Three Months Old

First time rolling over from her tummy

Aubrey will officially be three months old tomorrow. She is really blossoming into an active baby these days. She now loves tummy time and sometimes prefers to lie on her stomach and gets upset if she accidentally rolls onto her back. When she was smaller she absolutely loathed being on her stomach since she could barely hold up her head, poor thing. Tummy time really does feel like you are torturing your child in the beginning! Now she kicks her little legs and smiles until eventually rolling herself over onto her back.

Getting updated on current events while watching The Today Show

She is becoming a very vocal kid. Michael and I joke that she got the talking gene from her Uncle Stephen and Grandpa Randy. She has a surprisingly loud voice and blabbers to any person (or stuffed animal) that will listen. She even likes to talk while eating, we’ll have to work on the “no talking with your mouth full” thing later on.

Sorry the above video is huge!  I couldn’t figure out how to resize it. I know I talked about how Aubrey was a scream machine for the first few weeks of life and mentioned how us learning more about her needs and wants was the first step in making our baby happy. Well, I can’t believe I neglected to talk about the other piece of our happy baby puzzle: ACID REFLUX MEDS! Aubrey has always been an overachiever in the spit-up department. This girl would go through three outfits a day and I cursed at burp cloths for being so nonabsorbent thinking “who the F designs these pieces of crap!?”, “how is this tiny burp cloth supposed to catch all of this puke? Imposible!” After awhile I just accepted the fact that my child was a big spitter upper, always had multiple burp cloths in reach,  got used to changing both of our outfits a few times a day, and even washing the puke out of Aubrey’s hair almost every morning, it became normal. Then one day home girl decided to not just spit up anymore, but vomit. And not just any vomit, PROJECTILE VOMIT. The best kind right? She started shooting puke three feet away from herself. If she was laying on her back puke would shoot out like a volcano. She did it three times in one day and I decided to call the doctor. The office wanted us to come in that evening after I shared our puke stories; she was diagnosed with acid reflux and started on meds immediately. Lo and behold I had a non-puking baby after that, she didn’t scream at my boob in anger anymore (because she wasn’t in pain), and I realized that burp cloths really can work as long as you have a baby with normal bodily functions. Her medication did seem to not be working as well in the last couple weeks so I took her in the other day to get a weight check and new dosage amount. The little nugget gained one whole pound in three weeks! An average weight gain is about 1/2 an ounce per day, which would have equaled a gain of 10 ounces in 20 days but she went above and beyond and gained 16 ounces instead. Her doctor was pretty surprised. Unfortunately they didn’t measure her length because I’m pretty sure she has stretched out a whole lot more too.

Lately I have been getting more and more anxious about dreaded sleep training. Technically you are “supposed” to begin at 4 to 6 months, but I decided to get Aubrey accustomed to her crib a bit earlier. She has been sleeping in a bassinet next to our bed for the last month. Before that she slept in our bed almost every night, definitely not ideal, but I’ll admit I like having her there to snuggle. Now she sleeps in her bassinet until her first very early feed around 4:30 or 5:30 which is technically morning meaning cuddle time is a go. It’s been really hard to break myself of the selfish want to hold her all the time. In the beginning she wanted to be held 24/7 but now she is perfectly capable of sleeping or hanging out solo. It’s been surprisingly hard to allow this, I have to actively tell  force myself to put her down for her nap, after all she gets a better sleep when she’s not in my arms. Back to this crib situation though, the past few nights we have put her to sleep in her crib for bedtime, she has gone down surprisingly easy and fallen asleep in there by herself. She then wakes up hungry at 10 or 11 and I feed her and put her to sleep in her bassinet beside our bed. This might sound like a funny routine but there is some logic, and also some laziness behind it. I want her to slowly get used to her crib and as she starts sleeping for longer stretches, she’ll stay in her crib for a longer time period gradually. She can fall asleep on her own but cannot put herself back to sleep yet which is why I transition her to the bassinet once she naturally wakes up for her first nighttime feed. I would like to keep my sanity and can’t yet wrap my head around having to go to her room twenty times a night because her paci fell out. So until she masters putting herself back to sleep, the bassinet is our friend. She learned by herself how to fall asleep on her own, without the assistance of me rocking, singing, or nursing her to sleep so I’m hoping she can learn how to soothe herself back to sleep too. There is no way I could ever allow her to cry it out until she falls asleep. We seriously have the loudest screamer and crier of all time, and she works herself up so hard she is dripping sweat, I just can’t. I have seriously read about people who allow their kids to cry it out until they throw up. That is the weirdest fucking thing I have ever heard and can’t imagine doing that to Aubrey.

