His 'n Her Towels

UPDATE: Unicorns do exist

(I am a believer in TheJinx, so in order to avoid TheJinx I am going to replace a certain word in this post with the word “unicorn”. Hopefully you’ll be able to figure it out.)

The reflux beast has been slain.

The first week we had Della on The Zantac things had improved, but were not completely better. She still fussed all day long, but she was unicorning at night in longer stretches. (p.s. when I say “fuss”, I really mean a long series of whining and “eh-eh’s”, eventually escalating to her turning into a feral cat and forcefully thrusting her whole head and body back towards the floor while trying to scratch my eyes out.)  We called the pediatrician after the required wait time of 7 days and she then recommended we up her dose to 1.5 mil two times a day. I will always remember  that day, May 5^th, 2011, because that is the day miracles happened.

The Zantac is like, a really wise baby wizard who performs miracles on babies. The Zantac transformed our cranky baby into a brand new (quieter) baby. I liked the old one just fine…but this baby is like the old version, but way better and with cooler features. Plus, she doesn’t make that weird creaking noise anymore when we plug her in. She’s Della 2.0.

Della still spits up, but she does it without crying in pain. She is content most of the day, and dare I say, a happy baby! The only time she fusses now is when she’s tired or hungry, just like a standard baby would. Best of all, she UNICORNS!!! She unicorns from about 9:00pm, depending on when we last feed her, until 5:00am when Carl gets her up to eat. Then she goes back down to unicorn until 8:00am. Sometimes she still gets up between 3-5am, but we think it’s to poop. We just leave her to do her business, and then she puts herself back to unicorn. It’s amazing!

She is so incredible at putting herself to unicorn now. We just swaddle her, put her pacifier in, and lay her down and she goes to unicorn all on her own. We rarely have to reinsert her pacifier anymore when it falls out. My daughter is a genius!

Naps, however, are not as magical. She goes down good for a nap, but she still has trouble staying aunicorn for longer then 30 minutes. Baby steps, people.

Della is awesome. Unicorns do exist!

2 Months

Della turned 2 months old last Thursday!

 

For these last two months we’ve been battling (and losing) with the Acid Reflux Monster. Like, we’re hardcore losing - losing sleep, losing our mind, losing her lunch all over my lap. But I have faith that things can only get better from here!

We were finally prescribed Zantac on Thursday and I hope that helps our situation, because up until now we’ve had the Amy Whinehouse of babies. She gets fussy and crabby for a good portion of the day, and she will actively fight sleep. When she finally falls asleep she will catnap for about 2 to 10 minutes and then, like an English singer/pubcrawler we all know, she will go on a three day bender of being all awake and cranky. We try to make her go to rehab sleep, but she cries NO, NO, NO! I absolutely love my little Whinehouse, but I am so tired. If I were a celebrity I would have been checked into rehab the hospital for “exhaustion” by now.

 
 
I know Della is not doing this just to be a drama baby. She is in pain and uncomfortable and it truly breaks my heart to see her suffer. I’m sure she’s wondering why we aren’t doing anything to help her, but I promise, I am doing everything in my power to get my sad-faced baby some relief.

 

On top of the acid reflux pain, she also got her 2 months shots at her checkup. Oh boy, was that ever traumatizing, for both baby and mother. I’ll always remember the terrified look on her face when the nurse stabbed her tiny baby legs with those three big needles. And I’ll never be able to forget the saddest scream in the world, like she was witnessing one hundred kittens being drowned or something. I swear, Della, if 16 years from now you find this blog and read this, show it to mommy and she will go out and buy you a new car that day! Whatever you want, it’s yours! That is how guilty I feel right now.

Here’s what else my Plum baby has been up to:

 

• She weighs 10lbs 1 oz and is 21 inches long. But we think that her length might be incorrect, because that means she only grew an inch since birth and it puts her in the 5^th percentile. That doesn’t seem right to me…
• She is now in 0-3 month clothing. She outgrew her newborn clothes around 8 weeks. She is also now in size 1 diapers.
• We are trying to work on tummy time, but she screams when we do it. So, we need to work on that.
•  When Della isn’t in pain, she is smiling! (this is how I know she is hurting, and not just a grumpy baby) She loves smiling. Whenever she sees a smiling face she will smile right back. She’ll even look in the mirror and smile at herself. It’s so cute.

 

• Her stuffed animals are her friends. She intensely stares into their faces. She coos and talks to them all the time. We have plenty of girl talk too; if I coo at her she’ll coo right back. And we just go back and forth. She loves talking!

 

•  From birth, everyone has always commented on how alert she is – even the pediatrician, eye doctor, and my obgyn. Not sure if that is just something people say, but everyone who meets her seem amazed on how alert she is. They wouldn’t be so amazed by her alertness at 2:00am when we are trying to get her to sleep and she’s in her crib just staring up at us.
• Speaking of eye doctor, Carl noticed a few weeks ago that one of Della’s pupils wasn’t dilating. One of them stayed small, while the other grew larger. It was odd, so we brought it up to the pediatrician and she referred us to a specialist. It turns out she just has two different sized pupils. I guess it’s somewhat normal…but it really freaked us out at first.  
• She likes when we read to her. When her dad reads to her she gets these big eyes, and is just mesmerized by him.

 

• Her first holiday was Easter, and she got a lot of goodies in her Easter Basket that she was eager to tryout

 

 

Overall we have a really sweet girl. Her personality is starting to show through, in-between her bouts with reflux. We are praying the reflux gets better so we can keep getting to know the real Della.