Super Buddha

There are lots of Hannah updates today so I hope I don't forget anything! First I'll start with the title of the post since you are probably wondering already what on earth I was talking about. Super Buddha is what Kyle and I call Hannah's favorite sleeping position. I'll post a picture of it so that you can see what I'm talking about. She sleeps with the soles of her feet turned in towards each other (oftentimes touching) and her arms straight up past her head. We've noticed several variations of the Super Buddha pose such as Egyptian Buddha, Airplane Buddha, Buzz Lightyear Buddha, and many others. I'm going to attempt to capture a photo of each pose over the next few weeks and will make a photo post of them all for your viewing pleasure!

Another interesting thing we have noticed is that Hannah has a favorite toy on her mobile. This fact is quite evident as I've watched her several times and it's always the same. When I pointed it out to Kyle he saw it too. One day I was watching Hannah in her crib watching her mobile very intently. Every so often she would become very active and squeal with delight. Then she would grow anxious and start turning her head from side to side. As I watched I began to realize that this was a pattern that was recurring at set intervals. I studied her actions a little more closely and realized that she would become excited when the toy with a big orange smiley face on it would pass through her vision and then she would become anxious and begin looking for it once it was out of her range of vision. She would continue her search until the smiley appeared again and then she would get excited all over again! I'll try to post a picture of her favorite on here as well.

Wednesday, Hannah and I went shopping for her winter clothes with my friend Sarah and Hannah's buddy Evelyn. We ended up having quite the adventure. Poor Evelyn had some digestive disturbances while we were shopping and we had to make an emergency pit stop in the Macy's restroom for new clothes and a sponge bath! Hannah even had to let Evelyn borrow one of her bibs. Evelyn and Hannah seemed to get a kick out of watching Sarah and I scramble around cleaning up baby poop and searching for clean clothes and Sarah and I just had to laugh at our luck. During that shopping trip I bought Hannah a winter sleep sack. It was size 0-9 months and was huge. Well, last night Kyle put it on her at bedtime and when I came in to tell Hannah good night I noticed that her feet were all the way at the end of the sack already! The little stinker is doing it again! She's growing out of brand new clothes right after I finally take the tags off of them. That sleep sack was supposed to last her all winter! I don't think we can afford another growth spurt like this!

We also discovered this week that Hannah is officially teething. She had been showing the telltale signs for about a week (drooling, fussy, low grade fever on and off, chewing on everything) but Wednesday night we examined her mouth and we can actually see her bottom front 2 teeth just below the skin. I really hope they just go ahead and pop on through soon because this extra fussiness is for the birds. Last night the only thing that would soothe her was a cold wet wash cloth for her to chew on.

This weekend we also have a visit planned with Mike. It will be the first time he has been able to come visit us at the house. He got to visit Hannah once while she was in the hospital here in Lafayette, but this visit should be nice because we won't have nurses and doctors running in and out.

The final Hannah update is that we finally have Hannah's finalization date! On October 19th Hannah will officially become a legal Spontak! :) We have one more post placement visit on Wednesday and then our court date on the 19th is all that is left. It will be so wonderful to finally have all that paperwork completed and be done with the whole process. It was a long broken road to Hannah, but it has all been worth it. When I look at my little girl I can't even imagine how my life would have ever been complete without her. She was meant to be ours before we ever knew that our children would come to us through adoption and now I can't think of anything that could have been more perfect.

Official 2 Months Pictures!

Here are Hannah's official 2 months pictures. Our favorites are the ones in the hoodie. In case anyone cares, her outifit is entirely Old Navy fashions courtesy of Auntie Heather! :)

Pictures From Visit

Here are some of the pictures I took during Tiffany's visit. The first is Kayla and Hannah and of course the 2nd is Tiffany and Hannah. The 3rd is Tiffany's mom and Chase with Hannah. The last is Tiffany's brother with Hannah.

