Wooden Anniversary

Yesterday Shaun and I celebrated our 5th anniversary. How did we celebrate? You are all probably thinking that we went to some great place on vacation. But no, we celebrated with a screaming 9 month old child in a body cast. A far cry from 250 of your closest friends and family bringing you presents and wishing you well. It is amazing how your life can change in 5 years. In all honesty, she didn't cry long and I was able to feed her and put her down in 15 minutes. But the difference remains.

Anyway I've spent some time reminiscing about the last 6+ years we've known each other. How grateful I am for my wonderful husband! He is so good with Cecilia and makes an effort to be home as much as possible because he knows that is what I want. He cooks, cleans, does laundry, gets up with the baby in the morning so I can sleep in, gets her in the middle of the night for me, and changes lots of diapers. Husbands take note, you can do these things too, and your wives will love you all the more for it :)

We've had some great times over the years and traveled many places. Here are a few of my favorite memories from over the years in chronological order. I can't find the first picture of us taken way before we started dating. It is driving me crazy, but oh well, here are other great ones.

Havasupai falls where Shaun had to help me carry my pack up the hill and when I apologized for my weakness he said,"sometimes I carry you and sometimes you carry me." How sweet huh? That was when I knew I wanted to marry him.

New York City and the first of many pictures taken in the "Ritchie style" as our friend calls it, where Shaun holds the camera and takes a picture of us.

Toronto where Shaun surprised me and proposed. If you haven't heard the story ask us about it sometime, it is a good one.

Puerto Penasco taking engagement pictures.

Escalante backpacking with friends. This time I carried my own pack the whole way, but I'm so out of shape I probably couldn't do it now :)

Catalina on our 1st anniversary.

Spain where I hated the food so much that I begged to go to McDonalds for breakfast and ate a Big Mac. Which if you know me, says something about Spanish food.

Venice, isn't my husband so hot?!

Rome, a great place and we want to go back someday.

Skagit Valley tulip festival. I went hog wild taking pictures, this is of course one of my favorites.

Mexico City, one of our favorite repeat places to visit. Mostly because of friends, and the food.

Shaun's 30th SURPRISE birthday party. And he was surprised! I spent weeks on the preparations and had a local restaurant make his favorite Mexican dish just for him. His brother Mike (in the picture) was nice enough to fly in and help distract him for the day so I could get everything set up. It was such a fun night!

San Francisco, another favorite place to visit. We always find things to do and great places to eat. Plus it is so close to travel to, just a hop, skip, and a jump away!

Portland where we had a blast picking all the berries we could. We later found a pick your own blueberry farm by Shaun's grandma's and had a great time picking blueberries. They were so big, ripe and TASTY!!! Oh if only blueberries grew here!

Millcreek where we just found out we were pregnant with Cecilia. Boy if I knew how sick I was going to be over the next couple of months...

Ok I know this is getting ridiculously long. But I just keep finding more great pictures and memories that I have to share. One more and I'm done.

I hope you enjoyed the stroll down memory lane as much as I did. Happy Anniversary Shaun!

Cast Change

Today Cecilia got a new cast. They had to put her under anesthesia again so they could cut it off and check out her hip and recast her. Essentially the only reason they do this is because she grows so fast that she outgrows the cast in 6 weeks. Everything went really well. The doctor checked her hip and said it looked really good. It doesn't move out of the socket now and just needs more time for everything to grow and solidify. Shaun and I were really happy to hear that. Hopefully that means this is the only time we will have to do this.

The cast is very similar except we have about another inch of her body. She still has the cast to the ankles and a bar in between. We expected as much so weren't disappointed when we saw her. In fact I feel we were prepared for today and knew what to expect on several things, her cast size and shape, how to handle her, the fact that she would wake up from anesthesia angry and how to deal with it, and we knew that the surgery would go well and everything would be fine. I didn't even cry this time, which is pretty amazing given the wreck I was last time. Cecilia also didn't cry nearly as long this time and played when we got home. She also took a 4 hour nap and went to bed on time. I'm hopeful that her sleeping won't be disturbed too much this time and she will adjust quickly. A lot of people in the HipBaby group say cast changes are hard. We'll see...

On another note, Cecilia initiated her cast this afternoon with a blowout of the century (as Shaun says). Apparently anesthesia gives babies diarrhea. When Shaun got her up from her 4 hour nap there was poop everywhere. And when I say everywhere I mean everywhere inside a cast poop can get, it was there. Then to add insult to injury Cecilia peed while Shaun was cleaning it up. Poop and pee all over our bed. The new cast didn't even make it 6 hours. UGH! Seriously though she hasn't had that much poop and runny poop at that, well, ever I think. Here is a picture after the first round of cleanup.

and
Yes, it takes up a whole grocery bag! This child smells worse today than she did after 6 weeks of the last cast!!! Tomorrow we will do round 2 of the cleanup and try to reach places we couldn't reach before. But 2 hours of wiping the cotton liner was enough for today.

Here is Shaun and Cecilia waiting to be taken back to the surgery room.

and the last picture of the old cast.

