What's that in the diaper?

Well, last Thursday there was a spot of ___ in Eloise's diaper. I thought it was blood. A tiny smear. I saved the diaper and we went to the pedi on Friday. Neither the pedi nor her nurse thought it was blood. They guessed that maybe it was those red crystals that newborns get when dehydrated. Problems with that: 1) she's not a newborn, she's 2.5 months; 2) she nurses all the time; 3) although it's really hot outside, we hadn't been outside. She doesn't have a fever or anything and doesn't act like she's in pain.

The pedi sent us to the hospital lab for a urine test. She "bagged" the baby - this odd little bag that adheres to her crotch to catch the urine. It took E awhile to tinkle, i think she'd just gone. And then the bag leaked. So I keep checking the bag and we're not getting anything, and I'm starting to worry more that my girl isn't peeing until I figured out that while the bag was completely empty, her diaper was soaked. (Ok, I didn't figure this out on my own, my mom suggested checking while I was complaining to her on the phone.) Anyways, getting this simply test done was a 3 hour ordeal.

And the test results say... inconclusive. The pedi said there was bacteria there, but something about it didn't seem right, so we retested today. I kept my eye on the bag, so today went much smoother. So the new test results say... some bacteria, but not as much as the last test showed, and something that she said was a sign of irritation. I don't know what's going on. I guess I won't worry about it unless it happens again. Yeah, that's right, there was only that one tiny smear last Thursday, nothing since then.

Oh, E got weighed on our visit: at 11 weeks, 1 day she weighed 13lb 2oz.

Tears

Eloise cried real tears for the first time tonight.

On Monday she had her 2 month shots - glad we didn't have real tears then. I would have been bawling instead of just getting teary.

At 2 months, she remains in the 95% for height, 90% for weight - 23 7/8 inches, 12lb 11oz. Her head measurement moved from 75% to 80%. Doctor said she looked great. Personally, I think that Eloise is longer than 23 7/8 inches. I don't think her leg was all the way straight when the nurse measured her. When I measured her at home she's a bit over 24 inches. But whatever.

At her height and weight, she can wear 6month sized clothes. At 2 months. Oh geez. The 3mo clothes still fit her though, except for the footie pajamas, those just look uncomfortable on her because she can't straighten her legs all the way without the fabric pulling taut.

In other news...
Alex almost fell with Eloise tonight. He was walking her to soothe her and stumbled into the coffee table. Scared us to death. He did not fall, kind of caught his balance at the last second, but Rob hollered "No!" as he saw it happening and between that and Alex clutching her, Eloise started crying and Alex started crying. Hugs and tears all around. Alex didn't want to hold her after that, but I don't want him to be scared of holding his sister. So we sat on the couch and he held her, but handed her off to Rob when she got fussy. I think it'll be a while before he's willing to hold her and walk around again. I still trust him though - he wasn't doing anything goofy or dangerous, it was just an accident that could happen to anyone.

Oh, and Eloise's first tears weren't because of the near fall - they were because I didn't get her on the boob fast enough and she was ticked off and hungry.

Catching up...

I guess I have a tiny bit of catching up to do... guess that's what happens when you don't post for weeks on end!

Here's a brief recap of the past 7 weeks:

June 3rd - We came home from the hospital.

June 6th - Lost her umbilical stump

June 13th - Eloise regained her birth weight plus some. She weighs 8lb 9oz! Still 21" long.

June 28th - One month checkup. Oh my gosh, she weighs 10lb 10oz now. And is 23.5" long. Holy crap. She's growing so fast!

July 11th - I'm alone with Eloise now - both grandmothers have come and gone now.

July 17th - Eloise smile for the first time!

July 18th - I met with my boss and discussed working part-time. I will be working 20 hours a week from home. The best part? I have no set schedule and will work around Eloise's schedule! How amazing is that? I'm still taking off the full 12 weeks and don't start working until the week of August 20th.

the weekend

We had a good Easter. I dyed some eggs blue (I dyed them while they boiled, so they're all one color) and then made Eggs A La Goldenrod on Easter morning. My MIL sent a smoked turkey, so we had that with fresh green beans and new potatoes for Easter dinner. Very nice.

