Colin Mine

You always wonder if your kids will remember special times from their childhood. Well, I think there's one thing Colin will remember... Baby Mine. It's the song Dumbo's mother sang to him. The first line is "Baby mine, don't you cry."
I sang it to him while I was still pregnant with him and it was part of our nightly bedtime routine when he was a baby. Lately, whenever Harper has been crying, Colin has encouraged me to sing "Baby mine you don't have to cry" (as he calls it) to help her settle down.
Tonight, he came to me with his face crumpled up trying to force out a tear and said, "I'm going to start crying. You'd better sing Colin mine you don't have to cry."

He's gotten very excited about me putting his name into songs lately. His absolute favorite song right now is "Flash Colin", originally "Flash Beagle" from It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown. It was a song on a cassette tape that I had when I was a little girl.

He STILL talks about his Charlie Brown costume from last Halloween. In fact, he considered being Charlie Brown again this year, but has ultimately decided that he wants to be Mickey Mouse. Unfortunately, the Mickey Mouse costume at the Disney Store is incredibly ridiculous looking. There's no way I'd let him look that silly. So, once again, I'm making one. I got his black turtleneck today, but still need red shorts, white gloves and Mickey ears. I'm going to TRY to find HIS Mickey ears, but I'm afraid that they might be in a box in the back of our storage unit. If you see red shorts for sale somewhere, please let me know!

Here are some more pics of Colin taking care of his baby sister. On our way to the doctor today, he told me he was going to cover up her heel so that no one could hurt her (the billirubin test consists of a heel prick and several minutes where they let the blood drip into a vial until they have enough).

He just LOVES her!!








And here's a bonus pic of Harper (well, part of her) in a cloth diaper I made for her:

Harper's doing well!

We had an appointment today to follow up on Harper's billirubin level (2 weeks ago, it was 12). Today, it was 8! She's also making "adequate weight gain" and now weighs just over 7lb 11oz. This means, it took her six weeks to catch up to Colin's birth weight!

I managed to catch a few more "smiles" on camera last night. When I showed the pictures to Jamey, his jaw literally dropped. I think he's been assuming I was making it up and pretending to see smiles. Now I have REAL proof!

Here's my happy girl! You have to ignore the clutter in the background. I'm selling all my maternity clothes, so they're all in piles with priority mail envelopes and boxes!!

My First Diaper Cover!

I have actually started making some things for Harper. The Bernina is working pretty well so far. I'm really enjoying myself!!

One of the "big" things in the cloth diaper community right now is fleece (the other is wool). People are crazy about fleece diaper covers because they are so soft! It's amazing how effective fleece is too.

My favorite type of fleece cover is a "skirty". It's a little pull on diaper cover with a skirt attached.

So, of course, this HAD to be the first thing I tried.

I was pretty successful (well, the first one I made was a bit too small), but there are a few things I want to change before I make another one.

Here's how it turned out.

My First Fleece:

Harper's One Month Pictures

Well, we figured we'd do with Harper what we did with Colin... have pictures done every month for the first year.

Unfortunately, we don't have much up here when it comes to portrait studios. There's Sears, Walmart and Olan Mills.

So, we figured we'd go with Olan Mills. Our experience was less than desirable. We had the pictures taken and Harper was good, but when we went to look at the pictures on the computer, the monitor was so bright, you could barely make out her body and it was hard to see any color. How am I supposed to decide which pictures to buy, when I can't see them?! The photographer said that she had been told there would be no new monitor until that one completely died. Well, I'd say it was pretty dead. So, I figured I'd just get a bare minimum of pictures and then I'd look at them when I got home (you can see them online). The only problem was that their online version has only small pictures, so again, I couldn't get a good look.

I was so upset by this that I wrote to Olan Mills and complained about my experience. I was talked into the $19.95 portrait package because I was given the impression that this was the only way I could look at the pictures. Apparently, that was incorrect. Then, when I got online, they wanted me to pay ANOTHER fee if I wanted to be able to email the pictures to people. What?! And it costs well over $100 to get the pictures on a disk.

Jamey and I decided that we will NOT be going back to Olan Mills. Instead, we'll travel to Atlanta if we have to. Once a month won't kill us. Next month, though, I plan to be in Jacksonville and we'll get her pictures done there.

Anyway, I was able to copy a few from the website so that you can see them. I apologize for the size, but this is the best I can do.

Harper at One Month:

A Few "Firsts"

It's amazing how quickly time passes when you're busy watching your little ones.

Harper is already six weeks old (although she's only JUST past Colin's birth weight) and we have really fallen in love!

Here are a few of her recent "firsts"

I'd given Harper a few "baths" but they'd been the washcloth type or the kitchen sink type. I finally found Colin's old bathtub seat, so she got her first "bathtub bath" around 5 weeks. She was much more cooperative than Colin! I remember that Colin screamed bloody murder when he was in that seat, but Harper just sat there content as could be. I'm constantly surprised at how different they are already. They truly have very individual personalities!

Harper's first "bathtub bath":



We took Harper to church last night (six weeks exactly). We'd waited because the nursery only takes babies that are at least six weeks old and they aren't really set up for parents to tote younger babies with them. I had it all planned out. I changed Harper's diaper before we got there and then I'd change her after our Real Life Group right before the service. That way, the nursery workers wouldn't have to worry about changing a cloth diaper (it tends to freak some people out). When we dropped her off, the nursery worker took her and Harper settled right into that lady's arms! You could tell she had a way with babies. Then, I explained the cloth diaper situation and she told me not to even bother trying to change her diaper before church... she said she'd changed cloth diapers before and had no problems with them at all! That was very exciting to me! Harper did just fine in that nursery and was calm and settled when we went to pick her up. I really expected to be paged, but it didn't happen. She was no trouble!

Harper in her first church outfit:



Harper has been smiling for about a week now, but no one seems to catch her smiling but me! Well, today I FINALLY got a picture of her smile! Once she gets bigger, her smiles will be absolutely adorable because I've already seen hints at her dimples (I think you can see a hint of one in this picture).

So, here is Harper's first smile to be caught on camera:


While I had Harper sitting there trying to smile for me, Colin came up. He just climbed up right next to her and I got a couple of pictures. He is SUCH a good big brother. We frequently fight over whose baby she is ("she's my baby!" "No, she's MY baby!"). She will definitely have a hard time dating when she's older. Not only will the guy have to get past her daddy and his shotgun (which, he assures me, he'll be cleaning when the guys come over), but the guy will have to pass inspection by her very athletic and quite overprotective big brother. I say, good luck!

Harper and her big brother:

Catching Up

Wow... it has really been a long time since I've posted anything. And QUITE A BIT has happened. But, I guess when you have a newborn at home, you don't have as much extra time on your hands.

Well, I'll try to catch up here and then maybe I can keep things going from this point.

First, let's start back in August. August 16th to be exact. Because that is the day that our lives really changed.

I'd been having trouble sleeping. Something was keeping me up. So, here it was at 4am on August 16th and I hadn't gone to bed yet. I felt a little leak of fluid but before I had a chance to check on it, Colin came out of his bedroom and asked me to come tuck him in again. So I did. And that's when it really started to trickle. I walked out of Colin's room to get Jamey and tell him I thought my water had broken. But when I got in the hallway, I realized it was blood! I opened the door and told Jamey I was bleeding. He jumped up and got dressed and got Colin ready while I called the hospital to let them know we were coming. I ended up with a GUSH of blood like I'd never seen before. This was the first time in my pregnancy that I was really scared. I hadn't felt the baby move in a while and I was afraid that something was really wrong. Then, on the way to the hospital, she kicked me. It was just a little kick, but it did make me feel better.

When we got to the hospital, they told me that it looked like the bleeding had stopped. The baby's heartbeat was strong, so they didn't know if it would be better to keep her in or take her out. Then they mentioned that the OB on the floor that day was MY OB!! I was SOOO happy. He got there a few hours later and told me that, of course, we'd be having our baby that day. He had one c-section to do first and then I'd be taken to the OR for my c-section. During my c-section, I ended up losing two liters of blood (on top of what I'd already lost at home) and they couldn't get the bleeding to stop, so I ended up with an emergency hysterectomy.

Harper Reese Milner was born at 11:38 on August 16. She weighed 5lb 13oz and had good Apgar scores. Not long after she was born, however, she started having trouble breathing (she was about 4 weeks early) and they put her on oxygen. They were getting ready to move her to another hospital with a NICU when she started improving. Thankfully, she was able to come to my hospital room just about 8 hours later!! Not bad for a premie!

A month has passed and Harper now weighs 6 pounds 15 ounces. Her ped says it's at the bottom of what would be considered acceptable weight gain, but from what I've read, she seems to be doing just fine.

Colin is a great big brother and OH SO HELPFUL! He loves running errands for me! He thinks he's so big because he can really help mommy. Such a sweetie!

We started cloth diapers a few days ago. We had to wait because Harper was too small to wear all the tiny newborn diapers we bought. You wouldn't believe how cute cloth diapers are now... they are NOT the cloth our parents used!

Anyway, life is good with two kids. I'm loving it. Harper is definitely easier than Colin was. So far, she has no issues with reflux like he did and she's doing fine with her eating. She's pretty happy but wants to be held... A LOT. Sometimes that makes it tricky for me to clean the house!

I can't wait to take her to Jacksonville so everyone can see her. Grandparents haven't seen her since she was born, so I know they're looking forward to it as well. Hopefully, we'll be able to come to Jacksonville sometime in October.

This Saturday is "Army Day" at Six Flags and we would get in free if we go. I'm really wanting to go since they have a new Thomas the Tank Engine section and I know Colin would love it. But, two weekends ago, Jamey took Colin to a Braves game and last weekend, we all went to Tuscaloosa for an Alabama game (roll tide!), so he's not sure if he wants to drive to Atlanta again... especially with gas prices as they are.

Anyway, that's a summary of what has happened since my last post. We're all doing well and enjoying life as a family of four!