Tuesday, October 27, 2009

6 hours between feedings!!

It happened last night. We were both so astounded. Small fry had been feeding ever two hours for the majority of the day which was starting to drive me crazy. He fed at 3pm, 5:30, 7:30, 9:30, and 11:30 at which time I handed him to his father with a 4 ounce bottle and some rice cereal and went directly to bed. This is the third night we've added rice cereal to the breastmilk bottle and previously had noticed that it made a difference about 6 hours after that bottle. Well, not last night! Quint had the rice and breastmilk bottle at 1:30 and didn't cry to be fed again until 7:30!!! With the 2 hour habit he'd had all day, Hubby had crashed on the bed in the baby's room thinking he'd be up again quite soon. At 6am, I go in there to check that the baby is still breathing. I missed one of my Wellbutrin pills recently and that usually equates to 3 days of worrying about stupid stuff...this morning whether or not my baby was breathing. Also while I was up, I pumped and got 6 ounces total! A record for me so far.

Given his feeding habit yesterday, we're expecting a growth spurt. Small fry is now 6 weeks old. This morning, I noticed that a 0-3 month size sleeper was getting a little snug. Maybe that outfit is a fluke. When I tried to zip it all the way up and snap the throat snap, he cried. I unzipped it an inch and he was instantly better. Very communicative little guy. He's also started giving us a "dirty diaper" face. When he's upset now, I hold him away from me and say, "Ok, talk to me son. What do you need." Pretty soon, he will usually give me the dirty diaper face or one of the "feed me" indicators. Things are getting easier!

He has started vocalizing more. Instead of squeaking, grunting, or making noises like a chipmunk, dolphin, or a wild turkey, he has started to coo and sing a bit.

Oh, and I am finally at 100% for taking walks and basically doing whatever I want! I've been looking forward to my weight lifting class at the gym and got online today to look at class schedules. Can't find it. Found their phone number. The lady that answers the phone says the name of the gym and says it's only $14.95 per month. Odd. I ask about class schedules. We don't have classes anymore. Really! When did that happen? About July. About the time I was big enough I stopped taking walks at lunch. Well CRAP! And I paid in advance for my membership with the great rate of $20 per month. Not such a great rate now. OK, ok, there's got to be a bright side here. What is it... When it gets too cold outside is when I use the treadmills at the gym more often, especially for running. And I really will need to do some running this winter to fight off not only winter blues, but post-partum depression. So I'll still have that.

Considering that I'm still within my 3 day window of "likely to be a little sad", perhaps I should have an outing today despite the rain. Small fry needs the next phase of his Hepatitis shot, and I need snaps from Wal-Mart. And i can finally walk far enough to conquer Wal-Mart and their new *#&#^!! eight acre layout. That sounds good.

Oh, I was incredibly productive yesterday! It was warm enough and I actually got outside and scrubbed our recycling bins. I have not recycled a single thing since the baby was born and even managed to take all the recycling to the center the day before I went into the hospital. I mentioned this to a recycling friend with 3 kids and she said, "of course you haven't recycled since the birth. And you might not again for a few years, depending on how close together you have kids. You've got more important things to do." Wow! Permission! What a grand thing! And I needed new storage bins for things like baby clothes and maternity clothes. So I've jerked the labels off my recycling bins, scrubbed them, and they will soon hold baby things.

While I was scrubbing these things outside, a tree service truck paused at the stop sign near our house. We've been trying to get an arborist on the phone for months. We've got some branches touching the roof in one spot, and the chimney in another. This guy had a truck with a cherry-picker type boom and a mulcher. I waved him over, got an estimate, called Hubby, and got my trees trimmed yesterday! For about the amount we thought it might cost. Not cheap, but better than we had feared. It's one of those icky house maintenance things where you just gotta bite the bullet and get it over with. And it was $100 cheaper because he was already in the area. I explained to him that we love our trees and love our shade, but don't want the house damaged. I had him trim so that we might not have to have it trimmed again for 5 years. He understood! He had his cherry-picker put him on the roof and then climbed to the highest top ridge where he used his chainsaw on the end of a 20 foot pole. That means he was 30 to 40 feet off the ground swinging around this chainsaw on a pole. Scary stuff. Yes he was insured. And had been doing this for 20 years. I watched from inside while nursing small fry. It took them an hour and they had disposed of all the limbs and even blown the leaves off my driveway and sidewalk! Good deal!




vocalizing

Saturday, October 24, 2009

The most pathetic post ever

OK, it's 11:30 and past my bedtime. Small fry was fed at 10pm and is currently being bounced by my right foot in the hopes that he'll stop squeaking and drift off. I read through my emails and thought of something witty to blog about. And, honest to God, by the time I actually pull up my blog page to write it down...it's gone. No clue what that witty thing was. It's not like it takes more than 30 seconds to get to where I can write this thing.

