Abby Lee

Today is Abby's picture party post. We have had fun the last couple of days taking pictures of all the new things that she is doing. She has become much more animated in the last couple of weeks which is definately a lot of fun. She still has her big smiles but is starting to do actual giggles and fullout laughs.

This hoodie below is a lot of fun for both pictures and her to wear. Mom swears that I wore it as a baby but I vaguely remember picking it out at the rummage sale for my Cabbage Patch Kid, whose name was Pamela Amelia. She was from Scotland and had the kilt and leather(plastic) shoes that were supposed to be part of her traditional dress. Of course she had red hair and green eyes. Anyways. Abby looks cuter than Pamela ever did and is definately getting more wear out of it. The picture where she is laying down is on her Baby Einstein play gym, where she can now roll from front-to-back and from back-to-front.














Our final picture is of Abby looking like a hood with her bandana. She is loving the attention. Although it is getting more difficult to catch the smile on camera. We do have one humourous story to share this week. Last weekend we went down to Raleigh to spend the numerous gift certificates that we received this Christmas. Our main goal was to go to REI to purchase a baby backpack. You know the kind where you put the baby in seat and then you can wear the backpack. Jason's Mom had given us each a gift certificate so we went to make the big purchase of the pack. While there Jason wanted to buy some socks. How long can you actually look at socks? Especially when you know that you aren't buying any. So Abby and I headed to the little kids section. Of course we went straight to the sales rack because there is no way we were going to buy anything full price. There was a really cute green fleece vest. I checked the price, not too bad, actually pretty good but Abby has been getting a lot of gifts and as always, cash is kind of tight so I was prepared to keep on walking. Abby who had been just hanging out in my arms then pointed at the vest, like I want that. I thought this was kind of funny and decided I needed to share the story with Jason when he came and joined us. I continued looking in the kids' section. In a short bit, Jason finally finished with his sock choices and came over to the kids' section. He too stopped at the clearance rack and checked out the vest. I walked over to share the story of the pointing. As we were standing there talking, discussing whether or not to get the vest, Abby grabbed the vest by the hanger and took it off the rack. No Joke. So of course Abby has a new vest because it was so darn cute. Don't worry, we won't do this every time.

Yes, I finally figured out the digital camera crisis and I have gotten my computer back from the computer Dr. Just so everyone knows my dilemma. I returned from a whirlwind trip up to Buffalo with Abby on Sunday the 8th. Abby did awesome until the last flight. Above is a picture of how happy Abby was before we got on the plane. She really was happy! And Sue was happy to finally meet her. Anyway.I flew from Buffalo to Detroit. No Problem. Upon arriving at Detroit Airport, I went to the TVs to find out that my next flight which departed in 40 minutes was leaving from Gate78, which would have been fine, except I flew into Gate 31. At a brisk walk I headed to Gate 78 hoping that I would have time to chill with Abby prior to boarding the plane. No such luck. As I arrived at Gate 78, the attendent was calling for all 1st Class Passengers and anyone with small children. That was us. So onto the plane we went. As we boarded the plane I knew it wasn't going to be good, seeing as the entire plane filled. At seat 24C I wasn't even the back row. With 30 rows and 6 seats accross, the entire plane was full. Abby did OK for the first 3 minutes. Then it was continious crying for the next hour and forty minutes. Great fun. Of course the plane was also filled with college students returning to school. Awesome. Finally we landed. Everyone was extremely happy with this. Except Abby, she was still crying. After taking 30 minutes to walk from the gate to the baggage claim I arrived at baggage claim at the beginning of the unloading. I kind of stood at the back so I wouldn't get any glaring looks from other passengers. I kept an eye out for my bag but it didn't come. And then I noticed all the others bags were gone and mine still hadn't arrived. At this time I started to get a little irritated. I emphasize a little because it had been a very long day. So the baggage never came. I went and found the lost baggage lady and filled out my paperwork. An hour and a half later I arrived at home. Completely exhausted and just wanting to go to bed. Until I found out that my computer had contracted some virus and so Jason had unhooked it not wanting to let it become infested anymore. Lets just say I got a little more irritated but couldn't do anything about it and so I went to bed. Normally not having a computer would just be an inconvienence but when you are supposed to take an online course it is down right a pain in the you know where...So a week and a half later and a bunch of money was spent, the computer came home, I figured out that I had lost my Canon disk that allows me to download digital camera pictures, but then I found a way around that, and here we are.As we stated in the last post Abby has gone through a spell of eye nastiness. She is doing much better now, thank you for all of the concerns in the past week. Unfortunately, I have caught one of the horrible colds going around and feel like crap. Abby luckily is still happy and growing quickly. Her newest discovery is that she has feet. She kicks things with them and pushes off with them. It is fun to see her kicking them in the air in amazement of what is attached to her. She is also more vocal and loves to talk to everyone. Additionally she loves to drool. People continue to ask us if she has started teething yet, or cutting teeth as it is sometimes called. I, personally am hoping that this is one developmental stage that she is behind in. Although the ladies in day care seem to think that she will be starting that phase soon. Yippee!

Abby is quickly becoming more independent. She is more willing to spend time by herself and entertain herself. Jason enjoys sticking her in the laundry. It does make for a cute picture. And a larger percentage of the laundry is her's. That is OK though. She is possibly the best dresssed almost 4 month old baby in day care. Mostly that is because she is the only 4 month old in day care but honestly she does have some really cute clothing. Thanks in large part from Becka, Kendra, and both grandmothers...Nice Job Ladies.