Halfway Done

6 weeks from today Cecilia gets her cast off. I've been looking forward to today for 6 weeks. I expected myself to be so happy that we are halfway done and look forward to the next six weeks going fast. But surprisingly this milestone is just depressing me. It feels like we should be done and instead of getting a new cast this week we should be getting it taken off. I feel like it has been a long time and don't want to go through another one as long. Shaun says I'll feel better after we get the new cast and have more days behind us than in front of us. I hope that is true. So to try to convince myself of this I decided to write about the good things about this cast. It will be a short list and I can think of bad things for each of these, but that's beside the point. Here goes,

1. We have been able to enjoy Cecilia's learning to feed herself more than if she were also learning to be mobile. Who knows maybe because she isn't mobile she is developing faster on this front? I love to give her a "treat" and watch her pick it up, open her mouth, and put her hand in her mouth. Most of the time now she gets it in there and chews it. I can see improvement everyday. She gets better at picking them up, getting it in her mouth and opening her fingers so it goes in the mouth instead of on the lip or falling on the ledge (her cast). Shaun and I have both really enjoyed watching the progress.

2. I have been able to hold her more than I would if she were mobile. I love my daughter but she is not a cuddler so every chance I get to hold her and rub her back is time I probably wouldn't get if she were mobile. I have to enjoy it now and remember it when she is running around.

3. Being able to go to church and sit in the lessons. We have a lot of babies in our ward about Cecilia's age and they have formed what I call "The Baby Brigade." Their children are just learning to move and the last thing they want to do is sit for three hours. These women miss Gospel Doctrine and part of Relief Society (the last two hours of church) because their children don't want to sit and play on a bench any longer. They all sit in thr foyer and let their children crawl or walk around. Cecilia is kinda noisy, but because she can't crawl on the floor I take her to class anyway. I want to actually get something out of this thing I'm making her skip a nap for(well to be honest, she usually skips the nap on her own so we take her to church). She loves to sit backwards and flirt with everyone behind us. she will do what she can to get their attention and then smile her big cheesy grin and coo at them. Melts their heart (and ours), they stare at her for the rest of the class and always come up to us after and say how cute she is. Shaun and I were discussing how we think she knows how cute she is and that everyone dotes on her so she exploits it to the fullest of her ability. You should watch her in action. Shaun and I are in trouble when she gets older!

4. I will appreciate her mobility so much more in the end. I look around my house and see all the things I need to baby proof and the floors that I will need to sweep daily. I'm kinda glad I can put off doing it for another 2 months or so. But when she starts moving around I know I will be so happy for it that I won't mind keeping my house clean. I will appreciate every day that she runs around and never wish for her to be back in this cast.

5. I will always have a special place in my heart for my "hip baby". Several women in the HipBaby web group, one in particular that I corrispond with, say they have a special bond with their DDH child. There is just something about going through a rough time and feeling so sorry for your child that binds you in a different way. I'm sure this will be the case for me as well. This dear, sweet, little child is so special.

There... I feel better about another 6 weeks already. I'm sure Shaun is right, once we have moved on to the second phase I will be excited we are on the downhill.

Here is Cecilia in her spica chair (the one thing that makes this doable) with the chain countdown I made behind her. It is really fun to see the chain get smaller everyday. Only 6 colors left! (this was taken a little over a week ago)

Hogle Zoo

A friend of mine recently found out about Cecilia being in a cast. She called to see how we were doing and to do something special for us during this time. It was so nice to talk to her, she moved last summer and I miss her. Anyway she gave us a year pass to the Hogle Zoo. She said it was her favorite place when she lived here. Cecilia loves to go on walks outside, she always babbles a ton and usually has a couple of screams for joy in there. So being outside and seeing new animals sounded perfect. Plus they have a lot of fun things to do this summer. I got so excited about it I decided to go that day. It was during New Years weekend so Shaun was home too. We had so much fun. Cecilia loved to look at the ducks and wild turkeys. The turkeys even got in a fight with a peacock and she was enthralled. We wheeled her up to a fish tank and she looked at the fish like she wasn't quite sure what to do with them. It was so funny. Here is a picture of Shaun and Cecilia in front of the lions.


And Cecilia staring at the ducks.


This is the perfect gift, thanks Jayne!

Teeth and eating

Yesterday I was feeling around in Cecilia's mouth because she was sucking it in a funny way and I felt a tooth poking out!!! It is her first and it is sharp! The journey begins...

