4 Months and Counting

Our Baby Tinger is 4 months old and looks like an 8 month old. She's making more noises; moving her lips, trying to form sounds. When you speak to her, she watches your mouth and tries to mimic you. And her new thing is making raspberries. Her physical strength is becoming more of an ox. She loves to stand and we often have to bend her knees just to get her to sit. With her neck getting stronger, we have been able to sit her in the Bumbo for brief moments at a time. When J. watches her in the morning, he often puts her in the Bumbo and sits her on his desk while he's working. She's quite intrigued by anything J. puts on the monitor (Band of Brothers, Intervention, The Daily Show). For some reason, she's just not into kiddie shows.

1 Year Later...

J. and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary. So much has happened in this past year with the biggest thing being Matti. Looking back, our wedding was one of the funnest parties. I thought saying our vows was one of the happiest moments for us. Turns out Matti outdid us. We celebrated our anniversary with the Tinger. Her gift to us was a HUGE, messy diaper that she gave us during dinner. Thanks, Matti!

Tour de Tinger

To get into the spirit of the Tour de France, we thought it was appropriate to put Matti in her biking gear. Thanks to her Pepere and Gram, she's sporting an authentic climber's hat from the Tour and a yellow jersey. Viva la France!

Fun Moments with the Tinger

100 Days

She did it! Our little Tinger made it to 100 days. I guess we're pretty cool parents so she decided to stick around a little longer. And we decided to keep her around. Like every morning, she woke up today all smiles! At 3 months, she's smiling all the time and it's not because of gas. It's because she's aware of everything and thinks everything is funny. She also started chuckling which we get a total kick out of. She laughs especially hard when you make fart sounds with your tongue. What can I say? She's her daddy's little girl.

Matti Meets Great-Gram Armstrong

Matti met her Great-Gram Armstrong for the first time. Cousins Kori and Becky were also in town.

Wee! Fun with Cousin Kori!

Handling Matti, came completely natural for mom-to-be, Becky!

Buenvenidos A Miami

Quite the jet-setter at 6 weeks, Matti went to Miami with us. I was a bit nervous because she didn't have any shots yet, and Swine Flu was on a rampage. Our doctor gave us the green light so in typical Handy fashion, we rolled the dice. The flight down was picture perfect. Matti didn't fuss at all. In fact, she slept the entire time. J.'s parents also made the trip. While Marc helped J. at the convention center, Diane helped me out with Matti.

The Tinger on her throne.

How many 6 week old babies get this view?

At the closing of "the show", we took a family photo.

Aunts Brittany, Krysten and Kayla came to visit too!

Matti vs. The Bath

This isn't so bad. A little water, some bubbles.

Oh, the humanity!!! The bath won...this time.

Rock On

Everyone warned us to get as much sleep possible before Matti arrived. All the sleep in our lifetime could not prepare us for what was to come. We were waking up every 2-3 hours to feed her. This would be the hardest month but we weathered the storm and made it through.

For a newborn, I was amazed by our little peanut's physical strength. From the moment she was born, she was able to lift her head up and turn it side to side. She's completely alert. At a month old, she was extremely observant of her surroundings. She followed every movement, even with her crossed eyes. J. was worried there was something wrong with our little girl. Everyday he'd ask about 10 times, "Do you think there's something wrong with her?" not realizing babies couldn't focus on anything for a while. She was, and still is, quite the yawner too. I guess being a baby is a lot of work. Being fed, cleaned and kissed all the time. Full time job for the Tinger.

We seldom call her Mattingly. Instead, we call her a million other names: Matti, Ting-Ting, Ting, The Tinger, babygirl. Ting-Ting derives from her Chinese name: Ting-Yun (婷恩) which means graceful gift. My parents took part of my name (Gar-Yun:嘉恩) and gave Matti hers.

Matti The Gnome

We received many knitted blankets and sweaters that belonged to J. when he was baby. One particular hooded sweater made her look like a gnome. We were quite entertained by this.

Welcome, Mattingly Rose Handy!

After 13+ hours of labor, we finally welcomed Mattingly Rose Handy! On Monday, March 30th, at 7:29 p.m., Matti was born. She was 20 inches and tipped the scale at 7 lbs. 15.6 oz. 10 fingers, 10 toes. The most precious little thing just entered our lives. Nothing in the world mattered except for her. By now, J.'s parents and my entire immediate family were anxiously waiting to meet the newest addition. So anxious that they were practically rushing into the room while my doctor was finishing up on me. Yeah, we had to put a stop to that.

Her name was inspired by 2 things. 21 years ago, a young boy was diagnosed with Burkits lymphoma. His wish was to sit in the Yankees dugout and meet all the players. The Make-A-Wish Foundation granted him this wish. Not only did he get to sit in the dugout and meet the players, but he got to meet the player of ALL players. Don Mattingly! aka Donnie Baseball. aka The Hitman! By the way, that young boy was J. So here's to you, Don Mattingly. Matti's middle name was inspired by the flower. No, it wasn't. That would be lame. J.'s step-dad, Marc LaRose, helped raised J. since he was 2. Fast forward 28 years, J. and I had a conversion that went a little something like this, "Marc raised me for the majority of my life. He disciplined me, he taught me everything. We may not be blood related, but I've always looked at him as my father." Here's to you, Marc.

