life well loved: Happy 4th!

Monday, July 4, 2011

Happy 4th!

I have to say that staying home on the 4th of July has never felt so good! Nathan was off today so he, Kelsie, and I just hung out around here all day and didn't do much of anything - so nice! Now, I have always been all about going somewhere on the 4th - the lake, cookouts, spending time with family, enjoying the sun and water...but with a 4 month old, all of that is more difficult than its worth. However, I say that after I tested the limits this weekend. We had a get together at our house on Saturday and then went to the annual family cookout at my uncle's house yesterday. Perhaps it all just fell at a bad time considering the week Kelsie has had, but she was just SO fussy. Monday she had the PFTs with sedation, then I worked on Tues/Wed, and Thursday she received her 4 month vaccinations. Then Friday/Sat her eyes starting looking bad as though she may have a little conjunctivitis. Add all that together and throw in the missed sleep from the 4th of July festivities and you have a very unhappy baby! I have NEVER seen her as upset as she was this weekend and needless to say, it really took its toll on me too. I was really looking forward to visiting with family and friends and letting them all play with Kelsie, but both days, she was in rare form - so instead, I spent much of the time trying to console her and get her to sleep. I didn't care about that so much though - I was just worried about my baby and trying to figure out how to help her. It can be such a helpless feeling! Yesterday, I realized she had been in 5 houses in one day - ours, my aunt/uncle's, Nathan's parent's, Nathan's grandparent's, and my parent's! All in ONE day. TOO much! At one point yesterday, we were driving and she was screaming like she has never screamed before, so we pulled over and I just nursed her there in the parking lot - no enzymes or anything. It wasn't time for her to eat but it calmed her down - I have never had to do that before! (She still got the meds but just nursed long enough to calm down). I ended up feeding her 2 more times within the next 4 hours. Its possible she was going through a bit of growth spurt but I think the fussiness was more likely coming from the vaccines and just being so overtired that she couldn't settle down. On the plus side, she is still sleeping 11 hours at night and doesn't cry at all!! :) :) :) Last night, she finally fell asleep at my parents house 9:30p (which was way too late for her) and woke up at 8:30 this morning. I usually feed her at 7am, but today I just let her sleep until she was ready since she had went to bed so late. Today, she fought sleep for an hour, but again, I nursed her and she fell asleep and slept for almost 3 hours! I think she was catching up on lost sleep!! She was MUCH better this evening and back to her usual self. Hopefully she will do well for my mom tomorrow!

Here are some pictures from the weekend - once Kelsie finally settled down and went to sleep on Saturday, I had a good time goofing off with the family! But was sad that I didn't get to visit with the Atwaters as much as I would have liked.