I am so looking forward to April! There are a lot of great things this month, my sister and dad’s birthday, springtime, Navy Birthday Ball, and my mom is visiting! She gets here in just over a week and I’m so excited to have her hang out with her granddaughter who she hasn’t seen since she was about 4 days old. We have been chatting on face time a lot so hopefully Aubrey will recognize her voice at least.

I bought a storage tote this week and put all of the newborn and some of the 0-3 month clothes in it that Aubrey doesn’t fit into anymore. I also had her try on her newborn Christmas beanie and it’s super tight! I remember there was so much extra fabric hanging off her head as a newborn, now I can’t even pull it all the way down her little head. Still looks cute though, even with a mismatched shirt! Until next time, thanks for reading!
xoxo

She’s Here!

          

Aubrey Noël Head joined us on December 30th, 2013! Right at midnight on the 30th I woke from sleep and after lying awake for about five seconds I felt a tiny gush, jumped out of bed, and my water broke as my feet hit the floor. Luckily, Michael awoke easily when I loudly whispered his name, he’s typically a hard sleeper. Sometimes you’ll even think he is awake but realize he’s not when he responds with a some sort of jumbled sentence that makes no sense. He jumped out of bed as quickly as I had and exclaimed, “Let’s do this!”. For a minute though we both stood dumbfounded and contemplated how I could make it to the bathroom and not get our area rug wet; sprinting across did the trick! Maddie was less than amused with the midnight wakeup call and watched from her doggie bed as we excitedly grabbed extra items for the hospital bag. I was able to take a shower before heading to the hospital since it’s only a ten minute drive and my doctor said I had an hour or two before I needed to head in. Around 2am we pulled into the main entrance of the hospital and I waddled halfway across the parking lot before realizing the lights were off and we should have used the ER entrance. As I turned to go back to the car my water broke again and I was instantly freezing as my soaking wet pants were hit with twenty degree air.
Once in the hospital I was actually able to be in a private room immediately versus having to experience early labor in triage, which has about six beds in a room. I was having contractions that were fairly painful and was thinking “this isn’t so bad”; Michael and I even slept for a few hours. My doctor didn’t come in until 7:30am and told me I wasn’t in active labor and would be started on Pitocin to jumpstart progress. I was started on 2 milliunits per (I think) minute, and I was told 20 milliunits was the highest the dosage would be turned up to. Every thirty minutes my dosage was increased by two, and the pain was increased by ten. I have no recollection of time, dosage, or who was in and out of my room really because my eyes were so tightly shut from the agony. On a pain scale from 1-10, at about a 6 I asked if I could have something to “take the edge off” and was given a dose of Stadol which is basically a painkiller that makes you feel shitfaced. I was the dizzy equivalent of drinking 4 jack and cokes and even threw up like a real-live drunkard. The good part about Stadol is it makes you pass out like a drunk, the bad part about Stadol is it does not take the edge off the pain. In fact, I don’t think it’s even possible to take the edge off of contraction pain. Instead, during a contraction I would attempt to “breathe through it” like my nurse said to do and squeeze the shit out of my hospital bed rail until passing out for 4 to 5 minutes until the next one. I would fall into such a deep sleep for these few minutes that I even remember dreaming.

By noon I was in the worst pain of my life and it was officially time to wave my white flag. I asked  begged for an epidural but apparently anesthesiologists need lunch breaks too so I had to wait about half an hour before he even stepped foot in my room. During this time I was still in a drunken stupor from the Stadol and was positive that all the nurses were lying to me and no anesthesiologist would be coming to my aid EVER. You better believe I let everyone know this too. One of my worst fears about getting an epidural was the part where they stick a giant needle into your back. While in labor though, this needle sounded absolutely blissful and I couldn’t wait for them to stab it into me. The worst part of getting it is just how long the process takes, they have to do so much prep work while in the meantime you’re told to sit as still as you possibly can while experiencing what feels like the jaws of life slowly separating  your entire pelvis into two parts. My body would shake pretty violently through the pain of each contraction so it took most of my strength to keep completely still during the process. I was eight centimeters dilated once the medicine started pumping into me. I could still feel pain in the form of pressure in my right butt cheek, which actually came in handy when it was time to push because I was still aware when a contraction was coming while being relatively pain free. The epidural allowed me to wake up in a sense, and for the first time in hours I was able to open my eyes and talk to Michael. He seemed ecstatic to have someone to talk to, he had been sitting in a corner for nearly twelve hours at this point and passed the time by watching YouTube videos by himself. By 3pm it was time to push and I did a few practice runs with my nurse. I actually had to stop because the baby was coming out so quickly and the doctor had to be called. With the doctor, I pushed through about six contractions or roughly twenty minutes before Aubrey was born at 3:34pm. She weighed in at 7 pounds, 4 ounces and measured 18.5 inches long.

