Sleep Study Results Are In

John had been waiting for last night for a long time.  He had to arrive at the sleep clinic at 8pm and get all those fancy wires hooked up to his head.  They showed him to his hotel-like room where he got to watch TV until they told him he could go to sleep.  He slept for about three hours until they woke him up to confirm that he indeed has sleep apnea.  Since sleep apnea is hereditary and a significant portion of the people on his Dad's side have it, John wasn't surprised with the diagnosis.  John had been waking up over 40 times an hour.  After they had him try sleeping with several different CPAPs, John was actually able to get into a REM cycle! 

The clinic sent John home with his CPAP of choice - one without a mask, just straps to his head with oxygen tubes to sit in his nostrils.  He said it is pretty quiet and maybe this will help his snoring too. 

I am so happy for John that he might finally get some good nights of sleep.  I know the aparatus in itself will not be cheap, but for him to finally feel rested is priceless.

Not Me is Back!

I kind of miss doing these posts so we're going to give it another whirl.  Not sure if I'll have enough to write about every week but we'll do our best.

The Saturday before Father's Day, I did not mix up and freeze three batches of homemade ice cream.  Butter Pecan, Chocolate with Peanut Butter Chips and Chocolate with Snickers Bars - Yum!  I did not make up a batch of Vanilla to bring into work earlier in the week.  I think that might be the extent of my ice cream making for the summer unless I get a different kind of ice cream machine.  The old-school bucket style (luckily it has a motor) is a lot of work.

Daddy did not get to show off his little girl at Home Depot on Father's Day.  Not quite the same audience as at the EP store but he still had fun bringing her around to his employees.  John brought Megan in to the EP yesterday and got a little baby Home Depot apron.  It's so cute!

I did not finally have a response to my Craigslist add to sell John's old 48" JVC Projection TV.  The guy called me the night before Father's Day after I finished with the ice cream.  He did not call me again at noon the next day (Father's Day) at wanting to pick it up right after lunch at my parents'.  My brother came along to help the guy load it up in his van where it just barely fit.  After they got it loaded he asked what was really wrong with it since he was planning to use ours as parts for his own recently which had also just konked out.  He thought maybe this was what was wrong with his - oops, sorry too late - it's in the van already!  And then I forgot to send the remote along with him.  Mailed the remote that week and heard back that he was able to get his TV up and working and is now left with a big paperweight in his garage.  Better in his garage than ours!

John's Explorer is back in the garage.  Good thing, too, because some kids did not go through the Explorer one night when it was parked in our driveway.  They went through the arm rest and glove box and all they took were a few cards of Imodium! 

A little birdie did not poop on Megan's shirt during our Thursday picnic 'n' a park outing.  That was a little gross, especially since she smeared it around a little. 

I did not sleep in (or Megan did not let me sleep in) until 6:30 on Sunday morning.  By time I got her fed and quieted down it was way too late to make it to 8:15 church.  "That's fine," I thought, and decided to simply go to the later service.  Only when I got there at 10:45 I was embarassed and very disappointed to find out that the second service is at 10:00 during the summer.  Megan hadn't not gone to church a week since she was born.  We technically did "go to church".  Think this still counts?

Big Growth Spurt Proves BIG Results

Now that Megan has finished her 2+ week growth spurt we are starting to see and reap the benefits.  She's sleeping better again and she's getting pretty consistent with 9 hours at a time...(knock on wood).  We have a calendar which she received at her baptism hanging on the wall by the changing table where we write noteable moments.  This week is filling up!

Megan is officially out of the 0-3 month clothes now.  A couple nights ago I went to held up a sleeper next to her that she wore just a week before.  It was getting snug then but there was no way it (or any more that size) are getting on her.  It seems like she just shot up over night.

Megan discovered her toes!  She just cannot stop reaching her left hand down to meet her left foot.  It's so exciting to see but made bedtime a little tough tonight.  Not even the blankets can help her resist the urge to play with her toes!

