A little reflection...

It is hard to find time during the holidays to really sit down and get much of anything done, but I am taking just a few quick moments today during (what I hope will turn into...) nap time to reflect on everything my family has experienced this past year. Okay, well maybe not everything, but the big things at least.

On December 16th Laurelei stormed into our lives in a big way! Two weeks early and with a big scare we welcomed the arrival of our little drama queen. It is hard to think back to those first few days of fear and uncertainty and not thank God for the beautiful little girl we have today. Even in her first year of life she has beaten all of the odds to become a happy and healthy little girl. It is absolutely impossible to think about life would be like without her, and such a blessing to know that God protected our little girl so that we wouldn't have to.

As the year went on we celebrated out first family christmas together. It seemed surreal, which is either completely related to the excitement over our week old baby, or our complete lack of sleep... Next came many tears as I went back to work, jubilation as summer came and I could be home again, complete fun as we ventured out on our first family vacation and many, many months of watching Laurelei grow with such joy in her big blue eyes!

She has been so much fun to watch grow. She stomped through every big baby landmark (except teeth?) like it was nothing! Crawling at 5 months, walking at 10. She never ceased to amaze us with her determination. NOW, she is feeding herself with a spoon. At 12 months! What an amazing little bugger. I have a feeling she is going to be a genius...

What a year it has been! Through job loss and job gain, rounds of sickness and health, excitement and sadness we have loved every second of our blessed lives. I feel so lucky to have Matt and Laurelei to make me smile everyday! And now with our new puppy Ruby thrown in the mix I can trully say my life is FULL, and I am loving it!

I've taken off!

Finally, some new videos...

Laurelei has been up to A LOT these days! Unfortunately, we have once again lost our digital/ video camera charger and haven't taken a video of her in a couple of months! It is crazy to see how different she is from one video to another. If you scroll back to the last video blog entry, you'll be amazed at the difference! She is so much more responsive and animated, it is hilarious! She has also gone from cruising around furniture to taking steps and walking almost on her own. The walking videos don't show all that she can do because if she saw the camera, she was over walking and just wanted the camera out of Matt's hands. The one time she walked all the way across her room, Matt the camera missed it sooo (well, we won't get into that here.)

This first video is of Laurelei and Matt playing a little chasing game that Laurelei just freaks out over. If either Matt or I even look at her and giggle, she starts running and screaming to the other parent. It is hilarious. She LOVES to be chased!


This is Laurelei just being Laurelei. Exploring something, throwing something, eating something, saying a little something. She is too sweet!



These next two videos are Laurelei taking a few steps, she is going to take off before we know it! I can't believe she has grown so quickly. It truly does FLY by...

what she's been up to...

Laurelei is doing so many new things these days, it has been fantastic! We've had a busy fall so far, and we have NO plans to slow down!

First off, Laurelei has been into kissing everything as I have written about before. Lately, she will pick her anything you ask her to and shower it with kisses. She also still kisses her reflection in the mirror. That being said, guess what the first thing she did at the pumpkin patch was...

We took Laurelei to the pumpkin patch a couple of weekends ago and had too much fun. She LOVED the apples in the orchard. Laurelei couldn't get enough of the apple "juice." Anytime someone would take her apples away, she would just freak out!We have entered the stage of hide and seek and peekaboo. Matt and I chase Laurelei around the house and she just giggles when we catch her! She also loves to hide herself in closets and behind cabinent and bedroom doors. It is too cute when she open the door and you "find" her. She gets soo excited! I love it!

Much to Matt's chagrin, Laurelei also likes to remove all of the books from just a few shelves on our bookshelf. She has torn a few covers which really hits him hard...

Finally, one of my new favorite things is how Laurelei learned to sniff things. While outside today looking at the mums on the porch, Laurelei had her first hands on experience with flowers. After she tried to eat them with little luck, I demonstrated how they are supposed to be smelled. She then took it upon herself to disect many mums and sniff them. She makes the cutest sniffy face, as you can see below. The noises she makes are also priceless. As soon as I get my video camera charged a video will be sure to follow!

We are 10 months old and counting. Just a tipping the scales at 18lbs. In other news, Laurelei took 2 steps this past Friday, with others here in there. We'll keep you posted with any updates relating to walking! It certainly won't be long now!

New pictures!

9 months, can you believe it?

Laurelei is now officially 9 months as of Wednesday. We can't believe how quickly she is growing! At her recent check up she weighed 16lbs, 9oz. That is more than triple her birth weight now! She is also 26 inches long, making her 10 inches longer than birth. It is absolutely amazing how fast they grow up! She is still a little on the small side in the 10th percentile, but is making steady growth which we are just overwhelmed with joy about! What a little miracle!

