A re-do....Happy 5 months Rowan!

So, I demand a redo!

                                                      

Holy crap, I was so rushing on this post I forgot a few things. I like writing a cute, sappy paragraph before all the stats and for some reason, I totally left it out  :( So, here we go:

I can't believe Rowan turned 5 months. I am not very happy about this, her babyhood is FLYING by and I am not a fan. I love babies and I truly am enjoying having my own precious baby. Rowan is seriously the most amazing little human. I look at her and can't believe I made her. Seeing life through her little eyes is amazing. I swear she seems to discover something everyday. It is incredible.  Being a mama isn't always easy. I sometimes wonder if I am up for the task, and if I am even doing it right. I do remind myself that God handpicked me to be the mother of this beautiful girl and I have to keep trusting in him to guide us!

Some updates about my little darling:

Name: Rowan Decaris Potter

Rowan's age: 5 months old, 14 weeks adjusted age

Weight: My chunk-a-munk is 16.5 pounds (this is an updated weight).This girl is quite the tank! She is solid and getting super heavy! She has more than tripled her birth weight in less than 5 months! I just LOVE having a chubby baby! 
Solids?  No solids yet. Her pedi wants us to wait another month, because of her preemie age. Honestly, I am okay with that. However I am so excited to start giving her solids!


Clothing size: definitely 6 month clothing, size 3 diapers and starting to fit in 9 month clothes, eek! I have had to REALLY make sure she wears all of her beautiful outfits. I can't believe how fast she is outgrowing everything!

Rowan milestones (for her adjusted age):
-Rowan is a pro at tummy time. She actually really enjoys it now, but sometimes gets tired after awhile. She does this crazy thing where she scoots and pushes her legs under with a lot of force. She was doing it last month but seems like she is getting even better at it.  It seems like the makings of potential crawling!

-That said...this crazy girl refuses to roll over from tummy to back. SIGH. What bugs me is that she was totally doing it a few weeks ago. When she DID it a few weeks back, she was super rolly polly and now she's stopped. OH THIS GIRL. I have been told with ALL babies this can happen. However, Miss stubborn pants tries with all her might to roll over from BACK to tummy and is getting pretty dang close to mastering it. What cracks me up is that this is way harder to do than rolling from tummy to back! Oh Rowan! And remember, this is all for her adjusted age. Anything milestone wise, we have to treat her like a 3.5 month old (that's her adjusted age) rather than her actual age. I have to always remind myself of that too.

-Rowan is starting to put EVERYTHING in her mouth and is still super "grabby" with everything. she loves to pull on toys, swat and hit. She will grab anything that is within her reach with no problem.

-Rowan isn't sitting up completely on her own, but she can stay "up" for at least 3-5 seconds before plopping over, lol!

-Rowan is SUPER CHATTY. She was always cooing before, but now she comes up with all kinds of different noises. Sometimes when she is crying she will do a "mummma mumumummum" sound, lol! I feel like she definitely "found" her voice and is super loud about it. I think its precious but in the middle of church it can be distracting, LOL!

-I think we MIGHT  have a teether. Most docs and mamas will tell you 4 months is TOO YOUNG to be cutting teeth. I agree. However, she is so insanely drooly, and will soak your shoulder more quickly than you can wipe her mouth. She will bite hard on anything, especially if it's hard.

Rowan loves:
-her food! She is eating about 6 oz most bottles, 8 oz at bedtime.
-is starting to have favorites with certain toys
-WATER. This makes my heart happy, as hubby and I were swimmers and water polo players. She loves baths now. She will kick so hard (potential breast stroke swimmer?) and splash the water with her little hands. So sweet!
-CHEWING, especially burp cloths!


Rowan doesn't like: sitting. She is getting to the point where she is moving in that direction but she really doesn't like to sit. OH THIS GIRL. Already she is showing her Potter stubbornness!! I know she will like it eventually.

