Isabel visits Santa Claus!

Yesterday, we took Isabel to see Santa Claus at the Burnsville Mall. We took her at about 6:30 pm, and the line was really long, so by the time she got in his lap, it was 7:15 and almost bedtime. We were worried that with her being tired and having her "stranger anxiety" that she tends to have, that we might end up with a photo of her screaming in Santa's lap. But actually, the minute we put her in his lap, she turned toward him with these big, wide eyes because she was so intrigued by him and interested in his beard (he had a real one!) She kept just staring and staring at him, and Mommy, Daddy, and the photographer were all making fools of ourselves trying to get her to look toward us at the camera for a photo! She did eventually look and we even got a smile out of her! We told Santa that Isabel was a Christmas Eve baby and he thought that was pretty neat. Santa had such a great demeanor, we really liked him. After she was all done, he leaned over to us and said, "She told me she wants an American Girl Doll, #71. I think you should pass the message along to Grandma." Too funny! Merry Christmas to all of you! May the season be filled with much joy and many blessings as you celebrate the miracle of the birth of our Savior.

Isabel's Thanksgiving

We celebrated our first Thanksgiving with Isabel last week, at Grandma Tina's beautiful new house in Rochester. We enjoyed a wonderful traditional turkey dinner prepared by Tina and Don (I chipped in with the deviled eggs!) and Isabel definitely seemed to enjoy all the new cuisine that I chopped up and put on her tray! Then she had fun being entertained, carried around, and romping around with Auntie Lauren and Uncle Austin. Her biggest entertainment of the day was discovering a bowl of fake mini-pumpkins and gourds on Grandma's coffee table, and digging them out one by one, carrying them around in her mouth, and in general just having at least one, if not two, in her hands at almost all times! It was pretty cute! The things they find to entertain themselves...why do we even buy toys??!!?? We stayed until Isabel's bedtime, and she was a good girl and slept in the car almost the whole way home, where she then played for just a little bit and then went straight to bed. I guess turkey makes little babies tired too!

We have our baby girl back!!!!!!

This weekend was a weekend of miracles. On Friday evening after she woke up from her nap, Isabel gradually started acting better and better. We, along with Isabel's Aunt Jess who was here visiting from Atlanta for the weekend, took her to the Mall of America to dinner. When we first got their and put her in the highchair at Bubba Gump Shrimp Factory, she was actually really fussy (screaming, to the point where people around us were starting to look at us), and we thought to ourselves, "Oh no, this was a bad idea. She wasn't ready." And then, the funniest thing happened. As I picked her up from the highchair to put her in my lap, she reached out and grabbed a HANDFUL of my french fries off my plate, immediately stopped crying, and began to eat them. She didn't make one more peep the entire meal, just sat in my lap eating fries, and even allowed me to feed her the pears I had been trying to feed her when she was previously in her highchair! Keep in mind, she has only had fries once before in her life, two weeks ago at McDonald's! Oh well, they are not the greatest for her, but with her weight loss, I say, whatever works!!

Jess stayed with us all day on Saturday as well, and Isabel, though fussy in the morning, was pretty much back to her normal self that day, playing with toys, smiling at all of us, and even crawling and pulling herself up on things. We joked that Jess was just what the doctor ordered, and she might have to take a whole week off from work and just move in for a week to make sure Isabel is completely better!

Isabel does seem to run out of energy quicker, and sleeps more, which shows that she is still getting over her sickness, but these are huge steps in the right direction! We are trying not to be over-confident because last week whenever she would seem to turn a corner, she would then have a setback, but we are pretty sure she is out of the woods now. We are still keeping her out of the church nursery and other places with lots of kids, so she can continue to build back up her immunities, but this week should be a normal week, where Jenna and Camille come over, and Mommy and Daddy work their normal schedules! It will be a blessing to be back to normalcy.
She is eating GREAT, holding down breast milk, formula that is made 1/2 with her regular formula and 1/2 with a gentler formula, pureed baby foods, and even some table food (she had carrots, potatoes, and rice the last two nights for dinner, since we were eating them along with roast).

PRAISE THE LORD that Isabel has gotten better, and it was nothing more serious than a really, really nasty and long-lasting stomach virus. We would like to express our utmost gratitude to those of you (and I know there are many) who covered Isabel in prayer and even asked others to do so. We fully believe that the power of prayer is whay ultimately drove this illness out of her body.

There are new photos taken from this weekend, so you can all see our happy smiling baby back again!

Glimmers of hope!

