7/20/09 - Best Day Ever
Saturday was easily in the top 5 list of the best days of my life. I couldn't tell you what the other 4 are, but that is beside the point.First of all, before my wife switched jobs and shifts, I was respnosible for Makenna every weekend. Cristi worked nights, so during the day, she would sleep and Makenna and I would do what we wanted. Of course, this was several months ago, so Makenna really only wanted to roll around, cry and poop.
This past weekend, my wife had to work her weekend and I had managed to schedule all my yards so that I would not be mowing at all. I was really looking forward to what the day would bring, but I had no idea how good things would actually turn out.
It all started when my wonderful daughter woke up at 7:00 in the morning. Normally, this wouldn't be too bad, but considering I was up until 3:00 in the morning, I was not very happy. But, she came through and wound up sleeping in bed with me for another 2 hours. At that point, we got out of bed and I fixed her some eggs for breakfast.
After breakfast, we put on our swimsuits and headed out to the pool. Unfortunately, Arkansas was hit with what I believe to be record lows so the pool was not nearly as warm as I would have liked so we only stayed out there for about 30 minutes. That was plenty of time though because we then came in, I gave her a quick bath and she took a nap for about 2 hours. During that time period, I was able to get a few things done around the house and still lay out by the pool and get a quick nap myself.
When she woke up, we had lunch and then I got her all dressed up and we headed out to run some errands. This is always fun for me because she is so well behaved for me. She very rarely ever fusses and always acts like a perfect angel. We had three stops: Kohl's, Home Depot and Wal-mart. She was the star attraction at all three places. Everyone we passed commented on how cute she was, how well she was behaving and so on and so forth. Needless to say, I was a very, very proud dad.
After our last errand, I thought it would be fun to stop by and get some ice cream. So we stopped by Sonic (happy hour RULES!!!) and got a cup of ice cream and something to drink. She was SUCH a big girl and normally she would want to run around, but while we were waiting for our order and then when it got there, all she wanted to do was sit in the seat right next to me. She LOVED the ice cream and I can only assume she really enjoyed that little trip.
When we got home, the day continued being good as we played in the floor for a little while until it was time to start fixing dinner. While I was getting food together, she just walked around carrying stuff (her favorite game in the world). Every once in a while as I would finish a phase of the meal, she would come by and help me sample to make sure it tasted okay. By the time it was in the oven, she kept running up to the oven wanting to look in and see how it looked.
I had timed it perfect so when Cristi walked in the front door, the timer went off and pulled out dinner. We ate the enchiladas as a family, gave Makenna a bath and put her to bed. Usually when I carry her to bed, she is just about out cold so she is like a wet noodle. However, that night, the entire way to her bed, she just rubbed the back of my neck. I can't express that feeling in words. I read it as her way of saying, "Thanks dad, I had so much fun today."
Nothing special happened, I recognize that. There were no earth changing events, we didn't cure cancer and we didn't bring about world peace. But I got to spend all day with my daughter, and we had a ton of fun. As much as I love having weekends with our whole family, I look forward to more days of just Makenna and me, especially if they can work out half as good as Saturday.
Labels: Makenna
1 Comments - Leave one yourself6/15/09 - Museum of Discovery
On Sunday, Cristi did not have to work, and I had no yards to mow. Since this rarely happens, we have agreed that on weekend days that neither of us work, we will start doing some sort of outing with Makenna. It just so happens that the 2nd Sunday of every month, the Museum of Discovery provides free admission. From 1-5 you can come and go as you please and do whatever you want at no cost to you. This of course, has it benefits and some downsides.The plan was to let Makenna take a nap right after church so she would be well rested for fun times at the museum. Although she is only 15 months old, I assumed there would be lots of hands of stuff that she could interact with. I wanted to make sure she was awake enough to take some of it in. She, of course, had other plans. Instead of taking a nap, she just talked to herself in her crib, so Cristi and I decided to get her up and head on out.
It is located right next door to the River Market in downtown Little Rock, in the same building as Boscoe's and Sonny William's Steak House. We were able to park in the River Market parking for free and walk a block to the actual museum. Upon entering, I immediately noticed a fairly large number of unsupervised hoodlums. Although, I was expecting a much larger number of people to be there.
The first area we came to was an area that was for children ages 6 and under. Although there were plenty of kids that did not quite meet this age requirement, it wasn't that big of a deal as Makenna had plenty of room to play around without getting knocked over constantly (of course, at her size it does not take much for her to topple). She immediately found a few toys laying around which she picked up and carried around. I think that might be her favorite thing to do in the world...just carry something around. She really liked (monkey-)crawling through a caterpillar and although the first few times down the slide were surprising...she quickly got the hang of it and really enjoyed it.
I believe Cristi will be posting a video of this later, but there is an area full of large building blocks. Being the kid that I am, while Makenna was walking around elsewhere (under my wife's supervision) I started stacking the blocks. As soon as Makenna saw this, she came over and her first thought was to knock it over. She thought this was so funny and squealed every time she did it. Normally, I would have been very frustrated, but since it was my own daughter...I couldn't believe I could have so much fun watching someone destroy my towers.
