Complain.

*Spoiler alert* This post is going to be depressing. It's a vent. You might think I'm an awful person for feeling the way I feel, but if you do, you've either 1) never been a mother 2) never admitted to having similar feelings or 3) haven't had the same experience as me, so whatever.

Today sucked. I'd say the highlight of today is that it's over. Nearly, anyway. I'm really tired of sucky days...that almost always revolve around Jillian as the cause of them. She's on her 2nd full day of this new medicine, and had 2 reflux episodes, threw up, then spit up. (The spit up thing is weird cause she NEVER spits up, only vomits...but the medicine is supposed to debunk it all).

WTF.

Hopefully I forget all of this mess, or else the poor girl won't have any siblings.

I hated being a mom today. I HATE thinking that. I don't think I was cut out for the whole stay-at-home-mom deal..I wouldn't survive it. (There was no school today so we had a 3 day weekend together). Exhausted doesn't even begin to describe...from giving her 6 doses of medicine a day (2 doses of Prevacid, and 4 doses of the new stuff I can't pronounce), feeding her every 2 hours (which by the time she's done and I get her down for a nap is about a 30 min. break in between), and dealing with her fussiness, I'm ready to throw in the towel.

What am I supposed to be learning in all this? Anything? My Dad made that point the other day when I was talking to him. Patience? Humility? To be okay with the following saying: "ya get what ya get, so don't throw a fit?" Am I just supposed to just deal with "what I got?"

It's hard not to be jealous...envious of other babies who sleep allll the time, who hardly cry, merely grunt when they need something, who can already do things like roll over, when I can't even put Jillian on her tummy for that long because of her reflux.

Everybody says it's supposed to get better. "Just wait, I PROMISE it gets better!" Well. I'm quickly losing sight of when that day will come. We're quickly approaching the end of medical options to help her out before we just have to live with it until she outgrows it (most likely by 6 months...but that's 4 months away). Matter of fact there are only two things left on the list: one other type of medication with possible side effects, or going up to Primary Children's hospital for a scope. Dr. Kendall said needing a scope is very rare- only about 1 in 100. So far I'd say Jillian is definitely in the minority of statistics at this point, so it could be very possible.

*Sigh.

Today sucked.

Dear Jillian (2 months)

Dear Jillian,

How are you TWO months old already?! I can hardly believe it. Mostly because it feels like it's been 9 years. You've had a pretty crappy two months of life. Good thing you won't remember this part of your life...but don't worry, I'll remind you when you're a teenager and trying to give me crap again. And you'll probably graciously laugh and roll your eyes and continue to tell me I "just don't understand" how much you LOVE your little boyfriend or something.

Here's why your life sucks right now:

• You barf. A lot. The special/super pricey formula you're on now smells like a penny, but you still gobble it up.
• You have to sleep on an incline to help your reflux. Sometimes you slide down to the bottom of your bassinet and end up sleeping in more of a sitting-on-your-legs position. It's kinda funny.
• Sometimes you scream a lot cause your reflux is so bad :-/
  

Despite the sucky things, you're starting to be super adorable...

• You SMILE!!!!
  It's the cutest thing EVER.
• Sometimes you make little noises and you ALMOST giggle.
• You can hold your head up by yourself for a long time!! You're still a little wobbly though.
• Sometimes you try to dive out of the arms of whoever is holding you. Simmer down on that one.
• You found your tongue! You like to stick it out and move it around a lot.




• You're lovin' that play gym.
• Your "poop face" is super hilarious. You get all scrunched up and aren't lady like at all about ridding your bowels.


• When you're really hungry you make noises when you start sucking your bottle, almost like you're talking to it.
• A lot of times you go into total "milk coma" when you're done eating.
  
  
  
• You look at people when they're talking and interact with people smiling at you.
  
• Lately you don't mind being put down...(before you would cry like 10 seconds later). In your butterfly bouncy chair you love staring at the hanging butterflies and you get so excited you start kicking your legs like crazy!
  

Basically you're less like a parasite and more like a person, and we actually enjoy having you around. :-) We're getting closer to figuring out your eating woes..so I think that should be fixed in the next couple of weeks. Yay!!

I love cuddling you when I get home, especially because you love being cuddled (even though I have constant shoulder pain).

Eeeee!!! You're just stinkin' adorable.

Love,
Mom

Exactly.

Hit me with your best shot.

Have you ever had the experience where you're walking outside and get caught in a torrential down pour? And you start to run to get inside or back into your car but you eventually stop running because you're already soaking wet and you figure running will do absolutely no good because you could not possibly get any more waterlogged?

I feel like that. Metaphorically I mean.

I feel like I'm walking through the rain, letting it slap me in the face, taking it. Referring to the whole mess with baby J, of course, and all her ups and downs. I feel numb to all of her problems at this point...wondering, what's next? Hit me with your best shot.


Thursday afternoon we took her to her pediatrician because she was had diarrhea and was throwing up all night. She looked absolutely pathetic. Her little face was lifeless. We followed the doctor's orders and switched her to Pedialyte only...but she didn't want to drink it. Not cause she thought it was nasty, she just wouldn't even suck the bottle. She also only peed once the whole day. No bueno. So we called her pediatrician back who said to pack up and head to the hospital. Diagnosis: stomach bug. ....Really? Babies can get that? Apparently.

Great.

The pediatric floor is depressing and bubbly all at the same time. There's paintings and murals everywhere, even rope light around the nurses station that changes colors. Ooo. But horribly depressing and at time eerily quiet. There is a kid in the room next to us who constantly cries out, "Daaaddddyyyy!!!"...heartbreaking. Will someone just go get the kid's father already?!

Anyway. Jillian started saline solution for dehydration on Thursday night through an IV they stuck in her foot. Man oh man she did NOT like getting that IV.



She actually got WAY TOO MUCH saline solution because our very bright male nurse with Spider Man scrubs mixed up her charts. The chart he was looking at was for a 40lb kid. Now tell me...how do you look at Jillian and think, "Oh yeah! She's about 40lbs...bring on the saline!" No. You don't. Idiot. So she had a slight resemblance to the Micheline tire man- puffy and what not. But that resolved itself.





I've never seen her sleep so much. Through the night she ate maaaybbee 2 oz of formula combined. We've mostly been holding her to comfort her. My arms want to fall off. Sometimes she'll wake up and make the most pitiful attempt at a whimper, then fall back asleep. We were thinking she'd be able to go home today though, after staying through the night, as long as she could keep down a few feedings. Well. Of course because we have the worse luck EVER, she barfed 3 times today. Which means we get to stay tonight too. She's back on Pedialyte instead of formula for now, because she doesn't throw that up. Hopefully she can keep her formula down tonight and tomorrow so we can go hhhooommmeeeee and she can return to just her NORMAL reflux issues.

(She LOVES sleeping on James like this.)

I wonder what an "easy" baby would even be like??? I probably couldn't even handle it.

She did start getting back to her normal self tonight though, and we caught her in full action cuteness:

Survival of the fittest.

My goal is to be in bed at 9:30. So I'm starting a blog at 9:22. I have good ideas. The past two days have been nuts. I'm not even sure it's been TWO days...I think it's really still Tuesday. Just an extension of it, anyway. And tomorrow will be Tuesday evening. The next day will be Tuesday night.

That makes sense. I'm good at making sense these days. Good thing I'm not responsible for molding and shaping 25 young minds...WHEW.

Babying is hard. Babying (v). 1. The act of having and caring for a baby. Fortunately Baby J is sleeping better at night. She usually will go to sleep around 6-7p and be out until 12-1a. Then she'll wake up around 5-6a to eat and start her day. Does that mean I'm sleeping more? Not really. I'm excited with all my new found evening time to myself so I can do completely useful and productive things, like peruse pinterest for hours. Last night James and I almost didn't know what to do with ourselves. So what did we do? We both laid on the floor and measured each other's arm spans vs. height using the length of our feet. Like I said, I have good ideas. In case you're wondering, our arm spans were shorter by about half a foot length (and this is foot as in FOOT and not foot..got it?).

School is going well though, all things considered. I forget how much they DON'T know at the beginning of the year. I feel like I'm trying to house break a bunch of puppies in some ways. Not that they pee everywhere... The past two days I've had meetings, so I haven't been getting home until about 5:30. Remember how I said baby J goes to bed between 6 and 7? Yeah. I see her for about an hour before she's out for the night. This is sad. Tonight I got home in time to feed her- she at a whole 4 ounces. I bathed her (by myself for the first time) and she didn't scream at all...not even when I put lotion on afterwards (she usually hates that). Then I dressed her in her little sleeper and bundled her in her swaddle blanket, and we rocked in the glider. I sang her some primary songs and started crying a little bit. For a few different reasons.

(While singing:)
Heavenly Father, are you really there?
And do you hear and answer every child's prayer?
Some say that heaven is far away, but I feel it close around me as I pray.

First I started crying because she was already falling asleep. I finally get to see her awake for the day and now she's already sleeping. I squeaked a half smile out of her earlier... I guess that will have to suffice until tomorrow. But also because of the song I'm singing/sniffling. For several days I was feeling a little abandoned- spiritually that is. Feeling like all of my earnest prayers for baby J and all of her woes would be lessened, and that in turn would let me well, sleep. But holding her little body and looking into her half-closed eyes, I thought, how can I even think that? For months and months SHE is what I prayed for. Her PERIOD. Just her existence! So maybe my prayers and wishes for MY sleep aren't quite happening yet, but SHE is sleeping. Which is really a fantastic new development.
My prayers have been answered. I'm holding the answer to my prayer. And she's asleep. Dead asleep. Until the hour or two she'll be awake when I get home tomorrow to rock her back to sleep.

Oh Saturday. Hurry up already.

My living science experiment.

Soo most babies are born, they eat, they poop, they sleep, they grow, they cry. It's a routine. It's what's "normal". It's predictable and expected. And then there are the babies who eat, barf, painfully poop, sleep sometimes, and still grow. We were blessed (oh so blessed) with the latter. Who would have guessed? Not I. But then again, everything I was expecting about having/raising a baby has been tossed to the side, along with all the dirty diapers. I'm flying by the seat of my pants here...going "off the cuff".

Jillian started exclusively formula feeding at 3.5 weeks. One of those things I completely was not expecting to do, but happened almost out of necessity (as in it was necessary if I wanted to stay a sane individual). She started having some reflux symptoms even before she went on formula. She would vomit and sometimes projectile vomit. Can we say...smelly? So she started Prevacid (heart burn medicine) at 4 weeks. She was switched to a sensitive brand formula to help with gas/fussiness as well. Her once soft and sweet little face broke out in a red, bumpy rash.

Here we are at 6 weeks. She's now on Alimentum, a hypoallergenic formula. She hasn't thrown this kind up yet...so that's good. Her reflux symptoms are slightly better on this kind as well. She still hates the morning. "She's not a morning person," the retard medical assistant tells me on the phone today after I describe her most recent symptoms.

We've had to eliminate things one by one, to figure out what it is that's causing all of the problems. Obviously we haven't figured everything out yet, so it's been quite the process. It really is like a living science experiment. Anyone need to use my baby for their 6th grader's science fair project? Unfortunately, we have no "conclusion" at this point, but there is a heck of a lot of qualitative data. ;-) So here's our new schedule until Tuesday (when I talk to the pediatrician again for an update): 1/2 probiotic tablet in the morning and evening, dissolved in her formula (to help with gas) 1/4 dissolving Prevacid tablet in the morning and at night, 30 minutes before a feeding (for heart burn and reflux) Hypoallergenic formula
Lots of chocolate ice cream for Mom

One thing I learned when I started teaching was to be really flexible. During my first year of teaching I hated when my schedule would be interrupted and things wouldn't go as planned (my teacher friends..like that ever happens, right?). I quickly learned to change that and would often tell myself something my mom would always say,

"Be like the willow, and bend."

Things hardly ever go the way you plan them to go.

I have to apply that to this as well. I used to get so worked up every time her skinny little body would vomit and it would splatter down the wall and she would scream as I changed her soaked clothes. But I figure this is like my first year of teaching. This aren't going to go as planned; the schedule will be interrupted. "Be like the willow, and bend."

"This too shall pass," right?
________

I got this cute little video of her during a happy time today. She used her play gym for the first time and loved it (the video I got was towards the end when the excitement was starting to die down...chalk one up for my timing). She's SO CLOSE to smiling. She's done it like maybe twice that I've seen. One day soon it's going to happen all the time and I'm going to melt into a puddle on the floor.

I had a bad day.

I was cautiously optimistic about today and the direction it would take. Last night went pretty well, considering the dreaded "6 week growth spurt" that baby J is in the thick of. She went 4 hours between feedings! Then two chunks of three hours, then only an hour and a half...then three hours again. She fell back to sleep fairly easily as well. I woke up feeling slightly rested. What a change. But like I said, cautiously optimistic.

All was well until she barfed around noon-ish. It always messes up her whole eating schedule...because then she wants to sleep when she should be awake, or eat when she should be sleeping, or some variation on the three things she does (eat, be awake, sleep). Soo she was slightly fussy for a while, she couldn't eat because she was refluxing too bad and eventually cried herself to sleep. I decided I needed some time out. Bless Jen Wardell's pregnant heart for watching her! I went for a much needed pedicure.

And this is where it went downhill.

The guy who did my pedicure reeked of cigarette smoke. And he didn't do things in the same order on each foot. That bugged me. He also skipped cuticle oil completely! I know...the nerve...He got distracted by the TV during the massage portion and almost stopped completely. I should've kicked him in the face. I mean my foot was practically right there. Did I tip him? Yes...three bucks...I feel bad NOT tipping people when they ASK you if you want to add a tip. People should just not do that...just print it on the receipt or have a little collection jar...seriously.

So then I decided I do a little shopping to try to find some new clothes for going back to school. Every time I look in my closet I feel depressed. Everything is either out of style, stretched out, or faded. Time for a change. I went to Old Navy first, but they surprisingly had very little. They were like in the middle of getting rid of summer stuff, but the fall stuff wasn't out yet. So I ventured over to TJ Maxx, where there was even less of a decent selection. I still bought a couple of things- a cardigan (go figure), a plain white t-shirt, a floral undershirt, and a graphic tee. Meh. I decided to call it a day.

On the way back to collect my offspring, I tried to maneuver from one turn lane to the next so I wouldn't be stuck behind the semi, who was inevitably going to drive me nuts. Well. That was a bad idea. I grossly misjudged the distance between myself and the semi, because on my way around I nicked by side mirror and side door against the back of it. The car probably behind me was probably in shock. Aye aye aye. So this sent me into tears.

I had a bad day.

But looking at these things made it slightly better. This video almost made me cry (I have no idea why...but I'm only 5 weeks post-partum, so I suppose I don't really need a reason..). Isn't this little boy ridiculously adorable? I totally want to make one of these videos when Jillian does more than stare at me with a blank expression. It also made me realize I should really enjoy more of the daily cute little things that make the daily hard things seem not so bad.

Good thing tomorrow is a new day.

LINCOLN from Digital Memorys on Vimeo.

I feel like a zombie.

So last night I'm sitting in the rocking chair with little miss Jillian, who has been screaming her face off for an hour. It's the third time I've been up with her in 4 hours. Am I an awful person for wishing this sleepless part of her life to be over? That's rhetorical by the way. If I could just fast forward to the part where she sleeps...I know there's always something that will come up- growth spurts, teething, la la la. But the key difference is dealing with a fussy baby on 4 hours of sleep (taken in about 1 1/2 hr increments) and dealing with a fussy baby on a consecutive like 6 hours of sleep. Aye aye aye. Sometimes she and I just cry together.
This is that crazy position she likes to sleep in that I mentioned earlier:

There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Jack and Jillian

Gordy, Jenn, and Jack were in Utah this week! We got to see them a couple of times. So fun! I can't believe how BIG Jack is!!! Kids grow. Crazy stuff. Check out their cousin cuteness:

Do you like how most of the time Jillian has a constant look of terror on her face??

Dear Jillian (1 month)

Dear Jillian,

I can't believe you're already one month old!!! You still seem so tiny and helpless, but much bigger and older all at the same time. I feel like I'm finally starting to figure you out...especially now that you have your eating business figured out (remember the heck of a time we had? egh...). Here's some things about you now:

• You HATE being burped. You start screaming as soon as the bottle comes out of your mouth and you feel yourself being propped up. When you do burp, they stink like crap.
• You make the funniest faces. Mostly when you're just chillin' in your bouncy seat and staring around (a deer in the headlights kind of look), and also when you're falling asleep.
• You always try to poop while you're eating and you grunt REALLY loud to try to get it all out. You don't have the skills to eat and poop at the same time yet (and when you do develop these skills, don't do it anyway...it's gross).
  
• Your favorite position to fall asleep in is when you're up on my chest, your body is curved into a c-shape, your head is to the side and cocked back so you can see me. Looks super uncomfortable.
  
• You hate getting in your car seat. Can't blame you here- it doesn't look fun. But once you're in the car you LOVE it. Well, not your seat I guess, but the car. You just stare out the window.
• When you're sleeping, like really sleeping, your arms are above your head.
  
• You just found your fingers! Sometimes you suck them. It's the cutest thing. I hope you're a thumb sucker instead of a binky baby...sometimes those things are hard to keep up with.
• You only sleep 2-3 hours at a time at night right now. Aye aye aye. It's taking it's toll. Hopefully you grow out of that one fast.
  
• You're definitely getting chunkier! You're still only about 8 1/2 lbs, but your cheeks are starting to resemble a chipmunks and you even have little thigh rolls!
  

All in all, I'm falling more in love with you everyday. You already have me wrapped around your long little fingers. And fortunately, taking care of you is getting a little bit easier/more manageable every day (much appreciated). I know it's probably super obvious to everyone else that I'm a new mom...especially when we go places and I have to try to coordinate your diaper bag, my purse, and the stroller, but so far you've been pretty patient with me. It's been a very long, yet very short month. I guess I'm starting to understand when parents say that their babies grow up way too fast. (Although I really wouldn't mind the next couple of months speeding by until you sleep through the night). ;-)

Love,
Mom

You always have your hands right up under your bottle or by your face when you eat.

You fell asleep like this in about 10 seconds after you were just screaming.

How you looked at Uncle Matthew.

We know you're really asleep when your mouth is wide open.

You always sleep well when you're being held.

There it is. That deer in the headlights look. Hilarious.