Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

So we left off last week with a cliffhanger: the airlines had lost our last box and kept telling us to "call back in four hours" to find out more. Every time we called, however, it was the same thing: call back in four hours, please. Well we decided on Monday to drive down to the airport ourselves and not bother with calling and talking to people who were just looking at a computer screen. Good news for us, because they had our box waiting for us when we got there! Rest assured we finally got our box back from the airlines! Plus we dropped off the damaged suitcase...we'll have to remember to follow up on that, but they should be either fixing or replacing it. It pays to follow up with customer service, right?

We took care of some errands and running around throughout the week before I start back to work this week. Here and there and everywhere, so hopefully we won't have tons of little extras to do on top of adding in work again. Among which we took care of some car maintenance and a doctor's visit for me. Though the eye doctor and dentist were too busy to work in before, so they're still coming up later this month.

The best news of the week is that Paela took a bottle! A couple of them, actually. We let her play with the bottle's nipple in her mouth during awake, content times. We gave her pacifiers of the same material (but a different shape) so she got used to having these things in her mouth. And Monday and Tuesday she ate an ounce of pumped milk while she was not quite awake. This was exciting and I started collecting in advance for my first day back to work. Wednesday we tried to give her a bottle of formula (so we could save the collection for Monday), and I don't know if it was the taste or the fact that she was already screaming and not willing to try this new-fangled method of eating, but she rejected it. This was a little worrisome, but we had at least seen some evidence that she could eat from a bottle again. We tried the bottle again on Saturday when I left her and Wayne, and I'm told as soon as I left she took the bottle from Wayne even though she was wide awake. Yay. We still don't know if she rejected the Wednesday bottle because it was formula, or because she was not in the mood to eat it. At any rate, we're all feeling a little more confident that she won't scream from hunger the whole time I'm gone tomorrow. Apparently we are the only ones that worried she would scream the whole time if she didn't learn to take a bottle.

Paela is recovering really well from her cold. The cold she had when she was only three weeks old lasted for three weeks, but with this one she is almost better and it's been just a week and a half. Maybe her immune system is getting better. Wayne also learned how to get her to giggle pretty reliably: he played some music with a good beat and helped her "conduct" to it. She giggles and giggles while he waves her hands and arms about and her head bobs up and down. It's terribly cute, I must say. We'll have to film it sometime.

She didn't like Church today though. We switched to 9:00 Church, and I am with the younger kids teaching the third hour instead of the second hour, so we had lots of adjustment to do to figure things out. Unfortunately, Paela didn't get a good nap during Sacrament meeting, so as a result she didn't eat really well and then when I handed her off to Wayne so I could go teach the five year olds (CTR-6), she screamed and screamed until he took her home and I got a ride with Karl and Angela at the end of Church. Ahh, Church with infants. I'm sure Church with toddlers is no cake walk either, but we'll just have to figure out how to handle things better. The class I teach, on the other hand, had only one child show up so it was very strange (usually there's more like three kids in the class). Plus I have a co-teacher now, so the adults out-numbered the kids! I could have used that kind of ratio a few times last year....

We did manage some entertainment aside from Paela and errands this week. We've read lots and lots of books (yay for the used bookstore! used bookstores smell nice I think...of used books. excellent) and I abandoned ship (read: Wayne kicked me out of the house) Saturday afternoon for a cake decorating class (merry Christmas, ho-ho-ho!). I'm the only one in the class! A little strange, but it's a good time; the instructor likes to talk and talk and talk. I've learned some good tips already and can't wait to practice. Maybe I should bake a cake and get started...mmm....

We made it to Karl and Angela's for food and games a couple of nights, and our friends Chris and Alyssa's for games another night. And we hosted an eastern time New Year's Eve party at our house, complete with delicious cheese and chocolate fondue and a nice fire and some games. It's a challenge getting three families with babies together, so we're all glad on that count for early Church finally. As long as Paela can nap better next week during Church, that is!