I couldn’t find Harper’s sunglasses to we improvised with her brothers shades.
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Silly girl
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Category Archives: Life
H&H
Harper loves her brothers, they are guaranteed to put a smile on her face. Hayden is always just as excited to see her.
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Freedom
Sometimes just getting out of the office for a bit will make the rest of the day better. It’s even better when you have awesome co-workers who you like to spend time with outside of work. These ladies are awesome!
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7 months
Woah, this is way past due. Â In a few weeks, she’ll be 8 months! Â I say this every month, but I can’t believe she is 7 months old already…
7 Months
Harper is an absolute joy to be around. Â She is such a sweet and happy baby. Â Now that her reflux is doing well and her tummy is all settled, she really only fusses when she is hungry or sleepy.
She has gotten on a semi predictable routine as of the last few weeks. Â She will go to sleep around 600-700 and then we’ll wake her up to eat around 900-1000pm. Â She’ll sleep until 400am or 500am to eat and then go back to sleep until 700 or 800. Although lately she has stretched her sleeping to about 600am. Â Then she’ll take about 3 naps during the day (anywhere between 30 mins to 1.5 hours each). Â She is still a tummy sleeper…you lay her on her back and within 5 seconds she is rolling over onto her stomach.
Harps is eating about 7 ounces four times a day, sometimes 5. Â We have tried baby food, oatmeal and rice cereal and she wants nothing to do with any of it! This girl would rather drink her food…
This girl is a busy body. Â She is constantly moving and wants to crawl more than anything. Â When we hold her, she just kicks her legs like crazy. Â Harper loves her toys and will just sit there and play with them on her play mat for an hour at a time. Â Of course she has her two brothers to sit and watch also…those 2 could have their own variety show!
always doing something with her hands
Harper loves her brothers. Â If anyone can put a smile on her face, it will be those two boys! They love to come in her room and talk to her in the morning when she wakes up. Â They come in her room saying “happpy”, which is what Hayden started calling her a while back, and she just gets a huge grin on her face.
Harper has such a funny personality already. Â She is so curious and loves to find out how things work. Â She is such an observant little girl, just like Hayden was/is. Â She loves to look over her crib bumper when she’s laying in her crib on her stomach and it is the funniest thing. Â One day I thought she had fallen asleep because she was quiet for about 5 minutes and when I looked up (I was laying down right beside her crib) she was peeking over her crib at me like “I see you”. Â I just started laughing out loud and then she started laughing…needless to say, she did not go to sleep any time soon.
She graduated from her Doc Band a few weeks ago and now has a lovely round head that I can kiss any time without the obstacle of a band.
Doc Band graduation
Harper is just a crazy girl and I love it! She is a sweet, sweet girl and she continues to amaze me every day.
bath time fun
The other night I let the boys take an extra long bath since Ian was actually wanting to take a bath. Recently he has decided he didn’t like taking baths and would cry through the whole thing…not sure why. Well, he willingly got in the bath that night and was playing with Hayden, so I wasn’t about to stop that fun. Instead, I grabbed a camera and took some pictures.
6 Months Old
6 Months!! How can she be 6 months old already?! She has done so much in the last month, its crazy. She is “talking” all the time. Her favorite things to say are “ya-ya-ya-ya” and “dadadada”. I keep trying to get her to say “mamamamamama”, but it hasn’t happened yet 😉
She has mastered the art of rolling over, and will roll everywhere if you don’t watch her. She has also just recently started sitting up all by herself. She is still a bit wobbly so we aren’t too far from her when she’s sitting up. She loves it, and loves to sit there and watch her brothers go crazy.
We tried some solid food with Harper a few weeks ago and she was not a fan. She just spit it out and made a face like, “what are you feeding me?!”. We’ll try again in a few more weeks, I just don’t think she was ready for it. She is still drinking the Elecare (which our insurance is finally covering, Praise The Lord! She was drinking about 4.5 – 5.0 oz until last week when we bumped her up to 6 ounces and she drinks the whole bottle. I think she just had a growth spurt and that’s when we bumped her up. Clothes that were too big for her 2 weeks ago are now almost too small.
Her reflux was doing great with the two medications that she was on. But at the beginning of the year our insurance decided they weren’t going to pay for her Prevacid anymore, even with a letter from our pediatrician saying it was medically necessary. So we had to have the generic medication compunded so she could take it…she HATES it and spits it out, so she only gets about half of what she should. So since she’s not getting the meds, she’s having more pain and reflux.
Harper loves to be outside just like Hayden. She loves to sit on my lap outside while we watch the boys run around and play.
