The Great Bottle Battle

Well, I go back to work in just over two weeks.  And little Miss Elli is still hit or miss with the bottle.  At times she'll suck down 3-4 ounces in minutes.  However, more times than not it's a huge battle just to get her to take an ounce.  She fusses, screams, cries, etc.  We had switched from Avent bottles to Playtex Drop-Ins several weeks ago and she seemed to be doing better with those.  However, after she was giving Nate a really hard time last night, I switched her back over to an Avent bottle...and she gulped down 2 1/2 ounces.

So I don't know what to do when I go back to work.  Maybe make sure both types of bottles are available and simply tell the babysitter "good luck."  We'll see.  She has 16 more days to figure out what she wants (besides mama!!).  I know that she'll eventually eat when she's hungry.  But I feel bad for the babysitter who will have to listen to her scream until she finally concedes to the bottle.  And I'll feel bad for Elli knowing that she will cry until she realizes that the bottle is her only option for 9 hours.  Like I said, we'll keep working on it...and I can only hope that we see major improvements in the next two weeks.

In other news, Elliana found her fists about a week ago and constantly tries to suck on them now.  Sometimes she wakes me up in the middle of the night smacking her lips on her fists.  It kinda looks like she might be trying to get at her thumb, but she obviously doesn't have the coordination for that quite yet.  It'll be interesting to see because Addi was a thumb sucker and Livi was a nuk baby. 

I definitely like my hands!

I've been working hard during tummy time.

My smile can't get any bigger than this!!

Baptism and Birthdays!

So we had a big day this past Sunday.  Elli was baptized in the morning and then we celebrated Addi and Livi's 2nd birthday that afternoon.  There are so many pictures I want to share, but I just picked some of my favorites.

Addi opening her gifts.

And Livi opening hers.

Their beautiful birthday cake.

They were mesmerized by the candles!

And they had fun blowing them out...not once, but twice!

Elli with her Godparents, Jason and Chelsea.

And Elli with mom and dad.

Just me and my sweetie-pie.

Wearing one of her sisters' baptismal gowns.

Our first decent family pic.  We still need to work on this!

Patiently waiting for her bath to get the baptismal oil out of her hair!



2 month appt

Our little Elli had her 2 month appt two days ago (she's officially two months old today).  The doctor is very pleased with how she's developing.  One of the first comments Dr K had is that she is a very looong baby.  And she was right!  Elli measured in at 24 inches (97th percentile) and 11lbs 8oz (70th percentile).  What's funny is that before the appt, I said to Nate "I bet Elli is about 11 1/2 pounds. And I'm willing to guess she's sitting right at about 24 inches."  Hmmm.  I guess you get kind of good at these guesstimates when it's your third kid!!

So yeah, she's doing fantastic.  The only real concern we had was the outbreak she had on her face/forehead about a week ago.  A few days before Halloween, she developed some baby acne which wasn't a big deal.  Just a few dots on each cheek, nothing concerning.  Well this past Sunday she woke up and could barely open her left eye!  It was that swollen.  Her entire face, forehead, and eyes were red and blotchy with lots of bumps.  I wasn't sure if it was a really bad flare of baby acne, a rash, eczema, an allergic reaction, etc.  It was terrible!  And I've never experienced it before because both of the big girls always had flawless skin.  Not even one little baby pimple!

I took several pictures to show Dr K at her well baby visit.  Turns out that she had a REALLY bad flare of cradle cap!  Well technically, if it's not on the head/scalp, it's called seborrheic dermatitis.  I guess it's common to get it on the face as well.  I'm so thankful it wasn't an allergic reaction.  Because honestly, my first thought was that she was allergic to something I'm eating.  And if that's the case, the 200+ ounces of milk I have in the freezer for when I go back to work would have to be thrown out!!  Whew.  Just cradle cap.  We can deal with that.  In fact, she looks almost 100% better than she did less than a week ago.

Oh yeah, and shots.  She did just fine.  She cried for less than a minute.  She was quite sleepy the rest of the day, but it was kind of a restless sleep.  She woke every 15-30 minutes.  But really she just needed a little cuddle and went right back to sleep.

We have a big day planned tomorrow.  Elli is being baptized.  Yay!  And the big girls are having their official birthday party!  We had two unofficial birthday celebrations right around their birthday.  But since we knew a lot of our family would be coming to town for Elli's Baptism, we decided to put off the party until then.  So it should be a fun day!!

Baby Smiles

When you see a baby smile, you can't help but smile yourself.  Well, at least I can't.  Some are big and some are small.  Some are goofy and some are sweet.  Some are scary and some are smirky.  But all of them manage to bring a smile to my face...and usually a giggle as well.

Elli's first smile caught on camera...sooo big.  Makes me laugh.

Awww.

So stinking sweet.

How goofy is she?!  That's quite the smirk.

I love her.

Daycare and Potty Training

The big girls had their first day of daycare on Wednesday.  And it didn't go exactly like I had hoped.  The drop off was actually incredibly easy.  My mom was here to help me with their first day because I had to take not only the big girls, but Elli as well.  Plus I had their 2 sleeping bags for nap time, a package of diapers, wipes and clothing changes for both of them.

Anyway, Livi was immediately interested.  So I took her coat off and she willingly walked into the classroom and sat down at the table.  Addi was a bit more hesitant.  But with just a little bit of coaxing, she also walked right into the room and found a spot at the table.  So I was feeling pretty hopeful when I left, but apparently, that's about where it all ended.  I guess both of them took turns crying throughout the majority of the day.  Once one would stop, the other would kick in.  Broke my heart to know that they simply weren't happy.

On day 2, drop off was horrendously awful.  Livi was crying and Addi was screaming.  I can't even really describe how bad it was.  You simply have to witness it first hand.  Not a good way to start the day and I shed some tears once I got home.  But when I called to check in on them at about 11:30am, the director said that they were having a better day than the first day.  And then their teacher called me when everyone was down for nap about an hour later and told me that they were actually laughing and giggling at times.  And there was another little girl there who they were really enjoying playing with (on their first day, there were only 4 other little two year old boys).

When Nate went to pick them up, they were both in great moods which was such a turn around from when we picked them up on their first day...that was a nightmare.  They cried the entire way home.  They continued to cry even after we arrived home.  It's like they were so worked up that they didn't know what to do with themselves.  It was bad.  But the second day was almost like a 180!  They'll continue to go to daycare 2 days a week, so we'll see what this coming week brings!

We have unofficially started potty training the big girls but we're really not putting that much effort into it quite yet.  We just put their potty chairs in the bathroom to let the girls become familiar with them.  Sometime soon we'll really start working with them on it.  I don't mind changing diapers, so I'm not in that big of a hurry.  I just want to follow their lead.  Each day they become more and more aware of when they're wet or dirty.  So we'll keep building on that.  Our pediatrician actually said that the harder you try the longer it sometimes takes.  So we're just going to let things happen as they will for now.