Sara Grace: 1 Month Old!

Sara is 1 month old! I cannot believe how quickly time has passed. I actually have to start facing reality: I am almost out of excuses for not being able to do certain things because I just had a baby. I can't claim "no energy, sorry" as frequently! And I am starting to lose the ability to convince Jared to let me sleep in on Saturdays because I need to catch up on rest to heal. It is just less and less plausible as Sara grows bigger and bigger! Darnit! Most of all, Sara is just growing too fast. I literally have a hard time believing it has already been a month since the doctor laid her in my arms for the first time. Didn't I just barely bring her home from the hospital? Time passes much too quickly for my taste.

The first month of Sara's life has been a great experience! The older kids seriously love her and she has yet to suffer an injury at the hands of an overzealous big brother. Jordan has been surprisngly gentle with her! I don't think a single day has gone by yet when the kids have not held Sara. It is a pre-bedtime treat for them. Karianna could hold Sara all night; she has a hard time relinquishing hold of her! JD on the other hand will hold Sara for about 15 seconds, absolutely love it-smiling ear to ear-and then tell me he's all done and its Jordan' turn. Jordan will clutch Sara as gently as he can (I think he is still afraid of a real life doll) and point/label all of her visible body parts. That is great until he tries to poke her in the eye! All in all, I am so pleased with how loving the older kids have been to Sara. I always worry about sibling angst when a new baby enters the house; I try really hard to involve the other kids as much as possible. So far (I am relieved to say), it is working! Only a few hiccups in the road (which I will comment on in the eventual family update); otherwise, going great!

Sara herself is learning so much as an exponentially increasing rate. She is able to hold her head up on her belly for a good 30 seconds before her muscles go slack. It is even longer if she is sitting in my arms and I am supporting her back. She definitely has more coos and "alert cries"; she has really never been much of a crier unless she is excessively frustrated with the lack of milk in her belly! I love how alert her eyes are. Although she has not given me a true blue recognition smile yet, there have been moments where one side of her mouth will curve up for the briefest of seconds. She is close! I'm sure we will see a good, purposeful smile any day now! She has taken to her ducky bouncer well-it has always been a success for our kids, and Sara is no different!

Sara definitely likes to nurse and in my opinion, "latched" onto a fairly good routine early on. She sleeps for a good 5-6 hours straight each night before nursing at 5 in the morning and then sleeping until we need to take Karianna to school. This has been a huge blessing for me. Even though I recover fairly quickly after having a baby, there was no recovery period this time around simply because I had 3 kids to chase around as soon as I got home from the hospital! Getting some decent sleep at night is my recovery time; I feel very blessed for that. I also feel blessed that Sara is NOT a pooper. :) She spits up an average amount, but definitely doesn't like to poop-maybe once ever 2-3 days. Karianna was exactly like that, so I wonder if it is a female thing?

Sara has been different from any of my other kids in the binky department. She has definitely gotten more attached to it over the course of the last month, yet she doesn't rely on it. She falls asleep without it just fine and if I forget it at home before an outing-no biggie. At the same time, if I need to calm her down quickly, the binky will work great. I'm interested to see if this changes at all as she grows! Sara still likes to be swaddled at nighttime and sleeps really well on her side. Although her reluctant spitting has gotten more productive, I still worry about her being flat on her back and choking on spit-up. The side position has calmed a lot of my nerves about that issue especially given that I am an anal worrier about SIDS.

Sara did have one moment a week ago when I woke up to check on/feed her and couldn't feel her breathing at all. I jostled her, thinking I just couldn't feel it through her blanket-still no movement. I am sure I started to panic a bit as I jostled her a bit harder, and all of the sudden her face started looking very slack and gray. At that point, I called out to Jared, pulled Sara out of bed, and unwrapped her as quicly as possible. She immediately started to wiggle a bit, and I could easily feel her heart beating, so I knew she was okay. However, she was very lethargic-moreso than I had ever seen her, and it took a while before I could rouse her enough to eat for 10 minutes or so. She was pretty warm, so she ended up sleeping in her birthday suit for the rest of the night-and yes, she did sleep in bed with me. Did I sleep? Most definitely not!

