Road Trip

My best friend Ashley and her hubby Caleb recently moved up to Edmonton. I've been missing her like crazy and they bought a new house so that means ROAD TRIP. Travis has been super busy with his papers and studying so I thought this would give him prime time to tackle those papers. I spent all week doing laundry, writing lists, and packing. Boy oh boy a baby requires ALOT of stuff to go on a trip for the weekend. We left Friday morning at 9:45am, made a pit stop outside Stavely for a feeding, stopped at Cross Iron Mills for mommy to eat and feed and change baby. Then she slept from Aidrie all the way to Ashley and Caleb's house yay. Jaida was such a trooper being stuck in that crappy car seat for so long. It was a great weekend hanging out, doing some shopping, and baking yum. Caleb was awesome with Jaida, he was always playing with her, or holding her as she falls asleep. It was a nice break for me as well. Then Monday morning came and it was time to leave :(.

Packed up everything and off we went. Changing a explosive diaper on a roadside turnout = scary and cold. Then stopped back at Cross Iron Mills, they have an awesome nursing room and food for me too. We stopped in Claresholm to have dinner with my mom and dad, then homeward bound.

Travis was very excited to see us, and Jaida him. We tried to face time on my iPad but Jaida just got confused why daddy wasn't picking her up lol.  While we were in Edmonton Jaida found her voice especially when Jaden and Karla were there visiting.  She's so cute when she talks aka squeals and babbles.

I can't believe that we have a 4 months old, crazy.  Time goes way too fast, I wish she would stay this size (16lbs) for a few months then continue on growing.  She has kinda gotten into a routine which is nice and now only eats every 2 1/2 - 3 hrs instead of every 1 1/2hrs.  Jaida is such a trooper putting up with all my running around (trying to keep myself sane, I kinda miss work). Poor thing is getting a little neglected right now as a learn to be a cub assistant and completing the Christmas program for church.  I'll make it up to her I swear.  I love being a Mom especially now that she interacts with me and toys.  I love her to bits. Only 25 days until Christmas (my house is all decorated is yours?)

Halloween

OK so it looks like I'm not going to be very regular with these, but here goes another long winded post.
Jaida's first Halloween was pretty uneventful.  it was super icy and foggy so we didn't go trick or treating, but we did go to my daycare party to see all the kids.  then we handed out candy to 21 cuties that came to our door.  Jaida was the cutest little zebra that i ever did see.

 

On November 1st Jaida rolled over for the first time, and of course I almost missed it.  She was on the ground playing on her back and I was folding laundry, and I just had a feeling to look up and there she was rolling onto her tummy! Now the stars have to be perfectly aligned for her to roll over, she's very picky on who she lets see her in action :).

 

We have been keeping very busy these days.  We have a baby group that happens every Tuesday at someones house.  These other mommies and babies are the ones we did Baby Steps with at the Health Unit.  It's been awesome to hang out with these ladies and compare notes.  Jaida and I also go swimming quite a bit, she is still not to sure about the water but the other day she started kicking.  This girl better get use to it as I have signed us up for swimming lessons starting mid-January.

 

 



Baby Blessing/First Time Swimming

So Jaida's blessing was on Sunday September 23rd.  My grandparents decided to make a weekend out of it and rented hotel rooms for my whole family.  So Saturday night we went over to the hotel, ordered Two Guys pizza (the most amazing pizza ever), and then went swimming.  This was Jaida's first time, I was a little nervous because babies are slippery when wet but we still did it.  We waded into the pool with her in my arms and daddy taking pictures on the deck, she did not know what to do at first, so she clung to me.  Then we went and sat by the hot tub to warm up and try again after she got use to it.  We went back in the pool which was really cold and hung out with uncle Kurtis, but then Jaida got splashed and that was the end of that, poor thing.  But since then I have been trying to take her swimming at least once a week, she typically sleeps the whole time but she is getting use to the water.

 

 

Thank goodness for Costco. I managed to feed 40 people hamburgers, hot dogs, and all other kinds of goodies with limited effort, except the hamburgers.  At the time of Jaida's blessing there was an E. coli breakout with beef, so instead of buying hamburger patties i had to hand make them all which was not fun but they tasted great :).  I am so grateful for my family and Travis' family for the support, help, and love they give us.  

First Time Away

We survived or should I say, I survived my first night away from my precious baby.  Travis had gotten us front row tickets to Cirque du Soliel for our anniversary.  I was so nervous about leaving Jaida because I really wasn’t sure if she would take a bottle and I didn’t want her to scream the whole time for Grandma Bevan.  I felt like I was having a panic attack until about 3 hours into the night Grandma texts me and says she has had two bottles and is asleep.  After that I enjoyed myself thoroughly, it was great to have an evening with Travis where I wasn’t super uncomfortable because of being 9 months pregnant.  We decided that we will always find a way to go to the Cirque shows because we love them so much, it’s the perfect mix of culture and entertainment for us.

First Few Weeks

Jaida is such as expressive sleeper, she frowns, smiles and giggles in her sleep, and it’s the cutest thing to watch.  I still can’t believe that this precious little girl is ours to keep and that she is so perfectly healthy.  She has a little jungle/nature play yard that I’ve just started putting her in, and my oh my she gets so excited.  She kicks her feet laughs and tries to grab the elephant.  I could sit for hours just watching her every move.     Jaida is very strong and loves tummy time, she is always lifting her head to look around and she’s gaining more and more control.  We are still trying to figure out a routine to follow which is difficult because she never seems to eat at the same time except for at 2 am every morning.  She’s really good though when we go out; she sleeps really well in her car seat and doesn’t seem to mind it which makes life easy for me.  She honestly is a great baby, yes I get frustrated when she cries for feeding in the middle of the night, but once those 2 seconds of frustration pass I marvel at how beautiful she is and that I will one day get to sleep through the night again.  People always give you the advice of sleep when the baby sleeps, which don’t get me wrong it is great advice but very difficult.  I like to shower when she is sleeping or tidy or mainly get myself some food.  If I do by chance try to nap with her as soon as I lay my head down she starts to fuss.  Or if I finally get some food together and go to take a bite she starts to really fuss.  But on the days where our night had been really rough I nap.  Travis is great because he doesn’t go to bed until later I feed Jaida and then he takes her until her next feeding so I can sleep, it is very wonderful.

