6 months

At 6 months, M is now a rolling pro. She rolls back to belly very quickly. She also gets up on all fours and rocks back and forth. She's trying to crawl, but hasn't quite figured it out yet. She's making different sounds and laughing as well.
She now says 'Dadadada' non-stop. we're still working on 'Mama' :)
She likes to fake cough.
She loves to hear whistling and funny sounds. She also enjoys a good game of peek-a-boo.
She has become very active too. Her arms and legs are rarely still, which works great for her exersaucer that she now fits in properly, and loves!

5 months

  At 5 months M is starting to really talk up a storm. Her vocabulary mostly consists of "Dadadadada." Which of course, is to be expected, seeing as I carried her for 9 months, and it's not enough that she is the spitting image of him, but her first 'words' would be for him too!! :p

She's also trying VERY hard to roll from back to belly. I'm sure she'll have it down in a matter of days, if not weeks.

Still scooting and trying to push herself while on her belly, IF she actually stays on her belly long enough.

She is finally sleeping unswaddled, but only if she's on her belly.  

She's teething (we think) and knawing at anything she gets her hands on.

4 months

At 4 months, M is rolling belly to back more frequently, and now needs to be strapped into the swing and chair. She is reaching for things now and loves to stare at her mobile in her swing. She can reach her toes while sitting in the bumbo, and loves to grab and play with them. She also reaches out for Vegas now and loves his kisses. She is strong enough to go in the jogging stroller now and prefers the JJ Cole stroller to be facing outward so she can see the world.

3 months

At 3 months, M is starting to lean towards things that are dangled in front of her. It looks as if she's trying to reach for it, but not sure how to get her hands to cooperate. She also catches sight of Vegas if he walks slowly in front of her. She can roll from belly to back. She's also VERY interested in what's around her now and likes to look around. She also likes to smile when she sees Mama :)

2 months

At 2 months M still loves her sleep and hasn't quite figured out how to move her arms and legs.

1 month

At 1 month, Malia loves to sleep and has a hard time staying awake while nursing. The dryer works wonders for getting her to sleep when she is fussy.

 

 

And so it begins...

I was terrified of having a baby.
Terrified of labor, terrified of pushing a well glazed ham out of my vagina.
I even had a nightmare, or two, of ginormous babies exploding from my crotch.
Despite my fear, I wanted a water-birth, which meant no epidural. Mr. White, didn't think I could do it. My doula, Angela, recommended we come up with a ‘safe-word,’ that only I could say, to let whoever know that I wanted an epidural. This was a great idea, seeing as most husbands don’t like seeing their wife in pain, and will instantly ask ‘Do you want an epidural?’ Our safe word was ‘bananas,’ because my comedian husband thought it would be hilarious if I screamed “GIVE ME THE BANANAS!!” while in the hospital, seeing as the Germans probably think the Americans are already crazy, this would just seal the deal.
The rule was he was not allowed to bring it up, say it, hint at it, nothing. Only I could. This way it wasn’t an option at all. Good. Deal was set, water-birth with no epidural.
At 39 weeks I went in for my regular OB appt. They did the fetal monitoring and found I was having contractions, but I couldn’t feel them. Nothing too alarming, so they sent me home. I was disappointed. I was hoping they were going to pull me into another room and say “Congratulations! You just gave birth and didn’t even know it, here’s your baby girl!”
No such luck.
That night I decided to try some squats, so I did 10 before bed.
At 4′ish I was woken up by a contraction. Nothing terrible, just enough to wake me up. “Hhhmm…maybe I should go finish packing my hospital bag,” I thought.  "Nah, I’ll go back to sleep,” was my next thought.
Around 4:30 another one came, stronger. I decided to get up and walk it off. I must have moaned pretty loud, and woke up Mr. White. I told him to go back to sleep, he had to get up in an hour for work. They started getting stronger and closer together, and veeery uncomfortable, all very fast. I went out into the living room to sit on the birthing ball (exercise ball) and also tried to walk them off. Angela recommended to have contractions 5 min apart for at LEAST 30 mins before heading to the hospital. I didn’t want to get turned away if we rushed there, so I was trying to hold off timing them, but I was curious. So I opened our contraction app on the ipod, oops….. they were 2 mins and 45 seconds apart. Time to pack the hospital bag I guess!
I barked orders at Mr. White, told him to call Angela.
I had a strong contraction and he held my hand and looked me in the eyes, “Sweetie, are you sure you don’t want an epidural?”
REALLY!? WTH!? What was our deal!? So much for that!
But I was able to stay strong and refuse. Not that he had one on him, in his back pocket or anything. He took Vegas (our dog) out, packed my bag, packed snacks and made calls to his unit. Then we left around 5′ish.
We stopped at a stoplight and I had another bad one. I yelled really loud and he looks at me and says, “Oh, I bet it feels like when I tore my spleen.” Seriously?? Is he trying to be on a roll with things NOT to say to a woman in labor?? Because if so, he was doing an amazing job.
I sat on my fist so I wouldn’t knock out the father of my child.

He parked in the Emergency entrance and ran to get me a wheelchair. We headed up to the delivery ward and was greeted by the lollipop kids from the Wizard of Oz. They weren’t short, just extremely happy and friendly and smiling and gentle… everything that irritates you when you’re already in pain and screaming. I screamed at these lollipop nurses that I was having a baby, so they smiled and moved me into a room to check me. They checked me and Angela asked how far dilated I was. “Oh, baby is coming now. She’s 10cm.” WTH!? How did that happen?? I’m about to have a baby!!! But no time to even be surprised, I had to push.
15-20mins later the most beautiful baby girl was in my arms. I cried, laughed, made weird noises, forgave my husband for all his mistakes (in my head of course, not out loud), and thanked the Lord for this gorgeous baby. We were swept off our feet and fell in love all over again. We had left the house around 5′ish, M was born at 5:43am. No water-birth, but also no epidural! So take that Mr. White, no bananas here!
While we were ooh’ing and ahh’ing over M, we suddenly remembered the car, it was still parked in the Emergency entrance!
And so our crazy, hectic, full of excitement, life had begun.