Nail Clippers

I was always a little scared with nail clippers and babies. There was a reason I was scared. It is hard to clip a babies fingers because they move all the time. I was filing Emma's nails but today I tried to clip her nails and it didn't go well. I clipped her thumb nail and she moved so I took out of chunk of her skin too. She didn't like it to well, was sobbing and I was about there with her because I felt so bad! I still do feel bad, but she is sleeping in her crib as I am writing this. She was a trooper and she was even smiling later. It bled for a little bit and then it seems to be fine. Hopefully it won't get infected! I will just be keeping an eye out for this and I am hoping her skin grows back normally! She cries every now and then because I think it hurts if she touches it wrong....poor girl. So I guess the point of this post is to be careful when clipping a babies nails and I will now be going back to just filing them! Ouch!

Items not to live without...

Since a lot of my friends are having babies right now too, I thought it would be a good idea to share some baby items that you should have on your list if you have a baby or are expecting a baby!

1. If you have a ipad, itouch, or iphone get the application called Total Baby. It was awesome to have (and still is) when you need to record how many diapers (wet/dirty) they have in a day, when/how long they eat, baths, and how many hours they are sleeping, etc. It's a great app and you can download it from itunes for like $5.00.

2. Swaddleme blankets...well they really aren't blankets but not sure what else to call them. They have the velcro so you can get a tight wrap on your baby so they don't wake themselves up during the middle of the night by having their arms loose. It's a miracle worker!

3. Infant Mylicon drops. enough said! These drops are great for your baby's upset stomach or if they have gas that is hurting them. Also if they are constipated it helps get them moving again. They are great, go get it. I got mine for a shower gift from my friend Cece and then went and bought some more because Emma seems to always have a little gas or acid reflux.

4. Boppy Pillow. Its great for propping Emma's head up when she is lying down on my lap and also for feeding her! Helps a ton not to get your arms tired when holding her sitting down.

5. Car Seat for napping and sleeping! Emma has some acid reflux so at night we place Emma in her car seat to sleep and it works like a charm. She sleeps about 8 hours a night for the past two plus weeks. It's great!

Have a great day!!

Things I have learned

Well being a new mom I have learned some things over the last eight weeks that I didn't know before

1. You will not get a full night's sleep for awhile. Even if Emma sleeps through the night, I still wake up various time to check the video monitor to make sure she is okay.

2. Stuff doesn't get done that you want to get done! (ie: this blog!) I never have any time to check my email unless its on my phone.

3. Stuff doesn't get done that I still don't want to do but need to: cleaning the bathroom, organizing, dishes, etc.

4. When I was pregnant I never realized how much you will love this little peanut once she comes out. It is all worth the work when you look into her eyes ;)

5. Never leave breast pump accessories lying around or your dog will chew them and ruin them. Lucky we live by a Target.

6. Sleep when they sleep. It's true and very hard to do because you want to be doing other stuff.

7. Get out with your husband when you can, for dinner & drinks. It is much needed for the both of you. We went out to dinner just a few days after we brought home Emma and it was great to have a little time to ourselves. We are lucky that we have family near by that are happy to babysit.

I have learned a lot more but those are the ones that come to mind right away! More to come!

Here is a pic of Emma from today! My mom was in town yesterday and today so we went shopping. It was nice to get out and enjoy the good weather! Emma was a very happy baby today, talking (as much as she can) and smiling a lot!

Week 7

Here is Emma's 7 week picture! She is getting bigger and stronger! This week she started to smile like she knew she was smiling so that has been great! She starts day care on Monday as I will go back to work. 8 weeks went really fast, but I am ready to get on a schedule and routine with her. I started introducing a rattle for her this week and she did grab it (I dont think she knew she was grabbing it though).

Week by Week!

Well having a blog can be put on the back burner when you have an infant! :)

I hardly have time to shower or eat -- so I apologize for not getting some new pictures up! Here are some week by week pictures of Miss Emma!

Going Home!

Here is Emma's first going home outfit picture! Of course it was super cold when we went home, but at least the roads weren't bad. Addison didn't want to drive fast home -- felt like the movie "Knocked up" at the end of the movie he was going like five mph!!

Two weeks early!

Hello everyone! Sorry for the delay on updating the blog, but our little peanut came a little earlier than expected! We welcomed our daughter, Emma Jane Boughton, on February 6th at 2:29 am. She was born six pounds, one ounce and 18 1/2 inches long. All ten fingers and toes are there!! :) Here is one of the first pics of her on the scale!!

I started having contractions around 10:30 pm on Saturday February 5th and we got to the hospital at 11:30 pm and little miss Emma was born at 2:29 am on Sunday (Super Bowl Sunday -- so she will love sports when she gets older, ha ha) February 6th. The labor was almost perfect (as perfect as a labor could go). It was only a total of 4 hours. All day Saturday I felt great! Addison and I went to the Drake/UNI basketball game Saturday afternoon, ran some errands, and then went to an Iowa Energy bball game at night. We got home around 10:00 pm and I got my pajamas on and we were watching the news when I started not to "feel" very good. I called the dr and they didnt think it was anything to worry about because the contractions weren't to regular, but after I hung up the phone they got a lot stronger so we decided to head on in to the hospital and get it checked out.

When we got to the hospital - I was put into a triage room to assess the "situation" and they saw that my water had broke (not sure when this happened because I didnt feel any water at any time, so who knows! At my last dr's appt I was dilated to a 4 (which was the Thursday before I went into labor), so I was already half way there..so when I got to the hospital they said I was dilated to a 6.

I then walked over to my hospital room and they started a saline drip before I could get an epidural, but in the mean time my contractions were horrible, so they gave me a pain meds through my iv which definitely helped. About 15 min later, the dr came in and gave me my epidural which didn't hurt at all and just really wanted the pain to go away so anything to help speed that process up I was ALL for. The epidural took about 15 minutes to kick in, and then about 5-10 minutes later I was pushing. I pushed for about 45-1 hr, and she wasn't wanting to move down as much as the dr wanted so she suggested that we try a vacuum to help her come out, but they said we would try pushing one more time. Of course, on my last push the little peanut came out! Yeah! :)

She was perfect -- they took her to get assessed and the drs got me all ready and then I got to hold her for the first time. Pic above.

Overall, it was a great night and both Emma and I did great! We were in the hospital from Saturday night through Tuesday afternoon, which the time just went fast! It was great to get home though and of course our dog Zoe was SUPER happy to see us!