Today, we had our follow-up appointment with Dr. Williams, and there were positive and negatives that came out of our meeting:

Positives: Isabel held down all of her food yesterday and this morning, she hasn't had any diarrhea diapers since Wednesday evening, and she has had a few brief episodes of increased interaction with toys and people.

Negatives: She still has many episodes of inconsolable crying, acting as if she is in pain and there is nothing we can do to make her more comfortable or any happier. Her weight was down today to 14lbs 14oz (she lost four ounces since Wednesday when we were in). The weight loss and the irritability/fussiness are Dr. Williams main concern.

So, she sent us up to Children's Hospital in St. Paul to have an X-ray done of her colon and intestines, as well as the follow-up labs that we knew we were getting today anyway. Our experience at Children's St. Paul was INCREDIBLE compared to our experience at Children's Minneapolis. Everyone was friendly and courteous, her records were available in the departments they had been faxed to, and the waits were not long. We were in and out of there in just over an hour.

Results: The X-ray showed that there were no areas in her intestine that had folded in on themselves, which is great news! Her labs also came back with great numbers, her potassium in particular has come up to 4.6.

The doctor will call us back tomorrow morning to check how things are going. We are thankful for these steps in the right direction!

Up and down

Luke and I feel like we have completely missed the first half of November. It is incredibly draining to have a child this ill, and we feel so helpless because there is nothing we can do to help her feel any better. We are always second-guessing the decisions we have made, was it the right thing to do for her or wasn't it?

Last night Isabel threw up two more times (once at the Mall of America, because we were trying to get her out and about a little which had seemed to be helping with her mood). So far, today, she has been keeping down breast milk, half-strength formula, and some baby food bananas, but is incredibly fussy and irritable, to the point of being inconsolable at times. She also seems incredibly hungry, so that is where we hem and haw, how much do we feed her, because last night when we fed her however much she wanted, she threw up twice. Was it because we overfilled her tummy? Perhaps, perhaps not. And today, is she so fussy because she is super hungry? Perhaps, perhaps not. It is an ongoing battle and we just have to continue to trust our parental instincts and pray that God will continue to give us wisdom to make the right and best decisions.

Then, there are some tiny glimmers of light, like earlier today when I had her on the floor of her room to put some socks on her, and she spied the baby monitor on the floor with the green light on the top and practically crawled out of my arms to get it. I set her on the floor and she proceeded to play with the monitor, plus a couple of her animals that were near it, for about 5 minutes. She even went back and forth from on her hands and knees, to a sitting position, a couple of times. That is the most "self-motion" we have seen out of her in 11 days. We are worried at this point, not only about her health, but about her development, because this episode of illness has definitely set her back and she is not doing nearly the same things that she was doing the weekend of Nov 1-2 before she got sick.

We called and talked to Jackie, Dr. Williams' nurse, today, who has been so kind and helpful throughout this whole process. She said to keep doing what we are doing, since Isabel is still having wet diapers and is crying tears, so she is not dangerously dehydrated again. We see Dr. Williams tomorrow morning at 10:30, and if Isabel is still inconsolable by then, Jackie suspects that the doctor will want to have an ultrasound done of Isabel's tummy. I hope she is better by tomorrow, but also am hopeful that if she is not, the ultrasound will maybe show them something that will help them figure out what is going on with our little girl.

Please continue to keep Isabel in your prayers.

Isabel's update - trip to Children's Hospital

Hi everyone,

We just wanted to give everyone a quick update on Isabel. Monday and Tuesday, she was not running any fevers and also still not vomiting. In fact, on Tuesday in particular, she was VERY interested in lunch and ate rice cereal, a whole thing of baby food applesauce, shredded cheese, noodles from chicken noodle soup, and a little bit of raspberry yogurt. She has been nursing pretty well, and on Monday was taking 4-6 ounce bottles of breast milk too. On Tuesday she started to have a little less appetite for bottles, but we thought maybe that was because she was eating more real food.

We were still concerned Tuesday night because her behavior still had not really improved all that much. She was very fussy and irritable, and not really wanting to support her head or her body for very long periods of time. We placed a call to Dr. Williams, and explained all the updates, and she wanted to see her. After examining her, and seeing that her behavior had not improved to where we all thought it should, she did send us up to Children's Hospital, where we were supposed to be admitted for some more IV fluids, lab tests, and maybe some additional tests that they did not initially perform at Ridges.

