This girl!!
It’s crazy how much more responsive she is. She’s giving big smiles… It’s just a matter of time before it’s a giggle! I can’t wait. She’s just so stinkin’ cute… I can’t stand it.
She’s also been sleeping super well still, giving us a 6-8 hour block of sleep and then another 2-4 hours.
Check out this feisty picture of the sweetie pie… Giving dad the finger… I guess she was done with picture time!
Tonight the hubs watched sweet Charlotte and I went out with my parents (this is his way of feeling less guilty for going on a boys trip in a week and a half… A topic for another day). Anyway, we had a great night! Pizza and WINE… Guilt-free, drink the whole glass wine! Then, we saw a movie. I literally could have left after the previews and felt totally satisfied. It’s been so long since I’ve allowed myself to be totally engulfed in TV. It was really nice. We saw The Giver, which was great!
But, I’m not going to lie, I was really happy to get home and find that my sweet girl was still awake in her crib. I definitely took the opportunity to breastfeed her a little bit and rock her to sleep… And give her tons of kisses. I missed my girl.
Speaking of… How cute is she??
Today we laid on the yummiest blanket in the world and took selfies. Charlotte LOVED taking selfies. And I mean LOVED it!
I took a couple videos, but I can’t get them to upload. I’ll try again later!
Maybe it’s because we had another good night’s rest or just because my sweet girl is so stinkin’ cute and lovely, but I’m having such a glowy, warm and yummy day. She’s such a love bug. Here’s a little glimpse into our delicious little day…
After tummy time, we cooked lunch for daddy…
After lunch, we decided to watch a little Heartland (yes, my shitty ABC Family show that I love) and relax!
Such a great day!
Tonight we gave sweet Charlotte a bath…
After her bath and some milk, we put the sweet princess in her crib. She was in a milk induced sleep, which lasted about 5 minutes. We left her in her crib, as she continued to stay content. She talked to the sheep on her mobile, she looked around and she zoned out. Meanwhile, the hubs and I took care of some MUCH needed cleaning and organizing around the house.
Fast forward about an hour and a half to two hours, the sweet baby fell asleep in her crib. So, not wanting to wake her, we decided to let her sleep in her crib tonight. Alone. Without us.
Now, I’m laying in bed about to go to sleep and feeling surprisingly sad. I miss my little pumpkin. Guess who will be watching this all night…
As a side note, how cute is this little angry muffin??
My sweet girl just slept 8 hours and 40 minutes, woke up for 40 minutes to eat and get changed, then went back to sleep for 2 hours and 45 minutes!
At 5.5 weeks, are we almost there? Will we be sleeping a full night through regularly??
One can only hope!! Momma is pretty tired and has been fighting a cold of sorts for days.
Our sweet girl is already over 5 weeks old and I am finally getting the time/energy to write down our story. Hopefully it hasn’t been so long that my memory of the experience has been too diluted.
For anyone who followed our pregnancy journey through this blog, you know that my body was just refusing to go into labor naturally. From my first check at 36ish weeks, there was worry because my progress was minimal and our girl was hanging out quite high in my belly. Because of our desire to have an all natural childbirth experience, we were determined to do everything possible to avoid an induction.
In fact, I was scheduled to go into the hospital on July 10th to begin cervadil and then be administered pitocin the next morning… HOWEVER, on July 8th, it was seeming like things were going to happen. I had been seeing an AMAZING acupuncturist all week and after a morning session and a nice bath, my contractions were much more regular than they had been. My entire family (parents, brother and sister) came over that day to hang out and I just bounced on my birthing ball, secretly thinking this was it. Around 3 or 4, I saw a little mucous when I went to the bathroom. I wasn’t totally sure if it was my plug or part of it, but by 9pm, another more obvious glob came out. In fact, I was so excited, I called my hubs into the bathroom to inspect my toilet paper (at which point we high fived). Well, long story short, the contractions stopped that night.
Regardless, I was excited that there seemed to be some progress, so I called my doctor to see if she would allow us to take a few more days before resorting to an induction. She agreed reluctantly (because I would be past the 42 week standard), so, our new induction date was Monday, July 14th (at which point I’d be 42 weeks, 4 days). We would go in that night, get the cervadil and start the pitocin the following morning if needed.
So, with a few more days on our hands, I kicked up my natural induction trials into high gear. I was walking a minimum of 3 miles each day, listening to my meditations, seeing my acupuncturist daily, having sex, doing perineum massages with evening primrose oil, taking primrose oil, eating pineapple, howling at the full moon… pretty much everything you could think of.
Howling at the super moon…
Bring on the baby…
By the Sunday before our induction day, I was desperate. I spent about 3-4 hours with my acupuncturist doing hip opening body work, electro-stimulation acupuncture, stress release, you name it. We even took a break mid-way through for Mark and I to take a walk in this really nice woodsy trail path in hopes of loosening things up. I left with no contractions. So, we went to Trocadero (a yummy restaurant) to eat my “last meal” before attempting our final natural induction method… castor oil.
