Claire is 5 months!

Our Claire Lucille is 5 months old. Weighing in around 17 pounds and close to 26 inches long, she is still a little bit bigger than her sister was at this age. We've officially moved into size 3 diapers and 6-12 month or 9 month clothing! Though she is still hanging on to some of her 6 month clothes. 

Still has such a sweet smile. 

                                                        

She loves bath time, especially with her sister. It doesn't seem to bother her that Kate is loud, splashing all over the place, and not very careful. She is just so happy to watch her. 

She loves to be upright and so she is really enjoying the exercise saucer. She is holding her head up well and loves playing with and chewing on it's toys! 

Of course, big sister is still so in love with her. We love having our "shine time" each morning. Kate is always on top of things- making sure that we sing nursery songs for Claire. Our favorites are "This is the Bible", "God gave you two little eyes" and, "You're a Pretty Little Girl and God Made You". 

       

Claire is awake more these days and wants to be around Mama (as does big sister). I so remember this time with Kate. It felt so hard. I think I'm a lot more relaxed about it this go around. Just embracing it and enjoying it. There will be a time when all the chores are kept better, but I'll also be missing my girls because they will be all grown up! 

Sleep. How I wish it was easier. We've really been trying to put her to sleep in her crib but it is not going well at all. She loves her rock and play. (see below) She's still waking up 2-3 times at night and by that I mean approximately between 10pm-5am Thankfully Blake is helping me through it because it's HARD! Her feedings are always sporadic and cluster oriented. Like I said before, I'm trying to just embrace it. I'm just thankful I can stay home and have slow mornings. (Nobody ask me to be anywhere before 9, okay?) 

This month brought 2 special family visits. Claire got to visit her Aunt Mary from Texas for the first time and "Grandma" Genie came to see as well this month. I wish Claire was a happy camper for them but, like her mother was as a baby, she is a bit more temperamental. (-;

Which brings us to our next topic- an update on her sensitivity/ allergy situation. We really were not seeing improvements. A couple of weeks ago I took Claire to Children's for a blood draw. I assumed it would be a prick from her foot- I had no idea they would need 4 tubes of blood from this little one! They had an extremely hard time finding her vain- it took 4 people and some heavy prayers but they found it. It was not very fun. Anyways, her iron and electrolytes were a bit low and her liver level was a little bit high. It will take more time to see where she is on that. Our Gi suggested we try the elemental formula to help her out a bit. We gave it a good try but she refused it, who could blame her it smelled so terrible. So after talking with both her GI and pediatrician, and doing personal research through scientific studies, we felt comfortable continuing with breastfeeding. 

This past week we had an appointment with her allergist where they did some testing for all of the 8 major allergens. She showed she has an allergy to milk, peanuts, coconut, and pine nut. Allergy testing on babies is not 100% accurate and of course, we didn't test for everything so there could be more, she also could have had a false positive. Only time will tell. Also the testing they did doesn't always tell you much for GI issues, unfortunately only diet can help with that. We are getting an epi pen delivered to us this week, and I suppose we have officially entered the great big world of food allergies. It's not fun but God is in control. We are hopeful that she will outgrow some of these allergies. 

In the mean time I am continuing to eliminate the 8 major allergens, including coconut. (milk, soy, wheat, fish, shellfish, peanuts and tree nuts.) Even though she didn't have a reaction to all of those, it's possible one of those groups might be affecting her GI system.  Once she stays clear for a couple of months we can start reintroducing some of the things that she didn't have a reaction to. It was hard at first, but it's honestly getting a lot easier. People always ask me, what do I eat, and our allergist said I must not be eating very much, but I'm actually eating quite a bit! Our creative God has filled this world with good things to eat and instead of filling my body with processed junk I am developing a preference for the food of this earth that is really good. I've never felt better. I have an incredible amount of energy for the poor sleep I'm getting. While I hate that there are foods upsetting my daughter's body, I'm thankful God is blessing us through this. He is so good. 

I had already been eliminating everything except for coconut, that was a big change for us. I love using coconut oil- most of our personal products contain in, including her soap and ointments I've been using on her. My prenatal vitamin contained it and I've been enjoying coconut ice-cream, plus we cook with coconut oil. So I'm hoping to see some improvements for our little girl in the near future. We meet with her GI and pediatrician in February and I'm hopeful that things will only improve from here on out!