Visit with Tiffany

Hannah got to visit with Tiffany and her family yesterday. They all came up for lunch and a visit so our house was quite full. All together it was Tiffany, Chase, Kayla (the twins), Donna (Tiffany's mom), and Robert (Tiffany's brother). With 8 people in our house (including 2 3 year-olds) it sure seemed really small! Chase and Kayla are both very active (especially Chase) so a good portion of the visit was made up of running around after them making sure they didn't escape into the street or terrorize the pets too much! :) Tiffany brought some baby pictures of her and it was amazing how much like Tiffany Hannah looks like. Interestingly enough, I was just looking at some of my old baby pictures and Hannah also looks an awful lot like me! They brought us a framed picture of Hannah from when she was born that had the caption, "I asked God for a miracle and He gave me you." It was very sweet of them. Tiffany also filled out the pregnancy pages of Hannah's baby book. I had bought a baby book at Halmark that had removable pages that could be taken out in the case of an adoption and replaced with adoption specific pages. Since we have a close relationship with Tiffany I asked her to fill out the pregnancy pages for Hannah so that she could have both. After they all left, I read what Tiffany had wrote on Hannah's pages and it made me cry. She said that after the first time she spoke with me on the phone she knew she had chosen the perfect parents.

Sunday was the culmination of a long week for Hannah, Kyle, and I. Because Kyle has had to work late hours at work all week I've felt a bit like a single parent and I must say that I have no idea how they do it! Spending this week all by myself with Hannah with no breaks made it a bit easier for me to know how Tiffany must feel and understand how she was able to make the decision to place Hannah with us. I'm sure it was very hard for her, but she knew the realities of being a single parent and knew that adding an infant would make things even harder. Hopefully this week will be a bit more normal and we can all have a bit of a rest before Mike drops by next weekend.

I tried to post some pictures of Tiffany's visit, but for some reason Blogger doesn't like them. I'll try to post those pictures on the next update.

Getting Stronger

Well Hannah got to meet her Grandpa Barney on Sunday for the first time. He says he wants to be called Pap which is fine with us. He and Mindy brought Hannah an Ohio State blanket. Barney is trying to train her early I guess! Hannah is finally starting to get back to normal after her shots. This morning she didn't have a fever which made my day. Fortunately for me, when she did have a fever she loved the baby Tylenol. I don't know what I would have done on Saturday trying to give her medicine for the first time all by myself if she hadn't of liked it. It was stressful enough as it was. I sure didn't need her spitting it out or gagging!

Hannah is getting so much stronger every day that it's unbelievable. She's able to sit upright for much longer periods with only the boppy pillow for support (it comes up just past her pants when she's sitting) and actually seems to prefer sitting upright as opposed to laying down. Sometimes she gets fussy if I get tired of helping her sit up and lay her down if she's not ready to be done looking at things! Tummy time is also getting more fun. Yesterday she had tummy time in her play gym and actually reached out in front of her for the toys that were hanging from the wedge. Today when I put her down for tummy time she immediately pushed up on her forearms and lifted her head and chest right off the floor and held it there for 4 minutes! I checked the clock! While up there she looked around, smiled at me, cooed, and tracked toys I was moving around with her entire head! I was so proud of her! :) She's also trying to sit up on her own now when she's in a reclined position and reach for toys that are held in front of her. Today I had her propped up on our bed with some pillows while I folded clothes and she tried to sit up with so much force that she got her head, shoulders, and upper back up off the pillows several inches and held it there for a few seconds before falling back against the pillows. Then she got the idea to use the pillows kind of like her bouncer and then starting trying to bounce her way up! Later on in the day she did the same thing while in her bouncer! I don't think it will be long before she's sitting up. The one thing she is not doing yet that I fully expected her to already have mastered is rolling over. From the time we brought her home from Wishard she has been able to roll herself up onto her side and stay there, but she still hasn't even really attempted (not that I've noticed anyway) to try to roll herself from her back to her belly or from her belly to her back. I can't wait for this stage to start though. It should be fun.

