Domestic Day

What a wonderful day! Emma got up at 5:30 am (despite our best efforts to keep her asleep) and so we got an early start to the day. I made almond waffles (gluten free!) and everyone enjoyed them. We got back to bed at 7am for a nap, and Emma slept until 9am.

Around 10, we got on the road to our pumpkin patch. It was a "pick your own" farm, so we got our little cart and went out into the field. It was absolutely a joy, and Emma wasn't sure what to do, but she knew it was fun to get on her knees in the dirt. We found several perfect pumpkins for all of us, plus some fun little gourds for her to play with. And we ended up buying some wonderful mini-peppers (perfect for roasting with beef) as well as some blueberry/blackberry preserves. Yum. Oh -- did I mention the fresh-from-the-fryer pumpkin donuts? Delicious!!

Back home and to nap #2 for Emma. I got a head start on laundry, and got some work done. We watched some football, and when Emma got up, we played for a while and then walked to the store to get napkins. More playing, more laundry, and at 7:30, Emma went to bed.

Since she's been to bed, I've folded all the laundry, Joe and I have all the diapers folded and prepped, AND I finally pulled out my sewing machine and started replacing the velcro tabs and laundry tabs on my older BG's. It was so much easier than I thought it would be, and I can finish up tomorrow.

I'm just about ready for bed myself! :) What a blessed day.

Strange Night

I've been up since 4am, and once again, everyone else in the house is asleep except me. Although Daddy did come and help out at 5:30 so I could get some sleep, I just couldn't. However, I feel like we had a breakthrough last night! As normal, she fell asleep on Mommy around 7:30 and she slept there until we transferred her to bed around 10:45. She got a diaper change at that point, a TRIPLE-stuffed diaper! Yes, it had two microfiber inserts plus a hemp insert on top. She roused at 1am, 3:30am, 5am and 6am to eat (she usually goes every 2-3 hours, so not sure what was going on with that) but was not wet enough to wake up or squirm for her diaper to be changed.

At 6:15am, she finally needed to be changed and boy, was that diaper heavy! Yes, we actually weighed it -- the triple-stuffed diaper itself weighed 6.5 oz, the soaked diaper weighed 13oz!! And yet her skin stayed mostly dry. I am so impressed.

Daddy watched her while I ate breakfast and pumped, and then they both went back to bed. She's napping in her crib (YAY!!) and he's in bed. I got 7.5 oz out of both breasts this morning, which puts me at officially 100.5 oz of breastmilk in the freezer. I'm so happy about that! I should try to take a nap while everyone else is asleep, but I thought I'd update here and then try to nap a little later. I am completely exhausted.

Between 4am and 5:30am, I did a lot of thinking again. I thought a lot about Emma's namesake -- her Great-Grandma Emma, and how I wish they could have met. Grammy (as we called her) was a neat person, but died in the 80's. She would have turned 98 this year, if she were still alive.

I also thought about how conflicted I feel about some things with our Emma. I'm SO proud of breastfeeding and cloth diapering our child, but I feel so confused about the co-sleeping. On one hand, I love co-sleeping... I love cuddling with her, and being able to immediately feed her when she needs it, and comforting her when she's restless. But I think I really need my space in bed, and to sleep in a position where I'm not worried about squishing her, and I also am someone uncomfortable because all the "experts" say that co-sleeping is a bad thing (despite most of the Moms I've talked to saying they've co-slept at one point or another). I fear that when she starts day care in 2 weeks, she's not going to nap or take a bottle there and just scream bloody murder the entire time she's away from Mommy. It's just going to break my heart.

*sigh* We'll figure it out eventually. My little angel is 10 weeks old today. It does not seem possible that she's already this old!

My Growing Baby

I put this cloth diaper on her today and realized how big she's gotten.... here's a comparison!

At 9 days old...



At 9 weeks, 6 days old!


I just noticed that we put the diaper on her BACKWARDS in the first photo-- OOPS! No wonder it didn't fit well, LOL. :)

Emma's Discovery

We have found our fist!

As an aside, Joe and I went and toured two more daycares today, because we really want a place that will take our cloth diapers. We found one we *absolutely* love. It is head and shoulders above the other places. Unfortunately, they won't have an opening until summer. So for the short term, we'll stay at the first place part-time (Monday - Wednesday) and suffer with the disposables, and then as soon as an opening occurs, we'll transfer full-time to the place we love. The first place is very near our house, which is convenient -- the place we love is about 20 minutes away, but totally worth the drive.

Trial and Error

This weekend, I decided that I would try and re-introduce some dairy into my diet and see how it affects Emma. In support of my efforts, Daddy talked me into ordering "good" pizza last night (instead of just heating up what we had in the freezer) and adding extra cheese. We figured that we might as well make it worth it!

Well, so far so good. She hasn't been extra gassy or extra fussy today, and her bottom looks ok. I'm sure that one meal of dairy isn't going to give us a long-term understanding of how it affects her, so we'll do something with cheese or milk again today and see how that goes.

We did have somewhat of a rough night, only because our Kawaii Baby One-Size diapers leaked. Emma likes to sleep on her side against Mommy, and either we're not putting them on correctly or her thighs aren't big enough, because while nursing, she peed and got her nightie, the bed, and Mommy wet. And that happened twice. We double-stuff the diapers because single stuffing seemed like there was too much room around the leg gussets, and still it did this. I'm not sure what we're doing wrong but we love those diapers otherwise.

In any case, she had to have a clothing change TWICE, and that woke her up and it took a bit for her to get to sleep. Then this morning, instead of her normal 2-hour nap, she had two mini-naps of 45 minutes each... just not enough. We were a bit cranky! After some nursing and rocking, and our bear that makes noise, she finally went down for a good nap -- in fact, she was so tired, she let me put her down in the pack-n-play! That's where she is right now, going on 45 minutes of sleep and appears to be still quite out.

Uh-oh.... the bear turned off and we woke up! Better post these quickly...

Playing with Daddy last night


Hanging out this morning! Love the outfit...

Another Growth Spurt?

Probably... she's been nursing like a fiend and is on her 3rd nap of the day (napped for 1 1/2 hours with Daddy and then another 1 1/2 hours with Mommy, and is now napping on my chest ... and it's only 4:30). Maybe we'll get up to 10 1/2 pounds before our pediatrician appointment on Thursday.

Since it's been a few days, here's some pictures of my growing girl!

With Ms. Tracy during Thursday's visit! She enjoyed that visit so much. :) (so did Mommy!)


In her carseat, hanging out after we got back from the hospital when we weighed her on Friday.



Today's outfit!



And the d.iaper that she's wearing right now.... too cute!

Mommy's Thoughts

While Daddy is upstairs, getting Emma to sleep, I thought I would pop back on and just put a few of my rambling thoughts here tonight. As much as I enjoy posting the pictures, I do want to share some more meaningful (or not) things.

Tomorrow my daughter will be 8 weeks old. It does not seem possible that she is already this old, yet she is still so little and needs us so much. She's got so much personality already, and I cannot believe how much I love her. Every day she does something that amazes me, or makes my heart swell with joy. With that also comes the intense worry and frustration when she is upset and Mommy can't "fix" what is wrong. Today, for example, she was coughing so hard and it just hurt her *so* much, and all I can do is hold her and rock her. What a helpless feeling, knowing I can't make the hurt go away, but at least I can be there for her.

I'm so proud of Joe and I for some of the small things we're doing for her. We're going on almost a month of exclusive cloth diapering, and he's as proficient at it, if not more, than I am! Today we had gone 48 hours without doing a load of diapers, which is wonderful for us and tells me that she's getting better at pottying too. He's so good at soothing her, and is reading in both Arabic and French to her. I'm happy to know that she's grown so much on just my breastmilk, and that breastfeeding is very soothing to her too. We've even started to master sleep/dream nursing.

Every time we dress her, or look at things in her room or around the house, I'm just amazed at the generosity of friends and our family. Emma is so loved, and cared for by so many people, and my heart is so full. I hope and pray that someday we can give her a sibling, but even if we cannot, she will have a huge number of people in her life to play with and enjoy. What a great blessing!

Peaceful Morning

Last night was the third night of a fairly good night -- even though it took a while for her to get calmed down, she slept in 3-hour increments for the most part. If we can get this 10pm fussiness managed, I think we'll be doing great! We've narrowed it down to gas and/or just general fussiness.

So today is Day #4 of Mommy being off of all dairy. It's an experiment to see if it's actually going to affect her little system and make the gas better, or whether the gas is just a normal amount. It's really not that much, but it bothers her SO much -- I think it hurts her little bottom when it finally works its way out more than it bothers her little gut.

Other milestones for Mommy, Daddy & Emma:

* Today is Day #9 of exclusively cloth diapering! We're SO happy to be away from the disposables at night, and I think Emma is happier too.

* We're moving up to the next size prefolds! Her newborn ones are finally just WAY too small and tight, so even though they're supposed to fit up to 10 pounds (and she's not quite there), we're moving up to the next size. I can tell it was a good thing that we changed detergent because you can definitely feel the softness difference between the old prefolds (they feel crunchy) and the new prefolds (very soft). Hopefully she enjoys that too.

* We discovered our reflection! I ordered a crib mirror from Babies R Us and we found a way to put it in her pack-n-play for diaper changes. She'll look at herself and self-soothe while we change her, or fix supper, or eat, or whatever. It doesn't last a long time, but long enough.

While she's napping, Mommy is going to run up and take a much-needed shower. Emma had a very large, mucousy spit-up this morning and Mommy's chest smells like baby vomit. Not as nice of a smell as clean baby, LOL. :)

Finding Our Way

We're slowing getting there... just when we think we've got things "figured out," she throws us a new curveball. I love being a Mommy!