For the most part Harper is sleeping through the night. She is not consistent though, she’ll sleep for 9-12 hours some nights without getting up to eat, and other nights she’ll be up every 6. Typically she is taking 2-3 naps during the day for 30 mins to 2 hours, depending on the day. She still sleeps in her Woombie and I dread taking her out of that because she loves it so much.
Just for fun, I pulled up the boys’ photos from when they were 6 months to compare and boy…you can not deny these 3 are siblings.
A Bunch of Sickies
We have had our fair share of sickness in this house. It all started the day after Christmas when Ian started running a low grade fever and had a cough. By Friday night he had a fever of 104 and Saturday morning was coughing a lot more and congested and his fever only went down to 102 with Tylenol. I took him in to our peds office and they ran a test for flu, strep and RSV. He tested positive for RSV, which we suspected, and I knew it was only a matter of time before Hayden and Harper got it. Do you know how hard it is to keep two 3 year old boys away from a baby – next to impossible! 3 days after Ian started running fever, Hayden started and then 3 days later, Harper. Then about 3 days later Daddy got it and then I was officially the last one in the house to get the crud…I’m just trying to hold off on getting antibiotics. Jonathan’s and mine turned into a sinus infection so he got antibiotics last week. Ian actually ended up with a double ear infection too so he had antibiotics or that as well.
Hayden
Harper
Ian
Poor Harper was hit pretty hard with it. RSV in babies can be fatal and as they get older it gets less severe. While the boys were miserable and felt horrible, Harper was almost hospitalized due to it. She had horrible wheezing, congestion and wouldn’t eat. she was eating about 8-9 ounces of formula a day, that’s it! So the first threat of the hospital was for her breathing, but being a respiratory therapist and dealing with RSV a LOT when I worked at Children’s our pediatrician felt comfortable with us taking her home and doing breathing treatments and suctioning at home. The second hospital threat was for dehydration. Thankfully, she started drinking and having wet diapers again, so we were good!
For a week and a half we did a lot of laying around, watching movies, playing games and doing puzzles, reading books and more laying around. Hayden (who got hit the least) was going stir crazy, but Ian who is our home body had to re-adjust after being home for so long. He had a hard time going back to school, in fact the first day back only Hayden went and Ian stayed home with me.
We are all on the mend now and we hope that virus never comes back! Ha, who am I kidding…
Harper’s DOC Band
Wow, I am slacking on the blog! Case in point – Harper got her Doc Band back in December (6 weeks ago) and I’m just now getting around to writing about it.
If you remember, both boys wore the band as well to re shape their heads. Our pediatrician said that she believes some babies just have softer skulls than others. Apparently our kids have pretty soft skulls – but don’t think that means they aren’t hard-headed toddlers! Oh my, can they be hard-headed. Sorry, back to Harper…
From day 1, Harper has always turned her head to the side when she sleeps. I would go in and turn her head the other way all day long, but no matter how many times I turned it, she just turned it back. We even let her sleep on her tummy during the day, yes her tummy….her pediatrician okayed it, so we’re all good. None of that helped and her head just continued to get mis-shaped.
So we decided to get her evaluated by Cranial Technologies, which is who we used for Hayden and Ian’s Doc Bands. We had a great experience with them and now their heads are beautiful! The only issue we had was that Cranial Tech wasn’t in network for our insurance. Our pediatrician office just wrote a letter of medical necessity for that specific band and we got it approved. This time, we didn’t have to do any of that. They automatically approved it, so a few weeks later she was getting her band.
She has worn it for about 6 weeks now and there is such a big difference in her head shape. She will probably wear it for a few more weeks, unless we get a pleasant surprise next week at her check up.
I decorated her band with some stickers and decals and it really turned out cute! We actually had an appointment to get it wrapped from a company that does free wraps for orthotic devices (www.wrapbuddies.com) but I didn’t think it was going to be as cute as hers is now, so we cancelled the appointment and just left her band as it is now.
4 Months Old
Once again I am VERY late in posting this! Little bit is 4 months old and actually doing pretty good. Other than her reflux bothering her, she is doing great. Remember last month when we added the rice cereal to her bottles to help with the reflux? Well, she did great on the rice cereal. She stopped the screaming fits, she was happy again and was sleeping better…for about 2 weeks, then it all started again. So I called the pediatrician again and they added another drug to her Prevacid and rice cereal. She gets it 4 times a day 30 minutes before meals. Do you know how hard it is to hold a hungry baby off from eating for 30 minutes?! Its horrible! So in order to control her reflux/tummy troubles and keep her from being in pain, this is what all she is on – Elecare formula (roughly $400 a month), Prevacid ($75 a month), Bethanachol ($35 a month) and then rice cereal in each bottle (very cheap!) and she also sleeps on 2 wedges under her mattress. She’s an expensive diva, but worth every penny!
