Leap of faith

Isn't this a sight that makes your stomach leap into your chest? Or perhaps it makes your heart fall into your stomach?

This is something we see frequently at our house. By frequently, I mean about 20 times a day.

Every other baby in this family has learned at an early age to crawl down the stairs. We have taught them to turn over on their bellies and scoot down. Each one has learned the skill within a few weeks, and all the others have become proficient at descending the stairs well before his or her first birthday.

Not this one.

She likes to stand at the top of the stairs with her toes practically teetering off the edge. "No, Jayda!" we say in a stern voice. "Jay-jay go down!" we say, as we have told her a million times before while making her slide down on her tummy.

But all of this attention only makes her smile even more and laugh as she moves toward the edge of that top stair.

Finally, one of us can't take it anymore. We rush toward her to stop her.

And what does she do?

She leaps into our arms, laughing with delight. The "catcher" has a near heart attack.

Of course, we put her back at the top and make her slide down on her tummy. But it doesn't help. 

What baby wouldn't love the thrill of having any one of her five older family members come running toward her just so she can take a flying leap?

1

Our baby is 1 today.

I can't believe it. I can't believe what a sweet blessing this year has been. This first year has been so full of challenges, excitement, joy, laughter and even total entertainment since she joined our family.

She has been such a gift in so many ways. From that moment on April 6, 2009, when I realized my dream of having a fourth child was really going to be a reality, to the ultrasound when I realized our daughter was getting a sister, to Dec. 1, 2009, when she demanded to come out early and we got to see her beautiful little face.

From those first moments of life, she let us know she wasn't afraid to speak up for herself. She cried at the top of her lungs for more than an hour after she was born. My husband and I just looked at each other and laughed. "Wow! Isn't the fourth child supposed to be easy going and quiet?"

She eventually calmed down, and we got to know the little sweetheart that she is.

She loves to be snuggled. She is full of so much joy that she makes everyone around her smile.

Now, when she enters a room, she holds out one hand and says, "HAH! HAH! HAH!" as loud as she can until everyone around her is motioning back and greeting her in the same way.

She has loved music from as early as I can remember. Music has always soothed her. Now, she definitely has her favorite songs. Most of them are by TobyMac. She starts bobbing her head and shaking her shoulders as soon as she hears the beat.

She is spoiled rotten by her brothers and sister. She was an early crawler, an early sitter and an early stander. But walking? She has taken a step or two, but who needs to walk when you have five perfectly good people to carry you around the house? She holds out her hands and climbs up legs until someone picks her up. Then she grins with that knowing look as she is toted around from room to room.

Her siblings adore her. They race up to her crib as soon as they hear that she is awake. They argue over who gets to carry her downstairs or hold her. In a house that is so busy, she does not like to be left out. She cries if she detects the older kids might be going somewhere without her.

And go she does. I'm not sure if she is flexible by nature or because she has to be to survive. We try to stick to her schedule, but she often has to adjust to the activities of three older siblings. She goes with the flow and usually does so with a smile... or by taking a nap.

All of the kids have had a favorite blankie and she is no exception. Hers is a super soft white blanket. As soon as she sees it, her thumbs goes in her mouth and she makes her sleepy sound: "Oiy, oiy, oiy."

She has been a Houdini from the beginning, wriggling her way out of bouncy seats and high chairs. She races up stairs and shouts at us from between the stair rails.

As the fourth born myself, I have been so afraid that she would be ignored or overlooked. Instead, the five of us can be entertained for hours just watching her crawl around the room, empty baskets and squeal with delight.

"What would we do without her?" we ask ourselves.

Happy Birthday, sweet 1-year-old!

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Turn it upside down

Since Baby #4 was about six months old, she has loved to stand with her head on the ground.




We can't remember any of our other children doing this. Or if they did, we don't remember them doing it quite as frequently.

When she is happy, she stands on her head.

When she is excited, she stands on her head.

When she wants attention, she stands on her head.



