First Trip to the Movies!

When I was little my all-time favorite movie was Cinderella. I probably watched it five times a day and my mom even had two VHS copies for when I went places. Needless to say when I saw the new Cinderella movie on TV I had to see it! Turns out one of my best friends Brooke wanted to see it too so off we went on a movie date with C! My little girl does everything with me and she is very good at it. (If it's during the day.) Here is C all ready for the car ride to Huntsville. 

We love Aunt Brooke. She loves C so much!

Excuse my awful posture! That car seat gets heavier every week. Ha! C was not too thrilled about this picture for sure! 

This is C when we got home looking oh so beautiful. Unfortunately, she had a screaming/crying spell from 6 ish until late. For the third or fourth night in a row. Thankfully my parents were visiting and helped.... It was not fun. 

Pop with C right before her crying spell started. He still loves her very much crying or happy! 

My mom text me today and told me to send her a picture of Caroline. I sent her this and said "She actually fell asleep laying in my lap!!"

Then thirty seconds later....."Tricked ya mom!" Little stinker!

My little C was five weeks old yesterday. At five weeks, she is still eating anywhere from 3-4 oz every 2-3 hours. She will breastfeed and bottle feed very well. She knows now how I hold her when I feed her and starts to crinkle her nose and open her mouth wide when she knows she is about to eat! It's so funny. She is an excellent car rider and loves music. She doesn't like when we stop at red lights though. The vacuum cleaner has became our powerful weapon when nothing else works for sleep. She loves her time with her daddy in the mornings when he gets home from work. Daddy drinks coffee while holding C and watches TV and they chat for a while and let me take a shower. We change her diaper anywhere from 10-14 times a day! She loves bath time and likes for her body to be submerged. She does well during the day anywhere and struggles at night... But we are making it through, for we know these days won't last long! We love you Caroline Page!

Sleep Little C!

We had a day at home with daddy yesterday and it was wonderful. He is at work again now so we cherished our time with him. C just would not rest yesterday morning so we hit the stroller pretty hard! We met some neighbors on the street over who were in their 80's and ended up visiting for a while. (I love elderly people!)  They told us to please come back and visit anytime. They just loved C and her sweet little feet. It was precious! Daddy mowed and we hung outside for a while (still fighting sleep.) So I took her inside and put her in her vibrating seat and turned the vacuum cleaner on. And just like that, in about ten seconds she was out. She slept for 3.5 hours! I was so relieved! And so was daddy I bet because the laundry got caught up and his favorite clothes got washed and put away! :) 

We grilled out steak and had an awesome dinner. Then we took a trip to GSBC to my 5th graders and C made her surprise debut! No touching was allowed yet but they just ate her up! And of course Mrs. Donna (who I love and admire) ate her up too. We love Mrs. Donna! And our 5th graders! 

Next week is our last week together. I am already tearing up thinking about it but on a positive note, Daddy, Nana, and Pop are going to get some serious bonding time with C while I am at work. I am trying to be super grateful that I only live ten minutes away, she doesn't have to go to daycare, etc... but it is still so very hard! And the whole pumping at work thing is just a whole other set of worries. I love breastfeeding so much and really hope it works out. My short term goal for April is to pump my first three weeks back at work. If I can make that, we shall set another goal! Anyway.. we are out to start another day! Until tomorrow!

Growing growing growing!

What a beautiful day we had yesterday. Daddy had to work overtime so he was away from us for 48 hours.. And has to go back tomorrow. We managed to make it though. C's reflux is under control but we still think she has colic. Most of our day yesterday and the day before was not much sleep and lots of crying. But we did manage a grocery store trip with nana. In other news, I have read so much breastfeeding literature it is ridiculous. I remember reading that somewhere around a month old babies hit a growth spurt and tend to eat more often. Well this is true and in full effect. We fed every 2-2.5 hours around the clock yesterday as opposed to our normal every 3-3.5 hours. Milk factory in overtime. 

First grocery store trip was successful. No one tried to touch us...Thank goodness because I might have had a come apart. 

Swinging with my little jewel! Love that girl. 

She is such a sweet girl. It breaks my heart when her tummy hurts and nothing works. 

"Seriously, another picture mama?"

All smiles. My missing piece! 

Sunday Fam Funday!

Yesterday we traveled in the rain to Fyffe to see my family. Since C was born during the snow storm many people in my family hadn't met her yet! She did so good yesterday.. I mentioned to Kyle that it seemed like she did better out all day than at home. 

Such a good little car rider! 

C met Cousin Dirks, Lynley, Millie, and Molly Kate yesterday. This is cousin Molly Kate holding her. She has been super excited about meeting Cousin Caroline! And C was equally excited! :)

After we left my granny's, we headed to Rainsville to my grandmas. Thankfully both my grandmothers are alive and healthy and able to hold and love on my baby. Such a precious thing. 

Grandma loves C. She thought she hung the moon. Every little move she made Grandma hung on to. When someone thinks your child is just as special as you do it makes you smile. 

Love my baby daddy! He's the best. 

How could I not take a picture of this...my mama walked past my grandmas fishing poles and got snagged in the rain. We couldn't get it unattached from her sweater and then we were laughing until we cried. 

Kyle saved the day! So funny. 

The past few nights C has surprised us.. Slept 5 hours for two nights and last  night.. 6 hours! I didn't set my alarm to wake her because I had decided to feed her when she woke up hungry. Well she didn't wake up hungry for the past 3 nights.. I actually had to wake her! She might have slept longer if I hadn't woke her. What a good start we are on!

Sno-Cone Strollin' Saturday

Fun-filled Saturday for C with mama and daddy! We watched Castaway on Netflix and played with the dogs. Then we loaded up and went strolling in downtown Guntersville... And then my whole day was made when we saw the Sno-Cone lady was open! After a mad dash to the Pig to get cash back, we hit the snow cone stand. Happy happy happy! 

"Dad, where you been?" 

Radio up and eyes close automatically! 

Sno-cone selfie! Who even cares that's it's March and 55 degrees? Not us! 

Girl Time

Yesterday we met my friend Paige for lunch in Albertville and had a great time catching up and hearing her stories about California. Then we met Nana and made a few shopping rounds. C loves the car! (And that paci!)

Then we had a night alone together since Daddy was at work. We did pretty good! I even managed to bathe her fairly quickly! 

Fresh clean baby! My new favorite smell. 

One Month Old!

So many mixed emotions about my baby girl turning one month old today. Sad that these first four weeks have literally flown by. Happy that I can see her changing in eating/sleeping habits already. We are just patiently waiting for her to crack us a smile in a few weeks. 

Caroline is such a sweet girl. At one month old, she has spectacular head control. She does not like to burp on our shoulder or lay on our chest because she has to look around at all times. It is quite entertaining. The first couple of weeks I breastfed her every 2.5-3 hours. Now we are feeding on demand, but not letting it get past 3.5 hours if she doesn't wake up. I am doing this without much worry because at our recent doctor visit, C weighed 9 pounds and 2 ounces. I never knew that I could get so excited about my baby girl's weight. She weighed 7 pounds, 1 ounce on March 3rd. Now that I know we are doing something right, I can feed her without worry. Caroline is still very petite although she is gaining weight. Our newborn clothes are still a tad roomy so we will probably be in them for a few more weeks. She is staying awake lots longer now that she is a month old. I would say that she stays awake 3-4 hours during the day, most of which Kyle and I are talking to her because she loves to follow our voices and look for us. It is the sweetest! <3

As I previously blogged about, I was suspicious of acid reflux problems last week when she turned 3 weeks old. I had noticed that about thirty minutes after I fed her and she had gotten to sleep, she would wake up crying/screaming/squirming. At first I was suspicious of gas (which could very well be part of it), but then I started paying close attention and noticed that she would act like she was choking, then gulp/swallow loudly, and wake up crying. I decided that even though most all newborns have some degree of reflux due to the LES (lower esophageal sphincter) muscle not being fully developed, my sweet girl needed some help. So we went to the peds office and saw Dr. Jones and thankfully he started us on Zantac. The day we went to the peds office was quite a day. Kyle was at work that day so it was just C and I. She cried and cried from around 8am to 1pm in between her feedings. As a nurse, I hate to freak out and make doctor's appointments for everything. But I knew this had to be addressed because it just wasn't right to watch her be bothered for that long. So I called and made her an appointment and we were headed that way for a 2:20 appointment. Somehow during the crying I managed to sit her in her bouncy seat on the bed and throw myself together so I didn't look completely sleep deprived. We saw Dr. Jones, got a prescription for infant Zantac drops, and headed to town to get it filled. We sat in the pharmacy drive thru for 15 minutes while C cried and cried. I had the car in park, turned around holding a paci in her mouth and talking to her. When you're sleep deprived, you cry a little too so of course I had tears brimming my eyes because I was alone and Kyle was at work and I felt helpless. The sweet pharmacist told me that Blue Cross had C's birthday wrong and we would have to get it fixed before they covered meds. I quickly replied that I would pay whatever it cost and basically thrust her my debit card. When we got our medicine, the pharmacist said the sweetest thing. She told me that she had been there many times and knew exactly what I was going through and that indeed it would get better. It was such a small gesture but meant the world to me. So here we are now at one month, on Zantac for a full 48 hours and I would like to say that I have seen a significant improvement (longer naps, less pain crying) but I hate to jinx it. So we will just have to see. 

Here are some of our favorite memories from this past month! (Some pics are from my camera, some are from iPhone. iPhone is so much handier…its hard to grab a camera all the time!)

We have the best neighborhood for strolling! Libby got in on the action with her big sister this day.

We visited Daddy at work and did a mile around the track while watching the track team practice. 

Then we went to Black's Old and New with Nana.

One night while feeling completely exhausted I was reminded by this burp cloth who is really in control here!

All ready for our stroll at Bridgestreet! Daddy, Caroline and I had the best trip. Round trip was four hours and this little sweet thing slept the whole entire time.

Got her all dolled up to stay covered up the whole time anyway! ;)

What we do most days. Selfies are totally okay as long as you capture sweet moments with your little sweetness!

This onesie is totally not true! Do not relax because nurse mommy isn't a nurse when it comes to her own baby! 

And of course here are some of our favorite newborn pictures… how am I supposed to choose how many to share out of one hundred pics?

Such a great first month with Caroline. I am learning more and more every day about being a mother and hoping that I can be the best mother to her that I can be. Thinking about how God gave his only son up for this cruel world has a whole new meaning to me now because I don't ever see how I could give up my child for someone who didn't even care that I was doing it for them. So thank you Lord for this perfect gift from above!