We're gearing up...

For Valentine's Day!! Every little girl should have an ample supply of V-day outfits to choose from, so we're getting them all into the rotation now! Check out our consignment store find!
Did you catch the mouse pocket? Love it!!

2 Months Old!

Lila Jane! You are two months old today!!!
You are growing SO very much! We will update your stats after we go to the doctor on Monday, but I'm betting you're at least 12 pounds! You can still fit into some of your 0-3 month clothes, but you are definitely well into the 3-6 month clothes range now! You still wear size 1 in disposable diapers, but you are mostly wearing cloth now! Mommy has finally learned how to fasten them tight enough so that they don't leak very often at all!! You're now consistently eating at least 5 ounces at a time when you eat from a bottle. You go back and forth from breast to bottle like a champ, too! We're still using only breastmilk for now, but when Mommy goes back to work, we might have to start supplementing with some formula.

What have you been up to this month? Well, you've been sleeping longer and longer through the night!! With a few exceptions, you have been sleeping at least 9 hours at night, and the last couple nights, you've gone closer to 11 hours!!! I can't believe what a good sleeper you are! You still nap throughout the day, too, but you are having more and more good wake time. Your best time is when you first wake up in the morning and you're so fresh and happy! We love to cuddle and snuggle and talk when you wake up! You still adore your baths, and really enjoy time on the changing table. I think you know you have our undivided attention then, and you really smile and enjoy it! It probably won't be long until you decide you're too busy to get your diaper changed, so we're enjoying it while we can!! You still HATE tummy time, and even got so mad you screamed yourself to sleep one day while on your stomach. You are starting to enjoy our story times a bit more now, but still don't act very interested for very long at a time.

Your diaper rash is finally gone, but we are really staying on top of it, because it still seems to get kind of red really easily. We haven't used your eye drops for the clogged duct in a few weeks now. Your hemangiomas seem to be growing just a bit, but they are still so cute, especially the little strawberry one! We are still fighting a bit of cradle cap, but you actually seem to really enjoy when I'm playing in your hair getting it out!

Aside from a couple small foibles, you've been good as gold when we take you out and about! Mommy and Daddy still love to go out to eat, so you've been to many restaurants around town! We often meet up with friends for meals, so there are usually plenty of people who want to help hold you and keep you occupied while we eat. You still really enjoy shopping with Mommy, too, and we often go to Target, Wal-Mart, or even the mall to walk around and shop. We really like consignment stores, too! That's where we find a lot of your really cute clothes! You did wear almost all of your 0-3 month clothes before you outgrew them, but it's still hard for Mommy to box them up and put them away.

In one more week, you'll start to school! Mommy is so proud of how big you've gotten, but still a bit nervous about letting other people take care of you allllll day every day. I love your teachers, and I know they love you, too, but there's still no one who can replace Mommy, and there's certainly nothing better for Mommy than spending time with you! I am looking forward to getting back into the routine of work, though, and being around the people. It will definitely be a big step, but I think we're ready for it!

Mommy and Daddy sure do love you, Lila Jane!!!

Daddy saves the day!

A couple days ago I caught these cute pics of Clay changing LJ's diaper. It was momentous only in the fact that he's now braving cloth diapering with me. He's been a super diaperer all along, but the cloth is a bit intimidating until you get used to it. He's much more fond of the cloth diapers with velcro than the ones with snaps. Little bitty snaps are pretty hard for someone with great big hands.

In other big eventful news at the Cundiff house, Lila tried out her "Bumbo" seat for the first time this week! She liked it!!!!
Or did she?
Ok, maybe she changed her mind about all that.But never fear, Daddy saved the day!!
Maybe we'll wait a few days before we try that again!

Can you "spot" the baby??

Classic case of clashing camouflaged cutie crashed out

Oh noes!

Twas the night before Wednesday,
And all through the house,
Great things were stewing,
As we prepared for dinner guests.

The potatoes au gratin,
were simmering for all,
As the strip steaks were finishing,
their great debut thaw.

When what to our wondering eyes should appear,
but nasty potato skins,
clogging the drain, OH DEAR!

We Liquid Plumbered and plunged,
and we cleaned pipes and we prayed,
as we called our dear guests,
and regretfully delayed.

To the bottom of the steps,
To the last pipe we found,
We continued our fight,
Against the potato peels that were ground.

Alas we gave up,
And gave in to the clog,
And about this mess,
All that's left is a blog.

We called our dear guests,
On Chuck, and On Jude!
To the nearest pizzeria,
we shall convene with this brood!

Fine pizza was had,
And Lila was held,
We even took photos,
Because Jude did so well.

Today brings more madness,
As we head out to shop,
for things like new pipe snakes,
before that drain pops.

Wish us all well,
As we carry out our tasks,
We're hoping this crisis won't call,
for a plumber that asks.

For all of our money.
The end, honey.

Getting Personal...ized

Before they flew the coop, the snowbirds (aka Mim and Pop) made some personalized labels for Lila's daycare items. I finally got the labels adhered, and thought you might want to see. Lila Jane definitely has the best marked stuff at school!!
Yes, Lila has her own trash can for stashing her used cloth diapers, and her own little personalized wipe box for her flannel wipes. I owe her teachers big time for putting up with my annoying "dirty hippie" mommy ways. Lila's butt greatly appreciates those ways, though, as I'm proud to announce she's officially diaper rash FREE, and we're now saving about $2 a day by using cloth diapers exclusively. Ok, except for night-time, when I'm really scared they'll leak and she'll have to lay in pee clothes for 9 hours.

And...because I learned my lesson about posts without pictures of Lila after that nursery video, here you go! Gratuitous baby shots of the day! Thanks to Aunt Ann and Cousin Andrea for the ADORABLE outfit, and thanks to the Keith Crouch clan and Emerson for the awesome bouncy seat!

Lila had a long hard day at Target and visiting friends at school, and therefore couldn't be bothered to open her eyes for today's photos. We'll try to do better tomorrow.

Another week down

We have had the BEST time this week with Clay off work! We had dinner parties, did some shopping, slept in late, and just enjoyed being a family. Clay has decided he really likes this retirement stuff, with the only possible drawback being lack of pay. It is a big drawback, so unfortunately he'll have to go back to work tomorrow.

Lila Jane is doing wonderfully! Her diaper rash seems to FINALLY be pretty much cleared up. Her cheeks that were SO very bumpy and rough are finally starting to get soft and baby cheeky again. She still has a bit of cradle cap, but I'm trying to stay on top of that so that it doesn't get very bad. She actually seems to enjoy me digging and scratching on her scalp, so that's definitely a good thing. She's still been sleeping 9-10 hours at a stretch every night, so overall, LIFE IS GOOD!

Now that Lila's bum is so much better, I'm really starting to get more committed to the cloth diapering. We've been using cloth exclusively while we're at home for two days now, and we've only had one very minor leak. I think a combination of the diapers being washed a few more times and adding absorbancy, along with me learning just how to adjust the snaps/velcro is really making a big difference. I'm feeling almost confident enough to take her out in public in them! The washing/drying/general care aspect of the cloth diapering has been a breeze so far. Apparently it's not a big deal until the solid foods start. Luckily we still have a while on that one.

So, I really don't have much else to report, which is a GOOD thing!

Lila's first movie!

I think I've finally figured out how to use my new Flip video camera! I'll try to do these vids occasionally, but they are kind of a pain to upload.

Peeking In

If I do this right, you'll get to see a peek into Lila's bedroom!

Week 7

It's been a big week around the Cundiff house! Clay is on vacation this week, and we had a LONG list of all of the things we would accomplish. As is typically the case, we've done pretty much none of them. However, what we HAVE done is savored every moment and enjoyed our family time. Since restaurant dining has been a wee bit hit or miss lately, we decided to have some friends over to our house this week. We spent most of the day Monday shopping. We were gone MUCH longer than we had anticipated, but Miss Lila slept the WHOLE time. We did stop to eat lunch, and we woke her up to feed her there, but she wasn't overly interested. After lunch, she went right back to sleep in her car seat. It's SO nice to be able to shop and run errands without worrying about her screaming, but we did pay for that luxury a bit in the night. Since she'd slept all day, she woke up every 3-4 hours through the night. I can't really complain, though, since that one was our fault.

Tuesday, though, I decided we weren't playing that game again! I left Lila home with Daddy while I went to a dr. appointment and running some errands. He had strict instructions NOT to let her sleep all day! Ha! He did a wonderful job taking care of her, and even gave her a bath and got her dressed all by himself! Her outfit had short sleeves, but at least it matched! Go Dad!! Lila did a great job at pacing herself on naps, and she managed to sleep 8 1/2 hours through the night! HURRAY!!

Wednesday, we got out and ran some more errands all together. Clay and I both had haircuts, went to lunch, the post office, etc. Lila did great while we were out and about, but didn't ever really get into that deep sleep. Every time she'd nod off, we'd stop and she'd wake up again. Friends came over at 7pm, and at that point, she still hadn't really had a good nap all day, just catnaps. As you can imagine, she was an absolute exhausted mess at this point. I finally rocked her to sleep and put her in her bed, hoping she'd sleep through our dinner and then wake back up for another feeding before her actual bedtime. I think at this point, though, she was just too tired to even be able to calm down for sleep. She would nod off and get quiet, then start wailing again after just a few minutes. We managed to make it through dinner in relative peace, only hearing her a few times. After dinner, I got her up, diapered, ready for bed, and gave her a nice fat bottle around 9:30pm. We put her straight to bed after that, and did not hear another PEEP from her until 7:45 this morning!! That's over 10 hours, and all new Lila record!! WOW! The whole family woke up refreshed and in a great mood today!!

We got out and about again today, on more fun family adventures. We did some Valentine's Day shopping, picked up some flannel to make MORE cloth wipes for Lila to take to school, ate lunch out, and even hit the mall for some new clothes for Clay. I also may or may not have purchased a knit sock monkey outfit/costume for Lila for next fall. Maybe. But surely I wouldn't have done that? But maybe... Anyway, she did sleep quite a bit in the car seat again today, but not anywhere near as much as Monday. We'll see how the night goes! I told her she didn't have to do 1o hours again, but 8-9 would be JUST fine!

Where's Lila?

Where's Lila??

I think I might have found her...
There she is!
Uh-oh...there she goes....

What a nap!!


(If you'd like to hop back to the "6 Week" post, I added pictures of Lila's hemangioma.)

All Better!

Apparently Lila has been reading the blog, and realized we were talking about her. Being the obstinate babe that she is, she decided she would just go on and really prove me wrong by turning back into the perfect baby! HA! After I wrote all those rotten things about how she'd been acting, she went right down and slept for 7 hours! She woke up her bright sunshiny self, and we set out to have a fun day. Lila and I walked the mall for a looong time, then made a run to Target, and she hardly even made a peep. After that big adventure, we went out with some friends for dinner at Palermo, then she slept for a 9 hour stretch last night! Our sleeping beauty is back! HURRAY!!! Lila woke up in a great mood this morning, and we brought her to our bed where the three of us just snuggled all morning. It was perfect! We drug poor Lila out and about again for lunch, then shopping with a friend. She slept the whooole long day. We pressed our luck tonight, though, and took her out to dinner again for a friend's birthday. After sleeping the whole day away, Lila was NOT interested in sleeping through the party. Instead, she decided to have a belly ache and cry the whole time! All of the people there were really nice about it, but I felt terrible that she added her special "ambiance" to the evening. Luckily, it was a very casual pizza place, and we were in a back room where only our party could hear her. Most of the people sitting near us have children, so they were very understanding, even taking turns to help hold her. As stressful as it was to see her so upset, I still have to give the poor girl credit. She has been a trooper the last few days!! She hangs right in there with us no matter where we decide to drag her!

I had mentioned in the last post that I was concerned about the breastfeeding going awry. After CB calmed me down a bit and told me to just chill with it, things dramatically improved, and I am no longer in ANY way concerned about my production. I was just really overthinking things and making it all more difficult than it should have been.

So, overall, things are looking MUCH better around here. I'm going to have to remove that ad on Craigslist for a free baby. :-)

Clay is on vacation this coming week, so I PROMISE we'll get some new pics of Lila Jane up soon!!

Baby for Sale! Free!!

I'm thinking about giving Lila away soon. My very happy and well-adjusted, and great eating and sleeping baby is no longer. I'm not sure where she went, but I miss her greatly, and would love to have her back. The baby that was left in her place is kinda cranky, and is bringing me down with her.

I'm really not entirely certain what's going on, but I fear there are multiple factors at play. First, Lila is gassy. Whenever she's fussy, I always immediately dose her up with some infant gas drops. I can often push her legs up toward her abdomen and hear a nice long string of toots. Sorry to go into detail, but when I go back and read these posts when Lila's in high school, it'll make me laugh. Another factor at play is that the nursing/pumping lately has been kind of erratic. I love the convenience of being able to pump, then give Lila bottles when I'm out and about. However, it's really easy to get caught in the trap where I pump, then suddenly Lila is ready to eat, so I give her the pumped bottle, then I try to hurry and pump again to replace that, and the cycle becomes vicious. So while I'm trying to get ahead a bit and have some milk to freeze, Lila can get behind a bit and actually get less milk because I'm pumping it all away. Or something like that. It's all confusing. Other issues at play seem to be her diapers. While we're at home, I'm really trying to stick with cloth during the day. I'm working some different angles to keep leaks at bay, and we're doing a bit better with that. However, I'm wondering if Lila is fussier when she's wet or dirty with cloth diapers. She's been so fussy lately, it's hard to pinpoint what the actual issue might be. Finally, we're all snowed in, and we might go stir crazy if we don't get out of the house tomorrow.

So, as you can see, we have some issues working against us right now. Lila has been really fussy all day, hasn't napped well, has snacked when feeding, then acts starved 20 minutes later, etc. It's been a swell time. After talking through all of these issues with some wise ladies (Thanks Mom, CB, and Stacy!), I think my first line of defense might be to just chill a bit. I've really been stressing over the nursing, particularly, which is something I promised myself I would never do. CB very wisely suggested that Lila could be in a powerful growth spurt, which would very easily explain the constant hunger and changed sleep patterns. I'm hoping this is the case, as if so, CB assures me that it will only last a few days. I'm going to give up on the constant pumping, and just let Lila nurse to her heart's (and belly's) content for the next few days, and I'm going to try not to sell Lila on craigslist during an irrational moment while in the midst of a 2am feeding.

In other news (and further proving CB's theory), Lila was totally stretching out the ends of a 0-3 month footed sleeper outfit today. I meant to get pictures, but I was a bit preoccupied. (See above.) At one point, Clay was holding her, and the neck of the outfit was actually pulled down past her shoulders because it was stretched so taut. I'm so sad! She's barely worn these clothes!! I knew she would go through the sizes quickly, but I didn't realize we would actually be needing size 3-6 months at only 6 weeks old!

That's all I have for today. I have to rush to bed during this very calm and quiet moment before the sleeping beauty awakes and realizes her hunger once again.

Week 6

Lila is six weeks old! We're having yet another busy week. Sunday, Clay was working, so Lila and I met up with our friends Chuck, Jude (the one who knit Lila's booties and sweater!), and Amber for brunch. All of that food really wore us out, so we both came home and napped!

Since Clay didn't have to work on Monday, I decided tonight was the night to get you out of teh bouncy seat for bedtime! I decided to strengthen my resolve, put you in your crib on your back, and walk away. You gave me a gooood cry! I came in the living room to wait it out, and I almost didn't make it! After about 10 minutes, I asked Clay how long we should wait. He said THREE more minutes. Amazingly enough, after only one or two more minutes, you were fast asleep! You had been going about 9 hours at night before you woke to feed, but on your back you only made it about 4 hours. However, after you ate, you went right back down on your back and didn't even cry! I'd call our transition a huge success! Daddy was off work Monday, so we slept in and snuggled in bed all morning, then got out and ran some errands. We tried out a new restaurant, then made some returns at Wal-Mart. You slept the rest of the day! Yet again, though, you went right down into your bed without the bouncy seat and did great! You still only went about 4 hours at a stretch, but we're working on it!

All snugged in bed for the morning...bedhead and all!
Today (Tuesday) you had your ultrasound at Kosair to make sure the spot on your side really is just a hemangioma. The ultrasound went great, and it did confirm that we have NOTHING to worry about! They told us that it is definitely a hemangioma, and will likely continue to grow until you're about a year old! At that point, it will SLOWLY start going away, but might take several years. They don't like to intervene medically with these unless they are obstructing the function of another organ. Apparently these are commonly found on the face and can obstruct the eye or on the neck and will start affecting blood flow or breathing. We are SO fortunate that this one is where it is and is nothing to worry about!! I did ask the doctor if there could be any relation between this hemangioma and the cystic hygroma that was found in utero. The doctor said that there could absolutely be a relation there. Apparently both issues have kind of the same "look" to them. We are thrilled that there is nothing more to worry about with this little issue!!

Here are a couple photos of her hemangiomas:
In this first pic, you can clearly see the red one, but below that, you can really see the "lump" from the one under the skin.

This one shows the "lump" more head on. You can kind of see the discoloration as well.This one is a freebie, just because she's cute!

Lila Jane is napping right now, and I just finished folding and putting away her 3-6 month clothes!!! I can't believe we already need them, but she's quickly filling up her 0-3 month outfits. We've been using cloth diapers some of the time, and they are rather bulky, so they take up quite a bit of space in the clothing. It's so sad to have to already get bigger clothes out, but I'm SO happy and thankful Lila is growing and developing so wonderfully!

On the note of the cloth diapers, I've been really eager to use them, but the diaper rash Lila's had was preventing it. You can't use any ointments or creams with the cloth diapers because they can cause the cloth to repel water, which is obviously a bad thing when you want it to do quite the opposite! Lila's bottom is SOOO much better now, so we've been playing around with a few different brands of the cloth diapers. I'm having quite a bit of trouble with them leaking out the legs, but if I can figure out how to stop that, I'll love them! They're easy to use, and easy to wash, and they really do seem so nice and soft and comfy for baby! Also, I've been appalled at how much money we've already had to spend on disposables! I'm SO ready to get onto all cloth!

Lila Jane looking cute:

Lila showing off her puffy cloth diaper booty: