Friends and Family

Well this is a big week for the Good's. Today Matt turns 29! So Maizy and i baked him a cake and he's enjoying his birthday cutting the lawn for the first time in weeks since there has been no rain here. Only a guy would enjoy freetime doing yardwork! Tomorrow Maizy goes in for her 2 month checkup which equals her 2 month shots-nervous mom here!! Then wednesday i start back to work already. I'll be working 8-1 for the month of august, and then september i'll be back to 8-430. However, i have permanently taken friday's off, so this week will be nice to work just wednesday and thursday. but thursday i might be having a root canal in the evening!

So emotions are a little high for me. i don't know what i was thinking scheduling her big mean scary shots the afternoon before i "leave" her and start back to work. i think i might just have matt stay in the room with her when she gets her shots. i'd be fine if i was starting back the next day. then to end a stressful week, possibly having my first root canal. in the mean time, i have to sit in excrutiating pain, so that adds onto it all.


the great news, though, is maizy's sleeping habits are getting established and they are fantastic. she's been going down about 9pm, and sleeps for seven hours! She gets up between 2 and 4am, and pending on that time table, she gets up between 6 and 7am, feeds, and then crashes until 930, is up a bit, feeds and then crashes hard til 11am! from that point on she's up until bedtime with a cat nap or three during the day. so we're thrilled! and, the witching hours seemed to have chilled out with her. when she's gotten fussy, we'll plop her in the bath tub and she calms down, or we try feeding her a bit.

this past week Maizy met her (2nd) cousin Drew for the first time, as well as her great aunt Claudia and great uncle Ron!! We were thrilled this could finally happen!! Drew hung out tuesday evening and was able to encounter a maizy tantrum from 8-10pm, but during that time he was able to see parenting 101 for newborns firsthand, and realized no one teaches you this in a classroom! He spent the night at our house wednesday then instead, alleviating the chaos of the previous night's tantrum. I heard Maizy at 4am crying for her feeding, so i went down to get her, and here is Drew, already holding her tight to him and calming her! It was so tender to see that, and unexpectedly appreciated too! In the morning he was a help for me-i was able to get some things done around the house while he snuggled with her in bed. The three of us went out for breakfast and to the christian bookstore for the morning. I love how (currently) mobile she is.

Saturday i stopped by my Lechner grandparents house for Maizy to meet Claudia and Ron because they were over there doing yardwork. Claudia is such a natural with Maizy. She just loved her up and maizy did it right back too. Claudia is one of the first few that has been able to get Maizy to sit and smile and coo at them, other than Matt and I and her great-grandpa (who gets her to talk to him big time!). So maizy hung out with us while we did yardwork and her great-grandparents house. I had a bit of tears when i walked her through her great-grandparents house. It's hard to be in there and feel the life of all of us still pulsating, knowing that she won't be able to have any memories of christmas eve's traditionally spent there, or getting to play in the backyard creek, or playing restaurant in their basement, or get to spend time with her great-grampa claude in his workshop, or play the piano next to her great grama lou. It's hard even writing this. But i'm so glad that Maizy was able to physically be in the Lechner house, to actually be another generation of our family walking through the house and sensing the love and life that has existed there for over 40 years and 4 generations. Grama Lou and Grampa Claude would've loved her to pieces.

Hope you've enjoyed her pictures of her cousin Drew, great aunt Claudia and her new favorite spot-in her "papoose" as her great grama calls it (hands free is the way to be!). Blessing upon you all!!

Laugh or Cry

7 weeks has been interesting for us thus far. Maizy has officially decided to test her lungs out full force between the hours of 5pm and 11pm straight. It's been frustrating for me, not knowing what can help comfort her. We take all the advice we get and it all works too, for about 5 minutes. Then we go through our list of what's worked to make her stop crying until one of previous cry-stoppers helps. She seems to like to lay on her tummy on our forearm, looking out at the world when she is getting wound up; but that changes 5 minutes later! Her pediatrician (and friends with kids) told us that between 6-8 weeks is the toughest for us parents because she is the most fussiest during that time. Hoping this phase passes quickly. Oy!!

