Category: Weight/Exercise

I’ve seriously got to get some kind of written schedule going to help me stay on track. I’ve got piles of folded laundry that need to be put away in drawers stacked on the futon, half the dishes that were in the sink are still in there, and I put the toilet cleaner in the toilet, but I’m just now remembering I was supposed to clean it. I can’t just do one thing and finish it. I get bored and absentmindedly move on to something else.

I need to shower, but Mario’s at a seminar and won’t get here till who knows what time. I don’t want to go to sleep stinky :(. I think it’s about time I rearrange my routine and bathe while Mom’s here during the day. I bathe the boys around 6-6:30pm, so maybe I should bathe them at 6 and take a shower myself at 6:30. Then get dinner started at 7 like I usually try to. But then when am I supposed to work out?! At 5:30? Darn John won’t go running with me. I totally need a running partner and nobody wants to join me :(. I’d feel silly jiggling running out there all by myself.

Anyway, going off on a tangent there.

Tonight would totally be a great night to update from bed. I’m crossing my fingers that there’s a fantastic sale on awesome laptops in this Sunday’s ads so we can get one already.

Alaethia slept in her crib for the very first time Monday night. My sore throat was awful and my nose was between running and being stuffy so I was certain I’d end up having to sleep with my mouth open that night–you know, to avoid suffocation and all. Since Alaethia sleeps in the crook of my arm I didn’t want to get her sick so I placed her between her little wedge thing in her crib and prayed for the best. I was super paranoid even though her crib’s right next to my bed. I closed my eyes and felt like I’d woken up just as quickly when I heard her little “I’m hungry” cries. Look at the clock; she’d let me sleep for 4 hours!

I fed her, burped her, changed her, cuddled her and put her back in the crib. It was no-go that time though. I was too tired to continue to try and get her to sleep in there. I like holding her and breathing in her baby smell anyway :).

I tried putting her in her crib on Tuesday night after giving her her bath (the last piece of belly button scab fell off Saturday night, so I can bathe her freely now :)!) and feeding her. It takes so long to burp her. Most of the time she doesn’t even burp and she’s gotten into the habit of spitting up a little bit after her feedings. I placed her in the crib and she stayed asleep. I curled up in bed while Mario was making copies of CDs and fell asleep. I could hear something far away, something like a gasp and then I heard gurgling sounds. I realize that it’s Alaethia and I spring out of bed to find her gagging on her spit up. I freaked out, picked her up and turned her onto her stomach and patted her back to help her stop choking. I was so scared I scrapped the idea of putting her in her crib for now. Maybe after she starts learning how to burp correctly =\.

I had absolutely no idea what we were going to do for Valentine’s Day. I’d asked Mario and we both just sort of shrugged it off since we knew he wouldn’t be getting out early enough to celebrate. I tried not to be excited, and I tried to convince myself that I wouldn’t be disappointed if something incredibly romantic didn’t happen.

The boys were little terrors the morning of Valentine’s Day. Eenan eventually got the point that I was quickly getting frustrated, so he shaped up right away. Jaylen on the other hand continued to lazy around on the couch and talk back to me when I told him to get ready. He left me all of 5 minutes to get myself ready. I told him he was grounded since he never listened and then began the waterworks. He wailed and cried all the way to school and once we parked in a parking space, he magically stopped crying. Just like that.

I got them both to their classrooms and made sure they had their large Ziplocs containing their Valentine Cards for their classmates. Rushed back home since I needed to get Mario’s stuff ready and then drop him off to pick up the Sentra at Whataburger since John had taken it in the morning to get to work. First thing Mario does is start complaining about how he only had one pair of tube socks left in his drawer, how my coffee was watered down and how tired he was of having to rush to pick up his car. He was all ready to go by 8:30, but Noelia wasn’t ready till 8:45. Not my fault he was rushing, even though he didn’t have to be at work till 10. We’d made plans the night before to have lunch together for Valentine’s Day. He continued to make little complaints about the car and when I’d finally had enough I told him, “You know what? Forget meeting for lunch. Just forget the whole thing.”