Another funny thing we have noticed about her personality is that although she loves her baths, she hates getting out and getting dressed afterwards. Well, she got a baby bathrobe at one of her showers and Kyle has discovered that if we can get her into that bathrobe as soon as she is out of the tub we can (as Kyle puts it) ride the happy wave for a bit longer. It's a bit of a pain to get a wet, slippery baby into the sleeves of the robe, but it's well worth the effort. The payoff is continued giggles and smiles instead of 15 or more minutes of screaming. Then once she's all dried and has forgotten about the bath, we can put her real clothes on her without a fight. Plus, she does look awfully adorable in the robe. Now all she needs is pink fuzzy slippers to go with it and some curlers for her hair. Her great grandma was saying on Saturday that she has enough hair to get a perm! :)

Well, that's all the Hannah updates I have for today. I'm going to try to post some pictures of her visit with Barney and Mindy and a cute picture I have of her in her bathrobe.

Two Months Old

Hannah is now officially two months old. On Wednesday she went to get her two month pictures at JC Pennys and today she had her two month check-up and vaccinations. She weighed in at 12 lbs 13 oz and was 23 1/4 inches long! She's now in the 88th percentile for height and the 95th percentile for weight and the 90th percentile for head circumference. The doctor says she's doing great and there's no need to be concerned about the height/weight discrepancy. He said the formula she is on is most likely making her gain more weight b/c the rice starch adds calories. Apparently she should level back out once she starts table food.

I thought that it would be no big deal seeing Hannah get her shots after having to watch her get a lumbar puncture, but my heart still bled as she screamed bloody murder each time they poked her and there was nothing I could do about it. It turns out that Hannah is one of those babies that is negatively affected by her shots. The entire rest of the day she was fussy, lethargic, had no appetite, and ran a temperature of 100.5 degrees Farenheit. It was so sad for me to see my little girl not acting like herself. :( Eventually she started to perk up a bit right before bedtime so hopefully she'll be back to her normal bubbly self tomorrow.

Tomorrow she gets to go to her first ever Mendenhall Bean Supper. That should be fun and exciting. She'll get to see her Great Grandma Clodfelter again and hopefully her Grandpa Clodfelter will be there too. On Sunday she will get to meet her Grandpa Barney and Mindy for the first time. Everyone keep their fingers crossed that she makes a good first impression!

As soon as I get her JC Penny's pictures back I'll post the official 2 month pictures. In the mean time, enjoy all the unofficial pictures of my big girl! The last picture of her in her swing is her looking pitiful after her shots. :( Even when she's sick she's cute!

Labor Day Weekend

Hannah had quite the busy Labor Day weekend. She had a visit from her Uncle Kevin and Emily, she went on a six mile walk with Mom and Dad in her stroller, got to have a picnic at the park, and ate outside on the deck with Mom and Dad in the nice weather. Hannah also has a busy week coming up. Tomorrow she turns 2 months old and gets her picture taken at JC Pennys and gets to hang out with her buddy Evelyn. Thursday she gets to go on a walk with Kristie and Friday she has her big 2 month check-up with her doctor and gets her first round of shots!

Her newest trick has been growing like crazy. I finally got all of her new clothes washed and put away and some of them she has almost outgrown already! She's now officially out of 0-3 month clothing and is almost out of 3-6 month sleepers! 3-6 month clothes without feet are ok. She's outgrown her 0-3 month socks and her 3-6 month socks and is now wearing 6-12 month socks! This girl has some BIG feet! She's been wearing lots of pants the past week since it's been nice and cool here and she looks oh so cute in her outfits. She's also had several occasions to wear her Old Navy hooded jacket that Aunt Heather gave her and she looks mighty cute in that too! I'm not sure how much longer that jacket is going to last her so I bought her a 6-9 month jacket at Walmart the other day so that I have something on hand when she finally does grow out of it. I am anxious to find out how much she weighs now and how long she is at her doctor's appointment.

