6 Weeks!

Yep, still the master of funny faces:Everyone needs a good breastfeeding pic:

He gives just about everyone the stink eye including his doctor during the eye exam (LOL):

Love his hands in this pic:
Still loving peeing on the pot!! We realllly need to work on pooping on the pot though. His poops are getting less in number but LARGE in size and they are silent so I don't know when they are coming. Often he will FILL his diaper with poop, I'll go to change him and there will be no pee in the diaper so I stick him on the pot and he goes pee. I'm like "dude you could've pooped too in the potty!" Oh well! The potty really is Blaine's happy place; now he sits on there and smiles. haha. We ordered a larger one to keep at grandma's:

6 Weeks! The week of the S's: smiles and sleep.

Blaine is smiling up a storm (even at me now) and sleeping like a champ. He always starts out the night with a 5 hour stretch between feedings and then has 3's and 2's after that. Pretty exciting! He's napping great too. What's really nice is during the night he has mastered putting himself to sleep. I finish the feeding, stick him in his bed, and he grunts himself to sleep in half an hour or less with no crying / freaking out. Daytime naps are a different story and I usually need a stroller or carrier to get him to sleep and then a delicate transfer that doesn't always go well. LOL. The problem is he likes being awake so much he hits a wall after an hour and a half then gets pretty darn grumpy and resists naps. We're working on that :).

In other news, school started this week and 1. It is not weird that I'm not there and 2. I'm definitely not sad! I love this temporary stay-at-home mom stuff. :)

PS He weighs 11 lbs and 7.5 oz as of week 6

Only in Ohio....

The headline in the paper today reads: "Nearly 5,800 dead Ohioans still registered to vote". It goes on to explain that "ballots may have been cast in the names of at least 16 after their deaths".

Here is the funniest part of the whole article though: "Officials say they are confident that the dead didn't actually cast a ballot and that human mistakes or computer issues are to blame".

LOL!! YA THINK?!! Capt'n Obvious strikes again!!

Pumpkin Update

I took the year off of competitive giant pumpkin growing since I was growing a little pumpkin in my belly, but Nick decided to grow 3 plants. Above is his best and it is estimating at 1263.

This is the time of year where everyone gets caught up in rumors. THERE'S THIS ONE IN EUROPE THAT CAN BEAT THE WORLD RECORD AND THIS ONE IN WISCONSIN AND AND AND AND AND.... Could drive a person nuts. It is all speculation. I just have to remind myself that records were meant to be broken, so if someone grows a pumpkin 1726 or higher, well it was good that I had a world record that lasted a whole year. :)

Now we wait and see what all shows up at the scales in October!!!!! And maybe get caught up in reading just a few rumors. ;)

6 HOURS 51 MINUTES!!!

I always keep my stopwatch running from feeding to feeding. 2 hours. 2 hours. 2.5 hours. 2 hours. 3 hours. 1 hr 20 min. Those are normal times I see on the watch. I never ever ever EVERRRR thought Blaine could jump from those small numbers to a stretch of almost 7.

But it was a cheater 7: I fed him and left him at "Daddy DayCare" to go to the high school football game with my mom. We were going to leave after halftime (with a team that was 0-10 last season, the band is the real reason to go to these things), and be home in about 2.5 hours. So I knew Blaine wouldn't need a meal, but left 2 oz of pumped milk incase of a meltdown. Yep, daddy / grandpa had a baby meltdown and had to use the bottle after an hour and 20 minutes. Blaine only drank 1 oz so it was more of a comfort feed. The next time I fed him? AFTER 1 AM!!! OMG OMG OMG. One more way it was cheating; we left him sleeping in his carseast from 10 pm - 1 am. Hey whatever works. LOL.

Sleeping through the night might actually be closer than I thought :)

Daddy 'n Me

Little boys love dirt, tractors, trucks, and fishing poles. Good thing Nick practically has a PhD in dirt, tractors, trucks and fishing poles. It will be great watching their relationship develop over the years. Blaine isn't going to be a momma boy that's for sure! He won't even smile for me. I watch him smile all day long at grandmas and grandpas and daddy but not me. His daddy gets home from work and you can only imagine the happiness! And on nights Nick is out of town for work (like last night), Blaine has some sort of 6th sense and kicks it into FREAKOUT AT 4 AM MODE. Seriously it has got to be a 6th sense because Nick doesn't even sleep in the same room as us!

Cuteness!

Sleep Update

Blaine has had a few 3 hour stretches between feedings at night! And there have been no more "horror nights"; not that those three nights were THAT horrible, but to a tired mommy who doesn't function well after 9 pm, they felt worse at the time than they actually were.

