Twenty-Two Weeks

Breathing treatments have ended, thank goodness, and the cough seems to be slowly on its way out.

We're still waking up every couple of hours (and sometimes five times within an hour) due to the unfortunate pacifier drop, or so it seems. Fortunately, there is no feeding or changing so our wake-ups typically aren't long, but try setting your alarm every hour or two and then feeling rested the next day. Impossible. Now that Surrey's almost over her sickness, we're going to try and transition her out of the swaddle, so that ultimately, we can let her cry it out longer in the night. We're hoping she'll learn to soothe herself by either finding her pacifier or her own hand when she wakes up in the middle of the night. To begin the transition, during naps I put zip her arms inside a sleep slack. This gives her arms the freedom to move, but prohibits her little fingers from yanking out the pacifier. And Surrey is really into taking out her pacifier right now when she's tired, but yet, needs it to sleep. Strange. She's seriously like a dog fighting a chew toy with her hands at her mouth.

Our now five month old (!!!) has made herself known this past week, becoming very acquainted with her vocal cords. She is downright loud. Instead of crying when she needs something in the middle of the night, she now yells. During the day when she's talking, she's typically yelling, shrieking even. I affectionately call it scream-talking.

In addition to being noisy, our child is a mess. Literally, very messy. We now have to double-bib her most times to feed her, and typically cannot make it from one feeding to the next without changing her outfit at least once. Ever since she got sick she now spits out a lot of food while eating, and she continues to have a spit-up problem (but apparently not reflux). She grossly spits up one and a half to two hours after she's eaten. Ugh. This afternoon in a two hour span she went through two burp cloths, three onesies, two skirts, and ended up in her diaper until bed. Sheesh. Needless to say, we're doing wash every other day because we run out of bibs and burp cloths.

And even after doing this twenty-two times, she continues to be mesmerized by the camera and rarely flinches.

Twenty-One Weeks

Surrey barely flinched for this photo shoot. What you see is what you get.

Poor girl still had not gotten over her horrendous cough after a week so I put a call in to the pediatrician last Thursday to see if she should be seen. Because of her age they thought it would be wise to see her, so off we went less than two hours later. Her doctor said she's over the virus (although she still has a mildly runny nose so I don't get it) but she has inflammation going on in the lungs. Long story short (mostly because I can't remember the details) they have her doing breathing treatments via a nebulizer. It's awful. Most of the time Surrey screams, unless she allows herself to be soothed to my wonderful renditions of "Wheels on the Bus" and "Rock-a-bye Baby/Surrey." And who wouldn't? It's so loud, there's steam all up in her face, and it's not a quick process. Fortunately, tomorrow we scale back from every four hours to just three times a day, then two the next, and just one the next. It hasn't done wonders quite yet, but hopefully by the time she's finished she'll be good as new.

In other news, Daylight Savings seems to have really thrown her for a loop. We thought we'd actually not lose an hour of sleep, thinking Sunday morning she wouldn't know the difference and wake up at 7:30/8:00 instead of 6:30/7:00. Wrongo. 7:15 (which was like 6:15). Gosh this time thing is confusing. And today, she slept til 8:00 and so her normal bedtime of 6:30 was pushed back til 7:30. WHO KNOWS.

We're still up for what feels like the majority of the night doing laps to and from her room to put in the pacifier or ease the burden of the coughing. We are anxiously awaiting the day we can put her back in her crib (right now she has to be propped up) and begin the transition to sleeping unswaddled, which will hopefully allow her to find her fingers when she drops her pacifier. Wishful thinking.

Twenty Weeks

Surrey's in her 20s now, are you kidding me?! Poor little girl has had it rough this past week and unfortunately, looks like it's not over. Surrey got sick for the first time and let me tell you it has been anything but pleasant. It's heartbreaking to see her watery eyes and her runny nose, and to listen to her congestion and cough. I find myself clearing my own throat when hers sounds like it needs clearing, but to no avail. Her cough has become increasingly worse we think, and continues to wake her up constantly. She had a low-grade fever back on Thursday, but since then hasn't had one at all, which is why the doctors say there's nothing we can really do for her. They think it's a virus since she has minor stomach issues, too. She's still eating, although a whole lot messier than usual. We have to change her outfit at least once between each feeding because she's crazy with the feeding. Not to mention her drool problem. She's actually thrown up a couple times we think since having seen the doctor, and so they may be seeing us for a third time if things persist much longer. Disgusting. And incredibly sad.

On a lighter note, sheesh, this little lady seems to want to roll over from back to belly. She's been turning and laying on her side a lot the past couple days. Early last week she also became very into her tongue. She likes to stick it out, lick her lips, and even has shown mimicking behavior with it. Good times.

Nineteen Weeks

Here is our nineteen week old baby girl, showing off her flexibility. And apparently also preparing for sunbathing season, which makes sense considering it was 78 degrees a few days ago. Surrey can't get enough of her toes nowadays. She's very into smacking her lips together and sucking on a phantom pacifier. It's weird, but so cute. Surrey also turned a corner recently, actually smiling and laughing for visiting friends and then my family this past weekend. We're headed in the right direction! Yesterday was her first time in childcare at church. Although it was technically naptime and she only dozed for about fifteen minutes, she was lovely. That's all that counts right now.

Oh, and here's a little behind the scenes video for you on this cloudy day. Now you can see why in most of the pictures there's a blurry limb or two - her frantic movements are quite difficult to capture.

Eighteen Weeks

Surrey is growing, growing, growing! She loves grabbing her feet and loves biting on her finger gun all the time. That's right, finger gun. She's not quite into just sucking on the thumb, and not quite into sucking on the thumb and finger close together. Strange, but true. Finally she is actively interested in toys - reaching for them, getting excited to hold them, suck on them, or knock them over! I was worried she wasn't going to develop this skill.

In response to my own post from last week, we've decided to swaddle her again for naps and bedtime and we think that's the ticket. At least for naps. Night is still pretty wretched, but she's been taking really good naps since being swaddled again (although she oftentimes muscles her way out).

This four month old is about to move onto solid foods for the first time. Oh boy!

Seventeen Weeks

Can't believe this girl will be four months old on Friday. She's being a little feisty in her old age, not sleeping as well as she used to - mostly because she's obsessed with pulling out her pacifier but freaks once it's out. It's horrible. Any moms have any suggestions on what to do about this?? She bites on her hands but can't figure out the thumb-sucking soothing technique. Bah.

But more and more she's developing and growing, which is exciting to see. She's finally getting the hang of using two hands to grab things.

Sixteen Weeks

It only took sixteen weeks, but I think Surrey is finally waking up for the camera. I couldn't pick just one shot from today since so many made me literally laugh out loud. The camera definitely seems to add on chubbiness and take away neck length.

She's definitely waking up as her own little person, too. She had me cracking up this afternoon as she laughed, talked very loudly, and went to town baby-kissing the heck out of my face. As of a couple days ago, the brand new swing that I almost sold on craigslist became her best friend. In weeks prior, if we tried to put her in it she'd scream and wouldn't even relax her legs enough to actually qualify as sitting in it. Now, she'll smile, suck on her hands (that means she loves it), and stare happily at the very bland hanging giraffe and lion for a significant length of time. This morning she decided to work up enough coordination to pull out her pacifier by the handle. No thank you, Surrey. I never thought I'd say it but, don't grow up that fast.

Feast your eyes on our chubby little lady. I failed to mention at her 13-week appointment she was 50th percentile for weight, 75th percentile for height, and 90th percentile for head circumference. You go girl.