Kara Mae is 2 months old

Since I can't focus on my work and I need to focus on something happy for a while, I'll do this post a day early.

I can't believe my little girl is already two months old. I've started realizing that we are most likely done and that makes me sad, so I try to treasure every moment I have with my baby girl.

She rolled over at about 6 weeks old I thought it was a fluke, but then she rolled over three times in a row at 7 weeks old. We haven't had much since then, but that is mostly our faults. It is so hard to find time to put her down on the ground. Jana has already stepped on her once and poor Kara let out the saddest sounding cry. Jana has no concept of how her actions could hurt, so she is not even remotely careful around Kara. She's gentle with Kara most of the time, but just not careful when she's walking around her.

Kara has started smiling. I love that gummy smile. I've missed gummy smiles. She loves to smile at her daddy, but I get some too, occasionally.

She's an erratic sleeper. Some days she sleeps from 9 pm to 6 am, then 9 am. Other days she sleeps from 9 pm to 1 am, 4 am, and 6 am. Most days she sleeps from 9 pm to 4 am, 6 am, then 9 am. Most days she has been letting me run after the 6 am feeding. Some days it has required her to sleep in the swing in her room (I know, bad me), but at least I can still run.

Here are some new pictures of my baby girl.

Mama and Kara Mae at the park with Daddy and Jana.


Jana and Kara on the floor. Big sister kisses. Kara is thinking: enough with the kisses already.


Mama-Kara cuddles.


Hanging out in the stroller while big sis plays at the park.


Hanging out on the patio, AWAKE, watching big sis play on her new swing set.

Two new toys in one day

Jana got spoiled yesterday and she got a new rocking toy as well as her swing set.

She's obsessed with the rocking horse at my inlaws, but is unable to do it herself, so she needs help. When I saw this rocking tigger on Craigslist I just had to get it for her. She loves it!

Apparently even Tiggers needs kisses too!


As if that wasn't enough, her swing set arrived yesterday. She had a blast "helping" daddy assemble it.


She also enjoyed playing on the slide... while it was on the floor.



But nothing was as joyful as actually being able to play on it. She even got to stay up until 9:00 pm to play on it (an hour past her normal bed time). The swing was the hit.

Eventually she played on the slide, but only after about 20 minutes of swinging.

But when all was said and done, she went back to her favorite play-thing... rocks and dirt! Please notice the hat. It's 8:45 pm and she'll wear the hat, but would rather carry it during the day when she needs it! Gotta love toddlers!

Jana's 17 months old

Oh how my girl is changing and growing up so quickly.

Her new favorite thing to do is play "dress up." (Or at least that is what I think she's doing.) Her gpa brought back mardi gras beads from his trip to New Orleans and she loves them. She is constantly taking them off and putting them on. She is also showing an interest in bags/purses. She has a soft sided bird's nest that has a handle that she wears around like a purse. She also loves hats. She steals daddy's if she can't get to her own. So, I guess she is becoming my accessory girl! :-)


She walks everywhere now and is experimenting with running. She loves playgrounds, so we try to go to the park every other day. She loves swings and slides the most, but enjoys any rocking toys. We bought her a little slide and swing set (toddler sized) that should be arriving today. We hope she likes it. (She even insists on wearing her beads there, too.)

Her language development is amazing. She picks up new words and phrases all the time. She loves the word "pants" right now. I guess it is fun to say. She is also babbling a ton these days, but they sound a lot like sentences. I can tell already that once she learns how to put her words together, this child is going to be a talker.

She mostly enjoys Kara. She is still a bit rough with her at times. She wants her to play and gets frustrated that she can't. She still loves to kiss Kara. Here she is trying to read to Kara.

We're doing a better job of introducing foods to her. She loves all the ripe fruit right now. She loves watermelon and bananas still, but has found a new love for blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries.


I am afraid that she is going to be the class clown at this rate. She will do anything for a laugh or smile. Here she is squeezing her chicken in her hands, tensing every muscle in her body, and saying "EEEEEE!!" She did it once and I burst out laughing and now it doesn't stop.

She still loves giving kisses, which we adore, of course. She is also now into climbing on us if we're on the floor. In her mind, if we're lying on the floor, we are free game for climbing.


Our newest adventure (since Mama got a new bike) is to go on the family rides here in town. I couldn't go last week, but Daddy and Jana got dressed up and went. You can't tell, but she's wearing a Discovery team yellow jersey.

Lastly, here is our trip to the water park a few towns away. It's one of the parks that has the fountains that kids can play in. She wasn't so interested in the water, but had a wonderful time in her bathing suit walking all over the place.

Jana amazes me

Man, I love that little girl! I love Kara too, don't get me wrong, but there is such a difference when the child can interact with you.

She's giving kisses more and more. She still loves to kiss Kara and her toys the most, but we've been the recipients of a few of those kisses.