We learned that Blaine likes being put in his bed and having his back rubbed / patted. Works like a charm! Sometimes you end up rubbing and patting waaay longer than you feel you need to, but it gets him drowsy if he's wide eyed at 2 AM. :)

I sure hope I'm not jinxing myself, because Nick is headed out of town AGAIN tonight (blech). 4 trips in 4 weeks and off to California next week. Boo.

Just another day in Amish Paradise

That's right. Just chillaxin on my bed with Blaine and up drive 4 Amish on a tractor. You don't believe Amish drive tractors? Well they do. And use power tools. Quite the entertainment on a Tueday afternoon for us!

Told ya....


Well this particular guy's not Amish but you'd never know it...Blaine is flabbergasted...

5 Weeks: Videos!

It is Sunday! Time for another birthday; 5 weeks today! This week Blaine definitely improved his head control by leaps and bounds. He can keep his head up forEVER it seems very easily without dropping it to the floor. I think I took 4 videos consecutively without him dropping his head. I was trying to catch a roll over but he was only interested in staring :).

OMG

Guess what Blaine did last night? ;)

Yep we went to a dinner party at a friend's house and left the baby potty at home. We didn't want to have to explain ourselves, have our friends not believe us, and have them think we are downright strange. It was our plan to not talk about our baby potty experiences at all during the evening.

Well we had been there all of 10 minutes when one friend said, "So what is with the baby potty picture you've got on facebook? IS THAT FOR REAL?!" We said "yes" and they didn't believe us; you know the normal reaction. To make a long story short, Blaine peed on their real toilet later that evening almost immediately after I sat him on it and said, "Pee in the potty! PSSSSSSSSS". Even I was beyond belief that he would pee on a strange toilet, in a strange place, with so many strangers' eyes in the room; and well my friends - speechless.

I know pretty much every mother of every child thinks that their child is UNBELIEVABLY AMAZING - well I just joined the club. :)

Oh yeah, the other baby there is 4 monthes old and still not rolling over. Blaine also showed off that skill numerous times throughout the evening. They offered me $700 a month AND a double jogging stroller if I'd watch their kid this year. I declined. LOL.

Sleep

I pretty much expected to be sleep deprived when Blaine was a baby. So far it had been great though! Not bad at all! A few rough nights here and there but for the most part he'd feed and then go back to sleep realitively easy. I was functioning!!

UNTIL MONDAY.

Let's prelude this by explaining that Sunday he slept 20 of 24 hours in the day. Trust me, we tried to wake him up. We have realized awakeness during the day = sleep at night so we figured Sunday night would be rough. But he wouldn't be awakened for anything. We were scared of the night. However, Sunday night was a dream! Monday night is when the horror arrived and has not left yet.

Monday night = Blaine awakens and wants to feed every 1.5 hours. GAH. Trying to distract him / skip a feeding was suggested to me, but trust me when your baby is screaming bloody murder wanting to eat, and you are trying everything else without success, you feed him.

Tuesday night = Blaine won't go to sleep for the first time until midnight. He awakens every 2 hours (back to normal) to eat but from 3 AM - 6 AM wants to have "awake" time. Awake time is when you walk him around the house and he looks bug-eyed at everything; if you even think about sitting down on a chair to rock him or try putting him in a bed he screams bloody murder.

Wednesday night = More of the same. I even reluctantly try swaddling and a pacifier (I'm very against starting something you will have to wean from) but nothing will work and he is awake from 4 AM - 6 AM.

I realize this is common baby stuff (sleep problems) and think this article is great . Yep there are a few key items we are messing up on and will try to improve, but this statement is one I need to hang on my fridge: "MOST BREASTFED BABIES CAN SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT AT 5 MONTHES OF AGE". I hear of waaayyy too many babies that do so at 6 weeks!! I need to accept that I wasn't gifted with one of those babies. :)

Ergo Carrier

THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE SUGGESTIONS KARI AND JANELLE! You two did the research and field trials and I trusted you. Even though I've got 3 carriers I'm borrowing from Heather, none were exactly what I was looking for. I'll still use them for certain occasions, but so far the Ergo seems to be perfectly what I wanted. I had tons and tons of gift cards for Baby-R-Us from the shower / returns, so after reading reviews and watching youtube videos about the carrier, I took the plunge. I ended up paying ZERO for the carrier and infant insert. It had been too hot to give it a go until last night and today, but as fall approaches I will be using this a ton I'm sure! :) Blaine loves it too! In fact he's in it right now just looking around at everything.

Yesterday, he saw his first train AND saw Blaine Wilson on TV (well maybe he was sleeping while Mommy saw Blaine Wilson, former olympic gymnast, who is an assistant coach of the OSU men's gymnastics team now!). I wouldn't say I named my child AFTER Blaine Wilson, but he was definitely the only Blaine I had ever heard of before when I stumbled upon the name in a baby name book. :) TOO COOL!

