How cool is this t-shirt?

The tide was high but we're holding on....

On Thursday afternoon the wind gusted and the tides were high- a disasterous combination if you happen to live on Pretty Lake Avenue. This first picture was taken from our driveway looking down our street towards Little Creek. The Ford Focus driving down the street didn't make it and had to be pushed to high ground because the engine got flooded.





















The second picture was taken from the empty lot across the street. The railroad ties used to outline our yard (to keep the kids from riding their bikes through it) but they floated away so we had some exciting times rounding them up. Thankfully we got help from two of our neighbors.





















This last picture was taken by our neighbor looking down on our house from his 2nd story. If you look closely- you can see Matthew standing just inside the garage. He's drinking a beer and trying to kick water out of the garage. Despite his best efforts, we got about 3 inches of water but it could have been a lot worse.

Matthew spent most of the day outside cleaning up on Friday but we're back to normal now with no permanent damage.

My little maniac

She's a maniac, maniac on the floor

And she's dancing like she's never danced before!

Another awesome gift from Aunt Michele- baby legwarmers (Baby Legs)! I saw an identical pair on a baby at the mall yesterday and remembered that I had these stashed in the accessory drawer so we busted them out and rocked them 80's style on Sunday afternoon!

Validation

Ally saw a doctor yesterday regarding her eating problems. The very nice doctor has referred us to a pediatric gastroenterologist (GI), a doctor who specializes in diagnosing and treating disorders of the entire gastrointestinal tract. This validates my suspicions that this is not normal behavior for an infant! The referral takes 48 hours to process so we'll find out on Monday how soon they can get her in. In the mean time we've been instructed to keep her zantac dosage the same and to do our best to feed her every day. She did gain a little bit of weight in the 3 weeks since our last visit so that's encouraging- she's up to 15 lbs. and 5 oz. now!

Welcome Fall

It finally felt like fall yesterday evening here in Norfolk! After watching Ally amuse herself with her toes for a while, we bundled her up and went for a walk with the boys. I had her in the bjorn and I wrapped a blanket all around her then zipped her up in my jacket. She looked so cute in her little cocoon that we couldn't resist taking a few pictures.

We're expecting the full force of a Nor'easter storm to hit us tonight and tomorrow. The forecasters are calling for moderate tidal flooding so we're fully expecting to have some water in our garage again. Winds will be gusting up to 60 mph so it's going to be a breezy few days. We'll probably skip our evening walks since we're likely to need waders to get out of the house! It's just the price we pay for living so close to the water I guess.

Ally has a doctor's appointment today. We broke down yesterday and called the clinic since she's been giving us the dickens during feeding time for over a week now. She's eating less and less every day and isn't having as many wet diapers as I think she should. I'm sure to most of you I sound like a neurotic new mommy who is just making a mountain out of a molehill. I've certainly been know to do that in the past, but I'm trying to trust my instincts on this one and they're telling me that it just isn't normal for my daughter to arch her back and scream bloody murder when I'm trying to nourish her. Her reflux medicine doesn't seem to be helping at all and I can't take it anymore. I spend way too much energy trying to force her to eat and I obsess over counting ounces all day. We need some sort of relief- a new medicine, increased dosage of the old stuff, SOMETHING!!!! I'll update tomorrow with the outcome- wish us luck!

Lazy Weekend

Last week was particularly challenging for me. Not only was I on my own with Matthew out of town, but Ally decided to revert back to her pre-Zantac days and fight me on every single bottle I tried to feed her. She's been doing reasonably well of late and has even had a few great days where she actually downed 30 oz of milk- which is in the acceptable range for a gal her size. Last week was a different story however. She would take an ounce or two of her bottle with no problem then start in on the back arching, screaming, crying and general carrying on as I tried unsuccessfully to force the bottle into her mouth. It is quite stressful on both of us and usually results in some tears on my part by the end of the day. Poor Matthew called on Wednesday night to check in on us and caught me in the middle of a breakdown. So much for holding down the fort while he was away! We were all relieved when he returned home on Friday night. Thankfully there are no more travel plans in his future and Ally has improved a little bit since he's been home. Maybe she was just upset that he was gone too and decided to express her displeasure by being a difficult eater.

In an attempt to encourage her to actually swallow some solids, I introduced her to bananas this past weekend. She liked the sweet potatoes and carrots that we've tried so far, but she hasn't gotten over the expulsion reflex so she still thrusts the food out of her mouth with her tongue. Bananas were a big hit! I mashed them up with some baby cereal and breast milk and I think half of them actually made their way into her stomach. The other half still ended up on her bib, face, hands, hair, etc. It was progress though. At this point I'm only experimenting with solids once a day because it's such a mess. As soon as she starts taking in more of the food we'll increase that to 2 or 3 servings a day. I may also be doing 2-3 loads of laundry a day!

A few other fun things have occurred over the past few days: Ally did a 360 degree roll on top of our bed the other day and she realized she can really cover some ground that way. I imagine rolling will become her primary mode of transport shortly until she figures out how to crawl. We're going to have to start watching her like hawks! Ally also passed a toy from one hand to the other several times over the weekend. She's developing better hand eye coordination every day! Finally, Ally discovered that her toes can go in her mouth- along with every other object she can get her hands on- and that they provide endless entertainment. She's constantly grabbing them, especially during diaper changes!

We had a nice relaxing family weekend. On Saturday, Matthew and I didn't get dressed until after noon and Ally stayed in her pajamas all day long! We were so lazy and it was awesome! We did take the dogs to the beach in the afternoon but it was overcast, windy and cool so we just left Ally in her jammies so she'd be covered up. By the time we got home it was after 3pm and it seemed silly to waste clean clothes at that point since we weren't planning to go out at all. Ray, Dee, and Matthew's grandmother Jody came over for dinner on Saturday night. I cooked Matthew's favorite meal; gnocchi with a disgustingly rich cream sauce. It's good, but it's so heavy and rich that I couldn't eat my full portion. He enjoyed it though and so did our guests so that's all that matters. On Sunday we went to church, had brunch with Bonnie and hung out watching football- I love lazy weekends!

Ally zonked out in her highchair at dinner one night.

Ally was ready to go to the beach on a brisk Saturday afternoon!

All dressed up for church in a sweet little dress.

If you look very closely you can see her teeth in this picture!

Boom- over she goes!

Every girl needs some Juicy Couture!

Thanks Michele!