Evelyn has her first pimple. Not the little sprinkle of baby acne that they get really early on. She actually never got that. I thought we were out of the woods. Until yesterday morning when woke up with a legitimate pimple on her chin. It's right were the pacifier ends on her chin. Mix that with the drooling that recently started (I'm convinced it's early teething!), and it was a breakout waiting to happen.
I can't see how it doesn't drive her crazy. It looks like one of those really painful ones; one that would bleed a lot if you popped it. And the reason I know that is because I'm a pimple popper. I can't help it...it's so tempting when it's right there on your face. I know it's the worst thing you can do, but that never stops me.
That being said, I want to pop her pimple! It's just hanging right there in front of me. Every time I feed her. Every time I talk to her. Every time I change her. I have to practically sit on my hands to let it go. I'm trying to limit the pacy and really wipe up all the drool to prevent any more breakouts.
God rewarded me for keeping my hands to myself. I woke up with a pimple this morning!
Monday, April 29, 2013
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Smell the Tulips
I have good news for those of you who get so excited about my posts about poop. Evelyn didn't poop today. This can only mean good things for you in the next day or so, not so much for me. But I'm willing to take one for the team. It really cracks me up how many of you out there are so into this blog. I was literally stopped on the street yesterday by someone who mentioned how much they like the posts about poop (Thanks, J.M.!).
Of course, if it's not poop, it's spit up. I honestly don't know how my kid had anything left in her stomach after today. Both Steve and Kelly had to change their shirts at one point this evening because they got it all over. Deep down inside I had a moment of pure happiness when Steve got it tonight. Past behavior by our child has shown that she's a daddy's girl. Tonight I thought maybe, just maybe, she's mommy's girl, too.
I blame the spit up on her newest trick. Evelyn has started rolling from her back to her belly. It's so amazing. She does it so quickly. As soon as you roll her back over, she's showing off again. And she looks so proud of herself, too. There are a few problems with this, though. She's so eager to roll that as soon as you put her down, she's off, despite the fact that she's just eaten. Holding her is no better, because she just wiggles around in your lap and spits up then, too. I've been spit up on so much today, I even need a bath.
Here's the other problem. She doesn't exactly like being on her tummy for that long, but she hasn't figured out how to roll from her tummy to her back. So she sits there for a few minutes, and then starts crying. My plan was to let her fuss it out and then at least try to start rolling onto her back. Not happening. She will fuss, and fuss, and fuss until you flip her back over. She promptly rolls back to her tummy, and you are right back where you were 30 seconds earlier. But she's so darn cute when she rolls over.
And when all else fails and your fussy kid, who still doesn't sleep through the night, is driving you crazy, call up a good friend, whose kid is teething and driving her crazy, and head out and smell the tulips! Just make sure you bring your ear plugs...and extra sets for all the others who don't have babies and are trying to enjoy the flowers.
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Of course, if it's not poop, it's spit up. I honestly don't know how my kid had anything left in her stomach after today. Both Steve and Kelly had to change their shirts at one point this evening because they got it all over. Deep down inside I had a moment of pure happiness when Steve got it tonight. Past behavior by our child has shown that she's a daddy's girl. Tonight I thought maybe, just maybe, she's mommy's girl, too.
I blame the spit up on her newest trick. Evelyn has started rolling from her back to her belly. It's so amazing. She does it so quickly. As soon as you roll her back over, she's showing off again. And she looks so proud of herself, too. There are a few problems with this, though. She's so eager to roll that as soon as you put her down, she's off, despite the fact that she's just eaten. Holding her is no better, because she just wiggles around in your lap and spits up then, too. I've been spit up on so much today, I even need a bath.
Here's the other problem. She doesn't exactly like being on her tummy for that long, but she hasn't figured out how to roll from her tummy to her back. So she sits there for a few minutes, and then starts crying. My plan was to let her fuss it out and then at least try to start rolling onto her back. Not happening. She will fuss, and fuss, and fuss until you flip her back over. She promptly rolls back to her tummy, and you are right back where you were 30 seconds earlier. But she's so darn cute when she rolls over.