She's talking so much now!

We were at Lowe's the other day and Jana was sitting in the seat of the cart and Kara was in the basket in her car seat. Kara started fussing and Jana turned around and said, "Hi, sis." and started rocking the car seat with the handle.

I dropped something while in the kitchen the other day and Jana looked at me funny. So, I said, "Oh that silly mama. So clumsy." For the rest of the day, she was saying, "Silly Mama."

I absolutely love that she calls Kara "sis" now all the time.

She says "Good dog" and "Move dog." She also says "I do it."

She loves to say "shoes" and has mastered "up, please" and "down", but we 're working on the please. She still doesn't have "thank you" yet.

She's trying to figure out this running thing. She tries to walk faster and ends up falling on her face. It's so cute, she then always says, "ooooh." We've really tried to temper our responses when she falls, so she rarely gets upset and is usually back up without missing a beat. She's become a good walker.

On the 4th of July, she was a total crack up. Her favorite thing to do was to walk up and down our drive way, despite it being steep. She needed a hand to keep her balance, but I think we walked 10 laps up and down. She also discovered that her Little People SUV rolls down the hill. So she would go to the top of the street and let it go. Then we would follow it down the hill to the bottom of the culdesac. It was the cutest thing.

We've discovered, however, that this kid needs something to play on at our house. So we've started the search for a play toy. We have found two that we're looking at. One is on back order until tomorrow. It's from the catalog "One Step Ahead" and it has a swing and slide. There's a Little Tykes one that is similar. But, we can 't seem to keep Jana active enough unless we go to the park everyday and that is just too hard with Kara and the heat.

Update on my girls

So, it has been way too long since I actually came on here and updated what has been going on in our lives. So here we go...

Jana is now 16 1/2 months old. She has a motor on her! She doesn't stop unless she's strapped in the high chair or sleeping. She walks everywhere, but gets nervous in busy places. She has found a new love: the park and slides. She discovered the other day how to climb up to the platform and then go down the slide. Way too cute.

She's also a chatter box. She has such an amazing vocabulary. Some of her new things to say that knock me over when I hear them are: (today in the car when she was playing with her new toy the twins gave her) "Nonononono, no in box," "I do it," "Da-a-ddy, " "Move dog," and "hot." She knows feet, toes, ears, mouth, and occasionally eye, but only if she can poke you in the eye.

She has finally started giving kisses. Grandpa Bill (my dad) was the first to receive a Jana kiss. Over time she has begun to give us kisses, but her three favorite things to kiss remain to be her toys, Kara, and the dog.

Kara is growing like a weed. My sister in law saw her this weekend and hasn't seen her since the weekend after she was born; she couldn't believe how big she is getting. She's fully into 3 mo clothes for length, but they are too big around her. She's a great sleeper like her big sister, but has a hard time going down during the day. We have discovered that she fusses herself to sleep. She is much more of a crier than Jana ever was, which gets a bit frustrating, but then she looks at us with her beautiful blue-green eyes and we forget about the crying (until it starts again).

J is home for the summer and it is nice to have him around. We are doing really well. We are doing great working as a team and have worked hard to have fun with the girls as a family. He's such an amazing man and I fall in love with him all over again when I watch him interact with the girls.

I'm doing pretty well. I'm going to be doing much better when I get more sleep now that all my stupid reports are done. I do have the senior papers to read, but at least I can check one thing off my to do list. I started running last week. I feel rather pathetic, but it's a start. We have been doing a 3.3 mile route, but I think we need to vary it up a bit before we get bored with it.

I have decided that I want to get back into doing triathlons. I have decided that if we can afford it, I want to get a bike in the next few weeks and do a triathlon in September.

Okay, what you all actually came here for: pics.

Jana's just checking on baby Kara.


Lounging in the rocker on the deck at Jacob's and Anya's house.

Jana and Daddy playing on the swings at the park downtown.



Mommy and Jana playing on the big toy.



Making goofy faces while in the stroller.


Poor Kara, this is her view in the stroller right now.


Dadda, Jana, and the dog exploring at the park.


Jana wasn't so sure about her new pool, so we were playing in it in the family room.


Kara hanging out in her bouncer.


"Ahh, finally a chance to stretch out. Can someone make sure I don't get stepped on though?"


Little Miss Bad Ass, wearing daddy's hat.


Jana LOVES slides. Can you tell?


And she loves the swing!


My little nudist. She loves going around without clothes now.

Awful about updating

I know I've been so bad about updating this sight. There never seem to be enough hours in the day.

Here is a new pic of the girls. We were trying to get a pic of the girls together for Kara's announcement and thought we could get Jana to sit still if we put on one of her Baby Einstein DVDs. She did sit still, but she looks like a zombie, so we're obviously not using this picture for Kara's announcement.

