Emerson is 7 months (Sept 4)

Emerson is growing and changing every day. She is loving her new found tricks of being able to crawl and stand. She is standing while holding onto something most of the time. The dishwasher is her favorite thing to stand by. This grosses me out because she ideally likes to stand by it while I am loading dirty dishes in it. It is usually a race to see if we can get the dishwasher loaded before she realizes it is open.

She is following in the footsteps of the other and loves being outdoors! If the big kids are out and she is stuck inside with me, she stands at the window and pounds on it and yells to go out. She loves her baby swing outside and going on walks in the carrier or the stroller. Luckily the weather has been good lately because she gets drug to a lot of soccer and football games.

Cheering on her favorite team!

This month she started eating more and more finger foods. She has done great with all the baby foods we have introduced and has not had any reactions to them so we have started giving her some of the foods that we eat. She has tried rice, potatoes, spaghetti noodles and mac n cheese. What can I say, she takes after me and loves her carbs.

She has started to be more aware of things that are going on around her and has become a very distracted nurser lately. One of the biggest reasons is the puppy. She loves to watch Penny as she walks around. Every time Emmy hears the jingle of Penny's collar she looks around for her. Penny is a pretty good sport and lets Emmy pet her and play with her collar as long as she gets a treat afterward.

Emmy is our child, so it goes without saying that she is still a pretty terrible sleeper. I am pretty sure this is learned behavior that we allow. I am bad at the "cry it out" method not to mention that doesn't work very well when you have a baby and a 5 year old sharing a room. She still nurses every 3-4 hours day and night and now eats table food or baby food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. What can I say, this little girl likes her food!

 

Soccer

This fall we encouraged Abby to pick at least one activity to participate in. Her choice....Soccer. Robb is such a good sport and graciously agreed to coach. Their team started out really rough. They really only had one girl that was aggressive about getting the ball at all and they only had 5 players so not many girls to swap out when they got tired. As to be expected, many of the girls weren't thrilled with running too much or getting sweaty. The first 2 games were pretty ugly and although the girls didn't realize that they were bad, it was kind of painful to watch.

Then.....oddly enough they really started to improve. Now 2 girls were pretty aggressive about getting the ball and another 2 girls were also really getting the hang of controlled kicks to make their way down the field. Abby improved a ton from the beginning of the season to the end. She still isn't a competitive little girl but she did a good job following the ball down the field and even got a few good kicks in here and there. For a team that lost their first 2 games miserably they really turned it around and won almost all their games from there on out.

 

It was quite a switch for Robb. I think he found out coaching little girls was much different than coaching boys. He did wonderful though. The team name was West Ham (a professional team) the girls didn't understand this name and didn't like it so they came up with their own each time. Robb was heard in the huddle multiple times saying "OK GO puppies, kitties, ducks and zebras. All the parents got a good laugh out of this.

This was the first time that Abby has played a sport. It was fun to watch her play and it was really fun to watch Robb coach her team. I think she really enjoyed it and she plans to play in the spring again.

Fall Football

Bryce and Caleb played flag football again this fall. They loved it this spring and they were so excited to play this fall. Robb had signed up to be the coach but since they ended up combining some of the schools he wasn't the main coach. He was pretty bummed about this but it worked out alright since we struggle to get our schedules coordinated anyway.

 

The boys had a blast and they had a couple of their friends on their team. Crazy Kasten being one of them.

This time around they had refs which was fun for them. It was nice because the coaches could focus more on the kids instead of having to make the calls. The YMCA refs did a really good job explaining why they called what they called and telling the boys what they needed to do differently.

The Jets

 Caleb really got into football this season and even says it is now his favorite sport. Robb was a little sad that football has now surpassed golf. He really enjoyed playing all the positions and having a chance to yell GO JETS as loud as he wanted on the sidelines.

Bryce really enjoyed getting the ball and was the coaches choice when he needed someone to throw a deep pass. Bryce gets pretty serious about all things that he likes so he put a lot of thought into what plays they would run and strategize with Caleb and Kasten as to how they were going to win.

This time around the weather was much better than the weather this spring so Emerson and I were able to go to most of the games. It was really fun watching how much they have improved this season.

Emmy's Surgery (August 27th)

We rescheduled Emerson's surgery for a week later, so we were back in Omaha to try this again. This time she was over her cold so the risk for the surgery was very minimal. Since we had to reschedule she didn't get the 7am spot anymore, this time her surgery time was 4:00pm. This made things a little complicated as far as not letting her have any food or drinks for 4 hours prior to this. By the time we got there she was already getting a little fussy. It was hard because she would snuggle into me and pull on my shirt trying to tell me she wanted to eat and I couldn't feed her. Robb had to take her for a lot of the time we spent waiting because she was so confused as to why I wouldn't feed her.