And when all else fails and your fussy kid, who still doesn't sleep through the night, is driving you crazy, call up a good friend, whose kid is teething and driving her crazy, and head out and smell the tulips! Just make sure you bring your ear plugs...and extra sets for all the others who don't have babies and are trying to enjoy the flowers.
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Wednesday, April 24, 2013
5 am
"Sleeping through the night" is overrated. As of about two weeks ago my child slept until 5 am basically every night, ate, and then slept again until 9. It was pretty fantastic. Then we got a few nights of 6:30, and it was glorious. And then she turned 4 months old and got a mind of her own.
Literally the minute she turned 4 months, Evelyn started getting up at least twice a night. We figured it was a growth spurt and would pass. But then I noticed that when I tried to feed her, she would practically fall asleep while still sucking. At that point I knew the growth spurt had passed, and this was something different. We decided to get mean and start sleep training. It sucks.
Now for the past week or so, every time Evelyn wakes up before 5:30, we let her cry it out for about ten minutes before going in to give her the pacifier. If you have never tried to sleep train a baby, you must know that ten minutes in the middle of the night listening to a screaming infant is absolute torture. I would do anything these days to have sleeping until 5 am back. 5 am with no interruptions would be a gift. 5 am is really through the night when you think about it. Many people start their day at 5 am, and I would be happy to be one of them if it meant I didn't have to listen to my child scream throughout the night. These days I'm so on edge throughout the night, that when the bird that starts chirping outside my window at dawn each morning I start twitching.
Steve and I have been wracking our brains to try to figure out what could be the problem, especially now that we've gotten the temperature under control! We can't come up with anything other than that she has inherited her mother's poor sleep habits and that she can't sleep because she's worried. So, we've brainstormed a list of things she may be worrying about:
Literally the minute she turned 4 months, Evelyn started getting up at least twice a night. We figured it was a growth spurt and would pass. But then I noticed that when I tried to feed her, she would practically fall asleep while still sucking. At that point I knew the growth spurt had passed, and this was something different. We decided to get mean and start sleep training. It sucks.
Now for the past week or so, every time Evelyn wakes up before 5:30, we let her cry it out for about ten minutes before going in to give her the pacifier. If you have never tried to sleep train a baby, you must know that ten minutes in the middle of the night listening to a screaming infant is absolute torture. I would do anything these days to have sleeping until 5 am back. 5 am with no interruptions would be a gift. 5 am is really through the night when you think about it. Many people start their day at 5 am, and I would be happy to be one of them if it meant I didn't have to listen to my child scream throughout the night. These days I'm so on edge throughout the night, that when the bird that starts chirping outside my window at dawn each morning I start twitching.
Steve and I have been wracking our brains to try to figure out what could be the problem, especially now that we've gotten the temperature under control! We can't come up with anything other than that she has inherited her mother's poor sleep habits and that she can't sleep because she's worried. So, we've brainstormed a list of things she may be worrying about:
- A dried up milk source.
- All the pacifiers in the world go missing.
- The power goes out, leaving her without any lights to look at or TV to be fascinated by. Also causing all the frozen milk to thaw and be ruined (Ok, that one's mine and I never thought about it until the power actually did go out this morning for a bit and I had a moment of panic.)
- A permanently wet diaper.
- No more tubby to splash in.
- Daddy loses the ability to whistle.
These are all major catastrophes! I guess I can see why she's up all night.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
You're Hot Then You're Cold
Parenting makes you kind of stupid. This is just the first of countless post about the dumb things Steve and I have done as parents. Your common sense just turns off, especially in the middle of the night. Especially when your child suddenly goes from sleeping until about 5 am to sleeping until only 1 or 2, which is apparently a common 4 month occurrence.
