escape and run around campus.

This week my parents have been working on getting Ava on a sleep schedule. Apparently she cries a lot but its because she's not taking naps and she's not eating a whole lot. So they are working on getting her on a sleeping schedule and then they will be working on getting her to eat a little bit more.

Friday I was lucky enough to be able to get up early and go down to the hospital where I had Ava and where I attended lactation classes and I weighed Ava. She has gained 3oz since I've been back to work. Which is not as much as I hoped for but Ava is still doing well. She is happy and healthy and thats all that matters. She is still adjusting to her new routine and me going back to work so hopefully she will be more settled this upcoming week and my parents can get her to eat a little more.

Ava is a blast! We love her more than anything!

9 weeks 5 days

Ava is now almost 10 weeks old! I am just uploading a few pictures and tomorrow or Monday I will update the blog about what Ava is doing now.

9 weeks/2 months old

Ava is 2 months old! Can you believe it? I can't!

I started work last week. Its still hard to leave her everyday. I know that she is well cared for by my parents and by Phil but its still hard to be away from her for so long. I have tons of pictures all over my office which helps but its still hard. I do feel very lucky to be able to have my parents and Phil look after Ava. I know they love her and that she is well cared for. I couldn't ask for better people to be around our daughter.

This week Ava had her two month check up. She is 9lbs 2oz and 21.5 inches long. She is in the 20th percentile for height and she is in the eight percentile for weight and head. The doctor said she is doing well. I guess she does have some colic which explains why she screams part of the day. I'm going to look into changing my diet so maybe that will eliminate some of her gas issues.

She is doing amazing! She can hold her head up pretty well. She attempts to sit up or at least pull herself up by grabbing my fingers. She is a very strong little girl. She has pretty much mastered her arm movement. She has found her fingers and sucks on them a lot. She has now taken an interest in her legs as a whole. She loves her toes but she is amazed when her entire leg moves. She kicks a lot. And she loves to blow spit bubbles. She is totally amazing. We love her so much.

8 weeks and back to work

Ava is now 8 weeks old! I can't believe how quickly the time goes. I can see that she is growing. This week Ava weighed in at 9lbs (after feeding). She's getting to be such a big girl. This week she has made some major changes.

She loves to sit up, with assistance of course.

She can't stand to lay down.

She can hold her head up pretty well.

She looks around at things.

She loves her feet. She looks at them like she wants to eat them!

She can roll from side to side and she loves to sleep on her side.

Her hands have more control. She doesn't smack herself in her face quite as much as before.

She found her fingers. Amazingly she will use her fingers to tell us if she's hungry.

She cries if she pee's and has a wet diaper.

She will now cry if one of her socks comes off, like it did on my mom's walk this morning and she was able to find it on the ground not too far away from where she was.

Ava loves her big girl stroller.

She loves being bounced around. Bumps while in the stroller are her best friend.

She hates to sleep but needs it.

She smiles and her eyes light up and her entire face just shines. Its so amazing. Looking at her face when she smiles she expresses pure joy.

Last weekend we had our first trip to Virginia City. We also took some family pictures on Sunday. Monday we started our adventure of leaving Ava at Grandma's house. I did ok. I think I have more of a problem with it than Ava does. She loves everyone. I will miss her a lot when I'm away at work. Tuesday Ava and I went to our lactation class. Then at night we had our friends over for dinner. Today (Wednesday) I dropped Ava off at Grandma's house and I was gone from 8:30 until 3:30. That was the longest I've ever been away from Ava. It was hard but I was so busy it sort of made it easy. If I had been sitting around I would have had more time to think and I would have been really upset.

Tomorrow is my first day back at work. I'm really nervous about it. I know that Ava will be loved and cared for. I just wish I could be there every day with her. She is such a special girl. She is so smart. I'll write over the weekend.

7 weeks

Its amazing at how fast the time goes! It seems like just yesterday I was 9 months pregnant begging Ava to come out and now I'm 7 days away from returning to work.

