Weekends Update

This past weekend, Memorial Day Weekend, was a big one for us. One of my dearest friends got married on Saturday and I was so excited to do anything and everything I could to help. Since I needed to head in to town early, I called my mom (GramE) to ask if she would watch Rachel for me while I helped keep the bride calm and set things up. She was so excited to help! In fact, mom informed me to pack extra clothes as Rachel would probably want to stay all night. I agreed. Oh, and she might want to stay all weekend. I agreed! So Saturday morning I packed up her stuff and took hre to GramE's house! Jason swung by later to pick both Rachel and my mom up and meet me at the wedding. Grandma Terry had purchased this adorable dress that was perfect for the occasion:

How adorable is that dress and hat? She looked gorgeous, not to mention was very well-behaved. (Aside from the fact that she talked through the ENTIRE ceremony. I would have felt bad...but the mother of the bride did the same thing).

My friend Jenny even caught a great family photo:

And just for funsies....Rachel posed with another family for a family photo. We'll say these folks are her "other" family!

Ha! That's my dear friend Holly and her husband, Chris. Adorable couple! We'll let them play pretend with Rachel anytime!

So Rachel stayed the whole weekend with her grandparents. Jason and I LOVED it. Apparently Grandma Terry is asking to have her for a week. I believe she MIGHT be gone next week....but we haven't decided the details yet. Either way, this is good for everyone. Rachel gets to be in different (and very loving!) environments, mom and dad get some separation from Rachel, and everyone gets to have their baby time so it works out well. Plus, it keeps me from being one of THOSE mothers...you know, the kind that might leave the room for a second and their kid screams from losing sight of her? I don't want to be that parent. Nor do I want to be that parent that can't spend 5 minutes without their child. I'm attached to our adorable kid like nothing else....but not so much that I can't function without her. I think we have a good balance going :o)

Just before Memorial Day weekend I tried to break her of the habit of waking up to be fed in the middle of the night. Since we were fighting the diaper rash she'd wake up around 3 or 4 AM and need a diaper change. And since she was up, she wanted a bottle. Not anymore! We'd kind of gotten her out of the habit, then she stayed with her Grandparents and poof! Now she sleeps all night.

My dad was so funny. He said, "There's something wrong with that kid. She poops every diaper!" And he was right. We've just started to try to feed her rice cereal (she doesn't like it) which should solidify and slow down her BM cycle. At the time it was very liquidy and constant. She really shouldn't go that much! Unfortunately, we weren't able to get enough cereal in her to make a difference then. This week I've made a serious effort to try to feed her every evening from a spoon. Peresonally, I think she'd eat from a spoon just fine if the food was good. Rice cereal isn't so tasty. So I might try her on real food. Anyway, back to the rice cereal, I have been adding it to her bottles and it's working! She's more full and doesn't poo as much. Hooray!

Yesterday when I went to pick her up from Day Care she was in the process of eating and the poor lady that happened to be in the room was frustrated with Rachel. I'd made her formula/cereal combo too thick and her bottle kept getting clogged. (oops). This meant Rachel was fighting her and getting mad because she was working too hard to get her food. So I took over and spent the next 20 minutes trying to get her to finish her bottle. Ugh. The lady told me to try to make the holes in the nipples a little bigger with a needle, which I did. This morning I tested out one of the nipples and it seemed to work better.

But this thicker formula must make her sleepy. According to the report I took home yesterday she was really happy and had a good day. However, when she got home she was fussy and uncooperative, which meant she was tired. I let her sleep in her car seat until I finished eating dinner then tried to wake her up as I was afraid she wouldn't sleep last night. Well, shame on me, she cried so hard because she was awake that I soothed her and put her back to bed. Geesh! She woke up long enough to eat another bottle, take a bath, play just a bit, then started to get cranky again. Going through the whole game of "Find Me A Rock" with her (Lay her down, pick her up, bounce her, rock her, play with her, etc) and nothing working, I finally just laid her in her crib and turned on her mobile. I wound it up twice and she was out. Apparently thick bottles = sleepy contented kid! She fell asleep around 9:30PM and didn't wake up until 6! When Jason's alarm went off this morning I thought for sure the monitor had failed. Nope. I looked at it and there was our kid....completely sideways and had found her pacifier and put it in her mouth on her own! (Oh the joy of her being able to find that pacifier and put it in her mouth by herself. A luxury beyond imagination!!!)

Day Care has been working with her on her sitting up. She still doesn't have complete balance, but she can sit up really well in front of a pillow. (Pee-yow as my neice calls it). I've also noticed that if she leans too far left or right or starts to fall backward she's starting to balance herself up right. But sit her on the floor and put some toys in front of her for her to grab and she's a happy camper! That's how I left her at Day Care this morning and she looked so happy.

This morning I had her in her exersaucer while I made her bottles for the day and noticed that she's too tall for the setting we have it on. I'm going to have to raise the toy. Can you believe that? I think it was only 2 weeks ago that she was actually able to reach the toys on the exersaucer. Now she's getting too tall for the low setting? My she grows so fast!

I was reading through the last couple of posts and saw where I'd made a comment about how I should take a picture of all the diaper rash creams we ended up using. I don't have all of them anymore (some of them are either at Day Care or have been used up and thrown away). But just for memory's sake:

Here's a picture of most of the ointments we ended up using. Her diaper rash is gone, however I'm constantly watching for it to return, and every diaper she get something put on her so we don't run into that issue again!

A few weeks ago Jason and I had a day out. My friend Jenny and her daughter, Ashley came and stayed with her for the day. Oh! I forgot! I have pictures I can post of that!

Ashley has decided to start calling Rachel "Rachey", which I think is cute. She says "She's my favorite baby!" They were here for about 6 hours so Jason and I could get out and have fun. Apparently they had a good time!

Even Monty enjoyed the company:

Oh, and Jenny's mom got Rachel an adorable outfit:

How girly and cute is that? It's a bib that says "Social" and has a butterfly underneath it. But my favorite thing is the socks that came with it:

They look like little Mary Janes. I got so many compliments on those socks. I'm tempted to find more just because they are so stinkin' cute!

While Jenny and Ashley baby sat, Jason and I had our day out which was marvelous. One stop we made was to Babies 'R Us to get a new baby gate system. I'm going to turn what should be our front dinning room into Rachel's play area. Since she's now sitting up and has started flopping on her face so she can be on her tummy....not graceful at all but the point is I can tell she's going to be mobile very soon...I want to get some way to contain her in place. My idea was this baby fencing system:

This isn't the exact set up, but you get the point. She'll be corralled in there and able to move about freely, but can't get in to anything. So we picked up one of those, and also another item I've been wanting for a while: a baby mirror for the car!:

Installing it, however, was quite a chore. I put that thing in there and drove around 3 different times before I finally got it right this morning. Now that I have it installed properly, Rachel can see herself, which is fun. And I can see her in my review mirror. I always had wondered what she was doing when I was driving. Now I know she makes a lot of faces and plays with the puppy toy her Aunt Jalaine got her for her car seat. It's like having a little tv that plays nothing but Rachel! (Well, except when she's not in there of course...and then the mirror just startles me as I'm not used to it yet).

I finally broke down and pulled out her 6-9 month clothes last week as well. They're kind of baggy on her, but I think in the next couple of weeks they'll start to fit just right.

We did try to take her 6 month pictures with all the beautiful dresses that Grandma Terry had  purchased. Unfortunately, Rachel wasn't cooperating and neither was the weather. Ginny said she didn't care for any of the pictures that she took so we're going to have to try to do it again some other time.

I think this is a pretty long update and hopefully you're all caught up with everything!