We tried out the bouncer swing. She isn't wuite bouncing yet. She is getting so strong. Char worked this weekend so Emma and I watched lots of movies. We would have went out and enjoyed the weather but I have a pulled muscle in my back. I have been having a hard time standing up straight after I have been sitting. But it is getting better.
My birthday is coming up. I am not very excited. Birthdays and Holidays are such a chore. My folks are divorced and Char's parents don't really understand how hard it is. We feel like we are in the biz of "working people in". Since Emma is here I just want to enjoy all of my time with her. I don't want to spend it on the road. We usually spend more time on the road goin to see people than we do actually seeing people. I told Char I didn't want to do much for my birthday this year because I am kinda stressed enough. I am studying for the last part of the cpa exam and have a big project going on at work. Between work and studying I feel like I am infront of a computer 16 hrs a day. I just want to relax. That is what I want for my bday just to relax.
Lately I have been feeling something pulling at me. I feel the need for something more. I am really feeling drawn to find a church home for my family. I want Emma to grow up knowing and loving God. I want her to feel comfortable in church and comfortable with God. I didn't feel comfortable for whatever reason. I also feared God. I feel the need to pray with Char. I feel the need to become comfortable with God myself.

My daughter is a thief

She stole my heart again. She does it everyday but man this weekend she got me good. Emma and I went to my moms this weekend. I was getting extremely overwhelmed with work and studying and HOA crap. So Char sent us back home. She had to work this weekend. I missed her horribly. It was nice just me and Emma though. Sometimes I let Char do more than I should I am sure. This weekend made me really appreciate everything she does. I loved being there with Emma though and knowing I was going to do everything that had to be done for her this weekend. I don't know why but it was awesome. On the way home from my mom's I didn't even want to put her in the car seat because it was all the way in the back seat. I just wanted her to sit in my lap or at least in a car seat in the front seat. Then once we got to see Char and then come home to one more night alone I fed her again before we went to bed and when it was time to put her in the bassinet I didn't want to. She had been sleeping in the bed with me while at my mom's. I missed her last night. This is all very silly because the bassinet is right beside the bed. I mean they even touch. I have just become a softy.

OH WELL. She is so totally worth it.

More pics

We get the pics we had made back today. But here are some I took she is bloomin cute.

a little bit in pics

She is doing great. Growing like crazy. She is so much more responsive now. I love it to death. Emma and I have been hangin out this weekend just us. Char started back to work.

crazy crazy crazy

I am studying like crazy for the BEC part of the cpa exam this Fri. Emma is doing great she has started sleeping from about 10 to 6:30 and we were very happy to find out it was not a fluke. Last night she didn't have a very good night but that was just one out of a week or two so we are very happy.

This weekend we got pics made and we should get them back around the 10th. I am excited about them. I think they turned out good.

Well I have to get to studying. The weight loss is going great. 7lbs so far woot woot.

Later

WOOT WOOT

EMMA SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT FOR THE FIRST TIME LAST NIGHT!!!!

She is almost 7 weeks old and she slept from 10:30 to 6:30. Which is just perfect for us to get good sleep too.

She has become so responsive to us talking to her. I love that part the most. She smiles alot when I talk to her and that sends me to the moon.

I have started a weight loss blog. It is listed over there to the right "Creating a New Leigh". Check it out if you want to. So far I am kicking but and taking names and feeling awsome!!!

Well I really have to get some studying in so I am going to go for now.

holding her head up

She is on my desk in my office doing some tummy time. LOL!!! I am putting her to work already...yeah right.

She has started to definitely smile in response to being talked to. I talked to her for about five to ten minutes straight with her sitting on the desk in front of me and she just smiled and looked at me.

Last night we had her in the tub and she looked over at the silver tub drain thing and saw her reflection in it and reached for the lever sticking out of it. I really think this was a coincident but it was pretty cool.

We started trying to use a pacifier here and there. We read that they reduce the risk of SID immensely but she spits it out after a bit so I don't know. We aren't really thrilled about using it anyway. I guess we will just see how it all goes.

She has had this rash on her face, under her chin, on the side of her neck and upper chest for almost 2 weeks now. We took her to the doc and he said for Char to lay off dairy for 1 week and gave us a can of stuff to rub on her rash it is in a can and comes out like mouse. So we did this for tues, wed, thurs, and fri and it really did NOT look much better. So then Char recalls patients getting a similar reaction to medication and thinks the rash started about the same time we started giving the prescription gas meds. So Friday we stopped those and her cheeks look somewhat better but it is still on her neck. To me it looks almost like welts. This is breaking my heart because I keep thinking they have to be irritating to her. A few days she ran a very low grade temp but even thought it was a low grade one she was still so clingy and poopy. She even whimpered. I thought I was going to cry one day when her and Char came to eat lunch with me so they promptly left after we finished eating.

Hopefully it is a reaction to the meds and it will go away soon because we were going to get photos made and she has the crazy looking stuff on her face.

Well back to work I guess.

Sept 7th one month old

Yesterday Emma turned 1 month old. I can not in my wildest dreams believe she is already a whole month old. On one hand it feels like she was just born yesterday and on the other it feels like she has been with us forever.

She is growing more and more everyday. She is so strong. She lifts her head and kind of pushes off your chest sometimes. She is smiling more and more. I know some of these are probably gas but they are becoming more animated. Big open mouthed smiles that leave you thinking any moment a beautiful laugh will escape. She also has started making more noise when she is awake. She will coo and "talk" some sound that isn't a coo but a sound.

She has taken to sleeping closer to 5 and 6 hrs a night between the time we put her down and the first time she wakes to nurse. Then she will go about 4 more. Char likes the sleep but has been pretty sore by the time she wakes up for the first feeding.

Emma had her first bottle last night. On a scale of 1 being horrible and 10 being champion we give her a 4. She was a little fussy before we even gave it to her so I don't think that really helped but she at about 1.5 ounces by the time it was over. We have these breast flow bottles from first year and I think they just piss her off. They are made to mimic breast flow but Char's milk is like a dripping faucet when she nurses so I think the bottles are actually harder to get milk from than Char is. So we are going to try again when she isn't already fussy and work our way into it because we have to be ready when Char goes back to work.

This morning I got up for work and Char and Emma were still asleep. When I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and start the shower I thought I heard Emma start to wake and fuss so I went back in the bedroom and looked and she was just occasionally making the kind of higher pitched sigh like she was so relaxed and resting so well. It was the cutest thing ever. I wanted to skip work and just sit by her bassinet and watch her sleep.

Well speaking of work I have to get to it now.

Not the best news ever

Yesterday we had to take Emma for an Echo on her heart. Today our Pediatrician's nurse called and said per the pediatric Cardiologist's notes Emma has an ASD (atrial septal defect). This news pretty much just threw me over the I think I won't be able to stop crying all stinking day edge.

The pediatrician told us he believed it was just a PDA which should close on its own and that he wasn't worried about it at all because Emma is in the 75th percentile on both her weight and height. He believed if something was really wrong she would not be gaining weight like she is and would not look as good as she does and would not be as alert as she is. But it isn't a PDA it is an ASD neither of which I know a darn thing about so I have been pretty scared and upset all day. If the problem were HEY she is a genius and we need to fund college right now so she can start this semester I could handle that but I hear heart problems and all I see and hear in my head immediately is all of the stuff my family has been through already with my grandparents.

On the lighter side I have been of course googling this all day since I found out and the hole in her heart (ASD) can also sometimes close naturally on its own. If not she may have to have open heart surgery to patch it or have an procedure done through a heart cath were the patch/plug the hole. So it sounds like it can be fixed. I am just a wreck.

I just want to hold her so tight and never let her go.

On top of this when I called to tell my mom she tells me that my granddaddy is having a heart cath next weekend. About 14 years ago he had a quadruple by pass and last 4th of July he had open heart surgery again and had 6 by passes done. He is having chest pains much more frequently so they did a stress test and didn't see anything and so this is the next step. He is 77 years old this year and the cornerstone of our family. He is my compass in life. He is my role model to this day. He is the person I look up to most in my life. My head knows he can not live forever but my heart just isn't getting it.

Today hasn't been the best day.

Emma's first boat trip

WOOO WOO WOO AHAHAHAHA WOOOO

I PASSED THE FIRST PART OF MY CPA EXAM!!!!!!

ONE DOWN!

THREE MORE TO GO!

SHE'S HERE & MY WIFE IS A SUPER HERO!!!!!!!

Yes we are in the hospital right now in fact.

Emma Valentine Medders

August 7, 20085:17 PM

8lbs 1oz 19.5 inches

Char was induced starting at 6:30 AM. They did it gradually because she wanted to go natural as far as pain meds. She did great and made it all the way through without any pain meds at all. 10 hrs and 45 mins later Emma graced us with her presence pretty abruptly. The nurse went to check Char's progress and said "oh there's a head!". It had just started to protrude.

She is absolutely beautiful.

We are in love with her already.

the Jeopardy theme song constantly

That is what I here in the background all the time now. I have decided that now that I am ready for Emma to be here she will take her sweet time. When I did not feel we had the house and other affairs in order the doc was saying she would be early. So we have jump with both feet into what seems to be the forever wait, possibly worse than the two week wait.

The whole thing sometimes still seems unreal. I can't believe this is really happening. I am so excited. It is like when someone tells you something really great and you just want to say STOP PLAYIN!! I didn't really just win a million dollars.

I think about her all the time. I go to sleep dreaming of Char calling me to say she has gone into labor. I started to wonder what Char would be like when she told me. She called from work and I asked her what she would do. Would she be completely hysterical or just be like "hey whatcha doin" "nothing, what are you doing?" "Not a lot just going in to labor" All cool like that. LOL

Who knows. She figures it will depend on how much pain she is in.

In other news. I have two more Saturdays of Becker classes left. WOO WOO. I am so tired of getting up at 5 on Saturdays only to drive two hours and sit in class for 8. Almost through Almost through.

Char's dad has taken to calling her at least 2 times a day to ask if we are proud parents yet??? What is up with that you say??? Well I guess he possibly believes when Emma graces us with her presence the phones will not dial out and we will not call anyone. I don't know. Char is pretty baffled by this question he asks EVERYDAY. We will call them...of course we will. No really we will. I am sure I will be calling everyone in my phone. I went through that funk the other day (hormones PMS call it what you want) BUT I WILL BE SHOUTING IT FROM THE ROOF TOPS.

Anyways. I have to get back to studying now while I can...Thank we are a primarily tax firm and I have time to study because home time will soon become a precious commodity I know.

I will exit with the theme song from Jeopardy.

boo dooo doo dooo, boo doo doo doo, boo doo doo doo, DO! da-do, do, do, do, dooo

Dream a little dream

As I laid down with Char for a nap this afternoon started to imagine how I would act if Char went into labor. Our neighbor said this last month really drags by. . . He was so right. I thought about who I would really call first. You know, you have all of these people that are like, "make sure you call us first." Why do they want to be called first? What makes them feel like they should be called first? Then I thought to my self..."self....who will you call first?" This may seem like a completely insane question to many of you...well probably to none of you because I a beginning to think no one out there reads my blog anymore. But most of you would probably say I know I would call my mom first or fill in the blank...Well I thought about it and I probably will call my mom first but the reason I even had to think about it was because NONE of our family lives near us. For just a bit I thought ...I will probably call my boss first to let him know I wont be there for the next two weeks at least. Because it will take my mom 4 hrs to get here and Char's parents 1.5 hrs. And how many friends do I really want crowding around up there? I almost want to call no one except my mom and her's and not tell anyone else and bottle those fleeting moments and take hold of them between just me and char and our beautiful child and not share them with anyone who may disappoint us or not hold them as special as we will. It is almost like the way I think of "having a threesome" I would never ever ever do that because those moments Charlene and I share together are to wonderful and precious I would never share that. Do I want to share these. Not that I don't want anyone at all there but this is about us me and char and our family growing. I don't know if I want to run down the hall every 15 mins and give updates. I just want to be with the wonderful amazing woman I love and experience this with her to the fullest extent of every moment.

Don't step into my conversation and think you know something because you have no idea! That is what I want to tell people sometime. You can get over whatever you chose to get over and just because you chose no to get over it doesn't mean that for the rest of your life you have the right to go around comparing everything that happens to everyone else to you and your life and feelings about what you will not get over. Shit just get over it already. For the rest of my life I don't want to hear about it whenever something happens in my life.

The neverending weekend project

So this weekend we sewed all of the stuff for the nursery. We made curtains, bumpers, crib skirt, and rocking chair cushion. It took us two entire days to do this and we worked pretty close to non stop.

Below is the before......beware you are looking into the eye of the storm......

Now the beautiful, peaceful after.....the calm before the (baby gets here storm) lol....

Also I refinished all of the furniture you see except the rocking chair and the crib...oh yeah the rocking chair is an andorandak (sp) rocking chair to go with our beach theme ... how cool.

AND........Char dropped Saturday.

BABY MAMMA UPDATE

So we just left the doctor and we are 34 wks and 5 days measuring 35 wks and 4 days. Emma is already 6 lbs. She is head down and faced to the back. Char is one fingertip dilated and the cervix is soft.

All this could mean we have a couple of weeks left and it could mean sooner or she could go to our due date (8/8/08...the start of the Olympics). Who knows. But it is all very interesting and exciting.

The ultrasound lady snuck us back again for another try because Emma had her hand in her face in most of the pics last time. Well because of the above mentioned position we had no luck this time either. Her face competed with two hands, knee and a foot strategically positioned as to not allow a clear view. She is keeping us in suspense for her big day.

We did however find that she has a full head of hair. About one centimeter's worth per the ultrasound lady.

This weekend we are getting everything ready...THANK GOODNESS.

Slow and steady wins the race

So that is what we are now slow and steady. We are 33 wks. I can not believe we will have a little one before you know it. Our neighbor's son is now about 11 wks old and they told us time seems to stand still from hear on out. I don't know how it possibly could though. I have one more Becker class this Sat. and then I get a whole two weekends off. Then I go back for three more. Hopefully Emma stays in until I get through.

The 4th we are staying home and getting completely through with getting ready for our girl. We have a huge list of things to do. I did get one big task accomplished yesterday...cleaning out the baby's closet...it had become the storage closet.

I am more and more excited everyday about our daughter coming into this world. I cherish every night Char doesn't have to work and we can have some quiet bonding time together. I sing the ABC's, the number song, read a bit, then we finish it off with Char picking a category and I do the alphabet with it. So she picks countries or food and I do A is for apple and so on. So far X is for Xavier no matter what. LOL. I have got to research X and U. I can just see our daughter in kindergarten and some kid's name is Xavier and she makes fun of him for being named after some food named Xavier that came from the country Xavier. LOL

Anyways. I went to Orlando Wed thru Fri. I had and Intuit conference to go to there. It was pretty informative. I loved how they went into a panel discussion about the finding good staff and retaining them and some wanted to bash "the twenty somethings" OF WHICH I AM A PROUD MEMBER. I do see that I may be a minority in this group as there are few of us who will own their on three quarters of a million dollar firm by 27 but still if the rest of the world would give us a chance we'd all do alright. Their biggest complaint with "us" was that we "have no loyalty" to our jobs and will quit when something better comes along. Well, folks let me explain a little here. First of all a lot of that has to do with the company, don't get me wrong I know our society has changed and most people do not "marry" their jobs they "date" them. However, the sense of community has also changed. No longer are companies concerned with the well being of their employees but instead with the bottom line. My employer is great. He is 68 and retiring in 2 years at which time I will buy him out. In the mean time he is my boss. I respect him as a mentor, employer, elder, and human being. He care about his employees. The other day he called a meeting and announced that he would be giving everyone an extra check every month to help with gas prices. He reasoned that we get a raise every Feb. and since the gas prices rose the raise was eaten up and he wanted to help. He is a very fair man and seeks to make sure you FEEL as though you were treated fairly. No why would I or any of the employees here not stay? We are treat fair, we are given great time off, we are asked for our thoughts on things, and more importantly our thoughts are taken into consideration and valued. We are not just a number. I worked for a manufacturing company that offered severance packages to the older employees to get them out of the way because they were to expensive only to hire younger "cheaper" employees to take their place. NOW WHO IS NOT LOYAL?!

Well I could go on forever but really what good would it do.

On a better thought, we have our second of three baby classes tonight. I am so excited. I never thought this would finally be real but here we go.

Well we'll catch up later.

WAY TO GO CALI

WE ARE KNOCKIN' EM DOWN ONE BY ONE FOLKS STAY STRONG!!!!

Today, the California Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision and ruled that same-sex couples have the same right to marry as opposite-sex couples under the state constitution. The court ruled that it is a violation of the state constitution to deny same-sex couples the right to marry, and that providing rights to same-sex couples through a separate system of domestic partnerships does not satisfy the state constitution

WAY TO GO CALI

http://www.hrc.org/10444.htm

WE ARE KNOCKIN' EM DOWN ONE BY ONE FOLKS....STAY STRONG!!!

Our baby shower!!!

This Saturday we had our shower. It was so nice. Four of our really good friends threw it for us and kept all the details a surprise. It was nice to just sit back and have something like that done for us. They are absolutely amazing.

We got a good loot. I was so glad to have the shower so now everyone will let me shop :0) I was always being told you never know what people are going to get you for the shower. Now there is no excuse I can buy whatever!!! Stores ...here I come.

We played some great games. Ate some wonderful mini burgers and some awsome cake.

Then yesterday we went shopping and bought a rocking chair, breast pump, and baby monitor. It was so nice. Our neighbor just had a little boy about a month ago and they came to the shower. We all passed him around and between holding him and getting all the baby stuff Char and I have both been having somewhat of a reality check...that this is really going to happen. We are going to be holding someone as tiny as our neighbor's son in just 2.5 MONTHS!!! Can you believe it. I almost lose my breath thinking about it.

Well I am so excited. I can't wait for Emma to be here in my arms. ALL THE TIME....YES I WILL BE THE BABY HOG!!!!