One Month Old

Today Evelyn is 1 month old. I can't believe it's gone by so fast. Here are some pictures I've recently taken. These first ones are her attempting to sit up with the use of the Boppy:















I give that attempt a 6 out of 10.

This is a shot of her awesome spiky hair:















I have a rooster for a child!! I think I should change her name from "Monkey Face" to "Rooster Head". Freaking beautiful baby.

And this is me, also celebrating her one month birthday. As you can see I can't CONTAIN myself:


I want to put a sign on this that says: "If you are a member of the Speer/Johnson heritage, your can look forward to this when you have a child." (I actually said that to Julie. I was like "However crazy mom and her family is when it comes to their hippie ways, you MUST listen to them when they talk about your boobs. They know about the boobs.") And now you all know why I never leave the house.


And this is the little girl celebrating her birthday today:
Just my little lima bean. She looks so good, I want to gobble her up.















Gawl!! She looks so sweaty!! "And I was a swarthy 6 year old with sideburns." (Name that movie?) Arrrgh!!! SHE TOTALLY IS!!!!

So finally, here are some fun facts about my girl:

Likes:
Eating
Sleeping
BATH TIME!
Sucking her hand
Watching the Euro Cup 2008 with daddy and rooting for Germany
Sleeping on her belly (which has caused many fights between mommy and daddy)
Playing with her tongue in her mouth
Throwing up on mom
Peeing while mom changes her diaper JUST at the moment when she has taken off her diaper and mom is totally unprotected

Dislikes:
Waiting for food
Having a burp in her belly and not being able to get it up
When mommy drops a dish in the kitchen. Don't you know she's trying to sleep, mommy?
Raya licking her face
Mom trying to clean her armpits and neck fat rolls during bath time.

So, that's it!! Happy Birthday Monkey Face! Here's some cake. Enjoy.

More Cheesecake and Jellybeans

Krista reminded me that it's time to update my "Cheesecake and Jellybean" segment. Oh man, I had some great cheesecake at Tucano's the other day! It was classic cheesecake with a raspberry topping and drizzled with a white chocolate sauce. UGGGH!!! It makes my nipples tingle even now as I think about it. But maybe that's just from the milk engorgement. Hmmm. . .

So with that awesome image in your mind, here I go with my next installment of "Cheesecake and Jellybeans"

Cheesecake:
Watching "Flip This House" with Marcelo on the A&E channel. (Not to be confused with "Flip THAT House" on the TLC channel). Our favorite is the Armando Montelango corporation. I think we first got hooked on him because his name is ARMANDO and his wife is VERONICA. Are there any cooler names then that? And they speak Spanish half the time!

Armando doesn't take any crap from anyone, and he's known to come with some crazy low budgets and hold his people to it. When you watch his show, and then you watch the other shows with novice flippers, it's just so freaking obvious that he's a professional. And that's why he's able to make tons of money. He doesn't waste money where it won't make him money, and he rarely goes for those high upgrades like granite counter tops and jacuzzi tubs. He just makes great houses for cheap. And he's a millionaire because of it.

We LOVE watching this show together. I mean, there are several shows that we will watch together, but usually one is always asking the other one to fast forward to move it along. But not this show! We sit and watch and usually laugh our butts off!! Like today, Armando was showing everyone how "sound" the diving board was on the pool, and after 2 bounces, the bolts snapped and he tumbled into the pool. The pool was a nice black/green color and had dead birds/frogs in it. He got out of the pool, and immediately threw up. Marcelo and I were HOWLING with laughter. (I startled the baby who was in my arms) Someone got a hose and started hosing him off. But not before someone accurately commented that he stunk. Oh man, this show rocks. And I love watching it with my husband.

Jellybean:
Hearing gossip that my job still talks about me and blames things on me. Things that aren't my fault. Things that I didn't do, or even know about. Things that were done WHILE I WAS OUT OF TOWN, I'm still being blamed for them. It's like that joke: "What's the difference between a lawyer and a hooker? A hooker will stop screwing you when you are dead." I feel the same way about my job. They have to keep slandering you after you are gone, when there is no way you can stand up for yourself. Oh well. Let em go! I'll just snuggle with my little girl and gloat about the fact that I'll never be their butt munch ever again.

Cheesecake:
My beautiful baby is so freaking cute and we had a great time at the lake yesterday. Well, mostly a good time. I brought Raya cause my mom had taken her the last time they went to the lake, and she made it sound like we had our own private area where Raya could run around and not bother others. NOT TRUE. So I was stressed out trying to keep her on the leash and close by, but not right on top of us cause she would be kicking dirt and sand into the food. (Maybe this should be a Jellybean item) Anyway, I didn't get to enjoy it too much because of the dog stress.

But other than that it was great!! We sat under a canopy and watched everyone swim. I didn't bring my bathing suit, so I didn't even get in the water. Not that I wanted to get in the water. It's quite dirty and smelly and I didn't want to get myself or my little girl into that festering cesspool of gnats and dead vermin. I'm not joking about that. Right when we left, I noticed a dead animal no less than 15 feet away from our camp. GROSS! Utah lake is not sanitary.

However, the lake was fun, the weather was great and we all stayed out of the sun. So it was a great time.

Cheesecake:
My daughter slept for SIX HOURS IN A ROW last night!! What did I do to get so lucky? She slept from 11:3o pm to 5:40 am.

Jellybean:
At 5:00 am, a good 40 minutes before she woke up, I am awakened by my right boob pulsating. It's literally throbbing with pain and I just sit there for 40 minutes willing my child to wake up. She's dead still and silent. When she makes even the SLIGHTEST movement, I pounce and jump on her and jostle her to wake her up all the way. Luckily she does and she helps mommy out.

Why are my boobs so big? Why do I make so much milk? Why can't I just wear regular bras and not wake up in a puddle of my my own sticky, sour smelling, fabric stiffening mess at all hours of the night? Again, I guess it's better then making NO milk. But I really wish it would just hurry up and "regulate" itself like everyone says it will. In the meantime, I'm just WAITING with swollen boobs.

Final Cheesecake Items:
My baby
Being able to breastfeed, and the fact that my baby really is getting good at it.
Drinking ice water from the big plastic mug with a straw that they gave me in the hospital
My baby's curly hair
The roses blooming in my backyard
Our upcoming family reunion at Lake Powell in 3 weeks

Final Jellybean items:
Swollen boobs
Smelling like rotten milk 100% of the time
Having to move this week from my awesome 2800 square foot house to a 600 square apt. This is NOT a good idea, I'm sure I'm going to regret it.
The fact that Marcelo might not go to the family reunion because of his school. What, he can't miss ONE day? Well, you try to convince him.
My horrible gas. Man, will my bowels EVER be normal again?
And finally: Wanting to go out and do things but not wanting to expose everyone to my gas, boobs and sour milk smell.

So if you are wondering why I leave the house anymore, now you know. That and the fact that I'm never wearing anything else besides my underwear. I've learned that the less clothes you wear, the less you smell like sour milk. And you can take that to the bank.

"That Would Be Nice"

Whenever I ask Marcelo if he wants me to make him a certain thing for breakfast or dinner, he always responds, "That would be nice." I don't know why, but it makes me laugh every time. I'll say "Do you want bacon, eggs and toast for breakfast?" and he says, "That would be nice." Why is that so funny to me?

Maybe because it's so unexpected. It's not just an outright "yes" or even a more casual "yeah." It's quite formal and almost thankful. It's like he's expressing gratitude before he even receives the food. Sometimes I wonder if he's translating something directly from Spanish and that's why it sounds so funny: Because it's so formal.

In Ecuador, when you would ask someone if they wanted you to help them, or give them something, they would respond, "No seas maldito" which LITERALLY translates to "Don't be damned." I am not kidding you!! That is the literal translation!! So you can understand why I didn't understand it the first time I heard it. I remember being with Judd and we went over to a new member's house. We were giving her reading lessons. (One day I'm going to write a blog about giving reading lessons in Ecuador. I promise I'll make you cry) Anyway, when she got to the door, we realized she didn't look too good, so we asked her what was wrong. She said her belly had been hurting her all day, and she didn't know why.

