August 30, 2002 - Natalie has a new cute sound. For now it seems to have replaced her previous favorite, the loud, ear-piercing squawk. (At least she's not doing that one as often!) She's now making little "pppbbbbhhhtt" sounds with her lips, usually along with blowing bubbles. The other night she and I made the sound back and forth to each other for awhile, and she got a big hoot out of that. And of course so did I.
I called her doctor this morning (I forgot yesterday) to give him the update about our 2-week no Zantac trial. She's still been doing really good; that is, except for the last couple days. Ever since we gave her green beans for the first time, she's been having quite a bit of spit up but it's a lot more curd-y and not like her reflux. Yesterday it was pretty much all day that way. She's still not sleeping that well either. It's seemed to be about every other night that she wakes up in the middle of the night. Last night was one of those nights, so hopefully tonight will be an "off" night. I am just NOT used to these four hour sleep shifts anymore! So, I reported all this to her doctor and he told me to call him back on Tuesday to let him know if she was still spitting up like she has been the last few days, and if she still isn't sleeping well. In the meantime, we're still off Zantac and we can't give her any more green beans because she may have an allergy to them. I won't try peas then either, which was the next food on my greens list to give her. Considering that's the one thing I had a really strong aversion to during pregnancy, I'm not even going to try that right now. Back to orange veggies and fruits for the next few days. Today we shared a peach for an afternoon snack. With her two teeth on the bottom, she did a really good job of taking actual bites out of it too! She really likes peaches. I've given one to her once before, but that was before her teeth had come in so she really just gummed it then. This time she really was eating the peach with me, even getting some bites of skin which I tried to help her avoid. Yummy! Today we also vacuumed again, just the two of us. After that last episode, Phil or I had to hold her while the other vacuumed. Today the floor was just looking awful though so I thought I'd try again. She did the same thing, flailing her arms and legs around (she was in my Baby Bjorn carrier again) and acting scared of the vacuum. She kept the vacuum in view the whole time, no matter what direction we turned. She still acted very scared of it, but I just held her tightly against me with one arm and kept vacuuming with the other. After that was when we had the peach, as a treat for getting through the ordeal. :-)
Speaking of turning her head around to watch things, I noticed something the other day that she really has been doing for quite awhile now but it never really hit me how significant it really is. I noticed that she would watch our kitties walk by, and when they went out of her view on one side, she would turn her head the other direction and follow the cat on the other side of her head. It seems so simple but I realized all the thought processes that have to go on for Natalie to do this; she has to watch where the kitty goes, realize it still exists when it goes out of her sight, and then know which direction to turn her head to keep following it. Pretty amazing if you think about it. It's just always so amazing to think of all the things she's learned in so little time.
Something else I learned today. We aren't going to try any more discount diapers. Pampers only from now on. We've attempted different store brands but they either gave her diaper rash or didn't hold together well. This week we had a slew of coupons for Drypers brand, and their ads looked good, so we thought we'd try them. Today Natalie had a pretty normal poopy diaper, no more in amount than normal I mean, but her diaper did not hold it in at ALL. Even the store brands would just leak small amounts (unless Natalie was getting ready to grow into the next size, in which case, no brand can hold it back). This one was truly disgusting. It went EVERYWHERE, including her entire outfit (not just pants) and clear through to my shirt. Fortunately Phil walked in from work while I was cleaning it up so he could help out, because it required four hands and an entire stack of wipes, and an instant trip down to the washing machine as soon as everything was under control. An explosion of that magnitude had never happened before. We like Pampers diapers. They are a little more expensive and they don't often have coupons for them, but this is one area we're not going to try to save money on anymore. We're learned our lesson!
Finally, I did get the Homestead stuff settled this week. When I finally got a hold of them the other day, the guy I spoke with first said he wouldn't refund my money because I had "accessed the web site since my renewal date". I tried to explain in several different ways, yes, I had accessed it just about a week ago, but that was only to see if I they had cancelled my account, and the point was, they charged me three days after I had called to cancel, way before I ever went to my site to test it. They had no record of me calling to cancel. Phil and I were really beginning to wonder what kind of two-person shamble of an operation they had over there. The guy was so rude to us, I couldn't believe it. He never even once apologized or anything. After awhile of this, we asked to speak to his manager. He put us through to his voice mail and we left a message stating in no uncertain terms that we were going to get our $70 back. When he called us back, he was very friendly and apologetic, and he credited back my money that evening (we've already checked our bank statement to make sure). So I guess they COULD refund my money; the first guy was just being a jerk about it. As of today, my website still exists (I've just visited, NOT tried to access!), so I wonder if or when it will ever be cleared out. I'm just glad to be finished with Homestead!
