Re-weigh

I took Jenna in this morning to get weighed. She now weighs 10 lbs 10 oz, which puts her weight at the 17th %tile (last weight check it was 14th). The doctor said that mainly he wanted to make sure she didn't drop to a lower percentile, so he was happy.

At the visit, we had a discussion about the hives she got earlier this month. Since I reintroduced the formula and Tylenol and she didn't have a reaction, he thinks it is probably a reaction to a vaccine. He is going to send the pictures he took of her to a group that analyzes reactions and provides guidance to doctors. He said that she is the first baby he's seen have a reaction to a vaccine, so it is the first time he's worked with this group, but that they should get back to him within the next few months.

Work, work, work

Yesterday was my first day back to work. I thought it would be a lot more difficult than it was. Of course I missed Jenna like crazy all day, but I knew she was in good hands and I stayed plenty busy at work, so I didn't spend too much time dwelling on what she was doing or what she was wearing, etc and the day ended up going by pretty quickly. I think it also helps knowing that my work week will be done at noon on Wednesday.

I'll try to get a 12 week picture posted this evening. I swear I say it every week, but Jenna's growing so quickly! We go back to the doctor to re-weigh her on Thursday, so hopefully she's growing quickly enough and we won't need to worry about her being underweight anymore. Kim let us borrow an activity center of Jocelyn's. You lay the baby on her back and let her kick and grab at some dangling toys and if she hits the toys it will start playing a tune and 'dancing'. She's really figured it out and will spend a long time laying there kicking it over and over again. I'm not the type that is bothered by loud toys, but I do have to admit that it can get a little annoying to hear after a while. Today she was playing with it when I left and I have had the tune stuck in my head all day long!

Bath Time

Tonight's bath was way too easy! Jenna had been asleep for a few hours and I woke her up to nurse, then decided to give her a bath. Normally here's how a bath goes...
1a. Aaron gets baby naked and wrapped in towel
1b. Julie starts running bath water and filling the tub
2. Baby cries because even though she's wrapped in a towel and being held by her very warm-blooded father, she's cold
3. Julie and Aaron make sure water temp is ok
4. Cries turn to screams...loud screams
5. Aaron puts baby in tub in her towel so she doesn't have to feel the tub which seems to bother her...nonetheless, screams get louder
6. Julie lathers baby while Aaron uses the baby tub shower head in an attempt to keep baby warm or distracted (yes the tub has a sprayer)
7. Julie cleans baby as fast as possible while Aaron sprays the soap off as quickly as possible...mom and dad have joined in the screaming at this point
8. Aaron whisks baby away to her room in a fresh towel, puts a diaper and clothes on her as soon as possible (she continues to scream nonstop).
9. Julie cleans out tub while Aaron is dressing baby
10. Baby falls asleep out of exhaustion from screaming, then wakes up again after she's been in bed just long enough for Aaron and Julie to settle into a TV show. We think she may be having a bath-related nightmare.
11. Baby finally stays asleep.
Here's how tonight's bath went:
1. Julie undressed Jenna and wrapped her in a towel.
2. Jenna grins and snuggles
3. Julie lays Jenna down on the bathroom rug and fills the tub...Jenna coos and watches
4. Julie puts Jenna in the tub
5. Jenna laughs
6. Julie washes and rinses Jenna
7. Julie takes Jenna out of the tub and dries her off
8. Jenna makes a bunch of cute sounds
9. Julie dresses Jenna for bed
10. Julie reads a story to Jenna
11. Julie puts Jenna in her crib for the night, even though she is awake
12. Jenna goes to sleep.
Way too easy! Oh and no, I don't think it has anything to do with Aaron not helping with her bath tonight! :)
We took this picture of her before a bath last week. We'd put her on the bath mat while the tub was filling and next thing we knew, she'd put her arms behind her head. It was hilarious! Unfortunately the bath itself wasn't so hilarious and ended up being more along the lines of the first scenario described above.

My 11 Week Old Baby!

Jenna is 11 weeks old now! I took her 11 week picture a couple days early - on Valentine's Day. Grandma Brull gave her this BIG teddy bear for Vday and Jenna loved it. Check out the super cute picture we captured!

On a sadder note, we had to say bye to my brother (aka Uncle Brad). :( He left today for his year long journey to South Korea to teach English. His adventure sounds like it will be a lot of fun, but we already miss him! I bet my parents never thought they'd hear that!

