Week 17

It's been a busy week and I can only imagine what next week will be like!


Monday night, Emmaline slept horribly so we figured something was up. Took her back to the doctor on Tuesday and sure enough, ear infection had flared up in the right ear again. She's now on her 3rd different antibiotic in 2 months (amoxicillan, zithromax, and now omnicef). She started taking the Omnicef Tuesday night and still doesn't seem to be feeling much better (although sleep has improved some). She started pulling on the left ear last night too. Diarrhea started Friday and seems to be okay for now but only because we completely changed her diet. We're taking advantage of this side-effect and letting her eat all the foods that were previously banned because of the constipation. She even got to try pancakes yesterday morning. I found an egg-free recipe and replaced the milk with breastmilk. They were very fluffy and she ate an entire one for breakfast (the leftovers are in the freezer now). We are scheduled to go to a specialist on Aug. 11th to discuss tubes. I'm terrified of this process, but if it helps than I guess it'd be worth it. I narrowly avoided tubes as a toddler when mom finally weaned me from the bottle, but Dan had tubes. We've known from the beginning that she could have a lot of problems with her ears, but we were hopeful that breastfeeding would help. I don't feel like it has helped any, but whose to say that it wouldn't be a lot worse if she was a formula baby.Oh yeah, she had a fever this morning so we'll probably be calling the doctor in the morning.




Tuesday was her first night of swim lessons. She did fantastic! (And no, swimming is not related to her ear problems. People keep implying this and it's starting to irritate me. There's a difference between swimmer's ear and a middle ear infection. Plus, we don't even put her ears underwater in the bathtub!) She dunked her face in the water a couple times and didn't seem to mind too much. The class is in the evening, so she was getting cold by the end and then it pushed bedtime back by 30 minutes which made for a cranky baby.

We had the final Baby Signs class Saturday. We've enjoyed going to that even though it was an hour drive in each direction. (This week's picture is with Beebo the Baby Signs bear holding a flower - which was one of the signs we learned.) I realized that I've never really been with her around another baby so it was good to get that experience. She is so outgoing at daycare, but we've discovered that in other settings she is very shy and stays close to me. When we take her to the nursery at church, she cries for a minute but then does fine as long as the ladies hold her constantly. A coworker told us about The Little Gym and so we checked that out this week. We're going to try to take her to a free class when we get back from Vegas. I like that it works on developing motor skills and cooperative learning. This would be on Saturdays again, but only 25 minutes each way! (In a way that seems like a lot to travel for these activities, but if we hadn't moved out here it would have been 2-3 hours each way to have any opportunities for her.)

Dan and I have decided that before we leave for Vegas on Thursday we need to actually get some sleep. Here's the plan: I am going to sleep in the downstairs guest room tonight and let Dan get up with Emma on his own. I'll leave a couple bottles ready since she's been nursing twice during the night this week (growth spurt?!?). I'll keep the pump downstairs if I need it, but the goal is for me to actually get a full, uninterrupted night's sleep for the first time in about 18 months! Then tomorrow night, Dan will sleep in the guest room and I will get up with Emma on my own (currently we take turns going in there and since she has been sick that is anywhere between 3 and 7 times a night).

I'm going to start packing for our trip this afternoon. Have to go in to work for a bit on Monday and will be at a conference all day Tuesday. That will leave Wednesday for last minute stuff and Thursday morning we head to the airport. We will get back late Monday night. I'm definitely nervous about this trip b/c I don't know how she's going to be feeling. And there's a 3 hour time difference. Not sure how that will work out. We would love to keep her on her schedule, but that would mean putting her town at 4pm and getting up at 3am. Dan is working hard to stay positive. Perhaps it will rub off on me at some point.

Looks like I get to wake a sleeping baby now since it's time to leave for church.