Outside of those few things, I was pretty disappointed. The only thing I really "discovered" was that unsupervised kids will destroy almost anything. I'd say that a good 25% of the exhibits needed some sort of repair or were just downright broken. Watching how some of the kids played with the areas that were working...I'd give them about a week before they were no longer functioning properly. This was a little upsetting for me, not because the things were broken, but because I saw many of the "parents" sitting over to the side not saying a word while their "kids" were obviously misusing items.
There were very few hands on type things which was pretty upsetting as I remember the museum of discovery that used to be in Hot Springs (I don't know if it is still there or not). I felt like the one here in Little Rock had lots of things that you could read, but not a whole lot that you could actually experience. I doubt we will be back for quite some time, both because Makenna is still too young to really enjoy a lot of the stuff, but simply because the price of admission to me really doesn't match the quality of the items there.
I will say they had a Robotics lab that looked pretty sweet...of course at 15 months, I don't know how long Makenna would have lasted, so I didn't get a chance to see exactly what they offered in that area of the museum. 1 Comments - Leave one yourself
4/18/09 - For one of my favorite people in the world
As I mentioned in a previous post, for Makenna's birthday, Amy sent her a package all the way from Australia. From the time she opened the card until Cristi put all of her birthday cards away, Makenna carried it around. Not to mention the cute purple giraffe has been in her rotation of favorite toys.I've been meaning to get some video footage of her actually playing with it, but have simply been either too busy or lazy to get it done (you can be the judge). With that said, we finally got some video of her in a good playful mood where she wasn't just trying to get to the camera the whole time. Here is that video, although this is a video directly straight at my favorite aussie of all time, I'm sure others can enjoy just how cute my daughter is.
Labels: Makenna
1 Comments - Leave one yourself3/30/09 - Makenna made a nasty
Makenna is just over a year old and this is the first time we have run into this problem. For that, I am not complaining. I'll save you from the details, but basically, she has problems with getting plugged up for short periods of of time. Becasue of this, she will push and push and push...but typically have no results.So the other night, I'm giving her a bath (which is our nightly routine, which I love). We get to spend several minutes with each other...she gets to play, and I get to watch her learn what different toys do and I love her fascination with falling water.
All night she had been grunting and pushing, but the only thing she had to show for it was a little bit of poop in her diaper. When she was in the bath, she started grunting again and I assumed we would still have no results. The last thing I wash is her booty crack, and when I pulled the washcloth away, low and behold we had a little pebble sized turd. I called for Cristi who took the wash cloth away and Makenna kept on playing with her toys.
I assumed she was doing pushing, but a few minutes later, she started struggling again. This time we got more than a pebble. The floater she dropped this time was at least the size of her arm. I'm sure it was much smaller than that, but when you have a soaking wet child, swimming with her own feces, toys all in the water, bouncing around with the poop, I'm telling you, the excrement starts looking larger than life. Luckily, my wife came to my rescue and scooped out the poop with the same washcloth and flushed it down the toilet.
After getting Makenna out and dried off, Cristi then filled the tub with water and a little bit of bleach as well as hand washed each of her toys. I guess the funny part about this (other than the fact that my daughter pooped in her own bath water) is that she had no idea what was going on. She assumed everything was just fine. Of course when I had to yell for Cristi she got scared just because it was loud. If I hadn't of yelled, she would have been just fine to keep playing.
Labels: Makenna
4 Comments - Leave one yourself3/15/09 - Happy Birthday Makenna
I'm 2 days late on this post, but I was more interested in spending the time with the birthday girl as opposed to telling others about it. We didn't do much of anything on her actual birthday (Friday night), but we did go out to dinner at Carino's where we found out that they do nothing for birthday. (This is good news to me because I do not particularly care for my dinner to be interrupted by a bunch of waiters/waitresses yelling happy birthday off key to some stranger who birthday was probably 6 weeks ago, but they probably wanted a free piece of cake).With that said, she did enjoy some pasta and we learned that she can drink from a straw very well. Although she hasn't figured out that every time you take a drink, you are supposed to swallow before opening your mouth. A little water never hurt much though, so no worries.
Saturday was her actual birthday party and we were blessed to have almost our entire family (both sides) as well as one of the only other babies that Makenna knows. We had some great food provided by Cristi's mom so everyone had plenty to eat, including Makenna who loved the pastas and casseroles almost as much as everyone else (although Greg loved the salad a little too much). After we all ate, Makenna opened up her gifts...and then more gifts...and more gifts. I don't know how long it took to open gifts, but there were a lot of them. Makenna and Nash played with the toys for a few minutes before it was time to eat cake.
Sadly enough, Makenna was very proper when it came to eating the cake. She would basically swipe one finger through the icing and lick it off. She never truly dug in and got a handful although there was plenty of extra icing that never actually made it in her mouth. In an attempt to help her out, I pulled off a small piece of cake and let her feed it to herself and she did not like it at all. I don't know if it was the texture or the taste but she refused to eat anymore after that.
After cake, we spent some more time playing with toys and just talking and stuff and then everyone had to go home. Needless to say, about 5 minutes after people left, Makenna was ready for a nap. She was very sleep and rightly so as she had a very long day.
I'm hoping Cristi will have some more information about all the gifts and stuff that Makenna got as well as pictures and stuff like that, so stay tuned on her blog for that stuff.
