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It has only been three weeks since Avalina has been home and we have been through so much already! From hearing her cry to watching her sleep, she makes each passing day more exciting! I’m not going to lie; we have had a few drawbacks on the blissful times. There are times when she cries and all I can feel is my heart breaking because I can’t do anything to help her. Since she is such a fussy baby we brought her to the doctor to discover that she is 22 inches now, and has colic and GERD (Gastroesophageal reflux disease). Our poor poor baby. It is the hardest thing I’ve had to deal with in my entire life. Knowing my daughter is in pain and there’s close to nothing I can do about it makes my heart ache. Alex and I have discovered some techniques to help soothe her, but sometimes it doesn’t make the situation any better. The doctor gave us some medicine to help with her acid reflux, which seems to be helping. And we also bought gripe water—which doesn’t seem to do much, but we continue to give it to her with high hopes. Aside from that she is the sweetest baby! She is a great sleeper and mama appreciates it! Once she actually gets to sleep she will sometimes let me rest for 4 hours before waking up to eat in the middle of the night! Other nights she wakes up every 2 hours, leaving mama with very little sleep time. To be fair people told us how exhausted we would be, I just don’t think they emphasized it fully. A lot of people told us many different things on what to expect with a newborn . . . but the other day when her umbilical cord started to smell like a rotting dumpster in the dead heat of summer, I guess people forgot to mention that this was a normal occurrence among newborns! Gross. It was almost as awesome as her first tar-like poop! Only, we didn’t take a picture of her umbilical cord, I think because we were so preoccupied by the atrocious odor. There are many other things that she does that make mommy and daddy laugh- like the first time she held her head up all by herself; I think Alex and I laughed for two minutes straight it was so cute watching her stretch her long neck toward the ceiling like a turtle! Or when Alex tried to get Avalina to suck on his nose, and she spit up in it!! Hehee And when she was trying to squeeze one out (poop) the other morning she grunted for a full 15 seconds straight!!! It was VERY un-lady-like! But it sent Alex and me into a laughing frenzy! Yup--It is times like these that make the harder times easier to get through.