The Hamilton Family: Lucy: 3 months

It's been a bit of a rough month for little Lucy.

Our poor girl caught her siblings' cold at the beginning of December and has been struggling with it since. She's had a pretty persistent cough for almost a month and I thought it was just a lingering cold symptom or maybe croup so I kept putting off calling the doctor. Last week I finally took her into the urgent care and it turns out any cough in a little baby is a big deal (oops). She ended up having a chest x-ray and doing a breathing treatment. Because the doctor suspected possible pertussis, Lucy also started antibiotics. Hearing the doctor throw out the possibility of whooping cough was rather scary as a mom, since all you hear is about how dangerous it is. That's still not a 100% confirmed diagnosis, but either way, I am very grateful I finally wised up and took her in! Also, vaccines are important. (note: my kids are all as vaccinated as they can be for their age; Lucy is just really young)

The next day the urgent care called back and informed me that her chest x-ray showed signs of early pneumonia. Also scary to hear. So I took her back to the doctor to get checked out again. The doctor seemed confident that it would clear up on it's own and we should just keep a close eye on her. Even with all these scary diagnoses flying around I have felt a lot of peace and comfort. I know it's the Spirit telling me that everything will be okay.

But despite her lingering cough, Lucy has been a really happy, normal girl. In fact it's how normal she's been acting that made me think I didn't need to take her in the doctor. It also gives me comfort and I do believe she will be alright!

Lucy's also seems to be having some kind of issue surrounding eating. She sometimes screams or cries after eating. It makes me worried that she's not getting enough to eat, but my attempts to supplement haven't been successful, probably because she hates the taste of formula. However, she also spits up, even throws up sometimes, so then I wonder if maybe it's some kind of bad reflux? Or maybe it's just related to the coughing and sickness? I don't know, but it's reached the point where it's stressing me out. Hopefully we can get that issue solved at our next follow up appointment. Lots of doctors for sweet little Lucy this month!

On a much happier note, Lucy laughed for the first time this week!! She was laying in her bathtub just looking at me, and all the sudden she smiled and started laughing! (She probably thought it was hilarious that I actually remembered to bathe her.) Ellie and Jude both rushed over to hear her and thought it was very exciting. I actually started to tear up, something I definitely never did with my other kids. Maybe I'm starting to lose it? Anyways. It was ridiculously cute and I can't wait for her to do it again.

Other fun things about Lucy this month:

-Eleanor is really starting to smother her. Literally. I have to get her to back off on her hugs because the baby gets squished.

-Lucy is quite the tooter. Ellie and Jude finds this to be hilarious. Ellie will laugh and say "Oh! Baby Woocy go toot toot!!"

-Overall Lucy is still a super mellow baby. People always comment on just how good she is. I think it's a third child survival mechanism.

-Lucy sleeps (almost) all the way through the night!! Most nights she goes down around 10pm and doesn't wake up until 5 or 6am. Which is awesome. But when she does wake up, she wakes up starving and immediately starts SCREAMING until she starts eating. And it is LOUD. I'm certain it wakes up the neighbors, but thankfully they are nice about it and don't complain. Just one more reason I am super glad our cranky, mean old neighbor moved.

-Lucy really loves to be warm, which I'm sure is totally normal for babies, but neither of my other kids cared much at all about being warm or wrapped up. If Lucy starts to get fussy, she's probably just cold.

-She loves to suck on her hands recently. Sometimes she'll even spit out her binkie so she can suck on them.