Merry Christmas!

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Originally uploaded by amymurphey

5 + 6 + Happy Holidays!

Yes I missed Maggie's 5 month update. I must admit I just haven't been up for too much blogging lately-not to mean that there isn't anything going on- there have been happenings here in the Murphey house! So this is officially Maggie's 5 and 6 month blog, plus a little on the side.

When I last left you I think I was so sleep deprived that I thought I might need sent to the looney bin. Around 5 months Maggie started sleeping better, but then as everything in a perfect world, she got sick. Horrible cough, sneezing, snot the whole works. I am sure that many of you already know that there really isn't a whole lot that you can do for a sick baby- Tylenol, vaporizer, snot suction, that is really about it. There isn't baby cough medicine so all you can do is let them cough. With all the coughing (which is always worse at night it seems) the whole sleeping thing went out the window. In the midst of all of the sickness, we had Thanksgiving here (the photo above is Thanksgiving- Maggie is wearing cousin Aidan's bow!). I have to say though, that this was quite nice because my parents came from Kansas, and it was the first time my Mom-got to see Maggie since she was born. Maggie loved all of the attention from her Grandma Jo! So we visited with the Grandparents, and Maggie scored an early Christmas- which she loved with the paper and boxes etc. My Mom and I even got up on Black Friday at 3:30 a.m. (I wasn't sleeping anyway! LOL)and hit a few sales- snagging down $150 comforters for $25. The scene was quite funny really- I had actually never seen that many people at a store- the line went across the front of the store and snaked down the entire parking lot. It was really quite orderly though- none of the trampling ala Wal-Mart...

So two weeks of sick and Mag was better- and now at 6 months old, I can say she is sleeping! I am almost afraid to say it, because I might jinx it or might have to eat crow in my next post- but she IS sleeping- for now. In fact I can put her down awake (most of the time) and she has been falling asleep on her own- waking maybe once, maybe not, although she gets up E A R L Y -mama is not an early bird but I will take it. She has also been napping. Sooo, I guess she needed to do it all in her own good time. The one thing I really had no clue about with this whole parenting thing though was the sleeping. I just pretty much thought that at like 3 months they start sleeping through-like no biggie, and it really just doesn't work that way does it?

What else? She has been eating baby food! Rice cereal and oatmeal, (loves) banana, carrots, pears and sweet potato-but not so much on the peas just like Dad! She is also starting to locomote. Her favorite means of tranportation? Rolling. She rolls and then rolls again and then next thing we know she is 5 feet away. So I don't know if crawling will happen soon or what. As much as we want her to crawl, it is a little daunting to think about. Right now she is content to hang out at my feet while I am at the computer, or on her blanket while I do dishes and I know it will all change. Maggie loves toys of all kinds, but especially if they make music or noise- and is always busy, busy, busy at something. She has also been sitting up some- she props herself up with her hand. While most of the time she is pretty thoughtful and serious-she is very easy to smile and loves being tickled. She has become my little partner that I run errands with or shop with, and is usually pretty good in public and going in the car-knock on wood. Such a change from the little tiny baby who would scream her head off the minute she touched the carseat. She is such a beautiful little girl and our love for her is endless. I am so lucky that I get to spend my days (and nights!) with her.

Amiel is busy at work- he has been working at the Polo club equestrian center remodeling all kinds of barns, tack rooms and the like. His latest job is to convert a free standing garage to an apartment, complete with kitchen, laundry, bath etc. He enjoys the work though, and gets to do the whole thing from design to finish. I stay busy with Maggie and enjoy being home with her. I have been knitting a little, and am working on what I think might be the ugliest baby sweater that you have ever seen.

While I write this the weather here is -5 and cold is an understatement. We are staying in Denver for the holidays and will celebrate with Amiel's folks, and then friends from San Francisco. We are so thankful for this year and everything and everyone! it has brought to us.

Happy Holidays to all!

Little Bee

Here is the direct link to the video if it doesn't work for you:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5158388977213404247&hl=en

FINALLY we get it right!!

