ǝǝɹʇ sɐɯʇsıɹɥɔ o

We finally put Christmas decorations up in our condo. But, having a cat and a daughter trying to learn to crawl, we were a bit paranoid about the possible (let's face it, the likely) destruction of our decorations. Greg had a solution in mind, and I finally agreed when I realized baby stuff had overtaken our living room and there really wasn't any room for the tree on the floor. Now that it's done, it just makes me smile. What do you think? (Hint: The title of my post is "O Christmas Tree" upside down) And yes, Aurora's stocking is different. I'm making her one to go with ours but haven't found good fabric yet.

Several people have asked "How did he DO that?" There was already a hook in our ceiling (like the kind used to hang potted plants), and Greg IS an engineer, after all. The branches on the Christmas tree automatically collapse when tipped upside down, so he bought some wire and wired the middle of the tree to each branch to get the branches to stay up, then wired the tree to the hook. The decorations actually all stay on by themselves, including the star. But, Rajah realized he could get the star to fall if he pushed the tree (it swings). So, now the star is wired to the tree as well.

Growing, Growing, Growing

I gave up trying to post all our summer activities, but I wanted to include some pictures. In addition, Aurora is growing fast and developing. She's laughing (she's ticklish on her thigh and laughs when you change her diaper), rolling over from her stomach to her back, grabbing at things (not so sure how I feel about that one), and eating rice cereal as fast as I can feed it to her. After my emergency gall bladder removal, my breastmilk really struggled and Aurora wasn't gaining weight very well. So we started on rice cereal and the more she ate, the more impatient she became with nursing. I finally gave up at 4 months, and she's much happier and her weight gain is catching up. Here's a lot of pictures:

Big Springs in Island Park, ID where my Grandpa built a cabin.

Upper Mesa Falls in Ashton, ID.

Practicing holding her own bottle.

Playing in the bouncer. The onesie says "I'll always be Grandma's sweetie."

Proof she's grabbing things. I promise she put the lion on her own head.

A pretty butterfly for Halloween.

I just love these socks so I had to post this picture, too.

Rajah's Tricks Part 2

I have been telling people for a year (since we got Rajah) that he loves shiny objects. His favorites are my sewing pins. For all those who didn't believe me, I now have proof. He will even pull the pins out of the fabric and carry it around the condo until Greg or I take it away.

Rajah's Tricks

So I really will get around to updating. Emergency surgery and a 3-month growth spurt (by the way, where'd my newborn go??) take up quite a bit of time. But this post is about Rajah. He has dealt with the jealousy of adding a family member quite well, but he's still psycho-kitty. Here are some of his more impressive tricks to show how much fun he is.

Sorry this video is sideways. Just look at the loop on the peephole on the door. It's a hair elastic (his favorite toy).

Last but not least. He is a very intelligent cat in that he seems to really understand us. He plays this game repeatedly but will never actually attack, he just likes to look fearsome by going up on his two back legs. I wish I could train him to do this at the door for trick-or-treaters.

Alive Again

Yep, we're here. We're all doing just fine, and even getting 7-8 hours of sleep every couple days. Aurora put herself on a good schedule once I started working again (part-time, from home, with completely flexible hours-woohoo!). I need to update the blog on several topics, including a vacation, general well-being, and a couple of just plain really bad weeks. I'll be updating in the near future by subject rather than chronologically, so be warned. In the mean time, here are some pictures to keep everyone happy.

Our trip to Idaho, this was taken at Big Springs in Island Park, Idaho. More on that later.

Our friend made this adorable tutu and we happened to have a onesie that matched perfectly. I think she looks like a fairy in it, which means I will have to find another onesie to go with it and it will likely become her Halloween costume. Aurora is smiling all the time now and I LOVE it. The above is my favorite picture of her. The funniest thing is Rajah is OBSESSED with the headband. He sat beside her on the couch the whole time I was taking these photos trying to eat the headband. It wasn't long before I swatted him for trying to eat it while she was wearing it. The headband is now safely tucked away in her drawer.

So adorable! My sister-in-law already has dibs on this outfit for when she has a girl, and I'm pretty sure this outfit got a 6-month-old baby (Eddie) at church to have a crush on her. He now sits behind us or beside me in Relief Society and smiles and laughs and kicks doing everything he can to get to Aurora. Which might be a problem because the woman who made the tutu already arranged for her almost 1-year-old (Jaxson) to marry Aurora. Eddie and Jaxson will have to duke it out in 20-25 years. Knowing their parents, it should be an interesting fight!

Aurora's Blessing

For those who aren't familiar with the LDS church, it is typical to give infants a blessing and formally name them in the blessing. Usually this is done a few months after the baby is born. However, since some of my family was in town and that almost never happens around special events, we decided to bless Aurora on June 27, when she was only 11 days old. My mom had made a dress for another granddaughter that we are now passing around the family. Since Rory is the smallest grandchild yet (at birth) and we were blessing her when she was so young, the dress was adorable but positively drowned her. It was great to have family around and we hope everyone enjoyed themselves. It was pretty funny too since having Greg's and my family there practically doubled the size of the congregation that day.