We also had a productive Easter weekend...

• We did our taxes.
• We did yard work. I weeded a small flower bed while Rob mowed and edged.
• We put a bed up on bed risers to make room for storing suitcases that used to just sit in the nursery.
• We moved furniture around. (I use the word "we" loosely. I directed, R moved things.)
• We vaccuumed.
• We did a load of towels.
• We cleaned various things in preparation for the arrival of our mothers next weekend.
• We built a lamp.

Yeah, a lamp. We built it from scratch using one of those wiring kits from the hardware store.

Why? Because the freakin cats have killed 2 lamps now. TWO!! One while we were gone on our cruise in January. One a couple weeks ago, right in front of our eyes. They like to rub on lampshades. Lamps that are against a wall don't usually fall over, but we have one lamp on an end table that is not against a wall. This lamp - well, the original lamp and the ugly replacement lamp - did not fare so well when the cats rubbed on them.

The new lamp is wood. And it will be screwed to the end table. Safe from evil cat plots against our lamps.

The lamp isn't quite done. We were missing a nut, so we couldn't wire it. And it still needs to be stained. Eventually we'll make a second one - we cut the pieces for it but haven't put it together - so we can have matching lamps that are screwed to the tables.

Damn cats.

-jena

busy halloween weekend

We were very busy this weekend. Saturday we helped put together a haunted house at church since the middle schoolers are in charge of it - that took up a good portion of the day. After a quick trip to the grocery store we went home and made "monstrous mashed potatoes" for a potluck halloween party that night and baked cakes for a cake walk the next day. I decorated the cakes after we got home from the party and then just crashed, I was so exhausted. Sunday we had breakfast with the ministers at church (something they do for new members), then after church was the halloween carnival, so we were there all day again! Yikes! I'm exhausted just remembering it all! A little homework and then Rob had to take A home.

Halloween wasn't too busy this year. We closed up by 8:30. Sadly we didn't even carve a pumpkin this year, and I only had a small ceramic pumpkin to set out. We didn't decorate at all since we didn't have a party this year. At the last minute I got out the halloween lights, plugged them in and tossed them in the flower bed because I didn't know if people could really see our minature pumpkin from the street. We watched The 6th Sense on TV, neither of us had seen it before - I'm not a fan of horror movies, but this really wasn't horror, more like eerie and slightly spooky, so I could handle that.

Friday off

I have every-other Friday off, but on this Friday, Rob joined me at home. We ran some errands and spent some time relaxing, nothing too exciting.

Then Rob went to pick up Alex. And what should have been a 2 hour drive turned into a 3 hour traffic marathon. Sorry you had to go through that sweetie!

Anyway, tonight was a church lock-in and even though we didn't realize we were supposed to rsvp and despite the fact that they got there over 30 minutes late, they still let Alex in - yea! We're hoping he can make some friends that live on our side of town for those times that hanging out with parent-types is just too boring.

Weather change

We finally have some cooler weather. OK, not the "dig out from snow" kind of weather they had in Buffalo but Houston cooler. In other words, it got cool one night and stayed pleasant the next day. We kept the windows open and didn't have to turn on the air conditioning - ahh, the start of fall weather.

I know, weather updates are not of much interest but the change is wonderful, the feeling that the oppressive heat and humidity are in abeyance. Delightful.

Hi

Well, I'm OK with less sappy but fewer rhymes? Doesn't seem right. More rhymes! More rhymes!

Or not. Welcome.

Intro

I'm Jena. My husband Rob and I are starting this blog to communicate with our family and friends. Kind of like those family newsletters that some people put out at Christmas, except less sappy, with fewer rhymes, and tossing out the bad along with the good. So basically, nothing like a Christmas newsletter. Got it? Good.