Feverish.

It was a long week in the house of Wiggles. Two thirds of the family felt a little feverish this week (Me and Lucille. Michael took good care of us).
It started out with Lucille's four month appointment... with a new doctor.

Michael and I agreed to never take our baby to the doctor she went to again. She was sweet to Lucille and all, but we didn't see eye-to-eye with most the  "knowledge" that came out of her mouth.  I honestly cannot believe that we found the one pediatrician that that wasn't pro-breastfeeding (?!) and told us that vitamin D could not be prescribed for Lucille. Say what? So, that prescription bottle of vitamin D drops at home are imaginary? Just the tip of the angry mom iceberg folks.

Anyways, the doctor made me feel bad for expressing my disappointment about Lucille having to get the Pediarix vaccine instead of the Pentacel vaccine. I mean, I'm not concerned about the safety of the two vaccines. Lucille will be getting vaccinated on schedule. It just meant that she would have to get poked three times instead of two, and that she would be getting an extra hep b vaccine. Extra vaccines aren't really my thing.  Understandable, no?

We got out of there real fast and didn't look back.

Side note: I wish we could go to the pediatric practice that I used to work at, but they do not accept our insurance. I'd be willing to work her check-ups around when we are home! They accept the insurance we used to have... but not the one we have now.  If I can't find a pediatrician I like here, I might be calling the insurance company to see if there is a way that we could still go there.

Our poor baby felt sick after her two month vaccine and felt worse after her four month vaccines. She got her first fever. She was miserable. She couldn't sleep, we couldn't sleep. It was a long couple days.

Once Lucille started feeling better, I started to feel sick. (No!!!!!!!) I woke up on Friday morning and felt like I probably shouldn't get out of bed... hahaha, stay in bed all day with a baby? I think not. I'm already getting better though. Thank goodness!

Lucille is getting a little to mobile for my liking:

Sitting up in her Rock n' Play and escaping her bouncer. Don't worry, we keep a close eye on her and usually buckle her in if she's going to be sitting for longer than a minute. :)

Fall. Fair. Fun.

We brought in the season of fall this weekend with a trip home. It was the last weekend the Puyallup Fair was going to be open and Michael and I really wanted to go!

We almost didn't go, but Michael scored some free fair tickets at the woodworking shop in Sumner. We got a giant family button made and ate some yummy fair food. Baby girl slept in the Ergo for a good portion of it. Which was perfect for scoring lots of pictures like this:

:)

We also put the baby in a pumpkin, upon G-ma's request.

She had fun and it was super cute!

We also got to see some friends! We never get to see everyone we hope to see, but we saw a couple!

The Fourth Month

Today was baby girl's four month birthday! Michael attended an early chemistry lecture so we could celebrate with lunch and some fun at the park.

(I changed up some of the widths on my layout so it can accommodate extra large images. What do you think? Good? Bad?)

What is new in Lucille's life? She's is starting to imitate sounds, which you already know if you saw my last post! I taught her to say 'mama' and Michael is working really hard to get her to say 'dada'. Which she doesn't yet, hehe. She tries though. :)

She is lifting herself pretty high off the ground when she is on her tummy and can wiggle around the floor to get to toys that are out of reach. I see that crawling is in the near future! She sits well with some assistance and is very easily distracted by the world around her.

She finally perfected how to use a pacifier, yipee, and also likes to suck on two of her fingers.

She sleeps the best after a warm bath and is still sleeping in her bassinet next to our bed. We have an Arm's Reach Co-Sleeper and love it! Eventually we're going to have to put her in her crib and I think I'm going to have a more difficult time with that than she is.

What does four month old Lucille enjoy?

Drooling and chewing on her toys and everything else!

Floor time

Wiggling around in her exersaucer

Nursing, she's a hungry little thing!

Being a Fashionista -- she just started wearing her 3-6 month clothing!

Mama!

I finally got Lucille on video mimicking me saying mama! I'll try to get a better video of it later! My baby is so smart!

She's tired, can you tell? I was trying to keep her up so Michael could see her before she went to bed. :)

Life Update!

We're STILL not quite settled in here at our new home. It will happen... eventually, but at the moment the baby sleeping, dinner is still cooking in the crock pot, and the dishes are done, so I'll give you a little life update in list format.

I do love lists. :)

1. We said that we were going to finish unpacking all the boxes this weekend. The weekend is halfway over and it is not looking good folks. Although, we have made leaps and bounds in Lucille's room. And I've gathered a huge box of stuff we need to donate. Mostly my clothes. I think I'm a clothes hoarder. I'm working on it. One free high school T-shirt at a time.

2. I made Lucille's 4 month appointment with a new pediatrician. I hope I like the practice, there aren't a lot of options for pediatricians around here.

3. Michael is loving school. We're loving this little town. Washington is wonderful. We're seeing our families more and love it!

4. I'll be happier when the house is more in order and I can be more organized.



Ready to go meet Michael for lunch!

5. I walk around campus quite a bit with the baby in the stroller. I'm trying to enjoy this nice weather while it is still around! Sometimes I walk with Michael to his classes and on his long day, Lucille and I meet him for lunch. It is our favorite outing of the week.

6. Baby girl discovered that certain parts of her exersaucer make noise (maybe because we finally put batteries in it). It is so cute I can hardly stand it.

The Third Month

Lucille is three months old now! Excuse the break in blogging, we've been very busy road tripping, moving, and introducing our little one to her family that was on the other side of the states! There are still so many boxes to unpack... but I didn't want to get too behind on here. :)

This month we learned that Lucille is a wonderful traveler! She spent the majority of her third month on the road with us. Thankfully she is an easy going baby and traveling has been fun for all of us! She also had a growth spurt recently, can you tell? She's even grown out of a couple of her newborn sleepers, and her bumGenius diapers fit perfect at the smallest setting now (we are still loving the prefolds with covers though).

She used to enjoy her play gym so much, but ever since she learned how to roll from back-to-stomach too, she just rolls constantly when we put her on the floor, so it kind of just gets in her way. It is entertaining though. She likes her new exersaucer that grandma and grandpa got her, but she is a little too small for it yet. So, for now playtime pretty much consists of a quilt on the floor with some toys scattered about.

"Hey! I'm talking to you!" This is Lucille's babbling face.

What does three month old Lucille Enjoy?

Mirrors! She loves looking at the pretty baby in the mirror.  :)

Going on walks in the stroller

Taking naps

Chewing on toys and fingers and anything else she can get her hands on

Drooling

Bath time

Rolling around

The Second Month

We're having so much fun watching Lucille learn and grow! She's already two months old and has changed so much in the past month. She is ten pounds now and her newborn clothes fit perfect, most of her 0-3 month clothes are a bit too big on her still. She is cooing/babbling and starting to explore the world around her. She's amazing!

First of all, I have to say, we feel amazingly blessed to have such a good baby! She sleeps through the night now... aka after a month we stopped setting timers in the middle of the night so she wouldn't go too long without a feeding. It feels so good to get a good night's rest. She'll usually sleep eight hours at night and then wakes up happy as a clam! Honestly, morning is my favorite time of day with her... she is all smiles the second I say, "Good morning, sunshine!". She also takes a morning nap which is usually about three hours long. So, on occasion I go back to bed too! Might as well enjoy it while it lasts, right? She probably won't do this forever!

Now that we're not worried about pesky jaundice or her being too sleepy to know when she should eat, I really just feed her on demand. That being said, she usually nurses every 2-4 hours during the day. She is a speedy nurser, as well, and will usually only nurse for 3-7 minutes (total!), which initially made me super paranoid that she wasn't eating enough, but she's a happy, healthy growing girl. She's in the 57th percentile for weight and 52nd percentile for height! So, I learned to just be grateful that she's an efficient nurser.

What does two month old Lucille enjoy?

Having "conversations" with Mommy and Daddy (and her pediatrician, evidently!)

Going on car rides

Hanging out on the changing table (preferably naked)

Being carried around in her sling

Playing with her activity gym (She'll bat and grab at the toys hanging from it for about 30 minutes now. She loves it!)

Being swaddled during night time

Last Day!

Today was Michael's last day in the Marine Corps.

He has officially completed his 5 years of service.

I'm proud of him. :)

I'm glad that we won't have to worry about deployments anymore. He'll always be here to watch our sweet baby grow up.

We're excited to be moving and for our new beginning. Today was a good day.

Happy Birthdays

I love celebrating birthdays. We celebrated two happy happy birthdays this week. One for Michael and one for America. :)

Happy Birthday Michael!

I surprised him with balloons and a card! He picked out his birthday present this year... a BioLite camp stove, pretty much the coolest camp stove ever. We had lunch at a little deli in the beach town that is just down the road from us. Best sandwiches ever. 

A little of his birthday celebrating spilled over to our 4th of July celebration. We were sneaky and stuck a candle in a cupcake and then sang the happy birthday song to him. :)

Happy Birthday America!

We had a little Forth of July gathering at our house this year. It was a lot of fun. (And a lot of work... my first time playing hostess and mommy at the same time! I survived with some help from friends!)

We had some good food. Farmer's market veggies. Fruit salad. Pasta salad. Corn on the cob. Cupcakes. Michael grilled up some burgers and hot dogs. Then we headed to base to watch the fireworks.

Baby girl slept through the fireworks. :)

This was my third and probably last year going to the fireworks show at Camp Lejeune. I was able to spend the fourth with my sweet friend and her little boy two years in row now. Check out how much little Mason has grown up! 

Love them! I'm sure going to miss them when we move away!

Lucille's First Bottle Ever!

We recently introduced Lucille to a bottle. I'm exculsively breastfeeding, so we don't really have a need for bottles right now, but according to our lacation consultant, if you EVER want to use bottles it is a good idea to introduce them to one around this time. So, just in case I can't be by Lucille's side sometime while I'm still nursing, I thought it would be a good idea. I was a bit worried that she wouldn't like it because she still dislikes pacifiers (she likes to suck on our pinky fingers).

This was also Michael's first time feeding Lucille. She was hungry and pretty confused about why I just handed her off to dad in this picture. Can you tell? Ha. At some point during our hospital stay, supplementing with formula was brought up to help with her Jaundice... but breastfeeding was going well and we didn't want to mess that up. So, she still hasn't had any formula and hopefully won't ever need any.

Once she realized that the bottle contained dinner, which took about half a second. She decided she liked it.

I'm using a Medela Harmony pump with the bottles that go with it. No complaints so far -- I'd definitely recommend the system to someone else. I really don't see the need for an expensive electric pump for someone who is just going to use it occasionally, like me. :)

Memorial Parks

On Father's day weekend we visited the nearby memorial parks. We drive by them all the time, but we've never stopped to see them before. I was impressed by how well kept they were and surprised by the size of them. I never would have realized from driving by how large the memorials were.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was huge and tucked away in the trees.

 In the middle is a fountain, which is framed by pillars, and the whole thing is surrounded by a wall of glass with all of their names on it.

There was also a small memorial for 9/11.

It was part of a huge steel beam from the World Trade Center in New York.



The last one we looked at was the Beirut Memorial.

Michael had to refresh me about the incident in Beirut that led to this Memorial. I had never learned about it in any of the history classes I've taken.

The First Month

Our baby girl is already a month old and has changed so much! We've had so much fun with her this first month... even though she has kept us pretty tired. :)

She's definitely awake more during the day now and thankfully will sleep a couple hours longer at night.

She definitely smiles when you talk to her and it is so cute! Not when you wake her up from a nap to take pictures of her though. Then she'll just look at you with her judge-y face like in the picture above. :)

She has rolled over from her stomach to her back twice on her own, but she's still working on perfecting it during play time. :)

She also went on her first trip to Barnes and Noble. She even came home with a new book! It has high contrast pictures in it that are easier for her see. It is entertaining to watch her stare at it when we read it to her!

She also enjoys:

Staring at the ceiling fan

Sucking on mommy's pinky finger (she doesn't like pacifiers!)

Spending time on the changing table

Taking baths

Laying on her tummy during "play time" :)

We love our sweet Lucille so much!