Ramblings of a Crazy Woman

Penny meet her cousin Clayton this weekend. Clayton is about to have a lot of babies in his life! In addition to Penny, Clayton's momma, Holli is due to give birth to her second son, Jaxon, on February 10th. Penny's newest cousin will only be two months behind her. In addition, my brother Matt and his wife, Kate are expecting a baby girl this April. So Penny will be growing up with two cousins her age! I hope a lot of Hawaii trips are in our future so all these cousins can play together.

Penny's Great Grandma Buller came for a visit on Christmas Day during her return trip from San Diego. She couldn't wait to meet our Lucky Penny!

My parents aka Grandma LaLa and Grandpa Rich came for a 10 day visit which is a very rare treat. My mother works for Macy's so we are never able to get together for Christmas. Work doesn't let her come out to California and its pretty hard for me to go to Michigan. In fact, my mother had to get special permission from various store managers to come out and visit for this once in a lifetime event. The grandparents were so excited to meet their first granddaughter that my dad burst into song. Turns out, he is quite the baby entertainer. Everyday, grandpa Rich would sing a variety of melody's to Penny. Everything from choir music to random songs you thought were lost in the 50's. One thing about my dad is he has a iron memory. The man remembers all lyrics unlike me who can't remember what happened an hour ago. Mom enjoyed her time with Penny as well. I think it was really hard for them to leave her as I have been getting frequent phone calls from them and...

Penny has three sets of grandparents. The first due she met is Fay Fay and Mo Mo (hubby's Dad). I think they fell in love!

Penny's first pediatrician visit came 5 days after birth. At her first doctor's visit she weighed 7lbs, 4oz which was 5oz down from her birth weight. Apparently, it's normal for a baby to lose weight during the first few days of life. Everthing seemed to be in order. Her "yellowish" jaundice was disappearing, her heart was okay and in general she seemed to be progressing. We expected that Penny would need her first shot as she was supposed to get one at the hospital but Doctor Boxstein wanted to wait to give it to her at his office. So near the end of the visit, the doctor asks if we are up to date with our vaccinations. "Are we up to date?" we looked at him quizzically. What hubby and I didn't expect was that we would get shots at Penny's first doctor visit. Apparently, parent's vaccinations need to be up to snuff when a new baby goes home. I had gotten a whooping cough vaccination at the hospital before I left so I only had to get ...

Today we got the a-okay to take Penelope home from the hospital. We put her in her car seat and couldn't help but notice that she looked like Yoda from "Star Wars." That is when the nickname Baby Yoda was born.

The distinction of being our daughter's first visitor goes to our good pal, Lisa Henry, who was our first and only visitor at the hospital. Lisa, has been a super has been super supportive of me during my pregnancy. Coming over to visit when I was on bed rest and throwing me a shower. So it's only fitting that one of my most helpful friends was the first to meet Miss Penny.

Penelope Grace Born December 12th at 5:26am Weighing 7 lbs, 9 oz

Man, back in September and October, I thought time was going by so slowly but now that we are in November and half way through it, it seems like time is flying once again. Maybe that has a little bit to do with me being a lady of leisure these days. My doctor put me on bedrest for the remainder of my pregnancy. I went into his office all stressed out over the situation at work in early November and he said "this Friday, November 4th, will be your last day." I was like "Excuse me?" Doc put me on disability because stress is bad for the gestational diabetes I already have and for the apparent high blood pressure reading I had that day and some of my tests indicated I was at risk for pre-eclampsia. My new job, is to go to the hospital for neonatal stress tests, twice a week, on Monday's and Thursday's with a weekly OBGYN appointment on Thursday's after my hospital appointment. Throw in some eye doctor appointments with an eye specialist (apparen...

Last night, hubby and I celebrated our good friend, Kristy's birthday at Club 33. Kristy had been to Club 33 last year for lunch but this was her hubby Charlie's first visit and her first dinner experience. In my opinion, to truly experience Club 33, a person must go for lunch, dinner and Sunday brunch. It is always fun to take someone who hasn't been before as its fun to watch the excitement in their eyes as they enter the exclusive club at Disneyland. I was kind of concerned about what I was going to eat at Club 33 as it is a French Bistro meaning a ton of creamy sauces and butter which isn't a good thing for a diabetic but once again, Club 33 amazed me. The chef made me a special meal without butter. Guess what that included? A Chateaubriand steak, rice and broccoli. While I could certainly taste the lack of butter in my meal, it was still very delicious! At least I am eating healthier on this diabetic diet. It was the first steak I had during my p...