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| Laurel Elizabeth Shadel 7 1/2 months old |
I think I spent the first four months of Laurie's life holding her non-stop. I LOVED it. I took countless pictures of her and was just completely enamored. There were moments where I was "done" and just needed a break from holding a baby. But those moments were always quickly fleeting and never compared to the immense about of joy I have had at being her mom and at holding her in my arms.
I was really sick during her actual delivery so I don't remember much about it except for them saying that she was big so they were trying to figure out how to maneuver her out of me without having make the incision any larger. My first real memory of her was the way she latched on to nurse for the first time. She just chomped down and started eating like a pro.
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| In Utah (at six months old) she started eating "real" food. She loves cheerios, graham crackers, carrot sticks (to chew on) and anything else she can get in her mouth. |
That just kind of set the stage for the kind of baby she is. As an infant she has been a great sleeper, a great pooper and a great eater.
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Laurie is starting to sit really well.
She doesn't scoot yet, though she's been trying to figure it out for at least two months now.
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Laurie has always had a late bedtime. She is usually down by about midnight, although there have been times that I have been up with her later than that. Regardless of what time she goes down, she almost always wakes up to eat around 1:00. She wakes up again around 3:30 and then sometimes she wants to eat again around 6:00. She never plays during the night - just eats and goes back to sleep. She went through a phase where she had a hard time being put down (she may have been teething,) so I slept in the chair holding her. I did that with her when she was first born, too. Then I got to the point where I was sooo tired that I would fall asleep nursing her and sleep holding her in the chair by default. I am starting to come out of that phase, now, and am excited to be spending more time back in my own bed. When Laurie was born I was good at following that age old counsel to sleep when the baby sleeps. Usually by 6:00 in the morning I was exhausted (just from the several feedings during the day) so Andrew would get up and take care of Laurie if needed. He would also get the boys out the door and to school. On occasion Laurie would want to eat so I would get up long enough to feed her again. And then she and I would both go back to bed - generally at least until 10:00 - sometimes later. Unfortunately that trained her a little too well. She expects to eat all night long (at the times I mentioned before) and then is completely fine to go through the morning without much food at all. Again, that was fine while the boys were in school, but since summer came, it has been EXHAUSTING. (Which is why I started falling asleep feeding her at night.) Our trip to Utah was beastly. I did get her to fall asleep by midnight there, but instead of just two to three times of getting up with her, I was getting up with her FOUR times a night and then even when I tried over and over again to feed her in the morning, she didn't want food until noon. So, at almost eight months old, I am trying to figure out how to shift her six-eight hours of not eating to be during the night instead of in the morning.
Laurie started out with the same dairy allergy that my other two had. She got really gassy and had a rough time of it. Lucky for her, I knew what I was doing this time around and was able to quickly solve that problem with a combined effort of going off of dairy for a few months and using gas drops more than I did with Ammon and Peter. Also, just like this girl knew how to eat, she figured out the pooping thing REALLY fast. She is noisy and grunts and really works at it sometimes, but she gets the job done. She has had more blow outs than either of my boys EVER did. (I'm talking almost daily sometimes.) I don't know if that has to do with the diapers I'm using, her body shape, or the quantity or texture of her poop. But whatever the reason - no child ever stained as many clothes as she!
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| Laurie is very loved by her big brothers and they enjoy including her in their play time. It is common for prayers to include the phrase, "We are grateful for the joy that Laurie has brought to our family." Andrew and I must have said that once and now the boys repeat it ALL the time. |
Caring for her in Utah was exhausting. We traveled to Utah just as she hit the six month mark. Her first two teeth grew in the day we traveled. I feel like it was during that trip that she really changed and that infancy stage came to a complete end. I was worried that I wasn't going to enjoy the next phase as much. I was so much more worn out and she was getting so much more active. I was missing the hours of just sitting and holding her. But once we got home and I was a little more rested, those concerns quickly melted away. She is the happiest little girl in the universe and I just can't help but feel joyful spending my days with her. She loves to smile, grin and laugh.
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| This girl LOVES her daddy. But she'll never love him as much as he loves her. |
Laurie loves her daddy. She is just starting to get more opinionated about life. The other day she downright REFUSED to eat turkey and rice baby food. We switched it out for something with fruit and she ate the entire container. When she sees Daddy come home she gets really happy. He has about 1.2 seconds to be holding her or she will start to cry. (And of course he is never able to get her in his arms quite that quickly so it is always so funny to see her go from giggling joy to heartbroken sobs in such a short period of time.)
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