Baby Love

Love these thighs.

Love this stage, the grabbing of toes.

Love this baby.

In this one, you can see that her hand is healing quite nicely -- looks like nothing, really, at this point.
And you can't see her arm, but it is looking even better, and it was burned worse!

Aveline's Five-Month Appointment

Avie and I saw Dr. Owen this past Monday for her five-month well visit. Aveline seemed to be on track with everything on Dr. Owen's checklist and, in general, seemed to be doing really well. I relayed the terrible burn story, and the doctor checked out the burn, saying that it was possible there might be a little scarring, but that babies' skin heals really well, so it is somewhat hard to know at this point. She told me to go ahead and let her hand/arm be submersed in a bath on Wednesday night and just let the bandage fall off, which we did last night, and it actually appears to be healing really well. She said that unless there is any oozing, not to worry about wrapping it again.

Avie received one vaccination, another round of the DTaP. We are still a little behind schedule, but Dr. Owen just said to keep coming in monthly, and we will eventually get caught up. Aveline weighed in at 15 pounds, 8 ounces, but I was slightly annoyed because the end of our appointment was a bit rushed since Dr. Owen was running somewhat behind schedule, so I left without knowing her head circumference measurement, her length, or any of the percentages. All of that was redeemed, however, with the wonderful email Dr. Owen sent me later that afternoon:


     It was so good to see Aveline today.  She is an advertisement for babies. 

    Height   26 "   75%
    weight    15# 8 oz    75%
    head circ 17"   90%

    and 100% on the charm scale.  MOwen

I truly love our doctor.


In comparison, Elsa was the exact same length at this age, but Avie's head is an inch larger around. And Elsa weighed 13 pounds, 3 ounces, at her five-month appointment, sliding down to 25th percentile at this point. So there is a reason that Avie seems like a more roly-poly baby!

Aveline is Five Months... and a Scare

Aveline turned five months old yesterday. I know, I know. Everyone says how quickly these days and weeks and months go by with these wee ones. But time seems even more at warp speed with this second babe. I really do not see how it is possible. Five months have come and gone. Incredible.

And how incredible she is. Avie still has me up once, usually twice, a night these days. And whereas I could nurse her and put her right back down, asleep, in the past, now she is choosing to try to stay awake after these feedings, making it much more difficult for me to find my way back to bed in the middle of the night. The past few nights I have just given up, put her back down in the Pack-n-Play, laid down on the sofa beside her, and just let her wriggle and make noise until she eventually falls asleep. So I guess at least it is happening eventually. But I then usually end up finishing my night's sleep on that couch (unless I happen to wake up again) because I cannot stand going back to our room, turning on the monitor, and listening to the noises through that little machine. I am not sure I can explain the difference, but there seems to be one. That, and I don't want to wake Jarrett with the noise.  But other than these awakenings (which, according to the sleep books, are completely normal for her age, even though Elsa was sleeping twelve hours straight through the night most nights at this point), Avie is a complete joy. She is happy nearly all the time, smiling, giggling, with twinkling eyes. She is even tolerating car rides a little better here recently, now that she can really pick up her toys and play around with them. She also now enjoys looking over at Elsa in her car seat, smiling and chatting away at her.

And, speaking of Elsa, she is the receiver of some of Aveline's best smiles. It is clear already that Avie is in complete awe over her big sister, and loves watching everything she does. And, in return, Elsa is proving to be a fantastic big sister. She loves her, now giving her big squeezes and kisses, and lately she is claiming that Avie is "her best friend in the whole world." She still is quite concerned if Avie cries, but seems to be at least somewhat consoled if I am able to explain what might be bothering her (she's tired, she's hungry, etc.). Elsa still says she is looking forward to sharing a room with Avie, as am I -- I am just not sure when or how that is going to happen exactly. I am still worried that Elsa would be awoken with the nightly feedings at this point. But I know other families pull it off, so if anyone has any advice, let me know! It would be wonderful if I could put Avie in the crib at night rather than the Pack-n-Play. She does take most naps in the crib, though, at least. Either there or the swing, but I plan on getting rid of the swing soon, so there will not be an option soon enough.

Avie can roll over in both directions, but still does not do so on a regular, consistent basis. I just don't seem to have rollers. I know some babies use this as a way to move around the room. Mine just seem to conquer it and then do not really use the skill. Oh well. She likes the playmat and bats and grabs at all of the hanging toys now. And just in the past couple of weeks, we have tried out the exersaucer, which she seems to enjoy for periods of time. She basically hits buttons on accident, and seems happy with the sounds that come as a result. And she does grab and pull at the other toys as well. Last week, while Christian was over playing with Elsa, she seemed quite enthralled with seeing herself in the little mirror.

