5 Month Birthday

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to Maddie, Happy 5 month birthday to you ......It is Maddie's 5 month old birthday. It feels like this past month as flown by.

So there was mothers day. We spent the day at Grandma's relaxing by the pool. Really, I took a nap by the pool while Joe was on the couch and Maddie was in Grandma's bed sleeping. I don't know why, but we relax when we go there and all want to take naps. It was a nice quiet day.

We weighted maddie the other day. She is up to 15lbs. Most of her 3-6 month clothes are getting too small. She is in 6-9 month clothes. Really it all depends on the brand.

She is eating more and more solid foods. She is eating apples, squash, bannanas, rice and pears. She loves food more than her milk. She is doing good. Getting bigger and bigger by the minute.
I had my first night way from her last on Thursday the 14th. It wasn't bad, but I really did miss her. Daddy had her all by himself for the night. He is the best daddy ever.

More Pics of Maddie.....

More pics of Maddie....

4 Months Old....

It has been a monumental month. Can you believe she is 4 months old? I can’t believe it has been 4 months. Maddie has met some major milestones this month. She wants to hold her bottle by herself so badly, that she pushes and fights your hands on the bottle. I have let go a few times and let her hold the bottle. She keeps her hands on both sides. She even puts it in and out of her mouth. It is amazing how independent she is already. Really she has been since she was born. I really think there are some traits you are just born with that you can’t change. I am afraid Joe and I are in big trouble once she starts talking and becoming mobile. You can tell she hates to lay down unless it is to go to bed. And don’t even try and cradle her in your arms. Unless she is really tired, she’s not having it. She wants to sit up and face forward if you are walking around or look up over your shoulder at what is going on. She wants to be right in the mix of everything.
She is doing a lot of “tummy time” at daycare and at home. She gets mad if she is on her tummy too long and she can’t get on her back. She figures it out about half the time. I think the first time she rolled over was just a fluke. I think now that she has chunked up she can’t get her chubby legs over her body to roll over. And sometimes I think she is just lazy and playing with mommy. She knows that if she cries long enough then I will come and rescue her. Although the other day, grandma and I were in the middle of a tennis match on the WII and Maddie was laying on her tummy watch us. She got mad because we wouldn’t help her roll over. So she was telling us about it and to hurry up with our game. Then all of a sudden it got quiet. We looked and she had rolled over. She finally gave up on us and said forget it I will do it myself.
We got a baby food maker. Yes, we are going to make baby food. For Maddie I find the time to just about anything. It is really fast actually. We made banana baby food first. We started her with small tastes. She likes them. We give her the bananas 2-3 times a day. She is still figuring out the “open your mouth and swallow” concept. But it is really cute to watch her. The first few times she would not open her mouth. Now she sees the spoon and she opens for it. How quickly they learn.
She is wearing size 6 month PJs these days. She is growing like a weed. She is so long. She isn’t getting the Buddha belly that most kids get. So some of her 3 month pants and skirts don’t fit her around the waist.
Joe took her to her 4 month doctor’s appointment. He had to experience this event on his own to understand the doctors. He hated it. She is 25 ¼” tall (83% for her height), 13.5 lbs (48% for her weight), and 16 ¼” round head (52% for her head size.) Joe didn’t hear me when I told him that you had to hold her legs. He didn’t like that part.
We got her pictures taken and family portraits taken at Picture People on the 18th. Check out the pics at http://smilestore.picturepeople.com/my/images?tk=d4a6c4b3-dde9-4bc4-9811-50004e1db766

We spent Easter at the Ebert’s this year. I know not with our “family.” However, the Eberts and their friends and family are like our other family. So really it was with our family, just not our immediate blood related family members. We had a great time. Good friends and good eats. Maddie was her excellent self.
On another note, Joe’s birthday was on Monday, April 13th. He was 31. Boy he is getting old. What am I talking about, I am older than him. So no he is not old. He is still a young pup. I think Joe wanted to avoid his birthday this year. We didn’t do anything too exciting, just dinner at Hacienda. The food was not great, but Joe liked the drinks. Butchy and his girlfriend came which made Joe’s day.
Not much of anything else going on these days. Just our normal nose to the grind stone working spending our extra “non-work” moments with Maddie.
Catch up with you next time, we have another update. Should be sooner than last time. As monther’s day is coming soon.

