The new year came in like a hurricane this year. At the end of last year Annicka and Macie were in town visiting us for a week. There was lots of cute cousin moments and good times spent with family. It was fantastic having Annicka and Macie around. James had a cousin to play with and I had a sister to hang out with. We went to lunch with friends, saw Into The Woods for sisters night, and had a super fun dinner at siblings night. One night Annicka and I dropped off the kidos at Grandpa James and Grandma Cathy's while we got pedicures. It was an awesome week considering we all had colds at the time, but it was the tail end of our colds, right?
Boy were we wrong. The first Saturday after the new year, I was at work and wasn't feeling too hot (or rather I was feeling too hot, 102.7 degrees too hot). So they sent me home sick. When I got home Sean wasn't feeling to great and James had a hard time going to sleep because he was coughing so much. So we were up with him trying to calm him down and get him to sleep. Sean did most of the calming because I had to be to work the next day. So at about 3:00 am I tried to go back to sleep. Well, not long after that, Britta (who was staying with us because she and Annicka had to get an early start back to California), came down and knocked on my door and said "Annicka thinks she's in labor." As soon as she told me that I immediately jumped out of bed. I go up the stairs to find Annicka sitting on the stairs mid contraction. So I poped into the nursery to tell Sean that I'm going to the hospital (which upset him because I woke up James in the process. In Sean's defense, he thought I was just going into work on call.) I got Annicka into the car and as I was driving I timed her contractions, 3 min apart! So we get to the hospital roughly 3:30. As they are taking her history, I realize this could be the real deal. So I have Britta (who stayed at the house) call my Dad and Mason to come and give Annicka a blessing. After what seems like forever they arrive and gave her a beautiful blessing. Also, as if going into early labor isn't enough, Matt was still back in California. So I attempted to call him, no answer. I call his father (who they were living with at the time), no answer. I call his mother, no answer. Finally after multiple calls I get a hold of Matt, and tell him that Annicka is at the hospital and she probably will not be making it back today. After a while the doctor comes back and tells Annicka that she is leaking amniotic fluid which is putting the baby at risk of an infection. So they prepare her for an extended hospital stay and prophylactic antibiotics until she can build her amniotic fluid up again. So they are getting ready to send her to the floor on bedrest but they wanted to do a ultrasound first. Upon doing the ultrasound they saw that there was hardly any amniotic fluid in there and she had suddenly dilated to a 5 which meant emergency C-section. Poor Annicka was just barely 32 weeks along at this point, but she was so stellar and dealt with the whole situation admirably (if it was me, I probably would have been sobbing). But baby Michelle made it into the world quite smoothly and with no complications other than the earliness of her arrival. Annicka got to glance her baby girl for just a second before they took her to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. So on January 4th early in the morning baby Michelle was born weighing 3 lbs 3 oz. Matt flew out as soon as he herd that she was going to have a C-section, but unfortunately didn't make it in time for her birth. So because he wasn't there I had the amazing experience of being there when baby Michelle was born. She was so tiny I thought my heart would crumble into a million pieces. Unfortunately for Annicka, just after delivery she tested positive for RSV and wouldn't get to hold her baby right away. In fact she had to wait a few days to see her (Seriously, the agony). And when she did she had to wear a gown, gloves, and a mask. Because we had both been sick, I was worried that I might have RSV also so I waited to see her until a couple of weeks after I stopped showing symptoms, which was today! I got to hold her and she is so tiny and precious, I just love her. Here Annicka is in gown, gloves, & mask.
I know it's been hard on Matt, Annicka, and Macie. But from an Auntie point of view, it was a blast having them around. I got up every morning when James woke up, and not long after that Macie would wake up also. I fed them both breakfast at the same time. They would "play" together. I use the term play lightly because it usually went something like this. James would be on the floor playing with his toys and (since he couldn't crawl at the time) would reach towards Macie, who was standing there watching him, and as soon as he would reach towards her she would just take one step back. But then, after a while she would pick up a toy, play with it, then hand it to James. After a little while longer she would actually sit down on the floor with him and play, I loved it. And James just loved to watch her, you could almost see him thinking "She's my same size, but she's walking, I want to walk." Then he would wiggle around and try to get moving. It was the best!
But soon Macie and Matt's stay had to end. A week after Michelle was born they went back to California because Matt still had to work. So Annicka's been staying with us ever since. As hard as this is on Annicka, I love having her around. I have someone to go on walks with, sister talk every night, and the most important thing, out voting Sean on what we are going to watch that night. Yea, it's pretty awesome.