Go Obama-how freakin' exciting is this??!!!! We had a great time watching the numbers roll in last night over at my MIL's house- ate dinner and drank, celebrating Obama's win..The only downer of the night was the damn kid that kept stealing her Obama signs out of her front yard (she lives in McCain country) but even that was a little funny as we tried to catch him in the act....
I know that it will be a long process- but after the endless campaigning, war, and heartbreak of our current economy- we finally have something to look forward to!

Gotcha!!! Happy Halloween!!!!!!!!!////!!!!!!!!!

Check out MJ's first Halloween- we have 2 costumes thanks to Grandma Ollie's garage sale skills.. I think she was a much happier ladybug than princess!

120 Days of (no sleep til' Brooklyn) Maggie Jo

Wow. What a crazy month. We moved to a new house, (yes again!!) and now that we have Maggie our "stuff " seemed to have multiplied exponentially- and we already had a bunch of stuff... It wasn't too bad though, moving across town (versus across the country)and allowed us some extra time, although I am not sure if that was good or bad as we seemed to let it drag out a bit. Thank goodness for Amiel's folks helping us out. I am not sure but I think we might have given up that first moving day if they hadn't shown up to keep Maggie occupied! But we are here now still with a ton to unpack-picking at it slowly. It all sits in the garage and I spent my time pretending that it is not there until my much more ambitious husband comes home from work.

Our little baby girl is getting big and is very, very cute. She is incredibly active now and "moves" constantly-we call her the wiggle worm. She babbles all the time, smiles a ton, giggles when tickled, is turning over (sometimes) and can "spin" around if laying on her back. She also loves to stand when held and has been enjoying time in her Johnny Jumper. She has also seemingly decided that sleeping is for wussies, and even though we have spent time trying to convince her Mom and Dad are definitely wussies, she doesn't seem to care. Once upon a time in an alternate universe, (that I still am hopeful to return to), she would take naps and was even sleeping through the night, usually waking only once in the early morning. But that was apparently not meant to last. Amiel and I have never been as tired as we are right now in this minute. We both pretty much have a bedtime of 8:00 and are fearful every time our heads hit the pillow of the dreaded nightwakings that are occuring regularly now. Hopefully, by next month this will have worked itself out. I don't know. Actually I'm sleeping right now while I type this post.

90 Days of Maggie

You may be wondering where my 3 month post is- yes it is late... I did manage to do her 3 month video on time though which is good..we have been videoing her on her monthly birthdays, just little tidbits on what she is doing etc..hopefully we will be able to get one year on one disc. So Maggzilla is weighing in at roughly 12.5 lbs, has upped her diaper size to #2's and is wearing 3-6 month old clothes. She really smiles at us alot now and can hold her head up pretty well. I think that she is getting her two top teeth as her gums are bumpy and swollen and she drools and chews on everything. We have also had some pretty grumpy days on and off with lots of crying and minimal napping, so it seems to fit. 3 months seems a little young for teeth, but I read it isn't that unusual..my aunt says her daughter teethed at 3 1/2 months or so. She has a johnny jumper that she likes alot, not much jumping but she stands in it and plays with toys. Her smarty pants dad figured out we can swing her in it too since she is still small and she falls asleep in it- pretty cute. It is fun to see her learning things everyday, one day she starts doing something that she wasn't the day before, it is pretty amazing to watch...Here is her discovery of Baby Einstein. I hadn't intended for her to even be interested in it, but she so is!

Maggie Jo's First Camping Trip!

Yes we went camping with a 2 1/2 month old- big deal. You should have heard people when we asked them if they take their kids camping- most of them said no way, not to do it until they are 3-4 years old!! Whatever. We like a challenge! It wasn't as easy as it used to be, we had more stuff than ever before, but it was far from impossible... The only bad thing was that it got a little colder than we anticipated, but Maggie slept with me on my cot, so she was fine. Amiel got some rock climbing in with his buddies and all the girls (Amy, Maggie, Sheila, Nelli!!) hung out at camp, or went hiking. Next summer will be even better I am sure...

She Sews!

