Our Valentine's Day

This year was my idea of a perfect Valentine's day. We didn't do anything crazy or extravagant, and we didn't spend tons of money. We just did a few little things as a family and enjoyed our time together. The day included little notes around the house for me and Lucy, some flowers, 2 redbox movies (they were free yesterday) and some candy. Perfect.

Lucy made sure to wear hears! :) (Sorry this is so blurry... darn cell phone pic)

Candy for me, pacifier for Lucy. We were both happy with that situation. She just had a bath and was loaded up with Aquaphor, hence why she looks a little wet and tired.

CHD awareness

Never in a million years would I have thought that Congenital Heart Disease would be something that has affected me in the way that it has. Today is the beginning of a week long awareness for CHD (Feb. 7-14th), and ironically it is the 7 month anniversary of the day that our precious nephew passed away from CHD. Since then, I have known several other people who have had babies born with CHD, including my good friend/college roommate, Heather. It has opened up a whole new world that I never would have paid much attention to, but yet is SO important and could still affect me and you in the future.

My sister, Lisa, has started a team to raise money for the American Heart Association's Heart Walk this fall and can start raising money now. If any of you out there feel like you have some amount of money to donate (ANY amount), it would be greatly appreciated. Lisa's team is a "Mom's with Heart" team, meaning that all funds raised will be donated to pediatric research. Her specific donation page is called "Aaron's Angels" and you can click here to donate.

Oh, how I love and miss this sweet boy!

Red

Lisa informed me that today is national wear red day for CHD and heart disease awareness, which coincidentally happened to be the day that Lucy got these cute heart pajamas in the mail (thanks Lisa, Brandon, and Ashy-girl). Now Lucy's cute bum has a good cause. :)

I love this cute smile... spitty face/mouth and all. :)

Thoughts...

Lucy has been incredibly fussy the past couple days and I really couldn't take it any longer, so while she's crying it out in her crib, I'm going to try to ignore it for a few minutes and brain dump:

**Someone needs to invent some sort of pacifier harness thing that keeps the darn thing in a baby's mouth. Especially while in the car seat.

**Lucy used to only be able to sleep when swaddled nice and tight. Now, she won't sleep if she's swaddled and spends her whole time just grunting and moving to try and escape it until she's screaming and ends up with the blankets over her face. The problem is that if she's not swaddled, she likes to move her little arms around like crazy, especially when she's tired, to keep her awake. Moms- what do you do when this happens?!

**My toe cracks really loudly every time I go up a step, so when I have to go upstairs to check on Lucy, I'm kind of a dead giveaway.

**I usually give Lucy her medicine. It's a lot and it smells nasty so I can only imagine how it tastes. She usually screams and fights it the whole time I give it to her. Last night I had a meeting for YW's and Ryan had to give her the medicine. She smiled and cooed the whole time. I don't get it.

**Has there ever been a black person on the Bachelor/ette? I can't think of one. Deep thoughts, I know.

**I still haven't taken Lucy back to church yet (combination of everyone at church being sick as well as Lucy's reflux/tummy troubles) and I actually had one person from my ward ask me if I was still in the ward, and another one ask me if I was still active.

**Another mom at church questioned when she was finally going to get to meet and hold Lucy. This was asked as she wiped her child's very snotty nose with her bare hand. My answer was 'never.'

**Now I'm hoping that the people I'm talking about at church don't read this blog. I'm 98% sure they don't.

**The doctor wants me to re-introduce foods this week to figure out what's actually bothering Lucy, but the problem is that for some odd reason she has had tummy troubles yesterday and today! What the heck!?!

**One of these days I will hopefully have something to post about besides just Lucy (and her tummy), but that's kind of what my world revolves around 24/7 these days and nothing else. And in case you were wondering, she cried for 7 minutes and has been sleeping for 46. But now she's crying again. I better go get her....

Two months

Lucy had her two-month well visit yesterday, although she was actually 2.5 months. I can't remember all of her exact stats, but I do remember the percentages and we have a long, skinny girl on our hands (I'm not gonna lie- I was kind of hoping she would have a bit more chub by now, but maybe she's just not cut out for chub. That'll be a good thing when she's a teenager I guess).

Weight: 25th percentile (10 lbs. 5.5 oz.)

Height: 75th percentile (I think 24.5 inches?)

Head circumference: 1oth percentile (14.5 cm... umm, I don't think this changed from one month... is that bad?)