Today I tried propping her up with her boppy pillow and she was able to sit up assisted by that for about 20 seconds. Her head is plenty steady now and she's raising her head and chest off of the floor during tummy time. She really enjoys being outdoors and will even sit in her bouncer on the deck while Kyle and I relax. Yesterday we finally got her a swing and so far she loves it. She is mesmerized by the floating fish that hang above it. This weekend she also moved up to taking 5 oz of formula at a time and has been downing the bottles like a pro. This switch necessitated us buying new bottles because our old bottles only held 4 oz.

Showers Galore!

Hannah has had so many showers the presents have poured in! She's absolutely spoiled rotten! I don't think I'll have to buy her any clothes until she's a year old! On Saturday Myrna came to visit Hannah and she went with us to Hannah's church baby shower. It took place in a little deli and it was lots of fun. Hannah wasn't the only baby so I didn't feel as bad when she got fussy :) On Sunday we went to Mamaw and Papaw's for another shower. There were so many people there the house was bursting and both the deck and front porch were packed too! It's a good thing the weather was nice enough to be outside. Hannah was in top form and acting very cute for everyone. I do think she got a bit over stimulated though because she started to get fussy after being passed around and handled by so many different people. She has another shower today at school so all the teachers can ooh and ahhh over her :) Everyone wants a piece of our Hannah. To top everything off, packages keep arriving the mail with more clothes for her from Kyle's family. I think they might finally be done though because I can't think of a single other person who could possibly want to send her a gift! The mailman has become quite friendly with us and loves to talk to Hannah each time he delivers a package :) He's gotten friendly with the dogs too since they bark like crazy and barrel to the door every time he rings the doorbell!

Hannah's latest accomplishments are adding even more sounds to her vocabulary and turning into a chatty Cathy. All you have to do is look her in the eye and she starts gabbing away. All she really wants is an excuse to talk. A few days ago I wandered into the nursery to find Kyle singing to her and Hannah was singing right along! They were so cute :) She has a front carrier now and she likes it quite a bit. She's been helping me dust and run the sweeper that way. If I run the sweeper while she is napping in her crib she wakes up and screams, but if she rides in the carrier while I sweep she sleeps through the whole thing! Bizzare! Her head is getting really steady now and last night she was laying reclined on my knees and actually tried to sit up to get a toy. She managed to lift her head and shoulders off of my knees all by herself. She seemed quite frustrated that she couldn't get all the way up. She really wanted that monkey rattle. All of a sudden she has become much more interested in toys and she definitely has her favorites. Right now her most favorite seems to be a monkey rattle she got from her Aunt Tina on Sunday. There are 3 colored monkeys hanging from a banana. For some reason she loves that toy and even has a favorite monkey out of the 3! The green monkey right now is the tops. Who'd have known! She's also settled into a nap routine which is nice. Each day at around 10:00 and 2:00 she starts to fuss and if I rock her right then she falls asleep within 5 minutes. That has made getting things done a bit easier. It's nice that she's such a schedule oriented baby. I LOVE schedules :) Well, I think that's all I have to report at the moment. Oh, one more thing. I'm going to try to post Hannah's one month picture we had professionally taken at Target. It's not the best photo ever and the experience was harrowing (let's just say we won't be going back there), but we got the photos anyway. Enjoy!

Interesting Tidbits

Kyle has been on me to post some of the funny stories that have come about since Hannah was born and until now I have been reluctant to report them. However, Kyle has taken to telling them to people verbally in my presence which is also embarassing so I figured I had better just get them out there and be done with it. This way I can also add the one funny story I have about him as well!

