1:42 am....i am awake, in a quiet house. my husband and my daughter have been sleeping for hours. i should want to go to bed. i should be tired. i had a long day. a great day. i find it strange that i have been avoiding ending the day for 2 hrs. now. why don't i want it?

this is how i find myself almost every night. dave goes to bed around 10:30 because he has to work early in the morning. ari goes to bed around 11 and after i lay her asleep in her crib, i shut the door and breath a sigh of relief that i can have as much time to myself as i want. maybe that's it. maybe i crave that uninterrupted time so badly, that i am willing to risk my sleep for it. i procrastinate until the wee hours of the morning, knowing i should be responsible and get to bed, but fighting my tiredness for a few more minutes. i lack the discipline to just get up and go. i don't want to be tired. i want to stay up. i want to play stupid games on the computer, or watch shows online while i crochet. it's my refuge. it's too late to do any cleaning. i'll wake them up. it's like i don't have to feel guilty that i'm not doing housework, but i can lounge around instead. until the nagging voice in my head gets the best of me and i give in. unwilling, but i listen.

i'm a new mother...shouldn't i be dying to get as much sleep as possible? is something wrong with me? does anyone have any thoughts on my strange behavior? should i not let it bother me, or should i set better bounderies for myself? i function well throughout the day. mainly because i sleep in until 10 with ari. i don't have to take naps and i get alot done when i'm not holding her. so is this really a problem? what do you think?

Video 2

i forgot to tell you where the video was! it's on the right sidebar, scroll down a little and you'll see it. sorry about that! it was late when i put it up...

Video

i figured out how to put a video on blogger since they have a new video bar. the downside is that there has to be 4 videos and only 1 of them is the one i want. so if you click on the 3rd one down, you can watch a video of ari at 4 months old, as she is learning how to talk! enjoy!

4 months old

Last night my dad came over with his camera, so we finally got new pictures! here he is with his granddaughter

isn't she cute?

look at my new slippers!! they have butterflies on them

look how good i can hold my head up!

ari and daddy

ari and mommy. like my new haircut? i got 10" off!

reading richard scarry

excuses

i'm sorry i have no pictures to show you now. again, we have very limited access to a digital camera, and i have not been able to develop any of the 6 rolls of film that are full of arianna pictures! i guess i think that if i don't have pictures, what's the use of posting? i don't think anyone's really that interested in a bunch of words with no pictures to go with them. i'm probably wrong, but that's my excuse. and my other one is simply that i really don't have much time to myself now that i'm a mom. most of the time i do have i am trying to keep up on laundry, dishes, eating lunch or taking a shower. occasionally i will just sit and browse the internet, and usually the only solid uninterrupted time i have is when ari and dave are asleep for the night. as is the case right now. dave is exhausted. tuesdays and saturdays are his long days. today, he left for work at 5:30 am and didn't come home until 10:45 pm. you do the math. that's what he does. he works hard and long and brings home the moulah to keep us alive. i love my husband! and that's why i'm going to sign off and go snuggle up in bed with him! if i'm lucky, he'll start mumbling something about golf carts or tee sheets. then i will try to coerce him into a conversation from which he will unknowingly answer and i will do all in my power to keep from busting up. but he'll wake up enough to know i'm making fun of him and get all mad and push me away. so i'd better bite my tongue and not laugh at him. (for the record, in the morning, he doesn't really remember being mad. he really isn't, he's just sleeping.) good night!

eleven weeks old

here are the latest pictures of arianna. she is now 10 lbs. 12 oz. and 22" long. she is just below average for her age, but considering all she has been through, her pediatrician is very happy with where she is at. today she got 4 vaccines, 1 oral and 3 shots in her legs! she did NOT like them! dave laughed when she cried (because she is so cute) and i held her when the nurse gave them to her. tonight she has a little fever and has been fussing and sleeping alot. i can tell she isn't feeling so good from them. i've been giving her some extra tlc. she is now 11 wks. old!

i just love the look on her face! she just stares at you with those big eyes, wondering what in the world you are doing.

i am putting on the sweater i crocheted for her. you can see she's not too happy about it.

she's still not happy

i took it off so we could get a good picture together. obviously, you can see she likes daddy more than me! she's crying in all the pictures with me, and happy in all the pictures with him! i am going to have to remedy this sometime.