Abby had the biggest eye boogers in the world last night. They encrusted her eyelids and when dried plastered her eyelashes to her cheek. She started discharging this yellow nastiness last evening around 6PM. It was an enormous amount of nastiness. It didn't just end with gross discharge. No the poor girl then had swollen eyes and a stuffed up nose. When she awoke to feed at 3AM, she started hollaring to wake the dead...this means really loud for those of you not familar with southern lingo. She was hungry and yet couldn't breath while feeding...and couldn't see. On top of that today is a holiday and many doctor's offices are closed-(Martin Luther King Day for those of you wondering which holiday.) We called the on-call Doctor and got a prescription and the directions if those don't work bring her into the doctor's tomorrow. That is always reassuring. They also said, "not contagious, can go to Day Care but they'll probably send her home..." So off we went. Day Care said "not contagious! She can stay," I went off to work, and Jason started on of those wonderful things called Home Office Day. Lucky. The hours progressed and still no call from Day Care...either to say "hey, we ran out of milk"--since I only sent 9 oz. or "Hey, come get your kid the eye is getting worse." Jason did call and tell me that he had dropped off the drops and was heading out for his home visit. When I arrived at Day Care, I was amazed to walk into the Infant Room and find no one. I wandered down the hall and found Abby hanging out with the older kids. And her eyes were the same size again. There was no nasty yucky discharge. It was a whole new happy baby who had eyes that were back to their normal size and glitteriness. yea....Abby's back.

The newest Lee family traveled up to Vermont for an exciting Christmas week with the Lakes of South Hero. And boy...what a fun time was had by all. Of course Abigail was the hit of the week. As you can see she is starting to smile and become more of an individual and less of just a living doll. This picture was taken in our new apartment. Along with dealing with having a baby
that is three months old, and I(Emily) going back to work full time. We decided to move out of our house and into an apartment. You have to go where the rent is right. So in a week and a half, we packed up our entire house, I baked 8 cheesecakes--for Christmas Gifts, moved across town, with only 2 friends able to help us with the move. The apartment is the second floor of an old brick building. This is awesome but also a pain in the butt when you are trying to move a refrigerator, washer, and dryer up the flight of stairs. We are super excited about the new place though. Even though we have been living at this location for over two weeks and have yet to unpack anything. That does add up to a lot of stress. Abby is totally freaking out over the move...Yeah right. The little munchkin loves the new place. She was sick this past week though. Jason and I noticed that she was getting a cough and that the cough was getting worse. Jason took her into our doctor and was told that there was a concern that Abby might have the beginnings of RSV. RSV stands for Respitory S...... Virus. I can't remember the S. Word. It is big and long. So Anyway. Abby got some medications and was told to come back tomorrow. So I knew it was going to be difficult to give an infant medications, I just didn't realize that mostly it is your own anguish that makes it difficult. Initially Abby was taking three different medications. It was really hard to make her take things she didn't want. Although one of the medications was a type of liquid cough drops, super sweet. Abby was screaming after her ammoxicilian and didn't want us to give her anything else but when the drops hit her tongue, the crying stopped and this stunned look of ohhh that tastes good came over her face. She is finally feeling better and has started smiling more frequently. We are happy that we are almost done with her medication administration.


Additionally, Abby is a big fan of the Bears, just like her Daddy. We have frequented many different bars in the hopes that we'll be able to find one that has the NFL Sunday Ticket. Abby is more than willing to put on her beautiful smile in order to win the attention of our servers. We frequently get the compliment that Jason and I make beautiful babies. (We aren't having another for a little while...Give us a break). Just so we all know what I have been priviledged to enjoy, is the wild cheering that occurs with the AM radio channel commentary, as we drive home from whatever location we are visiting. Also being able to tell if a sports bar has the NFL Sunday Ticket from the interstate, while driving 65 MPH, is a definite accomlishment. I do enjoy watching the games on TV but have found that I don't have the attention span that is required of those die hard fans, like Jason, that can listen to a football game and actually visualize what is going on.







While we were in Vermont, Jason, Abby, Mary(my younger sister) and I went and saw the Chronicles of Narnia. A favorite from our childhood, Mary and I got to enjoy the entire movie, while Jason and Abby were enjoying the hall way outside the theater, flying(as seen in the picture below), and chilling in the back row until the crying began again.


Also during this trip, we were complimented numerous times on the blog. Apparently numerous individuals are reading this blog from Vermont and all over. Please post comments. We love hearing from people and knowing that people are checking out the site.













Things are definitely interesting having a 3 month old baby. At one point and time during the week, Jason decided he want to go hang out with Paul, Mary's boyfriend. Since I was out with my parents, he called and left me a message. I tried not to be angry and yet I was. Not because Jason had decided to go do something with Paul but because if I decide I want to do something without Abby, I have to plan ahead and I have be prepared with Milk. This lack of freedom is something that you are always conscious that you no longer have the privaledge of having but is still startling when something comes along that you didn't realize you wanted to do. I didn't really want to be a part of the action that evening but I did want to have the opportunity to be and I didn't. Many people might start thinking that I resent Abigail. I don't. I just miss the freedom of being young. I wouldn't trade this sweet thing in for all of my missed freedom though. Abigail is a beautiful and happy and healthy baby who I love deeply.