The Growing Caldwell Family

So the other night I am looking at a website for cloth diapers and this is the conversation that Aaron and I had: Me: I guess a lot of granola kind of people cloth diaper because these sites have a lot of natural products Aaron: Sweetie, I think you are kind of crunchy. Me: I don't really think of myself that way. Aaron: It happened about the time you got pregnant and got into natural childbirth, breastfeeding, making baby wipes, cloth diapering, and who knows what's next. Me: It must have been that DVD that YOU brought home, The Business of Being Born

Actually, we have been calling it a "dumbo" chair after a friend's husband excitedly opened one as a gift, saw the elephant on the packaging, and proclaimed that they had received a dumbo chair!  LOL! Forgive us, our hair was a little crazy and the drool was a little out of hand when I took this video.  It is so cute though to watch her develop the ability to hold herself up and to try to move her hand to grab an object!  So many things they have to work so hard to learn to do.  She gets more capable everyday.  What a gift to watch her grow.

Aaron attends a class at church on Wednesday nights, so we had girls' night in tonight.  I took both girls on a walk and then gave Sarah Graves a bath before bed.  I am getting pretty good at pushing the stroller and walking Lucy by myself.  Here is a picture of baby girl after her bath I think she might be the cutest thing ever!

After 4 weeks of successful breastfeeding I decided to offer her the pacifier.  It is very helpful for satisfying her when it has only been 2 hours and she needs to wait a bit to eat again.  Aaron and I don't plan to let her have it all of the time, but it does help to soothe her.

The swaddle me (a.k.a. baby straightjacket) has been a huge help.  It has velco on it to keep it snug around her arms so that they can't get free, which prevents her from bringing her arms up and startling herself.  We have been using this to swaddle her since we were in the hospital and it has worked so well! Swaddling her in a receiving blanket just doesn't do enough to keep her arms in.  She is like a little houdini and can find a way to get her arm free!  The other great thing about it is that it makes her very compact, so she is easy to handle when swaddled so snug.  I also like knowing that she is nice and warm and covered up when she is asleep.  I only use it now at night because I don't want to overuse it and have it not work as well!  We have 4 of these and one of them is always in the wash.  The only drawback is that it starts to ride up and form what we refer to as her turtleneck.  Anybody who has seen "Happiest Baby on the Block" ...

I have been struggling for a while now about what to do about vaccines for Sarah Graves.  Aaron and I agree that she needs to have some of the major ones, but after that we aren't sure what to do.  I talked to a family friend who is an Ob/Gyn in Louisiana and he recommended a book on vaccines by Dr. Stephanie Cave.  Who would believe that she specializes in treating autism spectrum disorder in Baton Rouge!  I read the book last week (in all the spare time I have :) ) and learned of all the research out there on adverse reactions to vaccines and possible linkages between vaccines and autism as well as autoimmune disorders.  Her book convinced me that vaccines have to have some role in all of this. The possible linkage with autoimmune disorders really scares me.  In her book she describes studies that have found that certain vaccines may increase the likelihood of a child developing insulin dependent diabetes, asthma, crohn's disease, rheumatoid a...

Before Sarah Graves was born we debated using cloth or disposable diapers and one of Aaron's concerns about cloth diapers was that they may leak.  We have put the decision on hold while we use up the disposable diapers that we already had, but the other night Sarah Graves gave her Daddy a special spot to sleep when her diaper leaked on his side of the bed!  She left a lovely wet spot that he was not very fond of.  I absolutely could not quit laughing because I thought it was so funny!  I'm sure this made Aaron feel so much better.  It seems that no diaper is leak proof! I may not have had a wet spot in bed, but I have had my share of being peed or pooped on.  The funniest was while we were taking some pictures of her all curled up with her cute little behind exposed and as I was holding her getting ready for the picture she began to poop.  Mom quickly got a towel and we began trying to stop the mess.  Then as we thought we had it under control, s...

We went for a visit with Dr. Fleming yesterday to check on Sarah Graves' growth.  She weighed 7 pounds 15 ounces last Tuesday and at our appointment yesterday she weighed 8 pounds 12 ounces.  That's a gain of 13 ounces in 1 week!  Babies should gain about an ounce a day, so I think it's safe to say that she is nursing well!  We are now able to let her go longer than 3 hours between feedings at night.  That is, if she desires to.  She also checked her heart and lungs and all of that looks good too.  We will go back for our next check-up in a few weeks when she is a month old.    Here's a picture of baby girl at her new weight!

I have noticed a trend and I am sure that every parent of an infant has figured this out too, whenever I am about to move the dirty diaper away to put the clean one on, she decides to go.  It's like something about exposing her bottom signals her to feel the urge to go!  This morning it was rather lovely when it was poop that came squirting out!  Good thing we got the washable paint for the nursery walls!