A week or so ago the weather here took some sudden turns. For a few days it was in the 80's and then the next day it dropped back down into the 50's. Between the heat and the growth spurt she was going through, Evelyn spent two days eating and fussing non-stop. Steve finally made an executive decision to turn on the air conditioner in April, and we dressed her for summer weather for sleeping.
By Friday evening, the weather had cooled down a little and we could at least turn off the air conditioner. By Saturday, we were so over getting up with her every few hours and decided to start some sleep training. Mostly because every time I got up with her during the night she would eat for 3 minutes and fall right back asleep. We got her bathed, dressed in the sleepwear she had been wearing for the steamy nights we had been having. We decided we were going to let her cry it out for about 10 minutes before we went in.
Everything was going great until about 3 am that night. We were stoked because that was the longest she had gone in a few nights. She cried it out for about 10 minutes and then did fall back asleep. I was kind of chilly, so I grabbed a pair of thick socks. Barely 15 minutes later, she was up again crying. 10 minutes of crying passed, and she fell asleep again. Steve got up and pulled on another blanket. Another 15 minutes go by, the crying started again. Steve gets up and closes the window. 15 more minutes of sleep, and the crying starts again.
Steve gets up to check the thermostat. The heat was off. It was at that moment that I suddenly realized what you probably figured out with me putting on a pair of socks...my kid was freezing. We ran in to grab a sleep sack to bundle her up, and her little hands were like ice. I tried to change her carefully, without waking her too much, but the minute I tried to move her, she was up. And after the unnecessary trauma I put her through, I gave in and fed her.
Night one of sleep training - Evelyn: 1, Parents: 0
A week or so ago the weather here took some sudden turns. For a few days it was in the 80's and then the next day it dropped back down into the 50's. Between the heat and the growth spurt she was going through, Evelyn spent two days eating and fussing non-stop. Steve finally made an executive decision to turn on the air conditioner in April, and we dressed her for summer weather for sleeping.
By Friday evening, the weather had cooled down a little and we could at least turn off the air conditioner. By Saturday, we were so over getting up with her every few hours and decided to start some sleep training. Mostly because every time I got up with her during the night she would eat for 3 minutes and fall right back asleep. We got her bathed, dressed in the sleepwear she had been wearing for the steamy nights we had been having. We decided we were going to let her cry it out for about 10 minutes before we went in.
Everything was going great until about 3 am that night. We were stoked because that was the longest she had gone in a few nights. She cried it out for about 10 minutes and then did fall back asleep. I was kind of chilly, so I grabbed a pair of thick socks. Barely 15 minutes later, she was up again crying. 10 minutes of crying passed, and she fell asleep again. Steve got up and pulled on another blanket. Another 15 minutes go by, the crying started again. Steve gets up and closes the window. 15 more minutes of sleep, and the crying starts again.
Steve gets up to check the thermostat. The heat was off. It was at that moment that I suddenly realized what you probably figured out with me putting on a pair of socks...my kid was freezing. We ran in to grab a sleep sack to bundle her up, and her little hands were like ice. I tried to change her carefully, without waking her too much, but the minute I tried to move her, she was up. And after the unnecessary trauma I put her through, I gave in and fed her.
Night one of sleep training - Evelyn: 1, Parents: 0
Monday, April 22, 2013
Mt. Evelyn, cont.
Last week I told you all about my daughter's volcanic eruption. I ended that post with a little teaser that we learned a little trick to help her poop on a more regular basis and apparently some of you are really reading closely because I was asked today to reveal the trick! Let's pick up where we left off...
After her major explosion, Evelyn got into a nice pattern of not pooping for 4-5 days and then having a major blowout. If you've seen those diaper commercials where the babies are competing to see which one can fill their diaper the most, my kid would have won hands down. Only it never stayed in the diaper. And she always exploded when she was in her swing or in the bouncy seat, requiring me to wash everything. This continued for a few weeks.
