Busy Life = Happy Life!

Things have been so busy in our house! Harper is keeping us moving all the time. She is rolling around the house, with no obvious intention of crawling, but she gets where she wants to go! She is constantly saying Dada- and I mean constantly! Every few seconds she screams "Dada?" along with "yayayaya" and "lalalala" etc. She is clapping and she does it averytime we say "Yea!" It is adorable! She waves hello and bye-bye at everyone she meets. Adorable, but a little scary because she is sooo friendly! This could spell trouble for me in the future! She also LOVES to eat (still, so how is she so skinny?). She is eating finger foods now and is picked it up immediately. She has no teeth but she can gum anything! :) She is doing well in daycare. She loves other babies and that helps because when she gets there she just sits down and starts playing. She waves bye-bye to me and turns around to see her "friends". It breaks my heart a little bit but it would be harder on me if she cried. She saw her first snow and played in it with mommy and daddy and she loved it. We had 12.5 inches so we had planty to play with. We built a huge snowman and ate lots of snow. (Like I could keep her from eating anything)
I started back to work and I miss her so much. I love what I do but my perspective has changed since having her. I used to could pull my emotions out of the scenario but now I seem to get more attached to the babies and I am not sure if that is a good thing or not. I find myself wanting to hold these babies and make them feel better from the perspective of a Mama, not a NP and in medicine it is never good to get emotionally attached. I will continue to work to pull personal feelings out of the situations. At least when I get home I know I have this beautiful little girl waiting with arms stretched out waiting for me to pick her up. I am so lucky and I appreciate those days that I am home with her so much more!

Ah, The Holidays

So much has gone on lately! This was Harper's first holiday season and it was so busy! At Thanksgiving I decided that it was important that I get inducted into the parent club so at midnight I was at Toys R Us, WITH EVERYONE ELSE IN FORT WORTH! It was crazy! The line was wrapped around the building and at that sight, I decided that it was unnecessary to fight that and that at 5 months old, Harper would not know the difference. I can wait until she actually asks for something before I fight the crowds! But I must say, shopping for her was soooo much fun! Jon and I decided that we wouldn't buy her very much this year and thank goodness we didn't! Between the two sets of grandparents and the aunts/uncles she made out like a bandit! I mean literally ahe got so many toys that during the holidays, we turned our office into a playroom! I am so glad that we did it though. It turned out so cute. I made curtains and matching dog beds (with much help from my mom of course!) and got a little table and chairs set to put in here and Harper loves her room! So it was all for good.
SHe learned how to sit on her own over the holidays which is very exciting for me. I am amazed at how fast she has grown! She is getting so big! She had her 6 month check up and she weighs 14 1/2 lbs and is 26 1/2 in long! She is smiling so much now and when she sees new people she smiles at them and then squeals with delight! She is such a social butterfly- Gee, I wonder where that came from :)
She is completely addicted to her Jumperoo! She sees it and squeals and reaches for it. It is so funny. I keep telling Jon that she is going to bounce instead of walk.
She also loves drinking out of a real cup. Any cup she sees she reaches for, and I have to say, she drinkd out of them great! She rarely spills anything on her. She also LOVES LOVES LOVES her puppies. She squeals and says "ooooooo" everytime they come across her path. Even mid-tantrum (yes, we have had a couple of those)she stops and is instantly transfixed by them. Very different story from the dogs perspective though. They will very sweetly let her "pet" them, which means her grabbing their ears, pulling their tail etc. for a split second and then they take off. Poor puppies. We are trying to teach "Pat them gently", but she doesn't even pat us gently!
Every day with her is a wonder and I have loved spending every day of the last 6 months with her. She is my amazing gift from Heaven and as I always say, I am so lucky to be her mom!

Fever...not again!

We had our 4 month check-up and this time we only got 2 shots but still we had fever. For three days she ran fever ranging from 102-105! I am so tired of this. She did not sleep, she did not eat she just whined. It is so hard being in this business and being a parent. I KNOW what I would tell a parent in this situation, but I cannot give myself that advice. All I know is that my beautiful, happy, sweet baby is miserable. She smiles even though she feels terrible and it makes me cry. At times like this I realize how much I love her. My mom always said that I would understand the term "Mother's Love" one day and she was so right. I now understand why she hovered over me as a child and why she stayed awake at night waiting for me to get home as a teenager. I know why she cried when I moved to college and why she now loves Harper so much. I never thought a love existed like the love I have for Harp. It is because of this love that I will do ANYTHING to make her happy. With that being said, I will now be one of those moms who will make her own immunization schedule. Yes, I know that how many people I told that it was fine to get them all at once, to you all I am sorry! I do not think Harper is permanently harmed by these fevers (to be honest, it distresses me more)but watching your baby hurt and not being able to fix it is the worst thing I have ever felt.
After three days of misery, Harper woke up this morning and her temp was 97.9!!!! Finally!


She still loves her cereal! It is so cute to watch her. She shoves the spoon in her mouth because I am not fast enough. I love it. We started sweet peas as well and she is not as fond of those. She makes a face with every bite, but she still eats them. She tries to gag them out occasionally which makes me laugh but manages to keep them down.
Another milestone is Harper said her first word. At 3 1/2 months old, Harper very clearly started saying "Mama"!!!! I love it. Now she looks at me and says "Mamama" When she is fussy, she says Mama, when she is playing she says Mama and when I walk out of the room, she says MAMA! All of these "Mama's" and I am still not tired of hearing it. (According to my mom, I will get tired of hearing it but I'm not there yet. I still get goosebumps!) She is also lifting her face to yours when you bend down to kiss her. So sweet! She is quickly learing how to get everything she wants. If she stays this sweet Jon and I will have to get 2 or 3 jobs!

Halloween and Cereal

Halloween and all the changes in October

Harper had her first Halloween! We did not go trick-or-treating because she is obviously not going to eat the candy and mama doesn't need it, but she did dress up and greet the hundreds of kids that rang our doorbell. She loved looking at all the colorful costumes- so much that she skipped her late day nap (not so great for mom)! She has also been going through a growth spurt lately. Harper usually sleeps 11-12 hours at a time at night but for about three days she has been waking up after only 6 and starving!!!! (I know I am spoiled but since we have such great nights of sleep 6 hours is brutal!) She is also wanting to eat every 2 hours during the day so it was time for a change. We decided that we would give cereal a try. It was so funny! At first she wasn't sure what it was but then she decided that she liked it and I couldn't get the spoon in fast enough! She was sucking on the spoon (which totally defeats the purpose of trying food) and grabbing the spoon and shoving it in her mouth! I guess she takes after her Daddy because I never ate like that!
She is also staring to squeal which is so fun! I love hearing that sound because she squeals out of delight. I am sure soon enough it will start to make me crazy, especially since the dogs often bark when she squeals, but right now it is my little happy alarm. She smiles all the time and I happen to think she has the most beautiful smile that I have ever seen! We have been working on tummy time, but she still hates it. She loves to sit up though. I feel like my child will never roll over. She will go from laying on her back to sitting to walking and skip crawling and rolling! We will keep practicing though. She loves her toys now. She has a few favorites like the thing that I think looks like and atom and a zebra and a lion toy. I love watching her play with them. She studies them, cuddles them and then tries to eat them! It is amazing how much she is changing. Everyday brings something new!

Fall Fun

Today we went to the pumpkin farm with Harper. We had fun taking her pictures but it was cold so we did not get to stay for long. We are having so much fun being parents. She is such a great baby! She watched the other kids running around as if she can't wait to join them. It will be so exciting to see her next fall running around with everyone. Today sitting in the cold on a wet bale of hay in a muddy field that smelt like poop I felt like the luckiest person in the world. I love Jon and Harper more than anything else on earth! I feel so blessed!