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).
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…
I’ve been terrible about updating this week! I still need to post the little lady’s 4 month update, which was this past Tuesday, but for now, we’ll focus on the fact that our sweet princess is now 18 weeks old.
This past week Charlotte decided she wanted to sit up, so she’s been nonstop trying. From an inclined position, the wonder woman can fling herself up to a sit. She can’t really hold herself up in the sit, but she gets there and flops around before tumbling. She does it in her car seat, too. It’s cute. It makes it seem like she’s trying to help me get her out because she’s lifting her head and trying to lean forward. She also does it on the changing table. I’ll put her down and she’ll lay there with her head off the table for a few seconds desperately trying to get up. Thankfully she can’t yet because she’s already a TOTAL wiggle worm on the changing table. A complete mad woman.
Here’s a video of my little sitter. Sorry for the slo-mo… User error 🙂
Hmm… Other than that, it must be mentioned that she is sleeping WAY better. Most naps are super easy and she’s been taking a long (1.75-2.75 hours) nap most days… But not today. Her afternoon nap has been a little trickier. A couple days this week I let her sleep on the floor in my office instead of the “nursery”… Aka the conference room.
Don’t be fooled by the photos. Toby is still not a fan of the little child. He’ll lick her face and hands nonstop, but the second she touches him back, it’s over. He growls and or barks and is then banished for a minute. Lovely.
The youngin is also desperate to crawl and move. I’m thinking its time to get this lady an old school walker.
She’s also laughing… Not huge laughs yet, but laughing. I’ll post some videos in the coming days, but for now, here are her 18 week pics!
On Saturday, Mark and I went out without the tiny one for the first time since her arrival into the sweet little world. In fact, Charlotte has only had a “babysitter” twice… Once my parents and once Mark’s mom… Both for verrrry short periods of time.
My AMAZING girlfriends, Ashley and Carrie, volunteered for the job on Saturday and honestly, I couldn’t have had a better team for my first real night out. Ashley is a PICU nurse and Carrie is a wonderful momma to a sweet little nugget.
The girls were scheduled to arrive around 530/545, which gave me time to put Charlotte to sleep before we headed downtown for dinner and the broadway production of the Lion King… With my parents! I know, hot date! But it was great! I had invited myself to crash their date and got tickets way before Charlotte was born. SO FUN!
However, Miss C had other plans. Despite napping like a little champ the first half of the day, Charlotte decided that an afternoon nap was out of the question. She fussed and fought it for what felt like forever. Then finally at 430, she fell asleep.
She’s done this before and has ended up thinking she was down for the night and just sleeping through. I was torn at this. If she went to bed at 430, she’d likely wake up at 10 or so while we were still gone. That would require the girlies to feed her. I’m 100% sure they’d do an amazing job, but I couldn’t help but feel guilty. Charlotte wouldn’t recognize them and I worried she would be scared.
Oy. Whatever, it didn’t matter because she decided to wake up at 515… About 5 minutes before my friends arrived. Ughhhh! Stress. Of course, she was way overtired and melting down. So, Ashley went to put her to bed before we left and Charlotte was good for a minute and then it was a scream fest.
Long story short, Mark ended up going in to bottle feed her and put her to bed. I was a stressed out, anxious mess until I took down a glass of wine at dinner, which went from a yummy bbq/steak place downtown to Noodles & Co because we were running so late once Mark got Charlotte fed and in bed.
Regardless, it really was a fun dinner and the show was great! I managed to enjoy myself and only checked my phone for texts from the girls every 30 or so minutes. And of course, they were so great and kept texting me to make me less neurotic. Pretty amazing friends, huh?
All in all, it was a great night! Charlotte stayed sleeping until we got home, so I got to cozy up with her, give her a million smooches and feed her after a lovely date.
BUT, I’ve gotta say, somehow I don’t feel like the first-night-out bandaid has been ripped off quite yet. My nerves are still quite high. Time, right? I’m sure it will get easier to leave my girl.
I think today was officially my first real fail as a momma. Thankfully, everything wound up okay and our sweet girl was unharmed, but oy.
So, this morning Charlotte’s Nana came over (my Milly aka Mark’s mom) for a great early morning visit before we headed to brunch with my family. It was a nice and relaxing morning until it was time to go. Then in our normal way, we were kind of chaotic and rushing around. Mark grabbed Charlotte and plopped her in her car seat and I stepped in to put on her hat, booties and buckle her in. Then, we were on our way.
Mark sat in the back with Charlotte so he could feed her on the way. Yes, we are always late, remember? So, we picked up my Grandpa and made our way to brunch. By the time we made it to the restaurant, little C was snoozing in her car seat (success!!). Anyway, to get to the restaurant, we had to either take this handicap elevator thing or carry her stroller/car seat up the stairs. I voted for the elevator, but Mark insisted that it was too loud and would wake her. So, we started carrying her up the stairs.
I was complaining about the whole thing as we took our first steps and then I started freaking out. “Babe, she’s flopping forward! She’s falling!” I quickly moved so we were carrying her more level, but as we got her to the top step it clicked. The only way she could be falling forward is if she wasn’t buckled into her car seat. I moved the blanket away that was covering her in her car seat and just about died. I didn’t buckle her in. We drove for probably about 40 minutes with our baby unbuckled and then carried her up a flight of stairs in her stroller, which she almost tumbled out of.
Ughh. Mark, my sister, and my mom assured me that it was okay, but I couldn’t help but totally beat myself up about it. In fact, it’s still haunting me. The positive… I don’t think I’ll ever make that mistake ever again. The negative… I feel like crap about it. I guess we’re all only human. But still…
Playing House 