We also had a break through on the eating front. She took food from my hand and put it in her mouth and ate it for the first time! I found these yogurt melts at the grocery store and have given her one from time to time. She really likes them. I can understand why, sugar is the second ingredient. Anyway the first time I gave one to her I put the whole thing in her mouth and she sucked on it for a few seconds and then I heared GULP. She swallowed the whole thing. They are designed to melt so I wasn't worried about her choking, but the idea is to chew them. Next time Shaun cut it in half and gave her small pieces. After a few tries at that I went back to whole ones. She had figured out that she was to chew and suck on them at this point so it went well. So yesterday I got out the package and she got excited and put out her hands like "give me some!" so I put it close to her hand and she followed mine into her mouth. After she chewed and sucked it, I gave her another one. This time I put it in her hand and she put it in her mouth and ate it! I was so proud. I just keep thinking about babies develop by "baby steps" and things come along slowly but every step is exciting. Like being able to feed yourself. We just now have to be careful in what she thinks is food :)

Errands

Yesterday I took Cecilia on two errands. One to the library and one to the grocery store. I tried to vent to Shaun last night about them, but being like a true boy he just kept telling me all the ways I can fix the situation in the future. And I being a true girl just wanted him to listen and sympathize with me. Realizing our frustration with each other was because of the differences between boys and girls I decided to abandon my venting and blog about it instead, where no one can interrupt with "solutions."

So going on errands with a baby in a cast is such a pain! We have two stroller options, one an umbrella stroller and the other our bugaboo, which I love but it is a pain to lug around. So to go anywhere you have to get the stroller in the car, if I take the bugaboo which carries more things and rolls easier, then I have to take it apart, seat in the back seat and frame in the trunk and put it together everywhere we go. The umbrella stroller is easier to carry and put up but doesn't roll through snow and no stowage. Anyway so yesterday I was too lazy to take the bugaboo and wanted to just do quick errands so I took the umbrella. So I'm trying to balance that, the baby, a book to take back to the library and a water. I just had it all and am trying to lock the door and her shoe falls off. UGH! It feels like trying to carry anything else with her in a cast is too much but taking a million trips to the car is just as much of a pain so I try to do too much sometimes. I finally manage to balance everything and get to the car. Now buckling her in is also a 5 minute deal. You have to get her in just the right place where her feet aren't squished against the seat and she is up high enough that you can get it buckled and the straps keep falling off while you are trying to buckle them and Cecilia is pulling your hair because you have it in her face doing all of this. UGH UGH! Finally she is in and the stroller is in the trunk. Ok drive to the library. Now the aisles at the library are too narrow for her to fit in the stroller so I carry her. Luckily I find a bag in the car to put my book so I'm not trying to balance that and her and entertain her at the same time. Getting her out of the car is actually fairly quick, the straps fall off remember? Carrying her is a pain, but I tell myself I know where to go in the library for my next book so it will be fast. But let me tell you she is heavy and awkward. She has a bar between her legs which makes it easier to pick her up, but more difficult to carry her. 1o minutes is about my limit of holding her up with my arm while she is pushing me away because she is bored. Finally get the book and get to the car. A guy leaves the same time I do and I can't help noticing he is in his car and has driven off before I have her halfway buckled. Get her in and drive to the grocery store.

Now I only have about 10 items on my list. Should be a quick trip. Get out, get the stroller, get her, buckle her in the stroller, get the two grocery bags I have with me and walk into the store. I quickly pick up the items I need. Cecilia of course doesn't fit in the shopping cart so I have to forgo that and only get items I can carry. Remember I chose the stroller without the storage because it was easier? Well I'm now regretting that decision because I have to carry all of my items in my bags and push the stroller. Of course the handle of the bag doesn't want to stay on my shoulder either. I'm starting to really regret my decision when I get to the back of the store and pick up my last two items, milk for Shaun and I and eggs. We like different milk and go through a lot of it so a gallon of skim for me and 2% for Shaun. I have to do some rearranging at this point to get them in with the cabbage and make sure the eggs and bread fit in the other without getting squished. Carrying two FULL, HEAVY bags and pushing a stroller is not much fun. But I'm done now so I quickly walk to the front and gratefully set down my bags. I tell the bagger that I need to make it all fit in the two bags. It seems pretty obvious to me why. I have a stroller and no cart. So what does he do? Puts the grocery's in the two bags and puts the two gallon's of milk on the side and walks away. UGH UGH UGH! I look at it like "do you see two extra arms coming out of my body that I don't see"??? So I hurry and rearrange it all while the person behind me looks on and lug my groceries out of the store. Back to the car, put in the groceries, put in the baby (pulling hair and all), put in the stroller and get in. Drive home, get everything in the house and collapse exhausted on the couch an hour and a half after I left.

Boy I can't wait until she is out of this heavy, awkward thing! Two weeks from today is the cast change.

Happy New Year!

Boy what a difference a year makes! This year our lives have changed more than any other year. Being a stay at home mom is not what I expected and I've adapted to it better than I anticipated. Cecilia is such a joy and blessed our lives so much. Shaun's work has also really picked up this year which we are also very grateful for. Can't wait to see what 2010 will bring us. It is hard to imagine how Cecilia will change this year, but also exciting. I can't wait for her to crawl (if she doesn't skip it), walk, get into everything in our house, maybe say a few words (I can't remember when they do this) and learn so much. She has already changed so much!

One thing that has recently come, which I know Grandma Hadley was particularly looking forward to is curly hair. We all knew it would happen eventually. Just look at Shaun and I, she was doomed. But I have to say they are so cute!!! I sat holding her yesterday and played with them. I took some pictures of her the other day so you can all goggle at them too.