Tractor War

When Harry married into my family I don't think he realized how serious my family was about their Oliver Tractors. Remember he is a John Deere fan all the way. And of course, being the dutiful wife that I try to be I have converted my ways to JD just to stay married (just kidding). But when that is the only tractor clothing in the house, you tend to choose to wear it or go naked. Well until just recently he was the only JD fan (besides me) until Jerod's girlfriend Kassy came along. She is on our side of loving JD tractors. That seems to be a great joke in their relationship as they make bets a lot and then the the looser has to wear the opposing tractor clothing. I am glad that I just went along with the flow of things. (Sorry off track there for a moment.)

Anyway, on Sunday we had our Easter dinner at Aunt Jen & Uncle Nick's house and also had a Dairy Queen ice cream cake for Dad's birthday. When Aunt Jen called the cake order in she just said "green tractor". Big mistake as most people will just associate "green tractor" with none other then JD rather then Oliver.

Unfortunately, Harry was hauling milk and was not able to be with us. So the cell phones started coming out to text message him pictures of the following.

This picture looks all innocent and loving doesn't? Like my dad really is not bothered by this!

Other members of the family thought otherwise - like my brother. See the cell phone in the corner of the picture. If you can not see very well - there is a knife sticking out of the middle of the JD tractor while an Oliver tractor sits behind the cake.

Boys will be boys when it comes to their toys!

Happy Birthday Grapa!

My Dad turned - well let's just say it is a milestone for him. Hope you have a great day dad and can't wait to celebrate tonight with you! We love you!!!!

Great
Rad
Amazing
Perfect
Authentic

Similarities

I am trying to figure out if these two girls have any similarities...I know these two pictures are not the greatest but let me know if you see any and who you think each one looks like. I am at a loss.

Ellaree

Lorelai

Dancing With The Stars

Dancing With The Stars started their 10th season on Monday nights. We have an addict in our house. Ellaree loves that show and she tries to imitate their dancing. It is quite entertaining. I was thinking gymnastics for her but maybe I should switch it to dancing. We will see!

Lorelai's Baptism

Lorelai Opal Jean Young was baptized on Sunday with many wonderful family and friends. It was a beautiful day with weather and just being in God's house.

The girls were ready for church and I just couldn't resist taking their picture. Look how adorable they are!!!!!!

Lorelai Opal Jean Young being baptized by Pastor Alan Tripp.

Lorelai's Godparents - Uncle Todd & Auntie Laurie

Our family is so very blessed to have so many people that love our girls so much. We couldn't ask for anything more!

Lorelai Update - Part 3

Just received a phone call from Dr. Nancy's nurse. Lori said that the ultrasound for the Pyloric Stenosis came back normal. Praise God! Now where do we go from here...we are to keep her on the Prilosec and see how that goes. We actually had a good night last night (knock on wood) and hoping that maybe the Prilosec is working better then the Zantac. We have a checkup for me on April 2nd but will bring her with to discuss how things are going. Hopefully all is going back to normal (as normal as this family gets - haha).

Thanks again for all the advise, thoughts and prayers.

Lorelai Update - Part 2

So after coming home and soking in the idea of not being able to feed my daughter for 4 hours and wondering how was I going to accomplish this. I finally figured it out as the phone started to ring and on the other end was the ultrasound tech explaining to me that they can not do that ultrasound in Onalaska and therefore we need to come to LaCrosse. The only problem with that was that they could not get me in today, therefore we have to wait until Wednesday. I was very irritated and frustrated that they would not even try and fit us in today when it was their fault for the mistake. I am over it and just hoping that Lorelai doesn't get any worse as yesterday we had probably the worst day and night so far. So here we are just trudging along until tomorrow.

