9 month well check

Yesterday we had Hadlee's 9 month well check. I can not believe her next well check is her 1 year. I can't believe we are getting to plan her birthday party! I am super excited about her party. It's such a great celebration of the life and healing that has come from our sweet girl. Her 9 month well check went great. She is 16 pounds 14 ounces, 12th%. The doctor would like to see her gain a little more weight. Her percentile last time with weight was 22nd so she's dropped a bit. She just doesn't love to sit still long enough to eat much and I can't force food. I give her bottles, still with breastmilk and a formula bottle before bed. She only takes 4 ounces a bottle. Then I offer her breakfast, lunch, and dinner with some Mum Mum goodness in between. She sometimes loves her meals, or sometimes refuses them. I feel a little pressure to make sure she's gaining a little more, but she looks super healthy. She has gotten a lot busier with crawling and wanting to stay active. She gets preoccupied easily when she's taking her bottle if someone is in the room or something catches her eye. She is in the 58th percentile for height, and 53rd for head circumfrance which are both on the same path she has been on. I discussed taking her off the alarm part of the angel care. There are so many false alarms and on the nights when we are all sleeping sound, it can bolt us out of bed in a hurry and disrupt a peaceful sleeping baby as well. So, we've decided at 9 months to take her off the alarm part. I do still have her on a video monitor on the angel carea and have the sound constantly on to hear any noises she's making. This is going to take a little getting used to and trusting. At 9 months old, Hadlee is so so busy and active. She is crawling all over the house now. She sits up, goes from sitting to crawling, pulls up on everything, and is a smiley baby. Right now she's cutting all four top teeth and a little miserable with that. I am still a pumping queen! I can't believe I've made it this long with pumping but I feel too selfish yet to just quit when I know how great it is for her. Especially for flu season, I feel it can hopefully help with any extra antibodies. For her meals, I am going to start offering her more "people food" to see if she takes to that a little more. Hadlee loves her baths, her dog Cash, her big brother, Mum Mums, and always wants her Mommy. She does love it when her Daddy comes home from work and gets upset if he doesn't pick her up right away. When she's wanting to snuggle with Mommy, she puts her head into my neck and her left arm down my shirt. Her sister used to do the same thing. It's so sweet and brings back sweet memories. Hadlee is in size 6-9 month clothing and jammies, size 2-3 diapers. She also loves her paci's. She is not the biggest fan on diaper changes which is always so much fun, especially when she's trying a crocodile death roll. Adrian would do the same thing when he was a baby. The weather in Texas has been so pleasantly nice lately and we've enjoyed our days playing outside and letting Hadlee ride in her new wagon and Adrian's old blue car. She seems to love being outside. I have to share this little moment from tonight. I just finished putting Hadlee down to sleep and I was feeding her her bottle and rocking her in the dark. I could see her eyes just staring at me and I just stared back and for a moment, I got lost in this little girl who all of a sudden looked so incredibly much like her older sister. It took me back to the nights I would rock Ainslee and see her gazing up at me. Hadlee looked so much like her that it actually took my breath away, and I don't have too many moments like that. It was a sweet reminder of how much I love my babies, how sweet Ainslee is, how healing Hadlee is, and how wonderfully blessed we are. We're in the home stretch for a year. I can't believe we've almost made it. I am so looking forward to the next few months. I am ready to get Ainslee's 2 year angelversary behind us. I dread this day and the days and weeks leading up to it. I'm ready to celebrate Easter with Hadlee and Adrian and put on the greatest celebration for Hadlee's birthday.

Beam Me Up

Sigh...if only, just for a moment. I'd give anything to just spend another minute with my little monchichi Ainslee. To look at her sweet little monkey face, her dark brown eyes, her sweet little mouth and watch it make all the Ainslee-like motions it would. I would feel her put her hand in my shirt as she always did, cuddled into the best part of my neck. I'd feel her sweet felt like hair against my chin and it'd smell the most perfect little smell. I miss her. More than I think. Sometimes I think I'm making it, and I suppose I am. While other times, I simply miss her. Sometimes I can go to a place where I imagine what my arms would feel like with the 3 month 10 day old Ainslee in my arms. And I imagine what it would feel like to have the 2 year 3 month old Ainslee arms wrapped around my body. I can almost imagine what that would feel like. I can almost see her olive skin and the velvetty feel. I can almost smell her sweet innocent breath. I imagine me rocking her to sleep tonight with her head against my chest, her arms around me, her mouth open just enough to be breathing into my neck. Oh how I miss that sweet angel baby of mine. Some days are okay. Other days are excruciating. Lately I've heard the new Pink song called Beam Me Up. I've always felt like it may be a good song and always feel a little tug when it comes on, but never slow down enough to actually listen to it. I got a text from my sister in law Carrie the other night telling me the song reminds her of me and Ainslee. So, I listened to it. I took the time to hear what it was trying to tell me. "There's a whole 'nother conversation going on In a parallel universe. Where nothing breaks and nothing hurts. There's a waltz playing frozen in time Blades of grass on tiny bare feet I look at you and you're looking at me." Oh her tiny bare feet. What I would do to look at them, to count each and every little toe. To feel the innocense beneath her little feet, to wonder where they would one day take her. Only to have that dream crushed in time. "Could you beam me up, Give me a minute, I don't know what I'd say in it I'd probably just stare, happy just to be there, holding your face Beam me up, Let me be lighter, I'm tired of being a fighter, I think, a minute's enough, Just beam me up." I know I would just stare, taking in every little inch of her beautiful baby face. Happy just to be there wouldn't even come close to how I would feel next to her, holding her face. I can imagine my aged hands around her perfect cheeks and her elf-like ears, feeling heaven in the palm of my hands. Feeling lighter is so perfectly portrayed when it comes to be being a fighter. Every day is a fight whether it's visible to others or not. The fight is a hard one and it's not easy. Some days may be lighter, while the hardest of days feel like you're going to lose a fight. Being a fighter is exhausting. Wanting my child back is exhausting. But I would take all the exhausting and excruciating painful moments all over again, for only a minute with her face. I miss my little monkey. Being a grief stricken mother is difficult. But I would give anything to have a break from reality, even if it were 60 seconds, to feel the joy that Ainslee brought me. If only I could. Beam me up. I love you my girl.