Cousincation 2014

Well, I meant to post this like a month ago, but whatevs.   In mid-February, the Lisi family came down to TX to visit!!  We got to meet Asher for the first time, they got to meet Jenna, and the cousins got to meet each other.  Lots of meeting.  It was amazing.  I just wanted to post some pictures from #cousincation2014 for posterity (almost named #cousinlovin which was, surprisingly, voted against...)

The babies got off to a rocky start...

Cousincation?  More like Cryingcation.

But they warmed up to each other pretty soon.  Jenna ESPECIALLY loved her Tia and Zio.  I'm not sure if she ever really registered that there was another baby around, but that's ok because that left me wide open to get plenty of playtime with Asher!

We went on walks together...

...hit up HEB...

...celebrated Valentine's Day (complete with heart-shaped bacon)...

 

...ate some delicious grub...

How much do I love Bird Bakery?  So much.

...and forced our kids into embarrassing pictures that we will treasure for years to come.

Aw...holding hands

About a week after the Lisi's left, I was on FaceTime with Stacy and showed Jenna the screen...she started smiling and kicking because she was so excited to see her Tia.  I totally cried.  Love you Lisi family!!!  Come again soon!!

Top o' the Morning to ya

Actually, since it's 5:00 at night I really should be saying top o' the evening to ya...but in reality I shouldn't be saying either of those things because I'm about as Irish as a giant pile of schnitzel.  Luckily, my daughter is part Irish and makes a super cute St. Patrick's Day babay.

I love the holidays.  Even the silly ones that originated as celebrating things like the death of saints but have since turned into celebrations of candy or green beer (read: Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day).  Side note...a quick Google search just told me that I've been punctuating sentences with parenthesis at the end wrong my entire life.  A teacher at one point told me that the period went outside of parenthesis, no exceptions, and I've been following that religiously ever since.  Now Google tells me that isn't true.  It makes me wonder what incorrect things I might've said to my students that they will think is true for the next 15 years...it's crazy how the things teachers do can stick with you for so long.  For example, I remember in preschool my teachers set up a little leprechaun hunt, where the leprechaun left a trail of mini Reese's that we followed all the way to a pot of gold.  We each got one of the Reese's in the trail.  I can't remember what ended up being in the pot of gold (more Reese's? Lucky Charms? Chocolate coins?) but either way, it was awesome.  I love holidays.  (See how I brought that back around? Boom.)   Anyway, I can't wait to do fun little things like that with Jenna as she gets older.  In the meantime, I can celebrate by dressing her in green and taking a whole memory card's worth of pictures.

And one more of mom & baby for good measure.

Hope you all had a wonderful St. Patrick's Day yesterday!  

2 Months

Age
Two months (and three days)

Yay! Two months!

Also, as a side piece of information, we took her to the doctor a couple days ago and she is 12 lb even (just less than double her birth weight!) and 22.75 inches

Milestones
Smiling when she sees us!!  It is the best thing ever.  It's crazy, she really does know us from other people.  Our landlord & his family came to visit when she was sleeping and woke up when his wife was holding her.  When Jenna realized she was being held by a stranger she jumped so bad and had this look on her face that...well, it was probably the same face that I would make if I woke up being held by a stranger.  It was awesome.

Interacting with toys!  This has been a total blast.  Stacy & Andrew got her these little jingle bugs to hang on her carseat and the first time she saw them she could not stop smiling.

She sleeps 9 hours a night pretty consistently.  I am so. ridiculously. lucky.

Actually starting to work at tummy time instead of laying face down and completely immobile until we finally give up and flip her over.  I was really sure for a while that she would just kind of skip over the crawling phase, move straight to walking, and go through life with zero upper body strength.

My Favorites
Waking her up and hanging out with her in the morning.  She's super happy and just smiles at everything.

Her cry...it's just so cute!  And often lacks conviction, as seen in the video.  Even when she got her vaccines, she let out the huge wail that lasted for maybe less than a minute and then just stopped the second I picked her up.

Her sad face

Which brings me to my next point...I love that she is pretty much instantly comforted when Jacob or I pick her up.  All it takes (most of the time) is putting her up over our shoulders and she immediately relaxes.

Her tiny feet

Doing stupid stuff like make it look like she's dancing or riding our dog.