Our "one" thing for today (or rather, last night) was switching to cloth at night too. We got our order of one-size yesterday, so I washed them and they were ready. They are supposed to fit 8 lb. through 44 lb., and since Emma was over 8 lbs on Tuesday, we figured they would fit. Well... they do fit but apparently when she's laying on her side, there's enough of a gap for pee to come out. And come out it did while we were nursing -- on Mommy, on the bed, and all over her! Poor gal... luckily it was around 7am, so we just got up and cleaned everything up and had breakfast.

Great things today:
*We went for another walk and enjoyed the fresh air
*Mommy made steel-cut oats with blueberries for breakfast
*Daddy got a nap
*Mommy balanced the checkbook and paid bills (well, that's not good but it's necessary!)

Challenging things:
*She's still getting very upset at 10pm (we're ruling things out but haven't quite figured out the solution yet).
*We're not a big fan of floor tummy time (although tummy time on Mommy is fine)
*Mommy's right boobie is engorged for some reason

All in all, not bad! :) We'll see how tonight goes.

Here are some pictures that Daddy took with his fancy camera and lens!

During tummy time!

Laying on her side in Mommy's arms, WIDE awake!


Not sure when Daddy took this, but it's *adorable*.

Poop Explosion!

At the 3am feeding this morning, Emma seemed super fussy, so I had Daddy change her diaper mid-feeding. She was grunting and squirming, a sure sign she's getting ready to let loose. Well, she did! Right as Daddy was turning around to drop the dirty wipe into the pail, she let a stream of poop out -- shot out and hit the side of the diaper pail, which is about 4 feet from the bed!! Daddy and I just laughed and laughed and laughed. Emma was not amused. :) Poor kid... I feel for her. There had to be SO much pressure built up for her to squirt that far!

She's definitely a super-pooper. She is slowing down on the number of poops in a day, however, and pooping more at each time. That is reassuring to me, and nice because it'll mean fewer diaper changes. Of course, she's still doing a lot of wet farts, which she *hates*, so we're changing each of those too. Still washing the entire stash of prefolds (24) daily.

While She's Sleeping

Daddy and Emma are both sleeping, so I thought I'd do a brief update on several things. First of all, I'm feeling better. I'm still having some painful cramping here and there, but that's part of the medication that I'm on to reduce the size of my uterus and there's only two pills left to take, so hopefully that will be gone tomorrow. Thanks to Aunt Ann, I'm almost fully rested and ready to face the next challenge!

Second, we started on cloth today and I'm proud to say that since 9am this morning, all she's worn is cloth! We started with the Little Lions AIO (All In One), and then we've just used prefolds and covers. The jelly roll is working better than the angel fold (yay! Thank you Jess for that suggestion!), and although I'm probably a little over-active with changing (we've gone through a LOT of cloth so far), I'm getting the hang of it and Emma is doing better with it. Our next ONE thing is to teach Daddy how to do cloth. :)

Third, it's hard to believe that my little one will be two weeks old on Monday. Daddy goes back to school next week, and I'll be home alone with her two days out of the week. It's not that much, but enough to make me think harder about how I'm going to spend my time with her! I'm thinking as many naps as we can fit in, and I want to start reading to her in the evenings again. We'll see how it goes.

In the short term, here are a couple of pictures....

I love this little outfit! She's wearing a prefold with a Bummis cover underneath it.


Flowers that my colleagues from the APA Task Force sent -- I'll be seeing them in May in Washington, DC, and Emma will be coming with us. Tons of fun!


These are the flowers that my work sent -- just gorgeous, and the vase is unbelievably cute.


Last, but not least, the flowers that Grandma and Grandpa Lewis sent for us. They were delivered at the hospital, and have a cute balloon tied to them.

Loads of Pictures

Enjoy! We're leaving in about 10 minutes for a Mommy doctor appointment, since I'm still not feeling great.

From yesterday... I love this outfit. She's wearing cloth diaper underneath!


Also from yesterday... I think the swaddlebees all-in-one is a little big yet.


My first wrapping job! At least it held her in, lol...


And this is her, all snuggled in. She slept for an hour and Mommy ate lunch with BOTH hands, yay!


Our wonderful friend Mims sent this gorgeous hat/scarf/mitten set (in addition to a lot of other things!)... isn't she adorable?


And her little bunny! Thank you Mims!

Daddy and Emma (Plus CD)

He's been so good with her -- we got this picture yesterday afternoon. Right now she's snoozing in my arms, and I've finally figured out a way to type on the laptop at the same time (thank you TV table!).


We *finally* got a cloth diaper on her today! I was feeling overwhelmed with the breastfeeding, so this is the first I've got the courage up to do it. So far we're on our second prefold of the afternoon with success. Obviously she wasn't a big fan at first, lol! There's that fist that we saw on the 20 week ultrasound... hehehe.

This was right before her 1:00 feeding today. Hopefully I'll get the hang of it! Really though... my goal is to accomplish one small thing each day. Whether that is latching, or folding a cloth diaper, or doing a load of laundry, all I want is to achieve one small thing. So far, so good!