Rachel At Four Months

By this point, Rachel is really almost five months old.  :)  I have made a goal to be caught up on 2013 blogging before 2014, so what follows will be very out of order, but at least it will be done.

I know I've said it one hundred times before, but I will say it again...this little girl is a true delight to our family.  We are all head over heels in love with this fluffy-haired-big-mouth-big-ears-girl.  She gets almost constant attention from her siblings and they are almost always the first ones into her room when they hear her wake up from a nap.  

I have always loved babies, but with each baby I have I enjoy them more and more.  I love the one-on-one moments I get with this little girl.  I never get tired of her huge open mouth smiles; they make me giggle right along with her.  Oh, how she is loved in this house!

Anyway, onto some memorable things about this girl of ours...

*Height:  24 1/4 inches (30%)  Weight:  12 lbs. 13 oz. (15%)  Head:  42 cm (80%).  She remains our smallest baby, but she still has some good rolls on her arms and thighs.  I'm glad she's still squishy, despite her low weight.

*She is so quick to smile and she is ticklish under her chin, on her tummy, and on her thighs.  

*She is a little high pitched squealer.  At this age Bridget was growling, so it has been fun to contrast that with the sometimes ear piercing squeals we hear coming out of Rachel.  

*She has made zero attempts to roll over.  Occasionally she seems to almost be going to her side, but that never lasts long.  I'm sure this is in part due to the lack of tummy time she has had.  My bad.  Third children really get the shaft on some things.  But really, with her reflux, she spits up almost any time we put her on her tummy so I have bagged it almost all together.  She'll roll over one day.

*She can grab at toys and almost instantly puts them in her mouth.

*We just started playing peek-a-boo with her and she LOVES it.

*Just yesterday she started grabbing at her feet.

*She was an excellent sleeper until about three weeks ago.  Boo for me.  :(  About three weeks ago she started doing one of two things at night.  Either she would just wake up once, but then be awake for an hour and a half.  Or she would wake up two or three times to eat.  Baaaa!!!  Thankfully, she has returned to her normal of going right back to bed after eating, but we certainly had a few rough nights there.  So now she is just waking up two or three times a night to eat.  After several nights of this I decided to give her some rice cereal in the evenings to hopefully fill her up some more.  That backfired BIG TIME.  After three awful nights we have quit the rice cereal.  She would eat it okay, but then seem so uncomfortable at night.  It was taking her forever to fall asleep, so that was no good.  Our next move was pears.  Last night was her fourth try with pears and she actually ate the entire thing and then slept from 8:00 until 4:00-hooray!  Tonight I tried some oatmeal with the pears.  She devoured the pears, but was less interested in the oatmeal.  We're trying to figure this all out.  I've never had a child be so tricky with food.  But, I've also never had a baby with reflux.  

And now for some pictures of Rachel Louise, who we have also nicknamed Rachel Bean...not sure why.  :)   I just realized this is a major picture overload...this little girl does not get her fair share on here.

Marshall's doing...

Just chillin' on the Lovesac watching Daddy and Marshall play basketball.

First Thanksgiving.  :)

This captures my favorite moments every day with Rachel.  After every diaper change I stand her up on the changing table and she always gives me a huge smile every single time.  She even did this for the pediatrician.  He kept standing her up on the table because he got the biggest kick out of it.

Love the chub on this 12 lb. girl.

Hello hair.  It will be a sad day for me when her hair isn't like this anymore.

 

Christmas 2013

We have had a WONDERFUL Christmas break.  I, for one, am enjoying sleeping in, that means waking up at 7:30.  :)  I love that we aren't scrambling to get out of the house by 7:45 every morning.  We have hardly left our house since Monday morning.  We have spent our time playing in the snow, watching Christmas movies, making sugar cookies, and of course, playing with new toys.  I'm glad we still have a few more days of this relaxing lifestyle left.