Big Day

I started contracting around 3:20 a.m. and they kicked into full gear an hour later. I woke J. up, we got ready and then we headed out the door around 5 a.m. As you can see from the photo, I was ecstatic. This would be the last day we'd have our house alone. Surprisingly, everything was very calm and surreal. We even made a trip to CVS so J. could pick up a prescription, and to Dunkin Donuts for a cup of coffee. J. started making the rounds of phone calls to family. First, his parents who were driving down from Vermont. Then my parents and sisters were up next.

As my mom walked into work, she received J.'s call. She turned around and walked right back out. Oh yeah, who can forget my doctor? Dr. Michael Feinstein. He was contacted and was on his way to the hospital; or at least that's what we thought. More on that later.

So my mom shows up and that's when the nurse on-duty decided it was time to hook me up to an I.V. Side Note: J. and I came up with a checklist of key information that he was to convey to doctors and nurses when the big day came. We decided to do this because we knew I wasn't going to be in the best condition to communicate with anybody. One of the most important things we discussed was: if anyone were to stick me with anything, they needed to be an experienced nurse or doctor. No students or retards. Well, we got the retard. She stuck me over and over again, in multiple places, while wiggling and jamming the needle in my arm. This continued for ummm...15 agonizing minutes. So much for the checklist. Thanks, J. The pain she inflicted on me was worse than my contractions. No kidding. By the way, she didn't even land a vein! I bled all over the sheets and on my gown. She left the room and another nurse came back 20 minutes later. This time, we got a good nurse. First try, only try, 1 minute, done! And why didn't they send this one the first time?

It was time to head to the delivery room. Shortly after arriving there, they gave me the epidural. Another painful experience. Not because of the anesthesiologist, but because it's a loooong needle stuck in between vertebrae. Ouch! But worth it. Back to my doctor. He never showed up. His partner from his office decided to give Dr. Feinstein a break and took over for him. Enter Dr. Timothy Shawl. I had seen him as a patient once before so I felt comfortable having him deliver. He turned out to be great! The delivery room was quite the scene. Aside from the doctor and nurses, J. my mom and both my sisters were in the room. Hospital rule: only 3 people in the room that the mother chooses. So how did we manage 4? Taking turns, hiding in the closet or bathroom. I had my doctor and 2 nurses taking care of me. They were fine with the number of people in the room. There was just 1 rogue nurse that subbed in while my head nurse went on break. And that's when a game of hide-n-seek began between her and my mom & sisters, only with them getting caught. But that didn't stop them from coming back for the grand finale.

It's The Final Countdown!

My family got us single-handedly the coolest gift, a 3-D ultrasound. This was a preview to what our little alien would look like....a chubby cheeked, adorable little girl. We immediately knew she had my mouth and lips, and she had J.'s chin and feet. The nose was questionable, and still is.

By this point, I was ready to pop. Nights were getting sleepless for Baby Handy preferred pushing and kicking up and out towards the right of my ribcage. I was 3 days late and during those days, I had all the signs of labor but nothing considerable enough to render a trip to the hospital. Until 3:20 a.m. Monday, March 30th rolled around...

Mrs. Potato Head

We're at the half way mark and the baby is beginning to twitch. We had our second sighting and found out we're having a girl. But from the ultrasound, you would have thought we were having Mrs. Potato Head! A girl...a girl...we are soooooooooooo in trouble! After everything checked out normal, I couldn't help but think, god, I hope our daughter doesn't become that girl. She won't and we won't let it happen. Otherwise, we might need to give her away.

Hey Buddy.

Fast forward some odd weeks and the gut begins to show. Buddy was thrilled. Isn't it obvious? My body was expanding in ways I never thought was possible. As I got bigger, the inevitable was imminent. The baby room and......our kitchen! Our house needed a major overhaul and who better to help us than Marc & Diane (J.'s folks)! We are super lucky to have them. Without them, we wouldn't have even started on the kitchen. You can see the kitchen pics on J.'s facebook page. BEFORE and AFTER

First Sighting

And there it is. Our first encounter of our little alien which will later become our baby. Isn't it cute? We thought so too. It's amazing you can make out what will be the head, hands and feet. Wow, we're going to have a kid. We're going to be parents. Wow. Really?

I'm Pregnant?!?!

A year ago, this month (July), J. and I said "I do" to each other. Little did we know, there was a time bomb ticking away inside of me! Baby Handy was beginning to make herself comfortable which would explain why I wasn't losing anymore weight during my final workouts leading up to our wedding. We were in Miami a few days after our wedding and that's when we discovered the arrival of Matti.....confirmed with not 1, but 2! tests. So the saying goes, the honeymoon was over. But for a great reason! And so it begins, a new journey in our lives.