Mother's Day and First Sickness (Outside of the Hospital)

Well, let me start this off by saying that I had the most wonderful first Mother's Day that I ever could have wished for! I got up Mother's Day morning to the most beautiful baby girl in the whole wide world, smiling away in her crib, talking to her stuffed animals. (Okay, she was probably talking to her ceiling fan, but you get the point!) We came downstairs and she had a breakfast of blueberry pear (I think) mixed with some new cereal (Daddy was still upstairs at this point). She ate an entire Stage 2 container of that, and then proceeded to nurse quite a bit. In the mist of her eating her breakfast, Scott gave her a couple of little bites of his Lemon Merange yogurt to try. She was fine through all of that, and she was hanging out with her Dad and Aunt Karen while I finished getting ready for church. I waltzed back into the Family Room and sat down on the couch with Scott and Shelbi. All of a sudden, he said "Shelbi, are you okay?" and right after those words escaped his mouth, she violently threw up. Now, Shelbi does throw up quite a bit, but this was MAJOR. She threw up once, then again, and the second time it was projectile AND came out her nose as well. She threw up one final time, and I ran out to the kitchen to get some paper towels while Karen was doing her best to hold what she could in her cupped hands. Scott kept telling Shelbi that she was okay, and that helped her from getting upset and freaking out. I started to "panic think," and for a brief second that I was going to be spending my first Mother's Day in the ER. After she got all of that out of her system, she was back to her old self again...wiggling around and smiling like the cute little ham that she is. I had a onesie made for Mammi for Mother's Day, and luckily, Shelbi had a sweater on on top of the onesie, or it would have been too soaked to wear to church. She had completely soaked the sweater, her onesie for Mammi was wet quite a bit on the top half, and the onesie underneath that one was also soaked. I ran upstairs to find her another onesie for under the cute Mammi one, Scott put the Mammi one in the dryer and then ran upstairs and dried it with the hair dryer, and Aunt Karen got her changed. We were playing a fun and exciting game of Beat the Clock, as I was making an attempt to stop to see Non before church. We hustled and bustled, but we were able to get it done.
Non was very happy with her picture frame gifts. Shelbi got her a framed copy of the picture of the two of them, and I got her a picture frame with two pictures from Shelbi's 3 months photo shoot and 2 pictures from her 6 month photo shoot. After a brief stay at Pap's house (and some unwanted harassment from Pap Sr.), we headed out the door and on our way to church.

The service at church was very nice and it focused on mothers and women in general. Mammi made it a point to say that the Anthem that the choir was singing was supposed to be a good one. I was expecting and waiting for a nice upbeat song, or for them to break out in a dance. To my surprise, it was a slow, contemporary song, with a slide show showing on the wall behind the choir. The slides consisted of what looked like a theatre reinaction of some biblical times with Mary and Jesus. At the end of the song, there was a slide that had none other than ME AND SHELBI! I couldn't believe my eyes! It was a slide of 2 older generation mother's, an older mother-daughter duo, and the picture of me holding Shelbi at the March for Babies! It was so neat and brought tears to my eyes. It turns out that Chuck had emailed my Mom about it, and she sent him the picture. When Shelbi gets fussy at church, I have a tendency to just get up and leave the sanctuary, and that's why she was telling me the story about the anthem...she didn't want me to miss it. Following a nice march up the isle at church to receive a cute pin, we headed out to the parking lot in the normal fashion...me carrying the diaper bag, and Aunt Megan carrying Shelbi.
Oh, here I go jumping around. When Shelbi and I first got into church, I asked Mammi to take off Shelbi's sweater, and she saw the onesie. She really liked it, and said that it made her happy. The front of the onesie said "I <3>

We told my Mom that we had reservations for lunch at the Italian Oven, so we headed on our merry little ways. Throughout the car ride to the mall, Megan, Dad, and I played some nice phone games, trying to make sure that we had everything in order, as Tim and Dad were meeting us there to surprise Mom. We arrived at the mall a little early, so we convinced Mom to do a lap around the mall first, while we waited for our table that was already ready (we didn't want to go in and have them seat us in the table for 6 plus Shelbi when she thought there was only 4 plus Shelbi). Upon our arrival back to the Italian Oven, Mom finally spotted Tim patiently (well, as patient as he could be) waiting outside of the restaurant. She got a very big smile on her face, and said "Ohhhhh! My Baby!" She was very happy to have all of her children and her hubby there to celebrate Mother's Day (even though she kept saying nonsense statements such as "Who talked you into coming home from school?" and "You should be home relaxing for your first Mother's Day!" and "You shouldn't have come all this way home!"). Shelbi got her Mammi a try picture frame with 5 pictures from her 6 month shoot, and Megan, Tim, and I got her the Wii Fit, as she is very difficult to buy for.

Sorry that this got so long, but I wanted to make sure that I had every little detail, as I know as time goes on, the exactness of the memories seem to fade. Before leaving in the morning, Shelbi presented me with a beautiful charm bracelet from Kay Jewelers with a beautiful silver heart charm. It's going to be engraved with her name, and as the years fly by, I will add more charms to the bracelet. I also received the Boyd's Best Dressed series giraffe, a card, and a very cute picture frame for a picture of the two of us. The most surprising and most cherished gift I received was a card. A simple card, from my mother to me, meant and will always mean the world to me. Thanks so very much for the picture frame as well, but the card was the best Mom! I love you, and so does your "Bi!"

Seeing Non and Meeting Pap

Today was a busy but fun day. I woke up this morning to a very smiley beautiful girl chatting away to her stuffed animals that are at the top of her crib. We had a lot planned for the day, so we headed downstairs for the daily routine of diaper change, breakfast, and nursing. After all of the hustle and bustle of the morning, we headed out to meet Steph and Josie at the mall to do a little bit of shopping. We then headed to Shippensburg to pick up our pictures, after stopping off at the Carlisle Kohl's and snatching up some awesome deals on clothes for the girls. Most of the items that I got are for her for next year, but I could not pass up on the 80% discounted prices on Carter's! During our trip to Kohl's, my Little Miss Drama Queen decided that she did NOT want to be in her stroller. She started to cry, so I got her out for a bit. She was then as happy as, um, I don't really like the "happy as a clam" saying because do we REALLY know that clams are happy creatures. Okay, I'll take that back. I just looked up online why and how the saying came into use, and the derivation is more likely to have come from the full phrase of "as happy as a clam at high water." Clams must be dug for during low tide, so I guess the clam is pretty happy during high tide. Anyway, I digress...She was quite happy, looking all around, trying to pull on my necklace, trying to pull on the clothes that we were looking at, as long as I held her. (Note to self, start taking the carrier with you in the car, and then you can put her in that when she want to be held.) I tried to put her down a couple of times, but she just started to cry, and I prefer to not have strangers stare at me and my unhappy child, so I picked her back up for a bit. A little while later, she became restless and decided she was hungry, so with the help from wonderful Aunt Steph, I nursed her (discretely) while walking around the toy department of Kohl's. Shelbi was then gracious enough to allow me to put her back in her stroller, but only if I acted like a goober. She was smiling and content if I was singing, or moving my head around like an, um, I don't even know anything to compare it to. Following my bought with whip flash, I remembered the SHHHHH technique. For some unknown but must appreciated reason, she enjoys the SHHHHH sound and it soothes her, so we, as parents, do what we have to do. After our running around of the morning and afternoon was completed, we headed over to 929 Susan Circle to see Non and Pap, as they arrived home from Florida yesterday. Non had seen Shelbi once while she was in the NICU, but that was it and Pap had not seen her in person, as they headed down to Florida in the beginning of October. Non rushed out to the Xterra (well, as much rushing as an 80ish-year-old legally blind woman can rush) to meet us. Shelbi got extremely excited when she saw Non and started squealing like she does when she gets excited. We went in the house, and Non asked to hold her for a bit, and she was playing and talking and laughing with her. Shelbi wasn't quite sure what to think of Pap, but, well, none of us really do. She was quite the little ham for Non, Pap, Aunt Donna, Sara, Camilla, Zac, and Caleb. She very much enjoyed being the center of attention and having everyone make such a fuss over her. The kids really liked seeing her as well, and eventually Pap (my Dad) came home from work and basked in the glory of his grand-daughter for a bit as well. Even though the weather was icky and rainy, it was a very nice, enjoyable day, spent mostly with friends and family. I will close for now, as she is napping in her car seat on the counter, and I'm going to try to grab a bite to eat before getting her up and ready for bed.

March of Dimes

Well, it's been a while since my last post. Time just seems to fly by anymore, and I find myself running out of time in the day to get everything done that I want to get done as Shelbi gets bigger and bigger and more and more active. I just put her to bed about 5 minutes ago, and she is either already asleep, or she is entertaining herself by watching the ceiling fan and listening to her heartbeat dog. She goes to bed very easily most nights, and I know that we are very lucky for that. Hopefully, for Steph's benefit and sanity, Josie will get on the easy-to-go-to-bed-and-sleep-through-the-night train. The last two nights, she has had Steph up about every hour, and I'm sure that is extremely difficult.

Anyway, yesterday was the March of Dimes March for Babies. It was rainy and a little chilly, but it was a good time. Our awesome team consisted of Shelbi, me, Daddy, Mammi, Aunt Megan, Aunt Steph, Josie, Nana Jan, and Aunt Karen. We also hooked up with Amy from our iVillage board. She lives in York, and she had her daughter, Brooke, 4 1/2 early. We took the shorter route due to the rain (and worries about Mammi's foot), but it was a nice outing. Our team, Shelbi Strollers, raised over $1,700.00! Following the walk, they had a nice Subway lunch ready for us, along with activities for the kids and goody cups to go. When we were waiting for the walk to begin, Shannon, one of Shelbi's NICU nurses, came over and said hello, and got to see Shelbi looking GREAT!

Shelbi has been practicing sitting on her own, and she's doing pretty well. Before too long, she will have it down pat. She's also trying all kinds of different baby foods. She still has cereal with apple juice for breakfast, and then she nurses as well. Then, for dinner, she has some sort of fruit (normally, due to the fact that she does NOT like the veggies) mixed with a little bit of cereal. We got her a doorway jumper a couple of weeks ago, but she's not too sure if she likes it or not. We'll see what happens.

Well, I know that there is a lot more that I want to write, but of course I cannot remember at the current moment, so I will close for now.