We celebrated New Year’s Eve in the hospital the next day complete with sushi, champagne, and apple cider. I always said I would have a sushi boat brought to the hospital and it totally happened. Little Aubrey was even kind enough to keep us awake until about 1:30am so we didn’t miss the ball dropping!

My favorite thing about Aubrey when she was born was her hair! I hoped our baby would be born with hair and she is so cute with her wild little mane.

    

During our hospital stay a photographer popped in and snapped some shots of our baby girl.

The first thing people seem to notice about her is how long her fingers are. No doubt she got these elongated appendages from me. I get made fun of sometimes too but I’m pretty sure people are just jealous that my pointer finger is approximately 20% more accurate than that of the average person.

We’ve been home for two weeks now and luckily had a lot of help from family and Michael has taken leave from work too. Now that I am not pregnant coffee is my best friend again and I am so thankful for it. Michael has been a huge help, he changes diapers like a champ and loves cuddling with his little girl. He has even mastered playing xbox while somehow keeping baby Aubrey happy as a little clam.

The other day I was looking so forward to climbing into bed and getting a long night’s rest and then realized that luxury won’t be available to me for a long time. In fact, I have been working on this blog post for three days and am currently typing with my left hand and holding Aubrey in my right arm. With that being said though, I didn’t know I could be this happy and it makes the small sacrifices so worth it.
xoxo

The Best and the Worst

Amongst family and friends it’s been no secret that my pregnancy has been fairly easy. No morning sickness, mood swings, tearful outbursts or acne. I am really thankful to have avoided these common side effects while creating a human, so when I do experience discomfort I try not to be a drama queen about it. Too bad for you the non-complaining stops NOW.  I feel like I have to fill you in on something I am experiencing that I really didn’t expect from pregnancy: SHIN SPLINTS. They are killer. They popped up about two weeks ago and I’ve been googling remedies ever since. I knew from my past experience with exercise induced shin splints that a potassium boost usually helps. My body reminded me of that last week when I went to bed with shin pain, was rudely awakened by a viscous Charley Horse, and in the morning I was craving…raw salmon? Turning to trusty google taught me that raw salmon has about the same amount of potassium as a banana per 100 grams, about 360mg. Since raw salmon is a no-go for me and to get the most potassium bang for the buck, I made an awesome white bean (561mg per 100 g) dip and pretty much devoured the entirety of it. My shin splints and leg cramps went away for a good 4 or 5 days! Awesome! Not awesome is they’re back now because I don’t eat white bean dip everyday. I guess I’ll have to start force feeding myself bananas all the time, does it still count if they’re in the form of banana bread with chocolate chips?

Now that we’ve got all the complaining out of the way, let’s talk about the BEST of this best and worst post. Now that I’m six months along I wanted to share some of my favorite things for me and baby I’ve found so far.

IN LOVE with the Britax B-Agile Stroller in Peacock

Best for Baby
Last week I put a stroller/carseat combination on our registry…. for the third time. I swear this is finally the one! I really don’t think I’ll change it again because this stroller is so awesome. I originally had the Chicco Cortina + KeyFit carseat, but then after falling in love with the easy maneuverability and lightweight frame, I switched to the Mamas and Papas Sola stroller paired with a Graco carseat. I made that switch without Michael having the opportunity to test-drive the stroller, but dragged him to Babies ‘R Us this past weekend to hopefully seal the deal. Instead of him falling deeply in love with the bright purple Sola stroller as I did, he wasn’t so impressed with the $399 price tag coupled with the fact that we’d have to get an adapter just so the Graco carseat, which wasn’t our first choice, would fit (the Sola stroller only has an adapter for Graco seats and two other international brands). Luckily I spotted a stroller that had a similar styling as the purple Sola and was almost just as lightweight! The Britax B-Agile paired with a B-Safe infant carseat of the same brand. After pushing all the wrong buttons and lifting levers for about 15 clueless minutes, we finally figured out just how easy it is to click the matching carseat in and out, and also how to use the one-handed folding feature on the stroller. I was sold on the fold, Michael was sold on the convenience. To make the travel system even more of a match made in heaven, I found the stroller in turquoise on Amazon! My favorite color + gender neutrality for a possible baby boy in the future. Success!

