Amaris' Page

30 December, 2008

    Ama is doing great!!!  Over the last few days we have seen some great and fantastic strides in her development. 

    Four days ago she cut her first tooth.  After days of and weeks of teething she finally cut her first tooth!  It was nice to not only feel it but to see it too.  I don't think that this one is going to play wack a mole with us.  You know, up and then down!! haha.  So, it shouldn't be too much longer before the rest of her teeth start erupting.

    Two days ago she sat up on her own!  I found her sitting up in her crib when I went to get her up.  Mommy wasn't too sure about it, but when I told her that I saw her twice on the floor laying down and then moving up to the sitting position.  She still likes to be sneaky about it though.  Unfortunately, we have yet to capture this evolution, from laying to sitting, on camera.

    Yesterday, she had her first real meal of solids.  She loves biscuits, but wasn't crazy about the taste of chicken we gave her.  Actually, we started giving her small amounts of green beans and she loved it.  She loves it more than eating from the spoon.  By far more!!  Oh! ... and today she ate bite sized foods with her hands.  Yep, she picked up her little bits and pieces of food off of her tray and put them into her mouth, all on her own!!!!

All this in just the last couple of days!!  Whew!  she is really growing up fast.

03 December, 2008

    Ama is doing great!  She seems to be constantly teething, but we seem to have arrived at the end of a phase.  For the last three weeks, Ama had been terribly disagreeable.  She was constantly crying when left on her own to play, in her play gym or in her bouncy chair.  Now she is back to her happy go lucky self, and we are all thankful.  We think some of that may have been teething, growing pains and gas/constipation.  Other than that, she is still smiling easily.

    She loves to stand up.  She will let Mommy and me hold her up and then she will try to bounce.  Ama loves to bounce, much more so than her sister.

That's it for now.  ENJOY!

09 November, 2008

    Ama is truly doing great!  She is up to two solids a day now!!  She is getting so big so quick.  She loves to stare at new people and stare and smile at Daddy.  You can tell she wants to be mobile as she lunges in the direction of people.  She has nearly mastered the art of rolling over, but will then get pissed for getting stuck in that position and getting tired of holding her head up.  She is still sleeping through the night.

    Her room does get pretty cold though.  It is on the corner of the house, the side without the shared wall.  I think that the fact that she has two walls open to the environment are part of the reason that her room stays so cool.  When it was still hotter out here, I actually closed her AC vent to try to keep it from getting so cool.  Now that it is cooling off, as we prepare for our winter months, we have placed a portable heater in her room.  It has a thermostat and we have tested it, so we feel comfortable using it.  We also close the door to her room at night, because Kaitlyn has a habit of going in there and rifling through her drawers, the dresser used to be Kaitlyn's.

    Ama is also sitting up.  Not for very long periods of time, but she is sitting up!  When she does roll over, it seems as if she is ready to crawl.  She gets her hands under her and will on occasion free one hand to reach out.  She will also use her legs to get on her hands and knees, though I've only seen this once. :)  Maybe its wishful thinking, but I think that she'll be crawling by the end of the month.

    Almost forgot... Ama was a strawberry for Halloween!  She was just hanging out in the stroller for the entire time we were out, and I'm sure that she was too young to enjoy much of it.  But she was definitely there and we had a great time showing her off in her costume, to which she got many "ooo" and "how cute!" comments.

That's all for now.  Enjoy!

22 October, 2008

    Ama is eating solids!

    Amaris is doing great!  She is definitely teething, but seems to be doing okay.  She has just about mastered the art of rolling over.  She can roll over from her back to her tummy and sometimes back to her back.  She loves to grab for toys in her little play gym.  Her absolute favorite is seeing her sister play.  She LOVES to see her sister play, and it seems that as if she wants to play with her, as she lunges bodily in Kaitlyn's direction.

    She puts up with the newest addition to the family, Oliver.  Oli's favorite thing to do is to lick Ama's face. :)

    Ama is also teething, still.  She loves to hum and make sounds.  We think its her way of dealing with the annoying pain of teething.  She has actually had one tooth break through, but then it seemed to have receded.

    Enjoy

4 October, 2008

    Amaris is doing great!  She recently went to visit the doctor for a routine checkup and to get her shots.  We knew that she was cutting some teeth, but we were a little surprised to hear that she was cutting 6 teeth at one time!!  Four on top and 2 on the bottom.  Not only that but that she is even taller than her big sister was at her age.  After being weighed and measured it was discovered that she was over the 95th percentile for height and was at the 50% for weight.  So, she's long and skinny.  A look that I'm sure that she'll want to keep as she gets older, unless she gets up to over 6" or something. haha.

