Blog? What blog? You say I need two hands to type up my blog entry?

I cannot BELIEVE how long I've let this blog sit around. I'm sure that nobody even checks this thing anymore. (Hi, Mom.) Lucky for all of you, I got a new laptop from my wonderful husband for Hanukkah this year! (And yes, Dad, it runs Windows.)

Before I continue on with this post, I must offer up an apology to my relatives who have yet to meet Cora. You see, we promised you a baby with a blueberry nose and the thing is...I'm afraid we can't really provide that any longer.

Well..this is awkward...

You see, blueberry nose has disappeared! When we last left you, faithful readers, (Hi again, Mom) the specialists at CHOW had just started Cora on a topical treatment for her hemangioma. After bi-weekly visits for about a month we realized it just wasn't doing exactly what we wanted it to do. It had slowed the growth slightly, but at Miss C's age the hemagnioma is growing rapidly and really needs to be controlled. So they started her on Propranolol, a medication used to treat high blood pressure, that happens to also randomly work on hemangiomas. Since she's so little (girl's 4 months old and just over 10 lbs), we were a little nervous to start her on it, but so far we haven't had any huge problems. 

And the best part? It works! This weekend we took her into our clinic's after hours care at the hospital because she's battling a little cold and when giving her medical info to the nurse I said "Well, and of course she's got the hemangioma on her nose". The nurse walked over to the table, peered at Cora's face and said "Hmmm...I suppose she does! I didn't even notice that!" 

So what's next? We leave Cora on this medication for probably about 6 months. It seems to be doing what it's supposed to do, and Mama and Daddy are starting to get into a routine of giving it to her. She's gaining weight wonderfully (after a scary bout of pneumonia for Mama left us all a little thinner) and she almost fits into her 3 month fuzzy pajamas.

Most importantly, she's sweet and chatty and hilarious. Start singing a song, and she'll be there blowing raspberries right along with you. If she's got something to say, she's not afraid to say it! Her giggles when her daddy squishes her chubby cheeks light up our world. We love our little girl, former blueberry nose and all! (Did I mention she sleeps in until 8:30 now?)

This 'n That

It certainly has been awhile! Cora is getting to the stage of "Mommy you need to be holding me every minute now, and no thank you, I am not in the mood for a nap this week." I love snuggles with my little pumpkin, but this attitude is not conducive to blog-writing. Luckily for me, she has slept from about 9 pm-5 am the past two nights, so I just wake up with her at five, put her back down around 6, and stay awake! This is perfect for me, since I'm totally a morning person and trying to clean the house after she goes down at 8 or 9 is just not something I'm generally up for.

So here's a recap of what we've been up to the past few weeks:

At the beginning of October we drove to Milwaukee for Little C's appointment with the birthmarks and facial abnormalities specialist. She is fantastic! We felt kind of like VIP because we not only had a referral from Cora's pediatrician and dermatologist, but she had also heard of us through the magic of Cora's aunt being in the pediatric surgery world. Apparently our doctor likes to rub elbows with the hemangioma specialist in Boston and she'd already seen the pictures that we sent my sister. You know how we roll.

I guess I've already given you the basic run-down of the details from that appointment. I just forgot to include the fact that our baby is so adorable that the receptionists at the clinic needed to give her this hat:

So we have a cute little pumpkin head.

A couple of days after, I took her to the local children's hospital and got her hooked up with a Holter monitor so we could start her on the topical medication. With Cora being so little, they were slightly concerned that she may experience some heart rate irregularities with the medicine getting into her system. This is more of a concern if we start the oral medicine (Propranolol) later on, but since she's teeny even for her age and my family has a history of really low blood pressure, they decided we'd better monitor her on this medication just in case. 

So Cora charmed the hospital from the minute we got there (she achieved this by letting out several huge farts in the silent, but crowded, elevator). She flirted with the receptionists and we quickly got her hooked up. Seeing as getting my little girl dressed and undressed is apparently akin to Chinese water torture, she was not happy to be hooked up to the Holter. We drove home while Cora serenaded me with the dulcet tones of her tortured screams. 

Get this ancient iPod off of me!

Thankfully, her results came back normal after 48 hours of monitoring and daily life in the Robbins nest resumed.

We hung out with lots of family! Yia Yia (her choice...we just roll with it...) came to visit and took us out to lunch and the book store for some fun Halloween books.

Cora, can you say "speech pathologist"?

We also went back to the apple orchard for more apples and to buy some pumpkins! Daddy had fun wearing her and climbing all of the hills to get to the orchard with the later blooming apples. I carried the diaper bag and apples. Baby-wearing is less fun when you've already had to do it for 8 months.

