[simage=621,160,n,left,right] Mimi bought Kayden her first ‘little black dress.’ If you’ve ever noticed, there aren’t really any baby clothes with black. Sometimes you just need a pair of black leggings to complete the perfect outfit! Well we finally found some black in a children’s boutique called Janie and Jack’s. I think I might be getting a little better with the whole head band thing, but this flower is just hideous! I call it her Liza Minnelli head piece. I remembered after the photo shoot about the Mary Jane socks… they definitely completed the look! Kayden is a sweet and adorable baby who never cries 🙂 but we caught her in a rare moment with these pics!
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Author: Tiffany Hatcher
What’s New at the Zoo?
Since Scotty took the day off of work to accompany his girls to the doctor’s appointment, he decided we needed to spend the day being active. I happily accepted his offer! Early this morning he secretly signed us up for passes to The Wild Animal Park and The Zoo. He signed up for the Diamond Membership. Basically it allows us access to The Zoo and The Wild Animal Park as well as free tours and rides along the way. We decided to hit up The Wild Animal Park today!
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We saw a variety of animals and walked about 3.5 miles all around the park. The sun was out and naturally I was concerned about Little Miss being out in the heat. I convinced Scotty to put her in the Baby Bjorn. Well, if she is in the Bjorn her body is exposed to the sun. So we greased her up with lotion and headed out to see some more animals!
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Naturally Kayden got hungry about half way into our excursion. We packed some MRE (Meals Ready to Eat… otherwise known as formula). We pulled over at the turtle encounter and Scotty fed Kayden. I picked up my own slack and changed 2 poopy diapers (I caught one too early!).
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All in all it was a great afternoon at The Wild Animal Park. We saw animals, we walked around, and we captured some great pics! Kayden is now recovering from her shots. She’s a little bit fussy, but all in all being very strong!! Stay tuned for upcoming adventures!
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2 Months!!
[simage=565,160,n,left,right] Â Â Â With the excitement that accompanies an infant turning 2 months old comes a big apprehension on my part because I know what it means to be 2 months old. What does it mean? It means shots!! Kayden had all of her measurements taken and ended with three pricks that made both her and mommy cry! Let’s start with the measurements. Kayden weighs in at 10 pounds 3 ounces. So I guess our “informal weight” was pretty accurate! I fed her right before her appointment so naturally she increased 3 ounces :o). Her head size and length are both within the normal range (along with her weight). She is 22.5 inches long, which is a little on the tall side… yeah Mihelich genes!! After all of our questions were answered by Doctor Taylor, it was time for the shots. I don’t handle Kayden crying very well in general. [simage=564,160,n,right,left] Â Â Â I couldn’t imagine being a part of the process that would make her cry… aka the shots! I told Scotty about my fears a few weeks back and he was so amazing and immediately told me he would take the day off of work and go with me to this dreaded appointment. He told me it would be a great excuse to have a family day out and about. I, of course, eagerly accepted his generosity of taking a day off of work to be with Kayden while she got pricked! So the doctor finished all of the fun stuff and sent in her nurse to give Kayden her 3 shots and oral medication. 3 shots! Are you kidding me?! She’s tiny!! So Scotty told me to go ahead and go in the hallway when the nurse walked in. [simage=569,160,n,left,right]Â Â Â Okay, so the doors are totally NOT sound-proof! I heard every scream and with each scream came more heart ache. I walked around in the halls batting my eyes hoping none of the nurses or doctors would know I was crying!! The nurse was awesome and gave the shots and oral meds in less than 3 minuets flat. I walked back into the room to my baby’s face completely drenched in her own tears and two large band-aids on her legs.
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It happen to be time to nurse so I immediately got into position and fed Kayden. She seemed to forget about the pain and fed well. We then headed to lunch and then we went to the Wild Animal Park! (See next post for that encounter!)
Kayden’s Big Day
Today was a big day for Kayden. First, she and I sleep 8 hours in a 10 hour period. We woke up three times during the night but each time was 40 minutes or less of awake time. I consider this a GREAT accomplishment! I haven’t really been implementing too much of the training techniques because I’m not quite sure she’s adjusting to them. I am nursing most of the time so I’m not able to determine how many ounces she is taking in. Also, she is cluster feeding (yes, I’m still a cow!) and she’s getting a lot of calories in the day, which I think is helping the night hours. She feeds around 8:00 or 9:00 each night and she is pretty consistent about going 4 hours until her next feeding. From there she is averaging three hours between feedings. So I am luckily sleeping about 8 hours each night. Yes!! This morning I had a quick meeting for work so we both needed to eat and have our showers/bath by 8:30. Since we had 8 hours of sleep by 6:00, this was actually not too difficult. Kayden loves bath time fun!
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The second major event for today was Kayden purposely smiled at Mimi! We were changing her diaper right after Mimi got here and she walked over to Kayden and said her high pitched “Hi Kayden, it’s your Mimi! I’m here to play with you!” and Kayden looked over and smiled a huge smile. Now, had Kayden not given me three (of the four attempts!) smiles yesterday I might have just let Mimi think it was a smile at her, but secretly known it was just gas. Since I got three purposeful smiles the day before and a few right before she got here this morning, I knew it was on purpose! Kayden did smile at Mimi!
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And the third and final great occurrence today was that Kayden met her great grandparents. I consider myself extremely lucky to have 4 amazing grandparents around to share my life with. Kayden was able to meet my maternal grandparents this afternoon. My grandpa was so in love with Kayden from the second I brought her out of the car. I was so amazed at how enamored he was with my daughter. He was grinning from ear to ear and I just felt so proud to be the one to introduce him to his first great grand child. My grandparents are going through a transition of selling the house they have lived in for 30 years to be moved to an incredible independent living facility that will enrich their lives and allow them to begin a new journey. I was so excited to show off my daughter to them in their home where they have watched their grandchildren grow up. Kayden is lucky to have such great people as her great grandparents! Today was a great day for three generations of Finn-Mihelich-Hatcher women. I am truly blessed!
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Cluster Feeding
When Scotty says it, he gets ‘the look’ (and maybe a smack), but today I can say it… I’m a cow! Kayden has been doing nothing but feeding for the past two days! Every two hours nearly to the minute she lets me know it’s time to feed. I was having a hard time believing she needed to eat so often so I convinced myself that I must not be making milk and that’s why she keeps hitting me up to eat. I researched it and I’m pretty sure I am making plenty of milk, she’s just going through a growth spurt. Scotty and I agree, we really feel like we are seeing her change right in front of our eyes. She is getting bigger and seems to be beginning the process of understanding the basics of the world. And oh yeah, she is purposefully smiling!! I was changing her diaper yesterday and I tickled her and she smiled. I made faces and tickled her again… she smiled!! I did the same thing three times and each time she smiled. The fourth time she cried, so we let it go! Kayden is an amazing baby and I feel so lucky to be able to be at home with her and watch all these fun things happen for the first time! We are finally finding our pattern at night and during the day. It’s not hard to figure out really- sleep, eat, poop, and repeat (all in that order). The only thing to understand or get use to is that she is needy right now and I am the only one who can really give her what she needs. Scotty is great about helping when he can, but there is only so much he can do. We do daily photo shoots so here are just a few of the pics that I took. She is wearing her Ed Hardy onesie and of course her Mary Jane socks. Why? Because every outfit gets a little classier with Mary Jane socks!
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