She loves looking at herself in the mirror now and loves her bath. When she is starting to get fussy or if we are trying to hold her off to eat because we just gave her the medicine, we give her a bath….then she’s as happy as a clam.
She is sleeping in her crib now and out of the Rock N Play sleeper. She was starting to outgrow it, so it was time to make the switch. She is also out of the miracle blanket when she sleeps and in this a blanket called the “wombie” its like a little cocoon that keeps her arms from flailing about when she sleeps, because let me tell you, this girl is crazy. She gets those arms going 90 to nothing. She loves this thing and typically goes to sleep pretty soon after we zip it up. There have been a few times when I zip it up, put her paci in her mouth and she’s out!
Harper loves to sit up and be able see what everyone is doing. This girl is going to be non stop! She has started rolling from side to side but hasn’t rolled over yet. I’m sure it won’t be long though! 
She is sleeping good at night and getting a little better for her naps during the day. She will typically go to sleep around 630-700 and sleep until anywhere between 330-500, then go back to sleep until 730 or 800. She is sleeping better during the day but still only 30 mins or so at a time. Every now and then she’ll take an hour nap.
She is eating 4- 5 ounces every 4 hours during the day – which is 4 to 5 bottles a day depending on when she eats in the morning.
We are getting her doc band within the next month and she’ll probably wear it 6-8 weeks and then have a beautifully rounded head.
Hayden and Ian continue to love on their sister and are always checking on her to make sure she is ok. She is actually starting to respond to them and will smile when they talk to her. 
All these years, my mom has kept the dress that I as dedicated in and gave it to me a while back. Before Harper outgrew it, I had to put it on her and get a picture just for sentimental reasons. She is getting dedicated next month, hopefully, but I don’t think it will fit her then. It would have been awesome to have her dedicated in the same dress.
3 Months Old
Wow, I am super late with this since Harper was 3 months on October 24th.
Baby girl is 3 months – At times it seems like 6, but mostly I can’t believe how fast it has gone by. We sure have had our ups and downs with this little girl. When things are good, they are good…but when things are bad, they are bad. We call her our little Diva because she is very particular and likes things done certain ways – sometimes mommy or daddy is all she wants.
Harper has still had a lot of problems with her reflux. She had a good 3 weeks where it didn’t bother her much, except for occasionally, but then she started really having problems. She would scream for 20-30 minutes and nothing would calm her. She would start coughing and spit up acid through her nose. I called her pediatrician and she called the GI doc we saw and he said to add rice cereal to her bottles…I was reluctant to do this since the last time we tried it, it upset her stomach. I did it anyway just to see what would happen, and she did great on it. She stopped the screaming fits, she was happy again and was sleeping better. She is also still getting her Prevacid twice a day.
Sh
e started getting the rash on her face again this month but we got a steroid ointment to put on it and our pediatrician told us to bathe her everyday with a little selsum blue on the rash. All that combined, it cleared up again and looks great now.
This little girl is going to be a feisty one! She does not like sitting still or back. She constantly tries to sit up in her car seat and does not like to be facing you when you hold her – She has to be facing out to see what is going on.
She still likes the swing and bouncy seat, but as long as she can see what’s going on.
She is just like her brothers and loves to be outside. I’m not sure if its the feel of the breeze outside she likes or what. But she usually gets in a better mood when we go outside. She loves to just sit in my lap and watch her crazy brothers run all around the backyard. I’m sure she will gladly join them in a few years.
Tummy time has gotten better and she does so good with it. She still spits up a lot being on her stomach but it doesn’t seem to bother her much when she does. She usually will end up going to sleep while she is on her tummy.
Harper got to experience her first trip to the State Fair of Texas this past month but unfortunately didn’t get to taste the corny dog, maybe next year. She actually slept most of the time we were there. When she’s in her baby carrier she usually falls fast asleep.
We are going to go get her head shape checked out at cranial technologies, just like we did with the boys. She has a definite flat spot and its starting to push her forehead out some so we thought we would get it looked at and evaluated for a Doc Band. Our pediatrician thinks that some babies just have softer skulls and are easier to become flattened. We have tried rotating sides she lays on and holding her on the opposite side from the flat spot and she takes naps on her tummy…but despite all that it is failing to improve on its own. I am definitely not looking forward to having her in a band, or paying for it! But once we see the photos of her head and get the full evaluation, we may find that she really doesn’t need it. We’ll find out soon.
She is finally getting into the fun stage of interacting more, smiling and cooing. She’s even laughed or chuckled a few times. I can’t wait to see what she will start doing next month,