When we were about to walk out the door he tells me, “Are we meeting for lunch or not? If not, so I can pack something.” I roll my eyes and say, “Yeah, we’ll meet. Whatever.”

I tried napping with Alaethia when I got back but I got about half an hour worth of sleep since she wanted a bottle and then wanted to stay awake. Picked up Jaylen then got home and flat-ironed my hair and put on some make-up. I call Mario and ask him what time he’d like to meet and he said he was at a service call with Albert, so he’d call me whenever they were on their way back to work. This causes me to quickly become annoyed, but I was trying to be civil so, through gritted teeth I said, “Okay. That’s fine.”

He calls back not long after that and tells me to go ahead and take off so we’d get there around the same time. I give Mom a quick run-down of what Alaethia needs and how Jaylen’s not allowed to play video games and I take off. Traffic was terrible, but I made it over there in half an hour.

I see him when I drive into the alley behind the shops and he gives me a huge smile and suddenly I don’t feel as resentful towards him as I did just seconds before. (I hate it how he can make me forgive him so quickly just by flashing a sweet smile. I’m so weak!) He gets into the truck and says, “Hey, Beautiful, where do you want to go?” We decide on a Chinese Buffet place since it’s pretty fast.

We get our food and have a nice chat. We discuss how the kids behaved (or misbehaved) in the morning and chatted about the cute things Alaethia does. He tells me how he told everyone that I was upset with him and it all becomes a huge joke. I tell him thank you for lunch; it made my Valentine’s Day. The hour went by too quickly. I dropped him off at work and gave him a smooch on the cheek. I was pretty bummed that I’m sick and couldn’t even give him a decent kiss. I won’t even get into the fact that we can’t be, erm, intimate for six weeks and Alaethia barely turned 3 weeks yesterday LOL.

The rest of the day’s pretty normal. Mom wanted to get the kids a little gift, so after we picked Eenan up we went to visit Gramma then to Target. Jaylen was acting up at first, but after a while he calmed down and behaved. We chatted with Gramma for a while and she swooned over Alaethia. We said our goodbyes after half an hour and set off to Target. I wanted to get home before it got dark, since I can’t see well at night and I was already feeling dreadfully sleepy.

Mom lets the boys pick out a toy each (Jaylen, a Batman action figure, Eenan, a Naruto action figure) and I get some diapers and a burgundy bed sheet set that was on clearance for $13. I’d been looking for burgundy sheets and hadn’t had any luck. Can’t beat $13!

I get home and do my nightly routine and Mary treats everyone to some McDonald’s. I didn’t even have to make dinner–yay! I get a call from Mario that he’s going to be a bit late, again, since he and the guys had a system to do. He appologizes, but I tell him it’s fine and I genuinely mean it. I put Alaethia in her crib and change the bedsheets. Alaethia starts fussing when I’m done so I pick her up and hold her and Jaylen joins me on the new, crisp sheets. We’re watching TV when I suddenly see a shadow on the door. It’s too high to be Eenan, who was in their bedroom playing. I stare at the doorway at to my surprise it’s Mario holding a beautiful bouquet of flowers and two packages wrapped in yellow paper. He has the cutest expression on his face and says, “Happy Valentine’s Day!” I immediately feel a lump crawl up my throat and my eyes welled up with tears. I croak, “Babe! What…you didn’t have to!” I place sleeping Alaethia on the bed and hold him, bawling my eyes out. Eenan starts to get worried, because he hates to see me cry and Mario tells him softly, “It’s okay, man, Mama’s crying because she’s happy.” The boys both come over and hug us and Mario asks me to read the card attached to the bouquet. And I bawled my eyes out again :).

