The busiest of babies

I know, I know, it's been too long (AGAIN). Time just flies when you have a 7 month old (8 mo on Tuesday) and a full time job...jeeze!

Matilda Rae is, simply put, a little angel. She is happy almost every second of the day and all she wants to do is go and play and explore. She has been standing up and walking holding on to the coffee table or couch for about a month now, but this morning she let go and took one little wobbly step all on her own. It was just too cute! The look on her face was as shocked as mine. She is still not even close to sleeping through the night, but she is skipping her night time feeding most nights now. She just wakes up once or twice and needs her pacifier and a pat on the back to get back to sleep. Jenn- I am so jealous of little Claire's 12 hour snoozes!

Here are some cute pics of miss Mattie over the last 6 weeks or so...

On the swings, her fav:

At the beach with Daddy:

Our little surfer girl:

Bed head and sleepy face like her Daddy (6:30 AM):

Big girl in Daddy's new truck:

With Mommy heading to Poe's for dinner (first bow in her hair!):

Little fatso happy in her highchair because she just ate:

Eddie and I say every day how incredibly lucky we are. We have a truly perfect baby. She goes everywhere with us without any problems and all of our friends (even D who hates babies!) love Matilda. She has started going to the library with Franma on Tuesday's for Mother Goose time and she just loves it! They read and sing and Matilda is enthralled. Franma says she holds her hands and walks around and steals the other kids her age pacifiers. She's just so giant (20 lbs and 30" now!), so she's the bully in the 7 mo old crowd...lol. Franma said she gets along better with the one year olds because they are able to play with her.

She is eating 3 meals and 3-4 (5 oz) milk feedings a day now and man can she eat. For breakfast she has oatmeal cereal with bananas and prunes most days and for lunch and dinner it's a wide variety of options. Her new fav is edamame, but corn and carrots are a close second. She also loves apples and pears mixed- that's usually her dessert. I make all her food for the week on Sundays and usually she sits in the kitchen in her highchair and helps me cook. :)

She also wants to try all of our food now. I let her try hummus the other day and she loved it! She also loves to gnaw on pizza crust- Mellow Mushroom is her preference (and Mom's). 

Can't believe she will be 8 months old in a few days...I better start planning her one year birthday! Hahah!

My 6 month old who thinks she's 12 months old.

Little Matilda Rae was 6 months old as of 12/28 and we went to her 6 month doctor's visit on 1/5. She is officially off the charts (above 95 percentile) for her height at 28" and at the 85 percentile for weight at 18 lbs. She is way ahead of the game being able to pull up and walk holding on to the rail of the crib or edge of the coffee table. She sits up, crawls insanely fast and is eating 2-3 meals a day of solid foods that Mom and Franma make. She loves everything she's tried including sweet potato, avocado, carrots, banana, blueberries, spinach, asparagus, squash, prunes, apple, pear and peaches. She hasn't really slowed down the breast milk drinking much, just added the food. She still has about 5 oz of breast milk every 4 hours or so either from me or a bottle and she is great at switching between the two...no issues there. She also has two teeth that make her look even more adorable- if that is even possible!

Over the weekend we were given a high chair from her Aunt Kelly and she loved eating in it and playing in it. We sat her with some toys and she played happily for about an hour. She loves throwing things on the floor now and the highchair is a perfect place to do that from.

Here are a few pics from this past weekend. It was so beautiful out that we spent lots of time outside:

We took a bike ride and went to the park on the way home to swing:

 Sunday morning Dad made breakfast and he and Mattie danced in the kitchen:

 Lots of good playoff football was on this weekend. Mattie LOVES watching football and assumed her position on the couch for a good 30 minutes straight:

 We went for a walk on the beach to collect shells. Mattie loves the ocean and is so content in her stroller on the beach:

 Mattie won't let me take a pic of her teeth without grabbing my phone! So here is the best one I could get...with her finger on the phone of course. :)

Matilda is so eager and ready to learn and do more. It's so much fun to watch it all happen, but it's happening SO fast! I really think she'll walk in the next few months at this rate...insane.

Eddie and I say every day how lucky we are...we really hit the jackpot with this little lady. :)

More soon...xoxo

world's worst blogger...world's best baby

Well, I may officially win the title of world's worst mommy blogger. Five months with NO posts? You'd think I moved to Florida, started a new job and have a new baby or something....er, um, yep, that's exactly my excuse!

But, new year, new blog.

As I said, the Berrang family has started a new chapter in our little adventure called life. Namely, we have moved to Atlantic Beach, FL and I have started a new job at an ad agency in San Marco called Burdette Ketchum. We could not be more thrilled with our move...especially when Matt and Al tell us about the frigid New York winter every morning and it's usually about 70 outside our front door...

