Penny woke up for her nightly feeding a bit earlier than usual last night, which didn't surprise us much, because we'd let her fall asleep a bit earlier than usual. I got Matt set up in the nursery, then went back to bed to contemplate the probability that she'd be up for breakfast dark and early, and to pray that she would at least last until 5.

It takes me a while to get back to sleep. I was only dozing when I heard Matt burping Penny. She started coughing, quite a lot - this cold she's got absolutely refuses to shake loose. Or, possibly, she's on to about her third cold. I'm still coughing (or coughing again), myself.

This coughing fit sounded especially rough. Poor little girl, I thought.

Then I heard Matt: "What the- Oh my god- Liz, come here!"

I think I may have teleported into the nursery.

It wasn't quite as awful as Matt's frantic command and the adrenaline made it sound. She'd thrown up over his shoulder onto the floor, and Matt couldn't hold her and clean her up and clean up the floor all at the same time.

So I took over cleaning the floor while he got Penny cleaned up and into a fresh sleeper and gave her another dose of her medicine and watched her worriedly to make sure she wasn't going to get sick again.

Ah, the joys of parenting.

I think only exhaustion made Matt eventually put her back in her crib and come to bed. I know I got up once to check on her after that, and would have gotten up yet again except that I heard her squeak over the baby monitor and knew from that she was still breathing.

And then - because she had her night feeding at about 1 and had thrown up a good ounce of it - she woke up for breakfast around 4:30. Whee!

I'm grateful she fell asleep again after she nursed and let me go back to bed for an hour, but I'm a wee bit on the tired side today. Here's hoping we don't have any more repeats.

On the plus side, she was in a pretty decent mood last night. And her "school pictures" came in. It's amazing how much she's changed in only a month, but I still think it's a pretty darned cute picture.

Isn't she adorable? I love it that they got her to smile for the picture; she wasn't smiling all that regularly yet when they took it. And she's usually such a happy baby.

Selfish parents that we are, we're going to keep the big picture and put it on the stairwell wall, and we're going to keep the medium-sized pictures and frame them for our desks at work, and we each took one of the wallet-sized pictures for our wallets. So there are only some more wallet-sized pictures to pass out to adoring grandparents and great-grandparents.

In other good news, my new camera should be coming today. At least, FedEx hasn't changed their website to say tomorrow. Yet. Of course, they also haven't yet scanned the box and loaded it on a truck (well, at least if they have, they haven't uploaded the scan to the database yet) so I'm going to essentially sit here on pins and needles until I either get it or they revise the estimated delivery date.

TMI warning, for those of you who are squeamish about breastfeeding...

I've added a new set of pills to my daily regimen - Reglan. Why? Because I'm only producing about a third of the milk Penny needs, and I haven't been able to increase my production through more usual methods. I'm not opposed to formula, but I'd rather be supplementing her diet of breastmilk with a little formula, rather than the other way around. I'd like to get her diet up to at least 50% milk.

It's possible - even probable - that I could increase my production if I nursed or pumped more frequently, but I can't. Herbal supplements that have worked for other people haven't worked for me. So I called my OB's office yesterday to ask about it, and they said, "Okay, we'll call a prescription in to your pharmacy."

Three pills a day for two weeks. Bad timing; the run will go through our trip to Chicago. I hadn't been planning on taking the pump with me, but if I'm having suddenly increased milk production while I'm there, it might be necessary. Or maybe I'll just spend a lot of time locked in a bedroom, nursing. I guess we'll see what the luggage situation looks like.

The drug is actually intended for use with gastronomic problems, but it stimulates the production of the hormone that causes lactation. It's got a long list of unlovely possible side-effects, but the research I've done says I could see improvement in as few as three days. I hope it works. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

--Liz