First swimming lesson, horses, a doctor's appt.

We had our first swimming lesson this week! It wasn't the most beautiful day we've had this spring, but the jacuzzi was warm so we went for it. Lainey got to wear her super cute bathing suit that Grandpop Tom and Uma Dawn picked out for her. We wanted to make sure we got her in that before she outgrew it! Lainey loved the water. She was fascinated with the bubbles and all her toys as they went swirling through the water. She even put her own face in to taste the bubbles. You can see her in her Daily Lainey video swimming with Mommy. I dunked her once after blowing in her face and she took it pretty well. She was startled at first, but recovered quickly. If there is one thing I can pass on to my kids, it is that I want them to be good swimmers. My Dad dunked me early and taught me to swim almost before I could walk.


We also introduced Lainey to horses this week. Our good friends, Will and Laurén live in a guesthouse on a boarding stable property. Laurén has a horse out there named Shiloh that she is using to give riding lessons. When Shiloh poked his head out of his stall, I let Lainey get a close up of him. She was entranced and smiling. Shiloh then sniffed her arm and she giggled. I think Mommy may have given Lainey the horsey bug. It's too bad Daddy says she can have what ever she wants, except a horse. Good thing Grandma Lisa still has one that we can go see and ride someday!

Lainey has also really taken an interest in Freddy. She watches him walk around the house and wants to pet him. She also thinks it's pretty funny when he barks. That's another of the recent video updates on her website.


We had our four month well baby visit on Monday and Lainey is doing pretty good. She is small for her age, in the 20th percentile for her weight. She is just under doubling her birth weight, which supposedly kids should do by four months old. She is 12 lbs. 14 oz. and 24.5 inches long. Her doctor isn't worried about her though because she has always been in the 20th percentile since birth and is doing all the things she should be doing. She is sleeping from about 10pm to 8am now. (Woo hoo!!) And nursing every 2-3 hours during the day. She is rolling from her tummy to back which Dr. Pham doesn't expect until six months. She has good head control and she is very strong. We got one more vaccine (DTaP) and she seems to be tolerating it well. She has a small, red lump at the injection site, but it doesn't seem to bother her. I think it has more to do with the nurse's injection technique than the vaccine itself. We will be getting a different nurse next time.

Tomorrow we are going to the zoo with a good friend of mine, Sasha and her little girl, Kaylan. I am very excited because I think Lainey is at an age now where she will probably respond a bit to the animals. It will be a short trip, staying about 3 hours or so, but should be fun! Expect a zoo update soon! With that, I leave you with last week's "Mr. Bear Picture".

Four months old!!

John has set me up on email reminders that I need to update the blog, so hopefully it'll work and I'll be putting up posts more often! :) Lainey is four months old now! She didn't have an official birthday because there isn't a 31st of February, so we are counting today! It's been an amazing four months so far. She is really doing great. Some major recent milestones include:

-Learned to sign "milk" while nursing! She did it the first time at 15 weeks, and then repeated it twice at 16 weeks and that's when I knew she was actually signing and not just playing with her hand. She won't be able to sign to ask for milk until she's older and develops object permanence (the knowledge that something exists even when you can't see it), but I am very excited at this first step into signing. I am practicing "all done" (sign for finished), "diaper," and "sleep." I expect her to really pick up the signs at about 6 months or so.

-Found her toes! She found her toes on a walk this week. I was lucky enough to have remembered to bring the camera on our walk and captured the moment. She thought they were pretty neat!

-We may have had our first tummy to back roll over today. It happened twice and I had to make her stop because John wasn't in the room. When he came back, she wouldn't do it again for him or the camera. But I am sure we will see that more often now!

-She is sleeping through the night! I put her to bed around 10:00 and she is sleeping until 6:30 or so. She will then sleep with me for the rest of the morning until I get up. Way to go Lainey! We love that she's as good a sleeper as her Mommy! :) The last three nights she has been putting herself to sleep in her crib. She falls asleep in my arms and wakes up on the transfer, but doesn't fuss about it. The first two nights this happened she chattered and played by herself until she fell asleep. Tonight she just looked at me and turned her head to the wall and closed her eyes again. I ordered a Woombie for her last night. It's a sleep cocoon that mimics swaddling without the heavy blankets and with less restriction for their arms. It's a good transition tool to quit the swaddle and it won't make her hot as summer is rapidly approaching.