And Michelle is making so much progress. She was only on oxygen her first day, and since then she has been on room air (which just so you know, for an 8 week early baby, is amazing). She's gained weight pretty steadily, today she weighed 4 lbs 7 oz. She can regulate her temperature well. She's making good progress with breast feeding and they think that she will have her feeding tube out soon. And those are the four milestones that she has to reach before she can go home (no longer on oxygen, regulates her own temperature, consistently gaining weight, and strictly bottle/breast feeding for one week). So they are thinking she will be coming home the end of this week or next, yea! I love this picture of her in her ittybitty hat.
As for James he just keeps growing and growing. Earlier today I tried to cradle him like the little baby he was and he just doesn't fit like he use to. Just after Matt and Macie left for California James crawled for the first time. And now he is into everything. He loves to pull himself up on the TV stand (it's just the right height for him) and has this bizarre fascination with the fireplace.
We have the chain curtains that hang in front of it and he really likes to play with them. I remember when I was little my Aunt Judy and Uncle Mike had a chain curtain just like ours in front of their fireplace and I loved playing with that as a child, also. He likes to pull himself up on the bricks around it and wobble-walk along it. I've tried to stop him from playing over there, I've put up a laundry basket (which he moved), I put the love sac in front of it (which he attempted to crawl under, that was awesome), or just pulled him away every time he got near (he thought it was a game). All to no avail. He is so preoccupied with that fireplace (which just for the record has never held a fire for as long as we have lived in the house) that the other day I couldn't find my phone so I called it and it was in the fireplace (it's not the last weird place I anticipate to find my phone, but I am glad it wasn't submerged in some sort of liquid).
Crawling has brought on other new challenges in parenthood. He has an obsession with the dog food, and poor Poodee just deals with it. He has not eaten the dog food yet (to my knowledge), but he thinks it's fun to take the dog food and put it in the water bowl. I thought the easy way to take care of this was to seperate the dog food from the water by putting Poodee's crate in between them. But he proved I am no match to his tenacity. He not only put the dog food in the water bowl, but also after letting the dog food soak in the water for a while knocked over the water bowl all over the carpet and down the wall into our family room.
Ew
But with the challenges comes the benefits. He is now able to get any toy he wants from anywhere in the family room, which is fantastic because playing the guessing game of which toy do you want was getting pretty old. It has been fun to see where he will go now that he has the means to do so. 9 times out of 10 it is just directly to me (which makes my mommy heart melt).
But other times he finds the laundry room (which literally has just a washer and dryer in it) entertaining. He likes to slap the machines sides to see what sounds they will make. He loves the stairs (the ones going up not the ones going down, blessedly those still scare him) he will just pull him self up and try to reach for the next step. He's gotten pretty close he got one knee up the step and tried to pull the other up, but soon realized he was stuck. He'll crawl over to where ever Poodee is and just laugh (apparently her face is just hilarious to him). It's been fun to see what interests him.
He also got his first hair cut this month. We had trimmed some of his hair here and there but it was time to get it professionally done (His little turkey feathers in the back were driving me nuts). He wasn't a fan of the clippers and cried the entire time she used them. But when she trimmed the top with scissors he calmed down again.
You can see the red splotches on his face from all the crying he did.
I also have to give my anti-social husband credit, with so many people coming and going and having family with us for an extended stay, he has been so good. I was worried because with him always saying "Honey, I don't need to like anyone else. I like you." I honestly thought he was going to have a super stress fest. But he's been great. He really liked having Macie around and spent a fair amount of time teaching her to go down the stairs, which she learned to do on her own while he was teaching her (he had a proud uncle moment). He asks me daily how Annicka and baby Michelle are doing (which makes me laugh because he could just as easily ask her, she is living with us). He still rides his bike to work 2-3 times a week (just so I can brag for him it's an 18 mile ride one way). And yes it is January, but it is an unseasonably warm January. I still haven't had a chance to take my bike out, but I'm hoping the weather is still good when life slows down a bit so I can take a ride.
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With how busy this month has been I only really had a chance to accomplish one of my projects. I got the idea from MaryAnn Jones (a neighbor of mine growing up). She made me this fantastic bib which was the only one I had that would actually keep James semi clean while he ate. Other bibs he would just play with and turn them around so he was wearing them like a cape. So I took it upon myself to make about 8 more. It was a rough start but they turned out pretty well. Apparently, according to Sean, each color is associated with a sports team. I did not intend it that way. So when Sean puts one of the bibs on he tells James "You're a Bronco's fan today."
It has been one crazy month but filled with so many blessings. We are so grateful for our family and friends. What a fantastic start to the year.
