Two Month MD Visit

Today was Carden's 2 Month appointment. She is 24.5 inches long (95th percentile), 11 lbs 2 oz (approx 50th percentile), and a head circumference of 38 cm. She is tall and skinny--let's just hope she stays that way.
She did great with her oral vaccine and the first shot, but screamed while getting the second shot. We are going to have to make another trip to Dr. Haley's office to get her Hib Shot, unfortunately they ran out of it so once it comes in we'll have to go back. I did surprising well and didn't cry when she got so upset (or pass out when I saw her get the shot--I'm terrified of needles so this was a concern.) Dr. Haley and nurse Kim said that she may run a little fever and need some extra snuggling and attention. She has been curled up on me for majority of the day and then daddy was more than willing to take over once he got home.

Two Months

It’s hard to believe that Carden Elizabeth is two months old and I only have a few more weeks left before I have to go back to work. She has changed so much since we brought her home; I’m going to miss spending all day with her! I know it will be good for her to socialize with other kids and to get onto a better routine. Next week we start getting mommy acclimated to dropping her off with Miss Marcia for a few hours. We love watching all Carden’s facial expressions. She is starting to melt our hearts with her smile and her cute baby noises. She is very chatty, I know that is hard to imagine with Jason and I as her parents! Carden has discovered her fingers are a good substitute for her binky (aka pacifier). She has managed to get just the thumb in her mouth a few times. Next week is her 2 Month appointment, so we’ll get all her stats then. Here is the monthly picture with Matilda.


Carden loves bath time and we have found the perfect baby spa tub for her—one of her grandmother’s mixing bowls! I love this photo and had to share it.

We had Carden baptized at Kelley Presbyterian Church on February 15. Kelley is a small country church in Kelley Town, Georgia that my grandparents attend, my parents got married in, and just about everyone in the family was baptized in. She wore the same dress that I wore in May 1975 when I was baptized at Kelley. She did extremely during the actual baptism but got fussy toward the end of the service due to being hungry so Jason had to take her out of the sanctuary to feed her a bottle. I failed to take into account the change in timezones when I fed her earlier that morning. Afterwards we had a nice lunch with the family and Carden got to meet all her young cousins. She’ll enjoy getting to know them as they grow up together.

No trip to the Atlanta area would be complete without going shopping and squeezing in a meal at the Varsity.

Carden and I have become regulars at all the various home improvement stores in town trying to get those odds and ends for the house. We can see the finish line with the house! The soapstone counter tops are in and they look incredible. Now we need to put mineral oil on them to make them darker. The floor will be refinished next week and we are hoping to be in shortly after the floors dry and the final touch ups are completed! I’m so excited.

Progress!

We have seen tremendous progress with the house remodel the past few weeks. Tile is complete in all the bathrooms and the laundry room, kitchen cabinets are being installed, and the counter top guys are coming on Tuesday to make a template for our Soapstone Counter Tops. Not sure when the flooring guys will be back to start refinishing the floors, but since our contractor is having hip surgery the first week of March, he is determined to get our house completed before his surgery. This makes me SO happy. I cannot wait to be back into our house! Here are some pictures of the progress:




Carden is making progress as well. She is starting to sleep really well at night—4 to 5 hours! I’m still trying to feed her every 3 to 4 hours during the day to ensure that she is getting all the nourishment that she needs, which I’m still not exactly sure of what that is since every baby book says something different. I’ve come to realize that the baby books are designed to make new parents insane. You read one book and it will basically tell you that everything you are doing is wrong! Other parents have assured me that as long as she is gaining weight, not screaming, and is eating and making poopy diapers then we are in good shape! We are completely captivated by this little girl. She is starting to make great facial expressions and has even discovered her thumb as something to suck on other than her pacifier.

A month’s review

Carden Elizabeth is one month old! It is amazing how time flies. All I can say is that the first month of her life has been a whirlwind! There is no telling how many diapers and wipes we’ve already been through!

Jason and I are truly blessed to have a healthy baby. We both talk about how amazing it is that you can instantly love someone so much!

My college girlfriends that have babies take great photos of their little ones next to stuffed animals to show how they’ve grown, so here is my attempt. The biggest stuffed animal that Carden has is Matilda the Pig that Mimi (her great grandmother) gave her, so that is what we used. She was not interested in trying to sit up, so these will have to do. Maybe next month's photo will be better!




Carden met a number of family members during the first two weeks of her life—both sets of grandparents, her uncle Phil, great grandparents, and some of her great aunts and uncles. Thanks to all our Huntsville friends for being patient and waiting for the family to get their time in with Miss Carden before they got the chance to meet her! Below is a photo of Carden with her only surviving great grandparents, Mimi and G (Amy's maternal grandparents.) We picked Elizabeth as the middle name after Mimi.



Jillian came over a few days after Carden came home and took newborn and family photos. They turned out so cute that I had to share them with you all! She also created some ideas for her birth announcements. To view the photos, go to Jillian’s website and click on clients.
User Name: Carden
Password: babymakes3
I love the photo of Philip holding her. Think he is a proud uncle?


Carden also took her first road trip this month and what a trip it was. We went all the way to San Antonio, Texas to see our dear friends Carla Hinojosa and Daniel Landers get married. Jason was a groomsman in the wedding. The wedding was absolutely beautiful and Carla did an amazing job embracing and incorporating her Mexican/Texas heritage into the wedding events. Carden had so much fun at the reception that she had an explosive diaper and it got all over her new little pink Feltman Brothers outfit—I think it was just a way for her to get changed into something a little more casual.
We’ve learned that Carden is soothed by mariachi music because she instantly fell asleep when the mariachi band started playing at the wedding reception and at the incredible restaurant where we had lunch, Mi Terra. I highly recommend that you eat at least one meal and have a magarita here if you ever go to San Antonio.

Carden did great in the car. She slept for majority of the road trip, which threw off her sleep schedule so we did end up having one rough night with her in the hotel. We made sure to make more stops on the way home, so hopefully it will help out! Just East of Tyler, TX we passed a XXX Adult Movie Drive In Theater! How crazy is that? I couldn’t believe it. I was hoping to get a picture of the sign on our way home, but we ended up taking a different route.

The house is progressing. We now have dry wall up! Our house has great hardwood floors, so we didn’t have to change our floors, just match up the new areas with the existing and that work is going on this week. Next week the painters will be coming in. I’m so excited, for so long it seemed like nothing was going on, even though Jason assured me that things were happening but they were things that you couldn’t really see-- like plumbing and electrical work. I just hope that we are able to move back into the house before my maternity leave it up so we can get everything unpacked and in order and I have some time to enjoy the house before I have to start trying to balance family life and a career .

We’ve had an exciting and exhausting month and I think this photo sums it up! WHEW!

First visit to the Pediatrician’s Office and first bath

Today was Carden Elizabeth’s first visit to the pediatrician’s office. She’s lost some weight since being in the hospital, but not enough to be concerned about. Her skin color looks great, so no signs of jaundice.

Last night we had our first bath at home, well sponge bath. It went a lot smoother than I expected. Carden fussed when we first got her completely naked, I think the initial shock of being cold is what startled her and then once we got the warm water on her skin she settled down. I’ve heard of so many babies that scream bloody murder when you wash their hair, but she actually seemed to enjoy it. I did tell her that people pay big bucks to have other people shampoo their hair so she is lucky that we are more than willing to do it for free! Of course we took lots of photos of the event and this has to be the cutest one so I just had to share!



We hope that you all have a very Merry Christmas and that Santa is good to everyone! He brought us the best gift anyone could ask for 5 days ago!

Carden Elizabeth Dilocker

Carden Elizabeth Dilocker was born on Friday, December 19th, 2008 at 5:16 PM at Crestwood Hospital in Huntsville, Alabama. She was 9 lbs 11 oz and 20 inches long! Baby Carden, mom, and dad are all happy and healthy.







Thanks Dr. Aguayo and the nursing staff at Crestwood's Maternity Center for a smooth and supportive delivery free of any complications. The team made us feel so relaxed and at ease during the 12 hour labor and throughout our weekend stay in the hospital.

Foods to Induce Labor, Scheduled Induction Date, and Baby Names

Last week Dr. Aguayo told Jason and I to be prepared that Baby D could arrive at any moment because I was already dilated to 2 cm, effaced, and she could feel the baby’s head (which makes me want to gag!) So we’ve had our hopes up since then that "today could be the day" and that I would try to help encourage her to make an early arrival by eating foods that you hear about that are supposed to help induce labor:
Pineapple
Bran Muffins
Balsamic Vinegar Salad Dressing
Spicy Foods
Egg Plant
Well in the past few days, I’ve consumed all of these things (not all in one setting), suffered some serious heart burn as a result and Baby D has yet to arrive. Even the full moon on Friday and my father driving over every pot hole, railroad track, and bump in the road after church on Sunday didn’t help out!

As much as I have loved being pregnant, the time has come where I cannot wait any longer. The anticipation is driving us crazy! Plus Dr. Aguayo and I agree that we both don’t feel like spending Christmas at the hospital so I am scheduled to be induced on Friday, December 19th, that is unless she decides to show up early. The only bad part of being induced is that I don’t get to send Jason into freak out mode by calling him at work and telling him that my water broke or I’m having contractions! Just the thought of all the stories I won’t be able to share about that experience kind of makes me sad.

Most popular question these days are what are you going to name the baby. Jason and I agreed that we didn’t want to name her until we saw her. We do have a middle name picked out, Elizabeth, after my maternal grandmother--Baby D’s only living great grandmother. As far as first names go, we have narrowed down our list to Gretchen (after one of Jason’s aunts) or Carden (my maiden name). She’ll probably come out not looking like either name, so then we’ll be back to square one and have to pull out all the baby name books and start over from scratch—or worse, Baby D will be a boy and we haven’t even talked about boy names!