No Ice Cream?!

Apparently Phoebe doesn't like it when I eat dairy products. Lat week, after several post-feeding bouts of fussiness and spitting up everything--many bouts of which took place in the evenings when I would have preferred to have been sleeping--I came to the conclusion that I was eating something that made my milk unpleasant for Phoebe. I did some research and experimented with a few things and my conclusion is that milk products are a no go for me if I want a happy child and to get sleep at night.

This is proving to be slightly problematic. At first I didn't think it would be and I told myself: "Okay, no big deal. I prefer almond milk instead anyways." But then I started trying to live dairy-free and I was like: "Okay, actually this is a BIG deal!" Dairy is everywhere and in everything! Yogurt (I eat it on about 30% of my days). Cheese (it's in my salads, quesadillas, sandwiches, pastas, burritos, cheesecakes, I could keep going here...). And of course, it's the bulk of what makes up ice cream which happens to be proof that God loves us and also my favorite treat in the world. Who knew I loves milk products so much?

Am I bitter? No, but I am kinda' bummed. I mean, sure--I do feel like a cow sometimes because some days it feels like all I do is feed Phoebe, but that didn't mean that I had anything against cows or against the food I got from their milk! I try to console myself by saying that this is an exciting challenge or by telling myself that I now have a reason for why I can't stress eat an entire carton of ice cream in one sitting. This usually works until Jon pulls out the raspberry pretzel dessert I made three nights ago which I can no longer eat because it has cream cheese and whipped topping in it.

I could use a little help! Are any of you out there dairy-free eaters? If so, do you have any tips, tricks, or advice? Any good dairy-free recipes you could share? I'm all ears! Or maybe I should say that I"m all eyes because I'll probably read your advice via comments. Or perhaps instead that I'm all stomach because we're talking about food here. That's all besides the point. Ears, eyes, stomach, or all of the above...please share!

Primary Songs at 1:30 am

I was grateful to have gone to bed at 8:30 the other night because at 10:30 Phoebe woke up and three hours later I was still trying to get her back to sleep. By this time I was exhausted. It was 1:30 and I knew that even when I finally did get her to fall asleep that she'd be up again later that night to eat again. I was ready to just be done and pass the Phoebster off to someone else! But Jon had work the next morning and I didn't want to wake him, so that it was all me.

In attempt to try something new to get Phoebe to fall asleep, I left the couch and sat in the rocking chair in our living room. I began swaying back and forth in the chair while softly bouncing her in my arms to try and calm her. Then the idea came to me to start humming and singing primary songs to her. So in my out-of-tune, crackly, broken, 1:30 am voice, I started to hum to her the song "I Feel My Savior's Love."

The spirit in the room changed. Phoebe began to calm down and go to sleep. As I continued singing and humming different songs, she began to smile in her sleep, and continued to do so for a longer period of time than I can ever recall her smiling. I began to calm down too. Instead of just trying to triumphantly get a kid to sleep, I started soaking in the moment.

Holy cow! Here I sat with this adorable little baby and she was mine! I was a parent! And in that moment, I was able to worry less about surviving and to focus more on the wonders and beauties and blessings of life.

Life tries to get the best of all of us. There will always be more to do on the to-do list than we have time for. But God has given us enough time to see to the things that truly matter most. What remains to be decided is if we will choose to use it in the way He intends for us to. How much easier this will be to do if we slow down a little and take the time to see the things that truly matter most. Things like when our prayers get answered. Things like opportunities to help out people in need. Things like friends, families, and loved ones. Things like a precious little girl you get to call "daughter" and rock to sleep at 1:30 am because someday you'll be the one she calls "mom."

I'm sure that there will be plenty of nights when I feel like I'm just trying to survive. But I hope that amid all the surviving that I can be mindful enough to pause every once and a while to recognize the miracle of life for what it is and to enjoy living it.

Phoebe's Cleft Lip

If you read the post I wrote before we had Phoebe about her cleft, you've probably been wondering how everything turned out. Well, let me tell you--things with Phoebe's cleft turned out as fantastic as we could have hoped for! She has a tiny cleft lip, but it's not as severe as it could be, and she's been able to breastfeed even with the cleft (something that is always questionable with clefts). Besides that, she has a small wave in her gum line and her nose looks slightly smashed on the side with the cleft. But that's it! She doesn't have a cleft palate, which is probably the biggest blessing because with a cleft palate comes potential problems with feeding, hearing, and speech.

What does this all mean in terms of surgery? Sometime between Phoebe being 6 months old and a year, she will have a surgery to cosmetically repair her lip. The surgery will be performed at Seattle Children's Hospital and we've been told that it will take about three hours. She'll stay overnight at the hospital and then we get to take her home the next day. They'll check up on her the following week to make sure that everything is okay, but that's it! The doctor told us that there's a good chance that the wave in her gum line will fix itself, but if it doesn't, the surgery for that wont be until she's between the ages of seven and nine. Same diagnosis for her nose, except surgery for that, if needed, wouldn't be until she's a teenager.

So it looks like we're in for a visit at Seattle Children's in a couple of months and then we just get to go on living life as normal (or as normal as possible when you're sleep deprived because your baby wakes you up at least twice every night to feed!) Quite frankly, we kinda think that her lip makes her super cute and we'll be a little sad to see it go! But what a blessing that we have the means in today's world so that it can be fixed and she can feel like the beautiful girl that she is when she gets older.

Thanks to you all for your love, care, and support! The response I got to my previous post was overwhelming and uplifting. The Selfs are blessed with amazing friends!

Crisis Discipleship

This morning I read about the people of Zeniff. Like so many other people in The Book of Mormon, the people of Zeniff were slow to remember the Lord until their lives were threatened and they needed His help. I like to call this crisis discipleship--only remembering the Lord when it's convenient or when you get something out of it.

Whenever I read about examples of crisis discipleship it causes me to pause and reflect on my own commitment to the gospel. Am I just as guilty as these people are of having a casual relationship with God and His Son unless I'm in trouble and I need Their help? Or am I just as committed on the good days as I am on the bad ones?

To whatever degree I am guilty of being a crisis disciple, I hope this is something that I can change. One way relationships are draining, and I don't want to drain the Lord. So while I know that I can never give back to Him enough to make up for all that He gives me, I want to try. I want to answer the call that Elder Holland imagined for us in the exchange between Christ and Peter, when speaking for Christ he said: "What I need, Peter, are disciples—and I need them forever. I need someone to feed my sheep and save my lambs. I need someone to preach my gospel and defend my faith. I need someone who loves me, truly, truly loves me, and loves what our Father in Heaven has commissioned me to do."

"I need someone who love me," Elder Holland imagines Christ saying. That is the key to committed discipleship: love. When our commitment to the gospel becomes more about our love for Christ and God and less about what They have asked us to do, it is then that our hearts truly change and that we become true disciples.

So that's what I want to focus on--loving the Lord. And this is perhaps the most precious thing I could ever give Him.

Welcome, Phoebe Esther Self!

As ya'll have probably already heard...Jon and I had our baby!

Phoebe Esther Self was born on July 8th at 10:39 pm. She weighed 6 lbs, 7 oz and measured 20 inches long.

The past few weeks of mommyhood have been crazy! Crazy overwhelming, crazy happy, crazy exhausting, crazy cute, crazy stressful, and crazy special. Jon and I love Phoebe to death and even when she keeps us up all night, we still want to keep her!

Here's to the next 18 years of stressing, laughing, teaching, not sleeping, and loving!

So, Tell Me More About the Cleft

Here's a 3D ultrasound photo of baby Self! The line that goes from her nose to her lip is the cleft.

A cleft lip and/or palate is a condition that occurs when a baby's face doesn't fully come together when it is forming. It can be as minor as the skin above the lip not coming together or as major as the bone that makes up the roof of the mouth not coming together. A cleft usually happens within the first 7 or 8 weeks of the baby's life, often before mom even knows that she's pregnant!

As far as what causes a cleft, doctors tell me they aren't exactly sure. In some cases, there could be some genetic predisposition that leads to a cleft, but that doesn't seem to be the case with our baby. With our baby, it just happened to happen. It's not like I did a crazy workout or ate some crazy food that caused our daughter's face to not fully form the way it should. Like I already said, it just happened. And so, Jon and I are in for a little more excitement than we thought we were when we first found out we were expecting!

The good thing about our daughter having a cleft is that it isn't a life or death condition. In fact, if she merely has a cleft lip, she'll only need a small cosmetic surgery at 6 months and then she should be good to go! If she has a cleft palate as well, we're in for a bit more of a ride. If this is the case, she'll get a surgery around 12 months to fix the roof of her mouth, and then she could need additional surgeries to help with her hearing, speech, and/or teeth in the coming years because these things are often affected when the palate isn't formed properly. Though ultrasounds suggest that our daughter only has a cleft lip at this point, we can't be completely sure until she arrives.

When it comes down to it, our little girl will be just like every other little girl. She might look a little different to start out with, but that just gives us all the more reason to love her! Now if she would just come...my ribs can only take so much bruising!

For More Info on Clefts:

The Cleft Palate Foundation:
http://www.cleftline.org/

Seattle Children's Craniofacial Website:
This is the hospital where our baby will have her surgeries.
http://www.seattlechildrens.org/clinics-programs/craniofacial/