6 Months Old

So much has happened in the last 2 weeks. The biggest milestone is Alexa turning 6 months old. This is a bitter sweet moment. Over the last 6 months Alexa has changed so much. She now sleeps through the night, eats things off of a spoon instead of just through a bottle or on the breast. She sits up (more on that below), rolls over, repeats Ba Ba, stands and maintains her own body weight. She has grown more then 6 inches & gained more then 9lbs.

I do want to take a moment to list things Justin and I have accomplished since she was born. We have both lost our baby weight (and then some), learned to change a diaper in like 5 seconds flat, learned how to cook dinner while holding a baby, learned to shower while singing the ABC's as loud as we can , learned not to get embarrassed when everyone is staring because you have the crying baby, but most importantly have been able to balance our new family of three.

Sitting up. Alexa learned the balancing act of sitting up on her own. I knew this day was coming for a few weeks now. She kept getting closer and closer & now she has mastered it. She looks so big sitting by herself on her toy gym. I do believe she falls over on purpose sometimes. She will start rocking until she ends up on her side.

So last Thursday night Alexa would not sleep. This is completely out of character for her. She is not one of those babies who has rough nights several nights a week or even several times a month. Alexa has been sleeping through the night for months and has not had any issues since. She will occasionally wake up hungry. But she will take a bottle and go right back to sleep. Well Thursday she was up crying and was not a happy baby. Friday morning I took her to the sitters and explained the situations in hopes that she would sleep there with no issues. Madelyn kept me in formed on how Alexa was doing. At 11:30 she told me she needed to be picked up. After talking to the on-call nurse I was advised to go to the hospital. Alexa tested positive for RSV. Luckily the ER doctor did not think it was too serious. He did compliment me on breast feeding (pumping). He even went on to stay that she will heal faster on breast milk. It is rare to hear such a compliment and I really appreciated the acknowledgement after all the work I continue to put into it. I was given instructions on what to look for and told to take her to her pediatrician on Monday.

The weekend was tough on both of us. I came down with a bad cold but had to put myself on the back burner to take care of Alexa. She stayed in great spirits all weekend long. She continued to have trouble sleeping. I caught her a total of five times asleep in her jumperoo. She slept in the bed with me at night. We spent most of the night cuddling. She has been sleeping inside her boppy in an elevated position.

Monday finally arrived and we packed up and went to the doctors. Alexa had to wear a mask inside the waiting room to prevent the spread of her RSV. She was not having it. How do you convince a 6 month old to do anything? Never the less wear a face mask that she does not have any interest in. So I would put it on her, then she would pull it off, so I would put it back on and she would take it back off. Eventually she got bored and feel asleep. The over head announcements would wake her up but I was able to rock her back to sleep.

The doctor spent a long time counting her breathes, listening to her coughs and then decided to do a breathing treatment. Alexa was NOT happy about this decision. There is nothing painful about the treatment, but she did not like the steam one bit. The doctor ended the visit by cleaning out her nose. She told us that Alexa was highly contagious and needed to stay home all week. I needed to watch her breathing very closely and come back on Thursday.

We spent the next few days talking to Justin and enjoying our extra time together. On Thursday the doctor said she looked a lot better. She gave us Benadryl as a last resort to help clean up her nose. I have only given it to her twice, each time before bed. It has been great & Alexa has sleep 12+ hours.

Justin has had a heck of a time trying to get home. He left Iraq very early Wednesday morning. Once he arrived in Kuwait he was told he would not be leaving until Friday. Once Friday came around he realized it was more like Friday night & he will not arrive in the states until Saturday afternoon. We are scheduled to pick him up at 11pm on Saturday. Luckily all these travel days do not count against his leave. So it looks like he will be home until the 3rd or 4th (our anniversary).

We are looking forward to our next door neighbors 1st birthday party, Justin being home & all the family time we will have.