Almost forgot our horrible eating experience this week! I think this happened because we had just commented about how it had been forever since she even gagged on her food. Dan was eating some apple slices downstairs and gave her a peeled slice. She was doing fine until she leaned over and started crawling towards him to get more (still having a piece in her mouth). She started choking. :( Dan responded quickly and calmly. We were able to clear it, but it involved a lot of vomiting. She puked up a ton of mucus along with the apple bits. She cried for a while, but once we calmed her down she was off to playing like nothing had ever happened. Lesson learned: eating will only be done in her high chair where she can sit up straight! *We don't normally feed her anywhere else, Dan just wanted to share with her and felt absolutely guilty.

Week 16

Emmaline is a super eater! This kid has been chowing down. It's almost ridiculous how much she eats (although I am proud to say that she is still nursing just as frequently and so breastmilk continues to be the primary source of nutrition). We have overcome the work-hour nursing strike and I'm even considering leaving the pump at home when we go on vacation in August. It would mean a lot less packing if I can ditch the pump, parts, bottles, nipples, cleaning brushes, soap, etc. I know Dan's parents are pretty uncomfortable with me breast-feeding, but my relatives should be fine with it -- and if they're not the can scram for 15 minutes 6x/day! (3 of those are before, during, and after bed so it's not like we'll be around people for those ones anyway.) With the Baby-led weaning she is comfortable with table foods and so all we will pack is her favorite spoon.

No major milestones that I can think of. We do officially have 7 teeth now, can't remember if I posted that last week and she has been drooling a lot this weekend + a runny nose so we're pretty sure something else is approaching. There have been a couple developments that I'm loving: 1) she has started playing peek-a-boo. It always takes me a few seconds to realize what she's doing, but once I start saying "peek-a-boo" when she pulls the blanket (or toy) down from her face she cracks up! I think part of why I love it is because it's so darn cute, but the other part is because she actually laughs. She has always been very stingy with the laughs and so we really cherish the times when we hear it. We've also discovered that when Dan chases her (crawling after her) she will laugh and if I take my hair and rub it on her forehead she laughs. 2) she has started interacting with the cats! She likes to take the jingle stick and point it in the direction of the cats to get their attention and then she shakes it around or taps it on the ground until they pounce it. She also grabbed one of their mouse toys and was dangling it in front of Jonah's face so he would paw at it. She gets super excited when they play along with her and when she can actually pet them (we are working on the concept of 'gentle').

*Note for Kate: Emmaline LOVES the music table! She has been playing with it off and on since you brought it over. I keep meaning to get some pictures to send you. Today she kept playing the alphabet song and danced around. It was precious. :)

Week 7

Emma had a variety of food this week: at the beginning of the week (Sunday, Monday) and at the end (Saturday). All the in-between days were too chaotic. It did give us a chance to eliminate some things to see if we can figure out where the rash is coming from. We eliminated her vitamins, apples, and have tried to keep her off the carpet. The carpet one is quite difficult since she doesn't like to stay on the blankets we put on the floor. We thought it was working, because the rash was starting to clear up. But it returned tonight! I'm now thinking that the culprit is her high-chair. The new plan is to feed her with clothes on and put a blanket down over the chair. It's going to mean messier laundry.

Over the past few days, Emma has been a little monster. Evenings have been especially rough, she wants to be held every second and cries when you move away from her at all. With Dan being away at soccer most nights, it made for a very worn-out mommy! I've noticed that she's tugging on her ears again (they were clear on Monday at the doctor's so I don't think it's an infection + no fever) and today she was sucking on her top lip. The last time she sucked on her lip was right before she sprouted the bottom teeth. I'm thinking that the top tooth might appear soon and explain this extreme fussiness. I miss my easy-going baby!

Today we introduced mango - it seemed to be a hit. She literally sucked down a couple slices (and terrified me). We also gave her a few rice puffs to start working on her pincher grasp. She managed to eat 1 and learned how to pick the others up and fling them on the floor. Part of me feels bad that she doesn't "eat" anything at daycare. I'm a bit surprised that the ladies have never asked me about food since Emma is the only baby who still only gets bottles (she's also the youngest, but not by much). Perhaps when she figures out the puffs, she can at least have those as a snack during the day. I wouldn't mind them giving her purees, but I want her to still use the spoon herself and that leads to a HUGE mess (as evidenced by the photo this week).

