I absolutely love taking Charlotte’s weekly pictures. It’s so incredible to see the changes she makes in just 7 days.
When I first made our age tracking photo prop, I had only intended on taking weekly pictures up to her first month. I don’t know what happened, but somewhere along the road, I decided to continue the photos.
Anyway, as she gets older, my window for photos seems to be getting shorter and shorter. She starts out so happy and then it turns into this…
Or this…
I can only imagine that by the time she’s 52 weeks, she’s going to be throwing the dang board across the room.
Somehow I’ve totally fallen behind on my blogging! Sorry, baby girl & all 2 of my loyal readers 🙂
I’m trying to remember the subtle little changes my sweet girl made in her 19th and 20th week, but I’m not doing that well. I can’t distinguish between the weeks, but a few little things…
Charlie is a handsy little lady. Hair, fur, jewelry, plates, anything! If she can reach it (or catapault her body towards it), she’s going to grab it.
Baby girl loves that tummy time. I think it’s a power thing… imagine that. She get it from her momma, she get it from her momma. Okay, enough of that…
Charlie loves to stick her tongue out, blow raspberries and has actually started to incorporate this little pasttime into her pooping routine. Yep, you heard me! The little one officially sticks her tongue out and makes a weird humming noise when she poops. It’s pretty special.
Mark introduced Charlie to snow with her very first face wash. Kidding… he gave her a snowball. She didn’t seem overly impressed.
Charlie silently pooped and peed simultaneously during naked time. Bravo!
I’ve had a lot of requests to write a blog post about placenta encapsulation, so, here it is. I’m not going to lie… I didn’t do a TON of research on this topic. I definitely researched it, but not for days on end. I will include some benefits, but after speaking to my doctor and others, I determined that consuming my placenta (I know, I know… totally disgusting thought) via pills wouldn’t hurt me and could potentially offer some pretty big benefits.
Here are the potential benefits:
Help to balance your hormones
Replenish depleted iron levels
Assist the uterus to return to its pre-pregnancy state
Reduce post-natal bleeding
Increase milk production – this has been proven in a study
Make for a happier, more enjoyable post-natal period
Increase your energy levels
The cost to have my placenta encapsulated was $250. I went back and forth on the whole idea and ultimately, decided to go for it. It’s gross, but come on! That’s not the only gross thing I’ve ingested via medicine. For example, the cervadil that was inserted into my lady parts to help induce labor has bull sperm in it. Literal bull semen.
Anyway, I ended up deciding to do it. I went to a woman I was referred to by my doula and really, it was all quite simple. We provided a cooler and ice pack and the surgeons and/or nurses packaged it up, gave it to the doulas who delivered it to the encapsulation lady and voila! Three days later my giant, nasty looking organ was transformed into pills.
Mmmm….
The pills weren’t a big deal to consume… although they had a funky burp taste… not far from Echinacea. Anyway, I ate them. So, the big question is, did it work?
Well, I really have no idea. But here’s what I know… I didn’t have any postpartum depression… not an ounce, I have milk for days, my bleeding was way manageable and I’ve had a great recovery. Would I have had the same recovery without the pills? Who knows! But in my mind, no harm, no foul.
I guess the big question is whether I’d do it again… And honestly, I don’t know? I honestly don’t feel any more passionate about it now than I did before I did it. I guess I’d do it again… No harm, no foul… Right?
As a sidenote, I have to share some hilarity that came with my placenta pill purchase. So, at my postpartum visit with the doulas, they brought my placenta pills and a couple other “gifts.” Gift number one…
Yes, that is a blood imprint of my placenta. Hang that one up in the nursery… huh?
Gift number two…
No big deal, that’s just the umbilical cord dried and shaped into a heart. The gift that every mother wants… Well, actually, it’s the gift that every pet wants. When we first received the gifts, we clearly did not know what to do with them – because who the… heck… wants a placenta-blood painting or umbilical cord jerky – so we decided to leave them in the nice little neon green gift bag and keep it on the fireplace ledge (aka… The I don’t know where else to put this spot).
One afternoon while Marky was reading to our sweetie pie, Oliver the Kitty got curious. He stuck his nose in the bag to check things out and got his head stuck in the handle. I’ve never seen anything so ridiculous. He lost his shit. He went running all the way down the stairs, jumped on top of the work bench and on the cabinet before the dang bag fell off of his neck.
Meanwhile, Toby struck gold. When we got back upstairs, we discovered that the umbilical cord must have fallen out of the bag in Ollie’s frantic dash, as it was clinched in Toby’s jaw. We grabbed Tobes, but he would not release. He clenched that thing for dear life growling all the way. I can’t remember how we ended up getting the cord back, but it was seriously hilarious.
Here’s a video of story time turned kitty nightmare (the silliness begins at about 2 minutes)…
Poor Charlie… she LOVES her puppy, but he just doesn’t seem to reciprocate her feelings.
She literally lights up when the pup comes near. Her eyes widen as she flails her body towards the puppy grasping desperately for his soft puppy fur. This affectionate act is usually rejected with a gentle growl or bark as Toby the Wonderpup scurries away.
Maybe one day he’ll learn to love her… and for his sake, I hope it’s soon, because once this tiny chiquita learns to crawl, he’s in big trouble.
Thankfully, the two times she’s used her death grip on poor Toby’s fur, he just stood there shaking until we unclenched her little clam hands. Poor Tobes.
These two need to learn to play nicely 🙂
But for now, it’s pretty silly to watch (please note that after review of the video, Mark noticed that Charlie Girl hit Toby and was not just trying to play. Sorry, Toby!)…
Charlie Girl is suddenly unable to stay still for a diaper change. She is desperate to move and groove. That means I’m already struggling to find something to distract her during diaper changes.
She literally rolls over onto her belly almost immediately or grabs onto each foot and rocks around.
Okay, maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but I’m feeling pretty unsatisfied from my meals today. I have to admit it, I’ve been drinking either a keriug Chai Latte or Hot Chocolate every day after lunch for an embarrassing amount of time… and I’m missing it. I’m staring at a clementine right now just knowing that it’s not going to do the trick.
I know, I know… it could be worse. And it’s definitely not the worst thing in the world to have my bad habits broken. But still… I want a cookie.
Honestly, the worst part is the fact that all of my stored pumped milk is unuseable. That means that despite the fact that my wonderful husband takes any and all night feeds, I have to wake up to pump so he has milk to give our girl. Our “reserve” went from probably 100 ounces to 4 ounces. We’re saving all of my “dairy milk” in hopes that maybe there will be use for it in the future, but I’m not hopeful. Plus, that means that I have a LOT of pumping to do to earn a sans baby field trip. Totally sucky.
As an FYI, hubs takes the night feeds because tiny Charlotte gets way too excited to see mommy and thus refuses to go back to bed making night feeds go from 20 minutes (how long it takes with daddy) to over an hour (how long it takes with mommy).
Warning: this post contains a photo of green, slimy baby poop. (Stef, that was for you…)
This morning, Charlie’s poop had blood in it. For months now, her poops have been varying shades of green. Based on my doc and my other doc (Dr. Google), it seemed to be an oversupply issue. However, today’s diaper was a game changer.
The poor little princess had green, mucousy, bloody poop today.
Nasty, right?
Well, as soon as I saw it, I knew I had to call the doc. I spoke to her nurse and waited for a call back… Which took about 2+ hours. In the meantime, I managed to uncover what sounded like a dairy intolerance.
After checking out the little one later that afternoon and seeing the poop pic, the doc confirmed my guess. This is most likely a dairy intolerance.
So, what does that mean? Well, it means that I can literally eat nothing with milk protein. That includes the obvious cheese/milk, but also a lot of breads and packaged foods. To add to it, I can’t eat anything with soy.
Because of the strictness of the dairy/soy ban, Hubs and I figure this might be a good time to try the paleo diet… For the next 8 months.
As of one week ago, our little princess turned four big months old. It’s really so crazy how fast the time has flown by. I’ve heard that I will continue to say this with each age, but I am head over heels with this age. The past month has been absolute perfection (even on crappy days like today) and it seriously gets better all the time.
Why? Our cute little tiny infant is turning into the mini person. She’s interactive and sweet and funny. She plays and rolls over and copies and laughs. She loves. Oy.
I am just mad about this tiny lady. Lately, she loves to touch and grab faces. I know this is going to become a painful little habit, but for now, it’s so endearing.
I just love her. Ohhh!! I almost forgot… She cuddles. Oh does she cuddle. It’s just so sweet.
Today has not been going well. It started at 2 am when my husband got home from hanging out with friends. Without going into all of the details, I was super irritated. I had expected him back by 9 and when I called him at 930 he led me to believe they were wrapping up. This continued on until he finally came home at 2 am.
Anyway, with a 2 am argument weighing on us, the next morning was no picnic. There we were arguing about something else. I left without much to say.
Now, I hate fighting with my husband and I hate it even more when it isn’t resolved. It just lingers there… it weighs me down. I’m sure that Charlotte is picking up on that because holy shit has our day been rough.
It’s almost 1:15 pm and she has literally napped 15 minutes total since she woke up this morning at 7:40. On a normal day, she would have already napped 2-4 hours. It’s been a lot of crying and a lot of stress. I didn’t get much sleep last night and I just don’t have the energy for this.
To make things even worse, Charlotte’s 4-month check up is today… so that means she’s going to be overtired AND in pain from all of her shots. Ugh. I need a break.
No, mom… Even if you break the rules and try to let me nap in your office, I WILL NOT SLEEP. But, aren’t I cute?
It can’t be a coincidence that she keeps sticking her tongue out at me…
The other night I woke up totally jolted. I was just snoozing away, minding my own business, when I was hit with quite the nightmare.
My friend Annie and I went to yoga. This was a first for us, but we had a great class. I was so impressed with how well I was doing and had what I think was a conscious thought about making sure to go to yoga more often.
We were walking out together and I noticed that Annie didn’t have her daughter Ellie with her. Then suddenly like a ton of bricks it hit me… Where was Charlotte?
I started running. I couldn’t remember where my car was, but there I was, just running. I pulled out my keys to push the panic button, but ultimately, that’s not what led me to her. It was her cry.
I heard her crying from across the parking lot and when I arrived at the car, Mark was there. He looked at me with this severe look of disappointment. A total reflection of what I was feeling. And just as I thought it couldn’t get worse, a CPS (child protective services) worker popped up from the front seat.
I woke up instantly.
Holy shit.
I know I’ve been holding onto some mom guilt about the car seat incident, but holy smokes. That was intense and terrible.
Needless to say, it took every single ounce of self control not to wake up Mark. I just hugged my pillow, looked at a few cutie pie pics of my sweet girl, and somehow managed to get back to sleep.
I guess I’ve officially entered the scary, paranoid world of motherhood.
Playing House 