One evening we got her nice, warm tub ready as usual. Steve slid her in the tub and started bathing her. The warm water must have totally relaxed her because she started tooting in the tub, which we thought was hilarious. We watched the bubbles coming out of her cute little tush and just laughed and laughed. Until suddenly they weren't bubbles anymore. Mt. Evelyn was now an under water volcano. For a moment disbelief set in. When we came to our senses we started yelling in complete confusion about what to do next, and I finally managed to grab her out of the water.
Now we just had to figure out what to do with the poopy tub water. If you know my husband at all, you know that messes kind of throw him off. He likes things clean and neat, and poop in a tub just really set him into panic mode. Kelly and I tried to get him to just pour it down the drain because it's so liquidy anyway, but the thought of the mess that would make made that not an option. In desperation he opened the sliding door, grabbed the tub, and poured the contents over the balcony (I really hope my neighbors never find this blog!), Kelly and I yelling the whole time.
Once the tub was empty, he then washed it out with a wipe and refilled it with more nice, warm water. Not 30 seconds into the second bath of the evening, more poop. At that point we scooped her up out of the tub, rinsed her off in the sink and called it a night as far as the tub was concerned. I placed my very happy baby in Steve's arms and put him in charge of getting her dressed and insisted that I would take care of the poopy water, which I poured down the drain. We laughed it off later.
Flash forward to the next evening. We get the tub ready, fill it with nice, warm water, place her in, poop. Flash forward another day. We get the tub ready, fill it with nice warm water, place her in, poop. This happened literally (and I do mean literally) 5 days in a row. I can't lie, we even took pictures just to prove to people it was happening. I promised a friend that even though I was going to talk a lot about poop that I wouldn't ever post any poop pictures. We were at the point where we were trying to figure out a way to "punish" her for making such a mess. How on earth do you punish a 1 month old? Our only solution was to stop giving her baths and go back to sponging her off, which she hated. Luckily it never came to that because on the 6th night, she must have been totally empty at that point because the pooping in the tub stopped for a while.
Steve and I had different opinions on the pooping in the tub whenever it happened again. He was totally against it and thought it was disgusting and grabbed her out the minute it started. My opinion was that if it helps her poop a little more regularly, and it saves me from having to wash her clothes and the swing every time she poops, why not leave her in there just until she's finished? Steve has won that battle every time.
After her major explosion, Evelyn got into a nice pattern of not pooping for 4-5 days and then having a major blowout. If you've seen those diaper commercials where the babies are competing to see which one can fill their diaper the most, my kid would have won hands down. Only it never stayed in the diaper. And she always exploded when she was in her swing or in the bouncy seat, requiring me to wash everything. This continued for a few weeks.
One evening we got her nice, warm tub ready as usual. Steve slid her in the tub and started bathing her. The warm water must have totally relaxed her because she started tooting in the tub, which we thought was hilarious. We watched the bubbles coming out of her cute little tush and just laughed and laughed. Until suddenly they weren't bubbles anymore. Mt. Evelyn was now an under water volcano. For a moment disbelief set in. When we came to our senses we started yelling in complete confusion about what to do next, and I finally managed to grab her out of the water.
Now we just had to figure out what to do with the poopy tub water. If you know my husband at all, you know that messes kind of throw him off. He likes things clean and neat, and poop in a tub just really set him into panic mode. Kelly and I tried to get him to just pour it down the drain because it's so liquidy anyway, but the thought of the mess that would make made that not an option. In desperation he opened the sliding door, grabbed the tub, and poured the contents over the balcony (I really hope my neighbors never find this blog!), Kelly and I yelling the whole time.
Once the tub was empty, he then washed it out with a wipe and refilled it with more nice, warm water. Not 30 seconds into the second bath of the evening, more poop. At that point we scooped her up out of the tub, rinsed her off in the sink and called it a night as far as the tub was concerned. I placed my very happy baby in Steve's arms and put him in charge of getting her dressed and insisted that I would take care of the poopy water, which I poured down the drain. We laughed it off later.