I think I will wonder for a very long time if we averted a tragedy by just a few moments. Definitely makes me even more of a believer in the alarm clock method-set it for every two hours to nurse. If baby is still asleep, make sure she is breathing, and then go back to sleep to repeat the process at the next 2 hour alarm. Sound crazy? Probably is, but I'm a believer! Plus it makes my psyche feel better, and for a "new" mom, that is pretty important! It was around this time that Sara started sleeping for at least a 5 hour stretch each night, and it was very difficult to let her do that. Thankfully, Sara and I both seem to be adjusting to that well!

Sara has definitely lost some of her hair, and I would only describe it as medium brown rather than the dark brown/black that it was at birth. I am SO happy to say that her eyes are a brilliant blue! I really thought they were going to turn brown, but they are definitely blue! She has her first (and hopefully only!) case of baby acne right now, and all I can say about that is I am glad we aren't doing our family pictures this week! Regardless, she is such a beautiful girl and we love her to pieces! The original nickname that Karianna picked for her has definitely stuck: JD calls Sara "Saree" all the time, and probably does so because both Karianna and I call her Saree more than Sara! As of late, I have taken to calling her "Saree Berry...Saree Cherry...Saree Peary..." Regardless, Jordan still calls Sara "beebee" and has only started calling her "Wara" in the last few days.

I don't have 1 month stats on Sara as we won't go to the doctor until her 2 month mark. I would guestimate that she is close to 10 pounds and 25ish inches. She has no neck, so it ends up looking like a double chin most days, which I think is way cute with her little cupid lips! I would also guesstimate that her head circumferance is in the 90th percentile. Okay, maybe not really, but her head really does look huge to me, so I'll be interested to see that stat in a month's time!

I love Sara. She and I have bonded so much this last month, and I have been so grateful for my connection with her. I love letting her fall asleep in my arms. I love letting her do tummy time on my tummy! I love to see the little faces she makes when she is checking things out in the room. I love how angelic she looks when she is snuggled with me in bed. I think back over the past month and worry that I perhaps did not maximize every second with her in the name of tending to the other children. However, I consider how close I feel to her and I know I must have done okay. Plus, none of the other kids seem to be suffering from any psychiatric issues as a result of the new baby...success all around!

Happy 1 Month Birthday Sara Grace! We Love You!

Family Pictures 2009

Our family has a tradition of getting a family portrait done after each new baby is born, usually around 3-4 weeks post partum. We continued that tradition over the weekend by doing family pictures on Saturday at JC Penny. I was really impressed with their portrait studio, especially given that we were asking the photographer to get smiles out of 3 very young kids who did not necessarily like having a stranger wave a stuffed animal in their faces!

In all actuality, the photographer was great and our pictures all turned out great as well! I do wish Sara's head had been held upright in our family picture, but what are you going to do? The funniest part of the entire experience was JD. He is usually very shy around strangers, however he was totally flirting with the photographer! I have never seen him act that goofy around a new person! It made it a little more difficult to get him to follow directions, yet I would take that over a stubborn "I don't want to take pictures!" attitude any day!

As part of the package we purchased, we are able to post our pictures digitally as long as we don't try to print them (copyright laws and such). Thus I get to post them here-yea! In no particular order, here are the shots that we got for our family. The first few are of Sara in her blessing dress-I am so glad we were able to do this, I wish I had thought to do this for the other kids during the traditional family photo shoot!

JD Quirks

JD says the funniest things these days! I love that his language is progressing so nicely right now-it keep life humorous!

While simultaneously reading to JD and nursing Sara , JD interrupted the story to share something very important with me:

"Oh no, Sara is eating my mommy!"

Dragon Alert!

On Veteran's Day, our family trekked out to the zoo to see the brand new Komodo Dragon exhibit! The kids were pretty awestruck that they were going to see a true blue dragon...little did they know it would not breathe fire, fly, or tower over tall buildings! While waiting in the 30 minute line to enter the exhibit, the kids got to take a picture with this lifelike Komodo Dragon statue. Good chance for them to see exaclty what it would look like (the claws in particular are really long and sharp, and they got to touch a dragon skull and feel how sharp the teeth really are).

The exhibit itself is really cool, in my opinion-right on the water, very green, and of course, very new. there is a separate room off to the side of the exhibit for the dragons to sleep in; they can't be outside until the temperature hits at least 65 degrees. There are two Komodo Dragons at the zoo, brother and sister. This is Ivan the Terrible.