He tells me, “Open the rest!” So the boys help me tear open the small package first, which is a DVD I’d wanted: Friends With Money with Jennifer Aniston. The second package is something I’d been wanting forever: a box of Whitman’s chocolates :). How he guessed I’d really wanted one of those is beyond me.

We put the boys to bed after that and then we bathed Alaethia. We cuddled in bed while we watched Open Season until I started drifting into sleep. I brought Alaethia back into bed with me, who’d been sleeping in her crib until she needed a bottle. She slept pretty well the first part of the night and then, after she’d woken up at 3:45 stayed awake till 5:15. I was so tired this morning. I was supposed to drop Noelia off at work but I didn’t think I would make it back, alive, afterwards. My throat also felt horrible, my ear ached, my Wisdom tooth is ripping my gums apart and I was afraid I’d gotten Alaethia sick. I called Mary to let her know I couldn’t drop Noelia off and instead I went to the doctor.

I weight 119 right now, which is pretty good but I’d LOVE to get to 115, and maybe even 110. That’s my goal. Alaethia is now 7 lbs. 10 oz. and is 20 inches long. She got a clean bill of health. Dr. C. recommended cuddling if she gets fussy LOL. I, on the other hand, have a throat infection but no Strep, thank goodness. My ear was clear of infections (and clear of everything else–Dr. C. said I maybe needed some ear wax since my ears were that clean LOL); he said, as I suspected, that the pain was probably due to my darn Wisdom tooth.

Mario’s been home for a while and Alaethia’s asleep so I should take the chance to take a quick shower and put some beef stew to cook in the slow cooker for Mario’s lunch tomorrow. I hope Alaethia lets me get some good sleep tonight. I have to drop Mario off tomorrow so I need to sleep!

Life as a family of five (OMG) has been pretty darn sweet. I’m not even sure where to begin, since I’ve gone so many days without updating and I can only remember so much, but I’ll try and recall things as best as I can.

Let’s see…going back to Thursday, the 25th, we were released from the hospital around 2:30, which was great because Jaylen would already be home and Eenan would be arriving from school around the time we would. They kept threatening to keep Alaethia at the hospital, which was the exact same thing that happened with Jaylen, because she refused to take more than an ounce of formula during her feedings. All she wanted to do was breastfeed, which we were thrilled with, but the nurses weren’t for some weird reason (I really didn’t like that hospital–well, the postpartum part of it anyway). We ended up getting our way though, thank God.

Mario drove under the speed limit all the way home, and even flipped a guy off who was tailgating us and then cut us off when Mario refused to go 80 MPH. He was trying to be as careful as possible with our precious cargo.

We had a quick stop to make at Dollar General, since it hadn’t occured to me that I’d need a pack of extra large pads (ah, yes, the FUN part *sarcasm*). Mario offered to get them for me, willingly, all by himself. NEVER, in our almost 10 years together, has he offered to go buy me pads. They didn’t have the brand I use, but he found another brand and guess what? They were even better than the ones I used to use, I kid you not. Extra points for Mario.

We got home and Jaylen ran to the car, with ‘Welcome home, Alaethia!’ written on his Magna Doodle (with help from Mom, of course). He was so anxious to see what she looked like; he was almost in disbelief that this new little person was “his” and was real. I can’t even count how many times he said, “Aww, Mama, Alaethia Wohse (Rose) is so cute!”

Mario and I were exhausted, so we headed straight to our bedroom while Mom and Mary organized our bags and put them out of the way. Eenan got home and jumped on the bed to see his new sister. I’d been breastfeeding her and if I remember correctly I think he said something like, “So that’s what they’re for!” LOL

Brandon and Noelia came over to see Alaethia, and after everyone was gone, Mario took a nap and Alaethia and I tried taking one, too, but it didn’t last too long. I’d been getting horrible cramps since the night I had her and they weren’t getting any better. The more I breastfed, the more it hurt. I don’t remember ever having that kind of pain with the boys. I don’t remember them hurting even more than actual labor pains, either. I kept getting up to warm up my Rice Sock to get a little relief from all the pain I was feeling.