The next big thing you read about in my last post.  She rocked and rocked and rocked herself, turning a complete 360 on the floor.

With all that rockin', Megan decided to give us a little rollin' tonight.  That's right!  She finally did it.  And the best part is that John and I were both there to witness her first roll!  John was playing with Megan on the floor while I was "making" her supper.  He turned her on her tummy for some variety.  She held her torso up so high and then started rockin' again.  Before we knew it, she had flipped!  Luckily I had a camera in hand although these are not the best pictures.

Our baby girl is getting soooo big!  And yes, John and I did get teary eyed (just a little...) at her rolling accomplishment.  Just the start of many big things to come.  Mommy and Daddy love you, baby girl!

A Full 360

As Daddy was rounding the bases at his softball game tonight, Megan was doing some rounding on her own.  She barely napped at all at Grandma's today and when I picked her up after work you could tell she was tired.  Once we got home she pretty much slept the entire time when she wasn't fussing.  Getting ready for bed, I changed her diaper and she became a little more alert and looked like she wanted to play before settling in for the night.  So I put her on the floor to let her stretch and move her body.  During the 10 minutes she was rockin' on the floor she managed to rotate herself a full 360 degrees!

All this exercising exhausted poor Megan.  Soon after she was sleeping like a... well, what else... a baby!

Shhh...Don't Wake the Baby...

This is how I found Megan at 5:45 Sunday morning. I debated whether or not to take the picture and risk waking her up with the camera's flash. It didn't and I'm so glad I captured this priceless moment.
And after she woke up for her morning feeding, she went right back to this same sleeping position.

Happy Father's Day

Anyone can be a Father.

But it takes someone special to be a DAD.

Megan at 3 Months

This past Monday, Megan turned three months old.  How time "flies" when you're having fun! 

Weighing in at about 14 1/2 pounds and measuring about 24 1/2 inches long, Megan is starting to be our little chunky monkey and her 0-3 month outfits are just now starting to get a little snug.  She is just the perfect size for cuddling, not too big and not too little.  I enjoy cuddle time when she gets sleepy and after she finishes her bottle.  Since we switched to exclusive bottle-feeding and got her back on her vitamins, her gas is more manageable and spitups are almost non-existent.  However, her appetite went through the roof!  I hope this is just a long growth spurt because she is sure eating a lot.  She has been doing about 5 oz every 2 hours for the past 2 weeks!  Her sleeping pattern is also up and down.  She is very aware of her surroundings and knows when you leave her alone for even a minute.  Megan had been doing really well with her sleeping-through-the-night routine until just this last week where she started to wake up around 2 or 4 for a bottle.  Hopefully we can get her back on track for the coming week.  Since Megan is getting stronger it's harder for her to stay swaddled up (our little swaddle Houdini!) and when she stretches out she can also touch the blankets at the end of her crib with her feet and move around which also may contribute to her not sleeping as well. 

Megan continues to get smilier and smilier as the days go by.  It's getting easier to make her smile and really knows her mommy and daddy along with grandparents.  She gets so excited when we get close and starts waving her arms excitedly.  Megan's voice is getting stronger too.  In fact, John and I just stop and laugh sometimes because when she gets really loud it actually sounds like she is scolding us.  Still no rolling over yet, but she still can get from her back to her side easily and if she does that enough times, she can rotate her body on the floor.

More pictures as we celebrated Megan's 3 month birthday!

Megan, the Human Shield

John's softball team had a game late last Tuesday night.  Megan and I went to cheer him on.  John's mom and aunt Susan came to watch too and we were sitting in the bleachers behind the backstop.  In one of the last innings, someone hit a ball landing on the net right above us.  The ump said something about running out of balls so someone from the Hoppers decided to throw his glove up at the net to knock the ball down.  Well, needless-to-say, the glove went nowhere near the net or the ball, and instead, headed our direction.  My first instinct was to run out of the way, which is what I did.  Val's, who was holding Megan, first instinct was to hold up Megan to protect herself.  Luckily the glove didn't hit any of us, but the whole game did come to a halt as everyone watched what was going on in the bleachers. 

Note: No babies were harmed in the writing of this blog post.

Lewis Updates with J&K

It's been a while since we gave updates about ourselves. I'm sure most of you already know what's below but I wanted to give a quick recap.

John was relocated from Eden Prairie to the Chaska Home Depot and has been there almost a month now. HR found out that he was sometimes supervisor over his Dad and Grandma and someone had to move. He is now a department head over the Hardware department. It's a smaller store and smaller department (even though there's a lot more inventory to manage), so, unfortunately, it means he works every weekend. It works out better for watching Megan, but we don't see each other as much right now. The new department is challenging his weaknesses. He mastered the special order piece of the business while being in Kitchens, but now has to tackle the inventory side. But what better place to grow than in a place where no one knows you very well. It sounds like he is already making good changes within his department. John doesn't have the keys to the store quite yet, but will soon once he gets just a little more familiar with this store.

John goes to the sleep clinic at Ridgeview on the 29th of this month. He snores quite a bit (ok, a lot) and never really feels rested even after sleeping a long time. He is pretty sure he has sleep apnea and in a few weeks we will find out for sure. With having Megan now he needs to be fully rested in the morning and would just give him more energy all around. John also went in for a test recently to try and determine why he is coughing all the time. He has been since this time last year and hasn't gotten any better. He had to drink some barium liquid as the doctors watched it going down. We don't know the results of this test yet but hopefully we will soon.

John is playing softball again this summer. Although he has had to miss some games due to work scheduling and weather, he is having a fun time playing with family. And Megan likes watching her daddy play too!

I have been back to work at YA Corp for 2 1/2 weeks now and it has been nice. I do enjoy the time away from the house, interaction with people who can talk back to me, and a little mental stimulation is always good.

Between working, pumping, helping with meals and trying to spend quality time with my husband and daughter, there hasn't been a whole lot of time for anything else right now. John thinks that's good because it keeps me from spending money and keeps me away from garage sales! I did enjoy Memorial Day weekend because I was able to bake several rhubarb streussel bars and my first cheesecake. I'm looking forward to mixing up some tasty Father's Day treats as well.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........

We knew it would happen eventually but I never knew it would be this great. Since Memorial Day weekend (about 2 weeks ago), Megan has been pretty consistently sleeping through the night. We had just a few middle-of-the-night feedings this last week, but otherwise she has been doing great. We have been trying to keep Megan on a 9pm bedtime schedule. From there, she will sleep until about 5am, which is 8 hours. She actually started out doing about 9 hours but is settling in at 8. It really works out perfectly for our schedules as that's the time I should be getting up for work anyways. I feed her when she wakes up, change her diaper, put her back to bed and she'll usually sleep for another 2 1/2 - 3 hours. So in an 11-12 hour stretch she'll just wake up just once for food. Sometimes she does stir during the night but generally I have been successful at getting her back to sleep. We probably could try to get her on an earlier bedtime schedule and probably will in the fall, but summertimes are always busy, it stays light for so long at night, and besides, then she'd be up earlier and I know John enjoys sleeping in after closing the store the night before. Early church on Sundays and going to daycare at the grandparents in the morning sometimes makes her crabby since she doesn't get that after-breakfast nap, but we will manage.

As for me, I still haven't figured out how to get more than 6 1/2 of sleep, but it feels so good!

Milkin' It

Breastfeeding. Nursing. Feeding straight from the tap. Call it what you want, but it has always been love-hate for Megan and me. While I loved the fact that I got to hold my baby close and do something that only her and I could ever do together, it hasn't been an easy past 2 1/2 months in the breastfeeding department. Megan came out sucking and with a healthy appetite, also latched on fairly well right away. However, I nursed through a big crack in each nipple for over 6 weeks, engorgement, leaking/spraying and supporting the nursing pad companies, trying bed pillows, Boppy, and the BrestFriend nursing pillow hoping to find the best support for Megan, trying to hold Megan still as she squirmed and wrenched her head while eating, and talking with lactation and La Leche League members about other issues as they came up. And after all that, I return to work and my baby girl gets a pretty strong bottle nipple preference... That's my girl, already finding efficiencies and not doing more work than she absolutely has to!