We have inches upon inches of snow outside.  This makes things a little difficult for Bridget.  She hasn't been loving the snow this time around.

Making sugar cookies.

Bridget helped for a long time cutting out the cookies.  She then started stealing piece of dough and decorated this little cookie cutter.  By the end this bear had dough in all his corners.

I must admit I was shocked when Richard came in the kitchen and started frosting cookies with the kids.  He's a keeper.

Our Christmas Eve dinner.  Ham, potatoes, rolls, and sugar cookies.  Yum. Yum. Yum.

After talking about the Christmas story and watching a few movies on the Mormon Channel, we moved onto Christmas pajamas.  The excitement was exploding out of our house.  Marshall and Bridget were beside themselves.  We splurged this year and got them slippers as well.  Huge hit.

A new favorite picture of mine.  You can't tell, but Marshall has his arm around Bridget.  He did that all on his own.  He can be such a good big brother.

The one picture where Rachel is actually looking at the camera.

On Christmas morning Richard and I were the first ones awake...at 6:00 am!  We were both too excited to sleep any more.  Marshall and Rachel woke up at 7:00 and we had to wake Bridget up at 7:30.  Then the presents began.

Bridget got her fair share of "Jake Stuff".  She loves that pirate.

Santa thought it would be a good idea to bring three Nerf guns into this house.  I think Santa is crazy.

Bridget got Marshall this Chewy stuffed animal.  Marshall was thrilled to add him to Darth Vader.

Bubble wrap.  In November Marshall threw a penny in a fountain and wished for bubble wrap.  Grandma Becky made his wish come true.  As you can tell, he was quite pleased.

We spent the rest of our day skyping with family and playing with new toys.  It was the most relaxing Christmas we've ever had.  We all loved it!

There's A First...And Second Time For Everything

In Bridget's two years and nine months of life I have called 911 twice for her, she's gotten x-rays twice, and made two visits to the ER.  The two ER visits and one set of x-rays all happened between Wednesday and Saturday.  Sheesh.  This girl has had it rough.

On Wednesday afternoon we had just finished lunch and I had gone into the kitchen to put the dishes away.  I had been in there less than a minute when I heard a thud, I ran into the living room to discover Bridget on the floor, not moving, and Marshall standing by her.  It took some prodding, but he finally confessed that he had just taken her feet out from under her while she was running.  Bridget came to after about a minute and then sat on the couch for the next 35 minutes quite pale watching the itouch.  Initially I wasn't too worried because she has been known to pass out after hitting her head, but the more I thought about it I realized that she never cried after she fell, which she has always done before.  I put a call into the nurse at the pediatrician's office and after some back and forth we decided it would be best to take her to the ER.  By this time she was acting completely normal, but given her past history, and the fact that Richard was overnight at the hospital, I didn't want to be dealing with a disaster on my own later that night.  So, I packed us up and dropped Marshall off at the Hassell's and met Richard in the ER.  We spent two hours there and thankfully everything checked out just fine.  Bridget was so cooperative for the whole thing and they gave her a sticker book when we left.  She has loved the sticker book and also loved her hospital bracelet; she refused anyone taking it off.  End of story one, onto story two...

