15 month stats

Sorry Tessa, I skipped your twelve month stats so I'll have to go back through all of my paperwork to see if I can locate them now.  These are your fifteen month stats:

Height - 31.75 in, 85th percentile
Weight - 22 lbs 6 oz, 45th percentile
Head circumference - 18.5 in, 80th percentile

You were a good, good girl yet again.  Dr. Merritt let you touch her stethoscope and her light which was very nice of her.  Your regular nurse is on maternity leave and this nurse wasn't nearly as skilled but you survived.  She jabbed that needle right into your thigh and you were in a lot of pain all night.  Sorry Petey!

One more word!

New words are coming fast and furious now.  This is an amazing time for toddlers!  Yesterday, I had to leave work early to take Tessa to the doctor for a bad cough.  Turns out both of her ears are infected as well, poor baby.  But she made me feel better when we trekked to the store to pick up her med.  We wandered around for a bit until she said OOOHHH-COOOWWW!  I turned around and there was a poster of a cow in the dairy aisle.  So cute.  I think she's said OOOOHHH-COOWWW rougly 29,000 times since then.

DOGGY!!!

Sorry Tessa, no time to post lately even though you've been making leaps and bounds in progress.  A few weekends ago Jason, Mom and I were at my house doing some work to get the house ready for Ken and Nissi to come (Yay, roommates!).  We were all in the kitchen with you looking at your big board book of 100 words.  Now, you haven't spoken too much yet not that you're not verbal, because you are...you just don't usually use words we can understand other than MumMum or BaBa or KAAAAA! (cat).

We turned to the page with animals and we showed you the ducky, cat (Kaaaa), doggy, etc.  Suddenly, you said, "DOGGY!" clear as day.  We were all so surprised.  If you had recited the Gettysburg Address -4score and 7 years ago-I don't think we would have been more shocked.  Wow, things just change so fast.  Now you can also say RUFRUFRUFRUF in a high pitch after Violet does the same thing.

Nine whole months!

Today was Tessa's nine month checkup.  She is right on track developmentally.

Weight: 19lb 2 oz / 50th %ile
Height:  29 in / 90th %ile
Head circumference: 17.5 in / 60th %ile

Beach

Last weekend saw Tessa's first ever beach experience.  Everyone who knows me knows that I love to make short visits to the beach.  Uncle Jason went along for the ride, to help us at the beach, and to see Brent.  Tessa loved the beach, the sand, and the water.  In fact, she loved the sand so much she tried to eat it several times.  Uncle Jason put her down to feel the waves and she was a tiny bit frightened of that but she got over her fear pretty fast.  We also had a tent that was ridiculously hard to assemble and are forever grateful to Uncle Jay for putting it up.

Tessa also sneaked a piece of lord-only-knows-how-old-bacon from the floor of the hotel room and chewed it like a piece of bubblegum for about ten minutes until I discovered it.  Gross!  She tried cinnamon apples from Chili's while Momma had a delicioso margarita but Tessa's not a fan of cinnamon. She made the worst faces.

Uncle Jay had his first pooh-plosion experience trying to change Tessa in IHOP's bathroom after she was a bit fussy while Momma was finishing breakfast.  I'm sure it was an unforgettable moment for him.  Yay for IHOP having a changing table in the gent's restroom though.

Six Months!!!

Wow, Tessa is six months old as of yesterday.  We went to the doctor this morning for a well-baby checkup and these are her stats:

Height: 27 in / 90th %ile
Weght: 17.3 lbs/ 75th %ile

Samantha

I took you outside to play with Samantha yesterday evening.  The weather was beautifully perfect but of course Samantha was coughing and choking horribly because of her allergies.  It's probably the mold that affects her so but my heart goes out to the poor little doggie.  She rolled on her back in the grass which probably doesn't help but at least it reminds me that she can still get a little normal doggie joy out of her life.  You laughed everytime she turned her face toward you.  She licked your hand and you laughed.  I suspect Samantha will be gone before you remember her but maybe this will help.

(That's Anthony beside Samantha)

Four Month Well Baby Check-up

Well, you most certainly are a well baby, Tessa.  You thoroughly enjoyed hamming it up for your audience of nurse and pediatrician until the needles came out.  Your stats are as follows:

Weight: 14 lbs 6 oz / 70th %ile
Height: 25 in / 75th %ile
Head circumference: 16.25 in / 50th %ile

You rock, Lady!

Nobody told me about baby getting sick

You've been so sick over the last couple of weeks and I am exhausted.  I thought parenthood was a giant piece of cake up until this point but watching terrified as your child turns a bit blue in the mouth because she can't breathe slams you back down to ole Planet Earth from Cloud Nine pretty fast. 

On Thursday, January 27th I picked you up from Gramma's after work and I noticed you had a little "wet" cough.  On Friday, Gramma reported that it was obvious you were a little sick since you didn't eat very well.  Saturday seemed a bit better.  Then by Saturday night, we were in the ER.  Sunday, urgent care.  Monday, pediatrician's office.  Those were the longest three days of my life.  It was awful beyond words to see you so ill and not know what to do.  It's clear by the way you look at me that you trust me to fix things.  I'm the Mom.  That's my job.  But I couldn't fix this.  All I could do was wait it out and help you along as much as possible.

Thank God.  Thank God.  Thank God.  You are getting stronger and feeling better every day.  I've been appalled by the amount of weight you lost while sick.  I can see your little ribs and feel your little shoulder bones.  I'm so happy you want to eat like a starving lion cub now.  Hopefully you'll catch up to where you were soon.

Tessa has a fan base

I've noticed that small children are especially fascinated by babies.  Picking up the girls from school one day over maternity leave, I happened upon a class of kindergartners and they all wanted to see Tessa.  One little boy said, "I like your baby."  They were very curious about the stork bite mark on the back of her head.  And one little boy even reached up and patted her on the back in passing.

