Things Work Out

"Search diligently, pray always, and be believing, and all things shall work together for your good, if you walk uprightly and remember the covenant wherewith ye have covenanted one with another." (D&C 90:24)

I believe in this scripture. Sometimes things look like they won't work out. Sometimes life seems desperate and scary, or even hopeless. But things will work out if we just do what we can and rely on the Lord. That is what I'm coming to know.

On a lighter note, Elise was awesome at church today. She's getting better about eating when she is not at home, even though she still doesn't seem to like it as much. I got to sit through almost all of the lessons today because Elise ate mostly during the announcement part of Relief Society. And Matt came with me to my teacher training class during the Sunday school hour, which was really nice. I even got to relax for most of sacrament meeting because Allyson, who sat beside us, wanted to hold Elise the whole time. She kept saying how cute Elise was.

On an even lighter note, this is a conversation Matt and I had tonight:

Blair: "What do you want for Christmas, Matt?"

Matt: "This DMX controller thing. It's like $200."

Blair: "Are you interested in anything cheaper?"

Matt: "You."

Blair: "Oh, thanks."

I love my husband. He couldn't figure out what he had said wrong.

I Should Really Get Some Inhibitions.

So, I went to my friend Joy's baby shower today. For some reason, I feel absolutely no awkwardness about anything surrounding having babies. To make a long story short, I found myself telling a group of strangers all about Montgomery glands, which are found on the areola, and how they put off the smell of your uterus. I didn't even realize how awkward that was until Joy laughingly brought it up later. Where are inhibitions when you need 'em?

Anyway, the baby shower was a lot of fun. Hopefully the other girls didn't think I was a freak (but maybe that's a vain hope after what I said). Elise came with me, and she was really good. Another girl there had twins, a boy and a girl, who are also about 2 months old (but they were at home with their dad). She commented on how great Elise can hold up her head. What can I say? I'm really proud of her. She does have some mad skills.

I also took Elise to the ward Thanksgiving dinner activity. Matt is working late again tonight, so he couldn't go. I brought Elise, and we pretty much stayed just long enough for me to eat a free dinner. Yeah, I'm pretty cheap. Truthfully though, Elise needed to eat and get a good nap, so that's why we left so early.

All in all, a pretty good day. Hopefully Joy and I can still be friends.

Some Things I Forgot

Some other unique things about Elise that I forgot to include in yesterday's post:

• She fakes burps. I think she knows when we're trying to get her to burp, and she makes little noises like she is trying to burp. Sometimes she even does this when I'm not trying to burp her when I hold her upright by my shoulder.
• She is so happy all the time, especially in the morning. This morning she woke up with a great big smile for me at 4:45am. Then she stayed up for a while.
• After she sneezes, she almost always makes noises like she is going to sneeze again, but then she doesn't. It's really funny to see.

That's all. I just really wanted to include these. I promise to stop making long bulleted lists for a while.

Harry Potter Fan?

Remember how Elise scratched herself last night? Well, I couldn't get a good picture, but the shape of the scratch totally looks like Harry Potter's scar. Maybe this is her way of telling us that she wants to see the new Harry Potter movie? I know I want to.

Our Little Individual

I'm pretty sure Elise doesn't like the outfit I put on her this morning. You're probably thinking, "As long as it's comfortable, I'm sure she doesn't care what she's wearing." That's logical. But I have reason to believe she's pickier than that.

I have put this outfit on Elise three different times, and she has never made it to the end of the day wearing it. The first time I put it on her, she had the biggest spit up/throw up ever in her crib. Not only did she soak the outfit almost down to her waist, she also soaked the onsie she was wearing, the blanket that was covering her, the burp rag under her face, the crib sheet, and the mattress cover. It was a mess.

The second time she wore this particular outfit was the day she had her first blowout (she's had several since). It took me a really long time to scrub out the stain. Since the outfit is off white, I might have tried using bleach, but there is a brown bear appliquéd on the chest.

Today was the third time I put the outfit on her. You guessed it—another mess. This time was another blowout, thankfully not as bad as the first.

This got me thinking about Elise's likes and dislikes. I feel like it's safe to assume that babies have preferences and quirks. After all, they are human like the rest of us.

