For better or for worse

It didn't take long to fall off the new year's resolution wagon, eh? It's been a pretty rough few weeks around the Garrett household, and I haven't wanted to be a Debbie Downer (wah wah waaaah), but I do believe whole-heartedly in the spirit of honesty and not glossing over tough times. So I'll summarize briefly and then post some more delicious pics to lighten the mood.

In short, Kyle and I somehow produced an adorable little peanut who has pretty severe tummy issues. Ever since she came home from the hospital, she's had some epic battles with reflux. As she's gotten older, we keep hoping she will outgrow her spit-ups, gassiness, general uncomfortability, and reluctance to breastfeed. It seems like every few weeks, we have one or two good days when we feel like we're finally getting over the hump, and then we backslide to where it is even worse than it was before. In general, we think it wouldn't be so hard to deal with our tricky cupcake if we were all getting a decent amount of sleep. If only! Unfortunately, because she doesn't feed well during the day, she does the bulk of her eating at night, which means she is up sometimes as often as every 45 minutes all night long. And starting around 1 or 2 am, her sleeping gets very restless with lots of squirming, crying, and gnashing of teeth (our teeth, since Lucy's haven's made an appearance yet!). I can't remember the last time I got more than 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep, and often I only get one 2 hour cycle. Or none, depending on the night. Daytime fussiness becomes increasingly harder to handle as the nights continue to seem unbearably difficult.

On the plus side, all the nighttime eating means that Lucia IS growing even though she doesn't eat very much during the day. And she will outgrow her reflux sometime in the next year (we're hoping on the sooner end!). She is also doing some pretty adorable things... right now, her favorite thing to play with is an old oatmeal lid. She must have a thing for Amish men? She eats it, passes it from hand to hand, bangs it on the floor, on her face, and on her tummy. Who needs toys? And she has recently started shrieking. Cute, if ear piercing.

Thanks for bearing with me... she's certainly worth the trouble, and Kyle and I are anxiously awaiting a day when we look back on these few months with fondness (well ok, maybe not fondness, but nostalgia at least?) because we have a happy, tummyache-free babe!

As promised, here's some recent pictures:


Some friends gave us this great activity gym after their son outgrew it . Lucia's favorite shrieking spot at the moment!

The 'here comes a giant wail' face...