We always wonder why she does this. Maybe people look more interesting upside down. Maybe her brain feels better with all of that blood rushing into her head.




I don't know. I like to think that maybe she just likes to change her perspective. If life gets too dull right side up, it's nice to flip it upside down.

When she stands on her head, it's often contagious. All of the other family members are soon standing on their head, talking to her through their legs.



It's fun to join her in upside-down world. How can you resist laughing when you are standing on your head?

It's a good reminder for me, too. When the world is looking gloomy and full of doubt, it's kind of nice to flip it on its head. If the people around me are assuming the worst in each other, why not expect the best? When people are complaining about what's happening around them, why not encourage someone instead?

I'm so glad I have this baby around my house to give me a daily reminder that maybe it's time to turn things upside down.

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Super baby

She looks so innocent with her bald head, big blue eyes and 14-pound body.

But we are starting to learn just how determined our little 6-month-old can be. This girl could take some medals in the Baby Olympics.

She would certainly earn a gold for her Houdini skills at escaping anything with buckles. She can flip herself upside down and twist and turn to climb out of the bouncy seat, baby carrier and swing. She has moved up, out and on.

Now, she crawls. She can get herself into a sitting position. She can push herself up so she's balanced on her hands and feet with her bottom straight up in the air.

At the same time, she is amazingly happy and content. She could be the keynote speaker at a baby convention on the topic of how to be a good baby.

She could travel the world informing other babies of how to fall asleep in the stroller when older siblings want to spend four hours a day at the pool. She could write a book about staying out way later than a baby should and not making a peep. As long as her mama is willing to hold her, she can sit quietly through cook-outs, picnics and any other outings her brothers and sisters want to attend.

She also has mastered the art of getting five other people to stop whatever they are doing and watch her like she's a TV show. She hits a button to play the "Old MacDonald" song on her toy, and suddenly three children and one (female) adult are dancing and singing along. She wakes up from a nap and the whole family is waiting to get on the floor with her and play.

Oh, yes. She's super baby. And we are crazy about her.

Here she is in action:

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Baby talk

I love it!

(Just ignore the spitting sounds at the end.) =]

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The vacuum

** This post will omit a few words to keep away the creepy people looking for those words in search engines.**

My children have learned a lot this year about life by having a new baby in the house. They've seen diapers filled with yellow goo. They've learned that babies can be born in two different ways — either by cutting the mom open or "the other way". But one of the more shocking things they have learned has to do with how some babies are fed.

When their new baby sister came home from the hospital, I had not prepared them for the news of how she would obtain her nourishment. I only had time to give them a brief explanation before she started crying.

"You're going to do WHAT?!?" they exclaimed.

Since then, the kids have gotten used to this strange form of feeding her, sans the bottles they always see on television and in books. My 9-year-old still uses his hand to shield his eyes if he senses he might be coming into the general proximity of me nursing the baby. My 7-year-old son, on the other hand, loves to see the baby cuddled up next to me and listens for her cute sounds.

I've never had much success in getting my babies to drink from a bottle.

With my firstborn, I had a little hand pump and I used it dutifully to store up milk for him. As soon as he had dropped one of his early morning feedings, I would continue to get up at that dark, solitary hour to pump. I filled ziplock baggies with milk and stored them in the freezer.

My husband would then carefully heat the milk in bottles to the precise temperature and try to feed him. He would scream in torture at this insult. "How dare you try to feed me apart from my warm mommy!" he would wail in baby screams.

We moved from our apartment when he was 7 months old, and I cried as we tossed those frozen bags of milk in the garbage. All of those early mornings spent extracting my own milk like I was both a farmer and a cow had been for nothing.

I tried again producing bottles of milk for my other two children, but their reaction was much the same.

So, from the day Baby #4 was born, I swore that nothing, and I mean NOTHING, would be important enough for me to even attempt to pump.