Yadira and the girls and Matthew came over later that evening to meet Alaethia. It was nice sitting and talking to everyone and relaying our experience. We got the boys ready for bed and everything went without a hitch, thank goodness.

That night, Mario took the first shift with Alaethia and let me rest. I’m telling you, this man is an angel. He said he was more than happy to take care of her since he got to sleep in the afternoon and I didn’t. When it was my turn to feed her that night she did so well and let me sleep about 6 1/2 hours (woke up twice during the night). Mario got up and got the boys ready and took them to school. I was already up making Alaethia a bottle at that time, so I helped him out a little but he did so good on his own. Model father, he is :).

Mario was home from work that Friday, the last day :(. He helped me as much as he could; picked Jaylen up from school and Eenan and Brandon, too. Mary made dinner for us that night, which was such a huge weight off my shoulders. She’d also done laundry for us while we were gone. She wanted to help out more with Alaethia, but couldn’t since she had pneumonia (and Noelia had bronchitis, Mom had a cold and so did Elda and my boys!)

We watched TV that night after we’d gotten into bed. At around 11pm, I started getting sleepy and Mario told me to go ahead and sleep, he’d watch Alaethia if she woke up. I could hear her crying around 1am so I got up to get her. Mario quietly told me not to worry about, he’d take care of her. I felt so bad since I knew he was going back to work the next day and needed his rest but he told me he was fine. He fed her and I drifted off into sleep again. A few moments later I could hear her crying so I opened my eyes and saw the most wonderful thing ever: Mario was changing her diaper–something he said he’d never do! I thought it was so sweet and wished I had my camera with me to capture the moment. I fell in love with him all over again :).

I stayed quiet and watched him fumble with the diaper and wipees and I hear him whisper something to her like, “I don’t know what I’m doing, Baby…” and he caught me looking at him. I asked, “Do you want help?” and he said, “Yes! I don’t know how to clean her!” I finished changing her and then went to sleep. She did pretty good that night, too.

I woke up Saturday morning to engorged breasts. I thought my milk was never going to come in and boy did it, with a vengance even. I was in absolute pain by night time. Mario’d told me to buy a breast pump and I didn’t listen. I was counting on WIC giving me one because Alaethia’s eligible for it but the woman who supposedly called and said she’d even make house calls never answered or returned my calls when I tried getting ahold of her. I was so desperate I called Mary and asked if she’d take me to Target that night to get one and a few other things I needed.

I got ready and to my horror realized I still needed to lose a few inches before I could fit into my jeans. I put on a pair of before/after maternity cargo pants I had and looked pretty decent. Mary even commented as we entered Target, “You look so skinny already!”

I got the pump, a First Years one, and some bassinet covers and I can’t remember what else. As soon as we got home I washed the pump and pumped away. I immediately felt better, but the darn pump didn’t work too well. After using it a few more times it definitely wasn’t working right. $25 down the drain. And since I’d begain pumping, the cramps I’d been having got worse once again.

Aunt Nora came over to visit on Sunday morning. My hair was a frazzled mess and I was still in my PJs and pumping my boob when she arrived, but she didn’t mind. We (Mom, Aunt Nora and I) stood around the bassinet where Alaethia was sleeping and oohed and ahhed at her cuteness and talked about our experiences with each of our labors. Aunt Nora even brought us Christmas presents. Mine was a gorgeous red/pink set of gloves, hat and scarf and an even more gorgeous silver jewelry set. Aunt Nora was here a good hour and a half or so and after she left, Grandma Ofelia stopped by.

She kept saying how pretty and alert Alaethia was. She said she looked really good for being 4 days old; not wrinkly and asleep like most newborns LOL. She gave me some advice about taking care of myself and we talked more about the baby and then she left to the church where she’d be meeting some friends for bingo :).

Sally was going to stop by and visit next, so after putting Alaethia in her bassinet once she started to get sleepy I took the opportunity to put some clothes on, brush my teeth, wash my face and for the love of God, brushed my hair.

