The Best News I Ever Got, and Other Updates

First things first... the official word is in, and Eli DOES NOT have Cystic Fibrosis! While we suspected as much, given his above-average weight gain and general good health, it was still a huge relief to know for sure. It feels great to have all of the question marks put to rest, at long last. It's been quite a journey, from 8 weeks along when we found out that I was a CF carrier to 20 weeks when the multicystic dysplastic kidney was diagnosed to 6 weeks post-partum when we finally got the last test result that we were waiting on. GAH! So many tears and so many prayers. But here were are - we made it through to the other side and we have a beautiful, happy, healthy baby to show for it :-)

Speaking of a happy baby...

...our little one is SMILING! These photos of course don't capture the full range of his mad smiling skillz - God forbid we give Mommy any BIG grins while the camera is out - but they're pretty cute, nonetheless. He has also slept "through the night" (as defined by sleeping uninterrupted for 6 hours) a few times, which is fabulous! He will usually lay back down for another 2-3 hours after that early morning feeding as well, so I'm getting to sleep from around midnight til 8 or 9 with just ONE feeding in between. I feel like a new woman. And I'm probably jinxing myself.

In other news, he's got a pretty nasty diaper rash right now which has me on the verge of taking the plunge into cloth diapering a little sooner than I had originally planned (one of the major benefits of using Fuzzibunz cloth diapers is that, for many babies, they completely cure diaper rash). I feel like he has had some degree of diaper rash - ranging from mild redness to flaming redness with spots of broken skin - for weeks now. The severity rises and falls with the Desitin use, but right now it's definitely at its worst and it just breaks my heart to see his poor little butt looking like that! It doesn't cover a large area, but where there is a rash it's a nasty one. I was trying to put off cloth diapering until he was going through fewer diapers per day, but it's getting bad enough that I just might go ahead and start using them. Let's face it - if I have a potential solution to a problem (a problem that is causing harm to my baby!) and I don't at least try it... well, some might call that downright neglectful. At least that's how I'm starting to feel! Of course I just bought 168 disposables yesterday, so perhaps we'll burn through some of those first. It won't take long! And I'll certainly need to keep disposables on hand anyway, for times when the Fuzzibunz just aren't practical or I run out of clean ones before I get a chance to do a load of laundry.

Entirely unrelated to cloth diapering, but also a pretty big deal, is the fact that we're moving in TWO WEEKS. Oye. Ask me how much packing we've done! Actually, please don't. It makes me want to curl up in a ball in the floor. I'd really like to go through things and pare down the "stuff" - I know that there's a good deal of crap in here that does not need to be re-located to our new home, in which I hope to start fresh with a more minimalist approach - but at this point I may not have time for all that. I suppose I can always go through things as we unpack, but it seems silly to move things that we don't even want. While it's true that I am home all day, I usually only get about 2 good naps out of him during the hours before Ben gets home (the rest is feeding, diapering, playing in the floor, and calming fussiness, with a few cat naps thrown in there for good measure). In those longer stints of sleep, I have to find time to put myself together (this helps me feel more human), wash a few dishes, maybe run a load of laundry, make and eat lunch, get some studying done... and if we need to go out and run any errands, that easily takes up one nap. There's just not a lot of time to get into something as involved as packing, especially since it's something that tends to make a mess (so if it gets interrupted by a crying baby, I have to leave said mess as it sits. Which irks me. A lot.). I just prefer to do something like that when we're both around. Anyway, the moral of the story is... we have GOT to get on that. STAT.

Alright, my sleeping baby is stirring, so this incredibly random post must draw to a rather abrupt close. Hope to have some cute family Christmas photos to share soon...