In the day, she's content. So that's when we're able to get our cabin fever knocked out and we go play with friends. Matt took Maizy to her first high school baseball game this week and she hung out with him and the other brown deer coaches at it, enjoying guy time and sports talk i'm sure! I picked several world record sized zucchini and made 19 loaves of chocolate chip zucchini bread the past few days-let me know if you want any!! We went out on thursday to celebrate Maizy's great-grandparents 55th anniversary! How amazing! Of course, the second great-nana judy held Maizy, she fell right asleep! We laugh because everytime Nana holds Maizy, she conks right out. The other night during our wonderful witching hours of cry time, i put nana on speaker phone to chat with her, and as soon as Maizy heard her voice, she was asleep!! Pack up your bags great-nana, you're moving into the guest room!!

Not only were we able to celebrate God's blessing of Maizy's great-grandparents 55th wedding anniversary, but we rejoiced as a family when Maizy was able to meet her cousin Bekah for the first time yesterday. I don't know who was more excited-me or Bekah! Maizy's great-aunt Jane (oh that just sounds way to weird! great aunt! you're too young to be called that auntie!) held her right away and Bekah had ants in her pants to hold Maizy-i would've too Bek! The moment finally arrived and Bekah got to hold her cousin Maizy for the first time and it was heaven. She smiled at Bekah and cooed at her too. I can tell the way that Maizy's been kicking her little legs around that big cousin Bekah's going to have to teach her some of her seriously amazing soccer techniques.

Until next time, blessings for you all and enjoy the quiet in your house for us!

Smile!

We finally were able to catch her smiling on camera! She's begun to smile at our voice, mostly when she wakes up in the morning. That must be a baby thing to be smily when waking up because she sure didn't get that from either of us! She also smiles when she's falling asleep. That's our sign that we can get ready to go back to sleep once Maizy has fed during the middle of the night and starts to conk out and begins smiling. Of course we love seeing her smile, but that's the best cue for us to know we're headed to back to bed soon! This weekend i was honored to stand up in a friend's wedding, Laura. Laura's niece, Lucia, was with us for the weekend-she is 3 1/2 months old. Matt and i were just amazed to take in Lucia's size and capabilities as a baby, and then realized that will be Maizy in a few weeks! In the mean time, enjoy these pix. I love the one of her in the swing-her eyes so bright and big, clenching her little blankie-taking after mom with that blankie!

Blessings!

ps-don't forget that you can check out her blog to see previous postings too:
http://goodgirlbaby.blogspot.com

Doll or Baby?

How can you not melt looking at her in this little outfit? Again i ask, doll or baby?! So fun to dress her in little outfits. Her expression could not have been funnier-"great. just great" or "come on already. take the picture". then dad got his new hunting blind and i got a shot of the two peas in a pod in his "fort".

Today Maizy had her check-up and she weighed in at 9 pounds, 12 ounces, and measured at 20.5 inches. A tall skinny one! Her pediatrician says we're doing good too, which is very reassuring considering we're both zombies today.

We love our daughter tons! Blessings!

New Friends

We can't believe it, but Maizy is 5 weeks old already! She's proving to us that she is getting bigger when we put on her newborn sized diapers and clothing-diapers are snug, and she fits her newborn clothes finally. It's fun to hear all of the new noises coming out of her tiny frame; Matt jumped the other night at a squeal she let out! I think we have a thumb sucker on our way to. Maizy's found her fist and is trying to suck on it, fingers and i've caught her with the thumb in her mouth (like mother like daughter, it must be genetic). We've also found the not so cute side of evening fussiness, but with a little bouncing and walking, she's over it. She's still feeding about every 2 1/2 hours, so i'm attached to her hip (mouth really) for now.

Matt and i are in a sunday night Bible study with 5 other couples for the past 3 years. In that time, we've gone from newly weds, to new home owners, to new parents. Maizy had her first play date with her Bible study buddies, and here's a picture of them all- Henry, Grace, Maizy, Molly and Audrey.

Blessings to you all!