We spent almost an hour pushing her around the halls in this little car. She loved it!

Dr. Puccioni ended up running almost 2 hours behind. I know that things like that happen in the hospital but it didn't stop me from being really frustrated as the mom when it is your baby that is starving,

She finally fell asleep and then they came to take her back. She was asleep when they took her which made it easier on us but I'm sure she was scared when she woke up to strangers. The surgery took only about 30min from start to finish. The nurse came to get me as soon as the took her to the recovery room and I got to feed her right away. It is always such a relief to get your baby back in your arms after they have surgery.

She was a little confused as she was waking up and went back and forth between happy and smiling and thrashing around and fussing. They kept her for about an hour and then they released us. We were happy to get home. Emerson did great overnight and if anything slept better than she usually does. The next day I had to work but Grandma Susie was there to snuggle her all day for us. The scar ended up being larger than we had thought it would be but I think it will heal pretty well. They stitched deeper and then glued the top layer of skin but they had it marked with a surgical marker and it almost looked like they had large stitches in there. We are relieved it is over and done with and the bump which we affectionately called her "unicorn" is gone.

Emmy's Surgery Take 1 (August 20)

Emerson has had a small bump on the front, right side of her scalp since she was born. In the last 6 months it has gotten a little bigger and it used to be moveable it is now fixed. Dr, David has been watching it really close and has finally made the decision that he wanted us to see a Neurosurgeon in Omaha. We met with Dr. Puccioni last month and he agreed that it should be removed sooner than later but he was very confident that it was just a little dermoid cyst. We weren't thrilled putting her through surgery at such a young age but trusted the doctors we had seen and went ahead and scheduled it. The week of surgery Emmy was really congested and had a snotty nose but we had seen Dr. David for our pre op appointment and he didn't think it would be too big of a problem. So, she didn't get anything to eat after 4 am and we were in Omaha by 7am. The anesthesiologist was nervous about how congested she was and when Dr. Puccioni saw her he decided that it would be best to wait. Since this was an elective surgery he said there was no reason to take undo risks by doing it while she was sick, As disappointed as we were we wanted everything to be safe for her so we headed back to Lincoln and planned to rescheduled for next week.

Emerson at 6 months (Aug 4, 2014)

You are growing like a weed! I try to treasure each milestone knowing that is the last time I will have this first with one of my children. Not sure if that makes sense but that is how I have been feeling about you growing up. You are in such a rush to be one of the "big" kids! You aren't interested in baby toys, you want things like the Lego's and Abby's nail polish. You really are a joy to have around and you add a whole other dynamic to our household. Your brothers who are always trying to be "cool" just melt when you laugh, smile and squeal at them. They are always willing to pick you up and carry you around or sit and play with you. Abby, who sometimes has trouble not being the baby anymore is such a little mommy to you. She is often telling Dad or your brothers that they need to be watching you closer or taking care of you differently. We are all in love with you!

You are trying so hard to crawl and you are just desperate to get where you want to go by yourself. You can go from laying to sitting and then into a crawling position. Right now you just rock back and worth though.

 

 

You are a little piglet. You are loving food! You are still nursing every 3-4 hours and you now have breakfast every morning consisting of oatmeal or rice cereal and a fruit. You also eat supper now too. You are working your way through the first foods. I have decided to be a little crazy this time around and I have been making all your food so far. I have had fun doing it but I'm sure that when you start eating more I will need to buy more of your food. You also really enjoy puffs. Just like Caleb used to do, you use the lick and stick method to get those little crunchies into your mouth.

Sleeping....... well you are following in your sister's footsteps and you are not a very good sleeper. The main problem is that you really like to eat. You still get up at lease once if not twice in the middle of the night to eat. However, you have been sleeping in your crib for the most part.

You are wearing 6-9 month clothes and we are starting to break out some of the 9 month stuff because you are getting so long. You weigh 18lbs and you are 26 inches long. You are going to be tall like daddy.

Things you like: outside, riding in the carrier for walks, your sis and brothers, food, all puppies, toys that are too tiny and are potentially dangerous,

I can't wait to see all the ways you will change in the months to come even though I wish I could freeze time and keep you little for just a little longer!

Time for Tubes

It is the curse of being one of our children, you are going to have terrible ears!

Each of our kids has had trouble with ear infections and Emerson was no exception. She had already had her 3 ear infections by 5 months and had been on 3 different kinds of antibiotics so it was time to get tubes. I remember it being a big deal when the boys got tubes but after going through her surgery on her head this seemed like nothing. Our appointment was at 7am so Emerson and I got up early and got there by 6 am to check in. She wasn't too upset about not eating yet and they got her back there fast and before I knew it she as done and back in my arms. Her and I went home for a day of snuggles. She did great.