New things we did this month:

-Towards the end of her 3rd, practically 4 month, we FINALLY went back to church and it was awesome. We kept her away because I was so nervous about the whooping cough epidemic and because of her being a preemie, her doctor wanted us to wait 6 months, but that I couldn't handle. Rowan does decently well, but she gets VERY CHATTY right when pastor is preaching. People will turn and smile, but I feel terrible I have a noisy baby. I am not ready to send her to nursery, so we sometimes watch the service in the cafe when she decides to be loud. I am loving it though. I am so excited to raise my little in the church!

-Birthday parties! My little girl's social calendar was quite busy with many invites to birthday parties! We couldn't go to all, but the ones we made it to, they were so much fun! Of course Rowan couldn't do a whole lot, but it was nice to be around friends and other little humans. 

- we tried "swimming" (or at least a modified version). Here in good ol' California it is still stupid hot, which makes me angry. Hello, where are you cold fall weather? We were invited to a pool birthday party, but I didn't plan for her to swim. Rowan has uber sensitive skin, and I was nervous putting her in chlorine. However, my poor babe got so hot! So, we borrowed a swim diaper, put her in those big baby bath tubs, and filled it with cold hose water (it was SO HOT outside). I thought she would scream because of the cold water, but she LOVED IT. She squealed, kicked with all her might and splashed. I had so much fun watching her! She looked so funny in her swim diaper! Oh this girl:

How is Rowan's spit up?: Still so much better! Thank you Jesus!

Sleep: I'm terrified to say anything because I am CERTAIN I will jinx it! Well, this month was big in regards to sleep. Rowan used to start off the night on her tummy, and after her 11 pm bottle we would move her to the rock and play. She didn't like being flat on her back. It bugged me that we did that, because I just wished she could just stay in her crib. I also wanted to stop tummy sleeping because we had a bit of a scare. Her snuza (which is a breathing alarm) went off while she was on her tummy. She woke up immediately (after we ran like the wind and picked her up) and to be honest, I think it was a false alarm. Anyway, it was enough to scare me. AND YES, I know once she starts rolling like a pro she may end up on her tummy. Anywho, we began "training" her on her back. It was hard in the beginning, but surprisingly, she has been back sleeping for almost a month now! Again, terrified I will jinx it, but after her 11 pm bottle she basically sleeps till 5. She will squeak and cry in her sleep at times, usually around 3 am. She isn't awake and normally if you put in her paci, she will fall back to sleep. Oh geeze, I bet I just jinxed it all, LOL!

Naps?Well...she has big time regressed. Now that she is on her back, she doesn't stay asleep very long. Sigh. She will take a super short nap, a decent one in the middle, and sometimes an okay one in the afternoon. 

Rowan's personality so far: This girl is quite the child. She is very stubborn about things but this girl is so insanely cute and snuggly. She makes quite the faces, but LOVES to smile. She LOVES attention too. We get so many comments while we are out,  and boy, does she know it! She will smile and coo. Oh Rowan! People always comment how deliciously chubby she is, or how beautiful she is. It makes my heart want to burst!

Here is our monthly photo dump:

The day that everything changed

So I hesitated writing this post. It may be weird, cheesy and may induce some eye rolling.

However, I don't think I care, lol!

A year ago today was the day I found out I was pregnant. 

I remember it to a T. It was 9:45 at night, and we had just come celebrating my mom's birthday. I had been a day late, which has happened. I had felt something was a bit off. I took my pregnancy test and just sat. After 2 quick minutes, I peeked and saw one word that would forever change my life:

                     Pregnant

I remember feeling shocked and stunned. What?!?!??! After some time of shock I started laughing. At that moment, my heart felt an indescribable joy. This was huge because as most y'all will recall, I was pretty certain I didn't want kids. I felt like having a child would be a death sentence to our fun, carefree lives.

Yet seeing that word, well, my world was happily turned upside down. 