How pathetic. I'm going to bed.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

My, how times change

I realized in the shower this morning that it was 10 years ago, at about this time if year that I started dating my husband. A whole lot has changed in those 10 years, especially with a 5 week old little boy around. Oh, and little Quint smiled at me this morning! He focused on my face and gave me an Elvis smile (one lip) then I smiled and he gave me a huge toothless grin! Then I shrieked a laugh and he looked at me like I was nuts. Still! A smile on cue! Woohoo!!

Things that have changed in 10 years.

Where once my hubby would say, "Hey it's 8:30, we ought to get ready to go to the pub." Now he says "Hey it's 8:30. You need to eat something else and start getting ready for bed before he needs to nurse again."

10 years ago I was seldom in his bed at all, but would have to leave to return to my home state. Now he says in the morning, "Did you leave my bed for another man last night?" Oddly, the answer is "Yes, and he got to second base!"

Even this time last year, I was running frequently at the gym and would wash my extremely long hair every other day. This morning, the following thoughts crossed my mind: When is the last time I combed my hair out of a bun? Has it really been 10 days since I washed it? The good thing about waist length hair and newborns is that you only have to comb the first 6 inches of it for your bun to look nice.

Ok, so maybe a habit of not running to the child every time he cries has its good points. While in the shower, he was giving me his going ape-sh** cry which normally means that he's kicked off his blanket and is cold, or he wants lunch NOW!!!! So I hurried through rinsing my hair and dried off at lightening speed. I wrapped my hair in a towel and threw on a bathrobe only to look down at him and find that he had shut up and gone back to sleep. Hmmm... Guess he wasn't that hungry after all. So I hurried through getting dressed (actually brushed my teeth!) thinking that at any second, he could demand lunch. That was 45 minutes ago. I've now got partially dry hair, have washed a load of laundry, and have made a start into a blog. Weird. But good!

Yesterday, a friend who has become a much better friend since Quint was born called to tell me to go outside. She remembered how trapped she felt in the house when her babies were tiny and how much difference it made to get fresh air. She called at 3 to tell me this. At 5:30, I managed to get it done. And it did make a huge difference! It completely changed my mood! I came back in and emptied the dishwasher, refilled the dishwasher, cooked myself dinner (for the first time in Quint's life), folded and put away 2 loads of laundry, and neatened things a bit. Wow! That's the most I've gotten done in a long time!

Newer developments with small fry: He now loves the swing! As of Thursday! Seeing how I've been bouncing him in the bouncy seat with my foot for the past week, this isn't really surprising - just less labor intensive for me. Also, last Saturday, a friend came over to give me sanity (that's a good friend) and while changing Quint's diaper and clothes, said "you realize all these clothes are too small for him, right?" It's such a gradual thing, it's easy to miss. She was right, it shouldn't be THAT hard to button crotch snaps or get his knees bent enough to get his feet into a sleeper. I handed her a 0-3 month size sleeper and it was a breeze to get him into it. And it wasn't that baggy. Duh! After that, we only put 0-3 month clothes on him and dressing is much easier now. My 10 pound baby now wears clothes designed for a 10 pound baby.

A Baby Story is on in the next room. When in life is this a fun show to watch? Not while you're pregnant - it's scary. Not when your kids are tiny - your own story is too fresh. Not when you're thinking of getting pregnant - it's best to not be smacked with icky reality when planning a family that you know you want. So perhaps it's good to use as birth control. Or after you know for sure that you won't have any more kids - it would be good to reminisce.

There's a breeze outside and it's making it rain beautiful golden leaves off an Elm tree across the street. Ahhhh.... What a beautiful sight. Long pause to stare out the window.

Small fry is starting to wake up for his lunch now. A full our after his last May-Day (ape-sh**) cry. I really should start calling it a May-Day cry. Wow! A whole, lengthy blog was written today! But not edited, so reader beware.