Kara Mae's Birth Story

On Tuesday, May 22nd, I had one of my usual doctor’s appointments. I was 37 weeks and 3 days – exactly three weeks longer than I carried Jana. It had been a busy day; Mom, Jana and I had gone to Costoc, Winco (warehouse-type grocery store), cleaned out the fridge and cleaned out most of the pantry. I had felt kind of yucky all day, but just figured it was one of my not-so-good days.

I had a doctor’s appointment at 3:50, so I headed off while my mom stayed at the house because Jana was napping. I was 3 cm dilated, which wasn’t much more than I was the week before, so I was a little disappointed. She said that my water sac was bulging from contractions, so she ordered me to the hospital for a Non-stress Test.

I went home to get J, who had ridden to work that day and we headed to the hospital, with bags packed, just to be hopeful. They observed me for an hour and a half and my contractions were between 6 and 7 minutes apart and only mildly painful. So, they sent us home.

It was nice to come home. My mom had fixed us dinner and we were able to put Jana to bed. At 2:00 am, in my dream, I had a contraction that hurt. I immediately woke and realized that was a real contraction and I wasn’t dreaming. I felt a little trickle, trickle and had an “oh crap” moment. I was on the couch, which wouldn’t react too well to my water breaking while I was on it. I ran to the bathroom and whoosh! There went my water, and boy-howdy, they weren’t joking when they said I had extra fluid.

I grabbed the towels from the half bathroom downstairs and ran upstairs to wake Jeremy, leaking more fluid all the way. I tried not to scare him, and wanted to gently wake him up, so I gently shook him. I told him that my water broke as he was waking up. He jumped up, saying “Oh yeah!” He quickly flipped on the light and started emailing off his lesson plans for the day, while I changed my clothes and continued to make a mess.

The contractions started soon after and were immediately two minutes apart and quite painful. About five or six contractions later, I got this heavy feeling and knew the need to push was not far away. This was about the time that J figured out that we needed to leave NOW.

After a quick stop into the guestroom to give my mom the news and a monitor for Jana, we were off on our 20 minute drive to the hospital. My contractions were wildly erratic; one would be 90 seconds apart and lasting 30 seconds and another would be three minutes apart, lasting 90 seconds. I knew that pushing was not far away. I desperately wanted to scream at J to hurry up, but I knew if he was speeding, we’d get pulled over.

We arrived at the hospital a few minutes before three. Frighteningly enough, a car pulled in after us and two of my students got out. Anyway, J dropped me off because he saw a parking spot about 100 feet away. She buzzed me in and asked what she could do for me. I replied, “My water broke and my contractions are two minutes apart. I’m going to have this baby soon.” She looked a little panicked and started asking my name and for me to sign forms. She quickly sent us upstairs. We got upstairs and had to wait for a nurse to come get us. I was starting to freak out because I was in some serious pain. We skipped triage (again) and did the patient history as we walked down the hall, stopping twice when I couldn’t walk anymore because of a contraction.

We got into a room and I got changed. She asked for a urine sample and I told her, “No way. If I try to pee, I’m going to end up pushing.” I immediately told them that I wanted an epidural and they told me they would see what they could do because the anesthesiologist was in an emergency C –section. I got on the bed and within a few minutes, I was complaining that I needed to push. They immediately got an IV nurse in there when I told them in took them 2 ½ hours to get an IV in with Jana. I was only at 6 cm at this time. They kept telling me not to push, but I couldn’t help it. She told me that pushing wouldn’t do any good because I wasn’t dilated yet… unless I quickly skipped ahead. She decided to check me again and I was already 9+ cm. She quickly started calling for help as with the next contraction, I felt the head crown. (Side note: I quickly realized that I did have some of the epidural with Jana because I could feel EVERYTHING!) She was trying to get me to not push and had J press the call button and tell them we needed someone now and that they needed a NICU nurse for an unassisted delivery. With the next contraction, I had to push again and I could tell that the head was out. (TMI: Holy cow, that kid was flailing about – apparently unhappy about being half-way out.) I couldn’t wait for the next contraction because of all the kicking and with two more pushes, the baby arrived. They put her on my chest and I couldn’t believe it was over. J finally had to ask, “What do we have here?” and they told us a girl. J’s first thought was, “Oh shoot, we don’t have a name.” Next thing I know (which was apparently about 5 minutes later), an ER doctor arrived to deliver the placenta and all that glorious stuff. By the way, I was shocked that the contractions continued after she was born; I don’t remember that from last time.

At 3:28 am, she was born, weighing 8 lbs, 3 ounces and 19 ½ inches long. I was shocked to see how big she was because she seems so small.

So after about an hour of being very distracted, we narrowed it down to Allison Kathleen, Kara Kathleen, and Kara Mae. We both agreed that we liked Kara Mae the best.

It was a wild ride and I sure would have loved to enjoy an epidural.