And this is Guya the Great!

JD honestly didn't seem too enthralled with the dragons. I think he really was expecting a Disney dragon! :) Karianna really enjoyed looking though and hung out by the viewing window for a while before moving on.

After the excitement of seeing real dragons, we just decided to hang around for a while.

We hit the orangutan exhibit (you CAN'T go to the zoo without watching some hilarious monkey antics!). We also visited sting ray bay, and I am still too chicken to try and touch the "mommy and daddy" sting rays....they are ginormous! We took a whirl around the Arizona trail, scaled the treehouse a few times, and then headed off for the most American part of the day: lunch at McDonalds! We actually went to three different McDonald's in the name of avoiding huge crowds and long lines. We failed miserably despite the travel involved, but we still had a great time watching the kiddos play together!

Jared is Seriously Awesome

My husband is seriously awesome.

No joke. I would be willing to bet most people who know him would agree, but I just have to take a more public second to vocalize my own opinion. There are tons of reasons that evidence how awesome Jared is. I could list them all, but I think I would run out of my available blog memory. I am, after all, already using 28%. So I will just go with the most recent reason.

Jared is a seriously awesome cook.

I'm not even sure why I attempt cooking anymore when I have such an accomplished chef in the house. Now, of course, Jared doesn't have any official training or anything (although I think it is a secret dream of his to go to culinary school). However, he has a really good sense for how different ingredients work together. I have no idea how he does it! Spam tastes great to me, and what's so wrong about non-beef hot dogs or bologna? I don't push that argument though because if I did, Jared might stop cooking for me. :)

The other night he barbecued some mouthwatering pork chops and I didn't get sick at all! That might sound odd until you know that pork usually makes me feel gross afterwards unless it is cooked to perfection. On Sunday, Jared made the best chicken fried chicken that I have ever tasted from scratch-gravy and all! I was in heaven. And I haven't even mentioned Jared's skill with a good cut of beef! Sigh-for a girl who has been steak deprived her whole life, I sure did marry the right man!

So blush away Jared! You are awesome-seriously!

The 3 and 1/2 Week Difference

My sister Rebecca had her fourth baby last week-WOOHOO for the Mantanonas, who are officially a family of six! Baby Tyler James is cousin/grandchild number 12 for the Erickson family and we are certainly excited to get to know baby Tyler more and more!

I got to go meet Tyler on Saturday and it stirred up some interesting emotions for me. Sara was about 3 and 1/2 weeks old at the time, still very new of course. And yet, as I held Tyler, I realized even more than normal that I miss having a new-new-NEWborn. Nearly to the degree that I almost wanted another one asap. I say nearly. :) Because then the realistic part of my brain chimed in to the mental debate and spoke the plain truth: um, are you nuts? Not possible, not prudent, not sane, not now! Sheez, don't be so hard on me, reality! I know all of that!

Still.


I must have held Tyler in one arm and Sara in the other arm for about an hour before realizing I probably better go home and tend to the rest of my family. In those moments I felt complete though: I had my wonderful daughter, whom I love with all my heart and in whom I find so much joy and fulfillment; and then I had the essence of a newborn, who speaks to the part of my heart that is 100% mommy. Ah. Bliss.


Plus, the fact that both babies were sleeping peacefully helped.


On to the point of my post! We put Sara and Tyler down on a blanket together just to get a comparison of size-how much does 3 and 1/2 weeks really matter in newborn time? Answer: Holy crow, huge difference! It was uncanny how much bigger Sara looked all of the sudden! Granted her dress makes her body look way bigger than Tyler's, yet her face is so much more filled out, and her eyes were so very alert. She definitely smells like a baby rather than a newborn...just a huge difference between baby lotion and vernix! It did bring me some comfort to realize that their feet were pretty much the same...and their baby cries were very similar.

In any case, I am so happy for Becca and Eric (and Elizabeth, Kaitlynn, and Logan) for their new addition. Tyler is such a cutie-very unique-and handsome to boot! Yea for new babies and congratulations to the Mantanona's!

