Grandma and Grandpa Wall came up along with Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Matthew (wow that sounds weird … going to take a while to get used to that one!) to visit with Olivia. Ruth, Elizabeth, and Matthew hadn’t met her yet, so this was a very special visit for them. Olivia, of course, slept most of the day while she was held. Oh is she spoiled or what? Thankfully, that actually paid off. She was a little fussy in the evening after 8pm, but she screamed for food, so we tanked her up and she passed out by 11pm then slept FIVE HOURS STRAIGHT! Nicely done daughter-of-mine! Hopefully this becomes a habit — well the sleeping, not the fussing until 11pm and driving Daddy up the wall

Picture 1: Uncle Matthew

Picture 2: Aunt Elizabeth

Picture 3: Grandpa Rick and Grandma Ruth (very good picture!)

Picture 4:  Olivia resting in Grandma Ruth’s arms

Picture 5: Grandpa… where did the food go?

We received our Zantac FINALLY today after a series of snafus from CVS and the insurance company. First, instead of adding Olivia as a dependent on Maurice’s account, the insurance company removed her. Lovely, but not as lovely as that time I got charged $560 bucks for our Level II ultrasound because a claim agent flagged me as a male instead of a female and denied the claim stating the “sex of the patient does not match the treatment”… no $%&# moron! Second, CVS told Maurice they didn’t have Zantac without alcohol. I frantically called around and all of the pharmacies were saying this. It reached a level of stupidity enough for me to call the pediatrician in a panic. Believe me, it’s not fun watching your child fidget and scream after every meal. The pediatrician personally called CVS and got it squared away. It seems as if Maurice caught the lazy crew the night he went over with the prescription.

I gave her the first dose this afternoon before her lunch feeding. She was fussing and spitting up a bit, so I figured “why not.” Well, I don’t know if this stuff works this quickly or not, but she sucked it back and stopped fussing for a full half hour before she needed to be fed. It was heaven. She also didn’t fuss when she ate either. I put her in the bouncey chair and she played a bit there, cooing and talking to the toucan at the top of her toy rack. It was really cute. I caught it on HD video, but also with my camera in a web-based format. It’s poor lighting, because we had some rain (finally) this morning. It’s still better than nothing! We really need to upload more videos now that she’s more active.

Oh, and my mother was kind enough to snap a picture of my hospital photo. It does appear as if Olivia really is my child… but I still think she looks a lot more like Maurice (chubbier cheeks and definitely his nose)

Olivia has been getting progressively fussier over the past week. Every day has brought new challenges from the mysteriously green colored poo to the confusing gagging, gurgling, and coughing that keeps her up at night. It climaxed last night and we decided it was time to call the pediatrician. Olivia wasn’t just fussing. She was screaming at every feeding. She started spitting up more often over the past week or so, but it has intensified to her spitting up in the middle of and after feedings. It kills me to see her in such pain. She screams and thrashes about in our arms, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Or so it seemed…

We bit the bullet and went to the pediatrician today. It turns out that Olivia is experiencing GERD, or more commonly known simply as acid reflux in infants. She’s on Zantac, which will reduce the pain caused by the reflux, but it won’t cure the reflux. We’ll be dealing with lots of spit-up, but at least she won’t be screaming in pain over it anymore!

The nurses took the liberty to measure and weigh Olivia… are you ready for this? 9 pounds, 14 ounces, 21.75 inches in length. She’s in the 50th percentile for weight and 75th percentile for height. Beefcake! We’re baffled. Where the heck is it coming from? She’s not large looking or anything, just… long and plain old big! The doctor assured us that she’s right on target given her birth weight, so no worries on overfeeding her or catering to a formula addiction

We also made a trip in to see Daddy and get fitted for Mommy’s Warhammer commemorative jacket. It’s awesome and then some! I can’t wait to get it. I’ve been needing a new, high quality jacket for some time now. Olivia did well in the office, though of course she was sleeping the entire time so no one got to see her pretty eyes. Warhammer’s doing well in ramping up for launch, but at this point I think that I am getting more sleep than any of the hard-working people on the project.

Picture: Waiting on Daddy to get home with the Zantac only to find out that CVS, Rite-Aid, Target, Walmart, and Wegman’s all carry infant Zantac with alcohol in it — what the $%&@?

We decided not to do much this weekend, since we had made so many strides during the week in terms of getting out of the house, fitting in exercise, and working on that whole “please for the love of all things holy sleep on your back” thing. We’re still working on that last one. Thankfully Maurice only had to work part of yesterday. With Warhammer just around the bend, it’s imperative that he work a lot of extra hours to get the job done. I’m 110% behind him, but it still makes the home very empty and lonely for Olivia and me. I mean, there’s only so much entertainment a 5 week old can provide a full grown adult. It also doesn’t help that she is outright refusing to sleep in her bassinet or crib during the day. We’ve tried every trick we can think of, but short of sitting up there and holding the pacifier in her mouth or vibrating the mattress, she’s only napping in her bouncer or swing at this point. It makes it hard to get anything done around the house, which means I rush around like a chicken with its head cut off when Maurice gets home so I can get things done before bed.

She also seems to have a touch of the reflux. We’re not quite sure what’s going on, so we’ll be making a call to the pediatrician on Monday. We feed her, burp her, and leave her sitting upright for about 10-15 minutes, but she still seems to gag, gurgle, and choke when we lie her on her back sometimes. When we pick her up, she forcefully spits up on us. Yikes!

Picture 1: Boo decided to climb into everyone’s laps and join in on the loving fun

Picture 2: Lazy Sunday napping on Mommy — again

Olivia’s been a great napper today! I’m thankful, because yesterday I had a hell of a time trying to get her to sleep in the daytime. Mostly this was my fault. I got her into such an overtired state yesterday that she didn’t want to sleep and caught that proverbial “second wind.” Then I got stupid and didn’t do the math correctly, so I thought she didn’t need to be fed for another hour, when in fact, the time to feed was right when I tried to take her upstairs. Yay math! She didn’t do too badly last night though. Let’s see… she went from 12:30am - 3:30am, then 4:00am - 7:00am… then her last big stint was from 7:30am - 10:30am. This meant I got to see Maurice off to work, exercise, eat breakfast, do the dishes, start two loads of laundry, and shower before she woke up. Brilliant!

We also made our first grocery shopping excursion today. Though I would have loved to go to Wegman’s, I thought that it would have been too crowded at lunchtime for a 1 month old baby. Instead, we ran down to the Harris Teeter on the other side of Manassas. It’s brand new, and every time I’ve been in it, it’s been practically empty. She slept the entire time, so I didn’t feel rushed. I think we’ll be doing beef stroganoff tonight for dinner

Picture 1: Mommy snuggling with Olivia (… and her Nathan’s Dairy Bar Milkshake …). On a side note, wow… she’s getting big!

Picture 2: Olivia watching Mommy talk to Aunt Sarah on the phone