Cereal

We started Lucy on cereal this week, because she still isn't eating while I'm at work. It's a strained relationship. Three days counting and I've only managed to get four or five spoonfuls in at a time. Hopefully this next week will bring some success.


Happy with the spoon before it had any cereal on it ...


Not so happy after.

Merry Merry

We had two Christmas celebrations this year, Christmas eve at Grandma and Grandpa's house with Uncle Ryan and Aunt Grace, and Christmas day at Grampy York's with Mammy, Aunt Sara, Uncle Tim, Jacob, Aunt Katy, Uncle Matt and Kelly. Lucy had a great first Christmas, (and got lots of wonderful presents from our families) until she finished the day with almost 11 hours of screaming and a trip to the emergency room at 3am. The suspect here is the two pieces of chocolate I ate at Grampy's. When we finally got to the emergency room, however, she seemed to be cured from all ailments and the physician couldn't figure out why I had brought a perfectly healthy but "crying" baby in to the ER. A memorable day all around.

So Round

Lucy had her four month shots today (which are tragic, so tragic), and I tried to take a couple of pictures of the sad little band-aids on each leg but ended up with some great shots that showcase exactly how chubby this 17 pound 5 ounce baby looks when not wearing any clothes.

Fun with Grandma

Lucy's Grandma comes up every Thursday to watch her, partially to help us and partially to satisfy her baby cravings. Since she is still not eating (no, the purple cup was not the winner I thought it was), Grandma spends a lot of time walking Lucy around in her stroller. She seems to really enjoy the rolling, especially when it is accompanied by a little bumping, through pot holes or over the neighbors' lawns, etc. When it's too cold to go outside, Grandma rolls her back and forth in our miniature house, but last week it was nice enough to go outside all bundled up. Here Lucy has not only her sweater and hat, but three blankets and the car-seat cover too. Apparently this was not an issue as she smiled the whole walk long.

On a side note to the eating thing, Grandma got another bottle from the lactation department at the hospital in Waterville that was almost guaranteed to work. We had high hopes this weekend when I arrived at Grandma's house for a visit, but no such luck. Do any more bottles exist?

Choices

You might think that a reasonable baby presented with a reasonable number of options would make a selection. My picky baby has been presented with an enormous number of choices of bottles and cups and is simply choosing to go on a hunger strike during my working hours. I had been working for four weeks before going back to work to get her to take a bottle, with mixed results. It seemed to be just pure chance if she took it, no matter the time of day, hungry or full, type of nipple, milk, formula or juice, etc. Now that I'm back at school, part time thankfully so I'm only away from her for about five hours, there is just no convincing Lucy that she needs to eat for anyone else, not Aunt Sara, not Grandma, not Kimmie, not Daddy.

This weekend I spent about thirty dollars on new sippy cups, in the hopes that one would tempt her enough to drink from it and I hope that we have found a winner. It's not great, but hopefully will keep her calm enough until I can come home from work in the afternoon. I was starting to worry that my totally round baby might waste away in the afternoon!

FYI the winner is the purple cup with the handles all the way to the left.

Back to School

Well, work has started again. It's amazing to me how quickly it came back, after just two days I feel as though I never left school but my heart breaks a little each day I have to leave Lucy. She's with wonderful people, Aunt Sara, Grandma Laurie, and Kimmie, a super loving caring sitter in Brewer that two friends also use. When we arrived at Kimmie's this morning there were signs on the door announcing "Welcome baby Lucy!" Everyone is the best, aside from me of course, so until someone gives me health benefits and a paycheck to stay at home and raise babies I guess I'll have to do.

The prilosec still seems to be working well, she's a much happier baby, but she won't eat while I'm gone. Remember that "beautifully healthy" baby? She's on the work-hours-diet now and slimming down by the minute. Getting myself back into the swing of things at school is one thing, getting Lucy into the swing of things appears to be an entirely different ball game.

Happy Birthday!

This year we celebrated Eric's birthday on Thanksgiving (he's either one of those lucky or unlucky babies to share a day with the holiday every few years) just the three of us. The day was filled with all of Eric's favorite things, a morning to sleep in, time to write during the day, a football game, take out dinner, and of course plenty of time to spend with Lucy. No cake or singing but plenty of presents, which is usually the best part anyway. Lucy wished her daddy the happiest birthday ever with goos and smiles, and a good night sleep.

Independence

Since I'm going back to work in just one short week, I've been working on Lucy and some activities that allow her to be on her own without someone holding her all the time, especially since on Tuesday and Wednesday she'll be at a sitter with a number of other kids of all ages. This includes time in the exersaucer, which she is still a little too small for, but with a certain number of blankets tucked around her in the seat works reasonably well. She's even started to reach out her hands and hit the music buttons and activate the switches!

Reflux

As many of you know, Lucy suffers from Reflux and suffer is the key word here. She is miserable so many hours of the day, but is now on Prilosec, which has been a blessing, as it has cut down on the episodes drastically. The biggest difference is that she'll sleep in her crib!! This is what we want her to act like, but unfortunately, she often needs a good spanking from Grandma. However, that doesn't always work either ... The videos are Lucy post prilosec, and pre-prilosec. She still screams and cries sometimes, but not nearly as often or for as long. Yea!!

Beginnings

I thought I'd start a blog to keep friends and family afar updated on our general progress and lives here. I'm sure as Lucy grows we'll have more interesting posts, as of right now she's pretty good at sleeping, eating, and crying, though she does have much better head control.

This is Lucy's three month picture - she is getting pretty big, 15 pounds here. Who knew our little skinny baby would grow into being such a round baby? All those weeks in preemie diapers with the trips to the doctor and the worry she wasn't gaining weight for nothing! Everyone tells us she looks "very healthy".