A Memorable Memorial Weekend

Wow! I have so much to write since I haven't kept up my blog very well lately. I guess the most obvious thing is that the appearance of my blog has changed. My sister has had a lot of influence on my lately. She is the one who first put the idea in my head to start blogging. She also changed her blog background and did a great job with it. I was pretty content to leave mine the way it was, but she started playing around with it and created a couple of very pretty backgrounds for me. I decided that I would use them until I had the time to sit down and play with it myself and figure out how to change the html code. Let me tell you, it is not easy, but I learned a lot. It took me a long time to create my background and header, but it was a lot of fun. You may have seen the other backgrounds that my sister did. She did a great job with them. I just had to make it my own though. I hate that she put all that time into them.

Taylor has been making a lot of progress lately. She is walking all over the place now and very rarely crawls anymore. We took a trip to Ashland, AL to visit Daniel's mom and stepdad over Memorial Day weekend. They have a step down into their living room and Taylor spent the whole weekend going up and down those steps. We had to watch her very carefully. By then end of the weekend she had built up some confidence. She still had to crawl up and down the steps though. I am so glad we don't have any steps in our house.

On Sunday we went to visit some dear friends of ours in Gadsden, Darren & Teresa Hood. Darren used to be our music minister and took a position just over a year ago in Gadsden. We went to their church service and had lunch and spent the afternoon with them. Their kids, Madeline and Harrison had a blast with Taylor. Here are some cute pictures that I got of the kids.




We have been trying to teach Taylor some sign language. So far she has learned the signs for baby, milk, more, and Mama. We also made up a sign for Bud but she would only do it one or two times. It is really neat to see her catch on to things and watch her learn. She is imitating a lot more now.

Finally, I have a prayer request. I just found out today that my best friend's mom had a mild heart attack last night. They found 3 blockages and were going to go in and do surgery this afternoon but they want to make sure that she is completely stable first, so they are going to wait and do it in the morning. Her name is Esther. Please be in prayer for her that she will come through the surgery okay and will recover quickly.

Weaning

I must take a moment to praise my Heavenly Father for His infinite grace and mercy. He has been so faithful and so good to us. Most of you know the trouble that Taylor had with breastfeeding and sleeping. To sum it all up for those who don't know, my milk supply has always been low and we ended up having to supplement with formula to make sure she got enough to eat. I was afraid that I would have to stop breastfeeding altogether because I was afraid that my milk would dry up. Ever since I was pregnant I felt like God had called me to breastfeed. If you have not been a breastfeeding mother, this may sound rather strange to you, but I really felt convicted about it. I was so convicted that it was even difficult for me to start supplementing. I think I thought that if I gave Taylor formula it meant that I didn't have enough faith to believe that God would supply my milk. After learning that I was starving my child and that she was losing weight, I finally started supplementing and saw almost an immediate improvement in her growth. There were some consequences that came out of that and one of them was poor sleep habits. I won't go into the details of how that is all connected, but just know that Taylor had to be nursed to sleep and would wake up in the middle of the night to nurse for many months. Once she was about a year old we decided that it was finally time to let her cry herself to sleep. I wish we had done this much sooner, but we did have our reasons for not doing it before. The point is that after about 3 nights of letting her cry she finally started sleeping through the night and we are sleeping much better as well. I finally have my sanity back! Naps have been a different story....

It took longer to teach Taylor to go down for a nap, and at first she was just sleeping for 30 minutes at a time. Soon that 30 minutes turned into an hour. She has been taking a one-hour nap in the afternoon consistently for a couple months now. Occasionally her schedule will get off and she will only take a half-hour nap or no nap at all, but that is usually on a trip or just after a trip. I have never gotten her to take 2 naps a day consistently. I finally resigned myself to the fact that she would never be a good napper and would only take one decent nap a day. I was okay with that and thankful that she was napping at all.

Just recently when we went to Chattanooga for Mother's Day Taylor decided to change her nap schedule again. She was falling asleep in the car at 11:00 instead of 1:00 or 1:30 when her usual naptime is. She would sleep for her normal 30 minutes in the car and then be awake for the rest of the trip. While in Chattanooga I was able to nurse her to sleep but as soon as I would put her down she would wake up and start crying and there was no getting her back to sleep after that. The same thing happened when we got home. Yesterday I tried to get her down for a morning nap around 10:30 unsuccessfully, but was able to get her down for a good afternoon nap.

