Anna at 6 weeks and Funny Ryan

So Anna will be 6 weeks old tomorrow.  Time has flown by, but at the same time it has dragged on and on.  I feel like a bad mom saying it, but my baby is just not a whole lot of fun.  She cries... a lot.  She is rarely content.  I think I might get an hour of content/ almost happy baby time total each day.  So I'm either carting her around (which typically she is still crying or fussing) or I'm lucky and she's sleeping or hanging out in the swing.  It is so extremely exhausting.  My body hurts all over from holding her and trying my hardest to keep her happy.  I try to take a nap with her in my arms in the afternoons so that I can get some rest.  Thankfully Tommy still takes a couple naps a week so I can do that while putting Ryan in front of a movie (yes, my electronic babysitter- but I am asleep on the couch in the same room...).  And Steve has been a rock-star husband this week and taken Anna all night long downstairs a couple times so I can get a full night's sleep.  That has made a HUGE difference in my healing and my mental health!

I love my snuggle time with Anna.  It's just that it's so hard to get her to sleep and keep her asleep.  Even when we snuggle she still wakes every 5-10 minutes and fusses with gas pains.  I feel so sad for her pain and wish I could figure something out to make it all better.  Oh, and on top of gas pain, she is now constipated from the formula.  I took her in last week to try to get something to help and they said wait a week and come back to see if her body regulates any more.  Nope- just continuing to get worse and that makes baby even more miserable.  I go back Tuesday to demand something to help remedy this problem.

A big frustration with my colicky baby is that I just cannot get anything done around here.  Thankfully I have been able to raid my freezer of frozen leftovers so that my family can actually eat a real dinner.  Not always, but usually.  And my girls are often stuck tending her after school so I can get dinner on the table.  My house is rarely tidy anymore (though Steve had the kids do a huge clean-up this afternoon and it looks GREAT!)  My boys probably feel neglected during the day since I'm busy with "the new baby" as Ryan says.

Needless to say there is a lot of mommy guilt going on in this house.  I was watching a show the other night where the baby was so sweet and cuddly and happy and I found myself longing for that kind of baby.  Steve and I were joking that we got a lemon of a baby.  Just gotta figure out how to make lemonade, I suppose.

So here is what we have tried with Anna to help lessen the effects of her colic:
breast milk for the first 6 days
regular Similac for a week
sensitive formula Similac for a week
Enfamil sensitive formula for 2 days- holy even more miserable baby!!!
Similac soy- a couple days- worked pretty well but still colicky
probiotics- turns out made her worse as well
now we're on Target brand soy formula (love the cheaper formula!) and it is the best we've tried

We have had a couple people suggest going to a chiropractor to get her adjusted.  Seems kinda strange that a baby would need adjusted, but I'm almost to the point where I'll try anything.  There are other probiotics I could try as well.  And of course there is always time...

She looked adorable today in her little dress from my sweet friends.  Ellie was excited about the "ballet dress".  We had every intention of taking pictures and then she was either sleeping or crying all afternoon.  Bummer.  Maybe I'll dress her back up tomorrow and try again :)  And maybe I just might actually post a picture on here.   yet another thing that isn't getting done around here.


On a side note... Ryan has been doing some pretty funny things lately
-  He always calls Anna "the new baby".  Rarely have I heard him call her by name.  He told one of our cadets yesterday, "have you seen our new baby?  We got her from the hospital."
-  He has told me on numerous occasions that he doesn't want to have our new baby anymore.  He wants to have a boy baby instead.  Sorry buddy.
-  We had the missionary couple here to watch the kids the other morning so I could go on a field trip with Katie. When I got back I got a pretty funny report from them.  Apparently Ryan had raided the kitchen of my wooden spoons and rubber spatulas.  He was using them as swords.  At one point he waved a rubber spatula at Elder Hohosh and told him, "If I cut you in half it's okay, because you'll go to heaven and Jesus will put you back together again."  And no, we did not teach him that in Family Home Evening ;-)