This week, we noticed the arrival of a new tooth!  Our little Sugarplum has her first tooth.  She's growing so fast!  She's rolling over and over and over......She's babbling quite a lot as well!  Sometimes she reaches out for me and that just makes my day!  She loves her family and is such a joy to be around!  I just can't say enough how much of a blessing she is!

It's been a week of firsts around here.  Sugarplum rolled over from her back to her stomach.  Now that she's conquered that first roll-over, she seems to enjoy doing it frequently!  LOL

In addition, she has officially said "Momma" this week and I am pretty sure I've heard her mouth "Dada" a time or two also.  It is so cute to listen to her just babble on and on and on.

She is such a joy!  She is a very good baby and it just makes our day when she looks at us and smiles really big! 

Just poppin' in really quick to say hi while I have the opportunity.  Sugarplum had her one month check-up yesterday and is doing great!  She is now 10 lbs. 1 oz. and 22 in. long! 

I haven't had a chance to get more pictures of my teacups for 
Show-n-Tell tomorrow.  I'll probably have to do something else if I even have a chance to do my post at all. 

Hope everyone has had a great day!

We have a praise!  The breastfeeding is going a little better.  Both yesterday and today, it didn't hurt nearly as much when Sugarplum nursed.  And there were some times that didn't hurt at all!!!!  Yay!!!    I am still supplementing with formula and most likely will continue to do so.  But I am just ever so thankful that it's not hurting like it was when she nurses.  I will be honest - the breast feeding has been an up and down thing.  Some days I felt like it just wasn't going to work and would contemplate stopping altogether.  I've done the pumping and there were days where it just seemed like pumping long term would be unrealistic.  I have wanted to breast feed from the moment I found out I was pregnant (actually even before then as I knew I wanted to breast feed whenever we had another baby).  So you can imagine how happy I was yesterday (and today) when she nursed and it either didn't hurt or it hurt considerably less than it had been!  I just want to praise God for this.  And not only that, but she had a really good night last night.  She slept really well.  So that was also absolutely wonderful! 

It appears that Sugarplum is starting to have a little bit of a schedule already.  Although it's nothing solid yet, she does seem to be having a similar routine at night now.  I'm noticing that for several nights now, she is waking up around the same times to eat.  I think we are on our way to getting a routine going in our home before too long.  That will be nice.  Once Sugarplum gets more on a routine, we can work school back in.  My hubby will be picking up school work until I am ready to jump back in.  I think my daughter is ready to get back into the swing of school again after having a few weeks off.  She has had almost two weeks off since we've brought Sugarplum home.  I felt like the children needed time to make adjustments as well.  So we haven't even tried to do school right yet.  But I think my daughter is ready.  So hopefully, my hubby will begin working with her maybe some this week and then more next week.  My son is currently working with his grandpa (my father owns his own business) doing apprenticeship work.  So he will pick back up with his school when he's finished with the apprenticeship work.  Working with his grandpa is something we've had planned for a long time for him to do over the summers during his high school years.  However, my parents went ahead and asked if he'd want to go ahead and work with my dad now.  So he won't go over the summer this year since he is working with him now.  We'll just extend his school year if need be this year since he will be home during the summer.

I look forward to getting into a routine again.  My hubby has been so wonderful.  He continues to do things around the house (cleaning, laundry, cooking, etc.).  I am so truly blessed.  Him doing these things have allowed me to relax and focus on Sugarplum.  She's wanted me most above anyone else and so my hubby has just stepped right in and kept up with everything around the house so that I don't have to worry about any of it.  He definitely deserves the Husband of the Year award if there were one.  I thank God for blessing me with such a wonderful, loving, sensitive, servant-minded, Godly man.  My daughter has also been a help as well.  She is very much a mother hen.  And she has been more than willing to help me with Sugarplum.

All I can say is that I AM ONE BLESSED WOMAN! 

I know that so many of you have been anxiously waiting to hear how things are going.  Thanks for being so patient!  We were able to bring our baby girl home this past Friday!  It is so good to have her home with us!  She is doing great!  We're having some problems with breast feeding in that it is hurting a lot when she latches on.  But we're working on it.  She eats well and is sleeping well also!  In fact, each night so far she has had at least a 4 hour stretch of sleep usually 4-5 hours.  This has been wonderful as it gives me those hours of solid, continuous sleep. 

I don't have a lot of time to be on the computer right now as we are still adjusting.  In time, we will have more of a schedule.  Our little girl is really attached to me and pretty much wants to be with me ALL the time it seems.  However, I don't mind.  And I feel that some of that is her need for security after having such a rough start.  So she has my full attention right now.  She is sooooooo beautiful!  Hopefully, I'll be able to get some pictures up for all of you all soon.  I know you are anxious to see her! 

Things are going well.  Our little girl is now off of the ventilator and a lot of the other things as well.  She was on at least four blood pressure medicines at one time, as well as some other medications.  She is now off all the blood pressure meds and the nitric oxide.  She's been on a lot of different things and is now off most of it! 

Yesterday was a HUGE day!  She was taken off the ventilator yesterday morning.  THEN.....we got to hold her and I got to feed her.  Yep - what a day!  She didn't do much eating.  Each time she got close to my breast she wanted to sleep.  It was wonderful.  She hadn't snuggled up to me like that since she was born so we figured she was just taking it in and enjoying it.  Plus, she's being weaned off the sedation medicine so the more she's weaned off of that, the more awake and alert she is.  That means, as the medicine is weaned, she will do better with eating.  She's not on much of the sedation medicine at this point.

Last night, the nurse said she slept about 4 hours after we left and then woke up and inhaled some of my breast milk.  This is a big deal.  She latched on to the bottle well and then ate really well.  Then the nurse said she ate a little more about 2 hours later.  So she is doing so well!!!!  I am heading over to the hospital here shortly to be there to try breast feeding her.  I will probably spend most of the day there so that she can begin latching on and feeding well from the breast. 

Right now, it looks like we might get to go home Sunday.  However, if she does really well with feeding today, maybe we'll get to go home sooner.  We have to watch some videos, take a CPR class, and do some other things that are required before they discharge you.  So we plan to try to get all that done today if possible.