Splashing Around in the Pool

This morning, we bought a little inflatable pool for Gemma. Cy blew it up and filled it up with water, and I got Gemma all decked out in her swimming gear. I sat beside the pool and dipped her feet in for awhile, then climbed in with her and let her sit in my lap and splash around a little bit. It seemed like she wasn't really sure what to think of the pool. She pretty much just sat there with a suspicious look on her face. I kicked her feet around in the water a little bit and splashed some water on her legs, but she still seemed pretty indifferent. We only stayed in for a few minutes before she started shivering. Maybe when it is a bit warmer outside and the water has a chance to warm up some, we will try again. She didn't cry at all, so I took that as a sign that she at least didn't completely hate the experience.

Here are some pictures of us in the pool. Just be sure to look at Gemma and block out me, as the pictures are not so flattering. . .

Two Months Old!

Sweet little Gemma is officially two weeks old today! I can't believe how fast it is going! She doesn't have her two-month check-up until next Tuesday (13th), so I will do another update then. But she seems to be doing great. When we took her to the pediatrician a week or so ago, she was right at 10 lbs., and that was after 2 weeks of excessive spitting up and not eating due to her acid reflux problem, so I am hopeful that she will be gaining weight even better now. The prevacid seems to be helping her tremendously. We have seen a drastic improvement since the very first day that she started taking it - she has been acting hungry again and is back to eating 3-4 oz. at every feeding, with minimal spitting up. She is also back to being the super happy baby that she was before the reflux started bothering her. We are so thankful that the medicine is working - it was so awful to watch our little girl hurting! We love her too much to see her in pain.

Here is this month's picture of Gemma & her pink giraffe. She has visibly grown and can no longer fit in any of her newborn clothes. She has also started smiling a lot and "talking" all the time (I'm pretty sure my heart literally melts every time she smiles at me). Can't wait to see what this next month will bring! Every day with Gemma is an adventure!

Cy's 30th Birthday

Yes, that's right, Cy turned the big 3-0 on July 4th. The whole nation celebrated with fireworks galore. Just kidding. It did end up being a kind of weekend-long celebration though. On Saturday, Cy, Gemma, and I went to Chili's, Cy's favorite restaurant, for a birthday dinner. He got to have his favorite burger and then we split a free birthday brownie sundae for dessert. We hung out and watched a movie that evening. On Sunday morning (his actual birthday), he got free birthday breakfast from IHOP. On Monday, we played some tennis in the morning (horribly, due to exhaustion), then had Cy's whole family over for a birthday cookout in the afternoon. Somehow I missed taking pictures of Cy blowing out his birthday candles, but I did get a couple of pictures of the three youngest Shealys together, as well as this hilarious picture of Gemma and Liam, in which Gemma looks raging angry and Liam looks absolutely terrified.

Cy got some nice presents, all though none of them were actual, tangible presents - Gemma and I gave him a couple of digital magazine subscriptions and a couple of digital books. He also got a gift card to Chili's and some money for a new pair of shoes and some money to buy some sort of Dave Ramsey something (I don't really know). I think that overall he had a fantastic birthday weekend, because there are few things Cy likes more than free food. . .in fact, he swears that the food even tastes better if it's free. . .

Shoes!

Forgot to mention in my Gemma & Judah post that Aubrey made some adorable little shoes and a matching bib for Gemma. I had been admiring the cute little shoes that Aubrey had made for Judah, so I was super excited that Gemma now has a pair. They are too cute--Aubrey sure is talented! Now I just have to wait for Gemma's tiny little feet to grow so she can wear them. . .

Eclipse

Last night, I went with Kelly and her sister Jessie to see Eclipse. I emphasize "went" with them because I am a pansy and ending up ditching them halfway through to move to a seat further back in the theater because I was getting nauseous. So I ended up watching it sitting next to some random old dude (not even sure why he was there), but that's a whole different thing. . .

Anyway. . .I thought it was really good. It was definitely a huge improvement over the first two. The acting was a bit better, and the fight scenes, though still cheesy, were much better than before. I really enjoyed the way the back stories of some of the other characters were portrayed (like Rosalie and Jasper).

There were some moments of such cheese that I couldn't help laughing out loud, though. Like the scene where Edward was standing alone on top of a snowy mountain next to a big puffy white tent. Weird. Or the extremely awkward scene where Bella tries to put the moves on Edward.

But overall it was quite an entertaining movie. And I had a great time getting out of the house with Kelly and Jessie!

Acid Reflux

On Father's Day, the Gemma we knew disappeared. She had a terrible projectile vomiting incident at church, and things started going downhill with her eating since then. For nearly two weeks, she has alternated between vomiting up nearly all of what she's eaten or just refusing to eat much at all. Whereas she had been taking 3-4 ounces every 3 hours very consistently, she started only taking about 2-2.5, and it was practically torture to get that much in her. We debated taking her to the pediatrician. Each time she would have a bad feeding, we would think about taking her, but then she would have a couple of good feedings and we would decide that she didn't need to go.

Finally, yesterday, I reached the breaking point. I thought that Gemma was doing much better. At her 8:30 am feeding, she gulped down 4 whole ounces and it stayed in her! I was so happy! We went for a walk and she was alert and doing great. At 11 am, she was already acting hungry again, which I took as a good sign. We sat down with another 4 oz. bottle. It started off fine, but it wasn't long before she was screaming off and on as she ate, and then finally she was refusing the bottle altogether. Then she started choking and gagging, and suddenly, she vomited up what appeared to be pretty much everything she had eaten the whole day. I got her, me, and the chair all cleaned up, and she was smiling and giggling and feeling much happier. Then she started acting hungry again, so I tried to feed her, but every time the bottle went in her mouth, she would scrunch up her face, start gagging, and spit it back out. I finally just put the bottle away but she continued to smack her lips and stick her whole fist in her mouth. Of course, this made me feel terrible. I could tell she was hungry, but she either wouldn't eat, or threw up anything she did eat. This is what has been happening off and on every day for the past two weeks.

Staring at my poor little girl as she acted hungry but not being able to do anything about it made me feel like the worst mom ever, so I broke down and called the pediatrician. They got us in right away yesterday afternoon. Our pediatrician, Dr. Traynham, was fantastic. He listened very intently to all of the symptoms and agreed that it sounded like something more serious than simple infant spitting up. He thinks that she is suffering from acid reflux, so he prescribed prevacid. As much as I hate to be giving my baby medication already at 8 weeks old, we are hopeful that the medicine will take away the pain she is clearly experiencing at feedings and that she will be able to start eating enough again, and keeping it down.

The good news is that she weighed 10 lbs. exactly as of yesterday, so her weight was not a concern. However, it seemed likely that her weight would become a concern if she continued in this pattern of poor feeding. Hopefully she will respond well to the prevacid and start feeling like herself again soon.

Gemma and Judah

The Tell family has been in Charleston the past couple of days, and last night they came over for dinner. It was great to catch up with them. We were so excited to finally get to meet Judah, and for them to get to meet Gemma. Gemma and Judah had fun hanging out together on the couch. Gemma was even trying to put the moves on Judah a little bit! We really enjoyed our time together with the Tells, and hopefully Judah won't be permanently scarred from exposure to all of Gemma's pink stuff! ;)