8 months old!

Well it has been another three months since I have posted, and in that time the summer has come and gone! Keira has changed so much in the past three months, it will be hard to recap everything! She is changing everyday, and becoming more and more fun! She has developed quite the personality. We had originally thought that she had more of Austin's temperment, quiet and laidback. However in the last few months it has become quite obvious that is not the case. She has turned into quite the energetic little girl, who refuses to nap frequently and always needs new things to keep her attention. She gets bored quite easily and it is a full time job to keep her entertained! She has dozens of facial expressions and a squeal to go with each one!

Keira started crawling around 5 1/2 months old. Within about a weeks time of figuring that out she decided she was ready to move onto bigger and better things. She then started pulling her self up on everything! She has taken quite a few tumbles since learning to pull herself up, but she has also gotten quite good and bracing herself and "falling gracefully". At first her crawl was quite awkward and she would move one arm at a time and then her leg, since then she has gotten quite fast and is a little crawling machine. I call her my shadow because she will follow me from room to room in the house crawling as fast as she can to keep up. She gets a little bit frustrated doing this after a while though, when she realizes that she can't keep up! Her favorite pastime in the morning is to see how much of the bathroom vanity she can empty out in the time it takes me to put on my makeup. Her other favorite thing to do is beeline for the dog's water if she sees it sitting out and try to dump it everywhere before I notice! She is very strategic with this, she won't dump the water on herself, but rather on the floor and then she will crawl in it and splash.

She has become quite vocal as well, she now "yodels" as Grandpa Dwight calls it. She will coo at different tones and it honestly does sound like she is yodeling! She also will make a noise that sounds like "yeah!" when you ask her a question...it is pretty fun to ask her something and have her respond that way. She has also started saying, " Ma ma ma ma" It is usually a whine when she is crawling to me and wants picked up. It is adorable in a pathetic little way and I usually can't resist.
The newest addition to her vocabulary is "the growl". She started doing this last week, where she will growl about anything and everything. She will growl when she is excited and can't contain herself and that is normally accompanied by legs kicking and arms waving. She also growls when she is frustrated as if that will help her solve the problem, or at least to vent! My new line to her is, "Keira, I didn't know you let a tiger in the house!" She looks at me like I am crazy when I say that. :)

We have decided that she is going to be a petite little one. She weighed 15 lbs. 10 oz at 7 months old and when I weighed her again yesterday at 8 months she weighed exactly the same! I am not worried, as she has quite the appetite. I think she is just not gaining much since she is so mobile! She is a very good eater though. She is not very picky and seems like pretty much everything! We have recently started giving her chunks of solids such as puffs, bread crust etc and she seems to do well and love it! She has been teething profusely and has just popped her second tooth in. Both of her teeth are on the bottom in the middle.

She has also become quite clingy lately, where she will only go to me or Grandma Jane when she is in a tired or hungry mood. She will cling to me, and it is just so hard to leave her! She loves spending time with Grandma Jane and Grandpa Dwight though! She goes on lots of errands with them while I am at work and loves to get out and being a celebrity with people! At Wal-mart she will sit in the cart and holler at people. Once they look at her she will smile and coo, what a little flirt, my mom keeps joking she is going to run for office now that she has Keira with her! :) Her favorite people to see are little kids though, I think she feels a bond with them. :)

She has also decided that sleeping is overrated. We have tried letting her cry to sleep and that lasted over an hour before I decided I was not going to do that. So, now we have a nightly ritual of me rocking/holding her until she falls to sleep. I actually enjoy this relaxing time where we have a little bit of peace and quiet together in the midst of our busy lives! I am cherishing the time that I can cuddle with her, before she gets to big and doesn't want to do that anymore. :)

We took a couple of trips this summer with her and she loved them! We went to the NE State Fair for the day and had a chance to see lots of people, animals, and shows. She touched a baby chick and just seemed amazed by everything, as she tried to take in the whole new environment!

