12 weeks

(Layla playing in her play gym - look at her chubby legs!))

Layla has been with us now for 12 weeks. We love her dearly and she is such a sweet baby. We do wish her first months on earth were not as hard as they were, but soon we will all forget this chaos. She does give us some giggles now which is sweet. Mommy is very funny :) Layla is also showing signs of teething. She has her hands in her mouth and drools much of her awake time (when she is not spitting). I do remember that this started early with Hannah also and she had 4 teeth at 6 months!

(Layla and Abbey just sitting around)

Layla and Hannah enjoyed spending the weekend with Uncle Mark, Aunt Beth and cousin Abbey here! The babies were so well behaved and although they were on different schedules, we did get some playtime together. Each baby also got to dip in the pool at Grandma's and they both enjoyed that. It should be even more fun in a few weeks when we take our first family road trip up to Chicago to see them. Two girls in the car with mommy smashed between for a few hours - fun!

(Hannah and Abbey)

Have I mentioned that I hate GERD? I hate it - I hate it as much as any other four letter word. I just can't get over how much it has changed our lives and how it wracks my tiny baby's body every day. She has her good days and her bad ones, but by now I thought we'd be all good. I have lived for weeks on a total elimination diet and months without dairy and I still can't make her better. With each bad day, I blame myself for eating a peach or a nut or maybe not eating enough something that made her previous day better.....I am driving myself crazy so we are moving Layla to a hypo-allergenic formula. Today is her first day we are mixing it in and she hates it. She barely drank any this morning and still spit it up so we shall see. The GI wants to see her on a stable diet before we make any more decisions and it is impossible to hold my diet stable. So I am giving up nursing which makes me very sad. I am grateful I was able to do it at all and give her the best start I could. If special formula will help make her better it will all be worth it. Sorry for the vent, but sometimes it helps.

Layla fell asleep twice by herself yesterday IN HER CRIB! I just swaddled her up and put her in with a paci and she fell asleep. Of course she only slept 20 minutes each time, but it is good to know that once we are past reflux, she is capable of falling asleep on her own.

I don't have a lot of pictures from this past week, but I will try to make up for it next week.

Take care.