August 26, 2002 - We had a frustrating weekend. We found out on Saturday after depositing a check that our checking account was off, and this is something very rare since Phil does the checkbook and he's very good at keeping things up to date. And especially right now, it is essential that we know how much money we have at all times! So we thought about it, what could possibly be one big chunk of money that we could have missed? We hadn't gotten the bank statement from the end of July through this month yet, so it had to have been from after July 24. I thought maybe it could have been Homestead - that was $70, and maybe they billed me even though I called to cancel it on July 22. I had called because you couldn't cancel it online; it specifically said that to cancel your service, you had to call them before your renewal date (otherwise you would be automatically charged and there were no refunds), so that's what I did. We got online and looked at our bank statement online and sure enough, there it is, $70 to Homestead on July 25! $70 is a LOT of money, and it certainly wasn't in our budget to pay for that this month. I was so angry. I still am. I tried to call them about it but after being on hold for a half hour and still getting the message replayed that I was tenth in line (and I hadn't moved up in 15 minutes), I decided to hang up, wait a little while and call back. They are on Pacific time out there so maybe lots of people are calling first thing. Maybe lots of people with complaints about being billed $70 for something they specifically cancelled. Maybe that's how Homestead stays in business with such a substandard service!!!!!
Then last night Phil and I were heading out at about 8:00 to get some dinner. We went out to the car and Phil started getting Natalie in her seat, when we remembered we had a coupon for a free sandwich, so I went back in the house to get it. After getting the coupon, I headed back out to the car, and as I sat down I asked Phil, "Where are my keys?" As I was saying it, I realized that DUH, I had to use my keys to get back in the house and they were now on my kitchen table, in the locked house. We had just talked about getting a spare key to keep somewhere else too, but of course we hadn't done it yet! My mom is the only one with a key but she had gone up to see my sister in Cleveland all day. We tried a window but boy do we have solid windows! Then we went to our next-door neighbor, who is a police detective, to see if he had any special police tricks or gadgets for getting into houses. He said no but sometimes credit cards worked, so he showed us how to break into a house. Unfortunately, at least in THIS case, our door is really solidly built too. Well that's good to know. We did have our cell phone though, so we called all around trying to track her down. My sister said she had left a long time ago, so she was at least on her way back. To make a long story shorter, we eventually got through to mom and she was just about 20 minutes away. By then it had gotten really dark and Natalie had had enough of this little nighttime outdoor adventure, so we went over to our other neighbor's house, who had offered to let us go in and who adores seeing Natalie anyway, and we waited there till my mom got over here to rescue us. For the second time this month. I don't think we have done this in the four years we've been married, and now twice in a month. Oh, and we realized while waiting to be rescued that the place we were going to go to, that I had specifically gone back in the house to get the coupon for, had been closed for 2 hours even before we had started to go!
We eventually did get dinner last night, at 10:30, but we were all exhausted. Natalie fell asleep at about 11, and then also took a 2 1/2 hour nap this morning! She's still doing pretty good off the Zantac. On Thursday I'll call her doctor with the 2 week report.
August 23, 2002 - Natalie slept 8 1/2 hours last night! Yay! Although today, so far, she hasn't been in too happy of a mood. How does that work; she sleeps very little and she's all smiles and giggles, she sleeps all night and wakes up fussy. Makes no sense to me!
Happy 7 months today to April's baby, Addie!
