The Saturday 7

1. What a week. I was miserably sick most of it. I came down with a cough last Wednesday and it just got worse and worse throughout the weekend. I couldn't sleep. I had no appetite. My whole body hurt from coughing so much. My abs and back and ribs were horribly sore from coughing so violently. Not to mention my poor shredded throat. It's one thing to be up every few hours in the night feeding a sweet baby. It's another thing entirely to be up hacking your guts out. Ugh. Fortunately, I had my 6 week postpartum checkup already scheduled for Monday. The Dr. had pity on me and wrote me a prescription for an antibiotic and a cough suppressant. It took a few days to kick in, but by Thursday I was starting to feel a bit more normal. And by yesterday, my coughing fits had significantly reduced. I'm still hacking every once in a while, but not nearly as much. Praise the Lord! Of course now both of the girls are coughing, and even Levi has a little cough - although it's not terrible. Someone in this house has been sick since Levi was born and it's getting real old! Thank goodness Spring has finally arrived. It's time to open some windows, shoo some children outside, and get some fresh air!

2. Remember when I was hugely pregnant and miserable and crying about how I didn't feel God's sustaining grace? (My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. -1 Cor. 12:9) Well this week, I experienced that grace and figured I better be publicly thankful for it after being a brat so publicly a few months ago. Tuesday morning I was exhausted from being up all night feeding Levi and coughing. I figured between the two, I had gotten 4 hours of interrupted sleep. I was miserable and wondering how I would get through the day with all 3 kids. Around 9:00 Levi fell asleep in the swing and I slumped over in my chair in dozed off. I knew the girls would wake me up any minute, so I didn't plan on getting much rest. But God showed his grace in that the girls played together so nicely for an hour! They sat on the floor next to me doing play-doh and reading books. They even cleaned up after themselves when they were done!!! Then they built a fort and set up a stage to do a show. I "mom-slept" for an hour in my chair!!

Sure, my living room looked like this afterward, but it was so worth it. Thank you, Lord!

3. I got the OK from the doctor this week to up Levi's Zantac dosage now that he's gained some weight. I paid to get the medicine flavored after the first week of him screaming every time I poured it down his throat. It helped, but he still wasn't a fan of taking it twice a day, and there was still screaming. The doctor said I could give it to him in a bottle of pumped milk, but I really didn't want to give him a bottle twice a day. Then I stumbled upon this awesome tip online that has made all the difference. I put a bottle nipple in his mouth, wait for him to start sucking, then squirt the medicine directly into the nipple. He gets to control the flow and sucks it right down without choking and gagging and spitting half of it out. And he usually doesn't even protest! He just drinks it up! Success!

4. Today I found a van on cargurus.com that looked promising, so Justin and I threw the girls in bed, left them with my mom, grabbed Levi, and hurried down to the dealership to check it out. By the time we got there it had a sold sign on it. *sigh* I was ready to buy it. I'm so sick of looking and weighing pros and cons and worrying about buying a lemon. I just want to buy one and be done with it! We spent the next hour driving around looking for car dealerships. We found tons of dealerships but very few vans - and almost nothing that is older than 10 years old or cheaper than $10,000. Big fat disappointing fail.

5. Mini Levi Update of the week: He turned 6 weeks old on Monday. He's gotten into a good sleeping pattern at night of 5 hours followed by 3, then another 3. I can't complain too much about that! Although he doesn't usually go to sleep at night 'til 10 or 11. That's kind of nice because then I go to bed when he does and get a solid 5 hours of sleep. But it's kind of a pain when I want to go to bed earlier than that.

Trying to get him to nap with me . . . no avail . . .

When I weighed him today he was up to almost 10 lbs. Woohoo! But he's been pretty fussy still. Today he's been crying a lot, wanting to eat every hour and a half, and only cat-napping. Not sure if that's just normal baby fussiness or if it's reflux related.

This outfit is too short on his legs. He's actually starting to outgrow some of his newborn clothes!

My mom just bought him this outfit (size NB) and it's already a little snug. Yay! Growing!

I'm a little disappointed that he's almost 7 weeks old and still doesn't smile. Justin and I have each gotten about half a smile from him once or twice, but nothing big or consistent. Patience, patience . . .

6. Today was the first really warm day we've had all year - mid seventies! - so I declared it "family outside time." We have been cooped up in this house with our screens and sickness for far too long, so we broke out the short sleeves and headed out into the sunshine!