And her new trick is blowing raspberries. So fun!

Aveline has shown quite the interest in food, but more ours than her own boring baby food. But she has now tried avocado, peas, carrots, squash, and sweet potato, her favorite seeming to be the avocado (mixed with breast milk). She loves to watch us eat, though, and will move her little mouth as she gazes -- and grabs -- longingly at what we are eating. It will be interesting to see if she ends up being a good eater, as all signs are pointing that direction.

But all that grabbing got us into some trouble yesterday. Elsa and I sat down to bowls of creamy tomato soup yesterday afternoon, and because I had gotten a little sidetracked while the soup was warming on the stove, it had reached boiling and so was quite hot still in our bowls. I had a completely stupid mommy moment and had Avie sitting on my lap while I was eating, also trying to closely monitor Elsa and make sure she blew her spoonfuls well to cool them off (and she was doing a great job). I saw it coming, but it was one of those things that just happened too quickly to actually prevent. Avie grabbed first for my napkin, and that is when I knew trouble was brewing. But it only took a split second from then for her to then grab at my bowl, toppling over the piping hot soup right onto us. I knew her hand had gone in the soup and received the brunt of it, so I exclaimed some profanity (thankfully I don't think it stuck with Elsa), and rushed Avie over to the sink, running her hand and forearm under cold water. Then I realized the soup was on her clothes too, and I could feel what had spilled on my leg burning through my pants, so I started ripping off her clothes while running to the bathroom. I got her down to her long-sleeved onesie and her diaper and then just plopped her in the baby tub. Immersing her in the cool water just made her cries stronger and louder. I was trying to stay calm, but was freaking out at the same time, as I was not sure how badly she was actually burned.

After some time in the tub, I realized I did not know what was going on with Elsa, so I took Avie out and laid her on the floor, wrapped up in a towel. Poor Elsa was so scared. She had put on her shoes and went out on the back deck in the drizzling rain. And she did not want to come back in. Not wanting to leave Avie for long, I ran back to her, and tried to look her over. There was redness on her legs, but her hand and forearm were definitely the worst. There was already a blister on her hand, and then I realized the skin was peeling from her arm. This totally freaked me out. I then called Jarrett and tried to (somewhat sanely) explain to him what had happened. He first told me to head to the emergency room, but then quickly changed his mind and just told me to call 911. I was not sure if I was overreacting, but I just did not know the severity of the burn, and she is so little, so I went ahead and called. It seemed to take forever for someone to even answer the phone. Twice I got a recording telling me to stay on the line. Finally someone did answer, and I had to answer a bunch of questions before she finally told me what to do: run the burn under cool water for 10 minutes. Check. That is what I was doing. It seemed to again take forever for the ambulance to get there, but maybe it was about ten minutes. As they did not seem to act like I was overreacting, I began to wonder even more how bad the burns really were. Especially when they said they had to call Children's and ask them whether they could treat her or if we would need to take her to Grady to their burn center.

It turned out Children's could take her, so they got her ready and into her car seat, and took her away in the ambulance. At first, the two female EMTs said Elsa and I could ride in the ambulance with her, but then the male EMT, who showed up in the second wave, said it would probably be better for me to drive my car, but to just take it slow and obey all of the traffic laws. That the ambulance would be running their lights and sirens just to get her to the hospital to help get Avie something for the pain.

On the way to the hospital, I called Jarrett (who was also on his way to the hospital), and then Kate, and cried. I did not want to call my mom and worry her at that point, so decided to hold off until I knew more information. Jarrett ended up beating me to the ER, but by the time Elsa and I got there, still no one had told us that Avie had arrived. Being away from her was terrible, even though I knew she was in good hands. Finally, one of the EMTs came out to the waiting room and told us they had been back there. I guess they had just not been able to enter Avie into the computer system because they did not yet have her birth date, so the front desk was completely unaware. Once we were back with her, Avie was all smiles, which was such a relief. One of the EMTs actually made the comment that she must love car rides because she did so well in the ambulance. This, of course, made me chuckle. The child who hates her car seat (even though, like I said, it is getting better).

We were seen and treated pretty quickly, first by a resident, and then by the doctor. The doctor said he was expecting much worse from what was radioed in. Apparently even emergency workers overreact. We were told she had second-degree burns on her arm and hand, but the doctor does not even expect any scarring. A nurse came in and bandaged her up. There is a netting-like bandage as a base layer that will stay on for about a week, while we apply neosporin twice daily over the top, wrapping it with a gauzy wrap.