August 22, 2002 - Natalie has now been off of her Zantac for one week. For the first couple days it seemed to be making not much of a difference, not any better or not any worse, but the last couple days Natalie has been really good; hardly even any spit up at all. The nights have been more difficult though. Tuesday night she did pretty good. She went to bed a little late (around 1 am) but then slept only until about 7:40, and was then up and ready to play the entire rest of the day, not even really having her power naps. I was exhausted at the end of the day but Natalie had been in a great mood most of the time, with all her typical smiles, giggles, and laughs how she usually is, so it was a long but a fun day. Then last night, she went to sleep at about 12:30 and woke up at 5:00! Fortunately this time unlike the other day, she did fall back asleep in about a half hour; she just wanted to eat a little bit. I think her night waking might have to do with the reflux though, because this morning she was starting to fall back asleep and I was about to head back upstairs with her, when suddenly she spit up a lot of milk, which she hadn't done in a long time! She did fall back asleep pretty soon after that though (after eating a little more to get that acid back down her tummy) and I don't think she opened her eyes all the way more than once the entire time she was awake. So though I was up with her, with the exception of the spit up it was a pretty peaceful night feeding. After going back to sleep this morning she then slept until about 9, but I'm just not at all used to these four hour sleep shifts anymore! (Though I remember LOVING it when Natalie slept for four hours straight in the early weeks!) Today she was in a really good mood again, lots of giggles. She's had some spit up today but it still wasn't a bad day. She also learned a new trick today - clapping! It's so very cute. Every now and then though she gets an "I'm not feeling so good" look on her face, or she just suddenly lets out squalls (REALLY loud- the girl's got lungs!!) She's in a really good mood most of the time but just seems a little more "touchy" than usual - her mood just turns to the bad a lot quicker than we are used to, but then she just as quickly seems happy again too. It could still be teething though too, I really don't know. We have one more week on our no-Zantac trial, so we'll see how things go. If she keeps waking up and spitting up during the night, maybe we could just give her the Zantac before bed. She's doing so much better during the day though!
Natalie is starting to get a nice full head of blonde hair now, and my hair has started to grow back too! For the past couple weeks I've noticed that it wasn't falling out as fast anymore; the shower drain isn't full of hair and I couldn't pull out handfuls as I was combing or brushing it. Recently I've noticed new little hairs along my hairline. It's still pretty thin along the crown of my head, but when I pull it back into a pony tail now at least you can't see multiple bald spots all along the side of my head like you could two months ago. It's still pretty thin in spots, thinner than it always was, but that's still a lot better than bald spots! Also this might be a side effect, at least up until this past week, of Natalie getting into the habit of a good 8 or 9 hours of sleep every night, but FINALLY, after all this time, my milk is starting to slow down a little at night. At least, I haven't had to get a box of the ultra-absorbent, can hold back the Hoover Dam, $5.99 for a box of only 24 nursing pads. I've even been able to go sometimes without using any nursing pads at all (but I usually do anyway, just in case). Everything I'd read said that leaking to that degree usually only happens for the first few weeks when nursing is being established, but I'd wake up every morning up until the last week or so feeling like I was going to explode unless I pumped or got Natalie eating really quickly. So of course now I'm worried about my milk supply going down. If I'm not experiencing engorgement than Natalie just can't be getting enough to eat, right? :) I think she's doing fine though. I just think that maybe, after 6 1/2 months, my body is finally beginning to adjust. Now if I could just get rid of my floppy baby belly...that's one thing that IS under my control though...
August 20, 2002 - I thought I was finished with losing my mind but I guess it's just going to get worse as Natalie gets older. Maybe when she's a teenager she really WILL be smarter than me. Oh wait, I'm not supposed to let on that that could happen, am I? Today two things happened that made me say "DOH!" First, I was RSVP'ing for a Southern Living at Home party (no idea what this is, but I thought I'd go anyway) for next week, and when I was talking into the lady's answering machine, I said I was calling to RSVP but for her to let me know if there was a time change or something. I then proceeded to start giving my phone number.."476...no wait..475...uh...well, you have my number!" I'm sure I had her laughing at that one. I really couldn't remember; I had to ask Phil later on. Then not too long after that I was doing the dishes, and once I'd gotten everything loaded into the machine I then reached under my sink and grabbed a box and started pouring the contents into the machine's soap containers. It wasn't until I had both compartments full that I realized I'd just filled my dish washer with cat food.
