The blog I rarely attend

Stats: At 6 months, she was 16.3 oz, size 3 diapers, 6-9 month clothes. Some 6 months pants are too long. Not wearing shoes yet. She seems like she is gaining a pound a week. Sleeping: Lana is taking 2 naps, usually about 1.5 hrs, give or take 15-30 mins. Some days are better than others. Unfortunately, she is not sleeping thru the night yet. She goes to bed at 6pm (thanks to daylight savings time). She usually wakes up b/w 10-11pm for a dream feed. The rest is somewhat unpredictable. On the best nights, she only wakes up once to nurse and then will go right back to bed. But on average, she is still waking up twice a night. Her wake up time is 7am. She's better than an alarm clock. Words: She is babbling and says ma, da, ba, mmm. I don't think she has associated the words yet. Although the other day, she was crying in her crib and I could have swore I heard her say Ma...ma. Lana loves to crawl and practicing cruising. Due to this, I rarely have any personal time as s...

Has it really been more than 3 months since I've written anything?! Who has time for this? Not me anymore...at least not since Lana became mobile. Lana started scooting around 4 months. By 5 months, she's in a full sprint via crawling. And it was very shortly after that when she started pulling up on things. It really stresses me out!! I can't leave her for a second even if I can see her in the next room. She's had her fair share of bumps and bruises from falling. She's actually toughened up a good bit and only crys when she falls if its near nap time or if it really hurts. She has a real determination about her when she wants to go somewhere or see something. I wonder if this is an early indication of what is to come. I love that little girl! She is so amazing.

Isn't it neat how everyone just loves babies. Everywhere we go, strangers yearn for a peak at Lana and wanna know how old she is. Sleeping or cooing babies always bring a smile to anyone's face it seems. "What's her name?" is the 2nd question after "How old?" The response is very common as well. Lana, what a pretty and unique name. Coming up with a child's name is a task that many parents fret over and put it many hours of thought. We were no exception. We tossed around names to see if they matched our last name and made fun of them to make sure to eliminate names that could become the butt of a joke. I've always believed choosing a name should be done with much consideration. After all, even God changed people's names in the Bible to reflect their character. Ultimately, we landed on Lana Michele. Lana is the middle name of a dear friend. I remember that I was talking to her as I was driving the back roads of Alabama going to visit my in-...

One year ago, I was sitting in Riverbluff, my home church for over 28 of my 32 years, when I saw it for the first time. It was a video of images of Charleston, my beloved home, to the tune of "God of This City." We had just found out we were moving. I just about balled my eyes out watching the images of Charleston knowing I was leaving the only place I had ever known as home--my family, friends, church, career and more. What a ride we have been on since then! Last week at our new church, they sung the song and it made me think about what God has done in the last year and how much he has blessed us in the move. First, He completely orchestrated the move selling our house in just 7 days. Then he's blessed us with some amazing people to come into our lives and now we have Lana. At first, hearing the song again brought tears to my eyes as I thought about leaving Charleston and seeing those images flash in my mind. But then, the tears turned to gratefulness for what Go...

All I can say is that today is not what I expected. In fact, it has been a miserable day. I didn't get anything done that I wanted to do this weekend. No hair appt, no pedicure, no manicure (despite my very clear request that I really wanted to get these done) my clothes don't fit, found a tick on me this morning in the shower--(What?!). Oh and Dunkin Donuts sat my apple fritter on top of Chris's chocolate frosted donut putting chocolate on the bottom of my fritter. What a way to ruin my fritter. Lol! I've been up since 3am. Lana is making all kinds of noises in her sleep and it keeps me up at night b/c I keep thinking she wants to nurse. Lana had 2 major blow out diapers at church which went all over her clothes and socks. What a disaster! Then she wanted to nurse but my dress was more difficult to nurse in than I had planned b/c my boobs blew up this morning and I couldn't pull down the now snug and very fitted flap which exacerbated her cries when she ...

After 36 hours of early labor and the nesting done, we laid down for another nap around 4pm. I woke up earlier than Chris and then finally woke him up around 6:30pm because Dr. Yoon was coming back by to check on me. She did some more acupuncture and as she was leaving, my water broke around 7-7:30pm. We called Michelle, our midwife, back and she was on her way over. Making it through each contraction was priority #1 as the intensity rose significantly after the water broke. Lana had engaged down and it was so painful to lay down so I paced the house and as each contraction came, new coping skills had to be developed so we tried a lot of things. I sat on the exercise ball, I leaned on it on top of the bed, I got in the shower many times and let the hot water fall on my lower back, and I leaned on Chris. I really enjoyed getting in the shower. My friend, Andy arrived around 8pm to bring me an oreo milkshake which I was not in the mood for any longer (although it would come in ha...

I've always heard, at least for 1st time moms, that labor is a hindsight diagnosis. Mainly because you don't always know what to feel or expect. I'm certainly no exception. Back pain has been onset for about 2 weeks now, but on Thursday, there was a new intensity to it and it grew on Friday and Saturday. It felt like a really really bad PMS day, one of those where its painful to get out of bed, let alone move. In hindsight, I felt my 1st contraction of early labor first thing on Saturday morning. Every says, oh you will know, it's painful. Well it hurt a little but nothing to cry over. Then a 2nd one a few hours later. So we started keeping track but knew we were a long way off. As the day progressed, they got closer and closer together. That didn't stop me from joining my friends at The English Rose for a tea time baby shower at 4pm on Saturday. The contractions didn't hurt but it was uncomfortable sitting in that hard seat. Before bedtime, the contrac...