Another time, I took the girls (my nieces) for a walk around the little lake near my house.  We were passing the park and this little girl came running up to the stroller and grabbed ahold for dear life.  She was barely tall enough to see Tessa.  I let her look for awhile but after a few minutes of her clinging to the stroller, I was at a loss about how to get her off.  Luckily, I think her sister noticed and came to retrieve her.

Well, today beat all.  We were both having a bad morning.  I tripped and fell at the post office and the bottom of Tessa's carseat clunked on the floor which scared her really bad.  We met Valerie at IHOP for breakfast where the morning started to get more fun.  Out of nowhere, this toddler comes running up to Tessa's carseat to look at the baby with her Dad in tow.  He had to keep telling her not to touch the baby.  It was so adorable.  Tessa gave her a great big smile.  Then the tiny little girl made oinking sounds at my daughter.  She was talking, not to Tessa, but to the pink piggy toy on her carseat.  As we were leaving, she tried to follow us out...still oinking.  SO CUTE!!!

What a difference a day makes!

Sorry for changing the person of reference here but I'll probably easily go back and forth between creating new posts for Tessa, using 'you' and new posts about Tessa.  Not an English major. lol. 

So between Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon, I noticed that Tessa is babbling differently.  I can't even determine what is different about it.  Maybe her babbling is clearer or more purposeful--or just louder.  And, get ready for this one, she's reaching out for objects that pique her interest.  I fed her a couple of bites of cereal last night (it doesn't help her sleep longer but she kind of likes chewing on the spoon) and she reached out and tried to grab the spoon!  So I gave Tessa the spoon and watched to make sure she didn't bonk herself in the eye with it.

We will be playing with spoons more tonight.

New skills

You learned a couple of new skills while I was on vacation this week (gotta love working at a University).  On Christmas Eve day, you started making a sort of kissing sound by sucking on your upper lip.  I was and still am very entertained by this new skill however I fear it may get a little old after I hear you make the same sound every fifteen seconds all day.  For right now, though, it is super cute.

You also rolled over onto your side!

First day back at work

Monday, December 13th was my first day back at work after a nice break of about ten weeks.  I thoroughly enjoyed all the time I spent with you during my maternity leave.  It wasn't nearly long enough and even though I never understood the whole stay-at-home mom lifestyle, I sure would like it now.  You aren't really a morning person other than being super happy when you first wake up so that means Mommy usually got to sleep in (YAY). 

Gramma is taking good care of you while I'm at work.  I have the best job ever but it is hard to explain so suffice it to say that I help students make their way through college.  I miss you so much during the day.  Sometimes I call just to hear you babble.

But this story isn't about work; it just happens to fall on the first day of my return.  I retrieved you from Gramma's house and you were fed before we left.  I had to run a quick errand at Target so we stopped there before going home.  I parked in an odd place so we didn't have easy access to a cart meaning that I had to carry you into the store to find a cart.  I figured it was okay to skip the diaper bag since we were only buying a few things.  (colossal mistake).  Mommy's still learning.

I noticed the carseat rocking slightly in the shopping cart but didn't think anything of it and off we went.  We were so close to finishing up the impromptu shopping trip and looking for a box of diapers when I heard you spit up a little.  (Uh oh, no diaper bag).  I rounded the cart to investigate, thinking "meh, what's a little spit-up between friends."  Upon seeing me, you THREW UP--literally, like, you threw it--ALL OVER THE PLACE.  All over your little outfit, all over the carseat.  Wow, gross...and no diaper bag.  Since I was still using the hospital blankets to stabilize your head in the carseat, I had to use those to clean you off.  You were still very wet and it was cold outside.  I felt terrible because, of course, it was all my fault for not burping you long enough and leaving the essential diaper bag behind.  Clearly you survived and now it's just a funny story but it was so unfunny at the time.

I suspect many of these entries will involve yucky bodily functions of some sort.  Ah the life of a baby.

Your name

Names are important and I thought a long, long time about yours.  I even had a spreadsheet going with a 'boy' tab and a 'girl' tab.  I know, I'm a dork.  Let me tell you about your name.


Tessa.  Tessa is a derivation of the name Teresa which is, yes, GRAMMA's name.  You love you some time with the gramma, that's for sure.  This is a tradition that started with Grandma and I always thought it was cute (once I got over the required childhood period of hating my own name).  See, my name is a derivation of 'Virginia' which was my paternal grandmother's middle name.  And Uncle Chad's name comes from our dad's name, Carl.  'Tessa' also sounds like 'Trisha' because Aunt Trisha's name comes from Gramma's name as well.


Jewel was your great-great grandmother's first name.  I grew up calling her Gramma Jewel.  I always thought that was a beautiful name.  Luckily 'Tessa' and 'Jewel' sound good together.


I gave you your last name, Case, because I wanted you to have another physical connection with the family that loves you. (Although grampa loves you too and you should never forget that).  I also knew that I would be the one taking care of you.


You are one well-connected girl.

Wow, my first blog

Just as an introduction and to set a coherent tone for the rest of my written thoughts here; this journal is for my daughter, Tessa.  I want to look back and be able to clearly remember and relate happenings from her baby time so she will know what great fun I had with her.  I should have thought to do this during pregnancy but perhaps it's better I did not since I was/am not a big fan of the pregnant life.  Momma life, however, is a bowl full of cherries or maybe a chair full of bowlies.  Momma life is sometimes frustrating, sometimes exhausting but mostly joyful.  I often find myself wearing a silly grin just thinking about how great my daughter is.  Momma life is biology at its best because, of course, every mother feels like this about her kiddo or kiddos.  I just never knew it was like falling in love to the billionth power.