We also took her to Lifelight in Sioux Falls. She did very well and LOVED the music. She would only complain when we wouldn't let her down to stand and dance or crawl. It was alot of fun to bring her with this year, as last year she was with us in my belly! It was crazy to think how much things change in one years time! Last year I was just getting over morning sickness, and this year I was dealing with a baby that was crawling away from me all over the field!

We are all placing bets when we think Keira will walk and I am guessing it will be when she is 9 months. She is already walking along things such as the couch or coffee table and we have caught her standing with no hands on something for a couple seconds until she realizes that she isn't holding on. :) She loves to be on the move and get into things that she can't have such as knocking drinks over, shredding the newspaper, and chewing on flipflops. It is bad, we often ask whether it was Keira or Kenai who caused the latest trouble! :)

I have two favorite times of day with her, the first being in the morning when she first wakes up. She has been waking up earlier, but not because she is hungry, rather because she wants to play! However, she wants to play in our bed, not on the floor or in her crib. She thinks me and Austin are just the funnest jungle gyms! Her huge smile with chubby cheeks as she bounces on the bed is a great thing to wake up to!

My other favorite time of the day is late afternoon when I pick her up from my mom's after work. As soon as she hears my voice she quits whatever she is doing and crawls at top speeds to me with a smile that makes her cheeks look like they are going to crack in half! She is just a joy and bring happiness to my day. We are so thankful that God has not only blessed us with a healthy little girl, but one who is absolutely adorable and so much fun as well!

5 Months Already!

Wow,
It has been three months since I have last posted and alot has changed as Keira continues to grow! She is now rolling over, from back to front and also from front to back. She rolled over for the first time on Mother's Day, May 10, what a great gift! She could only roll over from her back to stomach until just recently. It was quite comical as she would roll over, then get stuck like a beached whale and start crying as if to say, "Who did this to me????". She does quite well now rolling to both sides. We also reached another milestone at 4 months...she finally moved from sleeping in her papasan seat to sleeping in her crib, whoo hoo!!! She now does quite well sleeping in her crib and often times rolls into the corner so we can hardly see her without leaning over the side of the crib. She also sleeps crouched on all fours with her little bum in the air, how cute! I am sure she will hate me later on for all of the pictures that I have of her doing that. :) She also sleeps with her blanker clenched against her cheek and her pacifier in her mouth.

In other Keira news she is starting to eat solids! We had tried to start her on rice cereal a few weeks ago and she was not a fan of it at all. However, we noticed recently that she was following our mouths when we ate, so we thought it was time to try again. Daddy fed her cereal tonight and she devoured the spoon! She also has decided that ice cream is pretty good, after testing it out for the first time at the College World Series and licking half of mommy's cone. :) I weaned her from breastmilk about a month ago, as she would no longer nurse, so I was giving her all of the breastmilk from pumping. My milk was drying up and with all of the hours I was putting in at the office it was not worth it to pump for 1 bottle a day, so we just switched completely to formula and she has done great with it. I felt guilty about stopping before six months for a few days, but now it is great and I love the freedom. I am alot less stressed and can actually enjoy the time I get to spend with her! :)

She has also become quite the chatter box as of late. She will violently wave her arms, raise her eyebrows and grunt, coo, and squeal as loud as she can as if to tell the world to listen to her. She now recognizes her name and will whip her head around when she is called. She always has a huge grin for mom, no matter what. When I come to pick her up at 5:00pm she will wave her arms, giggle and grin from ear to ear, it just lights up my world and I can hardly wait for the work day to be over with so I can see her!

We have been trying to make frequent trips to the pool as well. She loves the water and will sit for hours in the shallow end just splish splashing around. She has quite a tan, and is already darker than mom, despite the SPF 70 sunblock that we use!

We also like to go on walks, she now sits straight up in the stroller and just loves to be outside, which is great with mom and dad!

Her favorite toy right now is her exersaucer, which is commonly referred to as her "carnival" by mom and "cadillac" by grandma. She will sit and push all of the musical buttons and then squeal when it does something. We have decided they are worth their weight in gold!