Sally arrived and she told me how cute Alaethia was. We talked about Thursday, the day after she and Pete had visited us, and then had fun looking people up on Myspace and freaking out over how much some people have changed. We had great conversation, as always, and after an hour or so Annie, Cat and their kiddos came over. Annie kept saying how much she looks like Jaylen, and even resembled John, which is what a lot of people say about Jaylen, too.

Everyone asked about her sleeping patterns and if she was a good baby and I had nothing but good things to say. I must have jinxed myself because that night we had lots of broken sleep and I was up with her from 1am to 5:30am. I’m not sure if it was that night or not, but one night she had terrible constipation and the next she had HORRIBLE diarreah, probably due to the high-fiber diet I have to be on according to my doctor. It didn’t get any better, so I stopped breastfeeding :(. I gave it a two-day break, just pumped and threw the milk out, and she got better. When I resumed breastfeeding she got diarreah all over again so I stopped again. I haven’t breastfed her and she’s fine. I feel kind of disappointed and just really bummed that my milk could do that to her :(. I was so thrilled that I finally had a baby that latched on right and everything and this goes and happens.

I was freaking out the next day over how I was going to make it to my appointments but thankfully John got out of work early and picked Jaylen up for me, picked Eenan and Brandon up and took me to both appointments. At the doctor’s office I ran into a girl, Fabiola, that I’d met there and become friends with during my pregnancy. Her little girl is 3 months old now and is adorable (she was 9 months pregnant with her when we’d met). We talked about our babies for a good while until they called me in.

I weighed 122.5 lbs., which is 2 lbs. more than my scale at home (but the one at the doctor’s is correct since that’s the one I went by the whole pregnancy.) My iron was great; it was at 15 and I think 11’s usually the average. Alaethia still weighed the same as she did at birth, 6 lbs. 10 oz., but Dr. C. said that’s fine since they usually lose weight after birth (so not the case with her brothers, the eldest of which DOUBLED in weight at 2 weeks!). He said she looks great and I pointed out the little white “dots” she had on the roof of her mouth and he said those were calcium deposits, which are normal in some babies. I also pointed out the funny way her bootie “starts”, but he said we’d wait it out for a few months before getting X-rays or anything done. He says he thinks she’s just fine though. Thank goodness :).

The next couple of days are sort of a blur now, but I remember the boys got dropped off by Mario each morning, Jaylen was picked up by either Vito or John and Brandon and Eenan were picked up by John, too. I also got into the swing of my evening routine, which is helping Eenan with his homework, cleaning up a bit, tending to Alaethia, bathing the boys around 6pm and starting dinner around 6:30. I feed the boys, hopefully feed myself if Alaethia permits, get the boys ready for bed, serve Mario food when he gets home from work, bathe while Mario watches Alaethia and then get ready for bed myself. It’s been pretty easy; not as stressful as I thought it would be.

John got out of work early again on Thursday and our income tax refund check had come in so he took me to pick up and cash that and to get Alaethia some formula. Later after we picked the kids up from school and dropped them off with Mom, we dropped money off to Mario, who wanted to get some headrest TVs for the Equinox. John was supposedly going to get an Xbox 360 but changed his mind at the last minute as always, so we went to buy groceries instead.

Mario stayed at work a little late that night installing the TVs with his co-worker, Mario Z’s, help. He got home and asked me to go out to see the TVs and they looked fabulous! He even installed wireless headphones so the kids can watch TV while we listen to the radio or the iPod!

Friday was the first day I woke up at 6:30 to get the kids ready for school. Mario needed to be up to drive them at 7:45 and then had to drop Noelia off at work since she’s car-less at the moment and I knew he wouldn’t get much time to catch up on sleep since he had to pick Jaylen up at noon. So, I got up. I don’t remember how much sleep Alaethia let me get that night, but I did get sleep and I didn’t feel tired so I got up while I could and got them ready and then woke Mario up to drop them off. I came back to bed with Alaethia, who needed to be fed and then we slept.

After Mario picked Jaylen up from school, we went to pick up his paycheck and he drove around all over the place looking for a good, inexpensive magazine for his new gun (still so creeped out about having a gun in the house, but he’s got locks and stuff all over it and has it in a safe place. But still…guns…ew). We stopped by Mary’s office to show off Alaethia and spent a good amount of time there. Everyone was gushing about how cute she is and I got complimented on how nice I looked for having her a little over a week ago. That makes me feel so good about myself :).

We picked Eenan up from school that day and John went with us so he could buy some stuff from Target (which he didn’t end up doing, again!). We wanted to take Mom with us, but we had no room in the truck now that we have Alaethia’s huge carseat. We bought some movies at Target (The Guardian, Open Season, Talladega Nights) and then met Mary at Applebee’s for dinner. I was so disappointed to find out that the Friday’s in McAllen was CLOSED. I loved that place :(.

I ordered the Shrimp and Steak something-or-other from the 3-course Menu and Mario had the Chicken Fiesta one. He HATED it. Threw a fit about it and everything and I felt really bad, especially since we spent a huge amount of money. I enjoyed my plate at least–it was delicous. I even had the brownie dessert, yum. Alaethia was a total doll and behaved wonderfully. The boys were so well-behaved, too. Well, until they both suddenly needed to go poop and made Mary take them each to the bathroom for about 10 minutes, but other than that, they were great.

When we were walking out, an elderly lady reaches out and gently grabs my arm and says, “You’re a great mother.” I felt so good that someone, a stranger, noticed that I’m a decent parent and was on cloud 9 the rest of the night, even if Mario was in a crappy mood. He appologized before bed that night though, so all was forgiven.

Eenan needed to be at the school by 6:45am Saturday morning for their last UIL meet. He was one of 3 chosen to go. I’m not sure if it was 3 for Storytelling or 3 out of the whole school, but he was thrilled to be going. We found out later last night that he placed 2nd DISTRICT-WIDE!! I’m so proud of my little dude. He’s going to get the trophy he’d been desiring all year!

Elda and Jose got married for the 3rd time yesterday, only this time it was through the church. After Eenan got home from the UIL meet, I made him change his clothes and the rest of us got ready. Since Alaethia’s little umbilical cord stump fell off but it’s still not fully healed I can’t bathe her yet, but I did give her a washcloth bath. I was in such a hurry, but I managed to get all three kiddos ready, plus myself. I managed to fit into my pre-pregnancy nice black slacks and nice shirt. Shoot, I think I look better in them now that I did when I was working (when I bought them). I even wore the beautiful, expensive BCBG Max Azria sweater Mario bought me off of Eddie :). According to my scale, I now weigh 116, which is really 118. Yay!

Although the ceremony was sort of all over the place (they didn’t even let them rehearse or anything) and we all forgot our cameras it was nice. We got home and had Pozole that Elda had made and later had wedding cake that Annie had bought for them. We spent a good long time together just talking and laughing. Love days like that.

We woke up sort of early today and Mario picked up Burger King for us for breakfast. Mom watched Jaylen and Eenan went to CFF and church with Mary while Alaethia, Mario and I went to town to pay bills and buy things. We paid off most of our Home Depot credit card, since our interest goes up in March and it’s super high. We also went to Best Buy to get a $499 Toshiba laptop but of course, the whole 5 they had in stock had been sold in like 5 minutes, to the people who come from Mexico. Thankfully, Circuit City had the exact same one on sale, but with a mail-in rebate so we went and got it. Mario got down by himself at the store, since I was feeding Alaethia, and once he took half an hour I knew we’d gotten one. I’m updating from my bed at this very moment. The only reason I’m updating at all LOL.