Eddie is still working for the same company and is traveling back and forth to NYC a few times a month for meetings and such. Otherwise, he is working out of an office that is 7 min door-to-door by skateboard- pretty rad.

We are so lucky that my Mom (Franma) is able to keep Mattie during the day for us. She is teaching her everything from reading to music to math and Matilda absolutely loves it! She is so happy and loved and we could not be more thrilled with the arrangement.

So much has happened in the past five months that I couldn't even attempt to recap it all here, but I will give you some photographic proof of our amazing little girl's growth. She is now eating solid foods, has two bottom front teeth (as of 4 days ago), is crawling like a champ and is pulling up all on her own on anything she can. I swear she is going to walk in a month at this rate! She is truly the light of our lives and we are SO lucky that she is such a good little baby. She is not sleeping though the night yet though, so I am still on the every 4 hour waking to feed schedule...a small price to pay for her amazingness! Here are a few pics from the past few months...

Loving her new beach home:

 Gator baby, with Mom at Bronson's parents BBQ:

 First bite of food, sweet potatoes on Thanksgiving:

 Christmas candy bandit at D's parents party:

 Happy girl on the beach on a walk with Mom:

 Christmas Eve nap with Dad:

 Christmas Eve book reading with Dad:

 Christmas morning on her older cousin's Powerwheel:

 Christmas morning, loving the wrapping paper and bows:

 Christmas morning bath in Dede's sink:

 Her six month birthday, in a highchair like a big girl:

 My little hipster baby, clothes courtesy of her cool aunt Meg in NYC:

 Happy New Year! She almost made it until midnight...Franma took her home at 11:30 :)

 First family bike ride this past weekend:

Needless to say she is growing up so fast. It feels like yesterday that we brought her home and now we can't imagine life without her. 

I'm going to try my best to keep up with the blog a little better. Now that Eddie got me an iPhone I have been taking pics like crazy (as you can tell most of the ones I posted are new), so it should be easier to document this little angel's busy life. 

Now off to pump- that is not the most fun thing about being a breastfeeding Mom, pumping twice a day at work...such is life! 

xoxoxo

Busy baby!

The last few weeks Matilda has been a busy little lady. Two weekends ago we went to Maryland to visit Eddie's family and last weekend we went to Montauk to introduce her to the rest of Eddie's family. She did so well in the car both times- it was great. Both drives were between 3-4 hours and she slept most of the way there and back on both trips...what a pleasure she is to travel with, hope it stays that way. :)

Here are some cute pics of our little bean the past couple of weeks- she has grown SO much- well over 10 lbs now.

Sleeping on Daddy's lap in her outfit from Aunt D:

 At home on Mommy's lap- excited about her Montauk onesie from Aunt Tracy E:

 In Maryland at Dede's in the bouncy seat:

  Sleeping on Daddy's lap with her new puppy Daddy bought her:

 In her little tie dye outfit that cousins Julian and Morgan made for her:

 Happy baby looking at Uncle Bjorn's black and white pic of Kauai on our wall- she loves it!:

 First Bath:

 Sleeping on the couch at home:

  With Daddy at Uncle Chucks pool:

 Laying out at Uncle Chucks pool:

 Laying out at Uncle Chucks pool:

 With her cousins Chas and Caitlyn in Montauk:

 Beach in Montauk with Daddy:



Mattie's first family outing :)

Over the weekend, I finally felt good enough to venture out of the house, so Eddie, Aunt D and I took the little lady on her first real adventure!

First, we (of course) stopped at Epsteins to say hi to Shane and Sean, then we picked up sandwiches and headed to the East River park. It was a bit tough on me (about two miles round trip), but Matilda did great! It felt so good to be out of the house and in the fresh air...I was getting stir crazy.

Then, after we went home and rested for a bit, we took Mattie out to dinner with the 3 of us. Pala was packed, so we went to Mole, which was so fun. It was quite loud in the restaurant, but Mattie was in her car seat and slept through the whole dinner. :) She was a total little angel!

It was so fun getting out and about with her. I can't wait until I am more mobile and can take her out on my own during the week. Right now I can't lift anything heavier than the baby, so the stroller and car seat are off limits. Three more weeks and I'll be taking her everywhere. Can't wait!

Doctors, doctors and more doctors!

Matilda has done so well the last (almost) three weeks and Eddie and I are getting used to less sleep and lots of diapers!

Since we left the hospital 2 weeks ago we have had lots of visits to doctors for the new little Berrang girl. First, two days after we left the hospital, we had to take Mattie in to be checked for jaundice. She was borderline when we went home, so we needed to be sure she wasn't having any issues. It was July 4 weekend, so the doc at the hospital said we'd likely have to take her to the ER to be checked, but we were so excited when our new pediatrician offered to come in on a Sunday of a holiday weekend to check her. So we took her out when she was 5 days old, in a thunderstorm, to be checked for jaundice...she was totally fine of course. :)

Then, on her one week birthday, we had her first newborn visit. They weighed her and were amazed that she had already gained 6.5 oz. Most babies lose a bit of weight after birth, but not our little porker! She was 7 lb. 12.5 oz one week after birth.

