Category Archives: New Baby

Dare I Say She’s Back??

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Charlotte has been… out of sorts this past week. Yes, that is my polite way of saying she’s been kind of a jerk all dang week.

I’m not 100% sure what the cause has been, but I’m sure it has to do with the fact that for the past 3-4 nights, she’s woken up in the middle of the night hollering like a banchee and not subsiding without a little love from mom and/or dad. And I’m talking 1-2 hours of hollering per night. I’m tired.

Beyond that, I believe she is working on more teeth… it could be the molars on her right side (she has the top and bottom on the left) or it could be some other set of teeth. Either way, the intense amounts of drool and jamming her fingers in her mouth (and down her throat) leads me to believe that teething is playing a role.

The last little smidge of fun is what I’ll call “toddlerhood.” Miss Charlotte has been exploring the art of whine crying and tantruming. Over the past few days, she’s literally transformed from our sweet babe who barely cries (except during diaper changes) to a little todd-monster who is loosing her shit over everything!

I’m bored playing with this toy… TANTRUM!

I want to eat this piece of food, not that one… <throw everything on the floor> TANTRUM!

Don’t touch me… TANTRUM!

This is fun… TANTRUM!

You’re so funny, momma! <Laughing>… TANTRUM!

Get the picture?

We literally ate dinner last night to the sweet hum of Charlotte’s hysterics. After 3-4 full days of whining and/or spazzing tantrums, we decided it was time to just ignore her. So we ate and chatted while she went from blank stares to tantrum and back again.

However, last night, instead of waking up around 2, the sweet princess slept until 5… whined like a goon and then settled after Mark wound up her music box. I’ll call that progress. We were awake for maybe 10 minutes.

Even bigger progress has been her mood. She has been SUCH a love today. Who knows if it’ll be Jeckyll or Hyde when she wakes up from this next nap, but at least we had half a day with our sweetie pie.

   
    
    
    

   

Cute stuff & updates

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here are some random updates for you…

  • Charlotte is a chatterbox. Constantly talking (or screaming) about something.
  • Recently, she’s been shoving her dang fingers so far in her mouth, she’s making herself gag. The fingers go in the mouth because molars are the devil, but I think she keeps doing it because we tell her to stop. Defiant little one.
  • Charlotte officially signs “more” whenever she wants anything.
  • Charlotte loves chocolate chip cookies. Aside from her bday, we haven’t given Charlotte anything in terms of sweets… Until yesterday when we gave her a chocolate chip cookie. Needless to say, she was signing a lot.
  • Charlotte continues to be a total berry monster. She can easily eat a pint of raspberries at any given moment.
  • Charlotte’s sleep schedule has been a bit off this summer due to lots of running around, but she still seems to nap like an infant. She probably gets between 15-16 hours of sleep daily. 

That’s all for now!

   
  

    
    
   

Weekend Fun

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We had another low-key weekend visiting with friends and family! 

I love summer.

 

Story time at home.

  

Hanging out in Delafield with friends!

    

Charlie & her bff Bailey

  

two generations of girlfriends 💛

  

Spending time with my bestie and Charlie’s future hubs at his welcome to the world party!

  

Crazy babe playing with Grampie.

  
  

Gentle pets for Lambie.

  
   
    
    
 

12-Month Vaccination Reaction

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At Charlie’s 12-month check up, she got a handful of vaccines. The two that I believe are leaving her polka-dotted and feverish are the MMR (measles, mumps & rubella) and/or the chicken pox vaccine. 

They said that if she reacts, it will likely show up 10-14 days after the shots and sure enough, come day 10 – this past Friday – the little bunny woke up with a rash.

The rash was bad this weekend and even left her with a fever on Saturday, but seems to be on its way out. Besides the fever, she didn’t seem to be itchy or too bothered; although, she was crabbier than normal.

The biggest pain was that the vaccine warning said that in extremely rare cases, the rash can be contagious. That meant that little C had to avoid her baby besties during our weekend outings. 

  
   
 
 

My Big Girl

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The other day when I was counting Charlotte’s baby teeth, I said she had 7 teeth with one on the verge… HOWEVER, just yesterday (or maybe the day before), she was doing something weird with her tiny mouth hanging open and I discovered TWO MOLARS!!!

Suddenly I feel like she is a legit big kid. I mean, molars…

That brings the count to 9 teeth with at least one, if not three, on the way.

So nuts! 

My big girl…

  
Check out her eating olives like a big kid… I didn’t even show her this… Just looked over and caught her in the act!

   
 
Also, yesterday I decided to give sign language a more focused effort. I was teaching her “more” so she would stop making that terrible whining sound every time she ran out of berries. After a few minutes, she was already getting the hang of it…

Charlotte Speaks in Sentences

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I’m not sure if I wrote about this yet, but about a month ago, Charlotte spoke her first two word sentence. She pointed at Grandma and waved… Aka: “You, HI!”

I know, I know… She’s so advanced.

Well, this morning, she took it a step further.

We were sitting in the backseat of the car, sharing some hugs before I strapped her in to go to work when she yanked out her paci, looked right at me and said, “Mama” while waving and smiling at me! That my folks is baby’s second sentence… “Hi, Mama!”

She actually did the same thing again before I put her in bed for her nap. So sweet 🙂

In other news, I also gave Charlie her first mini glass of whole milk today. I gave her a little over a 1/4 cup thinking she might not like it… She CHUGGED the whole cup down and wanted more. The girl loves milk apparently.