I think that's it as far as milestones go. Quite a lot of progress in so short a time! She's an amazing kid though. Not that I'm biased or anything. :) The only hang up we are having is the continued spit up. It has decreased significantly thanks to a light massage-type technique my Mom's friend Jane (a physical therapist) taught me. She said that Lainey's small intestinal rhythm isn't in place yet and so milk is backing up in there because it isn't being pushed into the large intestine. Because it backs up, it back flows through the pyloric valve and comes up as spit up. It's also not spending enough time in the large intestine and thus we get many blow out diapers. Both have improved with the massage and I am on a strict diet. No dairy, tomatoes, citrus, caffeine, lots of sweets, peanuts, and go really light on wheat/gluten. I am almost gluten free right now. It's a hard diet to maintain, but it will be worth it and now I'm only 10 pounds from pre-pregnancy weight!

John and I are truly enjoying being parents. It's an awesome experience and really makes me grateful that God entrusted us with so precious a gift. Thanks for being a part of our lives, near and far. We love you all! And with that I will leave you with this picture of Lainey in her dedication dress. It's a dress that was sent to my Grandma from my Grandpa's Aunt in Switzerland. Almost every girl in our family has worn it at one time, including me and my Mom. It's a treasured heirloom that I will be sure to pass on.

Lainey was dedicated today!

February 15, 2009
Lainey was dedicated to the Lord today. Our whole family was there and it was wonderful! She is one loved little girl! For those who may not know, baby dedication is not like baptism. We do not believe that dedicating a baby will provide their salvation. Instead, it is a public commitment by the baby's parents and family to pray for the child and to teach them about the Lord. Today we committed to teaching Lainey about the salvation that Jesus Christ offers. We promise to help her find her spiritual gifts and help her develop and use them as God wills!

We were so blessed to have so much family in attendance. It is wonderful to know that everyone loves Lainey so much. We are attempting to upload the video of the dedication to the website, but the file is quite large. We hope to have it up soon. If you are interested in getting an email update about new "Daily Lainey" videos, you can go to her website and enter your email address on the Daily Lainey page. We will send you an email each time we add a new video. Also, don't forget that we are always adding new pictures to her website too!

www.laineyhudgins.com

Tongue

So, Lainey has been sticking out her tongue a lot. It's pretty funny. She looks pretty silly, but it makes us laugh. Also, Daddy taught her the "peek-a-boo" game tonight. She was giggling at him. It was cute. For the last two weeks or so, she has been spitting up more often, and Mommy is a little bit worried about it. She thinks that it may be due to a lot of dairy in her diet, and so she's decided to cut back on that (a really hard thing to do for her... all she eats is cereal and cheese). Daddy's pretty sure it's just a "spit-up phase," but Daddy never really worries about anything. That's mommy's job. :)

She's starting to laugh!

Lainey has started to laugh a little bit. She started just a few days ago. She is only giving us a little bit of a laugh at random times, but it's always when we are tickling her. We have tried to catch it on video, but it's been hard to catch. She seems to run out of giggles when the camera comes out. We will keep trying to catch her. It's so cute it just melts your heart!

We got Skype!

We just got Skype and it's so fun! Call us if you have it! Our ID is laineyhudgins.

Lainey's Check-Up

Lainey had her two month appointment on Thursday. She weighs 10 pounds 6 ounces and is 23 inches long. Dr. Pham said that she's on the thinner side of the spectrum, but still quite healthy and gaining weight appropriately. She's also on the longer side. I think being tall and thin isn't so bad! :) She had her first shot... diptheria, tetanus, and pertussis combo (DTaP). Usually the doctor recommends giving two month olds a lot of other shots, but John and I are not comfortable pumping little ones with so much medicine. We are spacing Lainey's vaccines out, and skipping some of the ones that are either low risk for her right now (Hep B) or not life threatening (Rotavirus). I do not think there is a correlation between autism and vaccines (with scientific studies to explain why), but I do think that too many vaccines can be dangerous (not so scientific... mostly an anecdotal and common sense conclusion). If anyone is curious about which vaccines we are giving when and why, feel free to email or call me. I would be happy to explain.

Lainey gets cuter everyday if that's possible. She is smiling all the time and just a joy to be around. John has one more trip to take back home. He's leading worship for his Dad's church on Sunday night. When he gets back, I think the Daily Lainey will be updated more regularly. We finally feel mostly rested and have the house put back in order. More updates soon. For now it's time to hit the sack because Lainey's been asleep for over an hour... so I should be too!