6 Months

My sweet sunshine, you are 6 months old now and have mastered some new skills.  You are getting better and better at sitting all by yourself.  I can't walk away from you yet because you do eventually fall over, but you love to sit and are doing pretty well.

You are very good at tummy time and can lift your upper body all the way off the floor.  No scooting or crawling yet, but you can rotate around in a circle!

You still don't roll either.  I tricked you into rolling from your back to tummy once and that's the only time you've ever done it.  You rolled to your side and the bottom half of your body was completely turned over.  You just needed to get the top half over, so I put my cell phone just out of your reach knowing that you would go for it.  When you you tried to grab it, you couldn't help but roll the rest of the way over.  And that is the one and only time you've rolled.  I think you might just skip it and crawl instead.

You still don't laugh a whole lot, but one day you thought your sister was the most hilarious thing around and were laughing out loud.  It was so fun to watch and is the best sound there is.  You absolutely adore your sister.  I love watching the two of you together, it really is the sweetest thing.

You love to talk and babble away saying babababa and when you are upset, it sounds like you are crying mamama.  You also make a sound like ba-bo and daddy says you're saying bubble.

You are very animated and have the most expressive eyebrows.  I love your eyebrows and have noticed from the very beginning how expressive they are.  And when you're happy, your legs are kicking nonstop.

You started showing signs of separation anxiety and get upset when you can't see me.  This past month it has been very difficult to put you down.  You want mommy all the time.  It's ok with me, but does make it hard to get things done.

We haven't given you food yet, but we need to do that soon because you are very interested.

I think that's about it.  Oh and you like to smack your lips and blow air out your mouth.  You are very proud of your new tricks.

I love you so much sunshine and can't wait to see what changes the next month brings.

By the way, even though this post is late, I did start it over a week ago.  So it's not as late as it looks, I swear!

5 Months

My Sweet 2nd baby girl.  I'm sorry it has taken so long to get back to blogging.  I keep meaning to do monthly posts for you and then I miss the date and decide to try again the next month.  Obviously that hasn't been working out to well, so I'm doing your 5 month post now even though you turned 5 months on Dec. 30.

You are such a joy and you brighten my days.  I don't know that I've ever known such a happy baby before.  I've started telling people that I think you're so happy because the midwife who delivered you is named Sunshine.  But really, you smile all the time and everyone always comments on what a happy baby you are.  You are very social and just love to smile at people.  Especially your Papa, he has always gotten the most smiles from the beginning.  He is a funny guy and you are always highly entertained by him.

You are definitely a morning person and always greet me with a smile.  Even if I have to wake you up, you are just so happy to see me that you don't care.  After a rough night nursing you every couple hours, I dread getting up to start my day.  But then I see your happy, smiling face and I can't help feeling joy for getting to be your mom.  If you could start sleeping better though, I'd be totally on board with that!

You used to be a decent sleeper giving me a good 5 hour stretch just about every night and then waking every 2-3 hours after that.  Sometimes you'd even give me a longer stretch.  I believe the longest you ever went was 8 or 9 hours.  That was amazing!  Of course it never happened again, but I did appreciate it at the time.  Unfortunately the dreaded 4 month sleep regression hit and you've been waking up every 2 hours since.  On particularly bad nights, you might even wake up every hour.  Luckily I know that things will get better eventually and looking back this will seem like a short time.
Naps are mostly 30 min. right now, but I remember going through this with your sister and it doesn't last forever.

You are a talker, just like your sister!  You love to shriek, growl, squeal, and make all kinds of interesting sounds.  Your dad and I love it when you sing yourself to sleep.  It is the sweetest thing.  Your latest trick is blowing raspberries with your mouth.  You tuck your top lip under your bottom lip and blow spit bubbles while making noise.  You are quite proud of yourself and are practicing this newfound skill as much as you can.  I stick my tongue out at you and blow raspberries and you are trying so hard to figure out how to do it too.  The other day you were watching me do it and you were able to stick your tongue out and kind of make the noise.  You didn't quite get it, but it was so fun watching you try.

You also have discovered the joy of hanging upside down.  You throw your head back and just hang there.  You make it almost impossible to lift you back up until you are good and ready.  I am amazed at how long you can remain upside down.  I guess you are just enjoying the new perspective.

I really expected you to be laughing by now because of how smiley and happy you are, but you're still waiting on that one.  We've gotten some giggles out of you here and there, but that's about it.  It's ok, your millions of smiles more than make up for it.

