Welcome to the Church, Felicity!

I know I've been awful about blogging but Felicity just does not understand the importance of my blog and therefore rarely lets me sit down to write ;).

On Divine Mercy Sunday, we welcomed Felicity into the Catholic church with our immediate family, Felicity's wonderful Godparents, and a few local, Catholic friends. I was stressed out as I tend to be at big events, but Felicity did wonderful. Well, until she cried the last 10 minutes of Mass, and when I finally decided to take her out, one of my friends had to come get me for the priest to do a blessing for me. Luckily, a change of pace was all she needed, and Felicity did ok the last few minutes. We stripped her down for the ride home, which was good since she had a poop-splosion in the carseat while Steven was trying to pack the car for lunch and I was trying to pump. Oh, Felicity! We made it to our own party only 30 minutes late and enjoyed a delicious barbecue and fried chicken lunch, with more left overs than we know what to do with! We watched the kids play in the grass and on the playground, and just hung out under the picnic shelter in the delightful spring weather.

But back to the main event! I didn't cry, which follows my not crying for other events that I thought I'd cry during: my wedding, Felicity's birth, and Felicity's baptism. I guess I'm just too focused in the moment! The priest was so sweet and LOVED her name; he must have used it 5 or more times throughout Mass... first and middle name! When we were near the font, Felicity kept stretching her arms up the air, showing off for the whole church to see. She didn't make a peep when Father poured cold water over her head! Steven filled a bottle with holy water from the font afterwards, which we'll keep and give her to bless herself with on her wedding day (or when she takes her vows? who knows!). She wore the gown I wore just about 28 yers ago, which was really special. And she was beautiful in it! We are so glad our baby girl is a member of the Catholic church! I'd like to be more introspective than this, but I'm pretty tired these days, so I'll let the pictures do the work :).

Felicity Marian: 2 Months

Weight: I'll come back and edit this after her appointment on the 29th, but by our inaccurate weighing system, we have her at just under 8 lbs. I'm betting she'll be 8lbs by her appointment, especially since she's been taking close to 30oz a day!

Height: Again, I'll have to come back and edit this. I'm not sure, but she's outgrowing newborn clothes by length and she's growing like a weed.

Medical Issues: We had her tongue and lip tie revised AGAIN this month. She is still battling thrush. We're treating her hemangioma which hasn't gotten smaller but is not growing anymore! 

Sleep: So much better and fairly consistent! She generally goes to sleep between 8:30 and 9:30, wakes up twice to eat, gets up between 5 and 7 to eat and then goes back to sleep for 2-3 hours for a morning nap. It is heavenly.

Clothes/Diaper Size: I didn't want to stop putting her in newborn clothes because *tear tear* I'd have to admit she's growing up, but my mom made a good point that if I don't put her into 0-3, she'll miss out on wearing that stuff. So on the 13th, she wore a 0-3 outfit and later jammies and THEY FIT. It was bitter sweet! A lot of the 0-3 stuff is still too big so luckily she can go between that and newborn, so I don't have to quite pack anything up yet, except the few sleepers that absolutely don't fit her anymore. She's still in newborn size disposables, and preemie prefolds with 5-9 lb covers, although the covers are getting verrrrrrrrrrry small on her!

Likes: Sitting up (with help, obviously) and being patted on the back, baths, her swing and especially the moving mobile, music, her paci but less so than last month

Dislikes: any time her bottle is removed from her mouth whether it's during or after a feed, tummy time, her mouth stretches (to prevent reattachment while healing), being in the mei tai for more than 10 minutes, a cold wipe anywhere but her bum 

Nicknames: Still Mush, but sometimes I 'shorten' it to Mu-Mu which then becomes Moo Moo Mr. Cow... the kids meal at Moe's. Yeah, I should not be allowed to have kids :P. Also baby girl and little girl. And Bear, which is my family nickname that I'm apparently sharing.

Milestones: She started smiling on April 12th. She's very stingy with her smiles and they are really quick, but they are the cutest thing ever!!! Her neck is also getting stronger. She doesn't use it much during tummy time, but she'll sit with her head up while on our laps for up to 15 minutes at a time with very little wobbling.

I don't want to forget this!: On the 18th, she nursed for 35 minutes along with a couple other shorter sessions this past week. I haven't updated too much about it, but she might nurse 1-2 times a week for 1-5 minutes... and that's on good weeks! On Thursday she rooted against me (which she has literally never done) and ended up nursing a few minutes. Then Friday (18th) she did the same and nursed for so long! She nursed another 10 minutes or so today. We'll see if she keeps it up, but they were such sweet moments with her! 

Baby's First Big Holiday

Our Easter didn't quite turn out as planned. Steven worked from 8-6 yesterday, and I had grand plans of him coming home, us eating dinner, and then the 3 of us sitting around the table dying Easter eggs. Well, Felicity would just be in the infant chair watching us, but you get the idea. But my day had different plans. On Friday, my pump began acting up. By Saturday morning, I was having to really fiddle with it to get any suction. I began to panic because I knew if it totally died on Easter I would be S.O.L. Having low supply, I have to have a really effective pump, so my single electric and manual wouldn't be good to use more than 1-2 times in a row. I refuse to lose the little milk I do make! So I found a store that would rent the Medela Symphony by the week (enough time to get my Hygeia replaced by the company) and loaded Felicity into the car in the cool, rainy weather. And..... click, click, click. That's all my car would do. A battery issue, I hoped, but I was more concerned about getting the pump. I frantically talked to Steven who luckily has a boss who let him leave to go rent the pump. I made do with mine during the day. Steven ended up getting off about 40 minutes late, which I couldn't complain about since he left the store for probably just as long to go rent my pump in the middle of this shift. Then he still had to get groceries. And make the 30 minute drive home. And figure out what was going on with my car (battery that needed to be jumped by the pros because it was DEAD. DEAD. and replaced at Advance Auto Parts), and eat dinner. So by the time I got a very cranky baby to sleep, admittedly that was easy, and he finished all the above, we were left dying Easter eggs at 10pm. There was no baby at the table with us, so no sweet family photo op. Steven and I did have fun together, but it wasn't the experience I had imagined in my head with our new baby. Isn't that life, though? I sat thinking that I had better get used to this. I am so in love with a good photo op, but there will always be a car to break down, or someone will get sick, or an outfit will get pooped on, or we will run out of time. That's just life, and I need to learn to roll with it.

Steven has to work tonight, but I was determined that we'd have time to celebrate Easter as a family, so I'm running us ragged trying to make a memory before he goes to work. Sorry, dear. We decided to forgo the traditional lunch/dinner since he will be working and just enjoy a big breakfast. We rose at the crack of dawn to fit in feeding the baby and pumping with breakfast and baskets before 11:15 church, because we'd never be able to do all that and make it to 9:30 church! We had resurrection rolls (which have become a family tradition), bacon, our dyed eggs, and fruit. Each family member had to find their Easter basket a la the "hot cold" game, which is a Cash family tradition we started last year or the year before. Felicity was not exempt just because she's a baby! Speaking of, 2 months today!!!! But that will get its own post :). Besides candy, I got Steven a geeky Catholic book and the pope's encyclical on cd. He got me a holy water font for beside the front door and a holy water bottle so I can keep some of Felicity's baptism water. Felicity got a religious board book, a rattle, cd, and newborn sized baby legs. We had a lot of fun doing baskets!

She was supposed to wear the dress that I wore home from the hospital for Easter Mass but, believe it or not, my 8 week old is STILL too small to wear that! Isn't that crazy!? I tried to put it on her and the bloomers were totally falling off, as were the tights I bought at Target the other day. Luckily, her Godmother had just sent a dress in the mail that she made, so we quickly did a wardrobe change and took her to Mass where she got an A+!

7 Quick Takes- Back After Baby Edition

--- 1 ---

I got really bad about 7 quick takes towards the end of my pregnancy, and bad about blogging in general since Felicity has been here. I know, I know, priorities :P. I'm hoping that, since life is slightly less hectic, I can get back into it at least a little. I miss reading your blogs and writing my own!

--- 2 ---

Speaking of reading, one thing that sucks about bottle feeding (update on that coming in a take near you) is that it's a two handed job so I can't read. I always heard people talk about how much reading they got done while nursing and I was really looking forward to that! I need to carve out other times in my day to read, but it's just so much easier to do nothing or play on the computer. I should probably add that it's not possible to bottle feed one handed with the special needs feeder... it might be with a regular bottle!

--- 3 ---

So breastfeeding update. We took Felicity to Charlotte on Wednesday (which required waking up at 2:15 am to drive and get there for our 7:10 appointment!) and she got her lip and tongue tie lasered. I'm hoping this will be the final time!!! It was so much harder on me than the first time around even though there was way less blood and I didn't have to be the one to hold her down. I guess I'm more smitten and out of that post partum fog! Luckily she slept all the way there and most of the way back. We only had to stop once to comfort her.

--- 4 ---

Oh the update, yes. So we both have thrush which is super fun, but not uncommon, I know. Just ironic when she's latched on twice in the last two weeks :P. She wouldn't latch right after the procedure or yesterday, but did early this morning. We met with our IBCLC again yesterday who recommended doing suck training, offering the breast, and continuing use of the special needs feeder. She also corrected how we were using it and recommended that we do a few more visits with the chiropractor. So now a feed looks like: give nystatin for thrush, suck training, offer breast (almost always refuses because she's mad), give milk via SNF, offer breast. Then I pump at some point before the next feed. She's eating about every 2 hours when she's awake and won't take more than 2.5 oz, I'm guessing because her tummy is still small (she's just a little over 7 lbs at 6 weeks). However, last night she did sleep 6 hours straight, so that was awesome!

--- 5 ---

I feel really good and feel like I'm finally getting this motherhood thing down but I wonder when I'll feel like I can handle the house, too? For some reason I thought I'd have it mostly together by now. And it's kind of terrifying that I don't since she'll only sleep less and move more as she gets older. I'm doing fairly well keeping up with laundry and basic tidying, but I still need Steven's help to get dinner on the table (or, erm, out of the fast food bag) and with cleaning the house. I'm ready to just be at a point where I can handle it all better!

--- 6 ---

Less words, more pictures, amiright!?

--- 7 ---

I saved the best for last. Guess who I met at Ignited by Truth last week!?!?! She told me the quick takes police were going to come after me, so I figured I should participate this week :).

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!