Hustle and Bustle takes on a whole new meaning with a newborn in tow

Livvie's first Christmas was so much fun, but we always seem to spend the great majority of our holiday on the road. We started the weekend festivities with Christmas Eve at our house with the Spauldings. Livvie got her first baby doll from Nana and a Violet from her cousins; we have to return the Violet because her friend Gabe already gave her one when she was born. Christmas morning, we did our own little family's Christmas. Santa was very good to Livvie; she got several toys that she will love in the next few months. Then we went to my parents' house for breakfast with the Grandparents and Uncle Jay and Aunt Missy. Livvie got her first hard hat and workbench from her Uncle Jay (who is in construction). After a short nap, it was back on the road to Uncle Tony and Aunt Janet's house for Christmas lunch. Our last trip of the day was up to West Chester to see the Enderle's. It's a long drive, but none of my Dad's relatives had met Liv yet so that stop was a must.

My birthday is the day after Christmas, so more family celebration followed. The last three days have really taken their toll on my poor baby girl. I have come to realize that this baby relies heavily on her routine. You mess with her routine and she becomes a mess. The last three nights, she has woken up at 1 a.m. (she has not done this in at least 6 to 8 weeks). I hope that once we get back to our normal daily routine, she'll sleep through the night again; I don't know how to fix it otherwise -- we didn't do anything special to get her to sleep through the night in the first place, so we're not quite sure how to get her back to doing it if she's still waking up after everything's back to normal.

The First Three Months -- and all the "firsts" that go with it

Olivia's first three months have been nothing short of completely wonderful. She helped hand out candy at her first Halloween, watched Mommy and Daddy eat turkey for her first Thanksgiving, and we are now in the middle of celebrating her first Christmas.

David and I are settling in to our new parenting roles pretty well; we have figured out Livvie's signals: we know when she's hungry, when she needs a change, and when she's done with the stimulation and needs some quiet and a nap. She sleeps an average of 8 to 10 hours a night every night, going down between 9 and 10:30 and sleeping until 7 a.m.; as we understand, she is WAY ahead of the curve on this milestone. There have been some bumps in the road since making the final decision to exclusively feed formula; while she was on Similac Advance, Livvie seemed to have a lot of trouble with spit up. It didn't matter how much or little she ate, whether she was famished or just getting hungry, or how often we burped her, she spent a lot of time spitting up. We asked the doctors about it at a couple of her check ups, but they didn't have any suggestions for us to try because we were already doing what they would suggest. They didn't think it was GERD because she was not uncomfortable during or after eating, there was no projectile vomiting. She was just going through bibs and burp cloths like nobody's business. David was sharing his woes with some of the guys on his gaming forum, and one of them said each of his kids had the same problem until they tried Similac Sensitive for spit up. We gave it a try and were amazed with the results. Livvie can wear the same bib for the whole day and can even go without a bib for a good portion of the day (bibs have been a staple of her wardrobe pretty much since we came home from the hospital).

In all, the first three months have gone as smoothly as we can expect as brand new parents and we can't wait to see what the next three months bring.