Another thing that has surprised me is that you're not rolling yet.  With how active you have been since before you were even born, I really thought you would be more mobile.  Not that I'm complaining.  I'm in no hurry for you to be mobile, just a little surprised.  You will roll onto your side when you're on your back, but you don't try to get all the way over.  You're really good at tummy time, but again, no interest in rolling onto your back.  You did scoot backwards about a foot the other day while you were on your tummy.  I had been looking somewhere else and when I looked back, you were almost off the blanket I had you on.  Maybe you just don't think rolling is necessary.

You love to sit up.  You can't do it by yourself yet, but you love it when I sit you up on the couch or in my lap.  You can see much more this way than you can on your back.  I think it also makes it easier for you to play with toys.  You also love splashing in the bath, sucking on anything soft and fuzzy, trying to turn the pages in books, chewing on your fingers, your stuffed unicorn from Santa, music, your kitties, and your sister.

You adore your sister and love to watch whatever she happens to be doing.  Even her tantrums provide great entertainment for you.  She loves to play with you and get you to smile at her.  It is amazing to watch the bond you two are building.  Your favorite thing is to grab her hair, which she isn't too fond of.  When you were born and she found out you were a girl, she took one look at you and asked, "When does she get long hair?"  You don't have much hair, so she will probably be waiting a long time for that!

You also get very excited when your kitties are near.  You love to pet them and sometimes you're gentle, but other times you have trouble holding back your excitement.  When you start shrieking loudly, they decide they've had enough!  They don't mind so much when you grab their fur or pat too roughly, but the shrieking is more than they can handle.

Let's see, what else?  You won't take a pacifier or bottle or suck your thumb.  It seems to be the boob or nothing!  You do like to suck on your blankies though.

I think that's it for now.  If I don't stop, I may be writing all night!  I love you so much my 2nd baby girl and couldn't be happier that you are part of our family.  I will try really hard to do regular updates on here.  I was going back and reading your sister's posts and it's so nice to have.



Brand new

One month

2 months

3 months

4 months

5 months

It's A Girl!

(Edit:  This has been sitting here for months waiting to be published.  I was going to edit it and break it into paragraphs, but I'm just going to go ahead and post it.)

So it's been awhile.  Elisabeth Rose Mojica was born on her due date July 30, 2015 at 12:31 pm weighing 7 lbs. 6 oz. and 19 in. long.

Early in the morning contractions started waking me up. I started timing them at 4 am for about an hour and they were all over the place from 9 minutes to 15 minutes apart.  I was still pretty sure that this was it though, so I told Jose not to go to work and I texted the midwife what was happening so far.  She said she would hop in the shower and check back with me at 6 am.  I called my sister and mom so they could head over.  The next hour contractions were still all over, but 7 to 12 minutes apart and lasting 30-50 sec.  The midwife decided to head over and arrived about 7 am.  My mom arrived shortly after and my sister came about 8:30 am.  I wasn't timing contractions anymore because I needed to focus on what I was doing.  Slow, deep breathing and a focal point got me through the majority of labor.  I sat out on the couch with my mom and sister watching the show Friends for a couple of hours.  Meanwhile, the birth tub and everything else was all ready for me in the bedroom.  My mom and sister thought it was so funny that sometimes I would end a contraction laughing because I would catch a joke from the show as I was coming out of the contraction.  I have to say though, my super active baby would push back during the contractions.  I would be having a contraction and my mom and sister could see her pushing her but out.  That was not comfortable for me!  Anyway, by about 11 am I wanted to go lay down in my bed and I had Jose go with me to rub my back.  I still thought it was going to be awhile at this point, but everything ended up going super fast after that.  I laid in bed with Jose for awhile but then the contractions started getting more intense.  My mom and sister came in and I told them I could feel the baby moving down.  It was so weird to me, but I was much more in tune with my body this time than I was with my first daughter's birth.  She was born at the hospital.  So, after awhile I just couldn't get comfortable in any position and decided to get in the birthing tub.  The midwife and her assistant had pretty much left me alone until this point and were just letting me do my thing.  Other than periodically checking baby's heart rate, they didn't interfere at all.  In the tub the contractions got super intense and I didn't want to do it anymore, so I realized I must be in transition.  I changed my breathing technique to 3 breaths and a blow to cope with the pain.  Being in the water also helped a lot with the pain.  My water broke in the tub probably about 15 min. before the baby was born.  After awhile I started pushing and was saying "oh" through contractions and moaning.  Again, very different from my first birth in the hospital where I didn't make a sound.  I was kind of wondering if I should be pushing.  I had never been checked for dilation at all, but my body knew exactly what it was doing.  I said I thought I could feel a head down there and the midwife said if I reached down, I could feel the head.  So I reached down and sure enough, I could feel the top of her head which was so cool and very encouraging.  I was on my knees, hanging on Jose and I really wanted the baby out.  The midwife encouraged me to change positions, so I flipped over and leaned my back against Jose.  It was much easier to push in this position and I got her head all the way out.  I probably pushed too fast because I ended up tearing, but I just couldn't take the burning sensation anymore.  While I was waiting for the next contraction, I could feel the baby moving which seemed odd to me, but when I said I could feel it, the midwife said the baby was turning to the perfect position to come out.  Then I pushed her all the way out and got to hold my baby for the first time.  It was amazing and I couldn't believe she was finally here.  Of course, we didn't know what we were having, so I still needed to check.  So many people thought I was having a boy, so when I looked between the legs I was looking for a penis.  Well, there was no penis, I checked twice!  Then I announced that it was a girl.  Such an amazing experience.  And I was only in the tub for about 30 min. before she was born at 12:31 pm.  It all went very quickly!