Update: I completely forgot to mention that Makenna's aussie aunt amy sent her gift and card for her birthday, since it didn't really make sense to drop 2 grand on a plane ticket for a 1 year old's birthday party...maybe for her 3rd or 4th birthday ;) . She got it on Thursday, and although she loved the stuffed animal, she insisted on carrying around the card most of the day until she got some more two days later. Of course, the cutest part was that as soon as she saw the big ol' purple giraffe, she immediately gave it a kiss.
Labels: Makenna
1 Comments - Leave one yourself2/23/09 - Things that make my heart melt
I'm a guy with certain female tendencies. For instance, I know how to crosstich, and although I have not done it in a while, I used to really enjoy doing it. I knew how to knit at one point, and have completed several hook and weave (I think that's what it is called) patterns, including a very large eagle crest that is currently displayed over my parent's staircase. I tend to cry at sappy stories; you know the ones that just really give you hope that there are still decent people in this world. For some reason, sappy sports stories really get to me. These are just a few things that would cause people to question my "manliness".With that said, here is a list of things that I think would make the heart of even the manliest of men melt.
1) Not long ago, Makenna learned how to give kisses. Although it is not a true kiss as there is no puckering going on, it is the thought that counts. Depending on how "busy" she is, it takes a little bit of coaxing, but eventually she'll cut her eyes, open her mouth and lean in, usually initiating the contact. I can't imagine there is anything sweeter than getting a kiss from your daughter.
2) A while back, about the same time she learned to give kisses, she starting giving high fives too. Although not really as sweet as kisses, it is another one of those things that makes me just say "That's my girl."
3) When she gets tired, and I mean, when she gets really tired, to the point of almost passing out, she will eventually give in and lay her head on my shoulder. For most babies, when they get just a little sleepy, they will lay down and fall asleep just about anywhere. I know this, because I've seen it on many occassion. Makenna is the opposite, she will fight sleep for as long as possible. But that is what makes this point that much sweeter for me. It's a very rare thing, and she won't do it for just anybody. In fact, I've found that she is more likely to lay her head on my shoulder than Cristi's. Not to take anything away from my wife, but that makes me feel so good that there is an area that I can provide just a little better than she can. (Trust me, these are few and far between, Cristi gets credit for pretty much everything else).
4) She is such a charmer. Anywhere we go, she likes to wave at people and get their attention. If someone doesn't pay her enough attention, she will wave and wave until they leave or until they look at her. I have seen grown men with a scowl on their face, turn into a massive grinning child if Makenna waves at them long enough. It's so fun to watch and of course to get constant compliments about how cute your daughter is.
5) One of her first noises she starting making on a regular basis was "dada". It started out as a long string of "da"s but eventually shrunk to a simple "dada". I do recognize that to some extent she has not equated that noise she makes with what it really means. But every once in a while, she'll point right at me and enunciate those two wonderful syllables and it just brings a smile to my face.
6) The final thing that really gets me is that recently she has started reaching for me (or running away, depending on her mood). If I reach for her to pick her up, she will do one of two things. The first is to lift her hands up to me which is just so awesome knowing that what she really wants at that moment is to be held by her dad. The second is to scoot off as fast as she can, the whole time looking over her shoulder laughing. This is just as sweet to me because I interprate it to mean that all she wants to do right then is play with her dad.
So there ya go, a list of just a few of things that remind just about every day why I think it is so great being a dad. I know this list is just going to grow and grow, but for now, it's hard to imagine that I could fall in love with this little girl any more than I already have. 4 Comments - Leave one yourself
12/19/08 - When it comes to Makenna...I'm in trouble
I have another update on how fast Makenna seems to be progressing lately. While doing our stand up practice, she started falling forwards, i would catch her, make a noise and stand her back up. First of all, she thought this was hilarious. Second, after a few times of this, she realized she could move her legs and as she fell, would take one step and keep on falling. A few times, she got two or three quick leg movements in (I don't really call them true steps just yet). So that was part of the progress we made last night.Another thing I found out is that she thinks that sneezes are hilarious. If she knew who comedians were, she would probably rank sneezing up there with Mitch Hedberg and George Carlin. About a week ago, Raider sneezed and she laughed but I wrote it off, since pretty much everything Raider does is either interesting or funny to her. Two days ago though, Cristi's mom sneezed and Makenna laughed, followed by Cristi's sneeze a little while later and she laughed again. Well, last night, I had a real sneeze that made her giggle, so I faked a sneeze and she laughed again. Well, since I think her laugh is one of the most precious noises I've ever heard, I kept "sneezing" and she kept laughing. That took about 10 minutes of our time and I wouldn't trade that time for anything.
Another piece of progress we made was that she sat up for the first time. At least, it's the first time I've ever seen her do it. She was on her stomach, she rocked around a little to her hands and knees and eventually into a sitting position. She only did it once all night, but it was exciting for me. Especially since at her doctor's appointment yesterday, as the doctor went through the list of developmental items that she should be doing, she was not able to be checked off on several of those. The doctor said that she is still in an average range, but just like any other respectable parent, I have hopes that Makenna will be above average.
