Wednesday, October 30, 2013

The First Few Weeks

One of my best friends had her first baby today.  Steve, Evelyn, and I are so excited for our friends Amy, Chad, and baby Anya!  For the past few weeks while waiting for this new sweet girl to arrive I have been thinking a lot about how I survived the first few weeks of new mommy-hood.  I've been meaning to post these thoughts, but it just never happened.  So today, on the birthday of a very special girl, I give the new mommy a few tips for making it through the best/hardest/craziest time of your life!


  1. Take a shower every day.  I missed a few days here and there right at the beginning.  I thought I was doing myself a favor by saving the time of showering, dressing, combing my hair.  The truth was I just felt gross if I didn't, and it's amazing what a shower will do to make you feel like a real person.  If possible, take it at a time when you can actually enjoy 5 minutes alone.  Which leads me to...
  2. Let ANYONE who wants to come over to "help."  Ok, not anyone.  But anyone who you would trust with holding your baby while you go take a shower.  Or pump.  Or take a nap.  Or...gasp...read a magazine!  You don't need to entertain.  They really don't want to see you.  They will listen patiently while you tell the birth story, but just hand over that baby and go do something!
  3. About that magazine, subscribe to one.  Books seem daunting at the beginning, but a magazine article that you can skim or even just look at the pictures is great for feeling like yourself again.  
  4. Set a goal for yourself everyday.  For the first few days, it might just brush your teeth.  Full confession, I had to make that my goal one or two days right at the beginning.  Soon you will be able to set bigger goals: do a load of laundry, write a few thank you notes, boil some pasta for dinner.  If you have a doctor's appointment, make that the day's goal.  Just don't put too much pressure on yourself on the days you don't meet your goal.  Unless it's the doctor's appointment, you really need to go to that.  
  5. Get out of the house.  By yourself!  Feed the baby, and then go to the grocery store, Target, Starbucks, wherever.  Even if it's just 20 minutes, you will feel like a new person when you get back.
  6. If you breastfeed, start pumping as soon as you can.  It will only make life easier later.  We STILL have frozen breastmilk and I stopped breastfeeding a month and a half ago.  
  7. Get that baby used to a bottle!  It makes getting out of the house for a bit that much easier.  Plus, nothing is better than one feeding a day being Daddy's responsibility.  Good for Dad, good for baby, good for you!  
  8. As soon as possible, start a bedtime "routine".  We started at 3 weeks: bath, jammies, book, bottle, bed.  The routine has had to be adjusted as Evelyn has gotten older, but she is the easiest baby to put to bed because of the routine.  
  9. Follow Baby Sideburns and Mommy Shorts on Facebook.  They are hilarious and say the things you think deep down but are a little bit afraid to say outloud!  
  10. Take all advice, especially mine, with a grain of salt!  Instinct kicks in and you will know what to do.  Don't be afraid to ask questions, but do what works for your new family!  
Look at that!  Made it to a top 10 list!  I could probably keep going, but it's really late and the morning bottle still comes pretty early these days!  We couldn't be happier for our friends, and can't wait to meet baby Anya soon!  

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Teething, virus, and impetigo, oh my!

Just can't get into the swing of parenting, working, and blogging.  In my last post I mentioned Evelyn's first real sickness.  We've been to the pediatrician more in the past month than in her whole 10 months.  And you go to the pediatrician a lot in the beginning.  Everyone said it would happen once she started daycare, but you always hope it will be different for your kid!

I can't even really remember how it all started.  I think it was a fever.  Probably teething related.  But it spiked pretty high for the first time right after her teeth broke through, and between that and the lingering gunky nose, we took her in.  It was a "virus" because according to all of the nurses and doctors at the pediatrician's office, teething doesn't cause fevers or runny noses.  Talk to any parent and they'll tell you otherwise.

Unfortunately with the fever spike we couldn't send her to school the next day, naturally.  She had a fun day at home with Daddy for part of the day and Aunt Kelly the other part.  The fever went up and down a bit, but nothing crazy so we sent her back to school and things were kind of back to normal, with the exception of a little cough that came out of nowhere.  We made it through the weekend, and through Monday and Tuesday with Mommom Lane and Aunt Nan, Wednesday at daycare, and then Thursday rolled back around.  And in our short time needing childcare, we have discovered that when things go wrong, they always go wrong on our daycare days, not when she's with family.