3 Months Old

I can't believe it has already been three months. Well more now. I am a little late getting this out. Every day I look at Madelyn and see how big she is getting over night. I just want her to stay small so I can always hold her in my arms. "This phase will be over soon," as the country song says. I am not sure who sings that new song, but boy the first time I heard it. I cried and cried. I still get watery eyes when I hear it.

I have been back to work now for three weeks. Life is moving forward as if I never left and Madelyn has always been part of our life. Wierd how that works. But we have a good system. Joe and I make a great team. While one is doing something the other is with Maddie. Joe get's daddy time with her every afternoon and early evening before I get home. These days, I am trying hard to get home as soon as possible, however it seems like the traffic, on top of two major construction projects, on hwy 50 are causing my commute be to be 1-1/2 to 2 hours. This cuts so deep into my time with Maddie and just doing the things I need to do in the day, such as eat dinner, do the dishes, bath and feed Maddie. If there were only a few more hours in the day Or if I didn't have to get up a 4am to start my day.

Maddie is going to run before she walks. The Jossel's got us this jumper/bouncer jungle-gym and Maddie just loves it these days. She likes it because she can actually sit in it by herself without falling over. When she kicks her feet to make it bounce as she is still a little short to reach the floor, it makes monkey and elephant noices. She will sit in it for a long time. Well long for her is about 20 minutes. She doesn't like to lay down much these days. She loves to be up looking around and to be part of whatever anyone is doing.

She is doing good at daycare. The little boys at daycare love her. She is the only girl. Well, I shouldn't say that, she is the only girl until the daughter comes home from school. I think Maddie likes going there. She doesn't ever give me a fit when I drop her off. She sometimes gives me a fit if I pick her up. She loves it when her daddy picks her up. This typically is his job since he as bankers hours most days. She loves her daddy. He can walk in the room and make her smile in an instant. Boy is he ever in trouble. I think he knows it too. This is good to know, so if I ever need anything done, I just have to have Maddie ask dad and it is all over.

For all you single mom's out there (dad's too), but mainly mom's. I don't know how you do it. I have great support from Joe and we both said the other night that sometimes we both feel like a single parent. We typically say this when the other one is gone and Maddie is fussy. But I have nothing to complain about, Maddie is an excellent baby. I am so lucky. Really, for those of you that had difficult babies and your a single working mom. Wow, you deserve an award. Kids are difficult, needy and time consuming. They are worth every moment though. For those of you that don't have kids yet. It is nothing like you think it will be. Everything you think you know, just throw it out the door. It is all wrong. I really commend my mom. She raised both my sister and I on a very small income while working sometimes three jobs. I don't know how she did it, but she did a wonderful job. Jeni and I could have been a lot different that we turned out to be. We never got into drugs and alcohol, we didn't get pregnant as a teen and we graduated from school. She deserves the mother of the century award. We turned out okay. Great actually if I say so myself. :-)

Oh, to make some of you feel really old, Jeni (the baby of the family) is turning 30 years old on the 25th. Wow, how time flies. You know I didn't really have a hardtime turning 30 myself, but I am having a hardtime with Jeni turning 30. She is my baby sister and I just can't believe we are both in our 30s now. How the world changes before your eyes? Just when you think you have all the time in the world to do what you want to do you realize time is just flying by. So if you have a desire to do something, I say why not. Do it now before it is too late. I read that on my Aunt's blog. She is right. Do it now before's too late. Next thing you know you will be 90 and wondering when you were ever going to get to that "to do list." Life is too short to sit around wishing, hoping and praying for things to happen or saying you will do it tomorrow. Do it right now.

