Crunch Time

My mom came this weekend and packed up my kitchen. That's a much bigger job than it seems. And it's only part of my kitchen. The rest is in storage... ugh. I'm so glad she came. And she got to hold Kira a good bit today while Kira slept. It was nice for them to get some time together.

So tomorrow I will be packing up clothes and putting together the suitcases for our trip. I'm going to do a little bit of shopping to pick up some trip goodies and some Trader Joe's staples to take with us to Texas. I'm going to miss Trader Joe's. I am moving within 15 minutes of an IKEA, but I think I'd rather have the Trader Joe's.

Guys from church are coming to the house Tuesday evening to help us pack up the furniture from the apartment and the storage unit. Then, if there's time, they'll come back to the apartment and pack up some of our boxes. We'll finish packing up the boxes on Wednesday, pack the cars, load up with my dad and James, and head out Thursday morning.

Sounds simple enough... sadly, it won't be. I'm sure I'll be one stressed out puppy by the time we're leaving. Then I get to spend two and a half days in a car with a newborn and a cat (and I bet my dad is looking forward to that, too!). Fun fun. I think by the time we get unloaded in Austin, I'm going to want to sleep for a month straight.

One Month

Wow. A whole month old. Time is just flying by. Next week we move to Texas. That's just crazy.

So I thought I'd let you in on the life of a one month old. Not that everyone reading this doesn't already know what it's like to have a little baby, but still... here's one aspect of life around here:

So, this is the outfit that I put on her this morning when she got up. It's one of my favorites. Such sweet little pants. Well... you can see what she did to them... she spit up all over them. So I changed her.

This is a sweet little outfit that I got from one of my mom's good friends. It has little owls on it. However, Kira is no respecter of owls and she spit up, peed, AND pooped on this outfit. So I changed her again...

This outfit came from the same lady that gave us the outfit in the first picture. Same sweet little pants (I do like the dark pink ones a little better). Isn't she cute in all of her pinkness? (Oh, and the blotching on her face is another reason I think she may be having a milk allergy.) She peed on this outfit, so Mike put her in this...

I can't remember who gave us this one. It is the definition of cuteness, though. I suppose Kira's just wanting to make sure that she's keeps up with the latest fashion trends, so she doesn't want to wear something too long. :)

Hopefully this little outfit will make it through the night. :)

Hard Night

On the eve of her one month birthday, Kira is giving her mommy a run for her money.

She has been crying pretty hard for a while now. Mike has her. She is just really not happy about life.

Here's what's been going on... she had started screaming really hard a couple of weeks ago at certain points during the day. Then she started having fizzy poop. Zach had what I called "coke fizz" poop. This wasn't quite that bad, but it was just full of bubbles. I started researching and most things said it was probably a foremilk/hindmilk imbalance. Meaning that she's getting a lot of watery breast milk and not enough high fat breast milk. Usually caused when the mom has too much milk. So I started working to make sure that she was getting the fattier hindmilk. Well, things were going alright. The number of poops seemed to decrease, the general fizziness also decreased, and she even seemed to scream less. Seemed pretty good, right?

Not so fast... her fizzy poop turned to a very watery poop and then a little thicker, but with lots of mucus in it. And finally today, she had a small streak of blood in her poop. And tonight she has been pretty much inconsolable.

So. There are basically two things that could be going on (according to what I've read, anyway). 1) This could all be from getting too much foremilk. Basically, the watery milk is very high in lactose and can overload baby's system and cause them to have digestive problems... thus the mucus and eventually blood. 2) This could be symptoms of a milk protein allergy. If she's sensitive to milk proteins that I'm ingesting, her body reacts with the mucus and blood in the poo. So I would need to cut out all dairy products.

Cutting out dairy can take 2 to 3 weeks to see positive results in the baby. And the foremilk problem can also take 2 to 3 weeks to resolve. So how will I know what's working? I suppose after 3 weeks, if she's doing better, I can have a glass of milk and sit back and see what happens.

But for tonight, and I suppose the next many nights, we'll just have to try to calm a crying baby. Hopefully it will all be a blur in a couple of months much like labor already is.

Oh, and she's still really cute. :)

What I Have To Put Up With

Hi. This is Kira. Mom's busy getting us ready to move to Texas, so I thought I'd give you an update and a glimpse into my life. Last night, somehow, I ended up with a purple onesie and a pink shirt over it. This morning, Dad decided that it would be funny if he put green pants and yellow socks on me. Very funny, Dad. I've got a closet full of sweet, adorable clothes, and you put me in this?


Granted, I'm cute in anything, but really... this is just over the top. Fortunately, you can see that Mom loves me no matter what. However, at the first opportunity, I made it so I needed a diaper change (I'm good at that) and peed all over my two shirts (I'm also good at that). Being the clever girl I am, I knew that with Mom being the one to change my diaper, that I'd get back into coordinating clothes. And I was right.


See how happy I am? Now don't get me wrong... Dad's great for a lot of things, but his sense of style is a bit lacking.

So that's what been going on with me today. Off to take a nap, or poop, or cry, or coo unbelievably cute... whatever I decide. ~Kira

My Favorite Part of the Day

Almost every morning, Kira spends a few minutes stretching and grunting while she wakes up. She will often make really sweet facial expressions and stretch and just be extremely cute.

Here's a picture of her this morning during her more asleep time of waking up (did that make sense?)

Upcoming Move

So... we're less than two weeks away from our move to Texas. I'm trying to figure out how on earth I'm going to get everything done that needs to be done. I think I'm going to ask a girl at church today to borrow her baby swing. That should give me some time to pack a few things here and there. I had intended to pack several boxes yesterday, but Mike spent the day helping Zach and Reid have a outing with friends. It was their sort of early birthday party before we go.

And yesterday I realized that I need to call to cancel all the utilities here and call to set up all the utilities there and it's just one more thing on my to-do list.

Then I got an email from Mike that his previous employer requires a copy of Kira's birth certificate before they can add her onto our now cancelled insurance. Really? I don't think I ever had to do that before... to-do list longer...

And so I just sit and feel overwhelmed instead of getting anything done. I guess I'll have to get over that!

Growing Baby

I just got finished folding a load of Kira's laundry. And I thought, "Hmmm... that doesn't really fit her anymore" when I folded this one little onesie. So I decided to go through all of her clothes and there were several things that she has already outgrown. Makes me sad. I don't know why time has to go by so quickly.