We asked her if we could do anything to help her, like the laundry or feeding her kids. And she says, "No seas maldito." Judd and I had NO IDEA WHAT THAT MEANT!! We just like stood there looking at her. Then she started talking about her belly again and we asked again if we could help and she said again, "No seas maldito." If memory serves me right, she had to say it one more time before one of us turned to the other one and said, "I think that means yes." I don't rememer who finally figured it out, but we were really glad we did. We felt like idiots for a while there. And even later on when we realized she had to say it THREE times to get us to understand.

Anyway, this post is about Marcelo and the funny things HE says. When he says, "That would be nice" it makes me smile and realize that I have a very polite husband. You'd better believe that he's going to teach our children to say, "Si, Senor" and "Si, Senora" to adults. So this post is a belated Father's Day homage.

See, I needed to wait until I had some good pictures of him and Evita. And here are some of them:

The first one is a little dark, but he didn't know I was taking it, so he's totally doing this naturally. And I love the serene look on Evita's face. She LOVES being held by her father.

And this look on Evi's face makes me love both of them so much. Notice the Boppy under Marcelo. He loves using it to hold her up. And she loves it too.

And here they are watching some more TV. Usually Marcelo holds her right when he comes home and is watching TV. Hence lots of couch shots.































My two favorite pictures are the one of her screaming and then seeing how Marcelo calmed her down by talking to her (as shown in the next frame). And the other favorite is of him holding her head by the sides. Like his hands are the bubble wrap around her precious melon head.

Marcelo is such a great dad. He HATES changing diapers, but he'll do it whenever I ask him. He'll also walk the floor with her for hours at a time singing to her and bouncing her around to put her to sleep or to just soothe her. Thursday night he actually walked around with her for 45 minutes while I went to sleep and slept soundly from 10 pm to 3 am. I had no idea he did this until the next morning he told me about it.

He claims that he "knows her" better than I do. And sometimes I think he might be right!! For some reason she'll scream her head off with me, but daddy can make her hush right up. I think it's because he sings hymns to her. Her favorite is "How Firm A Foundation" and "Lord Dismiss Us With Thy Blessing" (The latter is a VERY popular hymn in Ecuador. I knew both verses by heart so if given the opportunity to pick a song for district meeting, this was always my choice. Also, the song has my husband's name in it, so I would sing it when I was missing him). I love to hear him sing to her. He says I need to sing to her more. I think he might be right, but it's hard singing to her at 3 am when all I really want to be doing is sleeping. And I don't think my voice is as good as his for soothing purposes.

Marcelo is a great example of what I should be doing almost always. He's so strong, with such a strong will. He's a great example to me of hard work and dedication and just sheer desire. I work hard every day to make him proud of me. I love my husband. He's a great father, and a great man. Happy Father's Day Marcelo!

Triggers

I love my little girl. Especially because she KNOWS what's going on. I call those her "Triggers." I know she's not the only one that has them. Reagan said that her little girls had this 6th sense about the swing and as soon as she would put them in it they would be like "ALERT!! Mom's trying to get something done!! QUICK. . . START CRYING! WHHHAAAAAAAA!"

My little girl has the same uncanny ability. Here is the "fastest" way to get stuff out of my little girl:

* The fastest way to get my baby to wake up is to climb into bed. At night time, I will nurse my baby, burp her, and then put her in her crib. Then I can do ANYTHING for ANY amount of time and she'll stay asleep. I'll go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, flush the toilet, blow dry my hair. . . well, you get the idea. I'll be walking around getting ready for bed, making what I consider to be a giant ruckus. And then I'll tiptoe into bed, pull back the covers and climb in. The springs will squeak, and then . . . "Wa, waa, WHHAAAA!" Are you kidding me? What is that? Then I'm torn between feeding her again (which we know she doesn't need) or letting her scream for a little while to tire herself out. Or getting up and letting her scream in my ear as I walk around the room bouncing her. UGH!! CURSE YOU SQUEAKY BED!

* The fastest way to get my baby to spit up/burp is to burp her without a rag on my shoulder protecting me. I actually tested this theory last night at 1:30 am. She was fussing, fussing, wouldn't burp it up. Then I removed the rag, and BLUUUUUGH. Spit up down my front AND back. Delicious. The feeling of my shoulder without a rag is a very strong trigger for vomit from my little girl.

