Friday, January 29, 2010

Oatmeal Cereal

Oatmeal seems to be going pretty well for little miss Lauren. I think we will continue this for another week and a half and then maybe we can try a veggie! I think it shall be sweet potatoes.

Lauren went through what some people call the 4 month wakeful. Some people think this happens because of a growth spurt and some think it's because they start to become "distracted eaters" and have to make up for the food they didn't eat during the day at night. Some babies also start teething at this age. She was waking up every 2 hours for about 3 and a half weeks. I am happy to report she is past the wakeful! Whew. We survived.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Rice = Fail

It seems that the rice cereal makes Lauren really gassy. Of course this shouldn't surprise anyone because she has such a sensitive tummy. Looks like we'll be moving on to oatmeal as the next thing to try. I gave her the rice once a day for two days at a really runny consistency. Then I gave it to her thicker. That night she was up every hour with gas. I hear that oatmeal is easier on their tummies and then if that doesn't work I believe the next in line is barley.

Here's some video of her chattin' it up.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Rice Cereal

Our little girl is already 4 months old. She had her 4 month dr. appt on Monday and she's over 50th percentile for weight and only in the 10th percentile for height. Imagine that :) She's 14 1/2 pounds. Chunker.

This also means that it's time to start some food! Rice cereal to begin. Sometimes with kids who have food allergies it's hard to get them onto food but she didn't seem to have any reaction. We are still taking it slow though. I mixed her cereal really runny the first couple of times to get her used to taking something from a spoon and she did really well. I think it helps that she's had to take so much medicine that she knows how to swallow without sucking on something.

She didn't seem super interested but she also didn't fight it that much. She just kind of let it come back out the first night but most of it went down the second night.



Monday, January 18, 2010

Thumb Sucking

Thumbs sure are tasty!

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Magic Diaper Cream

Lauren is a sensitive little girl. She always has some sort of a diaper rash. She has different types of diaper rashes too so it's not just a reaction to one thing. That combined with us cloth diapering and not wanting to smear her up with desitin every diaper change I asked our dr. about it. She gave us a prescription for "Magic Diaper Cream". Yes, this is what the dr. and the pharmacy calls it. They called the prescription into the pharmacy for me. When I went to pick it up it said that it had to be refrigerated. It smelled sort of citrusey. It also had an expiration date. All of these things had us baffled. What is in this stuff? I googled my little heart out but found that it seems there are many many different combinations drs and pharmacists throw together and call it magic diaper cream.

It really is magic. It does the trick for her and I totally forgot about the expiration date. It got left out overnight last week and it doesn't spread as well as it used to so I figured it was time to ask for a new prescription when we were at the office on Monday. Since I was there she handed me the prescription and it listed the ingredients. It had Aquaphor, something I hadn't heard of that I think was spelled Equestran(I'm guessing a prescription strength anti-bacterial) and distilled water. I filled this prescription at a different pharmacy and this time they did not tell us it needs to be refrigerated. We also switched insurance at the beginning of the year and this company will not cover the cream since the main ingredient is Aquaphor which is over the counter. It smells and looks the same as last time though. I brought it home and since A) we had to pay full price for it(which wasn't that bad) B) the last one seems to have lasted past it's expiration date(maybe because of refrigeration) and C) we figure cool feels good on her sore bottom so we are refrigerating it again. Luckily we live in a small house so it isn't too much of a pain to run to the fridge before changing every diaper.

Then later Monday evening I had a message on my phone from the pharmacy:
"Hi, this is so and so from the pharmacy. The pharmacist couldn't remember if they put an expiration date on the diaper cream or not. They just wanted you to know that it expires in two weeks because of the water content in it."

Water content??? I'm guessing this is because it becomes no longer distilled after so long???

Some of the mystery is solved. We now know what is in this stuff and why it expires. Not so sure about the refrigeration part but we will just go ahead and stick it in the fridge. And if you are wondering what is in your Magic Diaper Cream concoction and google and are sent to my blog - at least you now know one possibility of what it could be.

Pacifiers

What in the world is wrong with the pacifier industry? Most pacifiers are shaped like the inside of a baby's mouth. Seems to make a little sense right? Well, not really when you consider that NOTHING else a baby sucks on is shaped like this. No wonder some mothers refuse to give their children pacifiers because of "nipple confusion".

Enter the soothie.

Now this thing makes sense. Babies love it. Hospitals hand it out. It just seems natural. Lauren took this thing right away. I took multiple different kinds of pacifiers with us to the hospital because I had heard that babies may take one kind of pacifier but not another. The soothie was not the first one we offered her. She wouldn't take any of the other ones. Then we gave the soothie. She loved it. This was also when she had barely sucked on anything else so it wasn't like she was used to anything else. It just seems like it was the natural one for her to take.

So things are going well with the soothie except the fact that Lauren will suck on it for a little while and spit it out. I just thought that was the way she was. Until one day I went to my parents house and my sister says "why don't you give her the pacifiers she can suck to her face?" Ummmm, she won't take them but that would also make sense huh? So now that you think about it - why wouldn't someone make a pacifier that has a nipple like this and a cut out for their nose so it fits to their face easier?

I was talking to a friend who has a baby Laurens age and she felt the same way. Then, she found the perfect pacifier...
Enter Playtex "Binky"

Nipple shaped like the Soothie and cut outs for her nose! I bought some yesterday and they work like a charm. Ahhhh. The perfect pacifier.

The packaging still says new. Why did it take so long for the Soothie to come about? And then why did it take so long to make one shaped for a baby's face?

Now...if only she didn't just develop a habit of pushing anything I stick in her mouth out with her tongue. Hopefully it's just a phase because she's going through a sleep regression and it sure is nice for Adam to be able to give her a bottle one out of the 4 or 5 times she wakes up a night or to just be able to stick the pacifier in her mouth to put her back to sleep.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Laurens New Hair Do

It seems that Laurens hair has been growing lately. And it no longer lays down. BUT only in the middle of her head. The sides lie down, but the top does not.


Reminds me of one of these things


:)

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Cold :(

Lauren has her first cold. Her nose is SUPER runny and she's been sleeping all day long. The dr. office said that this virus is hanging on for 2-4 weeks. Ugh. I really hope her nose isn't this runny the whole time.

We also got a new camera. So this means that I get to show you more video! Here's one of her newer tricks. Turn up the volume!

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Lauren Laughed!

She full out laughed last night! She's been kind of giggling - just the start of one...but last night she laughed.

Cutest. Thing. Ever.

Monday, January 4, 2010

So long 2009!

My new years resolution? To blog at least 3 times a week. I think this is one resolution I can achieve. Even if it's just as simple as letting you guys see a new picture of Lauren. Which by the way...


What kid photo album would be complete without this photo?

Moving on - everyone is doing it so I'm going to jump on the blog bandwagon.

2009: A year in review.

January

January 5th, 2009
Got the call that my parents house was on fire and returned home to find it was a total loss.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day - January 19th, 2009
Found out that I was pregnant.

February, March and April were filled with home improvement projects and gardening.

May:
May 7th, 2009
20 weeks pregnant! Ultrasound to find out gender was unsuccessful as our little girlie already had a mind of her own. Everything else was looking great!


May 10th, 2009
Adams sister graduates high school.

Construction on my parents new house begins.

June: Wedding showers, bachelorette parties and baby preparations!

June 27th
One of my best friends Tami gets married!

July: Lots of canning going on.
July 12th, 2009
I turn 26. Over half a century :)

July 18th, 2009
One of my other best friends Amanda gets married!

August: Baby Showers and more canning.

September! My parents move into their sparkly new house!

September 18th, 2009
Lauren Olivia Miller was born at exactly 5pm! 7 pounds and 19 inches long.

September 24th, 2009
I was re-hospitalized with post pardum pre-eclamsia. A rare condition that caused me to have very high blood pressure after Lauren was born.

October and November have been spent at home watching Lauren grow.

December has shown us the worst winter since 1972 is what I hear. At least 17 inches to date!

It's been a very big year but what year isn't? Our lives will be forever changed with the birth of Lauren and we can't wait to watch her grow in the years to come!