Flash forward to the next evening. We get the tub ready, fill it with nice, warm water, place her in, poop. Flash forward another day. We get the tub ready, fill it with nice warm water, place her in, poop. This happened literally (and I do mean literally) 5 days in a row. I can't lie, we even took pictures just to prove to people it was happening. I promised a friend that even though I was going to talk a lot about poop that I wouldn't ever post any poop pictures. We were at the point where we were trying to figure out a way to "punish" her for making such a mess. How on earth do you punish a 1 month old? Our only solution was to stop giving her baths and go back to sponging her off, which she hated. Luckily it never came to that because on the 6th night, she must have been totally empty at that point because the pooping in the tub stopped for a while.
Steve and I had different opinions on the pooping in the tub whenever it happened again. He was totally against it and thought it was disgusting and grabbed her out the minute it started. My opinion was that if it helps her poop a little more regularly, and it saves me from having to wash her clothes and the swing every time she poops, why not leave her in there just until she's finished? Steve has won that battle every time.
Evelyn in her first tubby.
Evelyn a few weeks ago...good grief she's gotten big!
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Mommy's Day Out
Yesterday I had a much needed day away. Many of the ladies in my crazy family decided to get away for a girls' weekend in NYC. Not wanting to take Evelyn to the big city, and not being able to go a whole weekend away from her, I decided to go for just the day. This day couldn't have come at a better time. I've been going a little stir crazy for the past week or so, and Steve was practically pushing me out the door yesterday morning because he knew how important a day away was for my sanity.
Last week I mentioned how we went on a little road trip and I spent the evening before gathering everything I thought we would need. Apparently going away for the day without Evelyn even requires that I spend the evening before gathering a ton of stuff because when I said I couldn't go a whole weekend away, I meant that I physically can't go a whole weekend away from her. When you're a breastfeeding mom, a whole day away is absolutely impossible, unless you want to walk around Manhattan in a soaked shirt, leaving a trail of milk behind. So, I got all my pump supplies together, including 4 bottles, lids (I learned that one the hard way), the pump, pump attachments, the cooler bag, and packed it all in my bookbag, along with my hooter hider (genius!). I even remembered a burp cloth.
I had no plan for how I was going to make the pumping happen, but I prevented the need to immediately pump by feeding Evelyn at 5 am and then pumping right before we left. After that, I just figured I would make it work as I needed, trying to keep in mind that my body is used to her eating every 3 hours throughout the day. After a stop in Hoboken on the way, we got to Manhattan around 11:00 and my mom, aunt, and I drove to the hotel they were going to be staying. Getting ourselves situated in the parking garage, I figured it had been a sufficient amount of time and it was a good time to do a pumping session. So there I sat, in the backseat of the car in a parking garage hooked up to the machine. Easy.
We had a great day - grabbed lunch, visited Mood, took the Staten Island ferry, visited the 9/11 Memorial, and walked around Times Square. At about 5:00, we were sitting down to some pizza when I suddenly got a physical reminder that it had been about 6 hours since I last emptied out. While the parking garage was a weird place to pump, the middle of a pizza joint in lower Manhattan was just a little more public, but with a nice big family, it was surprisingly easy. I got under the hooter hider, hooked up sitting right there at the table, a few family members placed themselves strategically around me, and I sat there eating my pizza and emptied out. I really wish I had taken a picture.
Last week I mentioned how we went on a little road trip and I spent the evening before gathering everything I thought we would need. Apparently going away for the day without Evelyn even requires that I spend the evening before gathering a ton of stuff because when I said I couldn't go a whole weekend away, I meant that I physically can't go a whole weekend away from her. When you're a breastfeeding mom, a whole day away is absolutely impossible, unless you want to walk around Manhattan in a soaked shirt, leaving a trail of milk behind. So, I got all my pump supplies together, including 4 bottles, lids (I learned that one the hard way), the pump, pump attachments, the cooler bag, and packed it all in my bookbag, along with my hooter hider (genius!). I even remembered a burp cloth.