* The second fastest way to get my baby to spit up is to change her diaper. I think it has something do do with tipping up her body to change her diaper. There will be poop everywhere and I need to keep her body up so I don't get poop all over her blanket, or the Boppy, or her clothes. And then all of a sudden, I will look at her mouth and there's curdled milk just rolling out of it. And I no longer have to worry about keeping things clean: she's just soiled everything with her mouth juice. Remember that. Can't make your kid burp? Change her diaper.

* The fastest way to get my baby to poop is to change her diaper. She'll have a dry dry diaper and then she'll decide to go pee. So I try to be a "good mommy" and change her right away. And as I'm putting on the last sticky side, she fills up her diaper with her special brand of sticky slimy poop. So I have to change her again. And you know what? She's not done!! She poops again. Sometimes I don't even have the tabs on, I just have the diaper placed UNDER her and she fills it up. Or should I say "fills on TOP of it." I think my record is 4 diapers in 1 hour. AHHHH, the money I spend on her cute little bum.

So those are her "Triggers" and the fastest way for me to make her do certain things. But I love her so much. So I don't care how much vomit or poop I have to deal with.

Sleep Deprivation

So I was chatting with Reagan online last night as she was working. All was going well. I had put my baby down to sleep and I was waiting for her to wake up for her 1:30 feeding. It was about 12:30 and Reagan is talking about how her house was horribly messy when she got home. That's the last thing I remember. I totally fell asleep until 1:30 when I heard my baby wake up.

I noticed that I was still logged on, so I decide to send Reagan a message telling what was going on and that I needed to take care of my baby. Well, that's what I THOUGHT I was telling her last night. When woke up this morning, I looked at my computer and I saw what I ACTUALLY wrote to her. This is what came out:

Alicia Loor says:
kksk s akdxs

Alicia Loor says:
forry awak

Alicia Loor says:
alk to you late

That is a direct cut and past from what I found this morning. The second message was me trying to say, " Baby awake." I do remember that much. And the third is even more obvious, "Talk to you later" was what I was going for.

BUT WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THAT FIRST ONE?!??! What was I trying to say? What was I even thinking? I have NO idea!! I just know that I typed those letters and hit send while I was 150% asleep.

I would like to know what Reagan thought when she came back and read my "communication" to her. Ahhh, the hilarities of Alicia while she's sleep deprived.

Medical Update

Oh, I wanted you all to know that my feet are finally normal again. I ended up calling the doctor's office and the nurse told me that if it persists after like 10 days, I can come in and she'd give me something. However, on the morning of day 10, it was all better!!! It's like my feet knew and were like "Oh crap!! She's going to do something drastic to us. Quick! Abandon all water! Look skinny! Suck in your cheeks. Turn to the side. We do NOT want her to take care of this medically. DROP EVERYTHING NOW!!!" I literally woke up to feet half the size of the previous day. It's been great every day since.

Also, I know many MANY people were concerned about my post pardom crying. I was one of them!! I just couldn't stop crying for like 5 days straight. Everything would set me off. The funny thing is that my baby never made me cry!! Looking at Raya would make me cry. And I think I cried about what I was going to eat one day.

One of the things that was really causing me trouble and stress was the worries about if we were going to move or not. It was our plan to be leaving the last week of June and start school in Missouri in the fall. When I realized that the day after I brought home my baby from the hospital, I just freaked out. I had a total meltdown. I told Marcelo I couldn't do it. I told him we needed to stay around until at LEAST the end of July (when we are having a family reunion).

The move to the Midwest all hinged on the sale of our home. As you know, it hasn't sold yet, so plans had to be modified. We decided to rent out our home and move into my mom's apartment in Provo for a short time. At least till the end of summer when I think I'll have more of a handle on this mommy thing. When we finally made this decision, this greatly decreased the amount of crying. The funny thing is that I could probably do it now if you asked me. But at that time i just wasn't ready. But don't worry, I'm not going anywhere soon.

But the Sunday after I gave birth was the last day I cried. I think the hormones were just working themselves out of me. And the stresses of OTHER things being done, I had nothing else to cry about. Like I said, it was never about my baby. I never cried about her or about anything related to her. She's been the one great thing in my life.

