midweek update

We've had a pretty good week! Hartley's naps were a little off Sunday and Monday (thank you church..), but she's gotten back into her groove.

Earlier this week, I thought I noticed some thrush in Hartley's mouth. I always feel like a bad momma when something's wrong. I read all the information, go above and beyond.. and something happens. And it kills me that many parents don't put their kids on schedules, and they just so happen to take great naps and sleep through the night!

Anyway, we got some Nystatin this morning and started treatment promptly! Hartley gets 4 doses a day and I get to rub some on my.. umm.. nursing parts. In case you weren't a good student and checked out the thrush link, I'll explain it to ya.. while we look at cute pictures.

I was cleaning the dining room and pulling out chairs.. and someone decided to make a fort.

She really enjoyed herself. It was cute. :)

Back to the thrush explanation..

I had a UTI a few weeks ago and was placed on a round of antibiotics. This caused our good bacteria to go haywire. Mine messed up my birth control and hormone cycle. And Hartley's good bacteria decreased causing an increase in yeast.

When Hartley nurses, the yeast in her mouth come in contact to my.. nursing parts. And yeast like warm, moist places (her mouth, my milk, milk ducts). So we have to give her medicine and myself medicine so we don't keep passing around the bad guys.

The end.

Marshall is now getting one FULL day off during the week! It was only half a day, but now he gets to spend an entire day at home!

Which means, I have a babysitter and I can go galavanting! I'm in search of some non-maternity jeans. I love my maternity jeans.. but it's been over 6 months...

And apparently skinny jeans are all the rage now. So I came home, knowing my trusty maternity jeans were waiting for me.

We have a new Children's Place in our mall. I walked out disappointed because the only colors they sold were black, purple, and hot pink. Seriously.

But our Kid's Belk is amazing!! I got Hartley an outfit for now and 2 for next summer. Two of the outfits were only $2!! Love it.

Hartley is also enjoying her new foods! She loves green beans and pear sauce! We'll post more on the later..

Enjoy your weekend and our mommy-daughter photo shoot!

Momma, let ME hold the camera!

Why do you have to kiss me so much!?

Pddt! I got feet!

Okay, seriously Momma.. that's enough.

today's menu

Today's Menu is for Me!

I've never really been concerned with what I eat. I can't gain weight for the life of me, so I eat whatever I want.

However, I have to watch what I'm eating while nursing.

I have to eat really fatty foods to make sure Hartley is getting enough fat in her diet- and obviously, the bean pole needs it!

I thought I'd give you a glimpse of today's meals, thus far..

For breakfast (or brekdist, however you say it), we had some very delicious bacon and cheeeeesy grits. Along with some coffee (I really need caffeinated.. it's about the only caffeine I get all day) and appa juice.

And now lunch. This may be the highlight of my day. Today we're having fried green tomatoes and fried cheese sticks. I had enough flour to bread some pickles, but I thought that might be too much fried food.

I'll probably have a bowl of ice cream as an afternoon pick me up. Mint chocolate chip. Extra chips. Extra fat.

I highly recommend this diet.

beans and carrots

Hartley has been enjoying new foods a lot this week! I made pear sauce first, she's only had a little bit. We're trying to get her to eat more banana.. but for some reason she won't! I think it's because Grandmommie spoiled her with banana pudding last week..

I've also made green beans, carrots, and sweet potatoes. We've got a few weeks supply of food in the freezer and I'm excited to make more!

First time eating green beans. I like to call them "cream beans."

Just a kickin'! She also does this when she gets sweet tea..

Carrots for the first time. She eats like a cow.

She hasn't had any allergic reactions to her new menu yet, so we'll keep on expanding! We're going to try avocado and peaches next, I think.

I can't remember if I mentioned our recent Cry-It-Out (CIO) experiment. The nurse practitioner we saw at her well-check encouraged us to let her CIO during the night. She had been waking up 3 times during the night, being fussy and I would nurse her back to sleep (sometimes that wouldn't work). We know that she can make it through the night without nursing because she had been for about 2 months. I've read it takes about 3 days for it to work.. and last night was the fourth night. She slept from about 8:30pm to 6:20am. I'm hoping she will get back to her usual schedule (waking up AFTER 7am), but this is much better than waking up multiple times during the night. :)

And surprisingly her naps have lengthened. I shouldn't have to remind you of our 45-minute napper.. but she's been having consistent 1.5 hour naps. The morning one is the best! Her third nap is a short one, which possibly means we're nearing the time to drop it. I'll probably give her another month with 3 naps, at least.

I know as soon as I write about all the wonderful things Hartley is doing, she may quit behaving so well.. but I do want to remember how nice it is now.

Before we say goodbye, I want you to see this new bib I got Hartley. It's plastic coated so it will make cleaning up green beans much easier. It won't arrive for another 2 weeks, but I'm so excited. It was an Etsy purchase- I like the idea of buying handmade, personalized items, rather than store-bought. Plus- this is cuter and cheaper than the ones at Wal-mart.

fathers daughter, take two

It ceases to amaze me how much Hartley is like her Daddy. It's unreal! I'm also getting a taste of what Marshall was like as a child.

I can't possibly tell you all the stories of Marshall.. there are way too many.

I snapped this picture yesterday afternoon. She had been playing on her playmat while I took a break and Facebooked. Not even a minute after turning my back, she had rolled underneath the coffee table.

Then I got the picture that startled me. There are so many pictures of Marshall as a baby with the above expression. If I had one on the computer I would upload it in a heartbeat. It's ridiculous how much they look alike in that picture.

Yesterday's episode wasn't the first. I got these last week. I walk out of the room for a minute and find her hanging out with Sassy.

That's a lot of rolling to do. Marshall is determined Hartley will be crawling in the next month.

And last but not least, our newspaper chewer. You can kinda see black ink around the edge of her mouth. She was very interested in the sound of newspaper, so I let her kick at it last week. I got distracted with the Bi-Lo ad and realized she had been chewing on the paper.

We have a lot to look forward to. She'll be climbing in the dishwasher before we know it. Probably eat dog food. I only hope she doesn't have as many accidents as Marshall- that boy has countless scars and broken bones.

thirty before thirty revisited

We got the go ahead for starting solids at Hartley's well-check! After her appointment, I headed to Mema's to pick up my phone and inform her of Hartley's newest trick. She was picking pears (that had not been stolen like last year!) so I got a bagful.

I was introduced to Smitten Kitchen a few weeks ago and elated to find advanced baby food recipes! This isn't your grandma's mashed banana food- this is fancy shmancy, pureed goodness. Ground nutmeg?? Okay! Balsamic vinegar? I'm on board for that!

I tried Deb's Vanilla Bean Pear Sauce. For the record- I don't eat pears. The texture is just off to me. But I'm willing to taste a sample to ensure they would be to Hartley's liking. If it's anything like Tylenol, I'm sure she's going to love it!

10. Make Homemade Baby Food. I've only got a few more weeks before this starts rolling! We have lots of squash and zucchini in our garden that Hartley will hopefully enjoy!

Our next ventures will be with green beans, carrots, sweet potatoes, mangoes, and avocado. And don't worry, we'll have videos posted with her reactions.

six month check up aka drama

Sigh. Had to take a breather before beginning...

Hartley had her 6 month well-check this morning. I prepared myself for a disappointing weigh-in. I know she's a skinny baby. What I didn't prepare myself for was her "tantrum." We'll get there, hold your horses.

She had a great visit with the nurse and nurse practitioner (our normal doctor wasn't there). She rolled around on the table, smiled, blew raspberries, pooted. All the normal things she does. We talked about her weight and beginning solids. Her nighttime wakefulness. What we can do to make her an even more perfect baby...

She weighed in at 12lb 13oz. This is one pound up from 2 months ago. Putting her in the 5th percentile for weight. (Bummer.. but at least she's on the chart) She measure 25.5 inches long. Only .5 inch in 2 months. She's in the 25th percentile for height, even though she looks really long. It's that dang torso.

Hartley is developmentally where she's supposed to be. Rolling around, grabbing things (everything!), talking, etc.

Okay- so now it's shot time. I know she hates shots. But the previous times she's handled them fairly well. She cries of course, but she calms down within a few minutes..

Nurse lady is about to administer them and I begin distracting Hartley with her Emmie. And then shrill crying starts. She's cried like this before. Nothing new.

But she kept going. Then she got to the point where she was crying and there wasn't any sound. Again- we've been here before.

At this point, I noticed she wasn't taking a breath and even calmly told her, "Hartley, you can breath. You can breath!"

And all of sudden- her face turns purple. Her eyes roll in the back of head. She stops moving.

This is all during 3 shots in her leg.

"What's happening? What's happening?!"

Nurse runs of out the room, calling the doctor.

"Hartley, baby. Wake up!"

[this is upsetting me now, just replaying it in my mind]

"Hartley.. Hartley.."

As soon as the doctor comes in, she wakes up and starts crying again. At this point I'm a little relieved. She's awake. She's making a sound.

It wasn't a seizure. It was a breath-holding spell.

The doctor had to pull me together. "Mom, she needs you. She needs you to calm both of y'all down."

Breathe.

We calmed down eventually. Hartley nursed a little before passing out falling asleep. She skipped her morning nap, so it was definitely due. We have to rephrase the way we say she's asleep-asleep, because well.. you know..

As I was checking out, the shot nurse was walking by and asked how Hartley was. I said, "She's passed out... I mean- she's asleep!" The nurse felt horrible, especially seeing how upset we both were. She's been asleep for 2.5 hours now.

I say it's time to wake up. Hopefully she'll be in a happy mood..

Columbus Visit

Hartley and I made a trip to Columbus this weekend. The Kentucky ladies were making a pit stop in Georgia and had not met Hartley yet.. so it was a must!

Unfortunately, we had a super busy weekend and super teething baby.. so there weren't ANY pictures taken. I'm having to use Christmas pictures from 2009 to show off my pretty cousins.

Ally is the little lady on the right. She has to be sitting right on top of someone at all times. She loves the twins and Hartley!

And Katie on the lower left corner is the closest cousin I have in age (and coolest). We're separated by 8 years.

Wanna know something cooky??

Katie and Ally are 8 years apart.

Ally and Hartley are 8 years apart.

Which means- one of those girls has to have a baby in 8 years. Preferably a girl.

(Just a heads up for y'all. Don't flip out, Aunt Laurie.. would you rather it be you?)

We had a good time visiting. We met up with another Laurie and her baby Bella and got some pool time in! And also got a butt load of hand-me-downs!! We love those.

These are what most pictures are starting to look like.

This little stinker was a wonderful baby during the day. But once the sun went down- whoo-whee. Friday night was horrible. She woke up 3 times during the night, each time staying up for an hour. She wound up sleeping on my chest.

And last night- well, 2 hours. Two heartbreaking hours of fussiness. Well- mainly one hour of nonstop crying and another hour of being happy a few minutes and upset the next. Fortunately that was from 8:30 to 10:30 and we finally went to bed. Yes, both of us in the same bed. She woke up around 3am, nursed and went back to sleep easily. One little cry around 5 or 6am, and she was fine. I can't believe we slept until 8am!

Not sure of how tonight will be. But we've got Daddy to help! Grandmommie tried her best, though!

We go for Hartley's 6-month well-check on Tuesday. Hudson- send your chunky vibes again, we never received them last time. :)