Shasta's 1st Birthday and Party

I know this is a month late. Summer school literally started 4 days after Spring Semester. I feel like I haven't had a single moment to myself let alone time to blog and do leisurely things! Summer classes are SO fast paced and for some strange reason, I thought I could handle 3 classes at once with a 4th one starting in just over a week. Aahhh!!!

Anyway... onto Shasta's birthday. I didn't feel the need to go all out and do something fancy. I figure since she won't remember it, there's no point in going broke trying to make it extra special. Her actual birthday was a Wednesday and Nick had to work all night so we didn't even do a special birthday dinner. She got up and opened some presents in the morning, but we didn't get through all of them because she got super grumpy and needed a nap.

We went a little overboard on presents, but most of them were necessities. She was in desperate need of clothes to grow into and she needed some developmental toys since most of what she had was for a much younger age group.

Simple decorations.

I even blew up some balloons which says a lot because I HATE balloons!

And I cringed with every scratching sound her hand made while playing with them.

If you look closely you can see a scratch down her cheek. Wedge jumped off the couch and his foot caught her face. This was the start of her grumpiness that lead to an early nap!

This girl sure can make a mess. Remember the balloon picture? The room was completely clean other than a few balloons on the floor! Part of the mess is a box of tissues that I gave her to do what she wanted with. Most all the tissues she pulled out of the box she "blew her nose in" first before getting a new one. Silly girl!

She loved pulling the clothes out of the bag and hucking them behind her so she could get another one.

Nick is so good at taking pictures! I love this one!

Then came her birthday party. We did it the Saturday after her birthday so all of Nick's family could come. It was just a family party and since my family lives in Arizona (pretty much), it was just her Hendricks family that was there. We had the party at a local park because we thought it would be more comfortable for 17 people to gather than in our little home. Little did we know it was going to be FREEZING the whole time and right at the beginning Animal Control showed up and made us take Wedge home.

The family cake. Nick did an awesome job. For a first attempt at fondant, I think it turned out awesome!

Shasta's personal cake. If you can't tell, the cakes are supposed to look like Shasta Soda cans!!!

It was too windy to light the candle, but she wouldn't have blown it out anyway so no big deal.

No offense to Nick and his cake making ability, but I knew it wasn't going to taste that great since he didn't use much frosting between the layers and fondant doesn't make for the greatest taste, I decided to make cupcakes too. One of Nick's sister's thought it was actually ice cream which made my day!

Shasta wasn't a fan of her party hat. We used these same hats at Wedge's 1st birthday party too!

She was a fan of the cake! Nick had to cut it in half because she couldn't quite dig into it with the layer of fondant, but she did her best to eat it all. She probably consumed close to half of it before we took it away.

Time for presents!!!

All the Hendricks cousins (and 2 mommies). Notice there are only girls. That's right, 7 granddaughters!

Family picture minus Wedge since he got kicked out of the park. So sad.

Shasta's birthday was a lot of fun, but I'll admit, I'm glad it's over. It falls right at the end of Spring Semester so it's a high stress time anyway with final projects and tests so it was nice to have it checked off the list of things to do! It's hard to believe she's already a year old. It's amazing to me how fast the first year actually goes and it's made me want to appreciate every phase a little more. We're approaching the tantrum stage though so we'll see how I feel about appreciating every moment in the next few months!

Side note: I've been wanting to get her 1 Year Pictures up, but my computer doesn't have a disc drive in it and I've been too busy (lazy) to pull out the external disc drive to get them loaded onto my computer. Hopefully in the next few days I'll get it done though because they're super cute and everyone should get to share in the joy!

Shasta's 12 Months

My baby is a year old. How did this happen? Her birthday was two weeks ago and I'm still in denial about it! She had a doctor's appointment this month and here are her stats:

Weight: 17lbs 15oz (7th %ile)
Height: 28 inches (18th %ile)
Head: I can't remember and the paper has magically disappeared. I just remember it was big... 60th percentile range.

Her doctor is very pleased with how well she is doing and how far she's come. He also told me if we wanted we could start cow's milk, but a dietitian would recommend nursing or giving her formula for two more months to account for her gestation. Her doctor said he's fine with whatever I decide, so the plan for now is to nurse her for another two months. I want to do what's best for her and I feel like nursing is just as easy as any other option, so nurse we will!

By the time Shasta turned 1:

Says: Mom, Dad, Done (but it sounds like "Da"), Ta Da, and Shasta (well, she tries anyway, it's more like Ta-tah).