Here are a few unique things about Elise and/or her likes and dislikes that I thought of:

• She is very vocal and always has been. Whether she's eating, sleeping, crying, or playing, she's making noise with her mouth.
• She thinks whistling is fascinating. I think this is because she can't figure out where the sound is coming from.
• She loves going on walks outside.
• She always scrunches up her neck as I lay her down in her crib. I'm not really sure why.
• When she eats, she likes to cross her feet. She also has to have a handful of something, especially when she's really hungry. She will grab my shirt, my hair, my finger, it doesn't matter to her.
• She smiled at 5 weeks! She loves to smile and to be smiled at.
• She can listen to books for a really long time without getting bored.
• She likes to watch TV (unfortunately). Again, she is her father's daughter.
• She only likes to turn her head to the right (which is also very unfortunate).
• She doesn't mind the bath, but she hates having her hair washed.
• She loves to be praised. Loves it. I kept telling her how great a job she was doing when she was batting at a toy, and she was so happy and kept doing it for a really long time. You may notice that she looks around after she bats at the toy in the video I posted. I think she was waiting to be praised and couldn't figure out why we weren't excited that she was doing it. When I do her neck stretches with her for her torticollis, my reward for her when she's done is to praise her, and she is usually happy with that.
• She started sucking her thumb really early. A side note that makes me laugh: I was telling Paige on the phone that Elise was sucking her thumb (this was several weeks ago). "Oh, she's getting her thumbs? How cute!" said Paige. Hailey overheard her and asked, "She doesn't have thumbs?"
• She's a great sleeper. And she has this adorable smile she sometimes does as she's falling asleep. It's unbelievably cute.
• Her face is very expressive.
• I'm pretty sure she's teething already. I think I can see her two middle teeth on the bottom about to come in. Matt says he can't see anything.
• She is completely fine in the car as long as it's moving.
• She likes to poop as soon as you lay her down on the changing pad.

Those are just a few things. I'll stop now because this is probably starting to get boring to anyone reading it. Anyway, I guess I'll just have to expect the worst if I ever put that outfit on her again. Too bad; she looks so cute in it.

P.S. Here's a video I took today of her shaking a rattle. She's getting so big!

Went to Bed and Didn't Get Up in the Morning

Last night Elise ate at about 8:15pm. By 10 or so she was tired, and we put her down to sleep. At 11:30, when I was finally getting to bed, she was still sleeping. I thought she had just started her 6-hour stretch for the night early, so I expected her to wake up at about 4am. Then, when I woke up at 5:45am (about the time Elise typically wakes up to be fed and changed), she was still sleeping! Remember, the last time she had eaten was about 8:15pm, so we're talking about a 9 1/2 hour stretch! She's never gone that long without eating before. I changed my shirt (I probably don't need to tell you why) and woke her up to eat. She didn't even act franticly hungry the way she sometimes does for her first feeding of the day. Here it is now, after 9:30am, and Elise hasn't woken up yet this morning. She's been sleeping since around 6am. That girl really is her father's daughter (when he was a baby, he would regularly sleep 12-hour stretches at night). I guess she was doomed to be a sleepy head with parents like us.

Itchy, Itchy Ichabod

So, a nurse from Medicaid came to do the home visit they always do after the baby is born. When she came, she said that I should read to Elise every day for 20 mins at a stretch to help develop her attention span. We only have a certain number of books, and twenty minutes = a lot of children's books, so I end up reading the same ones over and over (and over) again. I have a lot of them pretty much memorized. For some reason, certain parts come to my mind often. Like the page in One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish that goes like this: "Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I can not hear. Will you please come over near? Will you please look in my ear? There must be something there, I fear." Especially the "Will you please come over near" part. I think of that every time I ask Matt to come here.

Dr. Seuss must just be really catchy because I also get his ABC book stuck in my head. I don't know why, but I really like the letter I part of that book. Here it is:

I love that Ichabod (even though I have no idea what kind of animal he is supposed to be).

Elise really likes Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and The Rainbow Fish. Of course, Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? and Green Eggs and Ham are also favorites.