She's Back!

From this on Friday ....

Sick baby (with sick Daddy) at the doctor's office

To this on Sunday ....

Happy baby at the family picnic (look at those baby shoes!)

Our girl is back! Of course, now I have a sore throat, but that's just how our life goes. We wouldn't be "us" without some area of our life that's currently falling apart! That's just how we roll :)

BA's Corner: Hospital Nursery Story

Here's a funny story from the night Leah was born.  We've been telling it to friends and family ever since.  So we figured we should immortalize it by putting it on the blog. 

After Leah was born and we moved to the recovery room, I got to tag along with the nurses to watch Leah get her first bath in the nursery. This was my first time in a hospital nursery. While it wasn't like TV or the movies, it was still pretty cool.

One of the things we liked about this hospital was that the baby stayed with the parents during the entire visit. As new parents, we didn't want to think about leaving our new baby in the nursery, and of course we were afraid of a baby mix-up! So we thought this was a good approach. But when I walked into the nursery, there were babies lined up along all sides of the hallways. I couldn't believe it. I asked myself, "Where did all of these babies come from?" There were babies of every size, shape, and color. I thought, "Wow, all of these parents have the option to keep their babies in their room, so why are they all here? Bad parents, I suppose.

On the second full day, we were talking with the nurses and trying to figure out how we could best take advantage of some of the advice they'd all given us, as well as the full battery of hospital resources, before we were on our own for good. We had a revelation...if we sent Leah to the nursery for the night, we could get some sleep, and they'd just bring her to us when she was hungry. Pretty sweet deal. Every few hours, they'd knock on the door, roll Leah in, and tell us how she was doing. After she ate, they rolled her right back to the nursery and we tried to get some more sleep.

So now we understood. All those babies in the nursery during our first night....those were 2nd night babies (or just second babies)! Not bad parents...smart parents.

On the Mend, Sort of

The good news is that Leah is on the mend.  She is almost back to her old self.  I didn't have the heart to take a picture of her when she was at her worst (Monday - Wednesday of this week) but I did snap one on Thursday.  She still looks pitiful in it but much much better than she did earlier in the week. 

The bad news is that on Thursday BA got extremely sick and I was the last man standing.  I had to send Nana home for fear that she would get sick too, and she was supposed to leave us Wednesday anyway but out of generosity stayed an extra night to help us.  Nana and Papa returned this weekend to stay with us and help out around the house, but poor Nana came back with a cold thanks to our little germ factory.  Beware other generous family members who have offered to help us out through this ordeal ... no good deed goes unpunished!  Miraculously I'm still not sick - either I have the immunity of a horse, or I'm about to get it bad. 

Here's our pitiful baby on Thursday of this week.

 Here's a close up of her arm with the little red spot where they put in the needle to take her blood.  So sad :(

 

BA is still sick - he even went to urgent care on Saturday to make sure he didn't have strep throat.  He rallied today to attend a family picnic in honor of his grandparents (because they are lovely people and we just had to be there), but he still feels like death and went to bed at 7 p.m. tonight.  So I'm on Leah-watch while trying to finish listening to a Georgia Civil Procedure Lecture tonight.  My study hours are so out of whack right now; I've been waking up around 6 a.m. because that's when Leah starts to stir.  But I have no energy at 6 a.m. because I only went to bed around 1 a.m.  Lately I've been unable to fall asleep because I'm either working on studying or wide awake for some reason.  I am exhausted.  My eye lids feel like they weigh 50 pounds.  But I'm trying to study every minute that I can because who knows how much time I'll have the next day.  I keep going because (a) I have to, and (b) in a month and a day this will all be over!!!

Really Really Sick Baby

This has been a scary week.  On Monday I took Leah to the doctor.  She had a sore throat, cough, ear infection in one ear, and temperature of 103.7.  On Tuesday she cried all day, and refuse to eat.  Any liquids I could get in her, she would throw up when she coughed.  This morning, she was still burning up, still coughing, still refusing liquids, still not eating, and so lethargic she could barely hold up her own head.  We went to the doctor.  After a mini-lecture from the nurse on why "you should always take her temperature before giving any Tylenol" I sharply said, "I guarantee you, she has a fever."  She did - 104.6. 