My Thursday went fine, but when I checked in with my mom toward the end of the day to make sure she would be picking up Evelyn like she usually does, she told me I better check my phone.  It was exploding with texts and phone calls from Steve about having to pick up Evelyn and take her to the doctor, where she saw my former childhood pediatrician and was diagnosed with some kind of infection.  He prescribed some amoxicillin and called it a day.  I was so impressed with how Steve handled everything!  He made the appointment, took her in, picked up the prescription, and got our sick girl home.  Because she truly was sick this time.

I got to cuddle with her the next morning, and then she had another afternoon with Aunt Kelly.  Poor thing really wasn't feeling well.  Saturday and Sunday rolled around and she seemed to be turning the corner, and then we noticed a little rash developing.  She didn't seem itchy or anything, but it seemed a little strange, so once again Steve took her in to get checked out.  It was one of two things, a rash caused by whatever infection she had or a reaction to the amoxicillin.  The doctor seemed to think it was from the fever, said keep an eye on it.  By Thursday the rash was everywhere, and so I made the phone call again.  Talked to a great nurse, who said if her fever wasn't back and she wasn't irritated by the rash, then we should just keep an eye on it some more, but it was probably a reaction to the amoxicillin rather than the fever rash.

So the rash started to fade over the weekend, Evelyn's mood was improving, her nose even cleared up for a day or two!

Then a week ago she woke up with what I thought was a pimple right above her lip.  By Sunday evening her whole mouth seemed a little red and splotchy and she had a really bad diaper rash.  Mommom came on Monday and tried to treat the diaper rash with some A&D, but that just made her scream.  Some nice, warm tubbies were all that made her poor little bottom feel better.  Another call to the doctor by Steve, and the recommendation was given to use some hydrocortizone on her rash on her bottom, but that didn't help her mouth.
Sunday morning - just a little red bump!
Monday evening - ugh!  
 Tuesday was Evelyn and Aunt Kelly day, and Nurse Kelly was not happy with how the rash wasn't healing at all and decided that calling the doctor wasn't going to cut it and that a visit needed to be made.  I rushed out of work right at 3:45 and managed to make it to the doctor by 4:30, where we waited forever, and she was finally diagnosed with a yeast infection (apparently very common about a week after taking an antibiotic) and impetigo.  Awesome.  The treatment?  Another antibiotic and a cream for the rash.  And impetigo is contagious and apparently very common in daycares, so no school for Evelyn this week!  We probably could have sent her a day after being on the antibiotic, but her rash was just gross and if I were another parent and saw her in my kid's class, I would have been a little concerned.

But one week later and the rash caused by the yeast infection is clearing up well and the impetigo sores around her mouth are healing well, even though they still look a little red (which apparently could last for quite a while).  The good news is she's back to her normal, happy self.  Hopefully she's going to stay that way for a while, although Steve and I both think we see her top teeth starting to move down.  :)

It really looks worse than it is at this point!  

Friday, October 4, 2013

I'm still here!

So many ideas for blogging about, so little time!!  Or perhaps I need to make better use of my time, which is why I am blogging at 6:07 AM.

A while back you may recall that most of my blogs centered around sleep.  At the moment, knock, knock (that was me knocking on wood for those of you who didn't get it) sleeping is going fine.  Whatever couple months long phase she was in seems to have passed.  Now Evelyn makes it until generally 5:15 or so.  In anticipation of this, I have begun waking up at 4:45.  You know, in case I miss her screaming right across the hall or through the monitor my body makes sure I'm alert and ready.

She always falls back asleep after.  So the question is what do I do in the meantime.  Do I get back in bed, where I won't fall asleep because now I'm anticipating needing to get up in 20 minutes or do I just get in the shower and start my day?  Up until this morning, the answer has been get back in bed.  And instead of lying there for 20 minutes until my alarm goes off, that turns into 30 minutes.  Or 35 minutes, just in case I manage to fall back asleep for the last 10 minutes.

Today I made a change.  I was wide awake at 5:30 after feeding her, so I decided to just get in the shower.  It is now 45 minutes later, and I'm dragging.  Time to make the first cup of coffee I think.  Should of done this before I sat down to write.

Being up early today was not meant to be the focus of this post, but I'm starting to run out of time.  So here are some teasers about what I am hoping to blog about in the next week or so:

  1. Evelyn's first REAL sickness.  (This is probably not going to be that interesting, I just feel like I should document it in case she ever really does read this someday!)
  2. I went to a baby shower for a friend and started to compile a list of my advice for a new mom.
  3. My thoughts on switching Evelyn's summer clothes out for her fall clothes.
  4. How I gave up breastfeeding comletely.  
Happy Friday morning everyone!  :)