Lorelai Update

Thank you to everyone that gave us wonderful advise and especially the prayers. After a long night again we decided to take Lorelai in this morning. Dr. Nancy switched her to prilosec, as she doesn't want me to switch her formula to a different brand and/or to soy. We have an ultrasound scheduled for tomorrow to explore whether it could be Pyloric Stenosis or anything else going on for that matter. Will get the results on Thursday from that. The only problem with the ultrasound is that she can't eat for 4 hours...good luck with that!

So what is Pyloric Stenosis? *Pyloric Stenosis is a problem with a baby's stomach that causes forceful vomiting. It happens when the baby's pylorus, which connects the stomach and the small intestine, swells and thickens. This can keep food from moving into the intestine. A baby can develop this any time between birth and 5 months of age. It usually starts about 3 weeks after birth.

What causes Pyloric Stenosis? *Experts don't know what causes it. It may be passed down through families.

What are the symptoms? Main symptom is throwing up (vomiting) all or most of feedings. Other symptoms may be has a swollen upper belly after a feeding, acts fussy and hungry, even right after being fed, has fewer wet diapers and fewer, harder stools.

Dr. Nancy is pretty sure that she does not have Pyloric Stenosis. So we will do the ultrasound tomorrow and change the medication and from there it is a wait and see what the test results come back with along with seeing how the medication does for her.

*Information from WebMD

Advise Needed

I usually don't do this as I have those that I go to religiously for advise. But I am at my wits ends right now not knowing what to do as a mom.

Lorelai is back to having her bouts of fussiness all the time, won't sleep on her back, spitting up, throwing up profusely, gagging, etc. We have been on the Zantac since last Tuesday. At first it worked wonders and was thrilled with the change in her but after a couple of days of it being in her system she went back to having issues. We have tried Enfamil & Good Start formula where we had issues with. We are back on Similac which is what Ellaree took as a baby and seems to be the best out of the three. I have sent Dr. Nancy an email in regards to this and asked if we could increase the dosage of Zantac (if that is even possible) along with other questions like maybe changing medications, changing formula and/or having an ultrasound done of her abdomen just in case there is something underlining going on that might not have been seen by just looking and watching her.

This is very frustrating to us as we just don't know what to do for her. Yesterday we were in Mr. G's getting boots for Harry when she threw up what looked to be about a bottle and half of formula. Shot right out of her car seat. That is the worst feeling ever when that is happening with her also gagging on it and yet you can't get them out of the car seat fast enough because at that particular moment your fingers turn into all thumbs and you fumble to get her out. I hate that feeling. I had an incident with Ellaree like that too and it just makes my stomach ache to think that I am helpless at that very moment.

Please give us your thoughts along with your prayers during this time.

Jesus Loves Me

To Grandmother's House We Go

You know the saying Over the hills and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go well this time it was reversed to Over the hills and through the woods Grandmother came to our house! Friday Grandmother was able to come up for a visit. It was great to see her and Ellaree & Lorelai had a great time with her.

Night and Day

You would not think that one dose of Zantac would make a world of difference but in our world it was a wonder medicine. Lorelai acted more like herself last night then she has in over a week. She went to bed with no problems, slept on her back, laid down wide awake, put herself to sleep, and got up every 3 hours for feedings. She was getting up every 2 hours on the dot before. It was like night and day! Thank you Dr. Nancy!

Thankful

I am very thankful that Grama is close by as this last couple of days has been very hard with no sleep. On regular days you just take for granted that Grama & Grapa are only 30 minutes from our house. But on days like today, I am thankful that they are only one phone call away and they are able to come up and help out so that I can get some much needed sleep. Lorelai has not slept well since last Friday night.

Why has she not slept well. Well after getting a message from a baby-mom-friend (Jenny) from work I got some insight as to what could be going on with Lorelai. It was all right there in front me the signs and symptoms but sometimes the fog of no sleep can get in the way. At 2:30 this afternoon I called the nurse and was seen at 4 to find out that Lorelai has acid reflux. They put her on Zantac for a month. Which at that point we will try and ween her off of the medication. The Zantac is awful tasting, so if she will not take it in the next couple of days I can call and get her on another medication. But the reason she wanted her on the Zantac was because it has instant relief where the other takes a day or two to get into her system to start giving her relief. Dr. Nancy says that research shows that it does not really help infants but her experience has shown otherwise. So it was up to me whether I wanted to wait it out or try and give her something. Sleep and relief weighed in more then misery of waiting it out.

I have to be honest that last night was the worst night of motherhood for me as I had no idea what to do for Lorelai and just felt downright helpless. She was spitting up, crying profusely and just every time I laid her down she would either throw up or gag. That is hard on a momma when you don't know what to do but you know there is definitely something wrong. Thankfully we figured it out and maybe we can all get some well-needed rest tonight.

Thanks again Jenny for giving me some insight as to what it could be.

Schedule Changes Update

Up update already. After calling the nurse in regards to Lorelai's eye. I might not have wrote about this, but about a week and half ago I took her in for thrush. Along with that she has a blocked tear duct. So the thrush has cleared up but her tear duct has gotten worse. So I called in regards to that and we are on our way in for eye drops to see if that helps. Along with that, I asked Nurse Lori what she thought in regards to Lorelai not sleeping. After explaining that I have given her gas drops, she is eating good on Similac, she is not awake wanting to play but cries when I lay her on her back. So we are going to go and buy a crib wedge so that I can lay her on her side. We are thinking it has something to do with laying her completely on her back. The wedge will help her to stay on her side to sleep and hopefully give her some relief. One can only hope.

Schedule Changes

There has been a lot of schedule changes here in our house this last week. To start with, Harry switched his route around and is now getting up and leaving our house by 2 AM to go pick up milk. He decided to change things around so that he can be home around 3 PM and have some family time besides getting something around the house done. Otherwise he was not getting home until 8 or 9 PM at night and by then the girls were both asleep and didn't get to see him at all because he would be out the door before they woke up.

Another schedule change would be Lorelai's. She has decided that getting up around 2 AM and staying awake until 7 is great fun. Then sleeping the whole day away. But let me explain that it isn't even that she is wide awake and ready to play. She is sleepy but only sleeps for maybe 30 minutes at a time. I am not sure what is bothering her that she is not getting good sleep. I am trying to take this all in stride and know that it won't last forever but boy it can make it for a long day with running after Ellaree also.

Ellaree and I's schedules for the most part have stayed the same (well as much as possible). We drink lots of coffee and do lots of praying we get through the day.

The Finer Things

As always I try to get our buck to stretch the furthest it will. That said I had cans and cans of formula that I have received in the mail for free and so I have been using those to see which ones work best with Liza and her little belly. Well sometimes trying to stretch that buck is just not worth it. Like her sister, Similac has won us all over. Infamil was not too bad but very thin in powder therefore Liza was eating all the time. Good Start was making her belly hurt something terrible but even worse, it made her throw up profusely after every eating. So when I told Harry my discoveries I told him that it looks like both girls know what to look for in the finer things.

15 Days

Wow, 15 days old already. My how the time flies when you are having fun. We have come across a good routine and everyone seems to be getting use to it and liking it. That is good. We have had many wonderful friends and family who have stopped by to see all of us, but especially the girls. Harry and I know we are not longer the center of attention...once you have a kid, you no longer are the most important. It is just something about a kiddo that makes the difference, which is awesome and a beautiful blessing from God.

Recently, Ellaree has been coming up to Lorelai, giving her a big hug & kiss and looking at me with those big innocent eyes and saying to me "I love my little sister, momma!" Now doesn't that just melt your heart. Again, God has blessed us so much with these two adorable baby girls. (Don't tell Ellaree I just called her a baby - she is a big girl.)

We have a busy schedule today with Lorelai's 2 week dr. visit. We are going stop and see Dr. Silva my fertility dr. who helped make having Lorelai a reality and then off to have the girls pictures taken together for the first time. That should be very sweet.

Well off to get ready before having to rouse the troops!