I have toes, but where are my arms...?

Here's a video my mom shot and just gave me of Keira when she was just one day old.

Addicted already....a born Techie

Yes, its sad to say but Keira knows what the Xbox is already.  Not that mommy exposed her to it or anything.  (looks innocently around)  She just happened to be on my lap and happened to help me play Too Human I swear!  After that though it apparently went down hill since Mike caught her like this. hehehe...  

Yes...that is an Xbox controller.  Yes, the controller is backwards but give her a break she's only 13 days old in this picture.  Besides it takes real talent to play that way don't you know.  =)

 

Ok fine, maybe a certain boy might have given her the controller but you'll never get him to confess. Though I did have to point out to the unnamed culprit. *coughs* Mike.  When I saw this picture that he put it on her wrong and she couldn't possibly game that way. 

Keira's why me look...

After feeding her one day when his mom was here Mike decided to have fun harassing poor Keira by propping her up on a pillow and then  taking a few pictures of her that way.  He was quite proud of himself by the way for managing to get her to sit up that way and not fall over.  Here's poor Keira and as you can see she's so thrilled. hehehe.

 

I made the pretty princess blanket that she's on for her by the way.  She has more than just that naturally, but its her girly girl one.  Two of her others are pirate ones which I just couldn't resist when I saw them.6

Mike's mom visits

Keira's granny K as she happily calls herself came to visit this last Friday through yesterday, Tuesday.  Naturally she found Keira irresistible and loved to help out with taking care of her.  Something neither of us minded since it gave us some down time.  Here are some pictures of Keira and her Granny K.

 

Her first Teddy

This last weekend Keira received her first teddy from Mike's mom Karen, Morgan and Kym.  It's a cute little one that came with a bib saying her name and birth date on it. It also came with a yellow blanket that said her name as well.  Here's some pictures of Keira with it.

Jaundice Report

As many of you know we've been taking Keira to the doctor a lot this week.  To the point Mike and I are counting days we haven't been in Scottsdale (which is 22 miles away one way) Since she was born the doctors suspected Keira might have Jaundice but her test results always came back high but ok for not being it.  Since we left the hospital we've made many treks up Scottsdale for blood work on her since she still remained very orange looking and the whites of her eyes were yellowish.

The first of these treks was on Friday, then Monday  which ended up with me receiving a voice message on my cell that told me to have her done again the next day and as soon as possible on that day. (Quite persistently, I might add)  So we again trekked up on Tuesday to have blood work only to surprisingly have the doctor call us and schedule to see us that day.  (Dr. Lichtsinn did this because she realized that though a misunderstanding of words she used (she had said next and not this) we had scheduled to see her the following and not that day and since she knew that we lived far away and were at the nearby hospital getting blood work she called to get us in that day.)

Anyway, we of course went to see her and  killed time at a Borders until her appointment, which had to be at least an hour later so that they could get the lab results.  When we saw Dr. Lichtsinn we learned that Keira had spiked Jaundice wise on Monday and that that day (Tuesday) her results were lower. She explained to us that spiking is actually a good thing because they always generally speaking go down afterwards which is exactly what Keira was apparently doing.  So all in all Keira did in fact have a low level case of Jaundice and now will return to being normal and not orange toned  in color, something we're already seeing in her legs. (If you don't know Jaundice starts at the head in color and works down to the feet from there.  When it goes away it starts and the feet and goes up to the head)

Mmmm... Eatable presents

On Tuesday Keira, Mike and I received a lovely gift from my Aunt Sally, Uncle Al and cousin Amber.  The box it came in read flowers which at first made me mad that it had been left at our door, given it was already in the hundreds and flowers don't exactly like heat. (We had taken Keira to a Doctors Appointment that morning and found it when we had gotten back in the mid afternoon)   Mike opened it up though and discovered this.

A lovely set of cookie flowers which thankfully hadn't melted in the scorching temperatures.  For now they're still on display on our counter but no worries, I intend to "suffer" and eat them for Keira.  Poor me I know.  =)

It finally fell off

Sorry it's been awhile abut I ended up ripping out one of my episiotomy stitches somehow and have been in a lot of pain ever since.  I went to my doctor because of it and she said I was ok stitch wise still but gave me pain killers for it.  She also told me I was on my feet way too much and that I needed to stay in bed so I've been doing just that.