While we were at the ER at Children's, waiting on the nurses to come in with an IV and some blood drawing equipment, Isabel actually started to do things that we haven't seen her do in over a week! She was chattering more than we have heard her do, she was engaging with us and playing with some toys, and even leaned off my lap as if she wanted to get down onto the floor a couple of times (we didn't put her down on it!) We told the doctor what was going on, and he was very kind and said this does happen sometimes, where kids make an improvement and then do not need to be admitted after all. He did some labs just to be safe and called Southdale Peds with the results to get their take before letting us go. Her bicarbonate came back normal (which meant she was not dehydrated) but her potassium did come back pretty low. Low potassium can cause muscle weakness and achiness, and also lethargy, which are the main symptoms she has been having the past two days.

So, we took her home (THANKFULLY!) and she slept well through the night, then actually woke up on her own this morning at 8:15 to nurse (this was a major improvement from Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday when we had been having to wake her up every morning and from every nap to eat). She went back down for another 2 1/2 hours, but this made sense because she had been up until 11:30 last night when we were at the ER! She then woke up on her own, ate a good bottle, and lots of baby food bananas. We took her in for her follow-up appointment at 1:00 with Dr. Williams, and she was pleased with Isabel's progress. They did take some additional blood (and because her veins are so tiny, not much bigger than the needle, it was really hard for them to get into one and very painful for Mommy and Daddy to watch!) and ran the same labs as last night, to make sure her levels are getting better, especially the potassium. We just got those results, and the doctor was thrilled to report better numbers for us! Her potassium is back up to 3.3 (it was 2.5 last night, and "normal" is 3.5 and above). They want to see her again on Friday morning, to run the labs again (and hopefully for the final time!) and make sure all levels are staying normal, and especially to ensure she is gaining back some of her weight (that is the biggest thing they are concerned about right now, because even as of today, she was down 1 oz from yesterday. Not a huge loss, but they would like to see it going UP from day to day, not down).

So, it has been a roller-coaster ride for the Christenson family these past 9 days! Thanks for the prayers, they are really helping with Isabel's road to recovery and also with Mommy and Daddy's patience, peace, and calm spirit (especially when some of the medical experiences are a bit frustrating). We really hope that she is almost out of the woods and that these trips to the doctor's office, ER, and hospital are behind us.

We will keep everyone posted on her progress!

Isabel's weekend at home

Praise God that we were able to bring Isabel home on Saturday afternoon! Dr. Williams said that they never send kids home 100% better, but they send them home safe enough to continue their recovery at home. When we were released, Isabel had been holding down breast milk for about 24 hours with no vomiting, and her fever had come down to a reasonable level of 99-100. The last fever she had was Saturday night before bed when it was 100.0. Since then, her temp has been in the 98s or even 97s.

Despite the fact that she has had no fever and no vomiting the past 48 hours, Isabel's recovery has not been as speedy as we would like. However, we are thankful that there have not been any real regressions or setbacks either. Other than the first night, when we tried to feed her "real food" for the first time (a 1/2 of a babyfood container of unsweetened applesauce) and it came back up. I think that we just overfilled her tummy a little bit, because we fed her that applesauce right after she drank a bottle of breast milk. So, we went back to the strictly liquid diet for another day, and then last night for dinner she had rice cereal and some dry toast and kept that down! Same thing this evening - she had rice cereal and some applesauce and so far has kept that down in addition to 12.5 ounces of breast milk (from bottles) and two nursings today.

The only real symptom that continues to concern her mommy and daddy a bit is that she is EXTREMELY tired. Out of the past 24 hours, she has slept for about 20 or 21 of them. We have had to wake her up all day when we want her to nurse, have a bottle, or have a little food. Sleep is important of course for her body to continue to fight off the virus, but it is equally as important for her to continue to get nutrition so that she doesn't get dehydrated again, so we have been waking her. When she is awake, she is pretty fussy and irritable, which could be a good sign, since she has the energy to fuss, but it is frustrating and disheartening for us, because we can't really do much to make her more comfortable. We have both been spending as much time with her as possible so that while she is awake (which hasn't been much today!), she can get the extra TLC that she needs - constantly being held and cuddled. She even fell asleep sitting with me earlier, which is still very out of character for her and a sign that she still doesn't feel all that well.

We have a follow-up appointment scheduled with Dr. Williams on Wednesday morning at 10:45. They wanted her to come in for an exam and a weight check to ensure she is gaining her weight back, and to make sure things are moving in the right direction.

Please continue to keep Isabel in your prayers, that she would feel more comfortable, and that we would be able to assess what she needs when she needs it, since she can't tell us of course!
Thanks for your care and concern for our little girl.