I've gotten a little sewing done over the past couple of days- in addition to the 3 little bibs, I made 2 lined clutch cases, and an appliqued onesie. Technically, I robbed the onesie idea from someone off Etsy, but that's ok right? I'm excited that I got to use some of my vintage buttons from my most fav. place in the whole world- the Alemany flea market in SF.

60 days of Maggie and......lots o' shots!

Sweet Maggie Jo turns 2 months old today! It is hard to believe, in part because it seems like she has always been here, yet 2 months is not a long time..Lets see, she had her 2 month check up today and now weighs in at 11.7 lbs and is a whopping 23 1/2 inches long (95th percentile). She also got- 3 SHOTS! It goes against all of your parental instinct to hold your 2 month old down on a paper covered table while she screams bloody murder. It has been a rough afternoon- poor baby woke up from a nap and just cried/screamed- "she might be fussy" Doc said- fussy is not an accurate assessment. After some grape Tylenol (yum), and a long bath she conked out at 5:30, so we shall see what the night has in store...

What else- hmmm??? Well, I sewed some cute baby bibs as seen here- they turned out pretty well, very simple, but nice instant gratification- if you like that sort of thing.

Annie Leibovitz watch out!

So somewhere in all the crap that was thrust upon us in the months prior to Maggie's birth, (come on people, you know we really didn't need that toy keyboard with the stuck keys from 1989-two words here: Goodwill- please.) there was a book entitled "How to Photograph Your Baby". Until now it has been officially ignored on Maggie's dresser- I say until now, because as soon as someone sees my photos I will be forced into the limelight as photography's the next best thing. Just kidding. Seriously though, I am glad I have a digital because I took about 100 pictures to get 4 or 5 that looked ok. It was fun though... for me. Maggie? Not so sure she dug it that much. Oh well, it will pay off to be this obsessive someday- I just know it. Here are a few pics.

Addendum to the above statement:

This is to everyone (no Mom it wasn't crap, just being funny) that gave us stuff for Maggie- thank you, we got a lot of nice things and we do appreciate it.

Demotivational Posters Rock

I have spent a good portion of free time this morning laughing my arse off looking at demotivational posters on the internet. So many- so little time....

Good Friends. Good Weekend.

Our friends Zo and Kate came up for the weekend from Las Vegas. We haven't seen them since their wedding in September, so it was great! It was also our first big outing since Maggie was born. She spent the night (yes the whole night!) at Grandma Ollie's. She did fine, it was Mom that broke down- just a little when we left her Sat. night :(
She did great though, for Grandma, even drank good from her bottle. We picked her up the next day and went with Zo and Kate to Estes Park- it was beautiful, only about 78 degrees when we got there. It even treated us to a mountain thunderstorm which cooled things off even more.

Amiel's Ailments

Poor Cinci- it has been a rough week. First off, it has been between 95-100 degrees for like 20 days or something, and we bake in our little brick house with no A/C. Maggie and I pretty much spend all our time in the basement during the day. Amiel has been working outside and comes home to our hot box every night. If you know Cinc at all you know how warm blooded he is anyway and much he sweats. I mean, it can be 32 degrees and he will be sweating. This week with all the heat he came down with a mean case o' tinea cruris (if you really want to know, look it up) a very friendly little fungus. We are um, sparing you the picture on this one even though he wanted to post it. Then he cut his knee and it turned all red, streaky and hot-and we found out he had cellulitis. If that wasn't enough he was cutting metal of some sort at work and it sparked off into his eyes (and no he wasn't wearing his googles)- and they had to pick tiny metal pieces out of his eyes and face with tweezers- fun, fun. So please pour on all the sympathy you can for poor Puddin- he needs you.

Slings and Such Things

Ok, for those of you not well versed in the language of "babywearing" here is my quickie on carrying your baby. Mostly this post is about me wearing my baby and the things I wear my baby in- got it? This is also to vent a little about said apparati. My first sling was purchased well before Maggie was born and is a ring sling something like this one

Well for the life of me I cannot figure out how in the hell this thing is suppose to work! It is a huge struggle to get her in it and once she is, she is crunched up and lost in the bottom of it- I have not been able to really get much use out of it. It also kind of hurts my back because she is just swinging there around my neck. Any suggestions? And yes I have read and watched every video on in internet. I am wondering if waiting until she is older and can sit up and hold her head up will help- i dunno.