Pinchable cheeks

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Quint is one month old







Quint is a month old and weighs over 10 pounds! I'm back to my pre-pregnancy weight and fit in to most of my old clothes. He has recently started going 4.5 hours between feedings at most which means that I can sleep a max of 3.5 hours at a time. My wonderful Hubby takes a feeding in the night which gives me more like 5 or 6 hours straight of sleep which makes ALLLL the difference. Any longer than that and I have to pump anyway. We've moved the crib and nursing chair into Quint's room and have reclaimed our room for ourselves. Quint hasn't really started smiling on cue yet, but last Friday, I gobbled on his neck and he definitely smiled! When he's on my shoulder, he holds on to my arm with his arm. He nearly has control of his head and can scoot himself along the floor with help. His little thighs are fat enough to squeeze and his cute little baby hair is incredibly soft and collar length on the back. I really think his face is wider than it was just a day or two ago! Just look at those cheeks!!

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Hallelujah!!! 4 weeks old!



Yesterday, Hubby stayed home from work and we moved the baby's crib into his own room. With all our string of company, and for nursing reasons, we had originally put his crib up in our bedroom with the idea of using it as a co-sleeper. The co-sleeper thing didn't work out for 2 reasons: the crib is designed where we could not have the baby's mattress up against ours without a gap between and #2 I still haven't mastered nursing while laying down. What turned out to happen with our nightly rituals was this:

I would nurse Quint around 7 or 8pm and go to bed in our bedroom. Hubby would stay up until 1am or 2am playing computer games in the loft and feed Quint a pumped bottle at his feeding between 10pm and midnight, and then keep him in the loft. When Quint needed his middle of the night feeding, Hubby would bring him to me in the bedroom where I'd nurse him and put him down in the crib in our room. Hubby would sleep in the loft where he wouldn't be woken up by our baby's noisy sleeping habits. I would sleep in our bedroom where I quickly learned how to sleep through the non-urgent noises of a content baby. As a result, Hubby and I have not shared a bed for nearly a month WHICH SERIOUSLY SUCKS!!! Especially since we could spoon now that my huge pregnant belly is gone.

So yesterday, we took one side off the crib so we could get it through two doorways. We also moved my nursing chair and all that setup into the nursery so I can nurse him in the night and not have to wake Hubby up with lights and noise. I know some women think that the man ought to be awake every time the mom is awake during the night, but that's just not logical. Unless there's a bottle pumped, there's no need for Hubby to wake up to do what, wait until he's done nursing so Hubby can change the diaper? The few times that I have been awake nursing and Hubby was asleep nearby, I have been ticked that he wasn't awake as well, but I managed to refrain from throwing a bottle of water at him. Logic soon prevailed, even though it was 4am. Let the man sleep. He had already engineered 5 hours of consistent rest for me that evening which is a marvelous thing.

Anyway, so last night, Quint was in his crib in his room, and was fed a pumped bottle around midnight. Quint returned to his crib and Hubby returned to his computer games. Later, Hubby joined me in our bed. YEAH!!!! At 3:30 when small fry erupted, I went in his room and nursed and changed him. Back to his crib he went and I returned to my bed with Hubby. Same thing happened at 7:30. At the bright and early time of 10am, we all got up for good. Much snuggling and spooning during the night which has done us WORLDS of good.

I can hear the passionate cries of Quint through the wall between our bedrooms, so we won't have to move the monitor back and forth every night. We've got it set up where we can have him in the pack n play downstairs with the monitor and we can be anywhere in the house and hear him on the monitor. Every mother knows that one note that means business within their baby's cries. The trick now is to distinguish between imagining that I heard it in the night and actually hearing it in the night. And to remind myself that if I can't hear him crying over my husband's breathing (not snoring) then it probably isn't serious.

For those of you following my nursing progress, I think I may be past that first month hump of difficulty. We've figured out how to not hurt me and still get him plenty fed!

Friday, October 9, 2009

Messages to any and all followers - all 3 of you.


In case you wanted to see more of my new little family, I could send anyone who actually knows me a link so you can see all the photos I've uploaded to the Walgreens photo account. I believe you can see all the photos I've made public by using the same link, including the most recent things uploaded. I could be wrong on that, though.

Also, I've got a webcam now and if you sign up with my specific group thingy, you could see live video of my cute little boy if we're both on at the same time. I believe that you can see video of us even if you don't have a video camera yourself, but this is yet to be tested.