If you’ve never heard of the castor oil method, it’s pretty much used to severely mess up your insides and stimulate some crazy bowel movements… and, in the process, irritate the uterus and induce contractions.
At around 2:15 pm, I drank a castor oil concoction that still haunts me. The recipe – provided by my doula – was as follows: Castor Oil (maybe 4 oz?), one shot of vodka (my first lick of alcohol in over 10 months), a couple drops of lemon oil, apricot juice and two tablespoons of almond butter. It was so sweet… ughh. I’m gagging just thinking about it.
Bartender
The fix-ins… check out the oil globs on top…
Looking tasty…
Cheers…
Almost instantly, I was feeling nauseous. Maybe thanks to the vodka, I was able to nap until about 4, but with no visible symptoms, I took a second dose (this time castor oil and orange juice only). As the oil was working its magic, I chatted on the phone with my sweet friend, Marci, and tried to laugh about the sickness I was exposing myself to. Then, it was once again nap time. I woke up at around 8:30 pm just in time to projectile vomit all over the place… WITH CONTRACTIONS. By around 10:30, the contractions were getting stronger and actually stopping me in my tracks. I could still talk through them, but things were seeming pretty good! In fact, at 11:30 that evening, we had my parents come and pick up Toby the puppy,as they would be watching him while we were in the hospital… we were that sure. I even had what I thought was my outer water bag breaking. It was a mini gush that left a plum-sized wet spot. My husband took these stats… Color: clear, Time: 11:35 pm, Amount: about a TBSP, Odor: Smelled like vagina (nice, huh?).
The next morning we had our last non stress test (of about 6) and check before checking into the hospital that evening. Of course, by the time we went in, things had slowed down yet again. I had dilated to 1.5 cm (a .5 increase) and baby had come down a smidge. Regardless, our last ditch effort to poison me into labor was unsuccessful. So, we went home, took a walk, and packed up for the hospital.
En route to the hospital
Then, it was time for the real fun to begin…
I can’t believe another week has flown by and our girl continues to change. This past week, she has really needed up… And not just in the chunky way… I think she’s gotten longer, too! In fact, we weighed her today and she is 11.5 lbs! That means she’s up about 3 lbs since birth.
Besides just gaining weight, she’s also gaining new tricks and traits. Her tummy time performance is totally improved. She pretty much keeps her head up the whole time and is still rolling from her belly to her back.
She’s also smiling and laughing and just much more aware. She makes eye contact and follows things with her eyes.
When she’s really hungry, she will let out a huge yawn and top it off with a shriek. It’s actually quite cute and silly.
And, this week I’ve decided that she loves me… And not only because I’ve got the milk. That’s definitely what led her to love me, but now I think she just finds comfort in me and enjoys me. We spend a lot of time during the day chatting and playing and making eyes at each other. I’m definitely the quickest way to make her happy or quiet her down… And I love it. It’s crazy how much I am just totally head over heels for this sweet child. Even on days like today when she fussed her way through everything, boycotted naps, threw up milk barf ALL over the both of us, peed all over herself and outfit, dug her nails into my nipple and pulled (aka baby titty twister), and fussed some more. Even today, sweet girl, I love you to pieces.
And here are a couple of us when we stopped by the office…
So, after our first cloth diapering experience, the hubs and I have been avoiding them like a plague. In fact, I called our diaper service on Monday and asked them to put our service on hold.
With that in mind, Mark and I decided it was time to give them a try… Before we put our service on hold… And never took it off of hold. Anyway, our second run at cloth diapering has been way more successful!
In fact, we used them all evening yesterday (until bedtime when we switched to disposable) and I’ve been using them all day today. Honestly, I don’t mind them. I mean, I don’t like diapering in general… Because really, who does? But the cloth are no more difficult than the disposable.
The main difference I’ve noticed thus far is our sweet girl’s reaction to a dirty diaper. She’s never seemed to really notice or mind a dirty diaper. With cloth, that does not seem to be the case. Today she woke up from her nap in instant hysterics. Poor lovey. But, definitely makes sense why cloth diapered babies are potty trained sooner than disposable diapered babes.
On a somewhat relevant note, Charlotte tried her best to shoot me with poo today. I was tossing a wipe into the trash when I heard a noise and felt a breeze on my arm. It took me a quarter of a second before realizing that her pre-poop fart was a courtesy warning. I instantly grabbed a cloth diaper and tossed it over her tush. Thankfully, my body was protected, but the changing table cover wasn’t as lucky.
Here are some pics of the sweet pea all clothes up…
Well, sweet Charlotte is getting old and time is flying. She’s definitely getting very strong. Loves to be held straight up so she can keep her head up and look around. She’s also began smiling at mommy and other happy things… Like windows. The girl loves her windows. She’s big and cuddly and lovely and amazing.
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Playing House 