Rough day for Rossleigh!!

Well, really it's been the last 36 hours I guess that have been a little rough for my little one.  First, she had to go to the pulmonologist yesterday to get her Synagis shot (she'll have to do that once a month until April), so shot = no fun.  Then there was the nail clipping fiasco earlier today.  Still feeling bad about that, by the way...

Not too long after that, she was sitting upright in my lap and facing me, but kind of doing that head-bobbing thing that newborns do.  She does this often and in an attempt to get some good balance, she sometimes loses control and flings her head in one direction with a surprising amount of force!!  This time we butted heads...HARD.  Poor baby just cried and cried!!  :(  I know that my nose hurt afterward, so I can only imagine how she felt!

At least her daddy tried to distract her with the never-fail Christmas tree (this time it was one of the downstairs trees).  I personally think this is a pretty cute picture of both of them.  ;)

Oh, and to top it all off, on Monday, we go to the pediatrician to get her two month vaccinations.  So needless to say, after Monday, we're hoping for a pain-free week!!  LOL

I'll leave you with a video I took yesterday, I think.  She's just so funny!!  Rossleigh can be fussy, mad, hungry, upset...it really doesn't matter the emotion, but when you strip her down, she is insta-smile!!  She just loves the sensation of having no clothing!!  Uh-oh!  We may have an exhibitionist on our hands!  LOL

Have a good weekend!!

Crappy mother moment

I decided to trim Rossleigh's nails today.   Not my first time, mind you.   I've trimmed them several times and have been the only one to do so since her birth.   Today, we had our first blood shed.  

I had finished one hand and had moved to the second hand.   I had her left pointer in my hand, ready to clip.   I had the clippers in position and she suddenly jerked her hand.  Instead of clipping her nail, I took a chunk out of her finger. Like an actual chunk. It's not just a tiny nick.   I actually took a chunk of flesh out of my daughter's sweet little finger. It bled for a good couple of minutes.

Blood was shed.   Tears were shed - first by her and then by me.  The entire time, she's looking up at me crying and fueling my guilt.   Really, child?   Do you think I don't already feel horrible?  I caused my child to bleed and cry.   I already feel like the worst mother ever.   But there was no reasoning with her. She just continued to look up at me with red, teary eyes like, "how COULD you?"   *sigh*

Couch creepin'

I thought I'd share a funny video with you.  Rossleigh was just fussy fussy last night.  We're trying to establish a sleep schedule that will work a little better when we're both back at work full time, so we're slowly and gradually making some tweaks.  As a result, we have to keep her awake for periods of time and she just isn't happy about it at all.  When Lance is responsible for keeping her awake, he gets pretty creative!!  Sometimes, I don't know if the things he does is to entertain her or us more, but this time it was most definitely US!!  LOL

Are we cruel?  Let us know!!  By the way, I think I got the settings changed so comments can be made without having to sign into Google!!  Sorry about that!!  :)

All about hands and trees

In the last week or so, Rossleigh has discovered her hands and let me tell you - she is ALL about her hands!!  When she's sleeping, they're in her face (and she's started pulling her hair to prevent her from falling asleep)!  When she's eating, she tries to put them in her mouth, making it a little difficult to fit that bottle in there too.  Fortunately, she's not about putting them down in her diaper yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's not too far down the road.  Ha ha!!

I did a little photo shoot today of her in her crib, getting ready to take her nap.  I know I'm biased, but I just think this whole "hands phase" is the cutest thing!!  :)

The other thing that Rossleigh is really into right now is Christmas trees.  She just stares in amazement at the lights and the shiny ornaments.  And if you tap the tree so everything moves a tad, just forget it!  She goes into a trance!!  LOL

A couple of nights ago, Lance was going to keep his eyes/ears out for Rossleigh so I could be downstairs cooking dinner.  I came up to let him know how much longer things would be and found this sight:

Apparently, she had been fussy and when he walked past the "Heritage" themed tree we have upstairs, she seemed in awe of it and stopped crying.  He tried sitting her in her rocker/bouncer and it was all the entertainment she needed.  He calls her the "Christmas Tree Inspector".  Hmmm...we may have to leave a tree up year round!!  LOL

Dancing & Giggles

Just thought I'd share a couple of short videos with you!  We hope you enjoy watching them!!  :)

The first one is Rossleigh dancing with her Daddy.  Sometimes when you're waiting for formula to warm up and you have a fussy, impatient baby, you'll do just about anything to help the time pass more quickly (and quietly) for everyone.  LOL  Lance is particularly good at distracting her - sometimes by singing, dancing, making silly faces, and/or funny noises.  I'm not so sure how much SHE likes the dancing right now, but Lance loves it!  ;)   He's such a wonderful daddy!!

I mentioned in a recent post that Rossleigh giggled for the first time and promised that I would try to capture it and post it here.  I caught a tiny giggle so I thought I'd share it here.  You might want to turn your sound up so you can hear her soft, sweet giggle.  When she smiles and laughs, she just lights up my world.  I hope she brings a little joy to your day as well!  :)

Rossleigh loves visitors!!

On their way back home to Houston, the Holland fam stopped in to see us (more like to see Rossleigh).  It was a brief visit, but so much fun to see them again!  I wished I had taken more pictures though.  :(

Aunt Elisa couldn't wait to get her hands on Rossleigh!!  :)  

Too bad that missy prissy wasn't in the best mood that day.  LOL

Many faces

How precious is this girl!!

Getting ready for Christmas

Since I'm still not back to work yet, I didn't have to take part in the dreaded retail/Black Friday festivities (darn)!!  Instead we got to work on decorating our house for Christmas.  Nana and Megan came over to help fluff our...ahem, FIVE Christmas trees (but this year we're only putting up 3) and start decorating a bit.  While Nana fluffed the trees, Lance got everything out of the attic and put the outdoor decorations out, and Megan and I put away the Fall decorations, cleaned up a bit and decorated the big tree.

In the midst of decorating, Rossleigh needed a wardrobe change (and BATH) after an incident with a diaper (yes, again)...While I was getting stuff ready for her bath, Megan held her.  I absolutely LOVE these pictures!!

Rossleigh LOVES her cousin, Megan!!  Nana refers to them as the Alpha and Omega.  With Nana's grandchildren, the order goes:  Megan, Conner, Jake, and Rossleigh, so she started and ended with girls!  At one point in the evening, Megan was holding Rossleigh.  After a while, Nana couldn't stand it and wanted to hold her.  After she took her from Megan, RCD started fussing.  Nana gave her back to Megan and the fussing stopped!!  We found out that Megan is the BABY WHISPERER!!!  ;)


After the bath, we ate Thanksgiving leftovers and then decorated some more!!  We got a LOT done!!  Lance and I still have a ways to go to be completely ready for Christmas, but we got a very nice head start thanks to Nana and Megan.  :)

Relaxing in Daddy's arms

Rossleigh's First Thanksgiving

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!  We spent ours surrounded with family and wonderful food.  We started off at Nana's house in Watauga for a Thanksgiving lunch with Rossleigh's Uncle David, Aunt Marcy, and her three cousins.  After the meal, everyone decorated Nana's three Christmas trees.  Since Nana worked so hard creating the meal, she took a break in the backyard with her two youngest grandbabies.

She started out on the chaise lounge with Rossleigh.  Jake is used to being Nana's number one guy, so he decided that he would climb up into Nana's lap with his cousin.  :)  Rossleigh didn't mind sharing.  Nana didn't seem to mind either!!  ;)


Then we headed over to Gigi's and Pop's house in Bedford.  We ended up getting there later than we expected (hard to always make a "plan" with a newborn...lol), so we missed the meal.  That was okay because Rossleigh got to spend some time with her Pops, Gigi, Mimi (great grandmother), Uncle Randy, Uncle Paul, Aunt Jeanette, and her cousin.

So Rossleigh's first turkey day was fun-filled but we were all three pretty tired by the time we went back home!!  Hope your day was as fun as ours!!  :)

Prepping for Thanksgiving

As tomorrow will be Rossleigh's first "real" holiday (does Halloween count?), we went over to Nana's house today to help prepare Thanksgiving dinner.  Because of some little mishaps at home (more on this later in the post), we ended up arriving much later than we intended.  Nevertheless, we made it and were there for working on pies!  I learned how to roll how pie dough and tried to master the art of forming the dough.  I failed miserably.  Things like that really aren't a skill you just pick up; it really is an ART!!  I'll get it one of these days.  And Rossleigh?  Well, she pretty much slept through all of it...LOL

So the mishap...This child of ours is a little stinker!  I had planned on giving her a bath this morning, but delayed it due to...grunting.  Usually this loud grunting that our little sweetie does indicates that we are about to get an extra special present in her diaper.  ;)  So I waited and waited and received no "present".  I decided it must have been gas and foolishly proceeded with the bath.  She was undressed, placed in the tub, and I started bathing her.  All of a sudden the grunting starts again and I realize that the dreaded is happening - there was poop in the tub.  So I pulled Rossleigh out, cleaned her up and had her wrapped in a towel on the counter right next to me.  I got the mess out of the tub, did some disinfecting, got the child back in the tub, and we finished the bath.