Signs: Milk, Puppy, All Done (and says done along with it), and more. She's been really stubborn with signing. I'm tempted to do a "no voice" day and only sign to her to see how she responds because I know she knows more signs than she's willing to use and even the ones she uses she's stubborn about using them.

She loves feeding Wedge her snacks. One for him...

One for her...!

Finally fits into size 2 shoes which means I can finally find shoes for her. I've never seen a size 1 before. Do they even exist?!

Hair fits into double piggies! Don't mind the part, it was my first attempt.

My favorite thing about jelly shoes is you can see her cute toes from the bottom.

She likes to watch Wedge while he's outside doing his business.

She takes Wedge's toys any chance she gets.

His defense is to lick her until she lets go.

She loves teasing Wedge. Her new thing is to take his toys as often as she can and then wave them in front of him as if to say "come and get it"!

She and Wedge went into her room one day and I didn't follow them. The next thing I knew she was laughing SO HARD. Then the two of them came back out and joined me in the other room. I have no idea what they were doing, but whatever it was it was super funny. I'm so glad they're friends!... even if Wedge isn't so sure about her!

She loves pulling stuff out of the diaper bag.

She's decided to make loading and unloading the dishwasher pretty much impossible.

Double piggies with a crisscross!

Can you tell Nick has food?!? Shasta and Wedge both flock to wherever the food is! She LOVES to eat!

 The strange thing is she loves meat the most. She's definitely Nick's daughter. I've learned to feed her a good portion of her sides first because once she's tasted the meat she spits everything else out.

She eats chicken, hamburger in any form, pork chops, ribs, bacon, ham, steak, pepperoni, sausage, and hotdogs (which she's only tried once and just had two bites). I'm sure there's more, but that's all that comes to mind off the top of my head. Is that weird? I thought kids don't usually like meat. The only meat I can't get her to eat is lunch meat and I think it's because it's served cold.

She's been an amazing eater. The times when she's the pickiest is usually when she's not really hungry. And sometimes she'll spit things out to start with, but after trying other things and coming back to what she spit out, she'll eat it. It's almost like the initial taste was too strong and she needs something else to soften her taste buds before she wants to eat it.

I put Baby Signing Time on for her and she was glued to the TV! I never put shows on for her to watch other than Signing Time and this was the first time she paid attention.

She's finally decided the stairs are fun to climb. She's learned how to go down on her belly, but it still makes me nervous to let her do it alone because anytime I'm behind her she turns around and falls. I know she's just distracted by me being there, but I'm too afraid to walk away!

First time Driving the shopping cart and she LOVED it!!! And she's apparently European.

Too bad it's her last time unless Nick's there to push the cart. Talk about steering a boat through the store!

This is her "I think I'm being sneaky" face. Anytime she's doing something she knows she shouldn't she sticks her tongue out.

 Her new thing when she's doing something she shouldn't and I call her name and tell her not to; she stops, turns and looks at me, plasters a huge smile on her face, and while looking at me reaches back with her hand to try to still do whatever it is that she's not supposed to be doing. It cracks me up. It's hard to get mad at her when she's so silly!

I will never get over her hair! This hair style I like to call "Mushroom Hair". All that's missing is a hair clip in the shape of a gnome!

She's finally learned to steer this thing! Okay, so she's not the best at it, but for the most part she can get herself out of corners.

 She's not walking yet, but she walks along anything that allows her something to hold onto. She's taken up to 2 steps by herself, but then chickens out and falls to her knees. And when Nick and I try to have her walk between us to each other she'll take a single step and then just dive. My goal is to have her walking by her due date (June 15th). I figure any time before then and she's ahead!

It's hard to tell because she's washed out from it being so bright outside, but she sticks her legs straight out when she rides in the stroller.

The house starts off tidy every morning and by the end of the day it looks like this. It's amazing how someone so small can make a mess so large! Occasionally I will straighten back up during nap times, but for the most part I find it pointless. As soon as she's awake the house looks like this again. I especially love that her hands are in the air in this picture as if to say she's owning up to the mess. And then, of course, Wedge is trying to look so innocent so I know it wasn't him!

These next pictures make me cry. I put away some of the clothes she's grown out of and decided to look at her premie clothes again. It's hard to believe that a year ago she was that tiny. If I wasn't the one who dressed her in those tiny clothes I never would have believed she actually fit in them. And to think they were big on her. Where has the last year gone? These are her current clothes compared to her premie clothes.

6-9 month sleeper and a premie sleeper

Again.

6-9 month onesie and a premie onesie.

