She flipped!

Yay Darcy! She's been rolling on her side during play time. I'm sure it was completely a coincidence of body position and her kicking her legs but it gave her the momentum to flip over. Of course it was at 4:30 this morning and it completely freaked her out.

I guess I better get it in gear on the tummy time exercises.

First taste of oatmeal

Finally! Something besides formula!

Changes are happening

Toys, bibs, fingers, whatever is within 3 inches of the mouth almost always heads that way now. Most of the time, we're holding her facing out, but she doesn't seem to mind facing toward us now that she can gnaw on our shoulders. Love that sweet little spit spot on my t-shirt. (That's something that only her mom could say...ha!)

Not rolling over, but showing signs that she's thinking about it.

Quite the little scooter. She will start on her mat and wind up 3 feet away from her mat before we know it. Time to deep clean the carpets, I guess.
Before...

And after...

And she's getting great at tummy time on the boppy. But not so much on the floor.

Also, I'm not sure where else to mention. This is as good as any. Darcy adopted her first pet the other day. LOL! I actually found a tick in her crazy mop of hair. YUCK!! Poor thing.

Pic with big sis. Camryn can't stand not getting in the picture if she's in the same room. Ha!

First football game

I can't believe it's actually here (where did summer go?), but the first football game of the season was last week. A Wolves win! 42-21. I attempted to bring Darcy along. Wouldn't have if family wasn't planning to go. I knew I wouldn't see much of the game anyway with Darcy. It was more for Camryn. She loves to go and visit with everyone.

Thank goodness we arrived at the same time. I snagged Chris to help out with hauling the car seat. That sucker gets HEAVY.

Darcy made it until half time and was done. I had her in clothes that could work as pajamas and the little thing was passed out within 5 minutes of heading home.

Visit with GiGi

The first three months

We've made it! Darcy is officially 3 months old today. What an up and down three months it has been. We're still going through the learning curve of having two kids in the house, but have made it so far. Not that our situation is vastly different from others with more than one child, but when you're going through it yourself, you definitely adopt a deeper appreciation.

So, let's see...the first 3 months.
We were so grateful to be given such a beautiful and healthy baby girl. I did not actually breathe a sigh of relief until I was holding her in my arms. I’ve certainly enjoyed snuggling with her as this is the last baby. Even though I always thought I'd want three, two is plenty for us!

She was born with a full head of dark hair which is definitely her unique feature. And if it’s not brushed after bath time it curls up. Craig calls her Newman or Newmie (you know, the chubby curly headed short man on Seinfeld). Not my favorite but Newmie seems to have stuck a bit. Poor thing. Nobody tell her what it’s from. I’ve tried to work on a better nickname…Lady Bug, Little D (which comes from Dad), Bugsy, Punky…but nothing seems to have stuck yet. Camryn calls her Little D a lot which is sweet.

One other favorite feature is her single dimple on her left side. I just have one dimple too, but it’s on the right. It’s kind of like she got my other one.

Camryn has been such a help with her. Seems to have accepted her from day one. She loves to pick out outfits and go get clean diapers from upstairs. She even helped with Darcy’s first bath. And she loves putting stickers on D’s outfits, but she does that to me and Craig too. I feel guilty for not being more patient with her quirks and not being able to give her all of the time she needs. But I suppose that is a life lesson. You’re not always front and center in life and you have to be able to deal with it. She’s learning better how to play by herself and I think school has been a great place for her to go play a few days a week.

Back to Darcy…

Well, she has been to the emergency room twice already. Once with a cat bite on her eyebrow bone and the second after she failed to stick the landing when she flipped off the kitchen counter. I joke about it now, only because she is 100% okay (although I will have something to blame if she gets too crazy down the road); but both of those days were not fun days. I have to say I was disappointed in my lack of take-action skills. I found myself more stunned and feeling helpless after both incidents then keeping cool and jumping into action as the parent. I’d like to think it’s because she is so new to this world.

She’s not a fan of tummy time. Well, I take that back. She doesn’t scream at us anymore, but can’t seem to lift her head. Just plants her nose straight down into the floor. Has a bit more success on the boppy but we’ve got a ways to go. She’d prefer to strengthen her neck while sitting on our lap.

She’s a great eater (as you can see by her super chubby cheeks). Has been since day one. She’s already up to a whopping 7oz per bottle. And she drains it. I bet she eats anywhere from 30 to 35oz per day. I’m sure she’s ready for rice cereal just to fill her belly a bit better.

And now that her colic is gone, we are finally enjoying her. Craig made the comment earlier today that she finally seems like a real baby. We’re looking forward to the next 3 months of watching her figure out how to crack herself up, reach out for toys and tasting every last one of them, trying veggies and fruits for the first time, learning to roll over and hopefully sitting up by then. The hardest challenge I have now with her development and I fear I will do this in the years to come is compare her to Camryn. That has to be a natural thing to do. I mean you go with what you know and if it’s different then it seems wrong. Camryn definitely set the bar high for Darcy. Camryn has her faults, for sure, but she’s such a dynamite little girl. I see a lot of me in her personality which helps me know how to deal with the junk she throws my way on occasion. I need to continually remind myself that Little D is her own unique person.

My beautiful Camryn

I wish so badly you would stop growing up. You can be the biggest drama queen one minute (which you come by honestly, so I can't really be all that upset at you) and the absolute sweetest, most caring little thing I've known.

I wish I could bottle up your energy and your excitement for everything. This morning before everyone was ready to get up, you came in and gave me and daddy a hug and kiss, squeezed each of us tightly and just said "I love you." This has made me smile all day. I love you!

Darcy's Baptism

We had Darcy baptized on 8/7/09, and were fortunate to have a lot of our family attend. Darcy had been a real challenge for us up until this time. I'm not sure Craig and I had more than a minute converation here and there for 2 months. It was madness with a colicky baby in the house. Thank goodness it was summer time and Craig was home for half days.

Ever since the baptism though, and I've laughed many times to myself about this, Darcy has had 2 tough days. I'm writing this on 8/20. 2 days out of 13. I have bad days that often, so I'll take it! It's like the devil was "washed away". She is seriously a joy to hang out with now. She plays on the floor with us. She talks more. She will entertain herself occassionally.

Too funny.

Spinning

Darcy is on the move. Well, sort of. I've caught her sideways several times in bed when I go to get her up. And yesterday we had her on her toy mat. She was just kicking her legs like she's running a race but somehow would also spin 90 degrees.

We let her just entertain herself for about 20 minutes and she wound up traveling off her her mat about 3 feet making a complete circle. Wondering if this is a sign of things to come. I don't remember Camryn moving this much before 3 months.

We've hit that all too important milestone

OK, so many articles will say if the baby sleeps 6 hours, you can consider it "sleeping through the night". That's a bunch of bull because I need WAY more than 6 hours so that's not how I define it. And before Darcy hit 2 months she was averaging about 7 hours. About 9pm to 4am. Would take a bottle and then back to bed. So it wasn't too bad really. Getting up one time at night without a peep out of her before 4:00. Can't complain. Last night she slept from 8:30pm to 6am! Yay for the whole family. Let's hope this trend keeps going. Now it's time to train her on how to take a good nap.

Not sure if it's a coincidence to the long sleep or not, but the whole fam went up to the pool last night for about an hour. Wasn't sure how Darcy would respond, but she LOVED it. I think she could have stayed in the water longer if Craig and Camryn didn't get hungry for dinner. Maybe it wore her out, but there were no crying fits last night, which seem to take a lot more energy then sitting on Mom's lap in the pool.