My next sling is actually a wrap- called Moby. It is actually so far my favorite, however for all the positions that you are supposed to be able to wear them in, I only have one that she seems to like- see picture. Once again I think once she gets older it will be better. However, I am worried about having her legs dangle out because of something I read about proper spine development etc. The other downside is getting in the darn thing, it is not something that you just slip on- you have to tie it first and it is really, really long, so the ends end up all over the ground or in somebody's gum in the Target parking lot.

Numero tres is supposed to be the best thing since sliced bread, and that is the Ergo. Don't even ask how much this thing costs. This one is supposed to be the best for spine development, ergonomically correct for the wearer etc. You can also wear the baby front and back. So far this one has not blown me away as I expected. It is not quite as comfortable for me as I thought it would be- the straps dig a little and I haven't found myself loving it. It is hard to get her down in it, but she sits sideways which is nice. I feel like I am squishing her a bit with the insert (the green thing in the pic), but she seems content when we get her in it. Maybe this one will be better when she is older too? Common theme here. One other thing- it really doesn't fit all people- Amiel can barely get it on and is not comfortable for either of them if he tries to wear her.

The good news is that she doesn't seem to mind riding in whatever I put her in and usually falls asleep. I guess thats the point huh?

Twin Lakes

We took a nice little trip to the mountains this past weekend- it was way nicer there than here! About 70 degrees during the day vs. the 90+ degree heat that Denver has had (and we have NO A/C) Maggie did great and really seemed to enjoy the outdoors and riding around in her Moby sling. Amiel did catch one little fish. I am afraid we distracted him from his fisherman duties quite a bit. Here is a little vid of the dogs having lots of fun and hopefully not scaring the fish away (yeah right).

It's Summertime Baby!

Here's to Friday night happy hours around the world! Try this yummy cocktail-

Tequila

Juice of 1 Lemon

Creme de Cassis (sweet berry type liqueur)

Ginger Ale

Perfect for the sizzling heat and purdy too!

And yes I have been watching too much food network tv during the day....

Who's your daddy?

Here is a baby pic of Cinc and his older brother Terry..quite a resemblance to her daddy no?

30 days of Maggie!

Maggie had her 1mo check up yesterday- she weighs in now at 9lbs 9oz and is 22 inches long! I think she is going to be a tall girl. And as the Dr. noted she is starting to aquire a bit of a double chin! :) As they say: she likes boobie like fat kids like cake.

She is very cute and is starting to coo and make little noises. She tends to have a serious expression on her face alot- no big smiles yet..... She likes her swing (most of the time) and getting a bath. She still isn't crazy about the car or riding in her carseat and pretty much manages to keep mommy at home because of this. She has several nicknames-
mag pie, pumpkin, pumpkin head, monkey, crab apple, mj, and of course we call her maggie jo all the time. I am amazed at how sweet and soft she is and how much we both love her.

More Maggie Pics

These are for you Mom!

Maggie's Birth Day!