On a sad note, my aunt Bonnie lost her battle with cancer this week. She had gone downhill fast and was in a lot of pain. The family will miss her, but we are glad that she is no longer suffering. Dan's aunt Mary was diagnosed with a brain tumor. They operated on Monday and determined that it is a cancerous glioblastoma. The prognosis is 3 months without treatment, 1-3 years with treatment. It reminds me of how lucky we are that my sister is alive and well 9 years after they found her glioma (her prognosis was 5 years). It also makes me extremely thankful that the clusters they found on my brain a few years ago are "not of clinical significance".

Days 30 and 31

Day 31

Menu: Carrot/Apple puree mix

We finally got a high chair! (Britney, the cat, was very excited about this since it meant a big box for her to play in all afternoon.) She was having fun with the carrot/apple stuff again, but got fussy at the end. Dan discovered why when he went to strip her down for a bath. (I'll spare you the details, but wow! There is no doubt that she is eating a good portion of what we offer.)

After a major clean up, we headed out of town and went to Portrait Innovations to get her pictures taken. She was wonderful! At first I thought she was going to cry, but after about 30 seconds she warmed up to the photographer and was my perfect little model. She smiled on cue, clapped her hands, sat in a chair by herself, stayed on her tummy without rolling all over the place. We got a package yesterday from Dan's parents with 3 beautiful dresses, so we took one of those along to use in addition to a couple other outfits we had already picked out. The photographer was very happy to have such a cooperative baby. We were bummed because their printer was broken (waiting for a part to arrive tomorrow) so we weren't able to walk out with the pictures, but we will have them by the end of the week. It was so difficult to narrow down our options. I know I'm biased, but that baby is stinkin' adorable!!! We had been wanting to do pictures for a while, but decided to hold off until she could sit up on her own. I also wanted to do them before she got teeth because I have this fear that she's going to look really weird when they come in. Apparently we picked the perfect day, because tonight she grabbed my thumb and stuck it in her mouth (like usual) and I felt something really sharp on the bottom gum!

Day 30

Menu: Watermelon and Carrot/Apple puree mix

We used the crinkle cutter again, but sliced the watermelon much thinner. We didn't have any gagging, but that was because she sucked on it for a minute and then threw it on the floor. We kept putting new slices on her tray and she proceeded to pick up each one and toss is on the ground. I thought that maybe she just didn't want food, but she went to town when we gave her the spoon! The carrot/apple mix tasted mostly like apple. Dan couldn't get the spoon loaded fast enough for her - she ate about 1/2 a jar.

I keep reading about other BLW babies and it seems like most of them spend the first few months just 'playing' with their food. Emmaline is pretty much all business when it comes to food. She doesn't mash it up, doesn't smear it around, just picks it up and either eats it or drops it on the floor if she's not interested.

Day 9

Menu: apple and banana

We introduced apple for lunch today. Results were mixed. She seemed to have a good time sucking on the apple for a while, but eventually got frustrated because the apple was too hard and the banana was too soft. We left the peel on the apple to help her grip it better, but she kept picking it up on the soft side and putting the peel side in her mouth. I guess that is a benefit of doing purees - everything is one texture so it doesn't take practice to get it right for a baby! She finally managed to get a couple "bites" off the apple slice and gagged. This was the most coughing she has done yet, but she successfully got it back up on her own. By the end she was a fairly upset baby (the frustration from not being able to actually hold/eat much, I think) and even the spoon didn't cheer her up.

I need to be better and do more research on how to actually prepare these things before we decide "hey, it's time to feed her" and attempt to wing it. Perhaps that is why I already prefer avocado and banana - they don't have to be cooked!

As to the nursing strike - she has been a good baby for the last three feedings. She was also a very good sleeper last night! Around 10:30 we brought her upstairs, nursed and put her right into the crib. When I went in to check on her at 6:30 she was sleeping on her tummy (which is a first). She must have been starting to wake up, because she rolled onto her back and opened her eyes as soon as I got to the crib.