7 months old

In honor of Alison's 7 month birthday, here's some comparison pictures so you can see how much she's grown and new list of some fun facts about her. Enjoy!

Alison at home in our apartment in Germany at 1 week old.

Alison hanging out with Daddy at Rock-Ola Cafe in Fayetteville this week (7 months old).



Alison in her car seat right before we left the hospital.

Alison in her car seat this afternoon.

When she's super cranky and we're in the car, the one thing that most consistently calms her down is Metallica, specifically "Master of Puppets". Trust me, it's been witnessed by other people. It's like flipping a switch when she hears that music.

She has a smile that is like nothing I've ever seen and a laugh like nothing I've ever heard.

When she smiles, her eyes crinkle at the corners like mine do. I already feel bad that she has inherited this trait from me!

There has only been two foods that she hasn't liked so far- peaches and meat. But then again, have you smelled the meat baby food? I don't blame her for not liking it!

Alison can still wear some 0-3 month clothes.

Her favorite place to play and hang out is her exersaucer. She will play in that thing for hours!

She is very social and loves to meet new people but also gets very overwhelmed by large crowds very easily.

She's starting to crawl! Only it's not the typical crawling. She's more like a little inchworm. She'll throw herself forward and then drag the rest of her body along behind her. It's hilarious to watch but she's so proud of herself. Her favorite thing right now is to crawl around chasing the cat.

I'm having trouble letting Alison sleep in her crib overnight. It was not my intention to have her cosleep at all, much less for this long! She does sleep in her pack and play for most of the night but the thought of having her all the way across the house from us after being right next to us for 7 months makes me so nervous.

Every morning, she wakes up with smile on her face. It's the most amazing thing to see first thing in the morning!

I am so lucky to have such an amazing daughter.

Busy busy busy

See, I knew that it wouldn't be long before I fell down on updating this blog! Here's what's been going on..

We got a call back from UNC about Alison's weight gain. I never did hear from the nutritionist (which still sort of upsets me) but when it got to be Friday morning and we still hadn't heard anything, I called the nurse and she called me back within an hour. She said that as long as Alison is gaining weight, that's the important thing and not get too caught up in the numbers. So I guess everything there is ok for now.
One of the great things about taking Alison to a CF Center is that she has a whole team of doctors, or "her entourage" as we call it, that we will see consistently every time we go. She has a pulmonoligist (I know that's spelled wrong), nutritionist, nurse, and physical therapist that know her history and are so caring. It's obvious that these doctors truly care about what they do and that's good to see when you're putting your little girl's health in their hands.

We had a pretty busy weekend, which is really not the norm for us lately. We went out to dinner on Friday, simply because I'm sick of cooking at home! Then Saturday, we went to a cookout at out friend's the McLeans. We knew Chris and Cyndi when we were in Germany, Chris was actually Will's sponsor when we got there, and we now live about 5 minutes apart, which is a lot of fun! They just had a new little baby boy, Wyatt Andrew, and he is just precious. We had fun for about the first 2 hours and then poor little Alison just started melting down. There were lots of people there and she's just not used to that. Usually, it's just her and me hanging out at the house by ourselves! Oh, there was also the little issue of her not really having taken a good nap that day. Yeah, that's makes for a super fun baby. So unfortunately, we had to cut our visit a little short and take our cranky baby home.
On Sunday, we headed up to Raleigh to my family. We went to church at my Dad's church, where he preached an awesome sermon on God's love, and then went to TGI Friday's for an early birthday lunch for me. (Today is my birthday!) After lunch, we went back to Mom and Dad's and just hung around for a few hours and then came on back home. The really cool part... My younger sister, Lauren, came with us! She actually took today and tomorrow off of work so she could come hang out with me on my birthday! We're planning on driving to Duplin Winery this afternoon, which I'm really excited about.

I'm off to make some coffee and enjoy a birthday doughnut (or two!).

Just another day

I can already tell that the hardest part about doing this blog thing is trying to find something to write about! Alison and I pretty much stay at home most of the time. Because of her CF, I'm more than a little nervous to have her out too much while it's still cold/ flu/ RSV season. But we do get out every now and then! Today we headed to Womack for a weight check. Alison gets a shot once a month to help protect against RSV and she has to be weighed a week before. She's 13 pounds, 2.2 ounces. We're a smidge concerned because she's only gained about 5 ounces since her last appointment in Chapel Hill almost 2 weeks ago so we're waiting on a call back from her nutritionist to see what she thinks.

My plan is to tell a little about Cystic Fibrosis and what it means for Alison every now and then. As I wrote earlier, right now, her pancreas and nutrition is what is most affected. Her body simply doesn't make the enzymes that ours does to be able to break down the fats in her food (formula and baby food). She's on an enzyme supplement that has really made a difference. She's gaining weight (although not quite fast enough) and going longer between feedings, even at night. She was waking up every 2-3 hours, even up until about 2 months ago. Now, she's sleeping for about 6-8 hours at time! For the short term, she'll take the enzymes before each bottle and baby food meal. She takes them mixed in with a little bit of fruit puree and she does really well with it. The pill is a little capsule that we break open and pour the beads into her fruit. For the long term, Alison will be on the diet that we all dream of- as many calories and fats as she can get! Here's a direct quote from an information sheet we got from the CF Center: "Always eat foods high in fat, calories, and salt." Yes, salt. CF also affects the salt production in the body. We have to add a pinch of salt to one bottle a day to help make up for what her body isn't making on its own. So I will probably never be able to say to Alison "no sweetie, you can't have that Happy Meal, it's not good for you" because that's actually exactly what she needs!

One of the most difficult things about CF is that it's impossible to know what the outcome will be. The disease can mean very different things for each person. Only time will tell what it means for Alison.

Other than our trip to the doctor, we had a quiet day at home. My back has been bothering me all day so I've been vegging out and trying to take it easy. Of course, that means that nothing that needed to be done (dishes, unpacking boxes, etc) got done. But there's always tomorrow, right?!

One last thing... Like most (almost) 7 month olds, pretty much everything that Alison comes into contact with winds up in her mouth. I went into her room to get her after she woke up from her nap to see her chewing on her sock. And she wouldn't let it go, even through a diaper and clothes change! Here's a cute picture of her continuing to chew on her sock, plus another fun picture of her great smile.

Trying again

As you can tell by the very old post below, I've tried this blogging thing before. I'm really really really going to try and be more diligent about posting from now on. We've got lots of friends and family all over the world and this is the best way I can think to keep everyone up to date on what our little family is up to.

We finally moved! After spending over 5 years in Schweinfurt, Germany, we have moved to Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. It was a pretty rough couple of months and moving with an infant sure wasn't fun but we're happy to be here. Will and I both call North Carolina home and it's good to be home! We bought a house just north of Fayetteville and we couldn't be happier with it. It's in a small and quiet neighborhood sort of out in the country. Here are some pictures of the outside:

Alison and I standing on the front porch on Christmas morning (3 days after we moved in!).

The view down our street on the day of the BIG snow!


Our house covered in snow.

We're slowly but surely getting settled and unpacking boxes. I'll post more of the inside of the house as things get better. Right now, it's not much to look at but I've got BIG plans for just about every room!

Alison is getting bigger and more active every day. She's almost 7 months now. It amazes me when I think about how fast time has been flying by. Everyone warned me about this when I was pregnant and I guess I knew that it would happen but it still makes me sad to think about fast she's changing. I packed up a bunch of her 0-3 month clothes a couple of weeks ago and I almost started crying! I kept thinking about places that she had worn those outfits and things that we had done together and even though I'm thrilled that she's growing up, it still makes me sad.

Her Christmas haul... She's not spoiled, just very well loved!

She has the best smile!

Our little leprechaun!

Some of you may know this, but we've had some health news about Alison that I'd like to share. We found out while we were still in Germany that Alison most likely has Cystic Fibrosis. Because we knew that we were on our way back to the States, we waited on starting any treatment. Once we got here, we met with the doctors at Womack Army Hospital and they sent us to the Cystic Fibrosis Center at UNC Chapel Hill's Children's Hospital. At this appointment, they were able to do the sweat test, which is considered the standard for diagnosing CF. As we expected, it came with a positive diagnosis. The problem with CF is that your body makes too much sticky mucus and it clogs up major organs and keeps them from doing their jobs. CF mainly affects the lungs and pancreas. Alison is most affected by the pancreas part of CF. She's been a little slow to gain weight because her body just isn't absorbing the fat that it should from her food. This is fairly easily fixed with pancreatic enzyme supplements, which she'll take for the rest of life before she eats anything. We are so lucky that it doesn't appear that the CF is affecting her lungs in any way right now. I encourage you to go the CF Foundation website at http://www.cff.org/ to learn about Cystic Fibrosis and to find ways in your own communities to help us find a cure for this disease.

Will is getting settled in his job. I wish that I could tell you about it but I honestly have no idea what he does! He seems to like it ok. We are all very happy that his job does not involve a deployment anytime soon! He will probably have to make a couple of trips to Kuwait in the next few months but that's only for a few weeks at a time so it's not that bad.

As for me, I'm still trying to find a niche in Fayetteville. We are very lucky that we have family and old friends close by and we do have some friends from Germany living in Fayetteville. I think that I just got spoiled by how easy it was to make friends in Germany! I've started going to MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) and I'm very excited about that. Hopefully that will be one way to get out of the house and meet some new people. I've also signed Alison up for swimming lessons at the YMCA! We went swimming together for the first time on Monday and she loved it! I thought that she would, considering how much she loves bathtime.

So that's what we're up to. I promise that I'll really try to keep this up to date with lots of pictures and news about Alison. If you have any suggestions for how to make this better, let me know!!