    She loves to smile, but shows us her laughs only very sparingly. 

    She is progressing well.  She is reaching out and grabbing objects.  She has rolled over a couple of times.  She can track objects, her favorite being her Daddy.  She is reaching out and touching our faces.  She is doing so well and is such an even tempered baby.  We are truly blessed with this one!

23 September, 2008

    Ama is truly doing great!  She is finally out of her harness for a majority of the day, we have to put her in it at night.  Most importantly she seems so much happier out of that darn thing.  She smiles easier now.

    Speaking of smiling, she loves to smile.  All she has to do is catch a glimpse of Mommy or Daddy and sometimes Kaitlyn, if she can sit still long enough.

    Her laughs and giggles, however, are doled at very sparingly.  She rarely graces us with a laugh, so I don't think that I got one of her first ones.  Of course, she had her first giggles in Florida where she Granny was able to get her to giggle repeatedly.  Go Granny!!

    Ama has also blessed us with rolling over.  She has done it a couple of times now, and seems to be a natural.  It's amazing what she can do when that brace is off of her!  She loves to roll around in her gym and play with the toys suspended above.  Sometimes she'll get too close to the entertainment center and will start kicking it!

    When it's time to eat, Ama lets you know.  She used to have really bad reflux, resulting in Mt Vesuvius like eruptions that would leave you covered.  She's over that, thankfully.  However, Daddy must hold her just right so that he is still able to receive bubbles of love.  I just switched to holding her more upright, Mommy's suggestion, and this seems to be doing the trick.

    Well that's it for now.  Enjoy!

22 July, 2008

    Ama is doing great!  Her colic and her reflux are finally starting to subside, though her favorite target is still her Daddy.  She loves to smile for us, and has even started cooing.  She is cute as a button and we can already tell that she will have a fantastic personality.

    She is tracking movement and will follow familiar voices around the room.  She doesn't much care to be left alone for any extended period of time, but who does?

    With the few coos that I've heard so far I think that she is going to have a wonderful voice.  She is a generally happy baby, but we can tell that she gets uncomfortable in her harness.  We pray that she will be out of her harness soon.

29 June, 2008

    Good Morning!  Amaris is doing very well.  She is six weeks old today.  It seems like it was just yesterday that she was born.  Ama is spending more time awake.  She also smiled for the first time on 22 June.  She has smiled many times since then, Mandy has done a great job of getting her to smile, but unfortunately she hides her smiles from the camera and often from her Daddy.  I think I can tell that she has begun to recognize her mother and that her demeanor lightens almost immediately.  During her awake times she is also getting tired of her bassinet.  We put her down her play mat for the first time today and she seemed to enjoy it.  She was on the Campbell's play mat yesterday, when we were there for dinner.

21 June, 2008

    Good Morning!  Amaris is doing great!  She is doing very well.  Although at this stage much of her waking moments are spent feeding, we are seeing some of the things that are absolutely amazing in the development of newborns.  The other day, I held up a toy to Ama's face, just about 4-6 inches away, and while shaking it, moved it from side to side and she tracked it!  Yeah!  It was very exciting.  We are now in the process of getting her to smile.  We have seen the gas bubble smiles and know that she has a beautiful smile just waiting to show us and the world.

    She is very healthy.  She is gaining weight as she is supposed to and, like her sister, she is long.  We'll wait until the next wellness check up to see just how much she has grown.  She shows no signs of her previous ailments, with the exception of the harness mark on her leg, but it too appears to be going away, just slower than I would like.  Unfortunately, we have completely new, actually since birth, issues.  She has mild reflux, which is most predominant in the evening feedings.  Of course it is during this time that she is trying to feed for the night and when she is the most active.  A lousy combination by all accounts.  She has covered me in more than enough throw up.  Any more and I would make sure to wear a rain coat when going to burp her.  :D

    There is definitely a great bond developing between Mother and daughter.  Ama has just yesterday made her first cooing when her Mommy went to pick her up.

    We can't wait to see her continue to develop.

07 June, 2008

   Good morning!  Amaris is doing great!  She appears to be over her hip dysplasia and has moved on.  She loves to torment her parents by staying up all night long to feed.  She seems to have her days and nights mixed up.  We did take her in to the doctor the other day to check out a cruddy eye.  It turns out that she had a "clogged tear duct".  Neither Mandy nor I had ever heard of that before, but okay.  The bottom line is that she is doing well and she is growing!