1 month!

Four weeks ago Blaine was born! He now rolls over and pees on the potty too many times to track (he only peed in his diaper once all day yesterday!). I get so excited that he's saving us $$ on diapers haha.

We are actually starting to think that him feeling he needs to pee in the potty might inhibit him from sleeping all night long. Everytime he woke up last night, he peed in the potty!! But the longest he slept in one stretch was 3 hours. The other stretches were 2.5 hours and then 2 hours. I know 6 weeks is a common time to "sleep through the night" and at 4 weeks, I can't imagine it happening anytime soon. Oh well.

Other new things:

~ Grabbing the neckline of people's shirts while being held

~ Little cute talking noises

~ Little smiles

~ Giggles in sleep

~ Rolls from tummy to back towards right side AND left side (I didn't notice this until yesterday that he switches it up!)

New Fav Photo!

Blaine sometimes does some little cute grunting, followed by a little punching, then kicking, then minor fussing, then finally crying when we put him in his little bed if he's not "drowsy" enough. Well the other night, he was doing that, so I picked him up to see if he was still hungry; then he fell dead asleep beside me in 10 seconds flat.

WHAT A TOTAL BOY!!!!!!

I had Nick take a picture and the whole situation is just so precious and memorable to me. I'll totally miss these opportunites when they are gone!!

In other news, this next picture was taken last weekend, officially 3 weeks post partum. I have 8 more lbs to lose but lots and lots of tendons / ligaments / bones to shrink down because not even my biggest pair of pants comes anywhere close to zipping. I know this can take up to 9 monthes to a year but I've read of miracle women out there and I don't seem to be one (LOL). I stepped up my exercise since all bleeding was done plus I was feeling GREAT (!!) but that only resulted in my bleeding resurfacing :(.

Guess there is a reason they tell you wait 6 weeks. hehe. Back to taking it easy!!

Elimination Communication

I really hadn't even heard of elimination communication before reading one well written blog post and a few websites I googled afterwards in curiousity. But I was thinking it sounded like a good idea; but there was no way I'd go "diaper free" or anything like the book Diaper Free! The Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene apparently says (again, I didn't read it) but I'd give it a try here and there. Anything to speed up the potty training process! Nick was potty trained by 10 monthes and me by 15 monthes, so Blaine has big shoes (or toilets) to fill. LOL.

I googled Baby Bjorn and bought the potty for $12. It has been SOOOOOO FUN trying to "catch" Blaine's pees and poos. Blaine has peed seven times in the potty and pooped once; or I guess you could say I "caught" them. I'm pretty convinced that infants have more control over their excretions than people give them credit for. I have been sitting him on it everytime I go in for a diaper change while saying "Pee in the potty; PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS". You try to make them associate a sound with peeing and a different sound for pooping. Yesterday he went three times and he already went this morning once!

Thank goodness my mom witnessed one pee because I'm pretty sure she was thinking I was making this all up! :)

3 Weeks Old

3 Weeks old today and weighing in at 10 lbs 0.5 oz.

He's the master of funny faces!

Blaine has rolled over 11 times total in his life (not that I'm counting), peed in the baby potty 3 times and pooped once (that post is to come so stay tuned!).

I think I'll keep him :).

Baby Carrier

Right now thanks to Heather I am using this carrier:

Blaine love love love LOVES it and so do I. A quick search online for info tells me that baby can face in or out and it is to be used for infants 7-26 lbs. But the baby will always be in front.

I think I'm going to look for one that can be used as a backpack and I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BABY CARRIERS WHAT-SO-EVER! From reading blogs, I have seen that people like the Mei Tei and Moby Wrap and they can be used in front or in back. This is a cool place to see pictures of a bunch of different carriers and wraps: click here I'm looking for cheap but safe. I definitely do not want to spend over $100.

That is where you come in: Do you have any suggestions for me? :)

First Night Away

Nick spent his first night out-of-state since Blaine was born and everything went soooo well! It was a quick trip (there and back in 2 days....Ohio to North Carolina by car; can you believe that!?). I'm lucky most of Nick's trips are quick like that. I'm also lucky to have pretty much my whole family AND Nick's whole family within 10 miles of here in case something would go wrong.


Blaine forgot how to roll over for 3 days and then did it again yesterday three times! And better than Sunday! YAY! It was my grandma's birthday so she was pretty excited to get to witness the event :).


I always said I wouldn't let this become a Mom Blog. OOPS!! Babe is pretty much my life now and I love it; he is the only topic I can think to write about! I'll throw in a sunset pic from last week for variety!!