 

After Her Bath She Was Trying to Eat the Towel

 

About Us

So here is goes, I’m starting a blog because I want to keep a record of our little family and that whole writing in a journal thing just never works out for me.  Some family history: Travis and I started dating in September 2005 and were married May 2007.  I finished my last year of Early Childhood Education at Lethbridge  College in 2008 and Travis managed a store until a year later when he decided to go back to university and get his Ed degree (5 years : ().  Doing so put having a family off for a few years but we saved up and bought a beautiful house and me a new car.  I worked in a daycare with preschool aged children and I loved it.  So fast forward to 5 years of marriage and bang we got ourselves a precious baby girl, Jaida Lorraine aka Goober. 

 

 

The Dreaded Birth Story

Here is a mild version of her birth story, I was a week over due and booked for an induction for Monday July 16^th (which was kind of good because then my doctor was back from holidays).  On Sunday July 15^th at 2:30 am I started having contractions, nothing too serious but enough to make it uncomfortable to sleep plus I got excited.  These continued on all day.  They came and went and came and went, I watched TV and played card games online to keep myself distracted.  Finally at 2 am Monday morning hoping that I had dilated past the 3 cm I was on the Friday we headed to the hospital.  We checked in and they checked me, no progress, but because we were booked for induction at 6 am that morning and the delivery wing was dead they set us up in a delivery suite to sleep.  Sleep ya right.  The older nurse was getting frustrated with me because I couldn’t sleep.  How can you sleep when every 5-7 minutes you’re having contractions and then between each one of those I had to pee?  Any who Travis slept while I moved around.  At 7 am the nurses changed and they started to prep me for induction, IV, change into gown, watching my vitals and baby’s.  At 8 am my DR came in and she broke my water, which is a very weird feeling, painless but weird.  Right after that my contractions got stronger and painful.  With my whole pregnancy I said I don’t want an epidural but if the pain is too much I am totally up for it.  Guess what I figured that the pain would just get worse (which it totally did) so I opted for the epidural.  Oh ya bring it on.  It was not as painful going in as everyone says and the effect was great.  I could still feel the contractions and they were uncomfortable but they weren’t painful.  Now fast forward to 9:30am, I was getting the urge to push, the nurse checked me and I was fully dilated but they didn’t want me to push because my Dr was in a surgery at the moment so they had me “breathe the urge out”.  Seriously that was super hard and after about 30 mins. of this I started choking because I can’t breathe them out anymore.  They check me again and guess what the baby is crowning so the nurse says I can start to push, what a relief.  I really don’t recall a whole lot about the whole pushing thing but I do remember my Dr running in getting half dressed in scrubs and says let’s have a baby.  So by this point my epidural has only frozen one half of me because I was lying on my side but hey only feeling half the pain was good.  It is true what they say about the ring of fire but I really didn’t care I wanted this baby out of me.  At 10:18 Am after only 15 mins. of pushing my baby girl arrives.  Seriously that is the most amazing feeling ever because your body just totally feels instant relief.  First thing I ask is “what is it?”  “It’s a girl” “Oh good,” was my response.  It’s a good thing she was a girl because we were still arguing over the boy’s name while I was in labour.  So the total experience was as good as it could be, the absolute worst part was getting stitched up after, I was shaking so bad I could barely stand.  And it’s true what they say about losing all shame about being naked because the nurse dried me off after my “shower”.  So enough about me on to our baby girl, She was 9lbs 2 oz. and causing havoc when they were trying to measure her, she was yanking on the tubes around the bed.  We discover that her head did not collapse like it should’ve, it measured 35 cm right after birth and the next day it measured 36cm ouch.  She latch great for nursing right off the bat and she slept a lot.  Word to the wise don’t let visitors come the first day, you are so tired and in so much pain that it’s hard to be cheerful and happy with them.  I seriously have the best hubby though he helped me walk to the bathroom and helped lift my feet back into bed.  The part of me that was really sore which surprised me were my arms, from holding my legs while I pushed.  The first night in the hospital was brutal I had a mean night nurse.  We had decided that Travis would go home and sleep so that he was functional to help during the day.  So I told this night nurse that I would need help changing Jaida’s diapers because I could barely get myself out of bed never mind move to change her diaper.  The nurse looked at me and said,” Here’s a change pad, do it on the bed”.  Well that was not helpful at all because I couldn’t bend at the right angle to change her either.  This nurse also had me stay awake all night trying to wake Jaida to eat which was not very successful.  My day nurses were awesome and my hubby was great during the day.  Any who after 3 sleepless nights we decided that I would be better taken care of at home by Travis.  We were quickly discharged as it got very busy in the maternity ward.  Once at home I crawled into bed with Jaida and we slept while Travis took good care of us.  I’m so blessed to have a loving and caring husband.
 

 

            Jaida Sleeping in Her Bright Outfit from Great Grandma Pedersen

 

Her 1st Sunday Dress from Aunt Ashley