I added a photo album from before she was sick (fun Halloween photos!) as well as one from photos of her in the hospital, in case anyone would like to see them.

Isabel's second day in the hospital

Well, we are concluding Isabel's second day in the hospital and will be here at least until tomorrow morning. Our baby girl is still not back to her spunky self, but we have seen much improvement through the day today. On Wednesday, when I would try to feed her anything orally, she would throw it up. I started with an ounce of Pedialyte, then an hour later a milliliter, and then tenths of a milliliter, and she could not keep it down. So, the doctors told us we could just stop trying, because she was getting all the hydration and sugars that she needed through the IV, and her tummy was still very upset and needed a good long rest. So we stopped trying to feed her anything from 11 am Thursday until we saw the doctor this morning (Friday) around 9 am.

Our doctor today was Dr. Williams, and after reviewing Isabel's charts and speaking with us, she gave me the clearance to go ahead and start trying to nurse her in short, frequent stints. She said that breast milk is about the best possible thing we could give her right now (God's perfect food, in my opinion!), and she would not have given us clearance to start trying formula (too hard to digest). So, we had AMAZING SUCCESS today with nursing. She nursed 3 minutes at 10:15, 3 minutes at 11:45, 5 minutes at 1:15, 7 minutes at 3:00, took 1 oz breast milk (BM) from a bottle at 5:00, another 1 oz of BM from a bottle at 6:00, and nursed 10 minutes at 8 pm. She has kept every last drop of it down!! Praise God! She also had a couple of two-hour-long awake times today (much better than the 10-15 minutes she was able to stay awake yesterday and the day before), and even though she was not nearly as energetic as she usually is, she was definitely holding on to toys a couple of times, and was very curious about her IV "club" on her arm (as we like to call it) and the IV tube. She had to put in her mouth a couple times to taste it. All good signs that our curious baby is in there somewhere! She also has started to babble a little, mostly "mamamama" in the sweetest little voice like she is trying to tell me how pitiful she had felt while she has been sick. She also says "nynynyny" as it gets to be about 8 pm (she did this both Thursday evening and this evening) and I am convinced she is telling me she wants to go night-night.

Today during her awake times, I have held her in my lap (she lays across the Boppy because it is more comfy and allows me to not jostle her as much which is easier on her tummy), sang songs to her, read children's books and Psalms to her, and we have watched a couple of Baby Einstein videos (a treat for her because she doesn't really get to watch videos at home!) Today is all about passive play, and baby steps in the right direction until the day when she is back to her crawling, rolling, pulling herself up to a stand and getting into everything self!

The prayers and well wishes of our dear friends and family have been MUCH appreciated and felt deeply. Thank you so much and please continue to send them up to our heavenly Father.
We will keep you all posted via e-mail or this website.

Blessings to all!

Isabel is in the hospital

Our baby girl is sick! She threw up on Monday night and we thought it was just a fluke, like from some bad baby food or something, because she was acting completely normal. But then on Tuesday morning as I was standing in line to vote, Jenna called me and said that Isabel threw up again, and was currently sleeping in Jenna's arms. This was a huge red flag to us, because as good of a sleeper as Isabel is, she definitely does NOT sleep while being held. It is just not something she has ever really been able to do, at least not since she was under two months old. So, of course, I went home immediately to be with her. She couldn’t hold anything down all day Tuesday, was acting scarily lethargic and listless, so we brought her to the ER on Tuesday night. They gave her Zofran to ease the nausea and we were able to get her to hold down 5oz of Pedialyte. She started to perk back up a little bit so they let us go home.

Then yesterday (Wednesday), with the help of the Zofran we were able to get her to hold down 8oz of Pedialyte total, but she still was not acting any better. So we called the pediatrician. They had us come in, and after the doc saw her and found out she had lost 1.5 lbs since Tuesday night, and saw how lethargic she still was, they wanted to admit her to get some fluids in her through an IV. She has been on an IV since last night and as of this morning, has gained back about 1/2 a pound. They also did some basic blood work last night and that all came back NORMAL! Praise God!

I wish I could say she was back to her normal self, but she isn’t. All she wants to do is sleep (she is in fact sleeping in a brightly lit room right now and was also doing so last night when we were in the room talking...very much against Isabel’s normal personality and sleep needs, which is the scariest part). They gave her Zofran twice in her IV overnight, and so this morning, wanted us to try some Pedialyte. I gave her an ounce at 8am, and 10 minutes later, she threw it up, so she still can’t hold anything down, even with the help of the Zofran.