Dressing her up in ridiculous(ly cute) outfits, like as a football for the Super Bowl or like a cherry just because...

I think her face says it all

Her Favorites 
Kicking her jingly owl and staring at the green bird in her play gym

Snuggling

Mom & Dad

Tia and Zio!!

Surprises
Babies can projectile poop.  While Jacob was changing Jenna's diaper, she pooped and it shot out at least 3 feet.  Most of it hit Jacob, but there was some carpet evidence to show how far it went.  Thank goodness for Resolve. (Note: I did not get paid for that endorsement...but I probably should've been)

How quickly her brain develops!  It's like one day to the next...one day you really don't think she can recognize you and then literally the next day she smiles whenever she sees you.  It's crazy.

Other Notable Moments
Mastering the Moby wrap...sort of...I felt like a total baller cleaning the house with this thing on and then checked the mirror and all of a sudden felt like a total idiot.  Practice makes perfect I guess...

#momfail

Looking Forward To...
Being able to make her laugh!!

NERD ALERT

HOW 

COULD

I

POSSIBLY

CHOOSE

JUST 

ONE?!

Well, what did you expect when two chemistry nerds have a baby?  

Obviously these pics are enough of a post in and of themselves, but I'll throw in some words for you logophiles.

Tonight we Google Hungout (Hangedout? Hangouted? Come on, Google.  Worst video chatting program name ever)  with Stacy, Andrew & Asher and had a way-too-long conversation about how we couldn't believe we were parents.  A seemingly normal topic of conversation, only it ended up being more like those Jack-In-The-Box Munchie Meal commercials.  Some classic snippets:

"I mean, I'm his mom!  He's going to hug me and be like...awww, my mom!"

"She's here!  She LIVES here!  All the time!"

"He was in my stomach!  HE was!  In my stomach!"

"That's her name!  I NAMED her!  She's going to be named that forever!! That's who she IS!"

"Yes!  People in high school are going to be like...hey, do you know Asher?"

"She's going to have a job and have a suit and a briefcase and be like...hey, I'm Jenna."

Anyway, it went on like this for a while.  Our minds were blown by the end of it, but not so blown that we were beyond laughing at our ridiculous conversation.  All in all, it just got me SUPER excited for their visit!!  Two weeks and two days!!!

One Month (kind of)

Age
One month and one week minus one day (I meant to do this at one month, but you know...life happened)

Milestones
Jenna graduated out of newborn size diapers a couple days ago!  She's still wearing her newborn clothes, but they're definitely a little more snug.  She's also starting to wear some of the 0-3 month tops.  The pants are still too big though...she's got an itty bitty booty and skinny little legs! (Something she definitely did not inherit from me)

We had some trouble keeping that shirt down over her belly...crop tops are in this season though, right?

Social smiling!!!  She's only done this a few times and it doesn't last long, but she's definitely started grinning when she sees me (sometimes) and she even laughed once.  IT WAS AWESOME!

Sleeping through the night!  It's not super consistent yet, but usually she sleeps 6-8 hours at night which is a really really really really beautiful thing.

My Favorites
She is such a little chatter bug!  When she's sitting around she just squeaks and hums and grunts to herself.  It absolutely cracks me up.  I took a little video so you can see what I mean.  FYI, it looks like she's uncomfortable at first, but I promise she makes those noises all. day. long. whether she's wrapped up in the Moby or not :) Also, Jacob forgot I was filming and started talking at the end...what he actually says is, "What is that?  Is that poop?"  Because this is our life now and everything has poop on it.  Not really.  Maybe.

Snuggling!!  I could honestly hold her all day, especially when she falls asleep and cuddles her head into my neck.  I die.  I need to physically force myself to put her down because I don't want her to ONLY be able to sleep when I'm holding her...or do I?  Hmm...

Dressing her!!  Oh my gosh, are you kidding me with these baby clothes?? And the headbands??  I can't take it, they're just too cute!  I sometimes kind of hope she'll have a diaper explosion so I'll have a reason to choose multiple outfits in one day.... #silverlining

Those footie pajamas with the mittens?  Stop it.

Knee high socks > pants

Her faces!  Seriously.  Can't.  Get.  Enough.

Endless hours of entertainment right here.

Her Favorites
Staring at lamps and windows

It's the simple things in life...

Baths!!  She immediately calms down when we put her in the water and cries when we take her out

Being held over our shoulder like a sack of potatoes

Chattering, as mentioned above, and when I repeat her chatters back to her.  That's when I'm most likely to get a smile from her, probably because I sound ridiculous.  

Music!  Especially Jim Brickman's children's Pandora station and anything Disney.  Oh wait, that's my favorite...

Surprises
Having a baby is a lot easier than I thought it would be.  Example: we flew to Chicago last minute for a funeral and I was really stressing about packing for her and bringing her on the plane, etc.  It actually all went really smoothly.  She really didn't need that much stuff (of course, it helped that Jacob's family already had a car seat there), and we just fed her a bottle taking off and landing and she didn't cry at all...except when she pooped everywhere and made a total mess of her clothes...on BOTH flights!  Still, that was a really easy fix and she was a total happy camper after that.

Having a baby is a lot harder than I thought it would be.  Example: we flew to Chicago last minute for a funeral (is this sounding familiar?) and I didn't realize how complicated it would be working her eating schedule around all the event schedule.  I mean, it wasn't the end of the world.  I just stayed in the car to feed her and rolled in a little late to the church service and lunch, and had to disappear to the back room during family gatherings.  We made it work, but it was just an adjustment.  Also, walking on ice with a baby in your arms is VERY SCARY!  Thank the Lord I live in Texas because my sense of balance is not that great.

Other Notable Moments
She had really bad diaper rash during her first week (can't remember if I mentioned that or not) so we had to put Desitin on her biscuits every time we changed her diaper...which led to me getting pooped on SO many times.  Those are the moments where I'm like yep...I'm a mom.

Our first family outing!  Just a walk around our favorite trail/dog park hot spot, but it was really nice to all get out together!

Meeting the majority her aunts and uncles (we're still waiting for Tommy, Stacy, and Andrew), all of the grandparents, and some great aunts & uncles, great grandparents and second cousins besides!  I'm so so thrilled about this!!  Being so far away, that was tough not knowing when most of the family would get to meet Jenna so I'm glad she got time with the Marcotte uncles and Auntie Haley :)

Looking Forward To...
Stacy, Andrew, and Asher coming to visit in less than 3 weeks!!!  I can't believe it's only been a year since I went to visit her in Seattle!   And then a few weeks later they were pregnant and then a few weeks later we were pregnant...yadda yadda yadda and now here we are!

More smiles and laughs!  I can't get enough!

Q&A with a Professional Mom

Well it's official...I'm definitely not pregnant anymore.  I know this because I ate two whole fillets of tilapia without gagging or holding my breath and bananas are super gross again.  All is right with the world, also would someone like all these extra bananas?

Since I've been a mom for almost a whole month now, I'm officially considered an expert parent. (Disclaimer: no one considers me an expert parent)  Because of that, everyone asks me questions about how to be a great mom (Disclaimer: no one has asked me questions about being a mom) and I've decided to answer them.  You're welcome, world.

Question:  My baby is fussy, what do I do?
Answer:  Hold her like a sack of potatoes while wearing one earring like a pirate because you were afraid your ear holes would close but forgot to put the second earring in.  Then take a selfie to commemorate your awesome momness.

#jacksparrow #nohairdon'tcare #momlife

Question:  My baby is making noises, but I need to change her diaper.  How do I know if she's trying to poop or just making random noises?
Answer:  I have no idea.  If you know, please tell me because I've been pooped on three times while putting on Desitin (which, by the way, I will probably smell like for the rest of my life....Desitin, not poop. Just to clarify.)

Question: My 3 week old baby just smiled at me!!  Is it because she knows I'm her mommy, or is it just gas?
Answer:  It's gas.  It's always gas, you beautiful blurry blob, you.

Question:  Why do new moms always look so frazzled?  Run a brush through your hair already!
Answer:  Because between the squirt bottles, dermaplast, Tucks, and pads, just going to the bathroom is like a 15 minute event.  And you'll have to go like 100 times a day.  Do the math.  There goes my hair, makeup, & finding a matching outfit time...and then some.  Honestly, you're just lucky I brushed my teeth and put on pants.

Question:  How did you compile all these useful tips and beauty advice from only one month??  I can't believe it!
Answer:  Believe it.  I'm just that good.