So, now to the reason that I'm in trouble. When she sat up, and got me excited. It has been my practice that anytime she does something really good, I clap and in my normal voice, say "Yeah!". Well, I was truly excited about her sitting up so I guess I got a little louder than normal. No more than 2 seconds after I screamed "Yeah!" my heart was torn out of my chest, stomped on and sent through a grinder, because I scared her to death. Her arms went straight out to her side, eyes as big as saucers, mouth as wide as it would go and a shriek that no baby should ever have to make. I can not explain to you how bad I felt that I did that to her. All I could do was hug her and cry. Laugh if you want that I cried about it, but I am not someone who cries at anything (ask my wife...she's tried to get me to cry). Of course, about 5 seconds after I reached over and grabbed her and hugged her she was ready to start playing again and started patting my head and laughing. I wish my memory could be so short, because I can not get that pitiful image out of my head of her so scared. So if she can have that much of an impact on me now, I am scared to death to know how I'm going to be able to handle her when she gets olders.
Labels: Makenna
0 Comments - Leave one yourself12/18/08 - My baby girl is turning into a big girl.
A couple nights ago, Makenna and I were playing in the floor where she now likes to pull herself up on my chest and lean on me. She has been doing this for the past week or so, maybe a couple of weeks, and she has gotten better and better at being able to pull herself to a standing/leaning position. I do believe that simply standing up is her new most favorite thing to do.Let me go back several months, probably 8 or so. Since she has been able to support her head, she has always been able to support her weight on her legs. If you stood her up and let her feet touch a solid surface, she would straighten her legs and be kind of wobbly. You couldn't let go of her for a split second because she would fall, but I found it interesting that she was able to do that at such an early age.
Since then, every once in a while, in an attempt to help train her muscles, I would let her wobble and fall (safely, I always caught her or made sure there were plenty of pillows blankets and soft stuff to pad her falls). She never really did get the hang of it, but eventually she learned how to always fall backwards, and always land on her butt instead of just falling straight back.
So the other night, I thought it would be fun to do that again and see if anything had changed. Well, to my surprise, she stood there....and stood there....and then about 5-10 seconds later, she finally fell backwards. At only 5-10 seconds, that isn't a big deal, but the big part of it was that as she would wobble, she was correcting herself and standing back up. She did take a step at one point, but it was not intentional and it resulted in an immediate collapse.
That is going to be our new game now though since she has figured out how to pull herself up, I'm going to start letting go and helping her train those balance muscles. Considering that she has yet to crawl and starts crying if she is on her stomach for more than 15 seconds, I'm pretty sure she will be mobile via walking well before she crawls.
Cristi got pictures of all this going on, and possibly some movies, but since I'm at work, I don't have access to that. I'm sure she will put them up on her website in the next couple of days.
Labels: Makenna
0 Comments - Leave one yourself12/13/08 - I'm too busy (see: lazy) to put up the pictures.
Over on my wife's blog (Clicky), she has put up some very recent pictures of my beautiful baby girl. I actually took several of the most recent ones, but just haven't taken the time to get them up here. There's also a video from a last Sunday where I got her laughing pretty good.The last week or so has been amazing for me in regards to my relationship with my family. I don't really know what it is, because I can't seem to place my finger on any one thing that changed up my mindset. But all I have wanted to do when I get off work is go home and play with makenna, put her to bed and then hang out with Cristi. I have turned on my 360 once in the last two weeks, and quite frankly, I haven't missed it. If I had more time in the day, sure, I'd log on and play a few rounds of Gears, but as it stands, that is at the bottom of my list of things to do.
There have been a few things that have contributed, but like I said, there isn't one glaring item that sticks out as the driving force. First, we started a bible study based on the movie Fireproof starring Kirk Cameron. It's a couples study that's main focus is to both reignite your marriage, as well as push out some of the negative influences that are currently in your relationship. It has been really good, but I told Cristi last night, I have been really impressed with our marriage as most of the 24 chapters we have covered to this point have simply been reminders of things that we have always done.
Another big thing that has started happening is that Makenna is definitely more interactive. When she was younger, she just laid there and would kick around sometimes. Now, she really goes for it, constantly wants to climb up me to stand up, and loves wrestling (basically, I just pick her up and swing her around and then "pin" her with a big hug). She talks a lot more and is really starting to show a personality.
I think the weather has played a minor part in my priority switch as well. During the summer and spring, almost all I can focus on is cutting grass, building up GrassGuys, and doing anything outside that I can. I'm hoping I can do better this next year so I can spend more time at home with my family, but years past, that is the way it's been. Now with the cold weather and dreary days, it's so much fun to climb up in my chair, throw on a blanket, put Makenna in my lap and let her just play. My TV helps too because now with the way our living room is laid out, I can see the larger TV from my chair (and the TV swivels so that it points right at my chair).
So there ya go, my family means more to me now than it ever has, and I'm loving every bit of it. I can only hope that my family is enjoying my time as much as I enjoy theirs...