   

 
   Cute cup, huh?? Thanks, Aunti Stef!! Xo

Also, how sweet is little a snuggling with her favorite teddy from Granmie Amy?? These pictures were taken over the course of three hours…

      
 

A Few Random Updates

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I have been so terrible about tracking Charlotte’s milestones… The worst!

So here’s the latest and greatest from the wonderful world of my sweetie pie, Charlie:

  • Charlotte currently has 7 teeth!!! 4 on top, 3 on the bottom, and one more desperately working its way to the surface on the bottom. 
  • As of Charlotte’s party, she blows kisses. Talk about melt worthy. Today when I was about to put her to bed, she quivered with excitement, blew me a kiss and then pulled my face in for a real smooch. Doesn’t get any better. Plus, it makes me laugh because I totally get that overwhelming sense of happiness and love that literally erupts out of you. 
  • Charlotte has been saying mamamama, dadadadada, woof, bababa for awhile… BUT it’s been random and not always directed at the right thing (woof was always directed at the dog or cat). However, the other night, Mark and C were sitting in her chair… I got up to walk out of the room and as I made it to the door way, Charlotte looked up and said, “MaMa!” Yay!!!! Baby’s first word 🙂 My mother in law also told me that when she got her from her crib this afternoon, Charlotte kept saying, “mom mom mamamama” as if to say, “where’s my momma???” So cute. She also kept pointing at her bread tonight and saying “ba” – such a smartie.
  • The mini Chiquita still refuses to walk. She cruises on her kitchen and other toys, but no walking.
  • We had C’s check up today and she is 20 lbs (54 percentile) and 30″ (75th percentile) – way to go!! Still tall 🙂 
  • Charlotte loves quesadillas. They might be her favorite food. We pack them with black beans and chicken and veggies and cheese… Mm! 
  • Move over quesadillas… You’ve got nothing on berries. Charlotte loves berries more than mommy. No joke. Raspberries are #1, strawberries are #2, and mommy is #3
  • On Monday we went to Mark’s friend’s going away party. Charlie must have been feeling the brofestivities vibe going on because she was all about her daddy. Either that, or she understood me when I told her to make daddy feel bad for going away on business this week (kidding…). Either way, she literally burst into lip-curling, breath-snatching SOBS anytime Mark handed Charlotte over to me. It was crazy. We had the worst ride home sans daddy. I almost cried. That little lip and the gasping for air cry is just so sad. Oy… And the whimpers. Our girl rarely cries, so it was some serious stuff
  • A spoon is an essential part of every meal. Charlotte will eat at least 30% more if she’s given a spoon at mealtime. Don’t be fooled, the spoon is rarely used for eating.
  • Charlie is still breastfeeding at least 4 times a day.
  • Charlotte wore her first pigtails on Monday!!! So cute.     

That’s all for now!

Charlotte’s First Birthday Party

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For anyone that doesn’t know me, I just love throwing a good party. I love little details and I love hosting my friends and family at the house. So yes, I’ve been pretty excited about throwing my favorite girl a birthday party since at least Month 6.

I didn’t really select a theme… the only real guideline I had was that I was desperate to see all the tiny girlies in pink tutus. I don’t know about you, but I genuinely believe that there is not much cuter than babies draped in tulle.

The other big thing was that I wanted to have the party in the backyard, BUT, did not want to BBQ. BBQ’s create more heat (Hello!! It’s July!, hazard (babies and curious hands), and work during the actual event. It was important to me that Mark and I got to really enjoy our guests and our time with the little princess.

SO, with all of that in mind, we turned our backyard into an awesome little party venue, adorned with tissue paper pom-poms, pink beach balls (I ordered these sames ones from Rakuten, but can’t seem to find the ones I purchased for $14.99 including shipping) and an awesome (and inexpensive) DIY canopy. I made the cutest little tutus and rustic flower crowns for the 4 girls, crowns for the boys using gold leather I bought on Etsy that had a very “Where the Wild Things Are” vibe, and flower crowns for the adult ladies.

I’ll post separate blogs for DIY tutus, flower crowns, leather ‘where the wild things are’ crowns, and party canopies.

We also brought in a woman to do a little song session with the kids. She’s someone who used to work at my husband’s grade school and was SUPER affordable and wonderful!

For food, I made BBQ Chicken in the Crock (I skipped the corn starch/chicken broth step… but probably wouldn’t do that again), Tortellini Pasta Salad (SO DELISH!), Red Cabbage Cole Slaw (I can’t find the recipe, but don’t worry, I didn’t like how this turned out), Watermelon Salad, and then had dips/vegetables/fruit/chips/cheese/crackers/etc. I bought the cake and cupcakes from the store and made rice krispie treats.  

    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
   

Just Let Us Sleep!

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Between the dog and the babes, we have been getting woken up a lot lately. Last night, the little bug decided to holler at us from around 3:30-4:30 am. I can’t remember what time we finally went in there, but ugh.

I have no idea what the deal is. Is she still just totally pooped from partying like such a birthday rockstar (aka skipping naps, etc) this weekend or is she teething? Or is she just in a bad routine?

I have no idea.

Last night, she was face down, looking like she was sleeping… But whining/crying on and off. Every time we’d decide to go in there, she’d stop crying and be totally still. 

We ended up giving her baby Advil, but are totally confused as to what the issue really is. 

Hopefully tonight will be a quieter night. 

Look at her creepily watching the camera while daddy tried to calm her…