What is The Little Things Blog?

Hello.

This is our new blog. We decided to open up one of these because as new parents, there are a lot of little things to write about. We did have separate baby journals for each of our two kids, but maintaining two blogs takes up more time. So this blog is to consolidate the thoughts that would go on those blogs.

We named this The Little Things (despite the many other blogs with the same name) because we feel that everything about family life is made up of the little things.

So in the days and weeks and months to come, we hope you find our blog somewhat entertaining. Thanks!

The clan :)

We welcomed our new daughter, Aubrey Artemis, last December 2, 2009 at CPMC. She was delivered at 3:14 pm.

Things weren't all that great, as we had to return to the hospital the day after we were discharged. Miss Aubrey needed a surgery to correct her intestines. The morning after we were discharged, she had vomited bile, prompting us to take her back. We were in the hospital for another week, but it was worth the wait for her recovery. She is a cute little button today :)

Our little fam is now complete. We will be blogging as much as time allows. Possibly even transferring our baby blogs from babycrowd.com on here now, so that we only have to update one blog.

In other news, our house is still a mess! Haven't had much time to unpack everything.... it just so happened that escrow and birth fell around the same time, so things are moving slowly on that front....

We are looking forward to happy times, though.

One and a half month later...

Since our last entry, little Miss Aubrey has gained so much weight! She is now 9 lbs and 4 oz per her last check up. She has a monstrous appetite! The girl gets angry when she's not fed enough, and she lets out a very serious cry. Aubrey is mostly breastfed with the occasional formula. Her doctor recommended we give her some Tri-Vi-Sol (Vitamin D supplements) so we started giving her some. She also is very gassy so we recently started her on gripe water - which she doesn't like.

Big brother Gerard is so all over her. Everytime I ask for a kiss for me, he insists only "bebey" can have it. He loves to look at her in the mornings. Too sweet....

Life just got busier. And I'm enjoying every moment, even the middle of the night cries that drive me crazy :)

Home for good

We were discharged from the hospital yesterday right before lunch time. Aubrey is now pooping and peeing normally. and she has an appetite! Ever since coming home, what we give her isn't enough. At the same time, we are careful to give her too much so her stomach can hold it down.

The nurses didn't want her to go home, as they were all enchanted by our little princess. Everyday we were there, each nurse and doctor that came in just had to say how cute she was. Even when we first checked in, one of the first nurses to help her said not too many babies look good, but we got lucky =)

We've been extremely busy with the two kids now. So updating this blog may slow down!

Good latch

Ms. Aubrey Artemis is a great latcher. Thanks to the advice of the lactation consultant. Remember, mommies: Don't forcefeed! I made that mistake with my firstborn, and it took us a very long time to get breastfeeding down! With Aubrey, we got on it pretty fast.

Progress report

Well, today, I finally stepped out into the sunlight for a cold walk that I needed. It's been 4 days since I've been in the hospital with Aubrey and haven't seen the sunlight. Brief walk, but it did the job.

On to much more exciting news, everything on Aubrey's face had been taken off, including the OG tube. She was given 30 mL of pedialyte water to start with and see how her system took it.... it took it well! Then she did 20 minutes of solid breastfeeding a couple of hours later, and so far, she's alright! Very big steps for Aubrey!!

We are staying another night to monitor how this feeding goes, and if all goes well, her IV comes off tonight. They haven't told us when we'd be going home but we'll wait for that right time because we don't want to go home and there are still problems. But everything is looking in the right direction.

I finally got to hold her...

Tonight was a bit harsh for baby Aubrey. It seems the pain of hunger has gotten to her because she couldn't stop crying, and I couldn't stop the guilt of not being able to feed her. We have to wait for the surgeon's OK before we can give her milk. It's so horrible to have to wait!!

But I was able to hold her tonight and hum her a lullabye that helped her to fall asleep. My poor little lady.......... she is going through so much.........