We saw Dr. Westland from Southdale Peds around 10 am today, and she is very convinced that this is just a nasty virus that has attacked Isabel's GI tract. Nothing more serious (thankfully!) because all the labs came back normal, and there is no distension in her abdomen that would indicate any sort of a blockage. Her hydration has improved, but she still has not been able to keep anything down all day orally, so they are not discharging her tonight because we have no way to hydrate her at home. She has to be on the IV. She has pretty much been sleeping all day, I would say she has been awake maybe a total of 1 hr. I hope her sleep is fighting a good battle with this nasty bug!

So, we will be here at least one more night and will see the doc tomorrow morning again. Please continue to keep Isabel in your prayers.

I still think it is just a stomach flu, or possibly Rotavirus (even though she has been vaccinated), but I just want the poor little peanut to feel better and start acting more lively so we can go home and she can rest in her own bed. But, we are getting excellent care here and have had great nurses.

Thanks for the prayers!

Isabel has a new friend!

Ever since I returned to work, Isabel has been cared for on the days I am in the office by one of two people: our dear friend Catherine, and our friend and next-door neighbor Kat. Catherine watched Isabel two days a week in our home and Kat watched her in their home on Fridays (sometimes with some help from her kids Kayla (9) and Jack (6), and our across the street friend Kyla (13) :). These two women have been SUCH A BLESSING to us, as it made being away from Isabel so much easier.

In about the middle of August, we found out that we were going to have to find new care for Isabel. Our close friend Catherine ended up getting a teaching job beginning in September, so while it was sad to see her go, we are so happy that she is back in the classroom more permanently, as teaching is a passion of hers! She is also getting ready to welcome her own little bundle of joy into this world (due December 31). Kat also began working in the school district with special needs kids, and we are really happy for her as well.

So, our search began for new child care, of course with some anxiety but trusting that God was going to work it out. I visited one in-home daycare and knew (while there was nothing wrong with it), that was not going to be the right fit for Isabel and for our family. She is still a pretty high-needs baby who needs two good long naps every day, and for her to be one of 10 or 12 kids was just not going to work! A huge blessing to us came in the form of Jenna, a wonderful girl who my best friend Brenda referred to us. She and her husband are a Christians, and Jenna graduated from Bethel University. They have a daughter, Camille, who is 2 1/2 months younger than Isabel. If you want to know more about Jenna and see some adorable photos of Camille (and Isabel), visit their blog here.

Jenna began caring for Isabel at the beginning of September, and brings Camille with her to our home when she watches Isabel. The two girls have such fun together! It is amazing to me how much interaction there actually is between a 9-month old and a 6.5-month old. They just light up when they see one another, and when they play with toys on the floor together, they pass toys back and forth (or, yank the toy out of the other girl's hand! ) They also are constantly trying to touch one another, especially faces and heads! There is a pretty cute video on our computer of the two sitting next to each other, and Camille reaches out very deliberately, places her hand on the opposite side of Isabel's head, pulls her head toward her open mouth as if to take a bite! Too cute! I have added a photo album called "Isabel and her friend Camille" so check out the adorable photos!

Tonight we are having dinner with Jenna and Aaron (her husband) and Camille, so we can get to know their whole family a little more. But needless to say, we are very thankful that the Lord brought them into our lives. Jenna and I were chatting the other day and we think that both girls are going to develop faster because they have the other one to try to keep up with!
A quick note on Isabel's size and development. At her 9-month appt last week, she was 15 lbs 5.5 oz (just a smidge above the 3rd percentile), and 27 inches long (25th percentile). She is definitely turning out to be long and lean like her daddy! She began sitting up unassisted (for long periods of time) at 7 months, cut her first two teeth (the bottom middle two) at 8.5 months, has been creeping/scooting/rolling all over the place for the past month or so, and can crawl backwards a few steps. On Monday of this week, she learned to get herself up into a sitting position from her tummy (the first time, it was via the center splits, and Jenna is convinced we have a future gymnast on our hands. Hey, I will take it!) She sits herself up all the time now, and looks so proud of herself every time she does it! She also pulls herself up to a standing position every now and then, so we immediately lowered her crib mattress once she started doing that. She will be crawling forward any day we think...so watch out! The house needs to get baby-proofed!

She has been speaking in consonant sounds for about a month as well. She started with hi and mamamamama but then added dadadadada and babababa soon after. She has since dropped the hi, and her favorite sound now is one that sounds like ooowa ooowa ooowa (and an extremely ear piercing blood curdling scream (both happy and sad) that we are trying to ignore so we don't reinforce it. We think she knows what she is saying when she says "mama" because she will say it directly to me, just those two syllables, and she will say it in an angry voice when I walk away from her or am busy with something else and she wants me!

We are truly enjoying her.

Isabel's summer

Well, it has been a busy but fun summer for Isabel. Mommy is still able to stay home with her two days a week, so we try to spend as much time outside as possible before the brief Minnesota warm weather passes us by! In the beginning of July, Grandma & Grandpa C came up from Florida for a visit for 5 days. It was so much fun to be able to see them again so soon and to watch Isabel get to know them and vice versa. Isabel and Mommy watched and refereed some fierce games of badminton over the backyard fence between Daddy and Grandpa. We concluded that Daddy plays dirty! :) Just kidding. We went down to Redwing for a day and walked around while they were here. Isabel did really well in her stroller during the day, especially considering that she only got about an hour and a half of naps all day when she usually gets four hours. (We paid for that when she woke up FOUR times overnight, but it was still worth it. She recovered the next day and then continued to sleep through the night like she had been).

In the beginning of August, we went up to the Gunflint Trail for our first Christenson family vacation, just the four of us (Daddy, Mommy, Isabel, Ginger). Our good friends Nick & Brenda Hall, and their two boys, Ethan (almost 3) and Owen (14 months and Isabel's boyfriend) came up the same week and stayed at the same resort as us, just in a different cabin. That made it fun because we could get together with all the kids a few different times. Isabel really likes watching other kids. They are so entertaining for her! Daddy got to go canoeing, we played with Ginger on the dock a TON (she would keep fetching a stick in the water all day long if we let her), we went on a hike up to the High Cliffs (Isabel in the front carrier the whole time and did GREAT!), and we even went out on a pontoon boat for 4 hours, and she did great during that too. She napped and slept just fine in the pack n play, and Mommy got a lot of down time in the cabin during her naps, to just relax and unwind. Mommy really enjoyed the 9 straight days with Isabel too because we got to nurse for those 9 days and Mommy got her first ever break from the pump since going back to work! I cannot tell you how nice that was!

About a month ago, Isabel began sitting up unassisted. She now can sit for well over 1/2 hour. We still put a pillow behind her if we walk away, just in case she gets interested in something up high and leans back just a little too far! She is learning to tuck her chin so she doesn't smack her head on the floor, but her head is so precious that I just can't risk it yet! She has bonked it a couple of times when she has gone over and missed the pillow! But nothing too serious! The funniest thing that Isabel has done lately is that this past weekend, she was talking to herself in her crib in the morning like she often does, and when I went in there, she was on her TUMMY in the corner of the crib and looking at me like, "What do I do now, Mommy?" She had never yet rolled from her back to her tummy, and we still put her to sleep on her back, so she had done that sometime during the night, or once she woke up in the morning. I suspect in the morning because I have still never seen her relax on her tummy, but Daddy says he has, so I guess we will never know since we can't sneak in her room when she is sleeping without her hearing us! She rolled onto her tummy two mornings in a row, but not since then. We will see if it becomes a habit.

We are just enjoying Isabel so much right now. We think she is at the most fun age that babies ever have. She is so interested in everything around her and is interacting with us and her environment all the time. She will sit and play with toys for such a long time, both on her own, and with Mommy and Daddy, or whoever will sit and play with her! I can almost see her learning something new every day! Yet, she isn't crawling, so we are not having to chase after her all the time. I just really enjoy this age and am trying to soak it all up, because I know it will be gone before I know it. I am trying to burn the memories in my mind and take lots of pictures! Hope you enjoy the two new albums I posted!