Labels: Makenna
1 Comments - Leave one yourself12/6/08 - Makenna is going to send me to my grave...
So weekends are my time to take care of Makenna. For the most part, I love this. I don't get to spend much time with her during the week, so being the primary care giver, it is pretty much a requirement that I get to spend a lot of time with her. Most weekends are great. She takes a nap in the afternoon, and between then and bedtime, we just play, watch football, play some more, eat, and then play some more. This plan works great until bedtime.For some reason, my daughter thinks it is the worst thing in the world to fall asleep. I'm pretty sure she gets it from me, because I don't like sleeping very much either. The difference is that when I get tired, I go to sleep. Makenna on the other hand, she would rather stay awake and cry. Let me rephrase that, she would rather stay awake and be held...otherwise she will cry.
Tonight, she was beyond cranky, so I knew that giving her a bath was out of the question. We jumped straight to PJs and then dinner (which has also been a problem recently). Tonight, she polished off 5 ounces, typically her dinner consists of about 3 ounces, so I was really thinking it would be a good night. She feel asleep (or so I thought) in her crib at a little after 8:00. I went out to the living room to wind down, with the plan of getting in bed at 9:00 myself, only to be startled by her screams at 8:30. Typically, a pacifier will take care of these situations, but this time it didn't work.
I tried rocking her, talking to her softly while gently shaking her in her bed, holding her and walking, and several other things that typically work. She kept her eyes peeled open the whole time. Finally, I had to just lay her down and let her cry while I turned off lights and did my nightly routine such as letting Raider out to the bathroom. I figured we would lay in our bed and fall asleep and she could just sleep with me tonight. Don't worry, this is not typical. Only twice since she started sleeping in her crib has this happened. It took her 15 minutes before her eyelids finally got heavy enough to actually fall asleep. She has been asleep now for close to 40 minutes and I'm headed there myself as soon as I finish this post.
I don't know what we are doing wrong, but she just does not sleep well. Last night she woke up 6 times (or something like that). The good thing is that she eats every time she wakes up, but it sure would be nice to get a full nights sleep with no interruptions.
Labels: Makenna
3 Comments - Leave one yourself10/26/08 - Makenna is a Raiders Fan
Unfortunately, Makenna was born into an era where the Raiders are pretty much the laughingstock of the NFL. Razorback football isn't looking all that great either, but that is another post. As most everyone knows, I have been a Raiders fan since birth, thanks to my father who has been a Raiders fan since way back in the day. For an early Christmas present, Cristi's mom got Makenna a couple of Raiders outfits. We got them early because by Christmas, the Raiders will be done and we couldn't wear them on game days.With that introduction, I have included several pictures with the most adorable Raiders fan you will ever see.
We were trying to hold up the #1 finger, but it didn't quite work...apparently she knew better.
I don't know what could be any cuter than this.
The picture on the left you see is how she feels when the Raiders win, and of course on the right is what she has been doing mostly this year.
I couldn't leave out her love for the Razorbacks. The picture on the right cracks me up. It looks like she is trying to pose and do her model thing.
This is when Cristi found out that she had outgrown her bouncy seat. She is supposed to be laying down, but she refused to and decided she wanted to situp even though that put the toys all up in her grill. She just looks like a doll sitting on the couch, and oh my goodness, if she were any cuter sitting on the beach, I think it would be a crime.
Labels: Makenna
1 Comments - Leave one yourself10/25/08 - Jumperoo Review
It's been a while since I've done a product review, and the most recent purchase that has been worth every penny is the Fisher-Price Rainforest Jumperoo
.At first, I was a little leery about getting this simply because she didn't seem to jump too much in her Exersaucer. I knew that my parent's had an old style jumperoo that you hung from the doorway, and so I thought it would be a good idea to borrow that and see if Makenna enjoyed jumping around. Well, before we had a chance to do that, we made it over to Baby Depot to look at high chairs so we decided to let her try out the jumperoos that were there.
SHE LOVED IT!!! Since her feet were just a bit off the ground, she couldn't jump on her own so I leaned over and bounced it for her and she thought it was the funniest thing in the world. Needless to say, I decided immediately that we would go ahead and get it.
Over the next couple days we priced it at several different stores and finally decided that it was cheapest to get it online from Amazon.com
. A few days later we got it, I put it together and you can see in the video below the results. A few weeks ago she sat in that thing for 30 minutes straight taking about a 30 second break every five minutes or so. How she had that much energy is beyond me.Labels: Makenna, product reviews
1 Comments - Leave one yourself10/15/08 - Weight gain here we come
As I believe i mentioned previously, we had some lab work done on Makenna to make sure there was nothing else wrong with her, other than having her dad's metabolism. All the initial tests came back looking good, but yesterday they got the results back from the urine culture they took and found a bacteria. This is not a big deal at all, she just has a UTI (urinary tract infection) which according to one of the doctor's Cristi works with is very common in failure to thrive babies (which makenna was "diagnosed" as since she does have a high metabolism). It is pretty much a sure thing that once we get this bacteria taken care of we'll be able to see weight gain again. This should keep Dr. Choate happy, as well as take some stress off Cristi. As for me, as long as Makenna is happy, dad's happy.Labels: Makenna
2 Comments - Leave one yourself9/2/08 - Life can be slow at times....
And this is one of those times.Makenna is growing like crazy. Just a few weeks ago, Cristi and I started putting Makenna in her exersaucer. She wasn't quite tall enough to put her feet on the bottom so we started putting a blanket down so she could stand up on her toes. Within a week, she no longer needed the blanket, and now she is completely standing up with no blanket and pushing herself out of the seat.
