Ashlyn: Months 5 &6

Okay...so after my sister in law emailed me looking for an update I realized it was time because she was the 13th or 14th person to ask me! Life has been very full and there have always been a hundred other things to do rather than blog. I will catch up and try to stay with the blogging!

Ashlyn is so big! She's just become this really entertaining and energetic little one! She and Preston play and have tons of fun together! The favorite activity of both is when Ashlyn wakes up from a nap. Presotn will come running to tell me that he hears her through the monitor and will jump up and down in front of her door until I open it. Ashlyn (who usually is crying when she first wakes up) will immediately start to coo upon hearing her brother bust through the door and scramble to climb in her crib. The smile on her face at seeing him plop in her bed is so sweet that it never fails to make me teary eyed! The two of them will play in her bed for as long as I will let them. Preston turns on her mobile and they just have fun! I love seeing their little relationship grow and flourish!

She started to crawl in her 6th month and hasn't slowed down a bit since!!!!! We had been waiting and waiting for her to do it and then one evening Preston was playing on my laptop and up she goes and chases after it. Pres caught on to this quickly and we had a good hour of moving the computer from one side of the room to the other. She started off on her knees but doing a low crawl with her arms! It was too cute!

She is also eating food. The girl has a BIG appetite and I have yet to find a food she won't eat! Now she just needs to hurry up and get some teeth!!!!

Words
ma ma
da da
bubba

Favorite Food
Strawberry yogurt

Favorite Toy
Preston's blanket!!!!!

Here are some pictures to update you on the kiddos!

Ashlyn: Three months!

WOW, WOW, WOW is all I can really say about my baby girl right now. She is advancing super fast and is already waaaaay past any sort of newborn status. At three months and 1 day, she mastered rolling over. At three months and 2 days, she can now sit up with the boppy around her! I could continue like this over and over. She doesn't give me any time to delight in her new milestones before she is moving on to the next one! Pete and I call her our little overachiever.

Here is our little overachiever at work! Much to my surprise/dismay, she's starting to scoot once she's on her belly! Yikes! My baby is determined to not be my baby for long!




It's amazing how different she is from Preston. At this time with him, I was one frazzled momma with my still colic baby boy. There is none of this with my baby girl who now only wakes up once in night to only take two ounces!

She is always quick with the smiles and seeing those chubby baby cheeks get even chubbier in a big toothless grin is enough to make my whole day!

Pres is totally in love with his little sister and loves to give her big, messy kisses. She has completely gotten used to him running up to her, scream out "HI ASHWYN" and give her a not gentle at all hug! He loves to help me as I work with her on belly time and motor skills. The favorite game is Open-Close which consists of us opening and closing our hands in front of Ashlyn and then doing it to her hands (Pres loves to grab her little hands and open her fingers and then close them!)

While she is 99% of the time happy, she has her moments and they are so sad. She gives the lower lip wobble and then just breaks out in the most pathetic cry I have ever heard. It's not the piercing scream of baby Preston but rather a whimper that can progress into a forlorn, tear filled sob. It already makes her daddy almost breakdown with the feeling of failure at not getting her what she wanted/needed before the bottom lip wobble! As for me, it nearly stops me in my tracks at how patient they are compared to her brothers. (I know you are scratching your head and wondering what a patient cry is, but I'm telling you that's what it is!)

Like her brother was, she is not content to sit still. When you grab her hands, she not only wants to pull herself up into a sitting position, but would rather go all the way to standing. Once she reaches standing, she is so pleased with herself that it is usually followed by a lot of cooing and squealing!

Here Ashlyn is after bath. She loves bath time! Can you believe how big she is?! She's 27 inches long!!!!!



I could go on and on, but will end this as it's just meant to be a quick update. I will say that my son was a huge blessing and never ceases to inspire me and now I have this beautiful gift in my daughter. Preston will force the world to change for him, but Ashlyn will be the one to make everyone in the world feel better!

One last picture! Here she is playing with daddy!

Ashlyn: Two months!

Ashlyn had her two month check up (finally...we were a week behind) and her stats are as follows:

13.9 lbs
24 inches

She's a long girl! Preston was 24 inches at four months so she is much longer already than he was. Ashlyn is such a good baby. She rarely cries and it is always because she needs something. She'll cry if she is hungry, tired, or in need of a new diaper. Other than that she is a happy baby. In the middle of the night when she wakes up to eat she still doesn't cry. She just does these really sweet sucking sounds to let you know she is ready to eat.