Overall, Cora's doing very well. Her nose looks lighter in color to me, but I'm not confident that it's totally stopped growing. She's officially on the growth chart now in all categories (weight, length, and (gigantic) head circumference) and has finally surpassed her birth length! We'll go back to the hemangioma clinic next week to see what they think and take action from there.

But also, guess who can kind of sort of sit up in her bumbo chair for a couple of seconds! With such a little body and giant head, we've had to come up with creative variations on "tummy time" that don't involve her legs flailing around in the air.

No she is not staring at the television...

Seeing her sit up is amazing and we're realizing just how big our little C is getting! Of course we love her very much and would like to encourage her to continue sleeping through the night. (We mean it.)

Speaking of which, I hear some weird cackling noises coming from the bedroom! Guess I'm off to start our day. 

Our little blueberry nose

So Sean and I have the most adorable little girl on the planet. We know this because when we take her out people stop and exclaim, "My word! What a cute baby! Why, she must be the most adorable little girl on the planet!" Really, it's not our totally biased opinion. The people have spoken and this is what they have said. "Look at those big eyes!" "What a sweet little peanut!" and "She's just the cutest baby I've ever seen!" are among the other such statements of glee and overall infatuation with Little C.

Lately, along with these comments about how cute she is, Cora has been getting some questions. "What did you do to your nose, little one?" "Did you take a tumble, baby girl?" they ask her. She is, of course, very well versed in her response to these questions. Generally she stares at them and fills her pants.

Cora of Arabia and her trusty steed, Joshua Giraffe II

While her parents find this response entirely appropriate, we realize some more explanation may be in order. We agree that this blog might be an easy way to answer most of your questions at once, and save us some time in relaying the Legend of the Blueberry Nose so you can get back to telling us how cute she is! (Really, it's not us, you just can't resist her big brown eyes!) 

The purplish-blue spot on Little C's nose, while it appears to be a bruise, is actually something called a hemangioma. (Please continue reading this post before fervently googling "hemangioma on nose". It will make you feel better.) Like everyone else, we thought Cora had just banged up her nose on the carpet during the great American baby past time of Tummy Time. Upon a quick trip to the pediatrician for what turned out to be baby acne, the doctor discovered the little bruise is actually a birthmark. Hemangioma are essentially a cluster of blood cells, referred to as a tumor, but definitely benign. It usually shows up during the first couple of months of a baby's life, and it will grow until they're around 10-12 months old. After that time, the hemangioma will begin to shrink down, generally fading by the time the kid is about 5 or 6, but sometimes taking a bit longer. They're a fairly common birthmark in infants, most notably in caucasian females who were born prematurely or at a low birth weight. (Sound like anyone you know?)

Usually they aren't cause for concern, but depending on the location there can be a risk for deformity once the hemangioma shrinks back down. Since Cora's is on her nose, her doctors think it's a good idea for us to proactively treat it rather than wait for her to have surgery when she's about a year old. (Where's the page in her baby book for "Baby's First Nose Job"?) Yesterday Sean and I took her to the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin to be seen by the best of the best in hemangioma treatment. The doctor there explained to us that her hemangioma is rather large for her age, but still at the point where we should be able to stop the growth before it causes any damage that would require surgery. She's not at all concerned that it will affect Cora's breathing or anything like that (though she may sound a little more congested at times due to increased blood flow to the nose), and we've got a great team of doctors working with her to be proactive about this!

Really we are so thankful that this is the only thing we have to deal with. Walking around the Children's Hospital yesterday we realized things could be worse for our Little C. She's otherwise healthy (ok, so she's super tiny with a big head, but that's just genetics for you!) and this should really only affect her cosmetically and for the first year of her life. We'll try to keep you all posted on this blog regarding her progress.

In the meantime, she will still be a blueberry nose girl. Feel free to notice it and ask her questions, but I can't guarantee her response will be as informative as mine! Then you can go ahead and keep telling her what a cute and sweet little girl she is. Because let's face it, she's adorable and she rocks her blueberry nose like nobody's business.

A barrage of pictures containing a baby in a sling and knit caps!

Well, it seems that fall has finally arrived in our neck of the woods. I'm overjoyed as it's my favorite season, but slightly alarmed that I seemed to completely ignore summer in its entirety. (Probably because I spent most of it at home, basking in the air conditioning, fanning my pregnant belly and trying not to sneeze for fear of blood pressure spikes.) Ready or not, Cora's first fall is here!

We've been doing a lot of bopping around town in the ring sling recently. Last week we welcomed in the fall season by going apple picking with Little C's aunts, uncle, and cousin (who I guess you could call "slightly bigger C"). It was a great time and a flashback to one of my favorite dates with Sean before we were married and we came home with about 25,000 apples.

She slept through most of it, and as it turns out we were spectacularly over-bundled for the occasion, as our 50 degree day crept toward the 80s and we were trudging up and down hills with big sacks of apples. 