During this doctors visit we also asked about the bump above Mattie's right eye. It was there when she was born and we weren't sure if she bumped it or if it was an issue. The doctor said it is a dermoid cyst and not anything to worry about. She referred us to a dermatologist to confirm her suspicion and decide on what should be done for it.

So, at two weeks old, we took Mattie to the dermatologist. He was really great- confirmed it is a cyst and told us the three possibilities: the cyst will go away on it's own, as she grows, it will be so small that nothing will need to be done, or it will need to be removed when she is a bit older. He assured us that it's very common and nothing to be concerned about, which made us feel much better! So we're just waiting to see how things pan out with that. He did recommend that we take her to a pediatric eye doc to be sure it's not impeding her vision at all, so we're going to do that soon.

We are so thrilled that she is happy, healthy and growing like a weed!! We are very lucky and remind ourselves of that every day....

Happy Birthday Matilda Rae Berrang!

Well the day finally arrived, though not at all as we expected! It was a typical night of Chinese food, TV and contractions with not much pain (story of my life the last 2 wks), when all of a sudden I thought my water broke! I very excitedly went to the bathroom only to find it was lots of blood rather than lots of water, so I called the doctor to see what he thought. Everything I read online said that you can have a "bloody show" (what a name, right?) as heavy as a period, so I thought maybe that's all we were dealing with. But, when I called the doc, he wanted me to go to the hospital immediately...apparently what I described was not as common as the world wide web led me to believe.

I still thought that we would likely get to the hospital and they would send us home to finish our lo mein and wait for our doc appt the next day. I thought this so surely that we almost didn't bring our bags for the hospital, but at the last minute we decided to play it safe. We grabbed a cab and loaded up and headed to NY Downtown. Of course, there was construction on Bowery, so it took a bit to arrive...

Once we arrived, everyone was very helpful. They took my into triage and put on the monitors and examined me. The good news was the baby was totally fine- great heart beat and fluid levels...everything with her looked great. The bad news was that the sonogram showed that my placenta looked to be blocking the way out and they would have to do an emergency C-section.

Now I had prepared myself for many scenarios with having this baby, but this was not one I had considered. I had skipped this section in all the books and basically not considered it as an option at all. Now I was told that I was being prepped for surgery and the baby would be out within the hour- not exactly part of my birth plan!

I didn't have much time to fret though, Eddie was in scrubs and we were in the OR within the hour.

The surgery itself was pretty scary. I had seen C-sections on TV, but nothing prepares you for that being YOUR body and you being fully awake. Also, it took what felt like forever...come to find out the surgery was complicated even more because they had to cut through the placenta to get to the baby...not the norm. So the exit wasn't totally blocked like they'd assumed, but the placenta was pulling away from the wall of the uterus, which caused the bleeding and could be dangerous for me and the baby. Thankfully my doc was cautious enough to get her out quickly and safely.

Eddie was next to my head the whole time and we got to hear her little cry for the first time as soon as she was born- 2am on the dot. She weighed in at 7 lb 6 oz and was 20 in long! Tall and skinny like her daddy :)

Eddie got to go with her to the nursery while I was stitched up- another long process. Then they wheeled me into recovery and brought little Mattie Rae in to hang out while they set up our room.

Once we made it to our room it was about 430 AM and we were exhausted. Mattie nursed for the first time and was instantly a pro at it- we were thrilled. The pediatrician and doctors start rounds at 5, so we did not sleep at all. So Tuesday was really rough for me...I really was not prepared for major surgery at all.

Tuesday night the doc recommended that Mattie sleep in the nursery because my blood pressure was really low and I needed to rest, but apparently Mattie didn't like that idea- they brought her back at 130 because she was upset and wanted mom and dad. But Wednesday and Thursday night she cooperated and slept in the nursery from 12-430 so that mom and dad could sleep a little. It totally changed things for me and I really felt better after sleeping a few hours. I felt so bad sending her, but knew I did the right thing when Eddie and I could both function on Thursday! It had literally been almost 72 hours since we'd slept at that point.

On Thursday I finally felt well enough to shower, so Aunt Tink (aka Wendy) stayed in the room with Matilda while Eddie helped me shower. Felt great to be clean! It's tough doing normal tasks with the incision pain, but I'm trying. Eddie was great and did all the diaper changing and lifting.

We finally got to come home on Friday. Wendy and Mom came to the hospital to help while Eddie went and got a Zipcar to bring us all home. Eddie had also decorated our apartment building with balloons-so sweet!

Here are some great pics from the hospital and homecoming: