A weekend away

So Ella did fine... and so did I. :) Once we landed in Memphis for our connection I was pretty relaxed and knew my in-laws were fully capable of taking care of Ella as well as surviving themselves.
I got this photo after we landed in Orlando with the caption "nite nite mom and dad".



What's funny about this is she's in her pj's... and her car seat! I thought, well I know they drove Grant around a lot at night to get him to sleep so maybe they did the same for Ella. Sure enough, apparently they took LOTS of drives over the weekend. When ever they could not get her to stop crying they hoped in the car! Not a bad game plan I have to say.
Also, after a little bit she started taking a bottle from them, whether asleep or awake so that was great.

Saturday morning as I was getting ready I got this photo.



That's Ella sleeping next to her "Junie". In the morning I often bring her to our bed when she wakes up, feed her and let her sleep next to us for an hour or so. Since she's in her own room now this is really a special time for us so I was glad to see that they got to share that with her.

I did better away from her than I thought I would. Oh, I missed her, and took every oportunity to talk about her and show people photos but it wasn't so bad.

Grant will never let me live down the early flight we took that required us to get up at 4 Sunday morning just so I could get home to her. I was tired of pumping and just wanted to be home. Physically it was straining. My back hurt, I had blisters, but it was good to be home with my little girl.

The wedding we shot was fantastic. It was at the Loews Portifino Resort in Orlando and was so beautiful. One of the nicest weddings we shot. The resort is set up to look just like Portifino Italy, which to me, looks just like Venice. It was sooo beautiful. Me and Grant felt like it was a mini vacation despite all of the work. :) Late Saturday night after the wedding we went down to the water and had some gelato... just like Italy. :)

We got home around noon on Sunday and it was so good to be home.

Terrified

Tomorrow afternoon we are leaving to shoot a wedding in Florida. I'll be away from Ella for about 44 hours. Last night Grants parents got here to watch my routine and see all of the things we do to survive our fussy little girl. I was glad because Grant had a hard time giving Ella a bottle Tuesday night and I wanted them to give her a bottle a few times before we left. I had no idea what we were in for. Ella will NOT take a bottle from anyone but me, and this seems to have just started.
We tried everything under the sun, from suggestions if friends to ideas online. I eventually showed them how to force feed her with a sirenge if need be. We tried every position, tv on, walking, outside, even in the bath... this child has a will. We even went and got some different bottles and nipples to try. No luck. Finally for Ella's last feeding today we made a small breakthrough. If we slipped the bottle in while she was still asleep or just waking up she drank. We are not leaving until 4 tomorrow so the game plan is to try this technique and see how things go.

I am sick to my stomach.

I know she'll survive and be okay, but she's starting to have attchment issues and between that and the feeding issues I am scared to death to leave her.

We have no choice. I am terrified.

Hit Reset

So last weekend we went up to Grant's parents house to hang with family, do Halloween together and celabrate 50 years of his parents being together (dating anniversary). Honestly I was a little stressed out about going. Ella's been so fussy and not feeling good... I just dreaded throwing our routine off even though it wasn't very sucessful in the first place.
Well I have to say it was nothing but a blessing. I was shocked how excited Ella was when we got there. Having 2 young cousins to entertain her plus soo many things to look at in "Granny & Junie's" house - she was beside herself with happiness.
Plus I discovered that Grant was a very fussy baby... now I know who to blame!!! It was wonderful to see her so happy all of the time, and it was nice to have other people hold her while I did things.
It was a very different experience than at the beach where I had a hard time relaxing, this weekend felt like vacation, a gift, a time to heal. On our way home I told Grant it was nice to look back at her when she started stirring and not think "oh no, she's waking up!" but instead... she's got cute feet.
Now that we are back home she's still fights naps and is occasionally fussy, but I think she's just bored. So I'm trying to come up with new ways to entertain her. Most importantly though is that I feel like I've changed. It was a much needed break that I'm so grateful for.
Who knew that a little trip would be like hitting reset.
:)

Meaning to the madness

So after a very trying week last night I decided I needed to take Ella in to see the doctor. She hadn't been running a fever but with the fussiness and as of Thursday night the ear grabbing I thought it was time. I figure it's worth a copay to have a doctor tell me she's fine to avoid going back to the hospital.

Well Ella is good at telling me what's wrong because she does have an ear infection! I can tell she doesn't feel good and I know it hurts but a part of me is glad to know she wasn't just fussy, she was sick. We've had four doses of antibiotics now and I think she's starting to feel a little better, but she's still pretty fussy. I shouldn't have got my hopes up that she'd be a new baby once she felt better.
Oh well!

We had a nice weekend going down to visit my brother and his family for my niece's birthday. It was a princess party if I ever saw one! She seemed to have a good time and I enjoyed some family time. Ella also got to bring home a very nice blanket that my sister in law made for her. It's turned out to be the perfect tummy time blanket and is warm for the cooler weather that's on it's way.

Sunday we chilled and had a lazy morning in bed watching movies and recovering from a night of Ella waking up. :) We had moved her to her room but with her being sick we moved her back for a couple of nights. She was back in her room last night but still woke up at 3 and I had to feed her. Lately I've been able to give her a pacifier and she goes back to sleep, but no such luck last night.

That's about it here. Here are a few pictures from the last few days.

Ella doing her part in society...



Grant having fun with his glasses.



A hurt ear.


Feeling a little better!

Sometimes it's just really hard

So I've not been posting much but that's because I just don't have time! Grant made the comment that having her takes up a percentage of our lives and when I said she takes up 90% of mine I wasn't kidding! It's been really hard the last few weeks that I've been home full time. It was hard before but I expected that with a newborn, then I expected it with my crazy working part-time month, but by three months of age I have to say, I didn't expect this. If I get a total of an hour to myself before Grants either home or done for the day it's a miracle. Ella fights sleep, cat naps, wakes up cranky, eventually I feed her to stop the crying, we get 30 minutes of a somewhat happy baby but one that doesn't like to be left alone, and then I do it all over again.

I'm sure some of you are thinking, "yep, that's what parenting is" and that's fine. I shouldn't complain because she sleeps at night and is healthy. But this doesn't work for me. I am not happy taking care of her full time and that being my only occupation. I'm possibly a horrible mother for putting that in writing but there it is.

My goal is to work on our home business from home, but I don't have time to do that. I have managed to get a small workout into my day in the mornings and I try hard to take a shower so that Grant won't kick me out of the house, but that's about it. I'm able to do laundry and dishes while she's in her carrier but what I want to do is sit at my computer for a couple of hours and contribute to something I feel very passionate about. I'm trying to prepare myself for the possibility that that might not happen for a long time. I had thought by now it would be, but I was wrong.

I apologize for the venting of this post but as one of my favorite bloggers once wrote "some of these women go wacko" in reference to postpartum depression and although I'm not depressed, I do feel like I'm going wacko.

- Sara

Woohoo!

Healed!

Only took 12 weeks....

Happy to finally be here!

To the corn maze!

Yesterday we went to the corn maze with Ella. She did great. We put her in the baby bjorn and she stayed alert and didn't fuss the whole time we wandered through the corn.

She gets bored easily these days so I think she liked looking at something completely different.

We did our normal thing at the corn maze - had hot chocolate and kettle corn. We went earlier in the day and in the season than we usually do because of Ella, and it was really nice. We didn't get as cold and didn't need our flash lights in the maze.

Please note the super chubby cheeks and double chin. Apparently we made chubby babies!

I'm starting to feel a lot better, in fact better than I have in 11 weeks... here's to hoping I'm finally healing.