Lessons Learned

I realize I haven't written in a few weeks. June is a busy month for this lady. Also, Bean has decided that if she is not in contact with my skin at all times, the world is ending and all will be lost. I can't leave her sight without her making this high pitched scream like something is trying to eat her. It's only when we're together, alone though. If Frank, or anyone else is here, she's fine with me putting her down. I suppose I don't mind it all that much - I kind of expected it since I've heard "horror" stories of Tyler and I screaming at the bathroom door while my Mom tried to take a pee.

Anyways. To catch up.

                  The 25th was Sophie's birfday! Happeh Birfday Sophie! :3                                    

SOPHIE & HER KITTEH!

Sophie is the only other person that understands le kittehs like I do. 

  

The 18th was Frank's birthday.

 It was a Monday - we still celebrated with a lazagana dinner made by my Mama and ice cream cake. It totally prooves how "old" we are though. Besides the fact that we are ready to go to bed by 8:45PM pretty much every night ( and this was before we had Elizabeth.) We don't have ridiculous birthday parties anymore for turning a year older. 

Frank's 19th b-day @ Hooters - Pat & Luke

Funny thing is, we didn't do any of it on purpose. one day we just got tired of going around and acting like idiots. We were tired and we're going to bed! Except for myself... it honestly takes me HOURS to fall asleep which is why I go to bed so early. Frank can fall asleep within 2 minutes, and I'm not kidding. I think part of that has to do with him having to get up at 2AM for work, only particially though. The first time we ever hung out as an actual couple, 16 years old, we went to his room and took a nap. I got in trouble that day, ha ha. 

The 17th was Father's Day. Frank's first fathers day! Hooray! Here are some pictures of some happy Dads. 

Frank and Bean ( Teehee) at the Tulipz. 

My Dad & I just chilling in the snow.

This month, Frank and Tyler also finished building their mini ramp in our backyard. I'm so glad they're doing something outside. 

"The Mini" Frank spruced up the picture with his trendy Instagram app. 

Oh and today is June 29th, which means Elizabeth is 6 MONTHS OLD. That's half way to a year you guys. A YEAR. She's already scooting about on her tummy trying to get places, it's hilarious looking. She looks like a little inch worm. 

I tried giving her some rice cereal this week - she got in about 2 bites. She isn't a fan at all. I blame " The grandparents". My mother in law, Diane, already gave her honey-do and a milano cookie, and my Dad gave her some banana. When you compare rice cereal to those, no wonder she doesn't want it. >:|


LESSONS LEARNED THIS MONTH: 

• Elizabeth sleeps better in zip up footie pajamas. She only woke up once last night and slept until 9:45AM this morning. That is a record. 
• When your forced to buy House Blend coffee instead of your regular French Roast, your husband will go out of his way to find the last of the French in the house and drink it all. Note: Hide all delicious coffeez. 
• Do not dye your own hair with $7 dye. My hair is currently half red, half blonde and I'm not over exaggerating. Frank is paying for me to get my hair professionally fixed tomorrow though, making up for the coffee incident. ;) Will someone please explain to me how blonde hair dye can turn my already blonde hair to RED??
• No matter how hot it is inside, do not keep door open. Mosquitoes have been breeding in our yard and have made their way inside. I've woken up to being bitten far to many times and have a constant feeling of bugs all over me like some kind of tweaker. 

NEW MAMA

In April, 2011, I found out I was going to be a Mom. You can say I wasn't entirely thrilled about the whole "situation". I had been planning my wedding for a year at that point - an entire year. Frank and I were engaged for 5 years for anyone who is curious, but had finally set a date and we were gettin' the ball rolling! If there was one word to describe our wedding it would be "procrastination" - It totally turned out perfect though and I loved it. Regardless that everyone I knew (except myself) was trashed and I was 5 months pregnant with Bean. It was actually really hard for me, 5 months pregnant and putting on a wedding dress. I had picked out one I found in a magazine. Something I never thought I'd be able to do considering my family doesn't have a whole lot of money. It was on sale and I was in love with it. It was made for skinny girls like myself. Girls with no boobs and no hipz.

My dress before becoming pregnant.

 As you can see, I totally rocked it. It made me look like I had boobz and hipz and everything. I loved, loved, loved it! I had tried on some dresses before I found this particular one, which I had also fell in love with but they were running at $12,000. Yeah. I tried on a $12,000 dress. Of course it looked good, I think anything that costs that much HAS to look good on everyone. I'll post some pictures of them here in a minute. Anywayz, back to my dress. I had chose a dress for girls that looked like boys, but was now 5 months pregnant with boobz, hipz, and the whole curvy lady thang. I went from  a size 1, to a size 8 ( which my awesome Gramma tailored down for me so it was probably more like a size 6 but we weren't sure how big I was going to be at the time of the wedding.) It still looked okay and everyone and their mama told me I looked just beautiful. I just wasn't comfortable in it anymore. It's been 9 months and I'm still not over it. Ha ha haaaaaa.

$12,000 dress.

It was all worth it though. I always knew I wanted to be a Mama. Frank and I had planned on children, just AFTER the wedding. Which obviously didn't happen. Everyone, or least my family had been waiting for us to have kids. I'm not sure why.  Maybe because we'd been together for so long, or maybe because Frank and I are just so awesome, people couldn't wait to see our offspring.

On December 29th, 2011, Elizabeth was born, 3 days early. ( Thankfully! Not only did I have to be pregnant any longer but I got to claim her on our taxes!) Not sure if it's my personality or that I've been around babies most of my life but being a new Mom has come pretty naturally to me. I honestly believe God put me on this earth to birth and raise children - I have never felt so comfortable in my entire life. I won't lie, I was super nervous my whole pregnancy. Kids change everything, and I knew that. ( For those of you who don't know me all to well, I loath change.) I knew I was giving up my "youth" to take care of another. I'm not saying it's not hard for me, and I am learning a lot as I go. I think that's apart of being a Mama though. It's definitely  not what I expected, in a good way though. I was so worried I'd have all these problems...I worry a lot. Always have. Everything is going awesome though, and so smoothly.