So here goes a little bit about Maggie's birth on the 20th..
I was due on the 14th of June and that date came and went with nothing. No contractions, no twinges of anything happening...so I went about my week, a little (lot) aggravated and ready to have a baby. My Mom was here from Kansas and had been since the Friday before, also awaiting the baby, so I was just ready to have this kid! Seriously tired of people asking when was going to have it. I had a follow up with my Dr. on the 19th and when I went in I was surprised that my blood pressure was up- it was 144/88. I was only dilated though to 1 cm. They took my BP several times while I was there and they were all in the 140 range. So knew something was up when the Dr. asked if my husband was around- took my blood pressure again, and then said "well we are going to have a baby today". The Dr. was concerned I was showing signs of preeclampsia, and decided to induce my labor. So she gave me an hour to go home get my bags and get back to the hospital.. I was very calm at this point, I guess you just get there mentally and know that it has to happen. I wasn't overly thrilled about being induced, but didn't want to have anything go wrong with the baby either. Amiel met me at the hospital and we checked in, got to the birth suite which was huge-Rose Med. Center was awesome- and I got pretty settled in. Had to have an IV and all this other blood drawn etc, etc- the blood work all came back normal, no preeclampsia. So basically the plan was to start the induction with Cytotek- sp? It is a small little tic tac thing they insert next to your cervix to soften it, then after it starts working they hit you up with Pitocin to get your contractions started.. That was the plan anyway.
The Cytotek alone ended up putting me into labor quickly, I had almost immediate contractions. And they were very fast and very hard. I hadn't been sure about getting pain relief, but now know there is no way I could have done it without it. We checked in about 1:oo in the afternoon, my labor was started about 2:30 and by 6:00 I had an epidural- which was the best thing ever, ever, ever. Amiel said it was the first time I smiled since we got into the hospital.
The epidural was fine, it didn't hurt at all really- I think having the IV put in was worse. The hard part was curling up in a ball- a. like you can do that when hugely pregnant, and b. stay still through contractions. Anyways, the Cytotek worked all night and by 5 am I was dilated almost to 9cm. I was completely elated thinking this would all be over by morning- I was very wrong. Basically I stayed at 9cm all morning, and at 11:00 they decided to finally start Pitocin to see if they could get things moving again. So they started it in my IV and all I can say is Pitocin is evil. I know it was a necessary evil, but that stuff is crazy! They kept uping the dosage every 1/2 hour or so and I was contracting so hard that I could feel it through the epidural. At 2:00 I still was only about 9/12 cm dilated and my cervix wasn't completely thinned out either. I was getting pretty frustrated at this point. The other scary thing was that the baby's heartbeat kept dropping- it would go from 145 (normal) down to 60 and then back up. The nurses kept coming in when this would happen- at one point like 5 of them came running in. It really freaked me out, and then all I could focus on was the heart monitor. So my Dr. came in and said that if things didn't start happening soon we were going to have to "consider another way to get the baby out". My labor nurse Nora- who was incredibly awesome, suggested we try just a few pushes while she pushed on my cervix a bit. Well that seemed to work because within a half hour we were pushing for real. So with a bit of an audience- my mom, Amiel's mom, Amiel and of course Nora and the Dr. we pushed. It was a lot of work, but I was a good pusher (maybe they tell that to every laboring woman) and I managed to push her down pretty quickly, but her cord was wrapped around her neck, and we needed to get her out fast, so out came the suction cup thing that they put on their heads. Long story short with the suction out she came. The first thing I thought, which is so funny now in retrospect, was "she doesn't look like me at all". We all shed a few tears- honestly mine were both because she was here and because it was over. Amiel was great, he stayed with me the first minute after birth and then went to be with the baby as they checked her over. He really helped me through the whole thing, there is something very comforting about having the person you trust most with you. Even though things weren't quite as planned, really it does end up being more about the result than the path that you took.
We roomed in with baby and I started breastfeeding- she has really taken to it well. On her first ped. visit she gained back the weight she lost after birth, and weighed in over her birth weight at 8 lbs 7 oz! My recovery was a little challenging. I didn't quite feel like myself there for awhile, I didn't think it would take so much out of me, but am feel much better now- even with sleep deprivation... Well I guess that in a nut shell are the gory details.. Maggie is so cute and tasty- we both love giving her little face lots of kisses..She likes baths and being swaddled, but hates being in her carseat, and having her diaper changed- oh well, we'll keep working on it..
We will keep ya'll updated here on our little Mag Pie.. Love to All!
Amy

Maggie Jo Murphey 6-20-08

Here are some pics from Maggie's first week..we are all doing well and adjusting to life together. Maggie is a little pistol and already manages to command us around! She looks quite a bit like Amiel. It has been a whirlwind of days since she has been born. Thanks to everyone who called and emailed us- we appreciate all of your support and good wishes.. Love, Amy, Amiel and Maggie.

More details to follow on her birth soon...