Last Monday Cora woke up with a rash on her face, and her reflux was still making her pretty uncomfortable, so we headed to the pediatrician's office. As it turns out, the rash is just a baby rash with some baby acne sprinkled in. To battle the reflux, the doctor prescribed a dairy-free and soy-free diet for me to follow for a few weeks. It's been about a week and I really think it has been helping her! The past two nights she slept for stretches of 5 hours! I'm pretty sure she was just nursing to soothe herself from her tummy troubles. 

We're so glad that we've potentially figured out why she was so uncomfortable, but this diet is hard! The dairy isn't so bad, but there is soy in EVERYTHING! 

So we headed off to Whole Foods yesterday. I have to say, for people with allergies, Whole Foods is fantastic. They list every ingredient in a very accessible place on their prepared food, and they stock a lot of products that were designed to avoid the common allergens (peanuts, milk, soy, tree nuts, eggs, wheat..etc). After a week of being a little sad and hungry about my food options, and tiring of almond milk and life cereal for breakfast every morning, I was in heaven! Obviously all of their produce is "safe" for me, but a lot of their deli items were as well! Also, our adorable baby turned heads in the store with her cute bear hat (Thanks, cousin Max!). We had one little boy come up to us, explaining that he thought she was a dog from far away because of her hat. 

Where's the section for "Baby's first trip to Whole Foods" in the baby book?

Again, our baby slept like a champ! Here are a couple of other ways that she spent the weekend:

Tummy time with daddy and the cats.

 Having her hand eaten by Daddy.

Hanging out with Daddy and Aunt Nan! (Plus her grandparents, we forgot to get a picture of them this time!)

Ok, so this looks like she spent the who weekend having a bunch of time interacting with Sean and just sleeping on me, but I swear I interact with my child! We had a great weekend and she was sad to see Daddy go back to work this morning.

Life with Little C

We are absolutely in love with our little girl! She makes hilarious faces (that apparently make her look like mommy), grunts like an old man with the best comedic timing, and she's a sweet snuggler as long as she has her binky (Joshua Giraffe) in her mouth.

What everyone tells you about parenthood before you become a parent is totally true: there is a HUGE learning curve. We've juggled poopsplosions, trips to the ER due to a lack of poop, sleepless nights, and a baby that is just way too sleepy. But our little girl seems to have her mommy's sense of humor; just when it seems that everything is terrible, she'll let out a huge fart to break the (internal and external) tension. She's our tiny cupcake, weighing in at a whopping 7 lbs 14.5 oz at 6 weeks old, but that's almost 2 pounds up from her birth weight, so we are very happy with that! 

Little C's Favorite Things (6 week old edition):

-Joshua Giraffe, binky extraordinaire

-Very hungry caterpillar toy (particularly chewing on his antennae)

-Bouncy seat, before it automatically shuts off and we have to wake mommy to turn it back on.

-Being carried in the ring sling, as long as she's sleeping

-BOOBS

-Hates:Baths, Loves: "Snug as a bug in a rug" snuggle times after baths

Overall we've adjusted to our own routine more or less. I've learned that when worse comes to worst, it's only a matter of turning on the shower to get her to finally fall asleep and she's learned that mommy is never too far away to put a binky in her mouth 8,000 times in a span of 10 minutes.

That's life in the Robbins nest! We've got some interesting health updates that I'll blog about in another entry when we're a little more clear on her special circumstances (just another weirdo Potatoes grandkid making life interesting), but this the little girl we see on a daily basis! We love her to pieces, as does everyone she meets.

Off to get some laundry and dishes done while nap time still lasts, after all, it's 6 week growth spurt time!

Our little family!

It's pretty clear to most people that know me, I've always been a blogger. Even before blogging, I had a journal (you know, that book full of blank paper that people never actually use anymore...). I blogged through my woes of transitioning from middle school to high school, which is hilarious to read now by the way, and used the internet as a way to keep my family up to date on my travels abroad.

So I guess it was inevitable that I'd start a blog on my latest journey: Parenthood. 

Our only family picture to date...2.5 of us anyway!

Coraline. My tiny peanut birthday twin. She'll be 6 weeks old tomorrow (which I guess means I'll be 24 years and 6 weeks old), and since I've finally gotten the newborn thing relatively under control, I thought "We should probably give this 'mommy blog' thing a go." I can't guarantee my updates will be as frequent as they have in past blogs, sometimes I'm sure I'll weigh the options of "sleep" and "blog updates" and choose the former. That being said, I hope this blog will be interesting to people who aren't Cora's parents and that we also don't get creepy internet stalkers stealing our photos!

....Plus, bonus for all of my Facebook friends, I'll stop being that mom who posts 18 pictures of her kid a day because "EVERY PICTURE IS SO MUCH CUTER THAN THE LAST ONE!!!!!". ;)

*ahem*