After telling my shocked husband, we decided to keep this to ourselves until I was 12 weeks along. I was petrified of miscarriage.  Those first few weeks I was nervous, scared and beyond excited. We had a Disneyland trip and a Las Vegas trip planned. I remember feeling so nervous and fussing over my tiny baby. I was so excited, I wanted to scream it from the rooftops! In Vegas we went out to the clubs (I know how trashy that sounds, I wasn't showing!) we broke down and told this other adorable couple that we had just met, lol! It took the edge off of us dying to tell friends and family. When we finally did, our families cheered and cried tears of joy. When we announced on FB and IG we were met with a plethora of likes, comments and private messages, wishing us well. This is the pic we revealed:

 I went on for 8 ish months having the happiest pregnancy on the block. I had no morning sickness and no major issues. For the first time in my life, I felt like a super human. I felt alive, radiant and beautiful. I had the quintessential big belly and I couldn't be happier. To this day, I still feel kinda depressed about not being pregnant anymore. That's how much I loved it. Am I psycho? Probably, but anyway...

As we all know, stinker belle Rowan decided to come early, etc. etc. But in the end, God gave me the best prize I could ever ask for. 

That day was monumental for me, and it forever changed my world and flipped it upside down. I feel thankful I got to take part of this huge miracle and feel honored God picked me to be the mother of this beautiful, precious baby girl. September 22nd will always be special for  me!!!

The catch up series: Our first road trip as a family

One of the things hubby and I are known for is our constant travels and roadtrips.

Prior to Rowan, we would at least go on 4-5 trips yearly, and really try to enjoy the crap out of life. We would often do things on a whim, and I loved it.

Then we had Rowan.

Haha, sounds like I made her a buzzkill, LOL! Definitely don't mean to, because she is incredible, but life sure came to a skidding halt when our beauty was born. For a good 3 months, we hardly did anything and that was very hard for me. At that point, we would have at least had two trips and our annual Vegas trip done (sigh, I miss Vegas).

Towards the end of July, we decided that we would road trip somewhere as a family.
We decided to go to Santa Cruz beach and stay one night, just in case it got ugly.

Oh how I regret on staying longer! Turns out, Rowan is a decent traveler! We had so much fun and she did so incredibly well, especially in the 3 hour car ride!






We started our trip by making a pit stop for breakfast

The day we got there we checked in to our hotel, and then went straight to the beach. We showed Rowan the water and the boardwalk. We spent a good chunk of time there, and had dinner. Rowan was a rock star! We then headed back to the hotel got her and ourselves ready for bed. We let Rowan cosleep with us, which we normally don't do. Rowan had a harder time settling down, but once she did, she actually slept through the night and we woke up completely refreshed!

Day 2, we got up, packed up our stuff and had breakfast. Rowan was a little more squeaky and I held her while I ate, which was kind of a drag, lol!

We ventured to downtown Santa Cruz, which was actually pretty fun!  We stopped at a winery, did some window shopping  and enjoyed the gorgeous day! She had one small meltdown, but then she conked out. After, we headed over to Capitola, one of my other most favorite beach spots. It was super crowded but we took Rowan to the beach and took some pictures. She of course, was asleep the whole time. After, we gorged on some pizza from one of our favorites, Pizza My Heart.

On our way out, we made sure to stop by Gayle's for pastries. It was a good thing we stopped because Rowan had a MAJOR blowout! From that little pit stop, I got some of my most favorite pictures of her:

On the way driving home on hwy 17 (which is known for make people car sick thanks to the winding roads), Rowan had a tough time in the car, because it seemed like she actually got car sick. She got super inconsolable but after 20 minutes, she calmed down and went to sleep. We made it home safe and sound.

We were so excited our trip was a success that we planned a few others. In the next 3 months, we have 3 road trips planned and I am so excited!!!  This is the stuff I am so looking forward to. Having our adventures with our amazing daughter :)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Catch up series: our first mother and Father's Day

Hey everyone,

I'm trying really hard to make sure I'm catching up on all my posts a life in between NICU and now. 