And I held firmly to this view until a week ago when I hit the point of desperation. Baby #4 is a spitting machine. She spits up at least half of the milk she consumes. The doctor said we should try mixing her milk with cereal to help her keep more of it down.

And guess what? She actually will drink from a bottle! I've started supplementing her with formula, and a friend loaned me her fancy, electric pump to help.

I tried sneaking the machine into the house without any of the kids noticing. Oh, but nothing slips past my boys who spend all of their free time playing detective.

They demanded an explanation for this new piece of machinery that had entered our home.

"So, it's sort of like a vacuum?" the 7-year-old decided.

A few days ago, he overheard me talking about a friend who had adopted a newborn and was looking for women to participate in a "milk sharing program". I had not heard of this, and I was intrigued. He wanted a complete explanation for how this would work.

"So, they'll use the vacuum?" he asked, very matter-of-factly.

Yep. The vacuum.

Well, I'm sure my son will be telling his friends about his mom's new vacuum and news will soon spread about all of the cleaning that is happening over here. But please don't be alarmed if you visit. The carpets are just as dirty as ever.

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I missed that chapter

When Baby #4 and I went to visit the doctor one week after her birth, he asked me how it was going.

"Well, it's so much easier with my fourth," I said. "At least I kind of know what I'm doing."

Back with the first child, I read all the books about how to get a baby to sleep. I learned all about getting a baby on a good schedule as early as possible. I knew how to be tough and let a baby cry, if necessary, to teach her how to soothe herself to sleep.

I was making some progress with the newborn. Then, we hit five weeks. She had been more of a spitter than my others since birth. But as I anxiously awaited the end of the crabby stage that always hits at 6 weeks, she was getting fussier than ever.

We had made progress reaching four- and five-hour stretches of sleep, but seemed to be going backward. The spitting was turning into puking after every feeding.

At 3 months, I expected a growth spurt. I wasn't ready for a week-long, round-the-clock, every-two-hour demand for nursing.

And now that we've hit four months, I've basically thrown away all of the books. Because they didn't write a chapter about this.

Instead of doubling her birth weight at the 4-month visit, Babycake weighed in at 11 pounds, 7 ounces this month. The doctor actually gave me a little worried look because she had dropped down to the 15th percentile for weight. And his very conservative "breastmilk until 6 months approach" changed to, "let's try to get her to eat cereal three times a day." Starting now.

We're not sure why she's spitting up so much of what she's consuming. It could be an allergy to something in my diet. Or she might grow out of it after we get her going on the cereal.

Until then, I've stopped worrying about the books and everything I learned with the other kids. She doesn't have a sleep schedule. She is up basically every two hours all night long. She doesn't nap well. And I think she's spitting up so much of what she consumes that's she simply hungry.

She's a super sweet, smiley baby when she's fed and her tummy doesn't hurt. She's started laughing out loud. She makes spitting noises at us to get our attention. She rolls up on her sides and scoots on her back to try to get what she wants. She's reaching all of her milestones.

But when she cries, I hold her. When she chews her hand, I feed her. Even if it hasn't been three hours. Even when the books say not to.

And that's OK. Because I did learn one thing from being a mom of three other kids. I will blink, and she will be 9 years old. This time will be over before I know it.

I feel like I have no book knowledge on how to help her or what to do next. I'm going purely on that mommy gut instinct at this point, and thankfully, that's one thing I have now that I couldn't get from a book.

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My new accessory

Little Babycake has gotten big enough now that I often carry her around draped over one arm. When I'm around strangers, someone inevitably looks at me, gasps and says, "I thought that was a baby doll!"

So here she is: My latest accessory. I have my purse, my diaper bag and my baby doll:

Check out the smile on the doll baby:

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A 3-month-old's favorite tune

I've been trying all day to upload some video of Jayda "dancing" to Boogie Wonderland, one of our favorite songs to help beat the winter blues around the house. The kids and I all have a little dance party when life just seems too boring and mundane.