First off are the monkey incidents. As many of you may know I sleep with a stuffed orangatang each night. I use it as a pillow of sorts to prop up under my shoulder and side. It also bears mentioning that the monkey is roughly the same size and shape as Hannah, only much hairyier! Anyway, on more than one occasion during our extremely sleep deprived period I mistook the monkey for Hannah and tried to feed it and change it's diaper while I was half asleep and was totally confused when I started to notice that something was wrong. For example the time I tried to feed it I carried the monkey from our bedroom into the nursery, fixed the bottle, and then tried to give the bottle to the monkey and just couldn't understand why Hannah wasn't drinking. It took me a bit to figure out that I didn't have Hannah. I then switched to the real baby and continued the feeding! On the diapering incident the monkey never did make it out of our bedroom, but I was totally confused as to why Hannah felt so hairy. I was thinking that I must be touching her head and tried to move farther down the body and hit Kyle's skin. I then tried to lift up the legs which happened to be his stomach! Eventually I figured that mistake out too and finally made my way into the nursery to change and feed Hannah.

Ok, enough about me. Now for the funny things that have to do with Kyle. My favorite happened one night while Hannah was back in the hospital. I was staying up to take the midnight feeding and Kyle was going on to bed. I had the TV on quietly, but it was too much for Kyle. He couldn't sleep so he turned on the mobile music on Hannah's crib to put him to sleep! The other funny bit has to do with music as well. I often times hear Kyle randomly singing kids songs as he goes about his day. Yesterday it was "Found a peanut," today it was "Clemintine." I have also heard him singing "On Top of Spaghetti," "Here we go Looby Loo," and "Alouette" (Spelling?)

Enough stories, here are Hannah's latest accomplishments. She has almost found her thumb (instead of her whole hand) to suck on. Her head continues to grow more steady and she is beginning to lift it up from her belly without much trouble. When being held upright she can hold it completely steady and look all around from side to side with no trouble. She continues to like her play gym and can actually use the baby activated features on her bouncer now. Her new favorite game is to watch as mommy makes her monkey (Hannah's monkey not to be confused with the previous monkey!) dance and sing around her head. She tracks the monkey 360 degrees as it goes around her and smiles and coos at it. She's talking much more and smiling and laughing a lot more as well. Her reprotoire of sounds is also growing which is exciting for us. We like to hear the new sounds she comes up with! We got a front carrier for her the other day and she is really enjoying riding around in it as I do chores around the house. As soon as she can hold her head completely steady in all positions I can face her out and I think she will like that even more since she loves to sit on my lap facing out and watch what is going on. I think that's pretty much it as far as her newest tricks. She has a big weekend coming up. Her Great Aunt Myrna is coming to visit her, she has two showers to show off at, and she gets to take her first trip to Babies 'R Us! That's a lot to cram into one weekend. We'll be sure to post the details on the blog once we recover! Well, I had one more picture to post, but blogger is being stupid and it won't let me post it. Sorry :( I'll try it later.

The Budding Socialitte

Hannah has had a steady stream of visitors and other social engagements the past few weeks. Baba (Great Grandma Spontak) and Bruno came to visit her and took her out for a walk and to dinner at a restaurant. She went to Mamaw and Papaw Like's house and got to visit with her Great Aunt Margaret and Great Uncle Russel and her Great Aunt Linda and Great Uncle Wayne. Great Aunt Jo Ellen and Terri came to visit her as did her Uncle Kevin and Emily and Aunt Tina and her cousins Ally, John, and Jessica. Hannah also went to visit her new friend Evelyn who was just born last week and is a week old today! When Kyle and I held Evelyn we couldn't believe how light she was! She weighed only 6 lbs 4 oz and it felt like we were just holding a blanket compared to Hannah! Jason and Sarah, Evelynn's parents, were quite jealous about Hannah's sleeping preferences!

