Sick and Tired

Lucy had her first really bad cold this week.  Sunday night was her worst night.  She was sick and I ended up tired.  She woke me up every 1.5 hours.  I ended up sleeping sitting up so I could hold her in an upright position so she could breath well enough to sleep.  We used lots and lots of saline nasal spray and the nasal aspirator (or booger sucker as we call it) and the cool mist humidifier (if you don't have one you should totally get one because they are amazing) and some tylenol when the going got really tough.  We seem to be coming out the other side of it now and I managed to successfully keep myself from giving her an antihistamine (which current medical recommendations say wouldn't have really helped anyway).  She is still a little oozy, but not nearly as bad as it was.  You can see from the pictures how truly pathetic she was.  The lesson I took away from this ordeal was this:  You can't pick your child, but you can pick your child's nose.

Easter Sunday

Sunday was Easter Sunday.  We all got ourselves together and got to church- 15 minutes late, but hey they were still singing.  Lucy listened to the sermon sitting in my lap and she enjoyed the singing.  She was wearing another of her vintage outfits- it was a dress of mine at one point.  She was pretty cute, but I'll let you judge for yourself from the pictures.  She got two Easter baskets- one from me and Papa and one from her Aunt Mandie and Uncle Joel.  In the pictures you will see her looking at a lamb hand puppet that was in the basket from Aunt Mandie.  I also tried to put her in the basket at one point, but she was too big and would not tolerate such shenanigans.

More Old pictures

Readers of this blog have seen most of these, but here's another slideshow.

Old Slideshow

I think I never posted this.

Bunny on the Move

Today Lucy got an Easter Basket in the mail from her Aunt Mandie.  We are saving the rest of the items in her basket for Easter Sunday, but we couldn't resist taking the bunny hat for a test drive this morning.  She ended up wearing it for the better part of the day- she even napped in it.  Thank you Aunt Mandie!  We'll post pictures of her with her basket on Easter too.

Lucy has made some progress this week with her motor skills.  She has occasionally been flipping over from front to back (the books say this is easier and usually the first way they flip)- well Miss Lucy decided this week to start flipping the other way too (from back to front).  I noticed today when I put her down in her pack-n-play while I put my hair into a ponytail.  When I came back she was on her tummy.  I mentioned this to her Papa over dinner tonight- very proud of my new discovery and he says "Oh yeah I saw her do that a couple of days ago."  Me: "So you were going to keep this a secret for how long?" Papa: "I didn't think it was a big deal."

You see if it's something that he already knows how to do he is not impressed.  I guess she's going to have to learn how to do acrobatics to impress Papa.  :-)  Anyway, I'm pretty impressed and proud of my little Lucy!

Green

Happy St. Patrick's day

Commenter of the Month Award and another Bumbo Pic

I am happy to announce that the first winner of the Commenter of the Month award goes to...

Uncle Lanko!!

Now for those of you unaware that this was an award to be earned- I just now decided to give one out.  What does he win?  He gets his picture posted along with Lucy's.  Yeah Uncle Lanko!!  The rest of you are going to have to do some serious commenting if you want to compete for the title next month.

Also, I am posting another picture of Lucy in her Bumbo chair- she likes it pretty well.  She gets to watch us eat dinner while sitting in it.  The Bumbo chair seems to work better than the swing.  So here you have it- Lucy in her chair and Uncle Lanko in his.

Just another day @ the ranch

IN TX for work a couple weeks ago, yes I too fell prey to the "buy baby stupid stuff" impulse. So here's some boots and a cowboy hat. Also featured is the Bumbo chair. Which are popular apparently. Anyway, Lucy likes it, thanks Anthony!

Aquarium

While Uncle Drew was home on leave we went to the aquarium.  I thought that Lucy and Marissa would be too little to really appreciate the fish, but I was wrong.  The brightly colored fish caught Lucy's attention and she would really watch them.  Her eyes would track them as they swam by.  It was so fun to watch her absorbing everything.  I think both girls had a good time, and it was nice to get to spend time with Uncle Drew too.  The very next day we had to put him on a plane back to Iraq, which was pretty tough.

A Sweater from Spain

Lucy received a very special gift in the mail a few weeks ago.  She got a hand made sweater all the way from Spain.  Her Papa has a cousin from Spain and her mother made this beautiful sweater for Lucy.  This is the same woman who made a stunning flower girl dress for the beautiful flower girl at our wedding (who just happened to be her grand daughter).  We love the sweater and plan to save it as a family heirloom that Lucy can one day give to her children- should she choose to have children.    

Vintage Plumpy

My mother gave me a couple of outfits that I wore when I was a baby.  The other day I decided to dress Lucy up in them and recreate some pictures that were taken of me in the outfit on an afghan that my Great Grandmother made.  First, Lucy is not quite big enough so the outfit was a little big on her.  Second, she was not apparently in the mood for a photo session.  I think we'll try again next month.

Orangunut/Plumpytan

Lucy has a baby orangutan-esque quality.

Plumpynut

From time to time you may hear Wes or I refer to Lucy as Plumpynut.  I thought I'd take a minute to explain the origins of this nickname.  

A couple of days before I went into labor we watched a special on PBS about a product called Plumpynut.  It is a substance made primarily out of peanut butter, dried milk, and multivitamins.  It is calorically dense and apparently tastes great.  It is very cheap to manufacture and is being used to save children in 3rd world countries from starvation.  I am adding a picture of the product to prove that it is a real thing.  If you don't believe me google it.  It's amazing stuff because it is saving lots of lives.  What does this have to do with Lucy you might ask?  Well, immediately after birth we were having quite a hard time with breastfeeding and I was freaking out that she was starving to death.  In an attempt to lighten the mood (or perhaps just because Wes and I are both bad about joking at inappropriate times) Wes said we were going to have to feed her plumpynut and I replied "No she is a little plumpynut"

Thus a nickname was born.  In subsequent days she learned to nurse quite well and is living up to the nickname.  We call her Plumpy, Nut, Nutter, Plumpynutter, and pretty much any other derivation of Plumpynut that we can come up with.  Will we still call her this if she turns out to be an obese child or teenager?  I don't know- let's hope we don't ever have to find out.

Sunday

So we went to church this Sunday for like the 3rd or 4th time since Lucy joined the crowd.  The best part about going to church now (besides spiritual renewal and fellowship) is getting to dress Lucy up in some adorable outfit.  The one you see pictured here came with the little headband.  Generally I am opposed to these headbands because I think they look like they cut off circulation, but this one seemed loose and once I put it on her- I was sold!  Anyway, judge for yourself, but I think the overall effect was adorableness!

Making Friends

Lucy got to hang out with her neighbor and new friend Garvey for a little while on Wednesday night.  They were so funny together.  I swear they had conversations.  Here's one I overheard.

Garvery: "EEErk plut baffle gaf"

Lucy: "Blurg blurg ppppft."

In this picture I'm pretty sure Garvey was about to "pat" the baby or what could probably be more accurately termed "whack" the baby, but hey gentle is not a term a 9 month old really gets.