Every night I watch her sleep and thank God that he has blessed me with such an adorable little girl who is healthy, happy, and brings such joy to our lives! As she grows, I am also growing and realizing how quickly time flies, and to make time for the most important things in life, which include spending as much time as possible with her and Austin! :)

Two Months Old!

Well I had originally intended to post to this blog each week, however life with a newborn has proven to be very busy and I think I will instead try to post each month on her changes, as that may be a more attainable goal! :)

This last month has been very fun and full of lots of changes. To start with, I went back to work in the middle of the month on MWF. My mom watches her, which is a huge blessing as I don't have to worry about her. However, I still miss her and would rather not be at the office, but it is a good change of pace as well and I am trying to be thankful that God has blessed me with a great job where I can still spend alot of time with Keira. :)

We have also decided that Keira is a little social bug, as she has shown this to us in a variety of different ways. She will wimper if she is in a different room than me in her swing, however if I bring her into the room where I am she usually quiets right down. Sometimes she is a little bit more stubborn, and waits to stop whining until she is held. She has also shown her little personality by smiling and cooing when talked to. Her coo is adorable, and often times she wont coo when she is happy but rather when she is on the verge of crying. Her cry is still adorable (most of the time...). Most of the time she has a wimper as if she is just pleading with us to be listened to. She will stick out her lower lip, and if she is really upset, her little chin will quiver!
She focuses very well on people and things now and loves to look at her mobiles. The one in her pack and play at Grandma's is her favorite, even though it is not as high tech and doesn't play music!

About a week ago she has also decided to sleep through the night, which is wonderful for mom! She will sleep for about 7 hours at a time, and so the goal is to not let her go to bed too long before me, otherwise I am up early for the day! We have gotten away from taken our nightly drives, which is a good thing! However, she is still not a huge fan of the crib and usually sleeps in either her carseat or swing. As long as she is not in bed with me I am happy and will take sleep however she and I get it. :)

She now eats about 4-5 oz every 3-4 hours which is much more manageable than it was in the beginning. I pump during the day at work and supplement with formula as needed. Since I have gone back to work she seems to like bottles best so I rarely nurse her, which is fine with me because it is much more time consuming than pumping!

Today we went to the doctor for her two month checkup and first round of immunizations. She was trooper and calmed down quickly after having her shots and has not been too cranky the rest of the day. I have been giving her Tylenol faithfully which has helped to take the edge off and put her to sleep most of the day! :)

She has also outgrown almost all of her newborn clothes and diapers as this week we brought out the 0-3 month clothes and size 1 diapers. It is fun to dress her now as she can finally fit into pants and shirts and not just sleepers. Her waist is still itty-bitty and most of her pants need to be rolled over to fit! She now weighs 8 lbs and 11 oz, which is almost exactly 2 lbs more than her birth weight. She is 23 inches long, which is 2.5 inches longer than she was at birth. She is in the 10 percentile for weight, and 60 percentile for height, so from the looks of it she is going to be tall and thin like her daddy! So far she still has her head of dark hair which I LOVE and hope she doesn't lose! :)

Well that wraps of the highlights of this past month, it has been a fun adventure that goes way too fast! :)

Keira: One Month Moments

Wow,
It has been a month already since Miss Keira Elizabeth arrived! It has been a month of many changes and joys that is for sure. We are beginning to get into a schedule (I think) and it is fun to see how she changes each day. She is now sleeping about 3 hours at a time at night. She goes to bed around 11:00 pm and then wakes up at 2:30 am and 6:30 am to eat. She is definitely helping us to get into bed earlier! We have discovered that she does not like to sleep in her crib, bassinet, swing, etc. She likes sleep being held or in her carseat. The car is a lifesaver and she falls asleep no matter what withing minutes of the car moving. So, we have begun the tradition of taking a late night drive and then letting her sleep in the carseat. :) It is usually that or she somehow manages to end up in bed with me when I give in after lack of sleep around 3 am!