She doesn't spend much time on her stomach, so I think she is a little slower than most in regards to starting to crawl and stuff like that. She really doesn't even try to push herself up when she is on her belly.
We started her on solid foods last Wednesday last night when I fed her, she is really starting to figure it out. Although she thought it was hilarious everytime she got a mouth full of food. This of course causes a problem with her ability to keep that food in her mouth...it just has a tendency to fall out. After a few failed attempts, she really started going to the point that she was grabbing my hand and shoving the spoon in her mouth.
I did nothing this weekend worth mentioning. Mowed, laid in the pool, played with Makenna and beat Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. (so I mentioned it anyways). I also did get a few computers fixed and up to a running state. Now only about 8 more to go to get my office cleaned out. I guess cleaning is another thing that I got accomplished this past week. Emptied the guest room, cleaned the bathrooms, did a bit of vaccuuming, I guess it was faily productive.
If anyone has any recommendations on how to convert an .avi file to a format for play on an ipod, I'm all ears. I have made a couple of half-hearted attempts with no positive results so if anyone has a tried and true method...either send me an email (gravytrain6 (at) gmail (dot) com) or just left a comment on this note. 1 Comments - Leave one yourself
8/18/08 - More pictures of Makenna...finally
Poor thing nearly fell asleep in her exersaucer. But then there are times when she is having the time of her life.
Cristi thinks she looks her cutest when her hair is wet. She also thinks she looks more like me when her hair is wet. I'm guessing it has something to do with the bald head look.
This is a more recent picture of this picture. She has gotten quite a bit bigger from that last one.
She just looks so cute. The first picture is her in an outfit that her Mimi bought for her down in Mexico I think. The other is her attempting to eat her feet which she likes to do a lot.
Raider is no longer scared of her. In fact, they are both getting really interested in each other. Raider is realizing that she isn't going away, and Makenna is realizing that he is a little bit different from Mom and Dad. I can't wait until she becomes mobile and see Raider's reaction to that.
We love hanging out with each other. Apparently when I was younger, I loved sleeping in my dad's armpit...I guess Makenna comes by it naturally. The other was taken just the other night. You can't really see it in the picture, but as I was holding her, she just put her hand behind my back and rested it on my neck. Then she just leaned over and put her face right on mine.
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1 Comments - Leave one yourself6/24/08 - Makenna is a doll
No captions...just pictures.
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0 Comments - Leave one yourself6/6/08 - Makenna is awesome
So the other night, it was my turn to feed at 2 in the morning, so I got up and headed into her bedroom to feed her the 2 ounces from a Dr. Brown bottle. These bottles are made to mimic the flow of milk from the mother, which means that it is incredibly slow in comparison to most other bottles.On average, it takes about 20 minutes from the time I get out of bed, feed her, swaddler her, get her back to sleep and get back into bed.
This night was slightly different. After about 10 minutes, I noticed that the milk didn't seem to be getting lower. I pulled it away and checked and sure enough, there were still 2 ounces in the bottle. I checked the nipple and it had gotten jammed or clogged or something. I had to go get a new nipple and start over. I should also mention that this particular night, I had not gotten to bed until a little after midnight...I was tired.
Once we got the bottle figured out, we sat back down and she got about halfway through when she decided she wanted to go back to sleep. There are nights when she is just so tired, she doesn't want to eat at all. Usually, if you sit her up, play with her ear, move the bottle around, you can get her to start eating again. No more than 2 or 3 of these moves is required to get her to finish the bottle.
This night was slightly different. It took close to 15 minutes of constant stimulation to get her to finish the last half of her bottle. This puts the entire feeding time to right around 35 minutes or so. I should also mention that I new that I had to get up again at 5:00 to go to work...I wanted sleep.
I should also mention that prior to completing the bottle, she decided that then and there was the best time and place to complete load her diaper. How anyone can sleep through an explosive pants filling like she did is beyond me. Normally, Cristi has changed her diaper and all I need to do is swaddler her and put her down.
This night was slightly different. Of course, I had to change her diaper (which is not at the top of my list of favorite things to do) because Cristi would have been pretty upset if she checked her diaper before the 5:00 and saw that I had left a big o' pile of poopy in her diaper. So...by this point, I'm pretty upset because all I want to do is get some sleep. I had zero patience and was tempted multiple times to just give up the whole process, wrap her up and put her in her swing for the rest of the night.
Well...that was until I laid her down to change her diaper. She looked up at me with those big eyes of her...tilted her head to the side a little...and laughed. For some reason, she thought it was the funniest thing to her. Well, if you've ever seen a baby smile/laugh...you can't do ANYTHING but look back and smile and laugh with them. At that point, I didn't care if I had to stay up the rest of the night, that little smile was the most incredible thing I had seen. She's been smiling for a while now, but the whole situation leading up to that smile made that one just so much more special.
So before I finished changing the diaper, I just leaned over and played with her for a bit. She just kept smiling and what I believe were laughs. When all was said and done, I got her wrapped up and sat in the chair for probably a good 5 or 10 minutes just looking at her...all the while she was asleep.