Birth Story

So here's the story. Pictures are at the bottom. If you are grossed out by the birthing process or simply don't want to read this, feel free to ignore it. It's long and detailed mostly because I haven't written this in my journal so I need to record it somewhere.

On June 15 I was 40 weeks exactly, and since I know exactly when she was conceived, I wasn't worried about the due date being miscalculated. Besides being generally uncomfortable and sick of work, my mom was already in town and I was anxious for the baby to come before other family came in town. I was having contractions but never regularly and never lasting more than 10 seconds. Up to this point I had been at work every day, but on the 15th I made arrangements to continue working at home. So at my OB appointment on the 15th, my doctor suggested scheduling an induction date for a week later. I really didn't want to be induced, mainly because I have heard that pitocin (the drug used to induce labor) makes contractions come really fast and hard. So I asked my doctor if there wasn't something else we could try before being induced. He volunteered to strip my membranes (separating the baby's sac from the cervix), which I've heard is painful but was most willing to do. It actually didn't hurt me at all but was mildly uncomfortable. However, my blood pressure was also high so my doctor ordered a non-stress test for the next morning. I left the doctor's office hoping I would not be waiting much longer.

I wanted to go walking or something that night but was ordered to take it easy because of my blood pressure being high. I started to feel more frequent contractions before we went to bed at 10:30 pm, but they still didn't last very long. I woke up at 1 am with very hard contractions and realized I should probably be timing them. So I got up and started walking around the condo and timing the contractions. They were lasting 20-30 seconds and were 5 minutes apart. I timed them again every 15 minutes or so and by 2:15 am, they were 4-5 minutes apart and lasting about 30 seconds each. I decided that this was probably real labor, but I really didn't want to go to the hospital and be sent home. I woke Greg up at 2:30 am and told him I thought I was in labor and he needed to wake up so he would be awake enough to drive by the time I felt like we needed to leave. By the time we were ready to leave at 3 am, the contractions were 3-4 minutes apart and 30-40 seconds long. We arrived at the hospital at 3:30 am and checked in. They checked me and I was dilated 4 cm, so they wanted to call my doctor and see what he wanted to do. Luckily my doctor was the one on call, and since I had just seen him that day, he wanted to wait and see if I progressed. At 5 am they checked me again and I was 5 cm dilated so they admitted me. They had me on monitors and now hooked me up to an IV for antibiotics because I had tested positive for group B strep.

Once the antibiotics were done 45 minutes later, I was finally allowed to get up and move around. I felt the contractions slow after I was able to use the tub and, sure enough, when they checked me at 7 am I hadn't progressed at all. I got up and started walking around then and immediately the contractions came very strong and hard. Within 10 minutes they were 2-3 minutes apart. Then my doctor wanted to break my water to help speed things up. This made the contractions even worse. Whereas before there had been some rest in between each contraction, now my muscles didn't have time to relax before the next contraction started. I entered transition (noted by me throwing up suddenly) and was 7 cm at this point. I had to get more antibiotics, so I was stuck in bed again. I asked for an epidural and the anesthesiologist arrived. Having the epidural set up was strange (the electric shock to my hips and knees really hurt) but I was very pleased with it. I was scared of being stuck in bed and not able to control moving or pushing, but I was still able to move my legs, help move myself from side to side, and control pushing. This was all around 9 am. By 11 am I was throwing up again and had a horrible headache from my neck being misaligned on hospital pillows. They checked me again at 11 am and I was fully dilated (10 cm) so they went to call my doctor. He told them to go ahead and have me start pushing. The nurse came back and helped me get ready and I started pushing just after 12 pm, and again I needed more antibiotics. The monitor that is supposed to pick up the contractions was only working intermittently, so after about 15 minutes the nurse just told me to tell her when I wanted to push. This is where I was very grateful for the epidural to let me still feel the contractions without them being painful. I pushed for about 45 minutes until my doctor came. Aurora was born at 1:10 pm.

So far Aurora has been a wonderful baby, sleeping and eating almost exactly as all those baby books describe the average newborn. She was jaundiced for about a week but didn't need to be under lights at all and now it is hardly noticeable. We weighed her yesterday and think she's back to her birth weight or maybe even closer to 7 lbs. She stays up for about an hour and a half twice a day and then sleeps well at night, eating twice and only waking when I change her diaper. Our poor cat has been seriously traumatized by her and by all our visitors, but he's coming to terms with the fact that she's not leaving. Here are a few more pictures:

Still newborn in the hospital.

Daddy's girl (that's what the shirt says) on Father's Day. She arrived just in time. :)

Rajah and she made friends about a week after she was born. His paw is in the air, not in her face, by the way.

Her preferred sleeping position. This outfit says "Mommy and I agree: Daddy's charming." I love it!

Our little strawberry.