Small Successes-October 27th

Celebrating the little things that add up.

1. Despite having a newborn in the house, I'm getting the best sleep I've had in months.  Katie is kind enough to go 3-4 hours between eating in the middle of the night.  That means I'm getting to sleep in 3-4 hour intervals.  This is awesome compared to the three to five hours of interrupted sleep I was getting per day during the last month and a half of my pregnancy.  Poor Bryan, who had been sleeping soundly through the night while I barely slept more than an hour at a stretch, is not feeling quite as well rested.

2. I'm on top of the laundry.  It's getting folded and put away.  Katie has graciously decided to wear the outfit I put her in all day long most days.  Occasionally she will erupt like a little geyser and require a new outfit, but that only happens once every couple of days.  With Madeline and Ellie changing their entire outfit was nearly an hourly occurrence.  While I'm happy to have a lot less laundry, this does make choosing an outfit a bit more difficult since whatever I put her in will likely remain on her for the rest of the day.

3. I don't have strep throat.  On Thursday night my throat started hurting me and by Friday I was in a lot of pain so I had Bryan run me over to the Take Care Clinic at our Walgreens.  They sent out a culture of my throat to see if it was strep.  Fortunately it wasn't and I've since developed more cold like symptoms.  So I've been battling a rather unpleasant cold since last week, but I'm hanging in there.  No one else is sick.  That's always a good thing.

4. Ellie lost her first tooth (bottom right front tooth) on Sunday morning while we were looking at birthday cards in Target.  She informed me last night the the tooth next to that one is also loose.  At this rate the kid may not have any front teeth by Christmas.  She got all of her teeth pretty close together and it seems like she is going to lose them at the same interval.

5. While Bryan took Madeline and Ellie to their soccer games on Saturday I stayed home with the baby. I ordered the dresses the girls will wear for Christmas and the baby's baptism.  I also ordered Katie's Christmas stocking and a few other things.

6. We rather unsuccessfully gave Katie a sponge bath on Sunday.  We have a baby tub with a sling that will keep her out of the water which makes giving a sponge bath easy if the baby isn't Katie.  She instantly peed in the clean water I had beneath her and then once I drained that and started over she pooped in the sling forcing me to put her on a towel and wash her there.

7. On Tuesday Katie lost her umbilical cord stump.  I'm very happy that it's gone.  On Sunday I began to smell something very rotten every time I fed or held her and it took me until Monday evening to realize that it was the umbilical cord stump that was the guilty party.  By then it was not only foul smelling but also oozing brown goo. I took her to the pediatrician on Tuesday morning.  Minutes before we left for the appointment Bryan changed her diaper and the stump fell off.  Some of the skin under it was very raw so the doctor cauterized the area.  Katie will get her first real bath tonight.

8. I put together a craft for my religious ed class and Halloween goodie bags.  I had sort of forgotten about that until my friend who is covering for my class asked if I had a craft for them.  I didn't, but I do now!

9. I finally got around to blogging this week!