It is probably just caused by more than usual tiredness. I don't know if it is because of Natalie working really hard at getting those other teeth out, or being off of Zantac, or maybe a combination of both of them, but she's been pretty difficult lately. Just not acting like herself, and she's much quicker to become unhappy and start crying. Usually I can do something or other to calm her down pretty quickly and she hardly ever really fusses, but lately none of my bag of tricks are working very well. Sunday night we had our first public near-meltdown too. We had been over at my mom's for a couple hours because they just got a new (very cute!) little kitten, and so there was the kitten, the dog, the other cat, plus the whole family, so I think that might have exhausted her enough to start with. Then at about 9:30 we made the mistake of deciding to go out to dinner because we hadn't eaten in about eight hours. We chose Max and Erma's, which was a second big mistake because it isn't the most calm of establishments. I think we got a major case of overstimulation. By the time we had gotten our food ordered, Natalie had knocked over a glass of water, didn't want to sit in anyone's arms or the highchair and didn't even want to be nursed. Usually that last one always gets her to quiet down and usually fall right asleep at least long enough for us to eat. This time she wanted none of anything. Even over all the (loud) music in the restaurant, I started noticing people start shooting me dirty looks, so I asked Phil to give me the car keys and I went out to the car to sit with Natalie while they ate. She stopped complaining as soon as we got out into the car, but she still seemed very wired. When we got home, Phil played with Natalie while I (finally) ate my chicken salad, and then we were all exhausted. Natalie still wasn't ready for bed though. I took her for a walk in her sling, and the whole time we were outside she kept giving me a look that said "what's going on mama?" We've never taken a midnight walk around the block before! Finally she started calming down and I got her to sleep. The next morning she woke at around 8:30 but then went back to sleep for a real nap, and slept until about 12:30. Usually all she does is take 15-20 minute power naps, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, so this was completely unlike her. I should have known then that the next night might be different too. Last night she fell asleep around her normal time (well, a little later, like about 1:00) but then woke up at 4:30 am! She's been sleeping through the night since around 6 weeks, so this was a complete shock to my system! We got her up and I nursed her, but she didn't fall back asleep until 6:15. When we finally got back in bed, I was then wide awake and didn't fall asleep for another half hour. Then at 7:30 Natalie woke up again! This time we just pulled her into bed between us and we all fell back asleep for about another hour and a half, thank goodness. But I've been really tired today; I'm just not used to being up every couple hours again!
I'm wondering if maybe this isn't because of being off of Zantac. I don't know how it affects babies as far as behaviorally, but since we've had her on it almost continuously since her first month of life we really wouldn't know any different. The only time she was off of it before was just for a couple days and it was obvious she wasn't ready to be off of it because she had started vomiting a lot again, so this is the first time we've had her off of it for any length of time. Maybe we're crazy for attempting this while also dealing with multiple teething, but I don't think there would ever be a perfect time. On the plus side, we've had her off of it now since last Thursday, and she just seems to be getting better and better. The first few days it didn't seem like she was spitting up any less, but it wasn't really any MORE either, so that was a good sign. Then the last couple days have been REALLY good; she has only had a couple episodes and even those are more like normal spit up and not reflux! So maybe she's getting over this! Now I just hope she starts acting like herself again soon...and sleeping soundly again. We haven't seen nearly as many smiles lately as we would like. Oh, one thing really got her smiling though: she loves playing horsey on Daddy's knee. We thought she'd still be too young for it, but she just laughed and giggled and whenever he stopped she would make a little noise that sounded like she was saying "more, Daddy!" and they'd start again. It's really cute.
We've also started her on fruits this week. So far she seems to like bananas and peaches but doesn't care much for applesauce. She always makes the funniest little "yuck" face and pushes it out of her mouth. Oh, and she likes strawberry lemonade too. She's not supposed to have strawberries (highly allergic food) or citrus supposedly until one year, but Natalie and I were at the mall with my mom, grandma, and Aunt Jackie and my sister last week and Natalie was eyeing my cup of strawberry lemonade so they convinced me to let her try it. I figure it was mostly sugar anyway and not much real fruit! (How's that for rationalization?) Well, Natalie just LOVED it!! She kept grabbing the cup and drinking more; she didn't want to let it go! My aunt took some really cute pictures of this on her digital camera so I'll get those posted as soon as she gets back to California and gets them sent to me.
August 14, 2002 - I guess I spoke too soon the other morning about the shots not affecting her this time. Later that afternoon she started getting really cranky; still not wanting to nap but she was a jumping, squirming, wiggling bunch of pretty unhappy baby. Part of it might be teething too along with not feeling so good because of the immunizations, but the last couple of days have really been a challenge. She hasn't wanted to do much of anything. She's still sleeping through the night but she's tossed around and not slept really soundly. You can just tell she hasn't felt all that good. It shouldn't last long though. In the meantime, she's learned a new noise that definitely sounds like she's saying "I don't feel so good." Most of the time her "talking" sounds kind of low-pitched and breathy, but this is just the opposite, and she starts crying quicker and more often too. Poor girl. Hopefully she'll be back to normal soon. She is doing better today than she was yesterday.
