Helen Claire Weekly

Happy Weeks 42 and 43!

For some reason, I completely blanked on taking a 42 week picture, so I'm combining these last two weeks.

We have been having lots of fun with the little miss. She is into new things all of the time (and from the picture below, it must be wearing her out- she was wiped out from school).

Here are the highlights from weeks 42 and 43:

• It has been pretty weather here, so we have been playing outside more and more. Since she was two days old, Helen Claire has LOVED being outside, and that has not changed. While I pulled weeds this weekend, Helen Claire and mudflap baby played under their "tent" thanks to Daddy. She even had a picnic lunch and tried to share with Jordan... sweet girl.










• She is trying her very best to crawl. She can almost do it and she is so close to pulling up too. She does move around, but she is on both hands, one knee, and she drags one leg behind. It looks terribly uncomfortable, and I don't know how she gets anywhere, but she does. If she can figure it out just once, I think by next week's post, we will have a full out crawler.


• Her hair is still growing like crazy. This is how it looks if it is humid or she has been sweating in her car seat...

• Her daddy stage has not faded this week. In fact, it has come on stronger. This week has been crazy as far as Jonathan's schedule is concerned. He is getting ready to take the FE exam on Saturday, so he has been at study sessions every afternoon when HC and I get home. When he is home, she wants absolutely nothing to do with me and will pitch a fit if he doesn't pick her up. It breaks her heart if he doesn't talk to her or hold her or even if he walks out of the room. She knows if he is home because the light is usually on in his office. If the light is on, she is trying to get to that room and will grunt and wave her arms at the door.





• T Vickie sent HC a gift this week, and she LOVED it (especially the paper and the box)

• She is still sleeping through the night... but, she wants to stay up later. Her bedtime has always been 7:30 or 8, but now she is trying to push it to 8:30. That also means that she wants to sleep in every morning. That doesn't really fit our morning schedule for getting to work and school, so we've been trying our best to put her in the bed by 8, but it's been a struggle.




• She is still an excellent eater. We nurse three times a day (once before school, once for supper, and once before bed). She gets two bottles at school. One is usually a formula bottle, because pumping has been an issue* lately, and the other is pumped milk. She also gets solids for breakfast at home, usually yogurt and fruit or a bagel and fruit or cereal and fruit. She eats school lunches and snacks and pretty much will eat whatever you put in front of her.
  
  
  
  
  
  She loves big, whole pieces of food, like this pita and an entire apple (don't worry, we watch her very closely).
  
  
  
  
  
  She LOVES to feed you some of her food, and she wants you to take it and actually eat it- no pretending.
  
  
  She still loves things she can pick up, and her favorites seem to be cheerios, peas, any kind of chicken or beef, mango, berries and yogurt cups. For some reason, if I buy a big thing of yogurt and dip it into a bowl, that's not as exciting as her very own cup. She also loves grown up cups- she thinks they are so funny.
  Untitled from Jenny Lucas on Vimeo.
  
  
  
  
  
  So far the only things she doesn't really like are new potatoes and baked beans. She tried those at school and they had to dip into her "back up" food stash. Of course, that is sweet potatoes, so she didn't go without :)
Here is a little picture of lunch time at school








I think it is hillarious- those babies are so good, though, and her teachers don't miss a beat. You would think with that many babies, things would be chaotic, but they do what they are told and the teachers work so hard to be consistent with them. Such a huge blessing for us!



• When I picked her up from school yesterday, her teacher told me to look at her crib. She finally joined the big girls and had her matress lowered. Miss Lindsey said she was trying to go down for a nap and all of the sudden, she just sat straight up. Way to go HC! We will be lowering the crib at home this weekend!





• I mentioned in a previous post that we found a freckle on Helen Claire's toe. Well, that made me remember that I never blogged about her ear birthmarks... she has a little dot mark on the top of each ear. They almost look like tiny chicken pox scars. She has had them since day one and they haven't faded.





• *Thrush. Ok, so this is the issue with pumping...this is going to be TMI for most people, so feel free to skip it. It won't hurt my feelings. Helen Claire and I developed thrush at 42 weeks. I don't know who got it first, but we both ended up with it. I noticed I was having a very hard time pumping (I'll spare you the nitty gritty details), and when I started reading about the symptoms, everything pointed to thrush. So, I checked Helen Claire's mouth, and sure enough, there were tiny white patches in the corners of her cheeks. Since she had been on so many antibiotics, it made sense when I called the nurse line, and they prescribed her some medication. My doctor also prescribed some for me. I take mine in pill form, but we have to swab Helen Claire's liquid medicine into her mouth 4 times a day. We just finished, and everything looks good. Pumping is getting better, but I'm still not producing enough for both school bottles. I do my best to pump twice at work, but depending on how busy we are, sometimes that doesn't happen. I also pump once before bed. I should probably pump in the mornings, but mornings are already crazy enough. I am having such a struggle about continuing to nurse and pump. I can think of so many other things I could be doing with that time, but then I feel really guilty and selfish because I want her to have breastmilk for the first year. Right now, I'm trying not to beat myself up about the one formula bottle, and I am commited to making it to the 12 month mark, but there are times when I consider going to all formula.





• Ok, so I just realized that was A LOT of information about breastfeeding, and it was probably only important to me... sorry. To make up for it, here are lots of pictures.

It's not so easy to get this picture anymore, and poor pig... he's really been through it.

Sometimes Daddy has to help with our picture... if you could only see the "behind the scenes."

We are headed to the Farmer's Market this weekend while Jonathan takes his FE. Please say a prayer that he would do well and get through the exam (all 8 hours of it- yikes). See you next week!