here are some more pictures of arianna...

she is 2 mos. old now

about to sneeze

sittin' pretty!

sleep grins (what babies do as they fall asleep) they are so fleeting, but my dad actually managed to get one on camera!

late night ramblings

it is 12:37 a.m. i am sitting on the floor next to the baby swing in the nursery. the light is off, but the door is open, letting in the light from the living room. arianna is slowly being lulled to sleep with the motions from the swing and cheap quality sounding lullabyes playing (the swing comes with different sounds, waves, rain, stream and lullabyes). it has been a rough night for her. not as bad as some of the past few nights, but still, upsetting for her. you see, my sweet beautiful little girl suffers from intense gas pains. and when she farts, she stops crying. but that might take an hour to work it out. so until then, she refuses to eat, even though she's hungry and past her feeding time, and she cannot be calmed. each time, it ends up being a random thing that will calm her. tonight, it is the swing. as soon as i put her in (screaming, mind you) and started the swing, i hear it. the gas that's been cramping her up. and it's a long one. man, i think, she must've been hurting from that one! sometimes, just putting her on her changing table is enough to quiet her. for some strange reason, she likes being on her changing table. i have NO clue why, but i don't need to know. it works. sometimes she likes going outside. hearing the birds and feeling the wind and the sun is enough stimulation to distract her. let's see...what else? oh yes, the washer and dryer. classic. put her in her baby carrier and do a few loads of laundry. or have dave carry her in the baby bjorn. each time it's a different thing. i just have to always figure it out. on a different note, today we had a dr.'s appt. in danville with the endocrinologist. everything so far is good that way. she was low in calcium when she left the hospital and they still don't know why. they think it could have been from the blood transfusion she had. we had to go to the lab and get some blood taken to test that. she didn't like being pricked. today she has an appt. up here with the cardiologist. we will find out how her heart's doing and if she can be weaned off of some of her medicines. in case anyone's curious, and to give me something else to write about, here's all the medicine she's been on:

• .3 ml 2 times/day of digoxin (this keeps her heart rate low)
• .4 ml 1 time/day of lasix (a diuretic to keep fluid from building around her heart. it makes her pee a TON)
• 2 ml every 3 hrs. when awake of calcium gluconate (b/c she is low in calcium)
• 1 ml 2 times/day zantac (for her acid reflux)
• 1 ml 1 time/day mulitvitamin w/ iron (b/c it's good for her)

i have to mix it with formula and give it to her that way. they're all liquids. sometimes i wonder if all these medicines could have side effects that i have no way of knowing. maybe she's in more pain than i know about and maybe it's creating an environment in her body that's more prone to getting gas. who knows. anyway, she's asleep now. so i am going to try to slowly move her to her crib. i'm sorry i don't have any pictures, we returned our digital camera (defective battery and all around annoying setup) and hope to buy another one soon. i can't wait to start putting more pictures up! good night!

i took these pictures yesterday. we bought a digital camera that was on sale. but we don't like it. so we are going to return it and look for another one. i may not have more pictures for a while. she is almost 10 lbs. now and is becoming more alert and has started smiling! i hope to capture it on camera sometime, but she doesn't do it too often yet. she got 2 shots today at the dr.'s and cried so hard! you know how babies cry so hard that they stop for a minute with their mouth wide open, silent, gearing up for the next wail? that's what she did. it was incredibly cute, but made me want to pick her up and comfort her. which is what i did as soon as the nurse put the band-aids on. she calmed down real quick. in a strange sort of way, i like it when she cries. not always, don't get me wrong, but it's cute to see her little lip stick out in a pout and her eyes get so big and she looks like she's falling apart because you're not holding and comforting her. she craves my comfort. she just wants to be held all the time. she needs me. it's a feeling of fulfillment that i've never felt before. she needs me, she wants me and when i'm there, everything in her little world is ok. because i make it ok. it's nice to be needed like that. speaking of needing, i must go wake her up and feed her before she wakes up starving. i will post more later.

You Are a Plain Ole Cup of Joe

But don't think plain - instead think, uncomplicated You're a low maintenance kind of girl... who can hang with the guys Down to earth, easy going, and fun! Yup, that's you: the friend everyone invites. And your dependable too. Both for a laugh and a sympathetic ear.