It is ironic that just a couple of days ago I was thinking how nice it was that Aveline had not had to visit the emergency room yet, since Elsa's first trip was at just over one month old. What a jinx this was. Even though I know accidents like this happen all of the time, I cannot explain to you how terrible I felt. It's like my brother (most jokingly) said: "Nice, Sis. First you break Elsa's leg, and then you burn the other one." Yep. Mother of the Year award should definitely go to me. But it could have been so much worse. I thank the Lord that it was not. And, trust me, you will not see me with hot liquid and a baby in my lap any time soon.

Happy five month birthday, my sweet one. So sorry you had to spend it this way!

From Last Tuesday

Happy Valentine's Day!

The girls say, "Happy Valentine's Day!"

Looking at the card from Grandma and Grandpa

 

Doctor's Visit

Aveline and I made a trip to the doctor yesterday, and saw Nurse Practitioner Susan. Avie has been dealing with a pretty bad diaper rash for days now, and creams did not seem to be helping, so I decided to get some professional advice. Susan told me to try to stop using disposable wipes and switch over to cloth ones soaked in water, at least for now, so out came the wipe warmer again (first time using it with Avie). She also prescribed Nystatin (in cream form), as it appeared to be a little yeasty. She also said to expose the area to air as much as possible (which I had been doing somewhat, but probably not enough), and said I could also apply a small amount hydrocortisone cream, opposite the Nystatin applications. She said if it did not seem to improve within a week, to let her know and she would prescribe a heavier duty diaper cream that can only be mixed at a compounding pharmacy.

As a bonus, Susan offered to weigh Avie, and she was 15 pounds even.

Now the poor little girl is battling a cold (and I think Elsa is coming down with it as well). Hopefully it will not stick around for long.

Last Weekend

We headed into the weekend with a visit from my friend (and ex-coworker), Cindy, and her daughter, Eleanor (Ellie), who was born exactly a week after Aveline. They came over to the house and we took a stroll down to the Oakhurst Village to grab lunch to-go from Kavarna, and then walked back to the house to eat and chat. It was wonderful to catch up with her and fun to see our babies attempt to interact with each other. They really seemed intrigued! And Elsa actually did really well with two babies in her midst, and actually seemed to think it was kind of fun.

On Saturday morning, bright and early, my parents arrived. They are crazy and usually like to leave at the crack of dawn on a Saturday to make the four-hour drive to our house. Then they typically leave Sunday afternoon, which was the itinerary for this trip. Elsa slept late Saturday morning, and was really just getting out of bed when they arrived around 8:45 a.m. I had forgotten to tell her the night before that they were coming, so it was quite the surprise for her. In her groggy state, she was not sure what to make of it all at first, but soon was very happy to have her grandparents at arm's reach. She even got to stay with them at a local motel Saturday night, as our house is so crazy right now that there was not much room for them here (more on that in a later post, I am certain)! And since Elsa was gone, I let Avie sleep in the crib overnight for the first time, and, of course, we both ended up in Elsa's bed together early that morning.

Avie, trying out the big girl bed

My parents' main reason for the visit was to attend Aveline's baptism, which occurred at church Sunday morning... in a somewhat nontraditional manner. Our church already seems rather nontraditional at first glance, seeing as we are a fairly new church plant (just over a year old) that meets in a neighborhood recreational center in the East Atlanta neighborhood. But things became even more unique Sunday morning when we arrived at the rec center to find that we were all locked out. A family in the church, who lives close by, graciously opened up their home to the congregation, and we ended up meeting in the downstairs of their house. The house is fairly new -- they had it built over the last year or so -- and it was nice that they designed it in such an open manner, such that Matt, the pastor, stood in the living room, but people were gathered in the two adjacent rooms and could see everything just fine. At first I was not even sure if the baptism would go on as planned, but Matt said if we were fine with it, he was, and, thus, it happened. And it was actually really nice. The intimate feel of the entire service really lent itself to this special event in our little one's life. We feel very privileged to be a part of such a close-knit, loving church community. Kate, Tim, and James were also there, which was a nice treat, and we all went out to lunch at Ted's (still "the buffalo restaurant" to Elsa, where she now orders "macaroni and cheese and broccoli" all on her own) afterward as a little celebration.

Sunday was also my dad's birthday, which made things even more special. To celebrate, I made him a peanut butter pie. It was my first attempt at a peanut butter pie -- and a gluten-free version at that -- but it turned out quite well, if I do say so myself. I meant to take a picture, but totally forgot. It was delicious, though, and Jarrett and I are still hoarding the last piece in the fridge. It's likely to be shared this evening. Happy birthday, Dad!