Along with her physical growth, she is doing more and more everyday. She now stands and walks around furniture while holding on. She only crawls out of necessity until she can find the next closet thing to pull up on! Matt and I are loving this awesome stage of giggling. Absolutely EVERYTHING is hilarious at home. She rocks her car seat: giggles. She opens a drawer: giggles. Pulls herself up: giggles. Looks out the front door, giggles! It is precious to see her so happy and delighted over every little thing.

We can also see how she is developing mentally as we watch her play with old toys in new ways. Everything has to be thrown now, no matter the size. Socks are a new fascination; how in the world do you get them on and off of feet? Everything has to be emptied as well, which is quite funny because she has a whole shelf system in her room now that is just a rack of empty bins because she prefers them that way. Most of the toys are now conveniently stored wherever Laurelei most prefers. She is such a doll.

As her personality continues to show itself more and more, we are recognizing the happy, giggly little girl we have on our hands. She couldn't be fuller of life or more excited about it! We will post a few new pictures soon! (Including a lovely family photo of UK fans, go BIG BLUE! What an exciting game!)

i'm just too cute with my sweet noises!

I wave to people!

I say "dada"

Life marches on...

Now, let me start with asking a question... am I the world's worst blogger or what? It has been forever since we put anything up. I guess life has been scooting by a little to quickly at the Burlew household these days! Here is a little update for you, since I have had a minute to sit down!

Laurelei is 8 months old! Can you believe it? She seems huge to Matt and I. She pulls up AND walks around objects now. She enjoys crawling closely behind us and clawing at our feet too. She is much like a puppy in the way that she loves to grab at your toes and chew on your shoes. If you come into our house now, watch out! She moves pretty fast! (wait, it is wrong to compare my child to a puppy?)

Today she started "talking." Up until this point she has just been cooing and sticking with mostly vowel sounds. She has dabbled a bit here and there with goo's and gaa's, but is pretty much trying her hand at varying ranges of "ahhhhh's." As of today, she is officially saying "dadadadadadadadadadadadadadadada." (Much to "mamama's" chagrin you can imagine!) Matt and I listened really closely for a few rounds as we tried to decipher what she was saying, but soon enough there was no mistaking that she was making the "da" sounds. It was super cute!

Now, we are just anxiously awaiting the first tooth which seems to be right around the corner.

I have to say how amazed I am by how much I can love this beautiful little girl. It's almost as if my heart isn't big enough to contain all of the love I feel for her and her daddy Matt. I am so lucky to have them both! It is hard now to even remember the days several months ago when I was worried I wouldn't see her grow this healthy, strong and beautiful. I am not usually the one to gush over such things publically, let alone online; but I am consistently amazed everyday by how good our God is. I have been given such a gift, and I am so thankful for the little miracle she is.

HEADLINE: New Stage of Babies Life Threatens Young Mother with Heart Attack.

Wow, 7 months have gone by so incredibly quick. It is hard to imagine that Laurelei was ever only 5lbs and slept all day. For having a genetic anemic disease, she had A LOT of energy! This 7th month has brought many changes to our little one, as well as to our way of life. And I thought the young sleepless night required a lot of energy, I was SO unprepared!

As of late, Laurelei's favorite past time is standing up. On anything, against anything, using anything as leverage. This has created many problems for us. 1) Laurelei can pull up, but not sit up: This creates a lot of falling! 2) Our house is completely hard wood, so falling over hurts a great deal! 3) We no longer go down for naps easily because we stand right back up. Naps are down to about 45 minutes at a time at the moment, which leaves some sadly black circles under the little babies eyes! Its awful!

The other day she hit her head with the remote control and it left a nice purple bruise. Now I am concerned about what people think about my parenting abilities when we are out and about. ugh. We are hoping she will become a bit more sure on her feet sooner rather than later. She needs all the help she can get!

my little houdini

Laurelei has many tricks. The first memorable one occurred when she was about 1 1/2 months old. While completely swaddled, she managed to turn herself around, head to where her feet go, in her crib, without even ruffling her cover. Next, she learned to break partially free from her expertly wrapped swaddle, leaving one sole arm exposed. This seemed enough to make her happy for awhile. Finally, she got a bit more creative and figured out how to get both her hands and feet out of her swaddle, while leaving the blanket perfectly wrapped in the middle. These bed time tricks always surprised me when I went in to get her up from a nap, but always made us smile. 

Recently she has begun performing more interesting tricks. For instance, the other day I heard her "talking" and singing happily in her crib after nap time. I was surprised that I had not heard her stir at all, and then suddenly heard her little voice. When I went in to pick her up, she had partially removed her crib bumper, which had previously been tied. All of this, without making a noise. The next day, after nap time, I went in to find her partially standing, hands on her crib rails. This is quite the trick because Laurelei can't even sit up on her own yet! Today, as if we were progressing at the speed of light, I went in to find my only 7 month old BABY between her bumper and the crib, standing all the way up. I would have gotten of picture of this truly amazing trick had I not been scared to death that she might fall out of the crib! Luckily, although the crib was still at its highest level, my child takes after me in the height department. She was still only tall enough to lick the railing, thankfully not to jump on out. 

I have learned two very valuable lesson from my daughters magical abilities. One, lower the crib NOW. Two, super glue bumper to crib since apparently I am really terrible at tying a bow securely.

Julius

Before leaving Edinburgh, Matt and I decided that we should buy something special for the little one we were expecting. Ever since we had found out we were pregnant, we frequented this little toy store around the corner called Pinocchio. (http://www.pinocchiotoys.co.uk/index.htm) Throughout the UK there are these cute little stuffed toys called Moulin Roty dolls. We decided on the stuffed dog, since it was more gender neutral than the mouse or rabbit that I was dying for. His name is Julius, and we were so excited someday to see Laurelei play with it. 

Well, the playing started sooner than I expected because despite my best effort at insisting to Matt and you can't put stuffed toys in a babies crib, he smuggled Julius to the hospital anyway. One of our first pictures of her in her little plastic hospital crib she had Julius, almost the same length as her, next to her. It didn't stop when we got home as every night Matt would hold it as he rocked her or tuck it safely in the corner of her crib. Now, we cannot remove her best friend Julius from her. Laurelei is quite aware of our intentions if we even get close to her stinky little friend after she has been chewing on him for days. 

This presents quite a problem because Julius, being nothing more than cotton and wool, gets very stinky. Laurelei sucks and chews and suck and chews until he is soggy and stinky and gross. He is easily washed (since Matt and I decoded the European wash instructions,) but we simply have the worst time taking him away. The other night is the perfect example, I snuck in after she had fallen asleep, slipped him out of her arm and began soaking him immediately in the sink. About 15 minutes later our little one began to stir and promptly realized that Julius was not there. She would not sooth herself back to sleep and it escalated until Matt went into rescue her. For the next 30 minutes she cried and cried, more along the line of sobbing, until we went through every stuffed animal she had to find the closest on in material and shape. Thankfully, she was so tired that she didn't even open her eyes, so we were able to slip the frog under her arms and rock her for a few minutes until she drifted off to sleep. 

Since this incident we have discovered our big mistake.  What were we thinking to buy a toy in a foreign country and allow our child to become absolutely attached to it when there is seemingly no way to replace it if it happens to disappear. 

Currently my mom is searching the internet for a place to order another Julius, just in case.  

my version of crawling so far...

family vacation

Laurelei is currently down for a nap. When I say down I mean, she is in her bedroom fighting the idea of actually sleeping tooth and nail. She is currently trying out her arsenal of different protests such as screaming, banging, and just plain crying. We were making so much progress before we left for vacation on going down for naps twice a day, but since our return she is a bit of schedule. Sunday went just fine with naps, yesterday daddy rescued her in about 5 seconds each time, and today I am trying to give it at least 5 minutes. We are such softies its no wonder she knows she can get what she wants!

Anyway, we had a great time at the beach with my family. Seeing Laurelei's reaction to the water temperature and the sand was priceless. She cried immediately every time we put her little feet in the ocean water. The crashing waves were just too much for her to handle. We took her on long walks everyday during which she would usually fall asleep on our shoulders, but before this could happen, she would clench onto us, eyeing the water woefully until she was certain we were not going to attempt to put her down again. We are hoping for better results with that next year! 

As for the sand though, she was a huge fan. She loved picking it up and throwing it and covering her little feet with it. We are quite lucky that this was her feeling, however, since her first experience with the sand was on the first day when she rolled her self off of her sheet and directly, face down into the sand. It was quite sad! She was such a trooper about it though, and didn't begin to cry until after she was all cleaned up. 

Overall, we were so proud of her attitude the whole trip. She sat patiently during dinners out every night, took naps whenever she was tired and even slept the majority of the 10 hours car rides there and back. We can't believe how lucky we are to have such a sweet, even tempered baby. It was truly priceless to share this first family vacation with her. We are looking forward to many exciting trips to come!

baby update

Well, Laurelei had her 6 month check up today (can you believe it?) and we are hoping everything looks great! She weighed in at 14 lbs 9oz and was 24 inches long. That puts our little one in the 20th and 10th percentile. She is scooting right along! As with all check up, the needles came along in full force! She had 3 shots in her legs which were so painful to watch, once again.

 Then Dr. Mack informed us that in addition to her shots and regular check up, our hematologist from UK Children's Hospital wanted CBC, ritic. count and hemoglobin blood tests run as well. Now that Laurelei has gotten older, they can no longer take it from her heal, so we had to have the whole work up done with an IV and catheter in her arm. A nurse and I had to hold her down because she was really freaked out by all the needles and tubes. It was truly, truly awful! 

Needless to say, we have had a long day with one whiny little Laurelei. Everytime she moves, gets moved or accidentally touches her leg she gets really upset. This afternoon we had about a 45 minute long weeping session which entailed our precious little baby clinging onto me and burying her head in my shoulder while she cried uncontrollably and couldn't be comforted. 

In the end, this will all be worth it if we get just one day closer to a clean bill of health. While her thalassemia can never go away since its a genetic blood disease, we would love to hear that there are no dramatic symptoms showing up at this time. If so, Laurelei is needle free for 3 whole months! Our longest stretch so far! We are saying our prayers and continuing to count our blessings that we even have a beautiful little baby hear today. What a miracle she is!

Keep Laurelei in your thoughts, and hopefully we will all have big smiles in just a few short days!

sleep

I am still trying to figure out what to make of this whole baby sleep schedule thing. It seems to change daily. In the beginning, as to be expected, Laurelei slept all the time. She was awake maybe a solid 3 hours a day if you added up all the awake time together. Now granted, because of her thalassemia she is supposed to be easily worn out, but there was literally NO getting her on a sleep schedule back then. Trying to keep her up when she needed sleep was impossible. She was quite insistent that none of that "babywise" schedule stuff would work for her. 

So time passed and we got used to Laurelei being awake more and more, taking about a 2-3 hr nap in the daytime sleeping about 7:00-pm to 4:30am at night and starting all over again. We were overjoyed when she started making the jump from a 4:30 wake up to a 5:30-6:30 wake up. 

But as time continued to pass, she seemed to require less and less sleep, until it was obvious that our 5 month old baby was the sole infant in the world to require absolutely no napping at all. She would nod off here and there but refuse to sleep. She would not be tricked into lying down for a feeding or taking a spin around the block. Beyond that, she started staying up till 9:30/ 10:00 pm and waking up still around 6. 

(I love that when she naps, she literally has to lie ON TOP OF julius)

This did not last long, as you can imagine a baby needs her sleep. But it seems we have gone form little to no napping to a full blown newborn state once more. I decided what while I was on a break from school I would get the baby on a nap schedule to make it easier when she finally goes to a sitter this fall. After one day of instituting the lay in your bed awake and take a nap thing, she is a pro. All she wants to do is get in her bed with her blankie and Julius (her best friend aka stuffed dog from Edinburgh) and roll around until she falls asleep. As I type now, she is on her second nap of the day. While the time to get things done around the house has been nice, and I am now considering the possibility that this much sleep is not quite what she should be doing at her age. Perhaps I should not have made the idea of naptime in her crib so appealing? 

Hopefully tomorrow we can strike more of a balance. 

our trip to savannah

Matt took me on the perfect little getaway for our two year anniversary to Savannah, GA. We stayed at a beautiful hotel called the Avia in the historic district and ate some fantastic food! The trip was beyond what we needed to rest and relax. There was one small catch though, we left Laurelei behind.

Leaving her was incredibly hard, and of course she cried at the airport, which didn't make things any easier at all. Every baby we saw I would wonder if they were older or younger than Laurelei, what Laurelei was doing right now, and in most cases I inevitably would call my mom to check on her! It was pathetic. Thankfully, when we returned Laurelei hadn't had any major "firsts" like crawling. She is moving around quite a bit and we were a little worried that might happen. She had so much fun while we were gone she probably didn't even notice we weren't there! Gigi and Poppy spoiled her with kisses, staying up late and a big trip to Carters for some new clothes. Harrison and Jackson had their fair share of quality time too. She is one lucky little girl!

In the end, it was wonderful to have some alone time with Matt. It is so wonderful spending time with him, even more in love than we were two years ago. It is hard to deny how blessed our lives seem at this very moment!

baby's first wedding

As wedding season gets well under way, Laurelei took her first road trip with Matt and I up to Toledo, OH for our friends Tara and Travis's wedding. We had a great time, and Laurelei did a fabulous job. She Was very patient considering the lack of floor time she got! Matt was also very patient considering I was in the wedding and he had 24hr duty for pretty much two days. What would we do without him!? Laurelei looked fabulous in her little silk dress and enjoyed dancing the night away!

It was the first wedding Matt and I had been to since we had Laurelei just 6 short months ago. On our long trip home that night, we realized how incredibly blessed we were. Just two years ago that was us walking down the aisle and saying our vows, and now we have the most beautiful daughter in the world. Things can change so quickly can't they? While it wasn't what we originally had in mind, I wouldn't change God's timing for anything.

changes

Much to Matt's dismay, I am taking a break from the whirlwind of packing and preparing to write a short blog and sit down. We are preparing to leave town with the baby for a couple of days so that we can go to my good friend Tara's wedding in Northern Ohio.

When we get back from the wedding Matt and I are leaving for Savannah, GA, without Laurelei. Matt has been planning a two year anniversary trip for us for awhile now and we are excited to get away and reconnect. While I am looking forward to it in a lot of ways, it is already becoming incredibly difficult for me to leave Laurelei, even if only for a couple of days. Changes are happening so quickly and everyday with her. She seems like she grows every night. She is doing so many things like scooting around on the floor, trying to sit up, teething and even almost crawling! What will I do if she begins these things while I am gone?! What if I come back and she is sitting up, has two teeth and can crawl around!? This seems so ridiculous, but considering the rate at which she learns new things its a legitimate fear!

Her cutest new thing is giving "kisses." She gave the first one to Gigi (my mom) and since then has produced several more do to much encouragement on our part. Almost on command she will place her little lips on your face, hold them there for a minute and then back away with a HUGE smile just awaiting your reaction. She is very eager to please and we love every second!
What a precious baby.

Moving, moving...

To our great surprise, Laurelei is moving any which way by any means possible. She is pulling, pushing, kicking, rolling and twisting in order to get herself from point A to point B as quickly as possible. Tonight, she starting pushing with her toes and pulling with her elbows in order to get across her blanket to her new toys. I was shocked when she moved herself almost 3 inches in one big hoist! It was crazy! I cannot believe that at 5 months we are already facing an extremely mobile baby. If she keeps up at this pace, she could be crawling in less than a matter of weeks, maybe even days! This makes her VERY happy, but her parents are just a wee bit nervous. Don't grow up too fast little baby!

Laurelei is such a happy baby, but with all of this teething lately, we have a had a pretty sleepy baby as well. Today, for instance, our usually once-a-day napper has taken almost 4 naps. Granted they are only about an hour at a time, it still almost makes me miss her sweet personally while she is just sleeping! At the moment, she has been down for almost 2 whole hours. Heres to hoping she sleeps tonight, and feels better tomorrow...

5 months and counting...

It is hard to even put into words how quickly it seems Laurelei is growing up! Everyday she amazes us with a new little trick. Any day now we think she will be sitting up on her own because even when we hold her she is trying to throw herself forward into the sitting position. For now though, she can roll front to back and back to front. She is all over the place. She LOVES to roll herself to her stomach now in bed, and I'm not going to lie, it scares me a little bit! 

Every time we see her is just reminds us of how incredibly lucky we are. She is such a beautiful and happy baby. She smiles and giggles at everyone and everything. What a blessing! Enjoy the pictures...

Lola Drinks

When Matt and I took Laurelei out to dinner tonight, she was very interested in everything. She was most interested in trying to drink from my water glass, which proved to be very entertaining to both Matt and I.

happy girl

As Laurelei's personality begins to emerge more and more, Matt and I have become very aware of what a happy baby she is. She rarely fusses about anything, and when she does it is need related. If she is very hungry or very tired she might cry, but otherwise she is all sweet smiles. One of our favorite times has become Sunday morning. It is the only morning that we get to wake up together with out one of us rushing off to work. We are able to enjoy her morning spirit and we love it!


It usually starts with one of us giving into Laurelei's gleeful squeals from the other room and bringing her into bed with us. We generally try to pretend that she is sleepy and wants to fall back asleep with us, but this never happens. She rolls from side to side just looking at us and smiling and we both just melt. The next hour is usually spent laughing at the sweet things she does and just soaking it all in. I hope that no matter how quickly she grows or how fast our life continues to change we make time each Sunday morning to enjoy our sweet, happy girl as a family.