Next step in the series, our first mothers and fathers day. I was so stoked that we brought Ro home in time for Mother's Day. I was so worried we wouldn't be able to. On Mother's Day, Rowan had been home for a grand total of 10 days. To be honest, it was kind of rough for us. The whole experience was just all kinds of crazy. Finally bringing our newborn home was amazing and great. However it was also tough as any parent would imagine. We were running on very little sleep. I was still dealing with so many hormones, feelings, and baby blues. When Mother's day rolled around, I was looking forward to celebrating and enjoying a great day.

 

We celebrated at my sister's house. We started off with eating yummy appetizers and then onto a delicious lunch! Shannon and Rowan got me some beautiful jewelry and a willow tree figurine! That figurine was so especially sweet, because Shannon gave me an expecting willow tree figurine. I really loved it and his beautiful card and words made me cry! Overall, it was super relaxing and the best of it all, I got a nap! Something I needed so badly! I loved celebrating Mother's Day. I never would have thought I would get to this point in my life, and getting the chance to celebrate it was truly special!

 

Some pics of our day, I can't believe how tiny Rowan was:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now on to Father's day.....

 

If any of you know my Shannon, you know how much my precious husband wanted to be a father. He is one of those rare gems that had no problem at the thought of having children, if anything, I was the one holding us back.

 

Shannon has been such an amazing daddy from day 1. Rowan is seriously one blessed little girl. He super hands on, and is overall just incredible. I was SO excited to celebrate my husband! We once again celebrated at my sister's house. We had a delicious lunch, gave the daddies of our family some gifts and just lounged! Really it was a perfect way to celebrate. Shannon also got to take a nice nap with his princess too. I am so excited Shannon got to celebrate his first father's day. It was so fun!

 

I sadly didn't take AS many pics, but here they are!

Catch up series: Rowan's newborn pictures

So....

I'm starting a series of posts that basically is catching you up on our lives between NICU and now. I have posted about the big stuff and random musings, but not the fun, little things in between.

There is so much to cover! Such as:





-her newborn pictures
-our first mother's and father's day
-my birthday
-our first family trip
-her physical therapy and why she started it in the first place





Phew, that's just some to name a few! I have my work cut out for me! First up, her newborn pictures.

Wow, this didn't go quite how I expected it to be. In my mind, back in the preggo days, I thought I was going to deliver at term or later, a few days later meet up with Simply Bee Photography and get our pictures done.

I still laugh how you CAN'T plan things in life. When we brought Rowan from NICU, we all had a hard time adjusting and it was stressful. In hindsight, it probably wasn't that bad, but cue in stress, baby blues, and sleep deprivation, well, everything is heightened by 10. We did Rowan's pictures 3 weeks after she was home.

We met with Simply Bee Photography at our home. Rowan was NOT willing to fall asleep! What a stinker! Normally (and still now) she is a great napper but on the day you needed it to count, well she was being stubborn.

Rowan was very vocal about being naked in the shots, and she wasn't having it, LOL!!! She was squeaky and complainy, but at the end, she delivered and did totally great. I will admit, there were more shots I would have liked to have been done, but I guess I can't complain! The pictures came out beautiful and I was happy with how they turned out! I get pretty emotional looking at them, seeing how tiny she was then and how different she is now.  For example, some of those headbands were too big on her sweet head! Now, some of them are too tight! LOL! I'm so thankful for my beautiful girl!

Here they are!

I love these detailed shots. It is a sweet and wonderful reminder of how little she was!! 

I love them all, but the next two are some of my super favorites!

 

 And of course, a Star Wars picture HAD to be taken! 

 

And we ABSOLUTELY had to take a HP picture, our namesake! I just love the HP franchise!

 

                                                                  That baby booty!

Wow, I was having a decent hair day, LOL! Love this one!

This just gets me every time! Love these two!

 

Another fave! Born at 7:22 a.m.!