36 Weeks

I'm hot, huge, and tired!  That is all I've got folks.  Maybe I'll give this another shot some other day when I can muster up some motivation.

Here's a 36 week pic:

32 Weeks

Yesterday marked 32 weeks for this pregnancy.  I feel so huge!  I've gained 30 pounds so far and with Raeya I gained about 28 total, so I feel like I'm done.  Of course I'm not done and still have about 5-8 weeks left (I refuse to acknowledge the possibility of being overdue!).  It is getting close though.

My one complaint right now is my back.  Two weeks ago I injured my back doing such a wild and crazy thing as putting away the laundry.  My back is still healing and it has made life a lot more difficult because I am really limited with what I can do.  I feel like I'm starting to get the nesting instinct pretty strongly and it's hard because of my back right now.

One really nice thing is that Jose finished school and started his new job, so he has been around more and able to help at home.  We need to get the apartment organized and ready for when the baby comes.

The baby continues to entertain us with it's crazy movement.  We can literally watch my belly and see it roll across, kick, and punch.  I don't think I'll ever get used to it.  I can't believe how different everything has been compared to when I was pregnant with Raeya.

Oh, earlier this week the midwife gave me a list of everything we need for the home birth.  It's getting real people!

Well, here's a 32 week pic:

28 Weeks

I am 28 weeks along in this pregnancy as of yesterday.  I am chugging along and the belly is growing.  Baby gets stronger everyday.

This baby loves to stretch out and put pressure on various areas like my hip bones!  I guess space is getting limited and he/she is trying to make room, lol.  It hurts though!  Please be nice to your mama little baby.  It's hard to imagine how such a little being can be so strong.

I'm starting to get anxious to find out whether this baby is a boy or girl.  I don't regret waiting, but I'm still so curious to know.  Raeya is so sure this baby is a girl, but general consensus is boy.  The other day Raeya said to me, "Daddy thinks she's a boy.  He's so silly, she's a girl!"  We keep trying to tell her that she could very well end up with a little brother, but she is dead set against that being a possibility.  It will be very interesting to see what happens with that.

Other than this never ending nausea and normal aches and pains of pregnancy, everything has been going quite smoothly.  I can't really think of much else to say right now, so that's it til next time.

Here's a 28 week belly pic:

24 Weeks

I am 24 weeks along in this pregnancy as of today.  I can't wait to meet this little baby!  Everything has been so different this time around that it makes me super curious to see how this kiddo will turn out.

Still no changes nausea wise.  I'm trying to accept the fact that I probably won't be able to get off medication.  I'm just thankful with the amount of improvement I did get.

I am already super uncomfortable all the time and sleeping is difficult.  I don't remember that happening this soon last time and it makes me slightly worried since I still have 16 weeks to go of getting bigger and more uncomfortable.

Speaking of getting bigger, I have already gained 20 pounds!  Last time I gained 28 pounds total.  This time I will clearly be gaining a lot more.  I'm guessing my total this time will be about 40 pounds.  As someone who has always been slightly underweight, it's a little scary to think about gaining so much, but I'm trying not to stress too much about it.

I did start going to a prenatal yoga class and I really enjoy it.  It's only once a week though, so I need to try and get some more exercise in.  I never really got back into shape after having Raeya and I know labor is supposed to be easier when you are physically fit.  I'm just so tired all the time and it makes it hard to think about exercise.

The baby sure is active though.  He/she is getting stronger and has startled me a few times.  Not that it's a hard thing to do, I'm pretty jumpy!  I feel all kinds of crazy movement and wonder what the heck is going on inside my uterus.  I have a little party animal in there.

Time to wrap this up.  Here's a 24 week photo: