The Saturday 7

1. Big news everyone :Lena made the transition from the Rock n' Play to the Pack n' Play this week! It actually went remarkably well. I took the cover off the rock n' play and laid it down in the pack n' play to make the transition a little easier. The first day, I rocked her to sleep and laid her down, and she stayed asleep! There was much rejoicing. The problem is, I've gotten into the habit of rocking her to sleep, and she doesn't go to sleep any other way. And it has to be me. She won't let anyone else rock her to sleep. Sigh. This morning, I finally decided she was going to cry it out. It's ridiculous that she'll fall sleep in my arms, but not her bed. She cried screamed for 40 minutes, then finally went to sleep.

2. We crossed something else off our Summer Bucket List this week: go to the Zoo! Justin has Friday's off, and yesterday was a beautiful day, so we spontaneously decided to take the girls to the zoo. It was hot, so the animals were all being lazy, but we had a great time. Lucy loved the new play areas the zoo has.

Lena just loved being outside:

3. I forgot to mention Lucy's reaction to the 4th of July parade we went to last week. She hated the fire trucks and loud noises, and asked to leave about 5 minutes after the parade started.

Covering her ears.

But then, the "princesses" arrived. Lucy loved all the beauty queens, and stood by the side of the road waving back at them in awe:

4. I'm confused about the "salted caramel" obsession on Pinterest. I ordered a salted caramel hot chocolate from Starbucks once, and thought, "Gross! Why is there salt in my hot chocolate?!" I'm not totally opposed to the salty/sweet combination. I love me some chocolate covered pretzels, but salted caramel is just not right in my opinion. Glad I got that off my chest. ;-)

5. Recently, I've been convicted that I'm not praying for my girls enough. And then I feel like I pray the same few things over and over for them. So I decided to pick a Psalm for each of them, and pray the Psalm for them. Lucy's is Psalm 34. I especially like verse 4: "I sought the Lord and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears." Lucy has definitely inherited my nervous tendencies, so I love to pray this verse for her - that she will seek the Lord when she's afraid, and that he will deliver her from fear.

I had a harder time choosing a Psalm for Lena, because she doesn't really have too much of a personality yet. I've been using Psalm 86. My favorite part of this passage is verse 11: "Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name."

6. This is a TMI point. It has to do with breastfeeding problems. Continue on at your own risk . . . Last weekend, I started having some serious nipple pain when Lena latched on. One day, I thought I saw blood on my nursing pad, but realized I had dropped chocolate down my shirt earlier that day and figured it was just melted chocolate. But then, on Monday, while Lena was nursing, she pulled off and spit out a huge stream of blood. It was definitely coming from me. Owww. I did some research on thrush, but didn't find anything about thrush causing bleeding. Finally I decided my nipple was just cracked and bleeding. Seriously. After 5 months of nursing. I put Lanolin on it for a few days and it has stopped bleeding, but it still hurts. Why the world do you think this is happening? I don't think Lena has a bad latch. Why would her latch change after 5 months? And my right side is fine. Oy.

7. I've decided I'm going to start trying harder to get Lucy to eat healthier. But I don't even know where to begin. She will not eat anything she doesn't like. I gave her carrots and ranch the other day. She sucked the ranch off, then spit out the half-chewed carrot. She only eats macaroni, cheese roll-ups (cheese melted in a tortilla), hot dogs, pb&j, grilled cheese, yogurt, and a select few fruits.  I've tried the whole, "Include her in shopping, let her help you cook" nonsense. She's not fooled. Yesterday, she and my mom picked a huge bowlful of snap peas from the garden. I ate one and gave Lucy one to try. She licked it and said, "I don't like that," refusing to take a bite. Any suggestions of a way to start easing some healthier foods into her diet?