Bigger Lu!

Today, and then twelve weeks ago (on Sept 21).
Wowsers!

Little Bit of Trash Talking

I have no idea where my daughter gets her filthy mouth... must be her mother.

What is that smell?

Luella's diaper? Nope. That is the scent of liberty and freedom! Last week, Luella and I accompanied Kristen to our nation's capital for her work. We hung out with numerous friends and saw the D.C. sights. Luella traveled very well - Kristen and I, however, looked like obvious rookies. We'll get better. The three of us will get another shot as we travel to Denver - again for Kristen's work - next week. Wish us luck.

Lu's Been Elfed!

I know this is soooo three Christmases ago, but I couldn't stop myself. Cute? Yes. Creepy? A little... Happy Holidays, y'all!

Rock and Roll

This is the first video upload. Better than nothing. The videos will get better. Sit tight.

SquidBjorn

By and large, the damp/grey/cold wintry weather has arrived in Knoxville, but we had a few lovely days last week. We took the opportunity to take Luella and the dogs out to Sequoia Hills, our favorite city park. The sunshine was awesome and Buddy and Ranger had a blast playing in the river and running like mad.

(Technically the Bjorn is supposed to be buttoned down so that the baby's head can't move around but Lu prefers to be able to look around a bit more, so we keep it out, squid-style.)

Mr. Mom

My maternity leave ended yesterday, and Allen is now in charge of Lu during the day. He's enthusiastic about his new adventure as a stay-at-home dad!

I'm sad that I'll have less time to snuggle and play with Luella, but feel very lucky that we're able to swing a schedule that allows each of us to spend time with her and work. I'm working from 8-4 each day while Allen takes care of her. I'm continuing to breastfeed so I'll pump while I'm at work and we'll have lunch together as often as possible. Allen is still coaching in the evenings and on weekends, so I'm on bedtime duty and weekend care. The trick is finding time that all three of us can be together, but Allen's season is winding down so we'll have at least a month or so of downtime.





And we've been alerted that her adoring public wants more posts and more pics. We'll work on that. In the meantime, enjoy a few new photos of the little one. (She's in the process of rolling over in the third pic. I'm still working on getting the video up, promise)

Happy Halloween!

Go Pirates!

Lu attended her first soccer game tonight! We drove down to south-central Tennessee to watch the Southwestern University Pirates (Allen's alma mater) play against the Sewanee Tigers. The good guys won 2-1! It was great to see head coach Don Gregory and cheer on the team. Lu was a hit and the team decided to bobble-head just like her in the photo.

The Many Faces of Luella

Grandmothers are getting aggressive about asking for pictures, and the one of poor Lu getting her frenulum clipped just isn't doing it for me. We need to end today with a happier post, so here it is. My beautiful girl.

(P.S. Mom - did you know that if you click on the photo a larger version opens up?)

(P.P.S. For more Luella pics, check out her set on Flickr.)

Frenulum? I hardly knew'em!

Today was the day that Kristen has been dreading - poor little Luella had her frenulum clipped! For those of you that are unfamiliar with what a frenulum is: it is the oral tissue that connects your tongue to the bottom of your mouth. If it extends too far toward the tip of the tongue it causes a condition referred to as "tongue tie." Being tongue tied can cause difficulty nursing (which we are not really having) and speech problems down the road, not to mention the inability to lick an ice cream cone! After a consultation with a pediatric ENT wherein he pronounced her tongue tie "moderately severe," we decided to go ahead with the procedure while she's still young enough (and the frenulum thin enough) that the clipping is a relatively simple procedure. (Waiting until toddler age or older requires stitches and sometimes general anesthesia)

So, this morning we set the alarm for 5:45 to ensure that Luella was able to get a little nibble before she was forced to fast prior to the procedure. We rolled into the doctor's office at 8:15 and they stuck Lu in a cozy backboard papoose, lifted her tongue, applied a topical anesthetic, and - snippy snippy. Mom opted to sit this out in the hall, so Dad watched and did some creative camera work (sorry for the crappy photog - trying to be like an undercover, investigative reporter). When the smoke cleared and the dust settled, all was fine. After the doc applied pressure to her tongue for 1 minute, Kristen came in and Lu breastfed like a champ. I think that Kristen was more affected by the procedure than little Lulu was. To make sure all was well, Luellabelle and I took momma K-mizz out for ice cream.

"I swear, I swear , I do declare...

.
... that my first Gourds show was an ass ton of fun," says Lulu.

She got all dudded up in her cute clothes (read: overalls), made sure that she had her noise canceling ear muffs and a little spending money for snacks and what-not. We took the scenic, one hour drive up to Morristown, TN to catch the boys at the Rose Center. It was a rip roaring good time, even though little Lulabelle slept though three-quarters of it - guess the ear protection worked!






Afterwards, Luella Marie demanded to go back and hang with the gents. (Don't you dare call her a Backstage Betty!) As always, they were kind and allowed for a few photo ops. We cannot wait for the Spring - hopefully the sun and our favorite Austin band will return!

Rollin!

I know I haven't posted yet about our trip back to Texas to introduce Luella to family and attend my brother's wedding (to an amazing gal), but I promise I'll do so soon! I'm waiting for pics from the wedding - we were so caught up in the festivities that we forgot to take our own. Suffice to say we had an amazing time and miss everyone already. I'll write more about the trip sometime in the next few days.