Hannah is much more aware of things now than she was a few weeks ago. She has begun reaching for things she wants and can even grab ahold of them sometimes. She's found her hands and can consistently stick them (and anything she happens to be holding) right into her mouth. She's started to bat at things that are held above her and likes to lay in her play gym and hit the balls and fish that hang above her head. She's also starting to recognize Kyle and I and smiles often when we play with her. I even got a giggle out of her the other day. She's decided she most definitely does NOT like tummy time on the floor. Apparently it's just too much work! She doesn't mind tummy time on our chests or holding her head up if we put her over our shoulder, but being flat on the floor is a huge complaint of hers. She's decided that she likes being outside and loves the feel of the breeze going over her face. She has a new gadget on her crib that lights up and plays music kind of like her bouncer and she really likes that. She will watch it as she is putting herself to sleep. We've started putting her to bed at her bedtime even if she's still awake and she's been putting herself to sleep which we think is fantastic! Last night Kyle and I actually had an hour to ourselves with neither of us watching Hannah before we went to bed. It was great. We got a lot of stuff done!

one month pictures

I'm goimg to post some more pictures of Hannah in this entry. She's growing so quickly it's hard to even imagine that she was ever tiny! This first picture is of Hannah going to her 1 month doctor's check-up. Doesn't she look all grown up in her Old Navy clothes? I love this next picture because I think she looks like a little southern belle!

She is definitely getting stronger every day and more strong willed by the minute. She has forced me to find a new technique for burping due to her newly acquired acrobatic talents that she uses to avoid being burped. This final picture is of Hannah and I with our friend Beth and her 3 month old son. Hannah looked so tiny next to him. He's a big boy!

One Month Old

WOW! It's hard to believe that Hannah is already one month old. I can't believe I've been a mommy now for a month! At some point in the post I'm going to try to post the professional pictures we had taken of her when she was 5 days old then I'll also try to post the most recent pictures I have of her too.

Hannah had her follow up doctor's visit from the hospital on Friday and it went well. She weighed 10 lbs 8 oz. That's my big girl! :) We got the ok to start letting her sleep mostly through the night. Now she takes about 4 oz every 3 hours during the day and then has her last bottle at 9:00pm. She then goes to bed shortly thereafter and sleeps until 5:00 am when we wake her up to feed her. Then she goes back to bed and sleeps until 8:00 or 9:00am! We've heard that this is not too common for one month old babies, but we always have believed that Hannah was an over achiever! :)

I've now been on a few outings alone with Hannah and she seems to be doing well. She definitely does like her car seat with the Gracopedia memory foam! Yeah Adrianne and our connections at Graco! Yesterday Uncle Kevin and Emily came to visit her and we went out to eat with Hannah for the first time. She sat in her car seat and slept the whole time. She's such a good baby! On Saturday it was finally cool enough for Hannah and I to go out for a substantial walk during the day. We've got tot start training for the mini if we are going to be ready! We walked 1.9 miles. That's not really that much, but it was starting to get hot again and I'm pretty out of shape. Plus, pushing that car seat, stroller, and diaper bag really adds some weight to the whole exercise which is good! When I actually go to walk the mini without the stroller I'll feel light as a feather!

Right now Hannah's newest tricks (besides sleeping through the night which we love!) are tracking an object consistently from left to right and back again several times, lifting her head and holding it steady for close to a minute when placed over your shoulder, and deciding that she just might like her bathtub. She's also started to let us sit her on our lap and do things while she is awake! Yesterday when Kevin came to visit either Kyle or I had her pretty much the entire time we were playing our game (close to two hours) sitting on our lap facing out looking at the world. She's also decided she thinks ceiling fans are totally cool. Now I didn't think she was supposed to be able to see that far, but apparently she can see something because she definitely fixates on ceiling fans wherever we happen to be. It's not just our fan. She liked the one at our friends' house too.

Well, that's really all I have to report on Hannah right now. I never did get around to posting the new pictures of her. I'll try to post those as just a picture post here later in the day if Hannah ever lets me get back to the computer. Right now she's just waking up and ready to eat.