    During her "awake" times she is keeping her eyes open for long moments and appears to try to focus on her parents and on bright lights.  We're still trying to figure out who she favors more, but as time goes on we think that she is favoring her father.

    Her Daddy has decided to nickname her "cheese" due to the amount of it covering her at birth.  We'll have to see if the nickname sticks.  The nickname that has actually stuck, at least so far, is "Ama".

21 May, 2008

    Good Morning!!  Amaris is doing great!  She was diagnosed with a slight hip dysplasia which has already corrected itself.  However, they put her in a harness to ensure that her hip properly sets and the doctors want her to stay in the harness until next week.  This makes things a little more difficult as far as holding her and comforting her, as her legs are set to a spread eagle position.  She didn't take to breast feeding right away, but she also a belly-ache after being born, from drinking too much amniotic fluid.  Now she is feeding like a champ and doing great!  From the moment she was born she favored rolling to her left side.  Unfortunately, because of the brace we can't tell if that will continue, but she does favor looking to her left.  She also has more muscle than Kaitlyn did at that age.  She nearly fell from my arms when she jerked backward!  I caught her of course, but still it was amazing.  As soon as the brace comes off we will be going in for her announcement pictures.  Enjoy!

18 May, 2008

    Good Morning!!  Yesterday afternoon we were all blessed by the cries of our newest member of the family.  Amanda began the day at 6:00 am by starting her routine and then wondering, while in the kitchen, what the heck was dripping on her feet.  At first blaming our sometimes leaky coffee pot, she quickly realized that her water had broke!  She knew that t we still had some time before we needed to go into the hospital, because her contractions, which she'd been having for days, weren't that close together or very painful..., yet.  So, we continued our routine, getting a cup of coffee and then starting breakfast for Kaitlyn.  Watching Spongebob and PBS Kids and of course taking a shower.

    We quickly realize that Amaris couldn't have picked a better day to arrive as the temperatures were expected to climb into the high 80's or low 90's, bringing another couple of days of hard to bear temperatures.  That she chose today meant that we would all be able to avoid some of that heat.  Around 8:00 it was time to get things rolling.  I called over to the Campbell's to ask them to watch Kaitlyn while we went to the hospital.

    We arrived at the hospital and Mandy was checked out.  Between her water breaking and the fact that she had progressed to 4 cm meant that they were going to admit us.  As soon as we went into our Delivery Room we began the process of making it over, to maximize relaxation.  We kept the lighting low and broke out our music, a birth ball and some relaxing scents for Mommy.  We gave the staff our birth plan, to which they did a fantastic job of accommodating us and adhering to.  When we were done with our room it was like it was a completely different world.  The hustle and bustle of things going on outside our room did not intrude on our relaxing world.

    Amanda allowed her Hypno-birthing training to take over, and I was there to help coach her into the "zone".  She was fantastic!  She did a great job of maintaining her calm and staying in a relaxed state until around 4pm.  Then the surges began to come more frequently, with hardly a chance to catch her breath.  Each one just as strong as the last.  Amanda's concentration soon broke.  We discovered that after all this time and effort that she had dilated to 7cm.  But by now the surges were too powerful.  We called in the Anesthesiologist (Riley) to his part.  Amanda was fantastic as she weathered each surge and remained still enough for Riley to do safely administer his trade and help to make the surges more bearable.

    A little after 5:30 pm we knew that it was time to get things started and that Amaris would soon make her debut!  The room was quickly set up, the nurse, Thereza, called in Dr. Grey (who was quickly briefed on our wishes in accordance with the birth plan).  The bed was broken down and it was time to see how things were going to progress.  After a couple of practice pushes, they realized that it was in fact time to bring our daughter into the world.  "One last thing, would you mind if we allowed our medical student the opportunity to deliver, I will be attending?"  said our doctor.  "No problem" was our reply and he was quickly called in and was beginning his training while we began.

    Michael coached Mandy through the process, helping her to push and to breath between.  (I also lost my voice temporarily, not by being loud but with the intensity of the situation.) 

    And so, at 1834 (that's 6:34pm) we heard our beautiful daughter for the first time!  The doctor and those in attendance quickly made preparations and placed our little girl on her mother's tummy, skin to skin.  The doctor took her time in clamping the cord and then asked me to cut the cord.  While those around us were in a flurry of activity of recording the time of birth, making the proper recordings, we were in our own wonderful world, together, with our daughter.

    We love you, Amaris!

28 April, 2008

    Amaris, your Mommy and Daddy are anxiously awaiting your arrival into this loving family.  We can't wait to see you and to help you experience all the joys of this world.  We love you.