4 Months

Ellie turned 4 months old last week.
I had a pretty hard time getting a good shot (hence the blurry hand). She was having a rough day that day, but Brady was able to coax a smile out of her. She has been having a lot of pretty rough days lately. Her reflux was getting really bad a couple weeks ago, to the point where she was just screaming at every feeding. I would have to wait until she wore herself out and fell asleep and then feed her in her sleep. We called the doctor's office and ended up getting a different prescription. They said she had developed esophagitis along with the reflux, which means that the acid that had come up had cause sores to develop along her esophagus, so it wasn't just hurting when stomach acid would rise up, but when milk would go down. Poor kid. They also told us to keep her upright for an hour after each feeding. Since she was usually asleep during the feedings, that meant she couldn't go in her chair or the swing as easily. So I decided to not get anything done besides feeding and holding this baby and we made it through the first few days, usually feeding for an hour and then sitting and holding her for an hour while she slept. But she was starting to improve. Then I started to get a cold. Then Brady had to go out of town. It was a rough few days. Thanks goodness for the Relief Society. There was someone over here every day for a couple hours to spell me off so I could get caught up on the bare essentials, like eating and making sure Ellie had clean clothes and bottles.

Needless to say, though, we were both so glad when Daddy came home.
We're starting to get back into some semblance of a routine, but it has been pretty rough going for a while. It's a good thing babies come so cute. Ellie is usually pretty happy, as long as I'm not trying to make her eat . . .

This is her just completely enamored with Brady when he got back from his conference. He went through withdrawals being gone just a few days.

This is me trying to keep her upright. She isn't old enough for this yet, but seems interested. Mostly she just picks her feet up and sort of spins. I tried her in it when she was 2 months old and her head barely cleared the top.

Other highlights of this month: Ellie started solids. The doctor told us to start her early to help with the reflux (sorry, we're a little obsessed with eating and reflux right now). I hadn't planned on taking any pictures or video because I figured if we made a big deal about first time eating food with Ellie, we'd have to do it with any other kid we have. But then we couldn't resist. Here is the result.


We're both getting better at solids now. Ellie prefers the blander things like bananas and rice cereal to apple sauce and pears. Brady is concerned about refining her palate.


Other activities this month include bubbles (well, at least we caught a smile on camera--and quite a cheesy one at that).

And kicking. She loves this. I think she is going to be an Irish river dancer. It has made diaper changing lots of fun (she usually kicks even harder on the changing table). Bath time too. We need to start wearing rain coats to bathe this kid.



Sorry the videos are a little long. I didn't have time to really edit them down. Also, the good pictures (the last two) were from Mindy's camera. She came to visit. I will have to blog about that and Ellie's blessing really soon. Lots to catch up on. Sorry for those readers who might be getting a little Ellied-out. Since we are so far away from family, this is how everyone gets to know her. I think it makes me just a little less homesick knowing that everyone gets to see her still, even if it is only on a blog.