We’ve moved!

That’s right everyone I’ve got my very own .com! Thanks to my awesome husband Mitch I am now a .com-er. It only took a few hours and everything was moved over. Most of that time was me putzing around with the theme and the looks of it. I think I’ve got it mostly how I want it.

So if you have this site book marked you’ll want to change it to www.hayleysays.com. Come check us out over there!

Dr Crack…

…ok so it’s spelled with a K but it’s still a crappy name. When I hear Dr. Krack I think of a drug dealer. Mitch thinks of a butt crack. But really he was Norah’s dr for her 4 month check up on Friday.

He was very confusing. We had to ask if she could eat cereal (she’s 4 and a half months old at this point). That wasn’t something that was brought up by him. He said she could but then I got all confused when and how often to do this. I heard him say feed a bottle then wait a few hours then cereal. Mitch heard we could feed her cereal in the middle of a bottle. I’ve checked with some new mom’s I know and they said they feed it BEFORE the bottle. WTF people. Just give me one answer! Why do there have to be so many options! Plus on top of that I have no idea how many times a day I need to feed it to her! Oy!

Once we get in the swing of this whole cereal thing we are able to start her on fruits and veggies at 5 months. Oh wait. That’s in TWO weeks! We are so not prepared for any of this. We plan to make her food and we haven’t really researched much of anything on it. We have a book (haven’t even looked at it) and we have the food processor. That’s as far as we made it. Guess we better get to reading. The good news about making the food is that the weather is getting warmer here and we can walk to the local farmer’s market to get fresh fruits and veggies. Only about a 10 minute walk from our house. How awesome is that? This is out big plan for next Saturday when the temps are supposed to be in the 70′s.

On top of all that big girl news about the foods Norah got her 4 month shots that weren’t SO bad. I think she had more of a reaction to them than she did her 2 month (she didn’t have any at 2 months). She was pretty fussy yesterday while I was at work, poor daddy, but she turned things around towards the end of the day.

The worst part of her visit was her ears. I mentioned that she tugs at her one ear a lot. It’s not all the time, it’s very sporadic and we thought it was due to teething. So he wanted to really check her ears. WELL mommy sucks at cleaning her ears out (I only do it when I see some wax coming out) that her ears were just FILLED with wax. Dr Krack(head) used a plastic stick thingy to clean her ears. It took FOR-EV-ER (again because I suck) and she let out the most blood curdling cries I have ever heard. She’s never cried like that. I don’t know if it really hurt or if it was more traumatizing that we were holding her down. My poor little baby. That was the worst dr’s visit to date. I have resolved to clean her ears out more often (with her special baby q-tips) so she doesn’t have to go through that again.

So that was a big dr’s visit for Norah. Big girl things are starting to happen. Solid foods are about to start very rapidly around here and before we know it she’ll be mobile. It’s all happening so fast. I just want her to stay little a little longer. Is that wrong?

A walk in the park

Yesterday was another beautiful day here in Central PA so we packed Norah up and took a walk to the local park. We had an awesome time. Norah enjoyed her stroll down to the park. She kept her eyes open and watched everything as it passed by. It’s so neat to watch her try to take in all of her surroundings.

Once we got to the park we hung out by the dog park for a bit. Norah liked to see all the dogs big and small. Here she is watching the dogs with her daddy.

After watching the dogs we found a nice shady spot to lay out our blanket and play. Norah’s face absolutely lit up when we laid her down on the blanket. Big smiles all around. She had a new thing that she started doing today where she pursed her lips together and blew bubbles and cooed. It was so stinkin cute! Here are some more pictures that we took at the park.

Mitch thinks she looks like she’s doing a Stevie Wonder impersonation here. He laughs uncontrollably every time he sees it.

I got Norah these glasses at Target today after work. They are WAY too big but still stinkin cute.

Me and the Tater Tot.

Norah and Daddy.

Blowing bubbles.

Norah is watching you!

Flying baby!

Norah had such a big day that she passes out about a block from home. She’s so cute with her tongue hanging out.