The doctor checked her ears.  Both of them were fully infected and had only gotten worse since Monday, even on the antibiotics.  The doctor took her blood - Leah did so great (actually the nurse is the one who did great, Leah didn't even know she had a needle in her arm - she just kept up with her constantly moan/cry and never flinched once).  So far her blood looks fine, thank goodness, more tests will be run over the next 2 days.  And she's now on antibiotic shots.  She got one round of shots today, and we go back to the doctor Thursday and Friday of this week to finish the second and third round of shots. 

She has been miserable this whole time.  A double ear infection plus a nasty virus combines to make one monster illness.  It is just awful to hear her moan, in such pain.  She hasn't fought a diaper change in three days and she no longer has the energy to fight the car seat.  Today she was barely sucking her pacifier, which was absolutely pitiful to see - she usually goes at her paci "W" with gusto and vigor.  And I am supposed to be studying, but how can I when my baby is in the other room, crying , "ma-ma-ma-ma-ma ..?"  She just wants to be held and sleep all day and has absolutely no energy.   And it's my responsibility to try and sneak liquids in her every chance I get.  So I run up and down the stairs checking on her, offering Gatorade or apple juice in her bottle, studying in short spurts, while Nana rocks and holds her all day.

I hold her at night.  When she wakes up with a hacking cough (about once an hour) she will either put herself back to sleep if it's not too bad, or it will get so bad that BA or I will run in there, scoop her up and cuddle her to try and stop the coughing.  Since fluids are such a priority for us, BA and I have resorted back to the syringe as a feeding device.  Last night at 1 a.m. BA and I were sitting on the floor of our bedroom trying to force feed Leah apple juice from a syringe.  She was refusing her bottle, but if I could get a syringe in her mouth she would usually take about 20 mL of juice before she gave up on that. 

I miss her smiling face.  I miss her giggles and the sneaky look she gives me right before she takes off crawling at full speed toward the living room (which is still not baby-proofed and is off limits to her).  I miss watching her stand up and crawl.  She has such a wonderful personality and we haven't seen it in 4 days now.  But at the same time, she is so lovable when she is sick.  She will cuddle up on whoever is holding her and fall asleep in their arms, open mouthed and panting. 

So that's the update.  She is a really, really sick baby.  Hopefully she'll be back to her perky self by the weekend, and I'll be back to Bar review lectures and practice problems.  In the meantime I expect to get some more cuddle time from my sweet, beautiful, baby girl tonight.

Maybe She's Irish?

Leah is sick.  She woke up this morning hot, with fever, and spent the day moaning in pain (she's now in bed, moaning there too).  She took almost no naps, would burst into tears randomly, and refused to eat most of her dinner.  I finally got her to eat puffs and rice krispies after she refused her sweet potatoes and veggies with pasta.  I think she just has a nasty cold and is having body aches.  In any case, today I got barely 1 hour of study time in, and I had planned to spend at least 5 hours working.  And because she had a fever today and is feeling so miserable, I won't be able to take her to daycare tomorrow.  While I love the opportunity to spend quality time with my little snuggle-munch (I've already planned tomorrow out - a walk in the park and a family lunch with daddy at the Chick-fil-A near his office), I'm stressed over all the Bar studying I'm not doing.  I lost two days to pink-eye a couple weeks ago, and now I'm losing two more to this cold.  And if the amount of moaning/crying she is doing now is any indication of what tonight is going to be like, I can kiss sleep good-bye. 

So we called in the Reserves.  Nana is driving two hours from South Carolina tomorrow morning to watch/cuddle/console my little sick baby and I am going to study.  God Bless Nana! 

On a lighter note, we've learned that Leah's favorite genre of music is Irish pub songs.  My dad (Leah's Granda) was recently featured on an Irish CD sold at the pub where he bagpipes (do you realize that there are very few people in this world who could write a sentence like that!)  He sent us a copy and Leah decided she liked a couple of the songs. When I want to get her away from something in the other room, I  just turn on one of her favorites and she'll instantly stop whatever she was doing and crawl to the speakers.

Here, her Granda is singing in the chorus on this one, her favorite, "Rosin the Beau".

Low-budget Walker

In our Atlanta hotel room, Leah discovered a new way to get around.  Not only was I impressed by the Peanut's ingenuity, but I was also proud of her frugality!

Leah vs. Carrots

In addition to photos that were being held hostage by our moving company, we had videos that also were confined to the camcorder and we couldn't upload.  Here is the first of that batch.  This video was taken back before Leah started refusing her purees.  We were staying in the hotel room in California and for some reason Leah decided to have a little fun with her food.  She had never done this before, and she hasn't really done it since, but it was super fun in the moment. 

11 Months and Counting

Okay we're back.  We finally have all our stuff and have uploaded over 500 pictures that were being held hostage on our camera, to our computer.  This means lots of picture posts to come.  First up, baby girl turned 11 months today.  Oh my gosh she's such a big girl!  She pulls up on everything and will walk a few steps if I hold her hands.  She refuses to eat pureed baby food anymore, and will whine/moan/groan until I give her finger food.  She loves cheese, pasta, chicken, apples, cherries, basically everything I put in front of her.  The whining (really sounds more like a low, steady groan) is starting to get on my nerves because it's constant.  I don't know if this is unique to my baby, or just a phase she's going through, but it's driving me crazy!  She will start the whining from the moment I put her in her car seat, and continue to groan until we either arrive home or she falls asleep, whichever happens first.  She is growing so fast, and we love her so much.

Fudge cake

On those tip-toes

She's eyeing the cake and knows it won't be long before she can get her baby paws on one of those

Happy 11 months to me!!!

Random Thoughts for a Tuesday

1. The remainder of our stuff is still not here - which means our computer is still not here - which means no current pictures yet.

2. I get an email every week from my Career Development Office listing job openings for grads.  I can usually go through the week, quietly nagging myself that I need to start looking for a job, but when that email hits my inbox every Monday, I begin freaking out - until Tuesday when I discover there are many other things to freak out about (like the Bar) and job searching gets pushed down the list again.  Not any more.  I'm resolved to find time this week to really start looking.  My motivation?  It should be the expiration of my grace period on my student loans and the impending doom of a loan balance the size of a mortgage coming my way in October.  But no, my motivation right now is a new couch.  If I ever want to buy a new couch, then I need a paycheck.  Time to find that job.

3. Leah is doing better at daycare, and I am doing better with taking her to daycare (mostly because I've now outsourced the job of actually "taking" Leah to daycare, to BA.  I pick her up, so I get to see her when she's happily playing with her friends at the end of the day and hasn't noticed me yet.  Once she sees me, it's back to crying, but I'm now convinced that she's only doing it for effect.) 

4. Leah doesn't like to wear her bib anymore.  This past week she started pulling at it and ripping it off in the middle of her meals.  This means two things: (1) she usually comes home from daycare in a different outfit than what I sent her in, and (2) she eats her meals at home topless. 

5. Why does the Bar Exam have to test on SO MUCH STUFF?!?!  (I know, Dad, "because if it was easy, then everyone would do it").  I can't believe that I am already starting my third week of Bar review.  Where did the time go?  I know nothing - NOTHING - despite sitting in front of a computer watching lectures and taking notes everyday.

6. Our house is a mess.  Luckily our house is also big enough for me to spread the mess out so that it doesn't look as bad as it is.  But it's a mess, none the less.  This drives me a little crazy.  But I don't really have the time to bother straightening up.  So it remains a mess.  And it will stay that way until the rest of our stuff comes and I can finally get organized. 

Transition Week

At Leah's new daycare, they have a thing called "transition day."  It's where the new babies come to their new classroom for two hours just to get used to the teachers and other kids, and for parents to learn the new procedures for this age level.  Well, this whole week has felt like transition week for me. 

Daycare has not gone as I'd hoped it would.  Leah has screamed and cried everyday at drop-off which she's never done before.  Couple that with the fact that I cried when leaving our California daycare because I was so sad to leave her teachers and you have a lot of daycare-induced crying going on lately.  Aside from that, the teachers here haven't been especially friendly to us.  They're not rude, they just never seem excited or happy to see us.  Maybe they're just timid, or maybe they don't expect to be friends with the parents, or maybe it's because we're new, but it seems like they take a collective sigh when we walk in the door, "oh great, here come the new people, what are they going to ask me about now."  On her first day, BA picked her up after work.  He got to daycare at 5:40 p.m. and Leah was the last baby there and she was crying.  The teacher said she'd been fine until the other parents started coming and then Leah would cry each time she realized it wasn't her Mom or Dad (ugh - knife to the heart).  The teacher said that all the other kids are picked up by 5:30 p.m. in Leah's class, even though they are open until 6:30 p.m.  What?!?!  What kind of job does these other parents have?  I think many of them are stay-at-home mom's who just want a break in the middle of the day.  And I don't have a problem with that, except that it makes us look like the bad parents who leave our kid at daycare all day, and it stresses Leah out to see all her friends leaving first.  I can't take the guilt, so BA and I switched around our schedules for the remainder of the summer.  I'm no longer going to Emory for live classes; I'm staying at home and watching all the lectures online.  He will take Leah in on his way to work (which means she gets to daycare at 7:30 a.m. - she's the first to arrive) and then I'll pick her up in the afternoon.  Right now I'll work until about 3:30 p.m. and then pick her up by 4:00 p.m.  After we eat dinner, I hit the books again until about 8:00 p.m. or until I can't take it anymore, while BA puts Leah to bed. 

Since Leah has had the week-from-hell, I decided to pick her up early yesterday take her grocery shopping.  She had a blast; smiling at strangers, bouncing up and down in the cart as we rolled up the aisles.  She made so many friends at the store.  I was concentrating on picking out blueberries in the produce section when all of a sudden I looked up and these two ladies were waving and smiling at us.  Leah had been grinning at them with her hands clutched beneath her chin.  Another patron stopped me in the aisle to tell me that "she's adorable."  A Publix employee walked by and said "hi there, cheeks!"  And the check-out lady asked me her name and then talked to Leah the entire time we were checking out - and Leah talked back. 

Despite all the transition struggles, I still really like Atlanta.  As mentioned above (almost) everyone is friendly to us, people are holding doors for me (and I'm not even pregnant - it was a miracle when someone would hold the door for me in L.A. even when I was pregnant).  BA and I have gone through a touch of culture shock in Atlanta, just as we did when we first move to L.A. and thought that everyone owned a fedora and surfed all day.  The southern accents are thick and they are everywhere (but I like them).  I have to remember to be nice on the road and not drive like a jerk.  There are bugs everywhere!  Three years out west and I forgot about cockroaches.  Two days in our new house, and I remember how big southern cockroaches can be.  Yuck!  And the trees are still lovely.  In law school, professors will use hypotheticals to teach a concept.  At Pepperdine the hypothetical would usually go something like this, "Surfer walks across homeowner's property to access the beach.  Has Surfer committed a trespass?"  But in my Barbri-Georgia class the hypos go like this, "Bubba wants to buy some shrimp from Big Momma's Gulf Shrimp Company."  Hahaha - I'm not even joking - that was an actual Barbri-Georgia hypo.  Things are different here, but good.

And back to daycare ... I really like the school, I'm just not thrilled with the classroom yet.  I haven't adjusted to their style or manner of doing things, and I have to give it time.  It's a transition week and I have to remember that.  They seem to be doing fun things with the kids - this week was "Wacky Week" where everyday the kids and teachers wear something unusual.  Yesterday was backwards day where the kids and teachers wore their shirts backwards.  The day before was tacky day, and today is beach day.  They are going to let the babies play on a water table and with sand.  These are great developmental activities and it's much more than our daycare in California provided (although we loved our daycare in California because they were so sweet with Leah).  It's just hard on me to see her crying so much, but hopefully soon, the transition will be over and the tears will dry up. 

Leah and Daddy on their way to "Beach Day" at daycare.