Ashlyn is now loving to play on her play mat and loves nothing more than to bat at the hanging keys. Those seem to be her favorite. She'll try to grab those for 15 straight minutes! She is also very giggly. She'll sit in her bouncer and giggle and smile at you. This is my favorite activity and one that she and I have been able to do alone together while Pres is at school. Here are some pictures from last Thursday as she and I did just that!






Pres is still a wonderful big brother and he is enjoying her starting to be responsive to him. He loves it when I put her in the bumbo seat so that he can try and get her to "play" with him.





Lastly I'll end with a picture of her in the jumper. She's still a little too small for it so I had to prop her up with a towel, but she loved it and it was fun to see her in it!

Some pictures...

...and not much else. We are on our own and pretty tired around here! I have lots more pictures to post of Ashlyn with all of her visitors. A big thank you to everyone that sent their wishes or came to see us. It was pretty overwhelming for us and we just couldn't believe the outpouring of love. You guys all rock!!!!

Happy Birthday Ashlyn Elizabeth!

She has arrived!!!!! It took us a little longer than we thought, but she is finally here! Here stats are 7-6 and 20 inches long! She put her brother to shame in that department! I forgot the camera cord (which will make sense at the end of this blog) in all of the craziness so I just have the picture from my phone. I promise better ones to come.

So...yesterday I came up to the hospital and went into their evaluation area. I was evaluated and despite contractions (and painful ones at that) I was not dilated any further than I had been on Monday. After talking to the doctor on call (not MY doctor) they decided to send me home. I was irritated and a little embarrassed. I had been sure that this was it and labor had begun (for the record, I was right). Anyways so we came home and I had a second night of constant contractions. When morning came around I was in so much pain with the constant contractions that I was pretty grumpy. Because of what had happened the day before, I hesitated and didn't want come in again and be sent home. I second guessed myself and spent all morning in terrible pain under the impression that I was just a big baby. By 10:30am my attitude was screw the nurses and that I was going to the hospital and not coming home no matter what they said. (Foe those of you that don't know, the hospital is an hour away so these drives are not easy to make under normal circumstances!) I called Pete to come home and had him call my doctor and speak with his nurse. She recommended that I go straight to the hospital. It's about and hour drive and by the time Pete was home and I was able to get dressed, I was literally crawling on the floor because the contractions were so constant. The drive to the hospital was awful and with about 15 minutes to go, I realized that it was time to push. This baby was ready to come and I rolled over (I was in the very back with my sister) ready to go. Lynne and Pete both panicked and begged me to hold on. We finally arrived at the ER and Lynne ran in to get someone. The next part is straight out of a terrible movie comedy with me barely being able to sit in the wheel chair having to explain to the VERY slow receptionist that I was in labor and about to deliver the baby right there in the lobby. After some yelling on my part the ding dong lady finally realized that I needed to get upstairs right then and there. She wheeled me upstairs and instead of labor and delivery took me to the evaluation area. I was really screaming at this point as I knew my water had broken and could feel the baby's head between my legs. As luck would have it, my OB was having lunch there with some of the nurses and heard me screaming. He came over a little shocked at how forceful I was being and told the nurses that he would do my evaluation. He again was shocked to discover that I was fully dilated and the baby was coming. In between telling Pete that I was just too tired to push and actually pushing, I had my beautiful baby girl out in about two minutes! I never even made it into Labor and Delivery!

Ashlyn was born in the teeny tiny evaluation room. After she was out, the nurses from the day before all came in to see me and were shocked at how fast the whole process was. The receptionist from L&D that was so irritated that she had to do my paperwork twice actually came in and apologized for saying anything. The long and short of it was that they should have kept me yesterday and monitored me for longer. If they had, then they would have noticed that I was indeed in full blown labor not in pre-labor. My OB was quite irritated with the process but was glad that it all worked out. He even joked that now he gets to sleep in tomorrow morning because I was his first patient of the day!

Preston came up to see his sister and was so sweet with her. He kept saying, my sisti" and telling us all to "ssshh the baby is sweeping". I can't wait to upload the pictures.

I would like to say a BIG thank you first to my sister. She sat in the back of the car with me while I was having the single most uncomfortable car ride of my life and simply sat with me so that I did not feel alone. The second BIG thank you I have is for my mom. My mom has Preston and he is happy as can be having his cousin Dyer and his "Mawm Mawm" with him. That was my biggest worry about giving birth and knowing that Pres is in such good hands really is a huge help. I know that I will come home to a happy Peanut, a clean house, and lots of love. That is priceless.

Here is a picture of Ashlyn and I taken from my phone. I'm pretty tired looking after two nights of no sleep!




My baby girl peacefully sleeping!



Daddy and Ashlyn!