Everyone please help support my mom and Steve in there quest to quit smoking. They both agreed that they were going to quit smoking together. I am proud of them for finally making this change to have a healther life. It has only taken me 27 years to get my mom to quit. I say 27 years because in kindergarden, I remember coming home and telling my mom to quit because she was going to die. She said she couldn't stop smoking because she was addicted to it and she told me never to start. I think that was what clicked for me. I was really sad for her that she couldn't stop. I wish everyone who smokes would stop. It is so gross. I really notice it more now that Maddie is here. I don't like anyone to be near her when they even smell like smoke. Some people you can get second hand smoke just from their clothes or their breath. Espeically those that smoke in their homes or cars. Yuck people. Just quit already. They should increase the tax on cigerates 2000%. Make a one pack cost $20. That would stop most from smoking and the rest that didn't we could pay back the trillion dollars the Obama just spent.

How has everyone been? Email me your updates, I would love to hear what is going on in your world. kateweiland@wildblue.net (home) kdweiland@sundt.com (work).

Back to Work!

Well, this was my first week back to work. Monday, was hard, but not as hard as I thought it would be. I think because I worked myself up prior to the day. To tell you the truth, it was nice to be back to work. I thought that when I was on maturnity leave that that is all I wanted to do and I would have if I was not going back to Sundt. Once I was back to work, I realized that I missed working. I do like to work or at least I like my job. I realized that I was busy taking care of Maddie, but I was bored at times. I need to work for my own health.

Now, Maddie did really good at daycare. Her daycare is very nice. Davita her daycare lady is really nice and is really good with her. Monday, Maddie was pissed at us, but every day she got better and better. Friday was her best day. We have our routine and it feels good. I take her to daycare in the morning. I drop her between 6:30-7:00am at daycare and head to work. I am still nursing so, I have to pump at work. Good thing I have an office and not a cubicle. Joe picks Maddie up on his way home from work. Sometimes it is at noon and sometimes it is at 4pm. So it is good for them. They get some father-daughter time together before I get home at 5:30pm.

Here is a picture of Madelyn sitting in her "big girl" seat. She was holding the remote. Just like her dad. Here are some other pictures. She is getting bigger every day. I swear she grows in her sleep because when she wakes in the morning she is different. I can't believe it has been nearly 3 months. How the time flies. Next thing I know she will be 16 and asking me to buy her a car.

2 Months Old on Sunday

Maddie was two months old on Sunday, Feb. 15th. Boy how time flies. She is getting so big. She is wearing 3 month old clothes. She is growing so fast. She had her 2 month doctors visit yesterday. Now that was the worst thing ever. She had to get three shots. The needles were so long. They were long for me. I would have cried if that lady stuck me with them. She stuck her in her thighs. They went nearly halfway through her leg. They should use much smaller needles. Is a needle that size really necessary? She shed her first tear at the doctors office. She was 10lb 10oz and 24in. long. She is in the 95 percentile in height for her age. Not sure where the height is coming from. Joe and I are both on the shorter side. She must have gotten the Weiland tall gene. The Weiland's are all tall. Joe didn't get the Weiland tall gene. He got the Schick short gene. Both of my parents have short genes too.

Last week I took Maddie to her day care for the first time for about 2 1/2 hours. It was not as hard as I thought. It also helped that I distracted myself with shopping at Target. If I was just sitting around doing nothing then I might have thought about it more than I did. Now 8 hours is going to be a different story and I am still not sure I am going to have an easy time leaving her the first week. For those of you that work with me. Don't mind me. I may have red eyes and feel sad the first week, so just ignore it. I am just having baby withdrawals. I will get use to the change.

She is sleeping through the night now in her crib in her own room. She is such a big girl these days. Look Rachel, she is wearing the outfit you gave her.

My grandma asked me if I had a jolly jumper. I got one at the baby shower, but I had not used it yet because she was just too small. But we decided to get it out the other day. We just stuffed a blanket behind her so that she wouldn't flop around. She likes it, but only for a short period of time. She gets frustrated that she spins when she pushes on the ground, so mommy has to help keep her steady.

An Average Day at the Weiland House

I always get asked how Maddie is sleeping at night and how she is in general. So I thought I would explain in case you were wondering what she is up to lately.

She is such a happy baby. Look at that smile.