Yesterday she also decided she was suddenly afraid of the vacuum! I've always put her in my Baby Bjorn front carrier to vacuum, and she's liked it, even sometimes falling asleep as we went back and forth. Yesterday I got her all set up in it and plugged in the vacuum, but as soon as I turned it on she started shaking all around, both legs and arms just going, and she made a scared noise. I shut it off and then turned her around in the carrier so she was facing me (she'd been facing out) and tried again, but she did the same thing. After turning it off and taking her out of the carrier, she still just kept eyeing the vacuum warily until it was put away later. I think I'll try having one of us hold her and the other vacuum next time to see if she can get used to the sound if she's not right on top of it. It was just strange because she really kind of liked vacuuming with me before!
August 12, 2002 - Natalie went to the doctor this morning! She had two shots, and for the first time, hasn't had any interest at all in sleeping them off. She's just as much a bundle of smiles and energy today as ever! She weighed in at 19 pounds 14 ounces, but I think the only reason why she was short those 2 ounces to be the 20 pounds she was last week was because this morning we had to wake her up earlier than she usually gets up and she only ate for a few minutes before falling back asleep in my arms. After coming back from the doctor she finished her breakfast so I'm sure she's above that now. Her weight is still off the charts. Her length is now 29 inches, which is also off the charts, and her head circumference is 17 1/2 inches, which isn't off the charts but is at 94%. She's still growing like crazy! Dr. Kern was very impressed with how she is doing. He wasn't worried about the fact that she doesn't really want to roll over; as long as she knows how it isn't a big deal if she just doesn't want to. He felt both of her bottom teeth that are popping through and then felt her top teeth which are close also. He said it felt like she might even get four on top right in quick succession. That should be interesting... at least maybe we could get a lot of the teething over with at least for awhile all at the same time. We asked him about her car seat and he said it would actually be safer to her to be facing forward now, since she can't stretch her legs out (they are too long and push up against the car). If we were in an accident and she had her legs pressed up against the back of the seat instead of within a child car seat, her body would take the impact instead of her car seat. He said the most important thing is her weight and head control, and since those are both really good she can now start facing forward. We are really happy about this, because it's really hard getting her in and out of her car seat when it faces backwards, with her being so long, and now she'll be able to see out better too (and we'll be able to see her without using one of those mirrors that don't work so well).
We also decided to do a two-week trial run off the Zantac, to see how she does. Natalie has been getting better with her reflux lately; she still often has some bad episodes in the morning but there haven't been any of the really bad ones in awhile now, and she's much better in the afternoons and evenings than she was. We're going to finish off the bottle that we currently have, probably about a week's worth of medication, and then see how the next two weeks go. Hopefully she can go without it now! As long as it doesn't get worse we'll keep her off of it.
I think that's just about it for the doctor's visit update! She's doing really well!
August 10, 2002 - I forgot to mention yesterday all the things that Natalie likes and does at 6 months. I want to keep this up so I can remember looking back, all the changes month to month. Today she sat for about 20 minutes all by herself and without any support! She's been doing that for about a week, but it had never been that long. She stands really well with support, but then she's been working on that since almost the day she was born, standing up on my lap! She loves to eat her toes now. Her toes are her favorite toy, with close seconds being her exersaucer and anything she can get into her mouth to chew on. She has her front bottom tooth completely erupted now, not all the way in of course, but it's fully erupted. She likes sweet potatoes and drinking water from a glass, but still has a definite preference for mama's milk. She likes to hold my hand when I nurse her and sometimes gets flustered when my hand isn't nearby for her to grab! She likes to jump around in her exersaucer and then wait expectantly with a smile on her face for us to clap and cheer. One of her favorite games is playing So Big with her daddy, and she also likes to be shown who the character is on her diaper with each change. She looks at it and grins. Oh, and she likes to type on the computer when we sit here together, something she's doing right now. (I'm glad there's a Backspace key!)
Without any other ado (what is an ado anyway?), I've written my list of some things I've learned so far. Click here to get there.