Yesterday, we were helping our newest family member get in the groove and she was loving it. But, alas, I can't figure out how to upload video now that Blogger has updated its posting function. Anyone have a hint?

So, instead, to celebrate baby's three-month milestone, you get to see this:

I downloaded her first CD from iTunes last week. It is called "Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night" and includes her favorite white noise tunes: "Ocean Waves", "Mountain Rain", "Waterfall", "Mountain Stream", "Canyon River",  and "Mountain Lake".

As you can see from the photo, it worked. She had only listened to it a few minutes when she had that reaction.

Since Babycake sleeps in our bedroom, I get to listen to the CD quite frequently, too. I would have to say "Waterfall" is my personal favorite. Zzzzzzzzz.

At 3 months, Jayda has really come to life. She gives huge smiles when she first wakes up. She tries to communicate with little spitting noises and laughs. 

My husband tells me she rolled over for the first time. However, I wasn't in the room and didn't see it and she hasn't done it since. So, I think I'll just save that milestone for the first time I SEE her roll over!

Her big eyes are still blue, which we all find hard to believe. My husband and the other three kids all have brown eyes and mine are green. I am anxious to find out if they will stay blue or change to another color. She is starting to grow eyelashes and eyebrows, but her head is perfectly bald. So sweet.

The little peanut is just about to grow out of her 0-3 month clothes, which probably means she is still in the 25th percentile for her weight.

She also has started grabbing toys and putting them in her mouth. I think it's usually by mistake when she actually gets ahold of something, but it's so cute. She loves looking at herself in the mirror on her playmat and can scoot around on her back if she is feeling energetic.

Oh, and as you can see in the photo, she likes to suck her thumb. I love it! I haven't had a thumb-sucker until now. Too cute. 

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Ready to roll

Weighing in at about 10 pounds and with her super bald head, many people think little everydayBaby is still a newborn. But our 10-week-old is ready to get mobile.

She has been doing her workouts faithfully, and we're predicting she could be rolling over in a few weeks. Here she is in training.

Roll right:

Roll left:

Legs up:

Legs down:

After a few swats at the toys on her play mat and a good look in the mirror overhead, she is ready for spin class. This is when she uses her powerful legs to spin the rest of her body around until she has moved in a complete circle.

I've also been doing a little more physical activity the past week. After my humiliating defeat on Christmas Day, I'm back at my 30-Day Challenge on Wii Active. I was a little disappointed the first day that after breaking a sweat and stretching muscles I had forgotten, I found that I had only burned 100 calories.

I quickly rebalanced my metabolism by replacing the lost calories with a 140-calorie Coke.

After that, I nursed the baby, and she spit up about half of the milk she drank. "Wow! I think I just burned more calories in the milk she spit up than I did during 20 minutes on Wii Active!" I said.

My oldest son looked at me perplexed.

"So, you mean that when moms get really big because they are pregnant, they lose the weight afterward by feeding the baby?"

That's right.

"Wow!" he smiled. "God was really thinking when he came up with that one!"




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Saturday Evening Blog Post: January 2010

I've been reading a new blog lately, elizabethesther.com. On the first Saturday of the month, she invites bloggers to link up their best post from the month to create the Saturday Evening Blog Post.

My favorite post from January was the one in which I remembered that moment. I had examined my big, protruding belly one last time, watching in amazement at her form shifting from one side to the other under my skin. A few moments later, I was gazing into the deep dark eyes of that sweet beautiful face and holding a 7-pound person who had everything she needed to survive and thrive outside of the womb.

In my post First month... month of firsts, I wrote about the miracle of childbirth and all that came next during those first four weeks.

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Just what you need, when you need it

One might think that with four children, I would be accustomed to babies that spit up.

But my first three kids really weren't big spitters as babies. So, #4 has taught me new lessons about spit, puke and other forms of regurgitation.

To say this girl spits up really doesn't properly explain the situation. She often spits cups full of milk right after nursing and then continues to spit up for the next hour. We are way beyond using burp cloths around here. She needs burp blankets, burp towels, and lots of them.

