She's Out of Quarantine!

Spring is just around the corner and we couldn't be happier! Charley's pediatrician recommended we keep her quarantined for 4-6 months since she was born right before winter to help keep her little immune system healthy from all of the sickies. When February came around, I was going crazy being cooped up for so long. And since it had been 5 months, we decided it was time for us to slowly introduce Charley to the world.

Charley at 4 months (9lbs 7oz)

I hadn't been to church in 5 months so when Kevin got a call to meet with the Bishopric the first week in February, we decided that Charley and I would start going to church in March. Well, I guess the Lord had different plans for us because I was immediately called to be the 1st counselor in the Primary Presidency and would be serving with my sweet friend Marci who was the new President and my former Relief Society President who was the 2nd counselor. I was really excited. It was a month sooner than we had planned but it felt really good to be back in church. I had really missed it, and I love Primary!

Kevin was released at the same time I was called from the Young Men's Presidency and then a few weeks later put in as the Stake Young Men's 2nd Counselor. It works out well since he will be able to take care of Charley during church most weeks while I'm either conducting or doing sharing time. And I have so many great friends who have offered to take her for me when he's not there. Charley's really lucky because she will have a great group of friends in the ward. There are 3 other babies who were born within a couple months of her plus one who will make his arrival any day now. We have been so blessed with our amazing ward family. Our house might be small but we don't ever plan on leaving.

We have been having spring-like weather and I love it! I wish all winters could be like this. We took Charley for her first walk and she fell in love with her stroller. She loves to talk and smile with whoever is pushing her and it is a great way to get her to take a nice long nap. (She has become the queen of cat naps!) We have gone on a couple shopping outings with Nana and it is so fun to be able to do this with her.

Charley has developed a little bit of torticollis (which means she has a tilt in her neck). She prefers to look and lay on her left side so we have a Physical Therapist that comes to the house twice a month to work with her and to teach us exercises to help her stretch and use the neck muscles on her right side so that it won't hurt so much for her to use them. I'll put her in her bumbo seat and she can hold her head up but it almost immediately falls to the side.

She is starting to roll over and loves to be on her side. She's only rolled all the way over to her stomach a handful of times but she is constantly rocking back and forth from her back to her side. One afternoon while I was working, I looked down and she had fallen asleep on her play mat like this:

She HATES tummy time so we have had to learn some different techniques to get her to spend any amount of time on her tummy. It is getting better, she used to scream immediately when we would put her on her tummy but now she will go several minutes before she starts to protest. It's been quite the learning experience for me. You don't realize before you have children how much the little things you do day to day really help their development (for the good AND for the bad), especially when you have a preemie.

Charley at 5 months

Charley is also teething. Her first tooth hasn't popped through yet but she puts everything in her mouth! Her favorites are her hands, blankets, binky and mom and dad's fingers. We have a plethora of teething toys for her to use but she doesn't like any of them at the moment. Especially the cold ones. It's pretty funny to watch her when we give her one, though! And my favorite thing is that she is laughing! You have to really work for it because she doesn't give her laughs away for just anything or anybody. But when she does it melts your heart! Kevin had made her laugh a couple of times when I wasn't around before I ever got to hear her. And believe me, I was really trying! But when it happened Kevin caught it on video.

I can't believe how fast time is going and how big Charley is getting. But she is still my little preemie baby. She is only wearing 0-3 month clothes with plenty of room to grow at 6 months. And I'm not sure when she will fit into a size 0 shoe! She has the tiniest feet. The only way I can keep shoes on her is to tighten the velcro straps as tight as they can possibly go. And even then she looks like she has a clown shoe on. My brother bought her some one-size fits all leggings that she probably won't be able to wear until she is 1 or 2! But I do have to admit that I love having a teeny tiny girl. Even though she is getting older, she is still the size of a very large newborn, LOL.

And this past Sunday night, Charley gave us the best gift ever...her first full night sleep (without a wimper for her bink)! And the nights after that weren't too shabby either. She still sleeps in our room at night but I think it is time to move her to her crib. She takes her naps in her nursery but it would really be nice to have her sleep 100% of the time in there. So that's my goal for this next week!