Isabel at 6 months

It has been so much fun to watch Isabel grow and develop these past few months. She is learning more each day, and it is amazing to watch. We have watched her learn to sleep unswaddled - which admittedly we did a little late (just after 4 months), and it was challenging, but the minute she learned to be OK with having her arms out, she put the middle two fingers of her left hand in her mouth and ditched the pacifier altogether (which she had never really taken to that well). Now she puts those fingers in her mouth when she is tired or needs comfort. Our doctor suspects that she must have done that in utero. We have watched her develop stranger anxiety (which is not always so much fun, but it gives Mommy and Daddy warm fuzzies to know that we are her favorites!). We have watched her learn how to roll from her tummy to her back (no back to tummy yet because she still doesn't like being on her tummy, so she has no incentive to roll that way! Once she is on her back, she is content and doesn't want to go any further!) We have watched her get big enough to use the "standing" toys, like her doorway jumper and her Exersaucer (which I would deem her favorite toy right now. The only thing she gets frustrated with is that she can't get the toys detached to put them in her mouth! She has this funny way of opening her mouth WAY WIDE and pointing her chin toward the Exersaucer toy she wants to put in there, and she gets it as close to in her mouth as she can, sometimes partway in). We have watched her learn to eat solid foods from a spoon. She has liked everything we have given her: rice cereal, pears, peas, green beans, sweet potatoes (too starchy to agree with her system, but we will try them again in another month), oatmeal, carrots, peaches, applesauce, and squash. She is definitely using more energy now, so I am glad to be getting these extra calories in her body in addition to the breast milk and formula she is getting daily. We are still nursing (yay for making it to six months!), and she is getting about 80% breast milk and 20% formula (since I don't get enough while pumping to leave enough for our child care providers to get her through a full day). We have also watched her become an excellent sleeper through the night! Since she was four months old, I can count on one hand the number of nights we have had to get up with her (and two of those were due to the sweet potatoes). She has blessed us in this way, because she is still our "intense" baby during the daytime hours. She will tell us what kind of mood she is in, whether it is happy or sad, in a very loud and demanding way! But we love her just the way she is! She is a little bit of a spitfire like her mommy, and also thrives on routine and consistency, like her daddy. The other thing we love about her is her eyelashes. EVERYONE that we come into contact with comments on how long and beautiful they are. She DEFINITELY gets those from her daddy! Lucky girl! Enjoy the new photos and the video clip...it is pretty hilarious (just taken this past Sunday before church).

Isabel's first Twins game

Today, we took Isabel to her first Twins game! As many of you know, her daddy is a HUGE Minnesota Twins fan (and Mommy is a fan too), so we are starting her young! She already has two Twins pink-and-white outfits, and even though the shorts and skirt are too big for her yet, we put her in the onesie with the Twins logo on it, and pink pants to match. So, she was well-dressed for the occasion!

Isabel's godparents (who are Kristy's godparents too) called us this morning and invited us to go to the Twins/Yankees game because they had a couple of extra tickets. We hadn't been planning to take Isabel to a game for another couple of months because we were not sure how she would do, but since we wanted to see Jayne and Pete and they so graciously offered us the tickets, we thought we would give it a shot! Isabel surprised us by doing amazingly well! We woke her up from her morning nap to go up to the dome, and she didn't cry the whole way there until we got to downtown Minneapolis, and then it was only a few minutes until we parked. When we got her out of the car, she was fine because Daddy put her in the front carrier and she was just fascinated by watching ALL the people walking to and around the metrodome. I took a photo of her and her daddy in front of the dome (with the Twins Territory sign in the background) to commemorate the occasion. Once we were inside in our seats, we gave her a bottle and then she just watched all the activity, people, colors, and lights for the whole game (well, 8 innings, and then we decided to go because we knew she was getting pretty tired!) Usually when she is that tired she cries pretty hard, but it was so interesting for her that she just sat in our laps and cuddled into us (which she rarely does), and watched everything that was going on. She was pretty cute to watch, lots of expressions on her face. A lot of people around us were flirting with her too which helped! At one point in the game a foul ball came flying pretty close to us, and Luke was laughing because I was putting my arms up and trying to shield Isabel from the ball even though he could tell it was going to land one section to our left. All in all, it was a really fun day and we are glad we braved it, because we came away from it with a fun memory of taking our 5 1/2 month old to a Twins game! We look forward to taking her to her next game when Grandma and Grandpa C are here in the beginning of July!

Isabel's dedication

We had Isabel's dedication at our church, Hosanna!, this past Sunday. She did really well considering that by the end of the service, she had been awake for four hours! She had started to fuss toward the beginning of the service but with the Daddy magic hold, she calmed down and made it through with very little noise. Daddy's arm was about to fall off by the end, though! The service was really nice and our pastor, Derek Rust, had a very meaningful message. We are committing to, in his words, build a spiritual greenhouse over our daughter, introducing her to the Lord Jesus Christ and teaching her to know, love, and serve Him. This is a huge responsibility and one that we feel so honored by (and also a bit overwhelmed by sometimes!) I was much more emotional during the service than I had anticipated, and coming unprepared with no tissue, I was dabbing at my tears with Isabel's burp cloth! We had our family and close friends over for a celebration at our house afterward and it was so nice to be able to spend time with everyone and to entertain which is something I love to do. The guest of honor slept during the first two hours of her party but then got up to meet everyone. She was so tired from all the stimulation that she took an evening nap, got up to eat one more time, and went right back to bed!