Back to happy times! WE SOLD OUR HOUSE! We actually sold it a couple weeks ago, but for some reason I've been superstitious and not wanted to post about it. I've since realized that is silly, so I'm posting! We only had the house on the market for 15 days before we got the contract ironed out! How amazing in these times that we had such good luck. Unfortunately the house we were really wanting to buy (the whole motivation for putting the house on the market) was already sold. We had been looking around at other options and I stumbled across a home For Sale By Owner. We dropped by one afternoon to look at it and fell in love with it and as soon as we got the contract worked out on our house, we put in an offer on the other house and it was accepted. Who hoo! It is a 2 story home with 4 bedrooms, 3 car garage, 3.5 bathrooms, fenced yard, upper level laundry, kitchen island, whirlpool tub, and a basement that is studded and has electrical and most of the equipment needed for a bathroom. It was almost exactly what we've been loooking for and definitely gives us a house we can grow into. It is located in south Olathe and we are really sad to be leaving Spring Hill, but it is a great house and we think it is the place for us for a very long time. We are scheduled to move March 12th, so anyone not working that day is more than welcome to come by and help us move. ;0 J/K

Back to Princess J. She's gotten very vocal this week and has started squealing and laughing, especially at Dad and her toys. She's also starting to really get into a schedule. She's been falling asleep between 6 and 6:30pm. We will wake her up for one more feeding usually between 8 and 9, then put her to bed. She then sleeps and gets up at 7:45 am on the dot. While I would much rather it be 8:45 am, it is probably good for me to get back into the habit of getting up earlier because I go back to work on Monday!

10 Weeks Old

Today Jenna is 10 weeks old! We took her picture with Uncle Brad this week. He leaves next Wednesday to teach English in South Korea for a year. We're really going to miss him!

Our First ER Visit...

Well, we had quite an adventure on Saturday. It all started on Thursday. I noticed that Jenna had 5 little pin head sized red bumps on her leg. I didn't think much of it and figured it was probably a mild reaction to the vaccine or bandaid. On Friday I noticed larger bumps all over her legs and arms, some of them looked blistery. The best way I can describe it was that it looked like Chicken Pox. She didn't seem to be bothered by it, but I called the doctor and he wanted her to come in. So, we went in and he took a look. He said that it did not look like a typical reaction to vaccinations, but that it was possible. He thought it would be more likely to be a reaction to the Tylenol I'd given her after getting the shots. He prescribed Benedryl and said to stop Tylenol (we'd already stopped it). So, I gave her Benedryl that evening and by the next morning the hives were gone. But, by 1pm they returned, so I gave her more Benedryl. About 15 minutes later they were getting worse and I noticed that her ears were swelling, especially the left one. It looked huge. I tried calling the doctor, but after waiting a little while, I got worried and we headed to the Urgent Care center nearby. We walked in and asked if we should go to the ER and the guy working at the front desk told us that he just worked at the front desk and he'd need us to fill out some papers and insurance info and that he'd ask the doctor when he came out. Well, since he wouldn't give us any sort of indication when that would be, we decided to go to the Emergency Room. I took the picture below of her ear while we were waiting at the ER (it is a little blurry). It was getting smaller and I wanted to show the doctor what it had looked like in case it looked normal by the time he got there. The doctor showed up shortly after I took the picture, so he got to see it. He checked her airway and said the hives were not there, so she was fine and gave us guidance for what to watch for if they moved to her airway. He gave her some medication and told us to keep giving her Benedryl. He suspected that the reaction was due to either her formula, Tylenol, or the vaccines and he recommended that we stop the formula for a few days and reintroduce it independently of the Tylenol (we will try reintroducing it as well). Luckily, she never seemed bothered by the hives and so far we haven't seen them return yet. I'll keep you updated when we try reintroducing the formula and Tylenol.

Two Month Check Up

Today was Jenna's check-up. She weighs 9 lbs 10 oz, is 23 inches long, and has a 39.5 cm circumference head. Her length and head size are above average and tracking well, but her weight is still low in ratio to her length. :( The doctor is going to have us feed her two bottles of formula a day and we will go back for another weight check at the end of the month. I asked if we should be waking her up during the night and he said that we may need to consider it if she doesn't gain as much as he would expect with the supplements, but for now he thinks we should let her sleep.
She had to get 3 shots and one oral vaccine. She did so great! She made a funny face at the first prick, but calmed down and started sucking on the binky. She did fine with the initial prick of the 2nd shot, but as the nurse started administering the medication, she got so upset. It was so sad! She screamed through it and the 3rd shot, but calmed down fairly quickly afterwards. When we were leaving there was a woman in the waiting room who asked if she was the baby that was crying and jokingly told me that it made her wonder if Dr. Widman is mean and that she thought about leaving!
After her appointment we went to Chapala's for lunch with Heather. She was treating me to a late birthday lunch. As usual, it was delicious and Jenna was fabulous. She usually does great at restaurants, but I was worried that she wouldn't be in a good mood after getting the shots, but she had a bottle and zonked out. She's been pretty tired the rest of this afternoon and evening.