Well-baby check-up....

Ellie had an appointment with Dr. Mailander yesterday morning. I was really looking forward to this appointment simply because I wanted to know just how much weight she has gained and, in turn, to evaluate how breastfeeding is really going. Oftentimes, I'm left wondering how this child even grows because she STILL seems to be hardly taking anything in at many feedings. She is either very drowsy or just likes to sit there and dawdle. She certainly doesn't take after her momma when it comes to enjoying eating, that's for sure! :) So yesterday, I was very surprised to learn that my little sweetie weighs in at a whopping NINE pounds! And she has gained another 2 1/4 inches in height, putting her at 21 1/2 inches. That's the 50th percentile for weight and the 75th percentile for height! Whoohooo! :) That means that she has gained almost 2 1/2 pounds and 2 1/4 inches in just one month! The average weight gain for breastfed babies is about a pound per month....she's doubled that! When I told Mary (Dr. Mailander) how shocked I was to see that kind of growth, she commented that I must be making pretty high-calorie milk. Guess so. And then she went on to commend me for doing such a good job breastfeeding my kiddos. That was nice to hear. We talked awhile about how much I had to struggle to continue to breastfeed Lukey and she told me how proud she was of me to have kept going for as long as I did. That made me feel good! I love our pediatrician! Even more so after the whole mix-up with the pedi's right after Ellie was born! And I love the fact that she knows us so well! (For those of you who didn't know, I grew up 3 houses down the street from Dr. Mailander, I used to babysit her kids and even spent 2 weeks nannying for them on a trip to New Jersey when I was 13. She's was my pediatrician too. She's known our family a long time!)Anyway.....all the breastfeeding struggles I had with Luke were well worth it in the end...all the Reglan, fenugreek, pumping and tears. But I am SOOOOOO glad that it is so different this time around. I'm not sure I could do all that again!

I looked back at Luke's baby book, just to see how old he was when he finally hit 9 lbs. It turns out that he was 9 lbs, 1 oz and 21 1/2 inches long (almost precisely Ellie's measurements yesterday) at his 3 month checkup, which, when you account for his prematurity and adjust for his age, he was 1 month old developmentally. The same as Ellie. Interesting. The only difference was that at that stage of the game, Luke hadn't even come close to making it on the growth charts (and wouldn't until he was 10 months old!) and now Ellie is firmly on the curve...just where she should be! :) I love how normal all this is!!!!

We had a big milestone moment last night with her too....she slept in her crib for the first time. I wasn't sure that I was ready to make the move...and I'm still not, but in trying to get more sound sleep AND get her on more of a solidified schedule, sleeping in her own room is kind-of necessity. So, the night before last, she spent half the night there and last night she started off from the get-go in her crib. I have to admit that the quietness in our room is nice! :) And the darkness! We've had a night light blazing all night long in there since she was born. I didn't realize how I missed the darkness! Wish I could have enjoyed sleeping in it more than I did last night though! Ellie woke up to eat at 1:15am and I fed her (or at-least tried to...she only wanted one side and then nibbled on the other for about 15 seconds). After my failed attempts to rouse her to eat on the other side, I resigned to swaddling her back up and putting her back in bed to sleep. Apparently, she had other things in mind, because she fussed and fussed and fussed on and off for the next hour and a half! VERY odd for her. But seriously, every time I would soothe her to sleep, crawl into bed and get comfortable, she would begin to cry again and I'd have to drag myself across the hallway to her room AGAIN! I was growing more and more frustrated as I neared the two hour mark of being awake and Ty graciously heard my sighs and got up with her at one point. That did the trick for a whopping 15 minutes and then she fussed again, so I decided she must still be hungry....little stinker. She was, and after a quick feeding (like 4 minutes!) she fell fast asleep until 5:36am. (It was about 3:30 when she ate). She fussed,moaned and groaned from 5:30 until about 6:10, when she finally felt asleep again, and I did too. That is, until Luke decided it was time to start his day 10 minutes later at 6:20. Argh! Needless to say, I was a grouchy momma at first light! I have some caffeine on board now, so I'm doing much better! Thank goodness for coffee!!!!! I'm still not sure what her deal was last night. Its never that bad! Hope tonight is better!

As for our day and our weekend ahead, there isn't much planned. This morning we will just hang around in our pj's and I'll probably put together the new little storage shelf-thingy that I bought for Luke's playroom yesterday at Lowes. We'll probably re-organize the playroom too after that. Ty won't be home until later this afternoon, so with no plans and nowhere to go, it will be a nice, lazy morning at home. I'm not sure that we'll be doing much in the yard this weekend, since it's forecasted to rain this afternoon and tomorrow. I know this much....I won't be there helping much either way. I had that mole on the bottom of my foot removed and biopsied again on Tuesday and now have several stitches there. Its quite sore. No shoveling or digging for me, I'm afraid. I'll know in about a week if it turned out to be cancer or not. The first biopsy came back as 'highly a-typical cells' but the sample wasn't deep enough to determine if it was cancerous, which is why my dermatologist wanted to cut the whole thing out. Not fun to have a hole cut from the very bottom of your foot, let me tell you! Ouch!

Well...seeing that its getting late and we haven't had any breakfast yet, I should get going. Here are a few quickie little snapshots I took this morning in an attempt to capture Ellie's little smile. They are not the greatest, but oh well.







Ok....I'm off to get ourselves some breakfast! Hope ya'll have a nice weekend!