Pumpin' It. Early on, John and I agreed that the most important thing was that Megan got the breastmilk, no matter what the means were. I didn't want to battle with her any more in trying to get her to keep eating from me. I only see her so many hours of the day now and want to make all of them special and struggling over food was just not an option. I had this in my mind for a while, but after one week back to work we decided that I would exclusively pump and she would get the milk in the bottle. So far so good and the two of us couldn't be happier! With Megan there really never was a cuddle factor involved in nursing. It's actually easier to cuddle with her while giving her a bottle. The two of us will just have to make other things special too, like bathtimes!

Got Milk? You bet I do! Based on the results after pumping the few times during my maternity leave, I knew that once I started pumping more regularly my supply would ramp up. For just being back at work a few weeks we've already put away quite a few bags of milk into the deep freeze. I started out pumping 5 times during the day (once in the morning, 2 during work and 2 after work). Each session kept getting longer and longer so now I cut back to 4 times per day (just once during work). As long as I can keep getting roughly 10 oz each time we should be in good shape even when she starts eating a little more per feeding.

Wait A Minute!

When she's hungry, she's hungry and wants milk now. Megan has an appetite like you wouldn't believe (eats about 5 ounces every 2-2 1/2 hours) and doesn't mind letting us know when there's nothing in her tummy.
This morning as I was simultaneously trying to warm up her bottle and keep her calm, John said, "Eventually she'll learn that you are getting her food and wait quietly for it. Unfortunately, she'll be 5 or 6 by time that happens!"

Auntie Love

Anytime we can get together with family I consider it a good thing. But rarely does Megan get to see all her aunties in the same weekend as was the case this past weekend.

Megan is very loved, especially by her aunties! And she loves them too.

To You, It's Crying...

Megan received this bodysuit at her baby shower from her Gennrich great-aunts which reads:

To you, it's crying...
But to Jesus it's a joyful noise!

Needless to say, Megan was praising Jesus a lot yesterday. If crying is a joyful noise, I wonder what spitting up is! I have praising a lot lately because Megan becoming quite a good sleeper. Last night she slept for 8 hours straight and the night before, 9 hours. She's slept 7 hours before but has been sporadic, so I wonder if these longer nights will continue. We've been trying to stick to a 9pm bedtime and will hopefully work backwards to a little earlier one. (But not too early since John would appreciate extra sleep in the mornings when he's on baby-duty after a late shift the night before.) It's hard for her to go to bed earlier right now because it's still light out at 9 and we hear quite a lot of traffic now that the windows are open and everyone wants to show off the loud mufflers on their trucks and bikes. I think she really wants to sleep longer because for the last week she has wanted to nurse around 4, 6, and 8 each night before going to bed and is trying to bulk up on calories. If she keeps this up that's all I'll be doing when I get home from work each night! Oh well, better for her to do it when I'm awake anyways than when we're sleeping, right?

She continues to get more and more fun as the days go by. At 2 1/2 months she's at the stage where she is just taking in all her surroundings. We sit her on our laps and her head just goes back and forth, from right to left, taking it all in. She also enjoys watching TV lately and is starting to enjoy peek-a-boo.

Just in case you're interested in Megan's shirt... It's based on Psalm 100:1 which reads:
Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.

Her shirt also reminds me of one of my new favorite songs by Amy Grant, Better than a Hallelujah. This song helped me through some tough days when I was still home on leave.

In case you can't watch watch the YouTube video (linked above), here are the chorus lyrics:
We pour out our miseries
God just hears a melody
Beautiful the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts
Are better than a Hallelujah.