Finally, I got her all dressed and smelling like a precious little baby...and the grunting starts again.  Really??  As I'm changing her "present" diaper, she peed everywhere - all over the outfit I had just put her in.  Soooo, I undressed her, got her cleaned up again, changed her clothes, and got her back to smelling like a precious little baby.  Whew!!  She wore me out!  Plus I still had to get myself dressed, get her loaded into the car, and head over to my mom's.  What a stinker!!  She doesn't do that sort of thing often (and the gift in the tub was a first), but it's actually a little - LITTLE - bit funny, so I thought I'd share.

After we got home from Nana's house, I started working in my own kitchen - Oreo Pudding Poke cake, Pumpkin Crunch cake, and Corn Casserole!!  Can't wait for tomorrow!!  :)

What a day!!

I had my postpartum visit with the fabulous Dr. Bleich today.  She finally got to hold her for the first time since her birth (removing her quickly from my womb and handing her directly to the Cook's team just doesn't seem to count).  ;)

My incision passed inspection, and other than some pain I'm having at one side of the incision, I'm good as gold!!    We'll watch the pain situation and see in a couple of weeks if it's still the same.  If that's the case, we may have to try some sort of numbing injection.  Yuck - no fun!!  So prayers for no pain would be appreciated.

Apparently, my mood swings, irritability, and general feelings of inadequacy and overwhelmedness (is that a word?) are completely normal.  No PPD here!!  It just feels like I am moodier and more hormonal NOW than I was when I was pregnant.  It seems that that's normal too!  Woo hoo!  We dig normal in the Dewey household!!  :)

Today, our little sweetie was up for almost TEN hours with no nap (other than little 10-25 minute cat naps).  The day was a weird day that messed with our schedule (what schedule?) so every time she would finally drift off in the car, we'd arrive somewhere else and she'd wake up.  OR I'd finally get her to sleep at home and then the phone would ring and she'd wake up.  Each time her nap was interrupted, it made it that much harder to get her to sleep afterwards.  She got to the point where she was just almost inconsolable and had red rings around her tired, puffy little eyes.  It was such a sad, little site with her bottom lip puffed out.  Poor baby!!  :(  Her daddy and I tag-teamed her (it's exhausting when they're just crying non-stop and you're trying every little trick you know), and we finally FINALLY got her to sleep.  LOL

Monkey girl

She wasn't very smiley for the picture, but she's normally in a REALLY good mood after waking up.  

First Laugh

What a precious, precious day!!  Rossleigh laughed for the first time today!  :)  I was holding her while on the phone with my mom.  She just kept looking up at me and grinning her beautiful, gummy grin.  When I grinned big back at her, she let out a little laugh.  It was the sweetest thing and instantly brought tears to my eyes.

Sadly, her daddy didn't get to hear it, and of course, she hasn't done it since.  LOL  I'll hopefully get it on video next time and can post it here!!  :)  Anyway, that moment with my daughter absolutely made my day and I will never ever forget it!!

We've MOVED - blogs, that is!!

Welcome to our NEW site!!  We loved the convenience of our Caring Bridge site, as it allowed us to share all of the updates about Rossleigh's birth, heart operation, recuperation, and feeding updates.  Since Caring Bridge is really designed to update loved ones on health-related events (and we are THRILLED to say that RCD is really kind of through with that), we no longer feel like we should use that site for updates.  Since we were blessed to have SO MANY people walk with us through that journey, I've had several people express some disappointment that they would no longer be able to stay updated on our little one, see pictures, etc.  I decided that I'd also like to continue having a journal of all of the comings and goings of Rossleigh's life, as well as the daily things that Lance and I experience with her as well.

SO welcome to our new digital hangout.  Here you can comment on individual posts instead of a growing guestbook, plus an added benefit of using a regular blog is that I can post videos here as well.  Since I'm all about being Rossleigh's MAMA-razzi, prepare yourself for lots of pictures and videos!!  :)  We're no Kardashian family, but I hope that you'll enjoy "keeping up with the Deweys"!!  ;)