Breastfeeding

This post is to all "moms to be".

(and I hope / pray / cross my fingers that I don't jinx myself by writing this! EEK!)

I'm still coming across posts in other blogs that talk about how hard breastfeeding is to adjust to, how much it hurts, etc etc etc. I actually thought it would be "very hard at first" and definitely "painful" for a few weeks based on everybody that I've read posts from and talked to in real life. I think those posts scare future-bf-ers. They scared me!! Then I read books and took a class. All the experts say "if you are doing it right, it won't hurt". I was thinking maybe they were wrong? But I'd have to wait and see myself.

I know every baby is different, and every girl is different, so I'm only speading about MY experience and MY baby:

Breastfeeding came naturally and was not painful at all.

Yes some girls have difficulty (even some of my close friends) and can never even do it at all due to medical issues, baby issues, etc, but IT IS POSSIBLE that there can be no pain and it works perfect!

Then I read about "all the gear" people buy to nurse. I bought a whole box of those breastpads for leaking but have used NONE of them. Nothing leaks. I don't even really use that cream very often. I refused to buy nursing shirts and nursing bras. I'm picky about clothes what can I say?!

So let's recap with some pieces of advice:

1) Use icepacks ALL the time the first week. "Preventative icing" I call it!! I learned being a runner that if you ice when things don't hurt, it prevents hurting. Your milk will be coming in and things will be sore, so just keep an icepack in there! Sore isn't pain.

2) Watch a video of a baby latching right. The video at class is what made it all click for me. You have to know timing of the baby opening his / her mouth and what to do when. Sometimes you just have to sit there and wait for the baby to move his / her arms out of the way AND open up wide enough! PATIENCE is key :)

3) Pray you have a good nurse in the hospital to help you get started. My friend swears it was her "bad nurse" that ruined bf'ing for her and she gave it up 3 weeks in because it was so miserable for her. Who knows? I LOVED JONI THOUGH :)

Sleep (venting)

I was 110% prepared for being a sleep deprived zombie woman for the first 6 monthes or so of this baby's life. I'm doing remarkably well!!!! Not a zombie at all and surviving on one short nap a day for the most part. I've actually only cried twice since this kid was born and it was other people being in bad moods that pushed me over the edge to tears.

So, the other day I said "I need a nap" or something to that affect and my grandma said "Why are you tired??". She was dead serious.


WHY

AM

I

TIRED?!!

That actually made me have two feelings; first, failure. I felt she was saying I was failing because I was tired.

Second, anger. Why SHOULDN'T I BE TIRED!!?? I have a husband who returned to work and refuses to help with any overnight baby care unless it is an absolute emergency meltdown. In fact, he doesn't even sleep in the same room as me and the baby. He's headed out of state tomorrow and Thursday. So I have to feed, change, and re-put to sleep by myself. Here is a sample of my feeding log. The times are when feedings start:

8:30 pm
10:30 pm
12:15 am
1:45 am
4:15 am
5:15 am
6:30 am
9:30 am

Now, most nights aren't that crazy, but that sort of crazy can happen. And Blaine can want "pillow bounced" for an hour and a half at a time while refusing to go to sleep after eating resulting in the next feeding arriving without getting to sleep at all. People wonder why I try to keep that kid awake during the day. LOL. If I can successfully keep him awake a lot of daytime hours, I am lucky sometimes to get a 4 hour stretch at night between feedings!! YAY!

BUT I TOTALLY EXPECTED THIS!! I was prepared for this. I was actually prepared for worse than this. He is a better baby than I ever had imagined.

In summary: I don't appreciate people acting like tiredness is a weakness. I am not "frontier woman" like all the rest of the women in my family.

------

Now that that is off my chest, I wanted to report in that I dug potatoes with the baby in the carrier today (quite a challenge) and I jogged "a tad" during my walk with the running stroller (don't tell the doctor!).

2 weeks and 2 days postpartum: 10 lbs still to lose and old pants no where close to fitting!!

2 Weeks Old

Today Blaine went to church for the first time! But the day only got more exciting from there.


HE ROLLED OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


We had him on his tummy for tummytime and suprising to everyone, he flipped to his back. I wouldn't have believed it myself but my parents both witnessed it and he did it 6 times total before getting so tired he had to take a nap :). The first time it took awhile but each time he got better and faster at the whole flipping process.

YAY! We looked in my baby book and I rolled over at 3 weeks old so he's already beating me in development. I just think he has a really strong neck / back. I noticed it when we were still in the hospital, so we've just really done a lot of tummytime since then. In summary: this was soooo exciting but hopefully he beats both Nick and I in the potty-training timeline (and we are tough to beat!). haha.

PS his umbilical chord fell off today too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!