We got the wireless router from Target, some curtains, a nice curtain rod and some toys for Alaethia. Not that she can actually play with them or anything; when I showed her one of the little toys that hangs from her carseat handle her eyes immediately crossed :P.

We went to Kmart next, where Mario wanted to show me some nice bunk beds he’d seen. We wanted new beds for the boys, but the ones we liked were huge and probably wouldn’t have fit in their bedroom. I loved the bunk beds so we got them. Now we only have to buy Jaylen a twin mattress.

We got home and started messing around with the laptop then went to Yadira’s where Elda and Jose were having a little get together in memory of Anthony’s 20th birthday. I still can’t believe he’s been gone for so long :(. I can’t believe he’d be 20 already.

We spent a few hours there and then went to Jorge and Maggie’s, where they were having a Superbowl bar-b-q. Maggie presented us with a huge colorful basket full of gifts for Alaethia. She bought the whole Fisher Price line with pink butterflies on it! I told her she didn’t have to–she seriously went all out but she insisted that she wanted to get her something nice. She really wants a little girl. I hope Jorge gives in ;).

We talked and I had a great time. Manny, their neighbor and Jorge’s good friend, kept saying that it didn’t even look like I had a baby. I’m hoping I can stay looking that way. The last time I got compliments like that, with Jaylen, I let it get to my head and I stopped watching what I ate. If I can help it, which I can, I’m not going to let that happen this time.

Okay, so now that it’s 12:25 and Alaethia’s been asleep for about half an hour I should get going before I’m up till 2am like yesterday. I’ve got so much to do tomorrow now that I’m going to start driving around again (well, I didn’t get the O-K till Wednesday, but what’s 2 days going to do? Now watch my uterus fall out *knocks on wood*). I’ve got bills to pay, appointments to make, things to return and a Gramma to show a new granddaughter to. I still can’t believe it. I gave my Gramma a granddaughter!

Just thought I’d leave you all a picture of my new addition, though most of you have probably already seen her in my Flickr page :). There’s so many more I need to add, but I’ll leave you with those for now.

OH MY GOSH!!! Just right now, at 10:09pm, Alaethia laughed in her sleep for the first time! It was the cutest thing, a little chuckle, and her eyes rolled for a split second. Aww…and now she’s smiling!

Thank you all so much for the comments, e-mails, Flickr comments and all other words of support and love you’ve sent us the past few days and weeks. It means a lot to all of us and I’m thrilled to share this new chapter of our lives with you :).

I’m so in love, guys. Everyone’s in love! The boys love her. Jaylen especially loves to help, but the poor things are both sick right now so they’re keeping their distance. Eenan almost cried today because he couldn’t hold her :(. Mario’s been the most awesome dad, ever! He seriously deserves the Dad (and Husband!) of the Year Award–no kidding.

It’s so hard for me to not hold and kiss her silky-soft cheeks all day long. It’s such a blessing and so wonderful to have her in our lives. She’s a happy baby and only fusses when she’s hungry or, like the past two days, has had a hard time doing #2. Poor baby. I was up with her from 1am to 5:30am, crying along with her because her tummy hurt and I had no idea what to do but hold her gently against my chest, rock her and rub her back. She eventually felt better (but still didn’t have a bowel movement), had a bottle and fell asleep on my chest. Even though I wanted to get her used to sleeping in her bassinet I have to admit that I love holding her while I sleep. If anything she’ll be just like her brothers and will hate to sleep alone. She loves to be in her bassinet during the day but not during the night.

I wanted to update on our last couple of days and I totally want to sit down and write my labor story but that’ll have to wait for now. Hopefully I’ll remember everything; if I don’t, I’ll poke Mario for details :P. Mario’s finally home and I fully intend on cuddling for a few minutes before I try and get some rest with Alaethia. Hopefully tonight will be better than last night!

P.S. I currently weigh 122.5–1 1/2 lbs. heavier than when I started the pregnancy! I hope, hope, hope I can lose the weight I need to before Noelia’s wedding in June!