First walk of the year

Yesterday was a beautiful day here so Mitch and I decided we would take advantage and walk to pick Norah up from daycare. Mitch went to work early so he could come home early for our walk (otherwise we would have had to major rush to get there before daycare closes at 5:30). I had the day off so I was ready to go when he got here. We had a lovely walk down to the daycare where Norah was waiting wide awake and happy to see us. Miss L told us what a great day she had. She was all smiles, ate all her bottles and didn’t cry at all today. Miss L said it must be the “big girl clothes.” I dressed her in jeans and shirt today because the shirt was the only thing she had that was green (it’s St. Patty’s Day after all). She wore the jeans because the pants that went with the shirt were too short (she’s all legs and I think she’ll end up with bigger bottoms and smaller tops). Anyway we had a lovely walk home. Norah had been awake since 2:15 so she was running on fumes but she enjoyed the ride. She spent the whole time starting off to the side taking it all in. What a cutie. Here’s a picture I snapped while waiting to cross the street.

We are looking to many more walks around town and to the parks as the weather warms up!

This is where I beg

I bit the bullet last night and signed up for Top Baby Blogs. Thanks to the help of my awesome husband (love you Babe) I now have a little badge and everything to display with my blog (so awesome). So now what I need you to do is VOTE! Click on the badge over on the side bar or down below at the bottom of this post. One little click is all it takes to vote.  When you click you are redirected to the main page of Top Baby Blogs which may be a little confusing but your work is done. The click itself is the vote. No need to do any more work.

It would be so cool to see my blog listed over there. So I’m begging you all for the love of Pete VOTE!!! And don’t forget to come back everyday and click again. Every little bit helps. So let’s get to voting people shall we?

Four month photo shoot

Ok so we took a ton of pictures of Norah today for her 4 month birthday. They are so stinkin cute that I’m gonna post a bunch so you all can drool over her cuteness

Swoon! I hope you were all able to contain yourself with all this cuteness. It’s ok if you weren’t though. I mean she IS the cutest baby in the world after all.

Four Months

Dear Norah,

Today you are four months old, a quarter of a year. How crazy is that?  I can’t believe another month has gone by already. It seems like everyday you are doing more things. You now reach for your toys that we hold above your head. You grab them and pull them right to your mouth! It’s so funny. Your eyes get all big, you start kicking up a storm and then in your mouth it goes!

You haven’t quite gotten the hang of rolling over but you are trying. You are more interested in trying to sit up and stand than laying on the ground rolling. When you are on your tummy and you get tired of it your head goes down and you try to get your butt off the ground. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you inch forward with your face on the ground. You are going to be crawling and walking before you’re rolling! Last night you held on to my fingers while standing up. You started stomping your feet and that made you advance forward. It was like you were walking! You scare us that you are so interested in moving so young. Daddy made the comment that we haven’t baby proofed yet! We need more time Norah!

We still think you are teething but that tooth is just being super stubborn. It just refuses to come out. You go in for your 4 month check up in 2 weeks so hopefully the doctor can give us some definate answers.

You’re hair gets thicker and redder by the day. I can’t believe how much hair you have already! It’s really thick in the front. You are such a little cutie.

You’ve really started talking more the last week. The other night you woke up just to talk. We laid in bed listening to you for 10 minutes before you went back to sleep. You must have had something really important to get off your chest to wake up at 2 in the morning!

Daddy brought you in to visit me at work yesterday on my lunch break. You had fun there talking to people. You really liked ME. She came up and started talking and you lit up with a flurry of coos. I’d never seen you talk to someone like that. It was so crazy. I know you can talk but never so much directed to one person!

You are growing and changing every day and I can’t believe how fast the time is going. When you wake up from your nap here in a little bit we will have your 4 month photo shoot. I love taking your picture every month and comparing them to the old ones. I think you have really grown a lot this month and I can’t wait to see what you have in store for us this month!

Love,

Mommy

Lots to do with no motivation

Wow I have so little motivation today that I just typed this subject line and then got distracted looking at other things (like Twitter and eating a Hershey’s bar). I am awesome.

So I have the day off and I have all these things I should do i.e. clean the living room, wash 13 bottles (yes I said THIRTEEN) things like that. But I have done no of these. I tried to take a nap since I am exhausted after a week and a half of a non STTN baby (I don’t know how people do that on a regular basis and I applaud you) but the nap was a massive fail. All I did was lay three thinking of the things I should be doing other than nap. So now I am blogging instead of doing those things. I’ve wanted to blog for a while now but honestly my brain is so fried I don’t really have anything I can think of to say.

I will say this though. Norah has gone back to sleeping through the night as of the last two nights! I hope it stays like this. The first night was touch and go for a bit. A couple of big “AARRRRRGGGGHHHHS” but then she went back to sleep. I on the other hand lay there for close to an hour petrified she would wake at any moment and I would have to go get her. This never happened thank goodness but I ended up losing sleep for no reason. Last night she was a perfect angel. Not a peep out of her. I went up around 7 this morning to get her and she was laying there munching on her crib slats with a big grin on her face. What a cutie. I’m so proud of her for sleeping through the night again.