Last night we had put Marshall and Bridget to bed.  Richard was downstairs and I was in the living room feeding Rachel rice cereal.  After about ten minutes Marshall and Bridget came out to the living room and I told them they needed to go back to their room, shut the door, get in bed, and go to sleep.  They obediently ran back into the room, but Bridget came back around the corner, leaving her arm and hand behind her wrapped around the door frame.  The next five seconds played out in slow motion for me.  As soon as I saw her peak around the corner I knew she was going to get her hand slammed in the door.  I yelled "No!!!" in the most guttural sounds my body has ever produced.  But, I was too late, Marshall had slammed the door, not realizing that Bridget's hand was there.  Richard came running upstairs just as I opened the door and pulled out Bridget's extremely crimped third and fourth fingers.  They looked awful.  We spent the next 30 minutes trying to console a screaming Bridget, begging her to take medicine, and put ice on her hand, looking up medical stuff, and waiting for the doctor to call us back.  At 8:15, I packed up Bridget and headed back to the ER.  They cut off her old hospital bracelet and put on her new one; that at least made her happy.  The x-rays revealed no broken bones, which amazed the doctor, and he mentioned to me multiple times that it is a miracle her fingernails stayed on.  Geez.  We got home about 10:30 and put her right to bed.  She woke up at 12:45 screaming in pain and it took Richard and I a good 15 minutes to convince her to take more medicine.  We have to give her ibuprofen every six hours on the dot or she gets pretty uncomfortable.  But really, she has been a champ.  She is only doing things one handed today, but doesn't seem to mind.  She is going to have some awesome looking fingernails for the next several months, but at least we aren't dealing with broken bones!

 I knew going back to the ER for the second time in four days was going to look bad from an abuse standpoint.  I was nervous!  The doctor was so kind though and told me that the exact same thing happened to one of his kids once.  After he left though two nurses came in and after asking me some questions asked me if there are any safety concerns in our home.  Ouch, that kind of hurt.  In my head I answered, "No safety issues, just a big brother, and an extreme case of bad luck!"  I assured them everything was fine and thankfully they believed me because they didn't pursue anything after that!

 Look at these pictures only if you have a strong stomach!  These were taken this afternoon, almost 24 hours after the incident.  They look so much better than last night!  

 

She won't let us buddy tape them or put on any band-aids, so we are just watching them heal!  Last night I was not bothered at all looking at them, but today, any time I look at them my stomach just churns!  Those poor little fingernails!

No breaks.  Richard agrees.  :)

Man oh man, the Leake family's year of 2013 has been quite the medical one.  Thank goodness for excellent insurance, or we might be broke!  Here's what we've encountered...

*My pregnancy, which involved eight ultrasounds, way more than I had with my other kids.

*Finding out at 39 weeks that Rachel was sidewise, moving up my induction date with the possibility of a c-section.

*Bridget jumping off the couch in January, limping for two days, and getting her first x-ray.

And just since August, when Rachel was born...

*I have made TEN visits to the pediatrician, one trip to urgent care, called 911 once, and visited the ER twice.

Incredible. 

Honestly, it will be a miracle if we can make it through the end of the year without one call to any doctor's office.  

But, all that being said, with all of these crazy things that have happened, we have really had the best possible outcomes in every situation.  Rachel cooperated and was head down so I was able to have a normal delivery.  Bridget, despite everything, has yet to break a bone, ride in an ambulance, or be admitted to the hospital.  I'm convinced we have a few guardian angels floating around us, and we surely have been keeping them busy!

The In-Laws Return

Richard's parents were kind enough to fly back to Milwaukee with me.  I sure am grateful for their willingness to do this as I'm pretty sure I would have been kicked off the second leg of our flight due to Bridget and a snippy flight attendant.  It was perfect to have three adults for three kids...if only it could be that way every time!

Sadly, we hardly took any pictures to document their visit, but we sure had a good time.  The main reason for their trip was for the BYU Wisconsin game.  Richard took Marshall with him and the four of them had a grand time, despite the loss, and the swaying cement bleachers during the Jump Around tradition at Camp Randall.  :)  Richard and his mom are still talking about their sheer terror.  

Besides the football game Bob and Becky spent their time entertaining kids while I unpacked and did laundry, they baby-sat so Richard and I could have our first night out together since July, they fixed the car and a leaky faucet, ran errands, did dishes, made meals, blew leaves, treated us to custard, and we even discovered glorious Brennan's together and enjoyed all their delicious samples.  Until next time!

 

Family Game Night

I come from the greatest family around.  We spent an entire evening playing Duck-Duck-Goose, London Bridges, and Red Light, Green Light with a twist.  I haven't laughed that hard in a LONG time.