August 9, 2002 - Natalie is 6 months old today! I'll be writing more later because there's a lot I want to say at this half-year marker, but I wanted to go ahead and post our proof page (click on those words) from the pictures that were taken today. She wasn't in the best mood, but we worked hard enough and got some cute pictures. It wasn't as bad as last time at Sears either, because we were the second appointment of the day, they were only running behind by 30 minutes instead of 2 hours!
Also, check out this picture. I think it was taken in late June. (Yes, it took that long to get the roll developed!)
August 8, 2002 - Today is our anniversary! Four years. (And my grandparent's 54th!) I can't believe we're already going into our fifth year of marriage. On our honeymoon we talked about going back to our cabin in Gatlinburg for our fifth anniversary and it seemed so long away. So much has changed since then, and God has really blessed our lives so much more than we could have ever imagined.
We went out to Bob Evans for breakfast this morning, and then tonight we're planning on taking her over to my mom's so Phil and I can go out to dinner. It will be the first time we've gone out without her since my birthday, and it's really needed. We haven't gone out without her since then because it was then that she decided she didn't want to take a bottle anymore. We've gotten her to take a bottle occasionally lately but only the traditional rubber nipple kind, because she just really chews on it and gets some liquid out that way. The Avent ones, since they are supposed to be harder to get stuff out of so that it's more like breast, she can't get to work anymore. Tonight we are going to bring over one of the non-Avent bottles and also some sweet potatoes. Hopefully that will be enough, anyway, to get her through at least an hour or so, so we can have dinner!
Speaking of my mom, yesterday she finally ended a two-year fight to save her job at what was once Lucent. She worked there for about 20 years and they laid her off yesterday. She came over yesterday afternoon, after leaving work for the last time, upset, but also relieved. She'd been putting in 60 or more hours a week for a long time, just trying to save her job, but last week they decided to cut the entire project and so there went all her hard work. I told her the strangest part about it all for me was that I've been dialing the same work phone number to get to her since I was a latch key kid coming home from school -- I've dialed that number longer than I've dialed any phone number in my life. She got a good severance package though, so the good part is (other than putting the stress and anxiety of fruitlessly working impossible hours behind her) that it is good timing, if there can be good timing to losing one's job: this weekend my Aunt Jackie is coming into town from California to visit, so we'll all get to spend time together, and also, Natalie is getting ready to go into a stage of stranger anxiety (so say the books), so it's a good time for my mom to be able to spend a lot of time with her. She'll have pay at least until around Christmas, so in the meantime of either trying to find a new job (or maybe even getting her web design business going!) she's going to be able to spend a lot more time with Natalie, something we are all very excited about.
"August 8th" still has a magical sound about it to me. I remember very clearly all the sites, sounds, and experiences of that day. On the night Natalie was born, Phil and I said how we finally found a date that didn't necessarily top 8-8-98, but it did fulfill it. And tomorrow is 6 months from that date too!
August 5, 2002 - On Saturday morning, I was letting Natalie chew on my finger as usual, when suddenly I felt something razor-sharp on the bottom. She's getting a tooth on the bottom now. It's not through yet, but it's definitely there. I don't know why the top tooth that started peeking through hasn't gotten any more in yet, but it's still there too, but now I think that this bottom tooth may beat out the top one to a full eruption, because BOY is it sharp. The one on the top felt like enamel but it didn't have a sharp edge, but this bottom one does. She's tried biting me a couple times lately toward the end of nursing sessions, but so far I've gotten her to stop by saying a sharp, but not overly loud and frightening, "ouch!" (which comes natural anyway!) and then pressing her in closer to me (which doesn't at all come naturally; the natural inclination is to pull away!) The idea is to push the baby in toward you when she starts to bite because she then has to open her mouth farther, so she can't bite down. I've done this plus sometimes pulling down on her lower jaw with my finger. So far it's been working. It's one of the many suggestions I've taken from one of the many books I've read by Dr. William Sears, a pediatrician/author (and father of eight) whose methods and parenting styles I like and use, with just a few exceptions. Hopefully she won't bite TOO much as more teeth come in, but I figure we've had (and gotten through, with time) just about every breastfeeding 'problem' there is to have so far, what's another? We'll get through this one too. This weekend we were at Babies R Us (looking at car seats) and when I took a break to "tank Natalie up" in their Mother's Room. There was a lady there with a four week old baby, and we got to talking about all the nursing woes she's had. She's been going through everything I went through for the first eight weeks. Her baby has reflux, has to be fed with a bottle after hour long nursing sessions after which she pumps, and now is breastfeeding using a breast shield because he doesn't want to latch on naturally. ALL of it sounded exactly like our situation. She even went to go see the same lactation consultant that I did, who really helped me, Bonnie. I told her how I quit almost every day for those first eight weeks. How at first I just kept telling myself to go for two weeks, and then I said, okay, I'll try to make it to three, and after three, I decided to just go until six weeks when I really almost quit but then just daily kept on telling myself "just one more day", and then how, at about eight weeks, it finally 'clicked'. It felt really good being able to encourage her to keep with it. She was really amazed with how big and healthy Natalie was for (almost!) six months, and I couldn't believe how small her baby looked, even though he was born at just four ounces bigger and the same height as Natalie, so I know Natalie really was that small not long ago! I can't believe how quickly I've forgotten.
Speaking of Babies R Us, we got Natalie a new car seat on Saturday, and it was really amazing what happened. Phil and I decided it had to be a God thing because we had prayed for a good deal and we definitely got one. We've been really dreading this purchase because every one we'd considered were in the $80-$100 range, which is a chunk of money that is quite painful for us right now! We went to Babies R Us first and looked through what they had, but I had remembered seeing some convertible car seats at Once Upon a Child last time we were there so we wanted to check what they had. They didn't have any at all this time, they only had infant seats. Next we went to Wal-Mart but we didn't like what they had. So then we went to Target, and we were excited to find a nice Century convertible car seat that was only $60. Great, much less than we were expecting to pay, so we took it to the register. Where it rung up as $24!!!! We did a double-take and Phil asked the clerk, "Is that right?" It was, we don't know how it happened, because it didn't ring up as a sale price, but the receipt just said "car seat $24.00". It's a really nice one, and Natalie isn't popping out of both sides anymore. It's a little more difficult to work with than the infant seat carrier, and now we have to carry Natalie around in our arms more, but we were having a lot of trouble carrying her in the infant seat anyway because she was just too heavy! It will be much easier to get her in and out of the seat once we can turn it around toward the front. We're going to ask Dr. Kern about that at her check up next Monday. I also got a NoJo baby sling at Once Upon a Child on Saturday, which is making carrying her around without her infant carrier a lot easier. It's just a simple sling, looking very much like what most women around the world other than Western countries have used to carry their babies around in for thousands of years. Lately Natalie has even been getting too heavy to carry her around in her Baby Bjorn, which I've used tons in the last six months (since Natalie wants to be held so much). It was getting to the point that all her weight fell right on my neck and upper back, which really hurt because of my scoliosis. I don't know how this sling works differently, but I can carry Natalie around and have both hands free and the weight evenly distributes all over my back. I wore it Saturday getting dinner together, Sunday morning during worship, and then after church we went to Hometown Buffet and Natalie was just as happy as a clam the whole time, tucked right in with mom!
Natalie is going to be six months old on Friday!! I just can't believe it. In those first three or four weeks I never thought I would make it to six months, and now here it is and it feels like I've barely blinked. Lately I've been thinking about all the things that *I* (let alone Natalie) have learned in the last six months. I'll probably write it down too so expect to see that marathon entry (ha, as if they all aren't) soon. We're also getting her six month picture taken (at Sears again, but this time on Friday morning instead of Saturday and we're the second appointment for the day).
Finally, I went to see Dr. Teague (my ob/gyb, as you recall) last week and we talked about all my symptoms I've been having, including the extreme low (yet still technically within the .3 to 30 scale for "normal") hormone levels. She said it is fairly common though not totally typical, to go through this after pregnancy, especially when breastfeeding, for a good year after the baby is born. My hair loss is worse than normal and so are my hot flashes, but she wasn't surprised to hear I'm going through this knowing my past problems. She told me that basically, pretty much like I suspected, my body is going through a menopause, which hopefully will eventually go away. If not, when I'm not breastfeeding anymore, we'll have to talk again. It was just good to know she wasn't concerned about it yet. I really like Dr. Teague.
Oh, there is one more thing I wanted to mention today (just trying to stretch out the page more): Natalie thinks carrots are acceptable, but now she LOVES sweet potatoes! I couldn't get them in her mouth fast enough!