Well, today I decided that it was time to wean her of nursing to sleep. I am sure that she is not getting much milk from me anymore if anything at all and she is just nursing for comfort. I called my lactation consultant for weaning tips and she told me to start with the naps. We have been slowly dropping feedings for the last several months, but I knew that the times she nurses to sleep would be hardest to drop since she will not take a paci or suck on her fingers. I knew this would be difficult, so I prayed that God would give me the grace to get through the crying again. I followed her normal naptime routine and added some extras for comfort. I gave her milk to drink from her sippy cup and read her a story. We turned her sound machine on and I tried to rock her, but she would have nothing to do with that if she was not going to get to nurse. She just cried and tried to wiggle her way out of my arms. I stood up with her and started singing. I finally just laid her in her crib and let her cry it out. She cried for about 15 minutes and went to sleep. Praise the Lord! She slept for almost an hour.

After such a great morning nap I was a little bit skeptical that she would take her normal afternoon nap, but I went ahead and went through the motions as usual. We went through her naptime routine (minus the milk since she had just had lunch) and after about 10 minutes of crying she went to sleep. This time she only slept for about 40 minutes, but all in all she got about an hour and a half of sleep as opposed to just an hour, so I am very happy. I am sure she will only become a better sleeper with time. I am just so thankful to God for His faithfulness. Even though it has been difficult to let her cry (and now I am having to go through it again), God's grace is sufficient. Hopefully weaning Taylor will only get easier.

Look Who's Walking Now

Last Wednesday Taylor took her first steps. She didn't really seem all that interested in walking a lot, but yesterday she made so much progress. She started walking a lot and with out coaxing from me. When Daniel got home we got her on video. She still prefers to crawl and cruise, but at least she is trying to walk more. I am just so proud of her!

I was having trouble uploading the video to my blog, but you can go to this website to view it: http://www.youtube.com/utube197477. Click on the video called Made for Walkin'.

Mother's Day

We had a great Mother's Day weekend. Daniel took Friday and Monday off and we went up to Chattanooga to visit my family. On Saturday we went with my parents to Huntsville to see my grandparents. My grandmother had just come home from the nursing home where she had been getting physical therapy. When we got there she was laying on the couch and was very emotional. She was very happy that we had come and brought Taylor. We had thought about Daniel staying in Chattanooga with Taylor while I went to Huntsville because we were afraid that all of the travel would be too much for her, but I am glad that we took her. I know that my grandparents were glad to see her. It was very difficult to see my grandmother in her weekend state. It reminded me of my other grandmother after she had been in the hospital. It is really hard to see your grandparents get old. She is doing some better and getting a little bit stronger, but it is going to be a long road.

On Sunday we went to church with my parents. Steve Green had a mini-concert. It was really good. I always enjoy hearing him. This was only the second time Taylor had been in the nursery at their church and she was in a different class this time than before. During the offeratory our pager went off and I had to go get her. She had been crying about the whole time and they couldn't get her to calm down. I took her out and gave her some medicine because she had been teething and I thought that might help to calm her down. She was acting sleepy, so I took her back in the sactuary with me hoping she would go to sleep. BIG MISTAKE!! Not only did she not go to sleep, but she perked up and started talking during the prayer. Then she started fussing again. Daniel took her back out. I felt so awful. We were being a disruption. Daniel just walked around with her in the hallway and took her outside until church was out.

After church Alicia and Darrin and the kids came over for lunch. They had all been sick, but the kids were better and Alicia and Darrin weren't contagious. I was glad that we were all able to spend time together. It's always fun to see the kids play together. I would post some pictures, but we haven't uploaded them to our computer yet. Taylor crossed another milestone while at my parents'. She pulled to a stand from the middle of the floor. She is making so much progress.

Late Monday morning we made the trip home. We made several stops, one being pretty lengthy, so we didn't make it home until that evening, but at least we got Taylor out of her carseat for a while. That helps make the trip more bearable. All in all it was a good trip and a great visit. Taylor had a great time with her grandparents and everybody. I was glad that we had the extra time for her to bond with them since they don't get to see her all the time. We will be going to Ashland to see Daniel's mom and step-dad for Memorial weekend and then to Greensboro to see his dad and step-mom for Father's Day. I am excited about Taylor getting to see them since the last time she saw them was at her 1st birthday party, but I am dreading the drive. It is 7 hours without stops. This will be the true test for traveling with Taylor.