Last picture of me pregnant. 

Bean is now 5 1/2 months old. The differences between a 5 month old bebe and a newborn bebe are SO different, it's insane. She actually learns something new every day - which I think is super entertaining.
She can currently:
- Sit with out support ( only for about a 1 minute)
- Grab objects and, of course, taste them.
- Roll over to one side. Hasn't mastered her other side yet. Ha ha.
- Make silly noises, on purpose.
- Recognize people and animals ( In particular, the kitties. Her and Sven are best friends, I found them spooning the other day.)

They're a ton more but those are some pretty big milestones she wasn't even close to at 1 month old.

I think it's pretty funny I get so excited over her learning to grab something or sitting up by herself. I'm for sure one of those Mama's that go " AWEZ! YOU MADE A POOOPPPIEZ! GOOD GIRL!!" 

Bean sittin' like a pro.

This is Sven right now: 

He is a lonely kitteh right meow. Mishka usually goes outside at night and does her wylde thang while Sven prefers to stay inside where the warm and Bean is. He likes to keep an eye on her. He is a good helper. 

"Let me tell you bout my besssst fraaannd!" 

Le Torticollis

For anyone who doesn't know - which I'm sure is most of you considering I haven't made this "public" yet. I really try not to post every detail of my entire life on Facebook. Notice I wrote " really try." There's a reason I started blog. :) Anyways, in April, Elizabeth was diagnosed with Torticollis. Which totally sounds like some horrible disease but don't worry, it's not. Rather than explain it myself and to save you some time, I googled the definition for you, and don't lie to yourself - you were gunna google it. 

Tor·ti·col·lis/ˌtôrtiˈkälis/

Noun:

A condition in which the head becomes persistently turned to one side, often associated with painful muscle spasms.

So Bean doesn't have the painful muscle spasms but was born looking to her right. That's just how she is comfortable and as a result her neck muscles have become under developed and her head started to "misshape" because she was on one side so much. For those of you not obsessed with bebes or aren't aware, infants heads are surprisingly soft and form as their brain grows.

Bean a week old - notice she still has hair in this picture.

I take her into children's physical therapy now and she is much better. We basically just sit down and do a bunch of stretches for 45 minutes while the therapist looks to see if she's improved or not. When I first took her, in April, she could only look 20% out of 100% to her left - at her last visit, in May she was looking 80%. I was pretty excited to here that. Honestly, the past visits I had been to made me feel like a horrible parent. I wasn't told whether or not she was improving and just given "homework" to do. I always left the office with a bad vibe and in a crappy mood. We ended up getting a new therapist in May as we had some scheduling problems with our last and it turned out to be a great switch for us. I now know I AM helping Elizabeth and she IS improving.

Apparently Torticollis is pretty common and maybe I'm the only one who hasn't heard of it. It's something I wasn't worried about at all while I was pregnant or even after she was born. I was just happy to see she had 10 fingers and 10 toes,etc. The "normal" things.

 1 month old: How she slept until we started correcting her. 

Happy hug your cat day! 

The deer came by to hug the kittehz too.

BEAN: 22 weeks old

Yesterday, my Elizabeth Ann was 22 weeks old. My entire life every adult has always told me " When you're older, time flies and all of a sudden 20 years has gone by, and blah blah blah." Seriously. Probably every adult has told me this at least once, and it's totally true. It used to bug the poopz out of me - Being told once I'm fine with, being told twice is okay, my memory is by far not anything like the character Sheldon's from "The Big Bang Theory"( Yeah, I watch that show.) being told a 4th, 5th, 6th, 65464235975597 time, is more irritating than standing in line behind an 80 year old writing a check for her $2 drink.

This time last year Bean looked something like this:

BEAN: 8 weeks in teh womb. This is the picture  that sparked her nickname "Bean" - Thanks "Aunt" Sophie! :3

Okay, she probably had sprouted arms and legs, and didn't have a tail anymore... but you get the idea. 

22 weeks old: Sven is training her. 

Now, she looks like this ---->

She is soooo big. To me. Everyone that sees her, lets say at that grocery store (cause that is usually my "big" outing for the day) go " AWWWEZ! Look, a brand new bebe! She is so wittle! How old??" and then I reply " Oh, she is 5 months." They look at me like I'm a horrible Mama, as if I don't feed her or something. Just for everyone's information, Bean has been tiny her entire life and she is le perfectz to me! I really hate having to explain that to anyone that comes in contact with us. 

TIP OF TEH DAY: Stop being so judgmental of others appearance and be haaappy! 

Anyways, done ranting now. Bean really was small though. 5lbs, 13oz and 18 3/4  long - only 3 days early. She was and is perfectly healthy, just small. I'm sure it's cause I'm not a big person and she is 1/4 Filipino. I'm not an expert on Filipino women, but it seems to me most of them are little.   

She went from a tiny humanz that did nothing but sleep,eat, and poop to sleeping, eating, pooping, grabbing, nomming, and more. Yesterday, she blurted out "Mom" although I don't think it was on purpose. I had been going " Saaaay Mama! Saaaay Mom!" for a good hour and I'm pretty sure she was just mimicking my words. Bean has been super fascinated with sounds for the past month. Noise has always grabbed her attention but she is just now trying to make and mimic them herself. She was singing along with Radiohead yesterday - I was super excited. She also, again, for the past month, sings herself to sleep. It's hilarious. 

LOLKITTEH PICTURE OF TEH DAY: