Trips, Pips, and Mickey Mouse

July 6, 2008

Hello friends and family!

Well, it’s been awhile since we’ve sent an update, and a lot has happened! I guess I’ll start with our first trip abroad with Pippi: we went to Vienna, Austria at the end of May. Pippi was just great during the flight! I was pretty nervous...people had said that babies have a really hard time with their ears popping, and I just knew that Pip was going to scream through the flight in pain from her poor ears...but it didn’t even seem to affect her! She mostly got bored having to sit on my lap the whole time, but other than that, she was great! Once in Vienna, we found our hotel...the most luxurious one we’ve stayed in on our trips! It was just gorgeous! Pretty much the whole city was like this, too, we discovered. We felt somewhat out of place in our jeans and backpacks in Vienna. It was sort of a “high class” city, with an older and wealthier crowd. Not that we let that stop us! We just took our jeans and backpacks right on in with the crowd! We had gorgeous weather, and toured the city on foot each day with our guidebook. Pippi just went with the flow, but mostly she hung out (literally!) in her sling on either Jason or I. She refused to go into her stroller! This trip confirmed that the sling has been our best baby purchase yet! My high-light of the trip was seeing the Spanish Winter Riding School practices (horses). I’d read a book about these horses, and to see them in person was fantastic! (Much teasing from Ja-son came from this, but I don’t care!!)

So after that successful trip with Pippi traveling (we’ve got the Suel travel bug in her al-ready, we decided!) we headed off to Disneyland Paris in June. This time we took the Eu-rostar Train, which was easier and more comfortable with a baby. And Disneyland was GREAT! Much more relaxed than Vienna...it was so kid-friendly (obviously) that we were never nervous about Pippi crying or finding a place to breastfeed, etc. It was basically set up to make parents feel at ease, which was a blessing. Pippi was able to ride in our laps for many of the rides, and she seemed to enjoy the music and colors and lights. Jason rode the roller coasters while I breastfed, and it was just a really fun trip. I’d never been to Disneyland in the States (Jason had), and was surprised to have soooo much fun! We took about a billion pictures (see blog for a great one of all 3 of us and Mickey! It’s like somehow Pippi knew that of all the photos to smile in, this was the one to do it!), and have promised each other we’ll take our kids when they are a little bigger to appreciate it even more. We found ourselves at times watching other people’s kids just to see their reactions to Mickey and the Princesses! Soooo adorable! So we decided we’ll for sure go again one day.

An update on Pippi, then: She is growing sooo fast, of course! Up to just over 14 pounds now, and right on track for her growth scales. I’m still breastfeeding her, but just last week we started her on solids. We’re making our own babyfood, and so far she has proven to enjoy baby rice, mango, and potato the most. We have just obtained a bouncy swing for the doorway, and this is her biggest thrill right now! She laughs and screams and bounces away, and we cannot help but stare and giggle right along with her. One of our biggest challenges right now is Pippi’s eczema. This is a skin condition she’s had since birth, but has just gotten very bad in the past 2 months. Basically it’s just really dry skin, but along with this, we have discovered she has many allergies. We found this out after some major rashes occurring from some of the medications and ointments and creams given to help with the eczema. We visit the doctor weekly, who has been wonderful. Her skin at the moment is doing really well (the current mix of treatment being Hydrocortisone cream 2x/day, a medicine for her scalp, an antihistamine at night, an emollient for her bath, and a cream for all the time that we use whenever she is scratching). It’s difficult, because she scratches her body all the time, sometimes until she bleeds. We keep mitts or socks on her hands at all times now. The worst, however, is that she is no longer able to sleep well. She falls asleep quickly, but with each stir she becomes itchy and wakes up crying. We are waking with her to soothe her just about every hour (if not more) at night. This has been going on for 6 weeks now, so as you can imagine, we are exhausted. If we only get woken up 3-4 times in a night, we are praising God! We are praying nonstop for this to get under control, as it is making all three of us weary. Many children grow out of eczema, so we are mostly praying for healing to come quickly.

Other than this skin issue, Pippi is a bright, energetic, smiley, beautiful girl. We adore her so much, and even lack of sleep (to the extreme!) had not made us forget how much we love her!

I am back to work July 14, and will be going back 4 days a week. Pippi will be going to a child-minder named Heather, than we know very well from church. She will go to Heather’s house with several other kids, but Heather will take them out and about daily to play groups, etc. Heather is wonderful, and we are glad to know her so well to be able to trust Pippi with her. Of course I am sad to be going to back to work after so long with Pippi all to myself, but I have to remind myself that I love my job! I know it will be a hard couple of days at first, but it will soon be back to normal life. My 6 months of maternity leave seemed so long at first, and I can’t believe it’s now come to an end! I will miss my little girl!

The biggest thing in store for the Suelfam is a visit from Shannon (now Yates!) this week. We are so looking forward to that. We continue to be involved in our church, especially the 18-30s group. Jason continues to love his job, and overall we are just enjoying life, each other, and Pippi. God has truly blessed us with happiness, and we are grateful. He has also blessed us with friends like you, and we look forward to hearing from you each soon with an update.

Much love from Jason, Sarah, and Pippi