As you might imagine, this doesn't make for a very happy baby. The spitting increased significantly when she reached the 6-week-old mark, so my hopes for the end of the newborn fussy stage were dashed. Instead, she grew much more fussy as she got older.

She would basically wake up from a nap, nurse and then have 5 minutes of happy. After that, she would fuss and cry, sometimes as if in great pain, for the next 40 minutes. Then, she would be ready for a nap. (Now you should have an even greater appreciation for those photos I've posted of her smiling! Those have been hard to get!)

At baby's 2-month check-up, the doctor prescribed her Zantac. You know, the heartburn medicine: "Strong fast, lasting relief with a minty cool flavor."

Well, the minty cool flavor is a baby's worst nightmare. But it does seem to be working.

I've also been letting her drink less milk, but nursing her a little more frequently. And I've cut way back on my consumption of milk and chocolate, to see if that helps. My diet of chocolate pudding has quickly come to an end.

I'm not sure if it's the Zantac or something else, but it seems to be working.

Baby has been much happier. She spits up less. She goes to sleep without fussing so much. And she doesn't cry nearly as long.

We're seeing much more of this:



As Zantac says, "Just what you need, when you need it."

And as the old saying goes: "When baby's happy, mama's happy. And when mama's happy, everybody's happy."

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Two months

Two months ago, she came into the world at 7 pounds, 2 ounces.


One month ago, she gave us her first smile and started focusing on lights.



Today, she is two months old! She weighs 9 pounds, 14 ounces.


She tracks with her eyes. She coos. She watches intently when someone talks to her. She tries to talk back with little cat sounds.


She has slept several five-hour stretches at night.

She tries to suck her thumb. She still loves to be wrapped up tight to keep her nice and warm when she sleeps.


She has captured everyone's heart.

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Six weeks

Little hands.



Little feet.



Little face.



Big smile.

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First month... month of firsts

A month ago, she was scrunched up in a ball, floating upside down in a dark water world full of only muffled sounds and the rhythmic beating of her mother's heart.

In a matter of minutes, she was pulled into the bright lights, and her skin felt its first sensation of stinging cold. Her ears were bombarded with loud noise.



And in that first moment of life outside the womb, she already knew exactly what she needed to do to survive. She cried a lung-emptying scream until the nurses wrapped her tightly in warm blankets. At the smell of her mother's skin, she opened her little mouth, searching for nutrition.

In those first few days, instinct gave her the tools to thrive. She knew how to suck. She knew to cry if she was cold. She recognized the sound of her mother's heartbeat and was comforted by resting her head on its steady pulse.

It's amazing to see how much she has grown in just one month.

She met her dad and learned to recognize his smell, his sound and his secure hold. She feels safe resting her 7-pound body on his shoulder, especially during her fussy evenings when he takes baby duty.




She met her brothers and sister, and slowly has grown accustomed to their loud voices and little hands that want to touch her every waking moment.

She has started focusing her limited vision on lights. She turns her head when she hears mama's voice. She still hates to be cold, but she has endured bathtime and countless diaper changes, sometimes without crying.

She can smile, quick little baby smiles. She can communicate happiness, as well as her needs, with contented cat-like sounds.

She has gained more than the half ounce a day of weight that's normal for babies her age. She has grown an inch in length.

And when she snuggles herself up in a little ball and falls asleep in someone's arms, she immediately steals their heart.

Happy First Month, sweet little one!

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Oh, what a year!

On this, the last day of 2009, I would love to write something meaningful to celebrate such an eventful year in our lives. Our family celebrated milestones, said good-bye to loved ones, welcomed a new life, faced challenges and made it through big changes.

But I'm a little too sleep-deprived to come up with the words to properly pay tribute to such an amazing year. So, instead, I'm joining other bloggers in wrapping up the year bloggy-style.


Here, I give you, the first line of every post of every month from 2009. I was surprised at how well this really did re-cap the whole year.

JANUARY

True confession. I'm waking up this morning on Jan. 1 with no New Year's Resolution. This is actually often the case with me.

I would learn later that there was a reason I didn't set any goals for 2009. I would find out in a few months that all things "Emily" would be set aside, and I would be called upon to take on some roles I would not have considered on my own.


FEBRUARY

Oh my, oh my... We are having the most incredible vacation in the history of our family. I wanted to give a quick update and share some photos.


The highlight of February was our vacation to Acapulco for the Discovery Toys incentive trip. It was beautiful. It was perfect. It was a trip we won't soon forget. It also was significant for me because this would be the first time in the last five years I made the choice not to set a goal to earn the incentive trip, making our past trip that much more special.

While we were in Mexico, we also lost my Grandma Dot, who had been a very special influence in my life.

MARCH

You might be wondering why I've been writing posts lately about opossums. Then again, maybe it didn't even seem odd to you, which is a really scary thought.


March marked one of my hilarious encounters with wildlife when THE opossum moved into our garage. Oh, what fun I had blogging about that guy. It even brought out the poet in me.

I also kicked off my own 40 Days of 40 countdown to my milestone birthday and unleashed my inner rock star.

APRIL

OK. I think I'm starting to understand. Seriously. It's all starting to make sense.

How could I recap the year without mentioning all of my posts about my favorite TV show, Lost? This was one in which I had reached the height of confusion about what was actually happening last season.

MAY

About five weeks ago, my friend, Julie, invited our family over for a cook-out. Julie is a busy woman, so I really didn't think anything of the fact that we had to make our dinner plans so far in advance.

I celebrated my 40th birthday in April with more celebrations than any one person should be allowed to have for herself. And then my girlfriends topped it all off by surprising me with this one the first weekend in May. I am blessed!

I also got serious in May, blogging about the topics of autism and allergies.

JUNE

Have you ever had a time in your life during which everything seemed to be falling apart?

And then there was June, the month in which I revealed what had really been on my mind the past few months. I was pregnant. We were going to home school. And I started blogging about my advanced maternal age.

JULY

A few days ago, I mentioned that my husband and I were planning to get away for a few days without our kids.

July was the month of vacations. CapableDad and I visited the Smokies without kids. We camped. And we joined four generations of family for a get-away that I wrote about in August.

Oh, and we also found out we were having a GIRL!

AUGUST

We are home from our little get-away with family.


Our high-flying family really got into the swing of things on that trip.

SEPTEMBER

Monday was our first day of school at home! The day went better than I expected...


And then we got down to business in September. We started our journey of doing school at home.

OCTOBER

Despite the fact I woke up at 5 a.m. this morning, I still found myself running around like a crazy woman at 9:15, shouting, "Has ANYONE seen my Hannah Montana wig?!?"


By October, the third trimester of pregnancy was taking a toll on my body... and my brain. In this post, I wrote about how I was starting to go a little crazy trying to keep everything straight.

NOVEMBER

Judging from all of the cards and letters I have been receiving, you all have been dying to know what ever happened to my UNBELIEVABLE Seven Day Meal Plan That Never Changes.

We celebrated a Golden Birthday in November, and our anniversary. But the first post of the month happened to be one about my never-ending quest to answer that age-old question: "What's for dinner?"

DECEMBER

Introducing... The one... the only... the cutie pie, the perfectly sweet baby...
Jayda Grace
7 lbs, 2 ounces
20 inches
Born TUESDAY, Dec. 1 at 8:40 p.m.


Awww... And of course, the highlight of our year happened on Dec. 1 when we welcomed this sweet gift to our family.


I'm a little exhausted just reading about all of the events of 2009. I'm ready for a fresh start and optimistic about all that 2010 will bring.

Happy New Year, everyone!

** Head over to Musings of a Housewife to find out what 2009 was like for other bloggers. **

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