On Friday we went to Overland park to a hibachi restaurant. Alexa did amazing! We were at a table with 4 adults in their early 30's. I can tell when we arrived that they were nervous about the baby being there. Alexa exceeded all expectations. She sat on my lap and watched the chief. She did not seem to mind the fire one bit. We all had a great time & got lots of compliments on how calm and happy Alexa was. We decided to stay over night at a hotel. Alexa had her second swimming experience. This time she was able to go in a normal size pool. The water was really warm & she loved it. She discovered the ability to kick & she was happy to show us.
Saturday we headed to down town Kansas City. We did a very small amount of shopping & took in all the beautiful Christmas decorations. We ate lunch at the Crayon Cafe & even saw Santa. Once we got home we started our "Christmas Eve" celebration. Since we will be out of town on the real Christmas & Christmas Eve we decided we would celebrate early. We all put on our pajamas and spent time as a family.
Sunday morning was "Christmas." Alexa received some awesome gifts from Grandpa & GB, Grandma, Santa & Mom and Dad. I am well aware that she had little understanding of what was going on, but I am happy that we started our new family traditions. We spent the day in our pajamas watching lots of Christmas movies including Justin's favorite Polar Express and my favorite Elf.
On Monday, Alexa and I decided to fight through the very cold weather to run some errands. We completed the child care enrollment. This process has taken us several hours & countless headaches. Fort Leavenworth offers two child care options. The first is the standard day care & the second is in home care. Both programs are run by the child development centers & require the same standards. My original thoughts were to sign Alexa up for the daycare center. We have since found out that the current wait is about 10months. So we are going with the in home care.. lol. I am working on interviewing the available houses & making a decision. Alexa will not be starting child care until I start working & Justin leaves for Iraq. As strongly as I feel about babies being home with their Momma's, I need something to help me stay busy while Justin is going. I am hoping this is the best thing for both Lexi & me. We are also signing up for KinderMusik which is a Mommy & me group, swim lessons & a baby gymnastics class. We are going to keep as busy as possible over the next year.
Alexa has started having conversations with us. We will coo and she will in return. This goes on for several minutes & she loves it. She changes her pitch & length of noise. Every day she seems to amaze me.
As a requirement for Alexa's child care, she needed to get a physical. We went exactly on her 3 month birthday. She weighs 11lbs 6oz & is 23inches long. I was a little concerned about her only gaining a 1lb in the last 3 weeks, but the doctors reassured me that she is doing great. We also had Alexa's first dermatology appointment. The doctors are not currently concerned about her strawberry. I was told that they typically stop growing between 5 & 6 months. From that point they will start flattening out, lighten in color & start to blend with the rest of her skin. 30% are usually gone by age 3, 50% by age 5 & 90% by age 7. Caucasian babies tend to have the most cases of strawberry and have been seen in as much as 10% of newborns. Though the doctors do not know what causes a baby to develop a strawberry they do know that they do not lead to any long term conditions. As long as Alexa's strawberry does not bleed or develop into a scab they will prefer to leave it alone. The dermatologist says mother nature leaves a better mark then the scar that would be the result of any laser treatment. But... if it does bleed or develop into a scab this is a sign that it is not break down correctly & they would consider using a laser to help the healing process. Alexa will go back in just over a month to have it looked at again.
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