Liliana - One Month!

Today is Liliana's one month birthday!  I cannot believe that Liliana is already one month old!  This month has completely flown by.  I cannot believe that my maternity leave is already 1/4th over.  Lily definitely has acid reflux, and it has gotten worse in the last couple of weeks.  We started her on Zantac last week, and so far I have yet to notice any improvement.  I am going to give Liliana's pediatrician a call later today to discuss increasing the dosage or switching to a different medicine.  Lily can take some bottles with no problem, but approximately 40 percent of the time she will cough and gag and scream while drinking a bottle, usually only drinking about half of it.  Then she will arch her back and scream in pain for several minutes after.  She also has similar "episodes" like Frankie had, where she will stop breathing for several seconds and then gasp for air and then scream.  Hopefully we will find the right combination of medicine and formula soon to help her tummy.

I am still breastfeeding/pumping, but I am only producing approximately 75 percent of what Lily needs, so she also gets formula at almost every feeding.  I have both good days and bad days with breastfeeding, and I have not decided how long I am going to keep it up.  I am currently aiming for six weeks, but at some point every day I contemplate giving up, so we will see.  It is very frustrating to have to breastfeed, pump, and then give a bottle every single feeding, especially at night.  Lily does not seem to tolerate breast milk any better than the formula, but I know it is good for her to get as much as possible.

Other than her feeding issues, Lily also has sleeping issues, probably due to the reflux.  She does not usually go down the first time you put her down and often has to be picked up and re-consoled several times before falling asleep.  I put her in her crib for the first time a couple of nights ago, (she had been sleeping in the pack-n-play downstairs before that), and she slept for a 3 hour stretch, a 2-hour stretch, and then another 2-hour stretch...which was not great.  She has slept for longer stretches in the boppy and pack-n-play, and she slept for nine hours straight in her car seat a few nights ago, so I know she is capable of sleeping longer.  We will just have to keep working on it!

Lily really reminds me a lot of Frankie as a baby.   She is mostly sweet, alert, and calm, but she also can SCREAM when she is hungry.  My mom keeps saying that she is going to be a diva.  She absolutely loves her swing.  She also likes being in the stroller and the car.  She is just starting to become fascinated with mirrors and like laying on her play mat.  She doesn't mind tummy time too much, and we try to do that for at least 10-15 minutes every day.  She still hates being bathed, but I discovered last night that she likes it better when she is partially submerged in warm water.

She is transitioning out of newborn and into size 0-3 month clothes and size 1 diapers.  She seemed to have a growth spurt while we were in San Antonio, and she already seems so much bigger to me!  She has some baby acne on her sweet face, which will hopefully clear up soon.

Last night I started doing a bedtime routine, which I think really helped Frankie start sleeping through the night.  I change her diaper, give her a bath, do a baby massage with some lotion, put on PJs, feed her, swaddle her, and then either sing/rock or read books and then put her in her crib.  Last night, Frankie and Lily were both in bed and asleep at 8:30 and I felt so accomplished!  But then Lily woke up and had to be consoled twice, finally going down around 9:15.  Not perfect, but it was still an improvement!

Here are a few more pictures of my sweet girl from this last week:

Houston with a little detour to San Antonio

We spent the last 8 days on the road with these two cuties visiting Houston and San Antonio.  We finally returned to Dallas last night, and I am so so happy to be home!  We had a great little "vacation," but it was hard to be away from our house and all of our stuff with a three-week-old baby.  The kids both did really well for the most part, but it was certainly an adventure for Mommy and Daddy.  We had been planning to go to Houston for Jennifer and Mark's baby shower and so that Frank could go to an event in College Station in support of Monte's new home.  Originally, Frank planned to go to San Antonio for the Fourth of July to celebrate Monte's alive day, and I planned to stay in Houston with the two kids.  However, when we found out that Frank's Mom and most of his sisters also planned to be in San Antonio, we decided to all go and take the kids.  We stayed at an Embassy Suites, where we had a great little suite with a separate room and bed for Frankie, and a mini kitchen with a sink, refrigerator, and microwave to make bottle washing, sanitizing, and milk storage easier.  It worked great!  But, it was still a big challenge to put both kids to sleep and to get up and out of the hotel room in the mornings.  I had a mini-breakdown one night because I was up with Liliana and Frank was asleep with Frankie in the other room, and I just felt like I was not getting any help or any sleep.  Thankfully, the next night was much better!  We spent the Fourth at a beautiful home with Frank's family.  Frank's Mom helped a lot with Liliana, and Frank's sisters and brother did a wonderful job entertaining Frankie.  Frankie especially bonded with Frank's sister Mimi.  Mimi's middle name is Liliana, and we named our daughter after her.  It was great to see Monte and the rest of Frank's family on such a special day!  Monte was very excited about his house in College Station, and he cannot wait to get out of the hospital to move there.

After three days in San Antonio, we headed back to Houston for another couple of days to visit with my parents and brother before heading back to Dallas late Saturday night.  Liliana slept for pretty much the entirety of every single car ride we took, which was a blessing.  On the last drive from Houston to Dallas, she slept for the entire 4-hour car ride, and then slept for an additional five hours in her car seat once we got home!  So she slept for nine hours in a row.  She had previously not slept longer than a 5.5 hour stretch, so I am sure this was a fluke, but I am hoping it is the start of a new trend!

It was great to spend a week with family, but we are very happy to be home and to start settling into a routine here.  Frank starts his new job tomorrow, and we are all very excited about that!

Here are a bunch of pictures from our time in Houston and San Antonio:

20 questions

Frankie has entered a new phase where he asks questions about everything.  We did a lot of driving this past week, and our car trips were filled with Frankie asking, "Mommy, where are we going?"  "Are we in San Antonio, Mommy?"  "Are we?"  "Are we going to Nana and Papa's house?"  "Right now?"  "Mommy, are we in Houston?"  He often asks the same question over and over and over, even if I answer it.  He will say, "Mommy are we in Houston?"  I will say "Yes," and then he will say, "Mommy are we in Houston?  Yes or no?"  Ha.  It is cute and funny, but it does get pretty annoying.  He always wants to know where we are, where we are going, and who did what.  He always asks "Who [put that object there] [turned off the light] [moved that chair] [etc]?"  and then "Who did it?"  When you answer him, he will typically say, "Cause why?"  He is a very curious boy, and I know that this is just the beginning of his asking questions.  I sometimes get frustrated when he asks the same question over and over and over and over...but I am trying to be patient.  I love watching how his little mind works!

Museum

On Monday while we were in Houston, we took Frankie and Liliana up to the Houston Museum of Natural Science, Sugar Land location.  Frankie loved it!  The museum was pretty small, and it was geared especially towards little kids.  He got to see dinosaurs, watch a movie in the planetarium, and jump around in a big ball pit.  Liliana slept the whole time.  It was great to spend some special time with  Frankie!  Here are some pictures from the museum:

Four generations!

On Sunday, Baby Lily got to meet her GG and Great Grandpa for the first time!  The picture above has my Grandma, my Mom, me and Lily--four generations.  We took a similar picture with Frankie, my Dad, Frank, and my grandpa when Frankie was born.  It is so special that I still have three living grandparents, and that Frankie and Lily have three great grandparents.  Liliana is having a big week--we took her first road trip down to Houston on Friday (she slept the entire way!), she got to meet my grandparents and a bunch of my parents' friends, and we are taking both kids to San Antonio on Wednesday to meet a bunch of Frank's family and celebrate the Fourth of July and Monte's "Alive Day," which is the one-year anniversary of his IED accident.  It is a big week, but so far, Lily is being a trooper and doing great.

Here are a couple of more pictures from this weekend:

First outing with both kids

Our first *official* outing with both kids was a big success!  We actually took them both to Sam's Club briefly one day last week after we picked Frankie up from day care, and that turned into a huge disaster, but that was an impromptu stop so I am not counting it as our first official outing.  We took both of the kids to Northpark on Saturday to buy my awesome new computer and get a birthday present for Nana. It went great!  I distinctly remember our first trip to the mall with Frank, Frankie, and I, when we took him to see Santa Clause when he was probably a month old.  That trip was a DISASTER.  Frank and I got into a huge fight in the mall parking lot, and we almost turned around and left before we even went inside.  This time, we were much more laid back.  We managed to locate the elevators and find the perfect potty for Frankie--side note, Northpark has the best rest facilities EVER, who knew? We bought everything we intended to buy, enjoyed some pretzels, and had no tears or fights.  It was a miracle!  Let's hope every trip out is this easy.  I have taken Frankie to day care with Lily, but so far I have not attempted to take both kids out and about by myself.  I need a little more time to build up to that :)  We are leaving for Houston later this afternoon, so it will be Lily's first big road trip.  I really hope it goes well!

2 week stats

Today I took Lily to the doctor for her two-week check up.  Poor baby girl has a bit of a cold!  She is a little bit congested, and she had a very slight fever of 99.0.  Frankie has a cold right now, so we assume she caught it from him.  The doctor said that otherwise she looked great, but we need to keep an eye on the fever to make sure it does not go up above 100.5.  Otherwise, the appointment went great!  Liliana is back above her birth weight at 7 lbs 13 ounces.  She is at the 40th percentile for weight, 54th percentile for height, and 44th percentile for head size.  We are continuing to mostly breastfeed, but also supplement with formula when needed.  I am taking Fenugreek, pumping like crazy, and trying everything I can to get my milk supply up so that we do not need to supplement with formula, but, as long as she is happy and growing, I am happy.  We think she has a touch of acid reflux, as she is exhibiting some of the same behavior that Frankie had, but we are going to watch it for now before we start with medicine.