We are still pretty sure that she is teething but nothing has broken through yet. It is very frustrating to watch her pull and scratch her cheek in pain when there is nothing I can do. One night was particularly bad and we gave her some baby orajel. She HATED this. She screamed so loud when I put it in her mouth I thought I was doing it wrong. But after several minutes she finally calmed down. Poor little girl. Is it really that bad? I’ve heard about teething tablets. Would those be better? I’m hoping that this tooth is going to make its grand entrance soon since she is sleeping again. But who knows right? It could be in there forever (not literally I hope).

I think today I will work more on my blog layout. And by more I mean start to work on it. I have an idea I think of what I want. I just need to get the right picture and see how it all looks together. This probably won’t happen today but I can put it on my list of things to do right? So keep checking back to see it!

Ok now those 13 bottles are calling my name…not that I’ll be getting off the couch anytime soon

Have you seen my good little sleeper?

I’ve lost her.

My once awesome little sleeper, who has been sleeping through the night since January, has not done so all week. I am at a loss as to what is wrong. She has all the tell tale signs of teething: munching her fist, drooling uncontrollably and rubbing her cheek/pulling her ear for three weeks now, but no teeth yet. I know every baby is different and it could take a long time for a tooth to cut but now I’m second guessing myself. What if it’s not teething? What if rubbing her ear is an ear infection? But wouldn’t daycare mention that they think she has one if she’s doing that in front of them? I had read (when I had an ear infection in January) that they normally go away on their own without medicine. So wouldn’t it be gone by now if that is what is was? I’m so worried that I am letting her suffer when she should be going to the dr. But is she really suffering? She’s a happy baby all day long. It’s only after she goes to bed that she gets grumpy. Last night I lay there wondering if it was the fact that she wiggles around so much in her sleep that she ends up with her head on the slats of the crib. Is that waking her up? I’m one of the people who bought into the whole no bumpers in the crib thing. Do I need to change that and get a bumper? Ugh I’m just so lost right now I feel like I’m missing something and I should be doing more for her. Maybe it’s just a phase and she will out grow it. It was just so frustrating last night because she got up twice and the second time she was just screaming uncontrollably. My poor little baby. I want her to be happy and healthy! Any advice you may have would be greatly appreciated!

EDIT: two things. 1. We took her temp and no fever. It was 97 something. 2. Sorry this was just a big garbble of thoughts while running on empty this morning. Hope it makes sense.

I need your help! Diaper bag hell

This

is my crap diaper bag. We have a hate/hate relationship. I was about 2 seconds away from drop kicking it across the parking lot of the church where Norah goes to daycare this morning. Those teeny tiny straps do NOT stay up on my shoulder what-so-ever and it makes me want to scream! It is hard enough juggling a (sometimes screaming) baby in a car seat that I don’t need to be dealing with the stupid diaper bag bashing around on my elbow! Today It would not stay on my shoulder if it’s life depended on it. As a result I looked like a freak trying to waive my key pass to get in the building and then trying to open the door and then have to like do this back up thing to get in the building without bashing the car seat on the door. Which lets face it happens several days a week. After I FINALLY got upstairs to the daycare I dropped my freakin keys, had to put Norah down to pick them up and then had to have cat-like reflexes to pick her up and get her out of the way as a parent was coming out the door. UGH!

So now here is where you come in. I need your help. Here are some bags I have been looking at and would like to know your thoughts, your likes or dislikes. Or if you have any other recommendations that I’m missing.

I’ve looked at the skiphop:

Looks pretty, has a long strap that I could sling across my body. That would mean no more stupid bag around my elbow. It also looks like it has lots of pockets to store things.

I’ve also looked at the Vera Bradley bag:

Also pretty (sorry tiny picture) and has lots of pockets. But the straps look like they might be the same as the ones on my crappy bag. Will they stay put on my shoulder? Cause I can’t deal.

And finally the piece de resistance:

The Petunia Pickle Bottom Touring Tote.  So pretty. I want to go to there. But I think my husband would poop his pants if he saw the price tag on this puppy. Also I’m not seeing any pockets for bottles?

Ok so what do  you think? Any of these must have bags? Or is there something else you have that you absolutely love?  I need to get something else (like yesterday) before I pull my hair out or make an ass of myself throwing it across the parking lot.  kthx