Anyway, on the 19th Keira had her umbilical cord fall off.  Truthfully though I think it might have been pulled off the rest of the way (it had been nearly all the way off) by her low riding diaper.  She had been really fussy which for her typically means 'feed me' now.  I was doing just that but it wasn't really stopping her fussing and when I unwrapped her swaddle to check if it was a dirty diaper instead I discovered to my horror that her diaper was practically falling off and somehow it was still very tight on her.  I couldn't even pull it upwards to cover her bottom that's how tight it was.  Naturally I rushed her upstairs and changed it so that it wouldn't hurt her and during that her umbilical cord fell off.  The area around it though had some slight blood so that's what lead me to believe her 'evil' diaper had a hand in it.   

Spicing up bath time

Today we gave Keira a sponge bath for the first time and she decided to spice up her bath tub (which we were using just to hold her while we used wash clothes to clean her) by having a bowel movement in it.  We had smartly kept her diaper on her until we had to remove it for cleaning that area and of course she strategically struck right then.  Luckily we rescued her from it before she turned herself into a dirty mess and ironically she gave us something to put in her inappropriate baby record book, which lists suck things in it instead of a typical record baby that records expected events.  We have both by the way so no worries we're recording the normal things as well, its just fun to have the other as well.

Chilling with her kitty big brother

While my friend Emilie was over Loki looked so cute sleeping next to Mike while he held Keira that I couldn't resist placing her near him. It didn't last long of course but Loki had no problem with his little sister sleeping with him, except perhaps that she weighed a bit too much to him.

Keira's first non-family member visitor

Today one of my best friends and maid of honor at our wedding Emilie came over from Tucson, where she just moved, to see Keira.  She naturally couldn't resist seeing our beautiful little girl and couldn't believe how small she was in comparison to her two nephews. 

 

 

Released!

We were allowed to go home today. Some pictures of leaving and her with the kitties.

Time to take your tests

Today Keira had her hearing test and passed smashingly.  She also got taken out to have her P.K. or casually refereed to as newborn tests.  That test checks for something like 21 different problems like sickle cell and such and is given to every new baby.  That of course we don't know the results and won't for awhile.  The nurse said we'd be called with the results if needed and that no news was good news so don't expect a call.  Right now Keira's up for her third test and the last for the day , Jaundice.  I'll post the results once we know them the results but like her hearing test we're expecting her to pass with flying colors.

Learning how to do it right

Today we met with a lactation nurse and I learned down to the smallest details on several ways on how to hold and feed Keira.  The nurse then taught Mike what to look for to make sure it was correct and she even gave Keira a special pacifier to help her work on developing a correct suck.  She let us know that it will take lots of time teaching Keira what to do and enforcing it to break this habit of sucking her tongue that she developed in the womb.  She also told me that I'll need to express milk for a bit in order to help Keira get a good hold and will be coming by tomorrow to show us how to use my pump tomorrow.  This is personally really cool since she doesn't need to do it and at that time we didn't even have the pump with us.

A really long night

Since we've been trying to breast feed Vicki and Keira have been having troubles making it work. Even with help from the nurses it been tough going and we didn't quite know why until one of the very wise nurses realized that Keira has a tongue thrust habit she apparently developed before birth. Because of it she has problems latching or staying latched on. This gave us a very long first night where we woke up for feedings every one to two hours and still Keira never really ate well until 5 a.m. today.

Keira sleeping and her new flowers

Hello world!

Say hello to Keira Riley Craft

Born August 12th at 10:13am. 6lbs 1 ounce and 19.5 inches long. 9/9 on her Apgar scores!

Four centimeters

We had our first of the every week baby visits today with my doctor, or in truth the nurse practitioner since my doctor got called away for an emergency right before she was going to see me. But anyways we discovered that I'm actually already 4cm dilated and 50% effaced which means I'm basically half way there. (Yeah!) That doesn't mean though that I'll deliver early but I'm crossing my fingers that I will.

Baby's room

Well I finished the baby's room finally a few days ago, or at least what I can now. I do want to add some more pictures by the same artist as the mermaid and moon one around the room. I also intend to spell her name in wooden letters across the wall above her crib but that will have to wait until after she's born and has been named.

The whole project took forever to do because the crib and dresser were literally months late and only arrived about two weeks if that ago when we should've had them mid May. As for the walls Mike and I painted the purple base color around April. With the help of my Mom we finished the rest of the paint job in early May. She and I sponged off the sail blue color to create the water effect for the lower section . She also helped immensely with the border since she was the only one who had actually put one up before. Here are some pictures of the room I hope you all like it.

36 Weeks

We're officially 36 weeks along and I am so ready to have this baby. Right now she feels like a bolling ball in my stomach and though we'll find out tomorrow for sure I'm pretty sure she's already dropped. If I am correct then maybe if I'm lucky she'll be born before her due date and closer to Mike's birthday on the 15th since it felt like she literally bottomed out about 2 1/2 to 3 weeks ago. We'll find out more tomorrow so keep your fingers crossed.