In the meantime, I wanted to post because we've had an exciting week of milestones. On Friday, Luella smiled at me for the first time! She's been very stingy with them since, but it was just beautiful and I can't wait for more.

And today, Luella turned 7 weeks old AND rolled from her stomach to her back during tummy time! This picture was taken just afterwards. Hooray!




And I'm not the only one excited about tummy time - the dogs are totally digging the fact that Luella is spending more time playing on the floor! (Don't worry, they're always supervised, and actually won't even go near her unless we invite them.)

Crazy Hair

This was taken an hour or so after Luella's bath. Her hair always looks crazy just after being shampooed. It doesn't stay that way for long - the top of her head gets kissed a million times a day, and the fluff gets tamed very quickly.

Her eyes are starting to lighten up, and it looks like she's going to have Allen's blue eyes. They're beautiful!

Little Big

She may not fit in our living room chairs yet, but Luella is growing up fast! We had our one-month doctor's appointment today, and she now weighs 7 pounds and is 18 and 3/4 inches long!

For those of you who don't like to do math, she's just over 50% heavier than she was four weeks ago! Woohoo!!

Music and Milk

Luella's music appreciation lessons have officially begun! While we play recorded music for her all the time (her favorite musician is currently Ben Sollee, and we're working on getting posters for the walls of her bassinet) today Allen finally picked up the mandolin for the first time since she joined the outside world. She LOVED it! She sat there, eyes open and totally alert, listening until he finally had to put the mando away and head to work.




Also, she's still eating and sleeping well. In fact, she usually eats so well that nursing sends her into a stupor. She's been making us laugh by pulling away from the breast and falling back onto the pillow to pass out, limbs akimbo. I think she's a bit melodramatic, but the effect is impressive. Note the growing double chin - we hope to have a chubby baby on our hands very soon!

Where's Luella???

Can anyone find the little bitty in the photo? Don't look too long - might cause seizures.

Sleepyhead

Home Sweet Home

Luella's been released from the NICU for good behavior with time served! Now she has to start teaching us how to be her parents!

Thanks again to everyone for all of your well wishes, thoughts, and prayers.

NIC-me? NIC-U!

Hi everyone,

As most of you know, Little Miss Luella Marie Fincher-McConnell arrived in style early on the morning of Sunday, August 23rd! The birth was all natural, totally amazing, and very fast - we arrived at the hospital at 11:30 on Saturday night and she was born into a pool of relaxing warm water at 2:15 am!

She is beautiful and perfect but very very small - she weighed 4 pounds 9 ounces, and was 17 inches long at birth. After a few hours in the room with us, it became clear that she was not big enough to keep herself warm, and her blood sugar started falling as her body attempted to find fat to warm itself. She was admitted into the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at 7 am, and she's been working on getting bigger with a little help for the last few days.

She's made awesome progress - she's no longer on an IV, her isolette (incubator) is getting closer to room temperature, she's breastfeeding like a champ (my milk came in last night), going through diapers like they're going out of style, and they removed her NG tube (for supplemented formula/calories) today! She has also inherited her dad's inability to keep still, and is a strong little wiggleworm already!

Her bilirubin has been high for a couple of days, so she's spending a lot of time under the light, but her levels are falling bit by bit (also earning her her first nickname - LiLu Biliru). We hope to bring her home on Friday or Saturday. We're still in the hospital for now, though it looks like they may discharge me tonight. If that's the case, we'll be spending a lot of time hanging out in the NICU so that we can continue to breastfeed and hold her until she's ready to go.

Allen and I are doing well. It's been a crazy and at times scary ride, but we're feeling really really happy that she's here and really good about her prognosis... and of course a little sleep deprived. We've learned a powerful lesson in taking things one step at a time, recognizing the limits of our control, and at the same time advocating for our little one. We've been helped tremendously by Allen's mom and my parents, who all arrived on Sunday to meet Luella and help us navigate these past few days.

Thanks to everyone who has sent well wishes. We're very lucky to have such wonderful friends and family, and we can't wait to introduce little Luella to you all once we're settled in at home. Please continue to send Luella your good vibes, thoughts and/or prayers.

Visit to Texas and Practice Makes Perfect

We spent last weekend in Texas visiting with and being showered by dear friends and family. It was great to see everyone, and we're much better prepared for Luella's arrival!

We also got the stroller a few weeks ago from Poppa and Honey Gayle (Fincher grandparents), and the dogs have been learning how to jog with the giant orange machine. Allen's gotten some pretty funny looks when folks realize that he's jogging sans baby.

Sneak Peek

I've had a few questions about what Luella's nursery will look like. Here's the fabric combo that we're using for all things cottony and soft:

















I'll let you in on a silly secret - a few friends of mine have emphasized the importance of having getting-ready-for-bed routines, and I'm already excited about saying goodnight to each of the jungle animals as we put her to bed. Goodnight, Mrs. Hippo! Goodnight, Giraffe! Goodnight, Mr. Lion! Goodnight, Crocodile! ... and so on and so forth. Totally silly, I know.

Last note - for those of you who are curious, it's all Alexander Henry fabric, I got it from Ladybutton Fabrics, and their customer service is amazing!

Coming Soon...

...around September 5th, to be exact. Look out, world!