Week 23

So tonight I had to try to remember what the weeks in the post titles were actually counting. It is the weeks since I've started this blog, which correspond to the weeks since Emmaline started solids.

Up until this week, I had felt pretty confident about the route we took with solids. My approach was to make sure that breastmilk was her primary source of nutrition and that all other food was secondary. Solids were to be more of a fun activity than a requirement. We took things pretty slowly. Started with just 1 meal every couple days, waited a while before making it a daily event, waited a while longer before introducing the 2nd meal, and we were holding off until close to a year to begin a 3rd meal. She's still nursing 5-7x/day (depending on how often she wakes at night to nurse). Her bottles at daycare still have 5 ounces each and of course, I can't tell exactly how much she is getting when she nurses, but it takes just as much time as it has for quite a while. Anyway, my bubble was burst when we went to the doctor this week (her cough has not gone away and now is waking her up throughout the night). She has lost weight. She's back to the weight she was at the beginning of May. The doctor wasn't terribly worried because she's still around the 50th percentile, but did want us to start giving her 3 meals a day in addition to breastmilk. She has her one year appointment in a month and we'll see what to do at that point. I know there are a couple factors that could be responsible for the weight loss: being sick all summer with colds and ear infections; starting to crawl and then walk. But I still feel like I'm responsible and that I should have been feeding her more or something. I started spacing her bottles out every four hours this summer, maybe I should have kept it every three.

I also feel horrible that she is still sick! I can't remember the last time when she was healthy for any decent period of time. The doctor couldn't determine if it's the tail end of a cold or environmental allergy (ragweed). If it's a cold, it should disappear in another day or so. If it's ragweed, it'll last a while. Either way, there's nothing to do. The one positive thing was that her ears look great! (Her lungs were very clear and that was a relief too.) And to top it off, whatever she has - Dan and I are starting to come down with it too. Good thing we have a ton of kleenex in this house with all the runny noses and sneezing going on!

We successfully completed the first week back to school with students. It was long and exhausting. I'm praying that we won't still be putting in 10 hour days this week. I miss Emma so much! It seems like we get home with just enough time to feed her, bathe her, and put her to bed. Even the weekend flew by and it doesn't seem like we got much play time (partly because I had to go into the school to get some things ready). I know I wouldn't be a good stay-at-home-mom, but I wish there was some kind of balance in between that and being at work allllll the time.

No major accomplishments or developments. She has started wearing shoes occasionally. She's learning how to run. And I also caught her trying to climb up her bookshelf today. We really need to get around to baby-proofing the house!!

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.