It doesn't change the fact that I was a zombie the next day at work, but I'm in so much trouble when she gets older if she figures out that her smile makes melt in a split second.
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1 Comments - Leave one yourself6/3/08 - Almost 8 pounds
Cristi took Makenna to get weighed yesterday, and the little girl has gained 9 ounces in the last five days or so to put her at 7 pounds 14 ounces. That puts her at a pound gained in just under 3 weeks. At the rate she is going, she should reach her fighting weight in about 20 days based on cristi's calculations. 0 Comments - Leave one yourself5/20/08 - Makenna has gained the weight
Since last week, Makenna has gained 8 ounces. The goal was 6 ounces so the doctor was very pleased. He said he is comfortable with Cristi continuing breastfeeding and no formula supplement will be needed. He did say that when we go back in two months, that he would like to see her around 10 pounds or so. That means that Cristi's schedule is going to have to continue to be very frequent which means in turn that she is going to not get much sleep for a while.The biggest thing that we learned from this is that it is very important that young babies eat at least every two hours when breastfed. They should also be woken at least every three hours at night to feed, regardless if they act hunger or not. We realized recently that many of the signs that Makenna was giving off were actually signs of hunger and not sleepiness. Since we started listening better, she has more energy and is a much happier baby.
Thank you for everyone who was praying for us and thinking about us. We still need prayer as it will be difficult to keep up this feeding marathon and make sure Makenna is growing the way she should.
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1 Comments - Leave one yourself5/14/08 - Makenna's doctor update
Yesterday afternoon, Makenna had her second wellness checkup. She is in perfect health from head to toe with the exception of her weight. She currently weighs 6 pounds 14 ounces (12 ounces without a diaper) which means she has only gained a total of 2-4 ounces since birth.There is no question that she is eating. Cristi feeds her every three hours, sometimes two. For some reason, she just isn't getting the calories and fat that she needs.
For the next week, Cristi is going to start feeding every two hours and she will start waking her up every three hours or so to feed her at night. The goal is to gain roughly 6 ounces by next Tuesday. If she can do that, we won't have to start adding two ounces of formula after ever feeding.
This is really important to Cristi that she be able to breastfeed only, so please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. After these couple of trials, if Makenna is still not gaining weight, we will have to run more tests to see what's going on.
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0 Comments - Leave one yourself5/6/08 - Today is a good day
So far, today has been great. I have nothing really to share with anyone, just that it's a good day.A while back Cristi had some pictures taken of makenna, and they are now on the photographer's website.
Makenna pictures
I haven't been posting, simply because I've been pretty busy. Softball has been awesome and lawncare, although not taking up ALL my time, has consumed a fair amount. On top of that, I haven't really had anything to share. Also, with the PayPerPost deal, for some reason, they lowered all my rankings so I am no longer eligible for any of the offers. That really sucks, because I don't know what happened to cause my rating to drop. 0 Comments - Leave one yourself
4/28/08 - We had a great weekend
This past weekend was Makenna's first weekend to be out in the world. Last Thursday was her first day out with a trip to Cristi's doctor's appointment, Corky's for dinner with her dad (ME), and a trip to her Mimi's office.But Saturday, she went to Home Depot, Lowes, Wal-mart, back to Lowes and Home Depot and finally to Sam's. I was shopping for lots of tools for GrassGuys, so she got to come along. She even got to ride in a wheelbarrow. We forgot the camera, so we didn't get a picture of it. She did really well, sleeping for most of the day and only had to eat once, right before we went in Wal-mart. We left the house at 11:00 that morning (having gotten up at about 8:00 to start getting ready to go) and didn't get home until around 4:00 or 5:00 that evening. We got a lot done, but we were exhausted.
When we got home, I had to put my new tools to use, so I spent the rest of the day working in the yard and flower bed. I've still got several hours of work to go on the flower beds, but everything is really starting to look pretty nice. I've got to prune, weed, till and finally put down a layer of mulch. It will take the rest of the summer I think to get it looking really good, but this was a start and mainly just an effort to get it to a manageable position.
Saturday was the draft, and my beloved Raiders came through and picked up Darren McFadden. I was hoping it would happen, but I just knew something was going to get screwed up. When McFadden declared, my biggest fear was he would get picked up by the Cowboys or the Patriots, but then he is now playing (assuming a contract can be agreed upon) for my favorite team. I'll probably have to order a jersey and get some collectible items for my room. I think what would be awesome is if I could find a half jersey with one side being Raiders and the other being the Razorbacks. It would have to be Raiders black and Razorback red, but that would be an awesome jersey.
Tuesday, Grand Theft Auto IV comes out. I won't be getting it yet, as I want to make sure it's going to be as good as everyone is hoping. From what i've read to this point, it sounds like there is more online stuff than actual game play. I'm hoping that is not the case, but considering I'm hoping to get Live in the next month or so, it wouldn't be the end of the world. 0 Comments - Leave one yourself
4/21/08 - more new Pictures
More pictures of Makenna. I have this fear that Cristi and I think we have the cutest baby in the world, but instead, she's only cute to the two of us. It doesn't bother me, but I just hope that as she gets older she stays/becomes a beautiful young girl. With piece of my thoughts, here are a few more pictures of the darling child.