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why all the quizzes

this is what happens when you have to stay up late to rock your child to sleep but have to stay awake yourself, so you have to come up with ways to distract yourself from your drooping eyelids. thanks christa for the idea!

Your Language Arts Grade: 100%

Way to go! You know not to trust the MS Grammar Check and you know "no" from "know." Now, go forth and spread the good word (or at least, the proper use of apostrophes).

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Your score on this personality test was 47%

Others see you as sensible, cautious, careful & practical. They see you as clever, gifted, or talented, but modest not a person who makes friends too quickly or easily, but someone who's extremely loyal to friends you do make and who expect the same loyalty in return. Those who really get to know you realize it takes a lot to shake your trust in your friends, but equally that it takes you a longer time to get over if that trust is ever broken.

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You Are 91% New Jersey!

Wow, you're totally Jersey. There's no doubt about it. Congratulations, and always be proud to be Jersey--it's a great thing to be!

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snapshots

i love how calm and relaxed she looks in this picture



here she is with the surgeon, Dr. Pourmahgadam, at her post-op appt. this past week





looks like ari has something in common with her daddy

david put up a post with some pictures of arianna just after surgery. you can check them out on his blog, http://www.davidasiegrist.blogspot.com/.

reflection

well, it has been a week since arianna came home. first of all, i just want to thank all of you who have left so many encouraging comments. i don't know all of you, but knowing you have been praying and thinking of us has been overwhelming at times. God has provided so much for us. just as an example, not only were we supported monetarily through our church and many friends, at one point, we knew of 13 churches that were praying for us. and we could feel it. at our lowest points, we would turn around and feel blessed even through the pain and uncertainty. there was the peace that surpasses all understanding. there was a passage that i came across while trying to find comfort, and dave and i reread this many times during that long week. the whole psalm was comforting, but these were the verses that were so poignant to us.

Psalm 34:17-19 "When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the LORD delivers him out of them all."

and now, looking back, He was near to us and did deliver us. our little girl is home, safe and sound, gaining weight and as cute as can be! as i am writing this, she is asleep in her infant carrier, sitting on top of the washing machine in our kitchen. dave is at work at the golf course and i am enjoying a much needed cup of coffee while i listen to the new norah jones album. (thanks for that ash!) i am recovering from some sort of cold/virus thing. wouldn't you know it, as soon as we get her home and everything seems great, i came down with a 24 hr. stomach bug last saturday and then got sick with this cold on tuesday. it has made it a little harder to take care of her, but dave has been a wonderful husband! i have been able to get alot of rest too, since arianna has been blessed to sleep most of the night! she has been sleeping about 6 hrs. every night! and she takes lots of naps, which makes it easier for me to get better! but anyway, she had her first pediatrician visit on monday and there she weighed 8 lbs. 8 oz. (up from 7 lbs. 10 oz. when she left the hospital)! the next day she had a cardiologist appt. and there she weighed 8 lbs. 1 oz. so...which scale is right??? this next monday we go back to danville to see the surgeon for a check up. we'll see what she weighs on their scale. either way, she IS gaining weight, and
that is the most important thing. i am putting up some pictures from the past week since she has been home.

this was her going home outfit as we were leaving from the hospital. (i made her those booties when we were waiting during the surgery)

sleeping at grandma and grandpa's

the first bath we gave her. you can tell she's loving it! (incidentally, we gave her another one yesterday and she loved it!) you can see her scar here. i have started rubbing vitamin E oil on it, hoping it helps a little. we'll see as she grows up

peaceful again

here she is today, just before she fell asleep

SHE'S HOME!!!!!!

she didn't gain weight today. she's not coming home tomorrow. we have no idea when she will be.

maybe thursday?

my best friend, ashley, drove here from IN to spend the week with me. she made dinner for us last night and made homemade strawberry shortcake. it's been great to have her here. she's encouraged us alot. today we found out that although arianna is gaining weight, the dr.'s are now saying she can't come home until thursday. so we were a little disappointed, and really hoping that doesn't change again. ash drove me down to see her today, and here are a few pictures from that trip. i LOVE this first picture of her staring at me! she's SO cute! i just want to take her home...we are trying to be patient.