Here's a little about Lucy at this age:

• I figured this would be the case, but now that it's confirmed I can say that she HATES shots. I've never seen the poor girl cry so hard... it seemed like a full minute before she could even catch a breath.
• She loves baths, but the water has to be really warm (like mother like daughter).
• She gives great BIG smiles when she's happy and we love it!
• Something that she LOVES and always calms her down if she's upset is "jumping." Basically Ryan will just make her jump up and down on his lap.
• She hates her car seat and will usually cry more than she sleeps when driving somewhere. The farthest I have gone alone with her is 20 minutes to her doctor's office and let me tell you... that is a long car ride. I'm a little nervous for when we drive from California to SLC shortly (I bet Ryan's parents are even more nervous about that than I am since they're driving us... I apologize in advance).
• Lucy will usually give us a 4 hour stretch of sleep at the beginning of the night, and then about 2 or 3 hours each time after that. Yesterday the doctor asked if we were getting any sleep at night, and I said "yes! Sometimes she gives us a 4 hour stretch at some point during the night, thank goodness!" and the doctor started laughing and said "well... at least you have a positive attitude about that." Yes, I will take 4 hours compared to the, hmm, 1-1.5 hours we got if we were lucky the first few weeks.
• We transitioned her from the pack n' play in our room to the crib in her room, but had to bring her back in a few days later because her reflux flared up again and the pack n' play is much easier to have her sleep in at an angle that helps.
• Finally no more tummy troubles... at ALL! Now we just have to re-introduce food into my diet to see what was bothering her, and maybe she will have grown out of it, if we're lucky!
• Like I said, the acid reflux flared up again making it really hard for her to eat, sleep and breathe. The doctor had us increase her dosage of zantac, so let's hope it works again (and fast, please!)
• Her nicknames: Lucy Goose, Lucy Goosie, Lulu, Tighty.
• LOVES lights and will stare straight at them forever. She especially loves the ceiling fans in all of our rooms and will look up at them while we have her wrapped up and trying to get her to sleep.
• Speaking of being wrapped up, this girl is a houdini! She can escape the tightest of swaddles. Unfortunately, she can't sleep without her arms being wrapped up because otherwise they don't stay still and she wakes herself up every time. I've even tried leaving just one arm out of the swaddle but that didn't work well at all. So it's one of our sleeping battles right now.
• She's no longer screams or cries when her diaper has to be changed... so that battle is over. Yay!
• Her two favorite (judging by smiles and kicks) songs right now are 'wheels on the bus' and 'popcorn popping.'
• Coos and "talks" like crazy when she's happy. It's super cute! She's starting to get this baby communication thing a little bit. She will make a noise and then I will imitate it, as if responding, and then she smiles really big and gets excited.
• Loves to be held up on my shoulder and walked around. A better word for "loves" in that sentence would maybe be "demands." Lucy really does not like to be put down right now and will only lay on the floor playing for maybe 5-10 minutes before crying. Let's hope this is just a short phase because it's hard to do much otherwise. I think the reflux has a LOT to do with that since laying down makes it a million times worse. At least my arms are getting a good workout.
• While she's still a bit fussy quite often, she has had many more calm moments lately and has started to sit quietly on my lap while we eat dinner in the evenings.

Her pediatrician keeps saying how she'll most likely grow out of her reflux and tummy troubles and this and that by 4 months and I have to admit that as much as I love Lucy and am getting used to this parenting thing, 4 months can not come quick enough at this point. We all just need some good sleep and a little less stress. And, while I'm being honest, I know a ton of people who have recently had babies and it's a little difficult to read everyone's updates and blogs about how wonderful their newborns are and how they never cry, they sleep through the night and take good naps, are super happy, perfect little babies that they can take anywhere and do anything with, yadda yadda. I wasn't expecting a perfect child but it's really hard to not compare and wish for something a little easier. Or at least a shower, an extra hour of sleep, and a trip to the grocery store to get something to make for dinner that night. I know it will get better though and seems to with each week. Anyway, I should make a paper chain countdown because it will definitely be worth a party when all these issues are "grown out of." That's all I can think of for now. We really do love our little Lucy so much and she has stolen our hearts so much, even when she is crying in the middle of the night!! Her smiles make it all worth it.

Booked.

In just a few months we are leaving the midwest for a little bit to get some sun, beach, and a little R&R. Maybe some Cafe Rio too (food is always involved). And family and friend time. Here's the plan:

C-bus to L.A.

L.A. to SLC

SLC back to C-bus

We can't wait! To prepare Lucy, we have been using an ocean waves white noise app, and it puts her to sleep every time. Bring on the beach!! (I'll admit though, that I'm just a little bit nervous for such LONG flights with a baby. I gotta face this fear sometime though.)

Dare I say it?

I feel like I am about to jinx myself, but I'm going to admit it anyway.

I feel like I have a new baby.

I feel like poor Lucy has been in pain since she was born. She's had tummy troubles constantly and acid reflux that have both kept her from eating, sleeping, and breathing well much of the time. We finally got a prescription for her acid reflux and that has made a huge difference in that area. She still had the tummy troubles though. Though very skeptical, I finally decided to give an elimination diet a chance. It takes at least a week for improvements to show, and lo and behold, a little over a week later and Lucy has not had any tummy troubles and has been able to eat, sleep, and breathe in peace, not pain! I don't really know if it's this diet for sure that's doing the trick, or just her reflux medicine helping that too, or her "growing out of it," but whatever it is I feel SO relieved. I am sure Lucy does too. Now we just have to hope that this really is the end of her constant pain and not just a little break. Either way, we've had a great few days!! In fact, this is how we've felt about it all:

Pardon the blurriness... cell phone pic.