She is a great nurser, and I am so thankful that is going well. She is very expressive, often times frowning and moving her mouth in a variety of different motions. Recently she has begun to smile as well...which is adorable even if it is just a reflex. When she is waking up she will stretch her head back as far as possible as wrinkle up her forehead like an old man. We call her our little analyzer and she always has her brows furrowed as if she is solving the world's problems.

Her lungs have developed more as her cries are now much louder than when she was first born. However she still has a whimper that just pulls at mom's heart! She is a pretty good baby though and usually only cries when she is hungry or fighting sleep. We also have discovered that she is not a fan of baths. It takes two people to give her one as she squirms and screams bloody murder the whole time! She is very strong as she is already picking her head up when I put her on my shoulder to burp her. She also kicks her legs very pointedly when she is upset. One way to calm her down is to let her hold onto your thumbs with whole hands. She will grib so hard that her little knuckles turn white. But hey, if we are distracting her from crying it is a good plan!

We have been enjoying my maternity leave by going to many basketball games and out and about shopping with other moms. I have decided that she likes noise better than quiet as she will sleep through anything including sports announcers and high school band music! It has been fun to spend more time at home with her as well with other girls from the church who stay home! I plan to go back to the office in two weeks, I am not excited about this but am hoping if we are on a schedule the transition will go smoothly!

The Story of Keira's Arrival- January 26, 2009

This is the story of how our precious daughter entered the world and our arms.

Her due date was Sunday, January 25, 2009. We had anxiously awaited her arrival for nine months and were anxious for her appearance. However, she did not seem to feel the need to move from her cozy home in the womb! When I went in for an appointment at 39 weeks, the doctor said that he would not allow her to go past my due date because he didn't want her to get too big since I was a small person. I went in 3 days later and he said he could induce the next day or wait until Monday, one day after her due date. He said that he thought it would be best to wait until Monday as he thought for sure that she would come before then naturally. So, we went with the plan to induce on Monday January 26, 2009 if she did not arrive before then. In the meantime we spent the weekend going to a conference at church, out to dinner, and spending time with friends before her arrival, all the time awaiting the contractions in the middle of the night signaling her arrival.

Well, Monday morning arrived with no signs of labor yet. We had packed all of the bags the night before, and got up around 5 am so that we could be at the hospital by 7 am to be induced. I showered and finished picking up the house so it was all ready for you to come home to. Then Austin and I headed to Panera to get some breakfast as I knew it may be the last meal that I had for awhile! I ordered, but was so nervous that I could not even eat my bagel. My stomach was in a huge knot as I thought about all of the horror stories that I had been told over the past nine months about labor. For some odd reason I could not remember any of the good things that I had heard, but all of the awful stories! I packed up my bagel and we headed to the hospital.

We arrived around 6:50 am to a light snow falling. The day was cold with a forecast for a couple inches of snow. We rode the elevator up to the birth center with another girl who was being induced at the same time and was expecting a girl. Once we arrived at the birthing center they admitted me and took me to my room.

Once I was admitted the nurse checked to see if I was dilated at all as they planned to induce me using pitocin. However, I was only dilated 1 cm and about 50% effaced (the same that I had been for the past month). The nurse did not think I was ready for pitocin as that would be really hard on me, so she wanted to give me a cervix softener first. That would take up to twelve hours to work and then if needed after that they would give me the pitocin. First of all though, we had to wait for the doctor to approve the cerivix softener. By the time he got back to us, it was around 10 am. In the meantime I had pulled out my laptop and started working and checked my facebook, because I assumed that I was in for the long haul and labor would not start until at least midnight. I also begged the nurse for some food, as I was less nervous now and was starving! She finally gave me some toast and juice. :)