Ava is getting so big! Every week we go to a lactation class. I get to weigh baby Ava and hang out with other mom's who breastfeed. Its really fun. This week Billie and Juno got to go with us! Ava is 7 weeks and Juno was 6 days old. It was so much fun to hang out and go to class together.

Ava was a whopping 8lbs 8.1oz. She only gained 3oz from last week, which made me a little nervous but this week I could see a change in Ava. Her face is full, she is so much longer than she was. She has outgrown almost all of her newborn clothes only because she is too long. She is still very narrow and thin, but she is so long now, its amazing that she's grown so much. comparing her to Juno Ava must be around 22 or 23 inches long now.

After class Billie, Juno, Ava and I hung out. It was so much fun to hang out with Billie and Juno. I'm so excited we have a niece and that the cousins will be so close in age and living close together! We had lunch then we went to see my parents who wanted to see and meet Juno then we went to my house and Steve and Luka stopped by to see Phil. We all hung out for a while then we went to Pizza Hut. It was interesting, it was fun until Ava decided she had enough. Phil was awesome and walked around the entire restaurant with Ava to try and calm her down. She was hungry so that didn't work so well. I tried to feed her but I was so uptight that it was hard to feed her. Lucky for us she did wait until we got through most of our meal before she pulled her stunt.

Yesterday was a super busy day. I got up late, showered and dressed then got Ava dressed. We left the house thinking that we were going walking but we didn't. So we went to visit Phil we only stayed a short time. Then we went to my mom's house and I did some dusting for her and she got to hold Ava. Ava was hungry so I fed her. Then I went home and hung out with Phil while he printed shirts. Phil went on a dirt bike ride with his friend Kyle and another guy. I ran some packages to FedEx for Phil then I went to Charter to cancel our cable but since the lady got our bill down quite a bit I decided that we could keep cable, especially having a baby and we stay home a lot more (and I'm up feeding Ava most of the night so it kind of nice watching TV). Then I went to Target. I got lucky, Ava slept almost the entire time. She woke up as we were going to the check out line. For some reason it seems like she doesn't like Target, or maybe she just gets hungry every time we go to target. So we went to my parents house. I was hoping to go and get my tires rotated. My dad was going to follow me down to Costco but Ava ate for almost an hour and it was getting late so I went home. It was a very busy day.

I enjoy spending my time with Ava. She's so amazing. She smiles now. She's really a happy baby. She eats a lot, and she's not very happy when she has a wet diaper but it seems that she doesn't cry unless somethings wrong. If she cries, she's hungry, wet or really tired.

I can't believe I only have 7 more days until I go back to work. I enjoy my time with Ava so much. Its going to be very hard to leave her.

Although I did go and visit at work on Tuesday. It went well. I was so impressed that not too many people touched her. I was so happy about that! Everyone kept telling me that she looks exactly like me. I think they thought she was cute (I don't think I'm that cute so I couldn't tell if that was a compliment or not that Ava looks like me). But it was really good that I went to work. On Saturday Monica and I attempted to go to the Balloon Races. Since we couldn't find parking and we missed the one thing we both really wanted to see, we went to breakfast. We talked for almost 3 hours! It really helped being around Monica because we talked a lot about work. On Saturday night I had a dream about work. I had a dream that I went to visit, and Sally had just come back (Sally is my boss, and she's been in the hospital on and off since I've been on Maternity leave) and I left Ava with Sally and Aleanor (our departments assistant) and I went somewhere on campus because there was a fight or riot or something. And I felt really involved and totally comfortable going back to work and getting involved right away. Having that dream made me feel a little better about returning to work. So I decided to visit on Tuesday and I turned in my doctors note saying I could return to work next Thursday. We didn't see too many people but it was nice. I spent some time visiting with Sally, Aleanor and Sam.

Ava is three days in to her 7th week and we've done so much already. I'm looking forward to what the rest of the week has to offer. And I'm looking forward to spending time with baby Ava!

Pictures!

Here are some more pictures from the past several weeks.