Texture Smexture

I have finally decided to concede that my child is a picky eater. I have been lying to myself for months saying that it was just a phase and that she would finally get it, but alas… I have decided to concede… sort of. Emersyn will be 10 months old on Monday and as her 1^st birthday looms near, I have been trying to broaden her “stage 2” baby food.

Let me start by clarifying that she is not a picky eater when it comes to food; she is a picky eater when it comes to textures. As long as it comes in a “Stage 2” format, my kid will lick the bowl clean. However, when I try to mix in “Stage 3” or cottage cheese, she gags herself until she throws up. She is the first bulimic infant I have ever seen.  I am not a picky eater. I will eat almost everything. However, I do not like melon (any type watermelon, honeydew, cantaloupe, etc) because of the texture. I think it is gross. Apparently, my child sadly inherited from me her hate of textures…. As much as I would love to blame her father for this L

So what to do? I wouldn’t care what stage food she was on if a trip to Disneyland was not planned for 4 months from now and I refuse to lug baby food around the park. So… I have made the executive decision to skip “Stage 3” food in our house and move straight to table food because when she feeds herself, she is fine. She eats crackers, cheerios, pancakes and bananas, so I am just going to keep broadening her table food intake. I can’t keep cleaning up throw up or spending money on baby food that gets thrown away. Just pray that getting the table food down is an easier process than “Stage 3” for our house J  

Anniversary of the scare

On July 19^th, 2010, a year ago today, I had a pretty big scare in my pregnancy. I told very few people about it but since I have a happy and beautiful baby girl now… here is the story.

I woke up on the 19^th and it was just a normal Monday morning. I got ready and went in to work. I had to pee as soon as I got there (again pretty normal for a 7 month pregnant lady) but when I went, I noticed some spotting. I panicked but waited 5 min and then went to another bathroom (I didn’t want people to get suspicious about my bathroom activity) to check again. More spotting, so of course now I was really panicked. I had not had any spotting my entire pregnancy, so needless to say I was thinking the worst.

I called Alex and filled him in. I told him that I needed to wait until 7:45 to call the office when they open and then I would tell him what they said. I called the office the second the clock hit 7:45 and filled my Drs Medical assistant in with the issue. She told me that it probably was nothing to be concerned with and that at this point in the game things “down below” are filled with lots of extra blood and a jostle could have caused the spotting but that she would check with the Dr and get back to me.  

Ten min later, she called back to say the Dr had stated that I needed to go to OB triage at the hospital immediately. They would call ahead and fill the hospital in with the details. The reason, my uterus! Most women have an upside-down triangle shaped uterus. Mine is shaped like a heart, so Emersyn grew on mostly only the right side of my uterus. The Dr was concerned that due to my uterus shape that Emersyn had run out of room and my body was ready for labor. Now I was even more panicked. I called Alex and thanked God that we worked in the same office building as we both left and headed over to the hospital in his car. I called my mom and best friend and filled them in and told them I would call when I had news.

The drive although fast, seemed like it took forever. The entire time I was freaking out because I couldn’t remember the last time I felt her move or kick. Was she ok? Why wasn’t she moving? She is way too little to be born this early; I need her to stay inside. We got to the hospital, checked in and I was hooked up to lots of monitors. The heart rate monitor proved that Emersyn was still strong and since she hated any machine that was placed on my belly to monitor her, she started kicking and hitting at it. This relieved Alex and I and made us both laugh which we needed.

I went through a ton of tests. At this point I was starving and was being told I could only have ice chips. Ice chips do not make for a happy pregnant woman J But finally they told me all the tests had come back ok and I just needed to have an ultrasound done. I walked in my adorable hospital gown over to the X-Ray room and lay on the table. First they did an internal ultrasound to ensure that my cervix was not shortening (a dead giveaway that I was starting labor). Nope, cervix was perfect. So now to look at the baby…. this is where we discovered that my stubborn girl was breech. To her credit, she probably ran out of room in my smaller than normal uterus and just couldn’t flip anymore. And she stayed breech another 2 ½ months until she was born. The reason for the spotting they thought, overexertion on my part. I had literally been down on all fours cleaning the baseboards the Saturday before. So I was sentenced to take it easy for the rest of the pregnancy, something I actually found very hard. But thankfully, my angel was perfect and safe.

After over 5 hours of test and ONLY ice chips. Alex and I drove back to work to get my car and I made him stop at Culver’s (because the baby wanted it) to get me some fast food. At least the day ended on a good note.

Pillow Princess

Emersyn is obsessed with throw pillows at the moment. She crawls over to the couch, pulls them down one by one and creates a fort for herself. The smarty figured out that if the pillow is out of reach, she simply needs to pull on the slipcover for the couch and like magic.... they come towards her. This means that A) my couch always looks a wreck because the slipcover is half off almost constantly and B) all my throw pillows have spit up and drool all over them. However, watching her try to move a pillow that is as big as her is totally worth it. Once her pillow fort is built she takes her dolls and stuffed animals in to play. This night, Tigger was the lucky guest for the night.

Happy Birthday America

I have really been lacking in the mandatory parenting activities since Emersyn was born. We didn't go to see Santa Claus, we didn't go to see the Easter Bunny so.... I was determined to celebrate the 4th! We decided to celebrate the 4th on the 3rd though. Mostly because Emersyn is normally in bed when it is still light out and Tuesday we both have to work... meaning Emersyn has to get up at 6am (usually her normal time) for daycare so there would be no sleeping in if she stayed up late. Since there were no fireworks on the 3rd, we decided to have our own small celebration. After bath time, we went out to the patio to light sparklers. We were in luck that a monsoon had hit earlier so even though it was only 7:30 out, it was pretty dark with clouds. Alex and I fought over who got to light the sparklers while we took turns holding Emersyn. She, however, was less than impressed with our small light show. Regardless, I have pictures to show her when she has kids of her own of her first 4th (3rd) of July! :-) The last picture is my favorite, I got Alex smiling and Emersyn leaning on her favorite man!