Once they gave me the cervix softener I started getting cramps after 15 min. Soon they were very painful and I just curled up in a ball. I felt like I needed to get up and go to the bathroom, but I had to stay laying down for the first two hours after having the cervix softener. Towards the end of the two hours I asked Austin to time my contractions as they were getting really bad. He said that they were about a minute long and a minute apart, and I thought for sure he was wrong but apparently he was right and the medicine was working incredibly well and quickly without any help from the pitocin! Once the two hours were up I was in alot of pain and was getting ready to page the nurse when she came rushing in, saying, " The baby does not like the medicine, we need to try and stabilize her" She made me turn onto my other side, flat on my back, and finally on my hands and knees in order to stabilize her heart. None of this was working so they took the medicine out and made me stay on my hands and knees for about 45 minutes. Soon, Dr. Sotolongo came rushing in and said that he wanted me prepped for a C-section as the baby's heartrate was dropping and he thought we may have to deliver her that way. However, first he wanted to check and see if I had progressed.

He checked and said that I had dilated to 3 cm, and decided that was far enough along to break my water. He wanted to try and speed labor along without drugs and see if her heart would stabilize and I could give birth to her vaginally. This was around 12:30 pm.

Soon after the anesthesiologist came in to give me the much anticipated epidural. They told me the risks and I quickly agreed! Once they gave me the epidural around 1:30 I began to feel much better. I told Austin to call my mom and see if she would come up, as I still thought I would be there for a while and I wanted her company and support. Soon my parents arrived. My mom and I just sat and chatted, as I was feeling good at this point since the pain was under control. Around 3:00 Steve and Lea stopped by as they had been out and about. They came up just to see how things were going. I told them things were going good, but it would be late at night before she was born. By this time my dad had left to go take a nap as we thought it would be a late night!

Around 4:00 I started feeling contractions fairly strong again. I asked my mom to go ask the nurse about upping the dosage so that I could stay on top of the pain. Soon the nurse came back in and said that was as high as they would up the dosage and that I must be progressing since I could feel the pain again. She checked me and said that I progressed to 9 cm in just a matter of a few hours! She said that I would be ready to push and started trying to contact my doctor. However, we found out that my doctor was across the street at Jennie Edmundson doing a c-section and would not be back in time to deliver our daughter. They found another doctor in the hospital who was available and paged him to come. In the meantime we called my dad to make sure he was on his way.

By 4:30 I was dilated 10 cm and ready to push. I started pushing, with my mom holding my head and Austin holding my leg. They were both very supportive and encouraging along with my wonderful nurse Courtney. Around 5:00 I was getting fairly tired and I asked Courtney how long most first time moms pushed. She answered "at least two hours" and I responded with, "Are you kidding me???" However, I continued to push as I realized the harder I did this, the sooner she would come. From 5:00 on Austin and the nurse kept telling me that they could see her head. At 5:36 pm on January 26, 2008 she finally arrived. The thing most vivid in my memory is looking at Austin and seeing the tears in his eyes as he saw her for the first time. I started crying the second she was born, mainly out of relief that labor was over! The first thing that I remember when I saw her was the gorgeous head of dark hair that she had. I also remember that she looked smaller than they had estimated her weight at, which was around 7.5 lbs. She also had the most pathetic little cry. Instead of the piercing scream that I imagined it was a weak cry. Her little chin quivered as she got more upset. It was adorable! When they weighed her she was smaller than they estimated, at 6 lbs. 10 oz. and 20.5 inches. We noticed that she had very long arms and legs and fingers and toes like her daddy! :)

We had not told anyone her name, and took a few minutes to look at her. We decided that she looked like the one we had picked out, and announced her name to all of the grandparents....Keira Elizabeth Diehm. We liked the sound of the name Keira because it was unique and named her Elizabeth after me.

They asked what I wanted to eat and I said Godfathers Pizza! Steve went and picked up pizza for all of us. I was so thankful that God had given us a beautiful little girl who arrived with a very smooth delivery. By looking at her I became all the more convinced that there is a God...evolution could never have created something so intricate with no problems! :)