For either of these, I need to send you an invite or link to get you started. If you'd like me to send you those invites, please email me and I'll hook you up!

I've uploaded photos yesterday to the Walgreens site if you've already got a link to that. I usually just dump un-thinned quantities of photos to the Walgreens site because I'd rather get too many photos out there. The alternative is to spend my 10 minutes between feedings picking out the best 5 to download, only to run out of time and get nothing downloaded to Walgreens. So pick out your own favorites and ignore the 7 bad versions of virtually the exact same shot.

I've also stopped editing these blogs for clarity of thought, so try to read between the lines folks.

Enjoy!

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Random thoughts on new motherhood between feedings

I am a hunch-backed appliance. My posture may never recover. I understand what milk cows go through. A milking machine may hurt the poor cows a bit, yes, but it is SOOOOO much better than not being milked. That initial 2 seconds of "yow" never crosses my mind as a thing to be dreaded. All those fruitcakes in college who boycotted milk because it was mean to the poor cows will seriously change their tunes once they try to nurse their own child and pump so they can bottle feed.

Daddy feedings are a gift from God.

I can sleep through lots now.

Stroller and/or baby sling = release from house arrest.

Laundry every day now.

My end of "how was your day, dear" conversation is really pathetic and only involves funny bodily functions of our child. Yesterday, the most funny one was a burp and the child's reaction. Our sweet boy was obviously having some gas issues and I was finally getting up to go get the gas drops (which always seem to be on the floor that I'm not!). I get three steps up the stairs and he lets loose with this bass, man-sized burp. I stop and stare at him. He looks confused and makes a sound that indicates "oh that was bad". To me, this was the big funny of the day. Wow. Today I'm looking forward to talking to the mail man who I know will have a package for me to sign for. Wow.

I love my little guy more and more and more. He's funny (usually I'm laughing at him though) and insanely cute and does the darndest things.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Our new normal life


For the very first time since our little Quint's birth, it is just me and my baby at home this morning. We're at a break between company and Quint's Papa has gone to work today. I'm in fairly good comfort and haven't had any pain medicine today, though yesterday I overdid it and hurt pretty bad for several hours.

We're starting to learn our little boy's habits and/or alter them if we can. Last night, after some cluster feedings between 7 and 11, he gave us 4.5 hours and then 4 hours between feedings! And he was mostly quiet between those. Hubby took the first shift and brought the baby to me at 3:30 to feed. That's 11pm to 3:30am!! And Hubby got to sleep most of that time! This is huge great news! I fed him, changed him, and tinkered with him until about 5am and then he slept through until about 8am when I woke him to feed because I thought I was going to explode. We've got a 4 ounce bottle that we can feed him sometime soon during a night feeding and I've got another ounce in another bottle I've started. We meant to do that last night, but Hubby was so tired that he seemed a bit tipsy. Not the best time to start something new. Maybe we should plan to do that as an 11pm feeding instead of a 2am feeding. I haven't explained to Hubby yet that it might never work for me to try to bottle feed the boy. The boy is not dumb. He will know the boobies are right there, so what's this bottle thing about.

I've been really surprised at how easily I've shifted into Mommy-mode. It doesn't seem un-natural or like something foreign, which I had been a little concerned about. There was a day or two at the very beginning when I really didn't want to be the baby's only food source, but I got past that. I do need to work on focusing on Hubby more and giving him some undivided attention at times. That IS possible, I'll just have to seize those moments and put something else off. It's amazing how tasks are now divided in my mind into three categories: 1-things I can do while nursing 2-things only I can do while not nursing and 3-things others can do for me while I'm nursing or otherwise tending the baby. Very few things fall into the second category, but it's annoying to realize that personal hygiene ALWAYS falls into that category.

Hubby has been really spectacular about fetching and carrying. He has understood from the beginning that I don't want to be under "couch arrest" but getting around is really more difficult those first few days home. Sure I can get myself some ice water from the kitchen, but getting settled again where my bottom is comfortable can be a trick. That's getting to be less and less of a problem at 16 days after birth, but twice now, I've overdone it and set myself back by a couple of days on my bottom recovery. And I've realized that I'm a big wuss about pain. But narcotics are only occasionally necessary.

How did any child survive infancy without gas drops? It's amazing what those things can do! And it says right on the bottle not to exceed 12 doses per day! Seeing how our little guy can eat up to every 2 hours, that's a dose per feeding!

More later on the trivial details of our new normal life with our darling son!