Best for Me
Recently I had to go without my beloved Mama Mio Tummy Rub Oil for a couple days and it made me realize just how much I cherish that tiny bottle of goodness. Seriously, it’s become like a drug. I didn’t realize how addicted I’ve become to it until I was forced to be without it since I forgot to order a new bottle until it was too late. Luckily I have Amazon Prime so I only had to suffer while using another oil for two days, but my skin was so itchy during those 48 hours! Nothing keeps my skin as hydrated as Mama Mio. I am six months into pregnancy now and do not have any signs of stretch marks. *Crossing fingers* my skin remains scar free, but I am feeling really confident that my combination of tummy oil + Palmer’s stretch mark cream is getting the job done. Although the oil is a bit pricey at $35 for 4oz, a little goes a long way. I just bought my second bottle of oil last week at 23 weeks pregnant and $70 to avoid dreaded stretch marks is well worth it for me!

Best for Everyone
Something that has kept Michael and I on an even-keel throughout my pregnancy so far is being equally involved in sharing decisions and feelings about the baby and everything that comes along with adding a new member to our family. It might sound obvious to some to have a partner involved in each aspect but sometimes it’s easy to assume that your fellow parent to be will have the same views or feelings as you and that’s not always the case. I encourage Michael to let me know if he feels overwhelmed or a little freaked out and let him know that I feel that way sometimes too! It’s not a bad thing to feel uncertain about taking on a task that you have never dealt with before and cannot truly be 100% prepared for. On his end, he has been really great about listening to my pros and cons for every stroller, swing, and carseat on the market and also being sensitive when I’m feeling really useless due to my inability to lift things over 20 pounds. We’ve been learning together and it’s been working great for us so far. 

Baby Bump Stats 

How far along? 6 months! Last month of second trimester!
How big is baby? I officially am carrying a cantaloupe, that is scary. 10.5-to-11.8-inches, weighs about 12.7 to 20.8 ounces
Total weight gain/loss: +16 pounds, I might stealthily delete this question from all future posts!
Maternity clothes? A bunch of new sweaters are coming in the mail! I’ve been successful at wearing loose, flowy summer tops but sweaters are a different story. Unless I want to look like a stuffed sausage with half my belly hanging out, maternity sweaters are the way to go!
Best moment this week: Crossing off a bunch of home projects off our before-baby-gets-here-list.
Movement: She’s been kicking the crap out of me this entire post writing session, I’ve jumped in surprise/pain 5+ times.
Food cravings: Root beer! We went to two stores the other day and they didn’t have my beloved Mug root beer, Michael was nice enough to pull off at a gas station to get me some.
Food Aversions: None
Gender: GIRL
Labor Signs: None
Pregnancy Symptoms: Shin splints, hip aches, back aches at night again.
Belly Button in or out: Innie
What I miss: Sleeping in any position I want, being able to take deep breaths while sitting down.
What I am looking forward to: Christmas! When all of our family will fly across the country to be with us! So stoked!
Upcoming appointments/events: 9/19- Ultrasound, 9/24- 26 week checkup

Baby Room Inspiration

Since the day I found  out I was pregnant I have been looking at baby rooms all over the internet. We have already painted the room a light grey [Woodsmoke by Eddie Bauer]. I wanted a light, airy backdrop for the bright colors that I am always drawn to. The blue dresser we got pops perfectly against the grey. Since we only have the dresser/changing table in the room so far I have been looking at inspiration for how to dress that area up.

One of my favorite ideas is this pegboard, it’s totally functional with the use of “S” hooks to hang small baskets holding diapers, creams, etc. Plus I love the sort of industrial look it brings to the room. I think I would only use this idea if the room turns out to be a boy’s room though. (Notice the beautiful light grey paint in this example, nice choice!).

Source

I love the next storage idea mostly because I already have a shelving unit nearly identical to the one shown. It is raw wood and just needs to be primed and painted white [courtesy of the husband]. I will probably use this storage piece in the room anyway, even if it’s not above the changing table.

Source

Tomorrow my MIL, Linda and niece, Elise fly into Connecticut! We are planning a girls’ trip to NYC on Thursday complete with a broadway show. On Sunday my father-in-law and brother-in-law will be here, too. It’s the first time they have all been here while Michael is home. Can’t wait!

xoxo