Marcelo was REALLY worried about me. He said, "You act so sad. This is what you wanted!! What is the matter with you? Why aren't you happy? You are like so sad, and this is what you wanted." I wish I could've told him why the tears just wouldn't stop. I tried to tell him about the hormones, but he thought it was just an excuse. Finally when OTHERS told him about the hormones, then he believed me. Why is that? Wife=Crazy but same info from another person? Oh, he'll believe that in a second.

And sometimes it was comical the things I would cry about. Even as I was crying, I was thinking to myself "STOP CRYING!! YOU ARE BEING RIDICULOUS!" I was just glad when it stopped. I felt really out of control for a while there.

My doctor gave me 3 prescriptions, but I never filled a single one. I don't know why I didn't. I guess I just didn't think that I needed them. One was for Percocet, and another one was for Motrin 800. Well, I can just take 4 tablets of 200mg Motrin and I don't need to waste money on a Motrin prescription, right? And the third one was for some sort of low dose birth control pill. I don't plan on going back on the pill anytime soon, so I don't need to take that one either.

I really think I should've talked to my doctor about my plans to never fill any prescription he gave me. But the last time I saw him, there were (no joke) ONE MILLION people in my room. Well, ok maybe not that many. I think there were only 12 or 13. But that's still lots!! And my doctor wanted to examine me, and talk about post pardom care. And I didn't know at that time if I would even be in the state of Utah for my 6 week check up. (cause we were still planning on moving at that time) And I wanted to talk to him about that, but again, there were all those people there.

I should've just kicked them out, but I felt guilty doing that. I mean, they were all there to see me, right? I just couldn't do that, much to my own detriment. Anyway, I really should've kicked those people out so I could have a heart to heart with my doctor. But at least I'll be able to talk to him during my 6 week post pardom check up.

So that's my current medical status. I'm very happy to be over the constant crying. And to have feet at a normal size again. And to have such a sweet baby. Have you seen this girl? MAN! She's freaking gorgeous. Let's just hope she stays like this. My baby is perfect.

Spit Up Queen

Oh my gosh!! She's started to spit up a LOT more. Today, she woke up around 6 pm and I fed her from my left side. My left side is my "fuller" side and she gets the best latch on that side. So she just latched on and started sucking like crazy. When she was slowing down, I decided it was time to switch her to the other side.

So I picked her up so I could burp her between sides. I put her on my right shoulder and started patting her back. I had done this for no longer than 7 seconds, and all of a sudden she like EXPLODES all over me. I was "smart" and had placed a burp cloth on my shoulder. Well, when your baby decides she's going to spew 1/3 cup of liquid all over you, there is no rag that can absorb it that fast.

Add to that the fact that she's turned her face into my neck and you have a recipe for messiness. I have tons of hot, sour, smelly milk pouring down my front and pooling in the bottom elastic band of my bra. I just sit there and try to figure out what to do to get it off me without spreading it around more.

Well, she wasn't done. After I cleaned my body (I didn't clean my clothes, I just waited for them to dry out. There is no reason to change them. I'm going to get into bed and be covered with milk all night long. So I'm not going to even waste my time) So after I cleaned up, I finish burping her. And this is what comes up during spit up round #2:
















Aren't I a horrible mom? I take a picture instead of cleaning her off. But at least I have a record of her nice cottage cheese curdled mess. I'm sure she's going to be talking to her therapist about this in the future.

And then my other "bad mommy moment" from today. I let her sleep in Lisa's hammock chair and when I went to check on her, this is what she looked like:


Looks comfy right? YOU WOULD THINK SO!! So I pulled back the blanket and this is what I found:
















Um, maybe this angle isn't clear. So I took another one, a more "ground level" shot. And here it is:




Does that look comfortable to you? It sure doesn't to me!! But she stayed like that for like 4, nearly 5 hours. BAD BAD MOMMY!! Oh well. I have many MANY years to ruin her life. . . and her posture.

You know, if you are tired of hearing about my baby, I'm sorry. I have no life these days. All I have is my swollen breasts and clothes covered in baby vomit. I should re-direct you to some other websites if you want more entertainment.