She doesn't yet sleep through the night. I think she might but mommy still has to check on her in the middle of the night. I am trying hard to break myself of that. Now our routine is that she has a bath as 7pm-ish, is awake for about an hour fighting sleep and usually falls asleep in my arms or near me on the couch by 9pm-ish. We go to bed and we are up again at about midnight or 1am, then again around 2:30-3am, then again at 5:30-6am, then we are up for a few hours at 8:30-9am. Really she is a good and pretty easy baby. She is really happy all the time.

The rest of our day consists of... in the morning after we get up and get dressed for the day. Sometimes we stay in our PJs. We watch our "Your Baby Can Read" video. Lately she has been staying up longer between "naps" so we continue to play by either doing "tummy time" or playing with their word cards as part of the YBCR program. She nurses about every two to two and half hours. She naps until about after lunch when we are up again for a hour or two playing.




Then my favorite thing is that around 5:30pm we "workout" together. I put her in the baby Bjorn and we walk on the treadmill for about 3o minutes. She always falls asleep a few minutes into the walk. Then when I stop walking and shut off the radio, she wakes up. I think that it is so funny.

No really, she is asleep there. Not the best picture of me, but really a great weight vest. See Joe's weight vest for working out is hanging on the arm of the treadmill. Well my weight vest gradually grows with me. I personally like my vest better than his. Although I think mine might be a little bit more expensive.


Here she took her binky off her chest and held it. Not sure that she could do it again, but it was cool to watch her do it. Might have been a chance that it happened at this point. I don't care. She took her binky off her chest and held on to it.







For those of you that knew me when I as little, there are a lot of pictures of me only months old out side like this with my dad while he worked on various projects in the yard. My mom freaked at first because I would get dirty, but she gave in and I would sit in my seat in the yard with my dad while he worked. I have a picture of me with a level sitting across my seat. So Grandpa had to put the hammer in the seat with Maddie. I will have to find a picture of me and scan and post it with the pics of Maddie. It will be really funny to see the two together. It will take me awhile to find the photo. I have about 100,000 plus photos to go through. Yes really we have that many.


Now this pic, Joe loves. He is watching the AMA Motocross race with Maddie. She actually sat there while he watched the race. Not sure that she really could see what was going on, but all the moving, the sound of the bikes and the colors really kept her attention.



Someday she will probably have a pink motorcycle or something. Daddy and his dreams of his daughter riding with him. No, not his son, he would rather have his daughter. He thinks it is cool that girls can ride with the boys.

This is a little blurry, but she is actually rolling over for the first time. We did it about 10 times in a row just to make sure it was for real. We practiced again today on the floor. She is actually on the couch next to me in this picture.






It is amazing how one minute they can't do something then the next day the can. I am amazed at how overnight she has changed. For awhile she was only holding her head to one side. When she slept, when she watched the mobile looked at you, etc. it was always with her head to the left. Overnight her head movements are so different. She is completely a different baby. She is tracking the words in her video more. She is more alert during the day. She no longer can where anything newborn. She officially is no longer a newborn, but diaper and clothing size wise. I am sure she is 10lbs now, but I have not weighted her to be sure. I know she is 23 inches long. I measured her the other day. She has an appointment for her 2 month shots on the 16th, so we will get her official "doctor" measurements then.



When they say that time flies and to cherish these moments. They really mean it. Time flies faster than you know. From day to day she is a completely different person. If only this country was like Great Britain or France or even Cuba. I could stay home with her longer to enjoy these moments. They get a minimum of 6 months with their newborns. Now someone else will be seeing them for the first time while I am a work.


I am all for feminism, but really, god gave us the ability to birth children and feed them with these giant mike jugs I carry on my chest for a reason. We were meant to stay home and raise our children. The men just can't do it the same. Okay that is my rant for the day. I am just sad that I have to leave her with a stranger while I go to work to provide for her. You want to make the money to provide her with the finer things in life, but you so want to be with her too. If we could only have both. That would be the sweat life. Maybe I will look into moving to France. Does anyone know French......Just kidding.


Hope you all have a great day. Until my next post.