Exercise for the Day: Walking the Zoo

The weather is cool-woohoo! We can start heading back to the zoo on a weekly basis! Taking the boys to the zoo is so much fun. They tend to be a bit more excited about looking at animals than Karianna usually is, and I personally love to talk to them while we are observing to see what they think.

This trip to the zoo was particularly fun because nearly all the animals we saw were out and about! The lions are usually passed out, but today, they were both up and walking-the male lion even yawn-roared for us, which was awesome for the boys to see! I was so busy chatting it up with them that I didn't snap a picture until they had both resumed their diurnal naps, but truly-the lions at the Phoenix Zoo actually move!

We definitely love hanging out at the Baboon exhibit because those darn monkeys think humans are so cool! They sit right next to the viewing windows and apparently thrive off of young children banging against the glass while yelling at them to move! JD represented the nicer portion of our species today as he resisted the urge to bang and settled for a simple point. I thought about urging him to kiss the monkey on the nose, but that would require a thorough mouth washing with hand sanitizer, which might not have fared so well for me or JD.

The Tiger is yet another animal that is usually napping during our visits. Today, he was pacing at the rear of his cage. JD claimed the tiger was waiting for someone to give him food and water-and actually, I would bet he was right! If you blow this picture up, you can see the tiger in the background. I never knew pacing could be so fun to watch! Oh, and I think this little boy was frustrated that he lost sole ownership of the stairs.

The highlight of our day trip was Sting Ray Bay, which has been closed for a long time due to the summer heat. This is the first time any of us had ever visited this exhibit before, including myself, and we all LOVED it! Both boys were brave enough to actually touch the sting rays without falling into the little pool-success! None of us had the guts to touch the "Mama and Dada" sting rays though; they were huge! There was also a black sting ray that I was not willing to touch because he looked too mean. I promise, I am not prejudiced, just wary!

All in all-great fun! I know the boys are going to get sick of the zoo at some point, given how frequently i am planning on going this winter! It is just so nice to walk around outside and enjoy some special memories with the youngest of the family.

I also have to add that I do miss Karianna whenever we head out to do something. I haven't taken the boys to any place out of the ordinary yet because I know I will feel bad about leaving Karianna out. I am hoping to get a culture pass (finally!) so we can go to the dinosaur museum and the science center; I hope something works out to where I can take Karianna on those outings as well! If not, I'll have to think of some special things that I can do just with her.

Discovering Parks

One of my goals right now is to do activities with the boys each week that involve leaving the house. I think they are getting too complacent sitting at home and watching PBS kids (JD) or playing with every non-toy in the house (Jordan). I get frustrated, the kids get frustrated, and it is just not ideal! Thus my new goal!

I have to admit though, I am having a hard time figuring out things to do with the boys that does not involve a park or the zoo. It has to be something cheap, kid-friendly, and baby-friendly. So while I work on my list of future activites, the boys and I have just been trying out different parks during the week. On Monday, it was Falcon Field park, which is situated right next to Falcon Field Airport. The boys loved this park because they could watch the planes (and the helicopter!) take off; I loved this park becuase it is extremely kid friendly-well fenced, pulled away from major streets, and very entertaining. The kids must have spent the first 20 minutes just chasing the birds. JD was hilarious, he kept running after groups of birds with a miniature pinecone, shouting, "Stop birds, you need to eat this pinecone RIGHT NOW!" Got even sillier when Jordan started to copy him!

I kept trying to take a picture of the boys with the planes, but it was nearly impossible to get them to sit still together long enough for a click! They just wanted to play, play, play! Can't blame them for that! JD especially liked the cargo net-he kept hanging on it like a monkey. Jordan's favorite was this somewhat steep slide that propells its riders off the end; could be dangerous, except it was an award-winning propultion with no fear whatsoever of bonking one's head against the edge of the slide. Gold stars all around! Both boys loved traversing the twisty slide, either on their tummys or in train fashion. The proudest moment for JD was climbing a nearby tree on his own. He has been hankering to climb our neighbor's huge tree, which I will not allow....it must have been nice for him to have free reign on a JD-sized tree!

I just loved watching the boys play together. They are at such a great age right now, where they just play together well. Jordan learns so much from JD, and I love that feature of best-brother-buds. I did finally coral the boys together long enough to take a picture of them with the planes in the background. Definitely our favorite park yet, I am sure we will head back here sometime this weeek!

JD Quirks: Rainbows

A few weeks ago, JD had a great conversation with me while driving around on errands. We had been blessed with some morning showers and we were enjoying the resultant rainbow.

JD: Mama, I see a rainbow!

Me: That's great JD, I love rainbows!

JD: Yes, me too. [Thinks about it] Mama, I need to catch that rainbow up high in the sky.

Me: That would be great JD.

JD: [Thinks about it some more] Mama, I need to fly up high to the sky to catch that rainbow. I need wings.

Me: Wow, JD, that would be really fun!

JD: [Thinks about it even more] Mama, I need to go to the airport and buy a plane so I can fly up high to the sky to catch that rainbow.

Now that, my dearest son, is GREAT logic!

In the Nick of Time!

Seeing as Sara is losing all signs of newborn-ness, I scheduled our family to take family pictures last weekend at JC Penny. We had never done pics there before, but I was impressed by their range of backdrops and other various options-plus I had a great coupon that took a 294 dollar bill down to 80. Now that is pretty spiffy! I'll post the pics a little bit later.

Although it shouldn't be, taking family pictures is stressful because in my brain, the resulting portrait is supposed to represent our family at our best. That doesn't include frizzy hair, angry scratches, or feisty kids. I felt very blessed the morning of the sitting because the kids did an amazing job-and they were relatively blemish free as well! No baby acne or weird skin rashes, no runny noses on anyone, and despite a 30 minute wait-happy kids. Just a huge "woohoo" all the way around!

Apparently, our good portrait fortune had a very brief lifespan. After we got home from pictures, Jordan bonked his head against a wall (he has this uncanny ability to literally walk into walls). Forehead bruise-check. The next day, he was the victim of 2 flying matchbox cars. Three scratches scattered about on his face-check. Did I mention he also came home from nursery with a runny nose? Check. The crowning glory of Jordan's downfall came on Monday when he fell down against the toy kitchen in the backyard. Fat lip-double check. So my angelic little boy who looked so perfect in his close up shot on Saturday now looks like the victim of a train wreck, who just happens to be burdened with a bad case of allergies.

Oh, and the mustard on his cheek just emphasizes the point of this post.

All I can say is we squeezed in family pictures in the nick of time!

I CAN'T HELP IT!!!

Any innocent blogger who just happened to pop onto my site may very well think that I only have one child as of late! My apologies, innocent blogger-I do indeed have 4 children, despite how much face time the youngest of said 4 children is currently receiving...plainly spoken, I have been posting about Sara like crazy, and I hearby promise to make sure the next post includes updates about the other little ones running around my home. Karianna, JD, and Jordan-I love you guys! You are the lights of my life and I am so very grateful for the help you give me every day to stay happy, energized, and plain old needed! Thanks for your hugs, your kisses, and your "I love you"s! Keep 'em coming so I can keep smiling!

Now with that being said, I've got a BILLION pictures of Sara to post, so I shall dub the following photo reel as "Cuteness Unleashed!" I seriously can't help taking picture after picture of this little girl!!! And just to underline the first paragraph, I won't post all of said billion pictures, just my favorites :)

Sara is 3 weeks old in this picture-it is the first time she is wearing a NON pink outfit.

Jared got in on the picture-taking frenzy. We have about 16 versions of this same shot at varying degrees of zooming.
Karianna and JD doing what they do best right now: loving on baby Sara!
Mommy and her girlee.

Karianna holding Sara after her first bath and doing a great job of putting Sara to sleep.

A lovely newborn outfit that Sara has already outgrown! It was good for that one use though!

Sara loves her blankies. She has outgrown the stage, however, where she likes to be swaddled, especially at night. The only time I can now get away with swaddling is after bathtime when she likes that snuggly, warm feeling.

Alert! I think for me, seeing a newborn baby this alert means I am losing accuracy in using the descriptor "newborn".

I remember when Karianna wore this little pink outfit!

One of my favorite Sara pictures! I love this sleepy, loopy look on Sara's face! Top it off with that static-y fairy hair and she's a keeper!

Sleeping Beauty!

I love this little girl! What an angel, I just can't keep my eyes off her, even when she is off in dreamland!