My last day of maternity leave

Today is my last day staying at home full-time with Isabel, and I am already starting to miss her! We go to Florida on vacation next week, so I still have a week and a half before I have to go back to work, but even being in Florida will not be the same as the precious time I have been able to spend bonding with her these past 12 weeks. I will miss the smell of her as she sometimes sleeps on my chest, with her head on my shoulder (when we sometimes "cheat" and don't lay her down for a nap in her crib!) I will be thinking about her constantly as I drive to work that first day, and often while I am in the office, even though she will be in the best of care. I will be away from her for 10 hours on the days I go to my office, which seems like an eternity to me after never having been parted from her for more than 4 hours at a time so far. Having said this, though, I do have to express my gratitude to God that He has made a way for me to only have to go back to work part time. Others do not always have that option, and Luke and I are working diligently to make sure that we can have this option for as long as I want to stay at home part time with Isabel and any other children that come along in the future! As bittersweet as it is, I look forward to this next chapter in our lives, as I now begin to balance the responsibility of raising our daughter with the responsibilities of my career. It will allow Daddy more time with Isabel too, as he will be the one getting home earlier on the days that both of us work. So they will have some special Daddy-daughter bonding time on those evenings until I get home!

Isabel's two month appointment

We had Isabel's two month doctor's appointment today and her first set of vaccinations. Four shots in the leg (two in each thigh) and one oral vaccination. It was so sad and heartbreaking for me to hear a cry come out of her that was sheer terror and pain, unlike I have ever heard before. But, as I was standing there watching her, waiting to be able to pick her up and console her, something occurred to me. This is the first of many times as a mother that I will make a decision for her that will be painful at the time, but will protect her later on. God has placed the responsibility on me and Luke to make these decisions for her, always having her best interest at heart. She will often not understand at the time why we are choosing to have her go through something painful, but we can hope and pray that as she grows, and especially someday when she has children of her own, she will understand why parents have to allow their children to sometimes suffer pain. It is a tiny bit of what God the father experienced when he watched his Son Jesus suffer and die on the cross. I grow closer to the Lord each day that I am a mother, and I could not do it without Him.

Smiling at Mommy and Daddy

Isabel has been smiling at us now for a couple of weeks! Her first smile at yours truly (Mommy) was on January 30th, and of course melted my heart! Every day since then, she has smiled at one or the other of us, or both of us. A good time to get her to smile is when waking her up from a nap, when she does not wake up on her own. We pick her up and start talking to her, and as she starts to wake up she will often look right at our faces and grin. How adorable! She is also really trying hard to coo, and a few cooing noises have come out but she is not doing it consistently yet. When she gets excited she will move her mouth in all sorts of shapes and breathe really fast, kicking her legs and arms as she is trying to figure out how to "say" what she wants to say! It should be anytime now that she is cooing all the time!

Sweet sleepy smile

For the past couple of weeks, Isabel has been doing exceptionally well at night, going to bed in her Moses basket in her cradle between 10 pm and midnight, sleeping for 4-6 hours, then up for one nursing and back to sleep for another 3-4 hours. Last night, she was having some trouble going to sleep the first time, crying when I put her in her Moses basket to carry her upstairs, when usually she just goes right down with no trouble. So, I ended up placing her on my chest and sitting with her for over an hour to calm her down, and as she began to calm down and fall asleep, she briefly opened her eyes right as she was about to fuss, looked into my eyes, and gave me the sweetest sleepy smile I have ever seen. I am still not counting it as her first smile because I don't think she was fully awake, but it was so sweet, and I am glad now that she was a little fussy last night, because it gave me the opportunity to experience that precious moment with her!

Isabel's second week at home

Time with Isabel at home is going well. We had Grandma and Grandpa Christenson here from 12/28 through 1/2, and it was a huge help to Mommy and Daddy to have some extra hands who were ready and willing to cuddle with her anytime! She had her days and nights confused for the first few days, but gradually we are working on that, and there have been a few nights where she has slept 4 or 5 hours at a stretch which feels like a full night's sleep to Mommy! Daddy took two weeks off to be with Mommy and Isabel, and goes back to work on Monday when she is two weeks old, so we hope to get even more of a routine established and work on a bedtime of between 8 and 9 pm (we will see how that goes!) Grandma Kuhlmann is coming tomorrow to visit and do our belated Christmas celebration, so we look forward to spending more time with family! I added another photo album of Isabel's second week at home, as you can see she still mostly sleeps (and eats, but we don't have photos of that! :) She did have her first bath and did not enjoy it much as you can see from the picture!