Stay tuned for her birthday/birthday party post and her 1 year photo shoot. Among those pictures will be her comparison picture with her cow, Bree. I know you were all wondering why that one wasn't in this post! It may be a few days before I get those posts up though. Spring semester ended and then 4 days later summer semester started so I didn't get much of a break to get caught up on stuff. But feel special... instead of working on homework I decided to take the time to update you on my precious little Shasta! Aww!

My Poor Baby

Yesterday, Shasta and I took Wedge on a walk. Since we've been using the umbrella stroller I always hook Wedge's leash to the handle so I don't have to hold it.

Exhibit A

Sometimes when Wedge runs out in front and crosses to the opposite side that his leash is connected to the stroller it will brush the top of Shasta's head. Not a big deal.

Well, yesterday we stopped at the doggie station before setting off for our walk in case we needed to clean up after Wedge along the way. As we approached it I noticed there were a few people up the street that Wedge was curious about, but they were far enough away that it wasn't a big deal. I put the brakes on the stroller and as I was turning away to grab a doggie bag I noticed someone came out with a dog among the group of people. I didn't think much of it as I turned my back to finish what I was doing and the next thing I knew Shasta was crying hysterically.

I turned back to find Wedge on the other side of the stroller opposite the handle his leash was hooked to and his leash under Shasta's chin. I have no idea how it happened. The only thing I can think of is she grabbed onto the leash when he was out in front of her (she does that sometimes) and when he crossed sides she didn't have the ability to control it from rubbing her neck.

Anyway, I quickly moved out of sight of the people and dog that Wedge was so curious about so I could calm Shasta down without trying to keep Wedge afoot. She was really upset and everything happened so fast that I wasn't really sure why she wasn't calming down so easily. I thought maybe the leash momentarily choked her and scared her pretty good. Eventually she stopped crying and let me buckle her back up in her stroller and we went on our merry way.

Then, later that night I noticed this...

Exhibit B

Exhibit C

Exhibit D

Exhibit E

I'll be accepting my Mother of the Year Award now! It makes a lot more sense why she was so upset. The good news is, aside from all the crying right after it happened, she hasn't shown any signs of it bothering her. But still every time I see it my stomach knots up a little with guilt. I know I can't protect her from everything, but I'm the one who put Wedge's leash on the handle of her stroller and turned my back when I knew he was curious about the people and dog up the street from us. Sigh. Hopefully it will heal quickly so I don't have to feel so guilty anymore!

Nursing

Nursing has been an adventure to say the least.

While Shasta was in the NICU I was committed to pumping. She was too small to latch and I knew how important it was to nurse her so I pumped and she got my milk through a tube and bottles.

Once she came home I still pumped for the next month. I was scared to switch her to full time nursing. I liked that Nick could take a turn feeding her, especially during the night. I would nurse her once or twice a day and give her bottles the rest of the time. With all the pumping I made too much milk for her anyway so I couldn't give up pumping completely. Then one day I switched her to full time nursing and it's never been the same since. We had to use a nursing shield because it was still hard for her to latch, but eventually we were able to do away with that.

Remember how painful nursing can be when you first start getting used to it??? Yeah, I got to go through that twice. First with pumping, and then with actually nursing. Before having a baby I had heard so many horror stories about nursing and I was so afraid I wouldn't stick with it. I think Shasta being premature made me stick with it because I knew how much more she needed it than a full term baby and for that I'm grateful. I pushed through the pain because I knew how good it was for Shasta.

The first time I nursed her in public was a disaster. We were at church and thankfully I was the only one in the Mother's Room. (Usually there's 4-6 mothers in there at a time.) It was my first time using a nursing cover and I had no idea how hard it would be. I was struggling to see what I was doing and she was still new enough at it that I had to work at getting her to latch. Then finally she was on and all was well until she decided to break her latch. I peeked under the cover to see what happened only to find there was milk spraying out of me which I didn't even know was possible, right into Shasta's face and all over my skirt. So hear I am struggling not to expose myself from under the nursing cover for fear another mother would walk in, desperately trying to get a burp rag out of the diaper bag to catch the milk that's spraying out of me while having no idea how I was going to make it stop, worrying about my skirt being soaked in milk and having to still attend the remaining meetings of church, when Shasta decided to spit up all over everything. It was seriously the most spit up I had ever seen come out of her and that's saying something because she was a big time spitter. Needless to say, my first time nursing in public was awful and after that you can bet I practiced using the nursing cover at home until I had it down!

Then there was the first time I nursed her in a public place other than at church. Nick and I went to Ogden to pick up her crib and I forgot to bring the nursing cover. We ate lunch at Applebees and I had to nurse Shasta under a blanket. I was so afraid someone was going to say something negative to me about nursing my baby in public, but nobody did. 