She looks her cutest when she's sleeping. That might have something to do with the fact that she isn't crying during that period. Whatever the case, Cristi loves it when she falls asleep with her pacifier and then it slowly starts falling out. She finally grew into one of her hats, so we put it on her and she thugged out for a while.
Because of her yellowish color, we're supposed to keep her in the sun for 10 minutes at a time several times a day. It was really bright on Saturday, so we had to put on her shades, so she just chilled as she sun bathed. Sunday, she was finally fed up with all the pictures, she just couldn't take it any more.
Finally, so far she is slowly becoming daddy's girl. I don't remember the first picture, but I really like it. The second one was right when Cristi got home Sunday afternoon after my first "babysitting by myself" couple of hours. The picture you see here is a summary of what we did. She slept, I played XBox360, it worked out well.
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0 Comments - Leave one yourself4/18/08 - Sleeping, Baby acne and a yellow color
I think it's been a while since I've updated everyone on how Makenna has been doing. As of three nights ago, we have decided to completely alter the way we are putting her to sleep. Previously, she went to bed when we did (around 11:00 or midnight). The problem we ran into is that it took her 30 minutes to an hour to fall asleep which meant that we didn't get much sleep at al.We changed this to start putting her down to bed between 7:00 and 8:00. She has been getting to sleep around 9:00 every night and sleeping for a good 6 hours. At that point, Cristi wakes up, feeds her, changes her diaper and gives her to me to swaddler her. After that, she goes right back to sleep and wakes up around 8:00 for a total of about 9-10 hours. We have also started putting her in her own room, in her swing (which I will be reviewing, hopefully this weekend) where she won't be bothered by the noise of the TV or Cristi and I talking before we fall asleep. This has worked out well for ALL parties involved.
Ever since Makenna was about a week old, she has had pretty bad baby acne. Cristi has assured me that this is normal until the last couple of days. It has gotten much, much worse and she said she thinks it might be insert-skin-condition-with-a-name-I-can't-spell-or-pronounce. It's not a big deal, but if it is the case, it would require us to apply a cream to her skin to help it go away.
Also, Cristi mentioned a while back that she thought Makenna was still a little yellow. Her eyes have been yellow since she was born, but I just assumed that was due to being a baby and not having eye color yet. Some of her friends came over and also commented that she looked a little yellow. With that said, I think Cristi might try to take her to the doctor in the next few days to see if we can get a true medical diagnosis and treatment for these things.
In somewhat related news, Cristi has possibly found a position at work that will allow her to actually make more money than she is now, work just about half as many hours and get to be at home Monday through Friday to stay with Makenna. This of course will greatly cut into the amount of time that she and I would get to spend together, but I think it's definitely worth a trial run. It's possibly that this position will be available for her before she goes back to work.
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0 Comments - Leave one yourself4/12/08 - New Makenna pictures
Here are the latest pictures of little Miss Makenna.
Sometimes, she just likes to stretch out and fall asleep, other times, she likes to post while she sleeps. And of course, she loves to sleep in her dad's lap. We've also noticed, that she loves to sleep with her mouth open (just like her dad)
One of our favorite things about her little personality, is her facial expressions. These are just a few of the different faces she likes to make. She still has really bad baby acne, which is normal, but that explains the red spots. Last but not least, Cristi dressed her up for me the other day and sent pictures of her in her cute little dress (the hat is still just a little too big.
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0 Comments - Leave one yourself3/31/08 - Updated pictures of the baby girl
I had all intentions of getting pictures of Makenna up for everyone to see, but life is busy, really busy. Raider has been sick (he can't even hold down water) since we got home Saturday afternoon. Makenna has been better, but she is still not back to her previous self. Cristi's car wouldn't start yesterday, and it's still not running today after my wonderful uncle Glenn came by and gave me some help.With that said, here are the pictures as promised.
These first few are really just some nice black and white pictures we've been able to snap over the last week or so.
On Easter, we had the privilege of hosting a large portion of our family for dinner. Cristi's mom fixed all sorts of food, Aunt Bev provided some meats and my mom brought desserts and I think a few appetizers. Altogether, it was a great effort, we had a great time and the above picture sare just a few from that day. The picture of all of us is awesome, I can't believe everyone, even the dogs, except for Makenna was looking at the camera and smiling.
Apparently, we do a lot more sleeping around here than I realized. It seems like just about every other picture is of someone sleeping holding Makenna, or just Makenna sleeping. Here are four of the most recent good ones.
Last, but not least, I had to show you how Dad likes to babysit, how Mom likes to burp, and of course how cute Makenna looks in her I Love Grandma shirt. Doesn't she look like a little angel.
Finally, if you would like a larger size of any of these pictures, please just leave a comment with the picture number that you are interested in. I like to keep the pictures online smaller in an attempt to save on bandwidth and storage (although at this point, it doesn't really matter, I don't have enough traffic). I don't have a problem uploading a few that you really like. The ones I have posted are the ones that I felt were the best of the bunch, although it is difficult to narrow down from a couple hundred pictures. If there is another one you think I might have, just ask, I can look.
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