I had no plan for how I was going to make the pumping happen, but I prevented the need to immediately pump by feeding Evelyn at 5 am and then pumping right before we left. After that, I just figured I would make it work as I needed, trying to keep in mind that my body is used to her eating every 3 hours throughout the day. After a stop in Hoboken on the way, we got to Manhattan around 11:00 and my mom, aunt, and I drove to the hotel they were going to be staying. Getting ourselves situated in the parking garage, I figured it had been a sufficient amount of time and it was a good time to do a pumping session. So there I sat, in the backseat of the car in a parking garage hooked up to the machine. Easy.
We had a great day - grabbed lunch, visited Mood, took the Staten Island ferry, visited the 9/11 Memorial, and walked around Times Square. At about 5:00, we were sitting down to some pizza when I suddenly got a physical reminder that it had been about 6 hours since I last emptied out. While the parking garage was a weird place to pump, the middle of a pizza joint in lower Manhattan was just a little more public, but with a nice big family, it was surprisingly easy. I got under the hooter hider, hooked up sitting right there at the table, a few family members placed themselves strategically around me, and I sat there eating my pizza and emptied out. I really wish I had taken a picture.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Raspberries
You know you're a mom when the best part of your day is your child spitting in your face. Because that spit in my face today meant success after 30 minutes of hard work. Success!
When I was changing her diaper this morning Evelyn started doing something funny with her tongue. Sticking it out, kind of blowing, smiling. I suddenly realized that she was trying to blow raspberries. There was absolutely nothing else she could have been doing. I had no idea where it came from, but went with it because it was so darn cute. We spent the next 30 minutes practicing. I would do one, she would stick out her tongue and blow air. I would show her again, then she would purse her lips and try blowing out some air. When that didn't work, the tongue would come back out. I showed her again, she tried again. And again, and again, and again. If this is a sign of the personality to come, we have one determined little girl on our hands. The best part was how excited she got the closer she got. She wasn't upset when it didn't work, she just tried again. She was having fun learning how to make it work.
Finally, I felt the spit on my face. The sound hasn't come quite yet, but even she knew that she was so close. And with that, she was ready to be done for the time being. All the exertion of trying to accomplish this task naturally left her utterly exhausted and I spent the next 15 minutes trying to get her to take a much needed nap, but it was totally worth it. The utter happiness I felt with such a small accomplishment was a little overwhelming. I suddenly understood what my mom was talking about all these years.
And naturally when she woke up she had completely forgotten everything she learned, as is often the case at this stage of the game. So, we will do it all again tomorrow, and it will be as exhilarating to see this skill develop again tomorrow as it was today!
When I was changing her diaper this morning Evelyn started doing something funny with her tongue. Sticking it out, kind of blowing, smiling. I suddenly realized that she was trying to blow raspberries. There was absolutely nothing else she could have been doing. I had no idea where it came from, but went with it because it was so darn cute. We spent the next 30 minutes practicing. I would do one, she would stick out her tongue and blow air. I would show her again, then she would purse her lips and try blowing out some air. When that didn't work, the tongue would come back out. I showed her again, she tried again. And again, and again, and again. If this is a sign of the personality to come, we have one determined little girl on our hands. The best part was how excited she got the closer she got. She wasn't upset when it didn't work, she just tried again. She was having fun learning how to make it work.
Finally, I felt the spit on my face. The sound hasn't come quite yet, but even she knew that she was so close. And with that, she was ready to be done for the time being. All the exertion of trying to accomplish this task naturally left her utterly exhausted and I spent the next 15 minutes trying to get her to take a much needed nap, but it was totally worth it. The utter happiness I felt with such a small accomplishment was a little overwhelming. I suddenly understood what my mom was talking about all these years.
And naturally when she woke up she had completely forgotten everything she learned, as is often the case at this stage of the game. So, we will do it all again tomorrow, and it will be as exhilarating to see this skill develop again tomorrow as it was today!
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