Happy 3 months to Emma!

Our sweet Emma was born 3 months ago today on March 16! In other news, Emma is officially mobile. Well, let me back up a bit.

Emma had a great morning and early afternoon on Monday. We went to the doctor and rode in the car for a while. She LOVES the car! Emma had a rough afternoon and didn't breathe well for a while. We gave her some medicine to calm her down a little on Monday night, and she slept like an angel all night.

We had grand plans for Miss Emma on Tuesday, and we carried them out beautifully. Emma went to my parents' house for the first time until about lunchtime. Then we went to a childrens' store here in Greenville and to visit my coworkers. My grandmother (Memaw) will be 100 years old in July, so we wanted to go ahead and get a picture of her, me, and Emma. Memaw is in the very late stages of Alzheimers and can't really put words together very well; she doesn't know who we are or anything, but we were able to get a great picture or two with her. Then my mom, Mama Jan (my parents' neighbor and Emma's adopted grandmother...not to be confused with Mama Jane, my mother-in-law), Emma, and I went to the outlets in Gaffney. Emma ate in the car in the parking lot and then loved her stroller so much that she fell asleep for our shopping trip. She was angel during the ride home and wasn't too fussy until about 8:00 at night. Then she slept all night again Tuesday night.

Today, Wednesday, was another grand day of travel for Emma, but not as much as Tuesday. We went to see Dr. Troup this morning for a post-hospital visit, and he wants to have another swallowing study done on Emma. The first one was done after she'd had a ventilator in for 5 days, which can make her swallowing worse. In addition, swallowing can improve over time. Anyway, that study will be in the next week or two, and then we'll go back to see Dr. Troup again. After THREE HOURS at Dr. Troup's office (they were very apologetic for the long wait, and it's not as bad when you have a good and entertaining baby with you), we ran a few more errands, and Emma was an angel. She was great all day and a little fussy in the evening, but not bad. Today was my mom's birthday, so my parents and Russell and I went out to eat at Giovanni's while my in-laws watched Emma.

Any of you who have visited Emma in the hospital or at home know that she's a loud breather - the noise is actually called stridor. This is because she has tracheobroncomalacia (floppy cartilage in her trachea and bronchial tubes); when air goes through these passages, it's just noisy. She will grow out of this. However, in the meantime, she sounds like she's having a severe asthma attack all the time. When we took Emma to the doctor's office on Monday, we were walking in when another mother was going back with her child. A nurse came out a few minutes later to make sure Emma was ok because the mom who had gone back was concerned that something was seriously wrong with Emma. We told the nurse that the stridor was normal and that she was ok. Mere minutes after the nurse left, a man sitting in the waiting room said, "It sounds like she's having trouble breathing..." Yes, we know. We appreciate everyone's concern. I'm going to have to have a cute little sign to put around her neck that says, "I'm a loud breather, but I'm ok. Nobody panic. You do not need to call 911, but thanks for your concern. You're welcome to squeeze my fat rolls and check out my long eyelashes instead, though."

We have a few more plans for tomorrow with Mama Jane - hopefully some more errands! Emma's not exactly the easiest baby by yourself, but she's very easily managed with 2 people. Especially grandmothers who can't keep their hands off her anyway :) Oh, I forgot to add that I'm very proud of my mom - today I told her that after we got Emma back in her car seat that I was going to make my mom learn how to fold up the stroller. I put Emma in the back seat in 5 seconds, and by the time I got to the back of the car again, Judy was standing there with a folded stroller and a smug look on her face like, "What, THIS stroller? I got this." Show-off. I had to practice a few dozen times before I was remotely able to operate the stroller.

Here are a few more pictures of Emma. We let her hang out in our bed for a bit last night, and she loved it. Those pillows are much cozier than her crib.





This is Russell's favorite thing ever - no explanation needed.





Here Emma looks like a precious little schoolgirl having lunch, with her ruffled skirt and Mary Jane socks sticking up.




PS - On a blog post the other night, I discussed a verse that has become very important and meaningful to me, and I realized later as I was lying in bed that I put the wrong verse location on the blog. The verse I was talking about is in 2 Corinthians Chp. 1, NOT 1 Corinthians.