In the last year there has only been one time that Shasta exposed my goods for the world to see. As she's gotten older nursing under a cover has been more challenging because she's so wiggly and wants to see what's going on. Well, one day she decided to fling the nursing cover out of the way and just as quickly as it happened I recovered myself. But still my face went Bright Red! I was so thankful it happened at a baby shower full of women and just as thankful that she was still latched so less of me was exposed. And the girls I was in a conversation with were really understanding and did their best to make me feel better, but I was still paranoid the rest of the time that she was nursing thinking that I'm no longer covered and couldn't tell so I checked every 2 seconds to make sure!

Then at 8 months, Shasta sprouted 6 teeth all at once. Two on bottom and four on top. I was really nervous for a while that she was going to bite me, but she never did. At least, not for the next couple of months. She eventually started digging her teeth into me while she nursed, like she was suctioning so hard her teeth couldn't help but be in the way. It wasn't too big of a deal until it started making little sores and then it hurt. I tried using a shield again, but of course she refused to latch. She knew better.

Now she's decided to bite down every time she latches. She doesn't bite hard, but it startles me every time. I once thought I would end up being that crazy mom who nurses her child until she's in kindergarten, but I'm getting more and more ready to be done. It's been important to me to nurse Shasta for the first year. It's such a short period in my life that I'm able to do it and I know one day I'll have a midlife crisis and realize it's something I will never do again, so I want to do it while I can. But there is no evidence that nursing past the first year has any added benefits, so the time is coming for us to move on. The problem is I don't know if Shasta will ever be ready to be done. I have no idea how I'm going to wean her. She's SO dependent of nursing. She nurses a minimum of four times a day including first thing in the morning, before naps, and before she goes to bed and sometimes she nurses in between those times. She'll be a year old next week so I'm in search of finding tips on weaning her.

How do I go about weaning her?
How long will it take?
What tricks or tips can you give me?

Celebrate. Remember. Fight Back

Another relay has come and gone.

Being on the Relay for Life committee was a challenge for me this year. All the meetings were at 8pm and Nick works nights so I had to drag Shasta to them with me. Eventually I had to stop going to them altogether because she goes to bed between 7:30 and 8pm.

This year I was the Team Development Retention Chair. (Same position I did last year). And Shasta was my co-chair. She came to all the Team Captain Meetings with me and motivated everyone to keep their focus! Even with all of her efforts, we still didn't reach our [unrealistic] goal of $40,000, but we brought in over $19,000 for the American Cancer Society.

 The committee does a Penny War every year. Each team puts pennies in their own jar and silver change/dollars in other team's jars. Pennies are good points and everything else subtracts the good points. The team that wins the Penny War gets all the money collected from the competition to add to their fundraising efforts for the event. It's been a successful onsite fundraiser for the last three years. It always brings in around $250 in change.

 This year I decided to make Shasta a 'homeless sign' to see if we could get any donations. Unfortunately, she wasn't feeling good at all so I didn't end up taking her around to see if she would get any money.

 She sure is cute though!

This is my good friend, Erin. She's our staff partner with the American Cancer Society. She made Shasta the onesie that she's wearing. I was so excited when Shasta got a committee shirt like the rest of us. She came the weekend after relay last year so she was kind of our honorary committee member this year. Everyone on the committee adores her, (how could they not?!?) so it was fun for me that she got to be recognized as a member of the committee too!

The event started at 6pm and closing ceremony started at 6am. The last 4 years I've stayed awake the whole night including last year while I was pregnant and this year with being a mother. I left around 6:30am (mostly because my goods were full of milk and it was killing me), but also because I still had to get up and be a mom. I felt bad skipping out on the cleanup part of the event, but in the end I was glad I did because I went to bed at 7am and was back up at 10:30am with Shasta.

Relay was a little bitter sweet this year. I'm not sure if I'll get to do it again next year. I want to, more than anything I want to, but it was hard this year with Nick working evenings and Shasta will be a toddler which will make it even more difficult to take her to the meetings. If the meetings are earlier then I think I can make it work by getting a sitter, but if they run during bedtime again then it probably won't work.

I love being on the committee and don't think I can ever really give it up. Relay is an emotional roller coaster, but it's the best ride I get on every year. All of us know someone who's had cancer, whether it be family, friends, or an acquaintance of some kind, it literally affects all of us in some way. That's why I'm committed to helping fund a cure. I never want to hear those three dreaded words; you have cancer. And more than that, I never want my children to hear those words. That's why I will continue to be involved, even if I don't get to be on the committee every year I will find other ways to celebrate with those who have won their battle, remember those who died, and fight back with those currently battling cancer.