Out of Commission

I must say that the best part of my 12 week maternity leave was avoiding all those classroom illnesses. I didn't get sick at all while I was out. Sure enough, about a month back to work, I got sick. I have been sick since Friday afternoon actually and it's not been fun. I somehow managed to get the flu. The flu shot didn't seem to keep me from getting it, though I'm still glad I did. I believe this was a milder case than the real thing. So, I didn't get to really take pictures of Jewell this weekend. Instead, I stayed in bed. I plan to go back to work tomorrow, now that my tummy isn't sick. Stay tuned for more pictures of Jewell later this week. ;)

New Toy!

Jewell now has a new toy. We haven't purchased too much for her yet, so everything new is quite exciting. We decided to buy a walker that had lots of toys to play with. She can't quite reach the floor yet, but hopefully she will soon.

This picture isn't of her in the walker, but I just had to post it!

Sleety Saturday

Ahhh, this morning I was awakened to a hungry baby around 5:40 AM. I knew she was hungry because she downed 6 oz and fell right back asleep. And she never drinks that much in the morning! While feeding her I listened to the sleet fall from the sky. It stopped sleeting hard around 6:00 AM. Once Jewell finished eating I put her right back to bed and we all slept until about 8:00. It was just splendid. Jewell of course woke us. Which is when we decided that it would be fun to just lay in bed for 2 hours and play with her. We had a blast drinking coffee, giggling, and of course watching the Today Show.



About mid morning I decided to eat an early lunch. Jewell kept fussing kind of funny. I noticed it was every time I put a cracker in my mouth. So I thought I better see if she wanted something to eat herself. We tried rice cereal again and she loved it! I think she's beginning to feel much better because she wasn't interested in it at all earlier this week.





This afternoon we decided to venture out into this so called Severe Weather. The roads were fine. We went to Target to buy 3 packs of Pampers (the only kind that works for Jewell) to receive a 5 dollar gift card. I used the gift card and a Nestle coupon towards a second purchase which just so happened to be formula. I got a 25 dollar can of formula for 12 dollars! I was so excited. I also had coupons for the diapers. I saved big with the baby stuff today. I also picked up a few organizational things and two more laundry baskets. Our house is pretty small, so the more organization the better!

And here we are all cleaned up from our cereal!

Our Morning

Friday's are my early day. The kids arrive at school at 7:15 and I'm responsible for watching the 4th graders. Which means I have to leave around 6:45 AM. I decided to get Jewell up just a bit earlier today so I could say goodbye to her. I'm so glad I did this. When I walked into her room she gave me the biggest smile and stuck her tongue out! She LOVES to smile with her tongue sticking out now. She was just adorable! So many people tell me that it gets easier to leave your child for the day, I don't believe them anymore. It just keep getting harder to leave her! I often feel like I miss the best part of the day with her. She's always so happy in the mornings, and I rarely get to enjoy it. I always tell my husband he's spoiled because he gets to feed her at her best. I'm so glad it's the weekend. Here are the pictures I just had to take this morning.

I always give Jewell her evening bottle. She's just adorable!

Spit Up Day

Jewell has been doing splendidly better these last few days. She's even back to sleeping between 11 and 12 hours at night. This is a huge blessing with me working full time right now. She's been taking the bottle very well this week even. However, we ran out of her formula last night. I have tons of other kinds so I decided to give her the soy formula again. Let's just say that after 3 outfit changes at daycare due to spit up, I won't be doing that again. She even spit up a ton once she woke up from a 2 hour nap. Babies are so funny! Needless to say, I went right to the store to buy her another 25 dollar can of formula. I haven't had much luck finding Nestle Good Start coupons. I MUST find some soon. I just can't spend 100 dollars a month on baby formula. That's half of my monthly grocery budget! Here are few pictures of our Jewell from this evening.

We discovered the teething ring tonight ;)

Back to the Doctor

Last night was very trying for us. Jewell woke at 2:00 AM. She didn't seem hungry so I just let her calm herself in her crib. By 2:30 AM she seemed to be mostly settled. Then the crying really started. By 2:50 AM I went and picked her up. She just wanted to look around. So I put her pacifier in her mouth and put her back down. Which is when the pacifier battle began. To make a long story short, I ended up feeding her 4 ounces at 4:00 AM. By the time my alarm went off at 5:30 AM I was convinced I'd never sleep again.

Today at daycare Jewell hardly ate anything. Her caregivers recommended that I take her back to the doctor because she was short of breath and still not eating well. Fortunately, the doctor got me in right away. Dr. Pool said the Jewell now has an ear infection that's much worse. The antibiotic she was on did not work. So we are now on a different antibiotic that she really doesn't like. I'm to use a humidifier for the congestion, saline drops, and Tylenol for pain. My poor baby! She's so sick and so little.

On the happy side of things, Jewell has made a few great discoveries today. The first one is...her tongue. She's figured out that she can stick it out. She just leaves it out of her mouth, plays with it, or tries to smile. It's so funny! The best one...she now tries to hold her bottle. She has been doing this with one hand for quite a few days now. But this afternoon she held it with both hands. I let go for a few seconds today even. I was so excited about this discovery of hers, yet a bit sad. I guess you could say it was bittersweet. Happy because she's learning new things, but sad that she's beginning to become a bit more independent each day. Either way, I'm proud of her!

That said, I will continue to pray for my little one to get better quickly. She's too special to stay sick for so long.

Recovery Weekend

Wow, what a weekend! I can't believe it's actually over. Boy did we do a lot.

It all began Friday evening. Matt found his old Super Nintendo. So, after we forced Jewell to eat (we've been doing that all week) we stayed up for 3 hours playing Super Mario. It was blast to do that together. We then went to bed happily thinking we had plenty of time to sleep. Jewell on the other hand had other ideas. She decided that she wanted to wake up at 4:45 AM to finish the bottle we tried to give her at 7:30. Silly baby! My wonderful hubby told me to go back to sleep and he went and fed her.

Saturday began with another force feed. See Jewell has been so sick she's hardly been eating. But she needs to eat. That and I switched to formula this week and we struggled with finding one that she liked. After getting Jewell ready for the day I realized just how behind I was with my household responsibilities. With 2 of us sick this week I just gave up. So I cleaned all day long. And I mean, ALL DAY! We ran a few errands, and of course, ended the day with yet ANOTHER force feed and Super Mario. Jewell again, woke at 2:25 AM to finish the bottle she didn't finish at 8:00 PM.

That brings us to today. I decided to take a different approach to feeding Jewell. The morning feeding was the toughest (because she was so congested). I decided to wait to feed her every 4 hours thinking if she was really hungry it would help. BINGO! She FINALLY ate 7 and a half to 8 ounces at 2 feedings today. I was so excited. I finally found a formula that she likes too. What a huge blessing!!! Jewell felt much better today as well. She enjoyed watching Baby Einstein while I cleaned (for quite a while again) and she took a good nap. She had her last feeding at 7 PM and I'm hoping she doesn't wake up again until 7 AM this time. We'll see. As soon as this sickness is over we are moving to cereal!

I'm exhausted from this weekend trying to recover from this week, but I finally feel caught up. It's very difficult keeping up with it all while working full time. But the Lord has given me much grace to do it.

Here are a few pictures from today.

Swinging!

Matt and Jewell fell asleep after church today.

Cuteness...

I just LOVE this picture. She held the keys for 2 hours tonight!