Weekend in Review

We had another great, but busy, weekend here at the Z house! Friday night we were brave and went out to eat…to IHOP! :) We don’t take Logan out very often because it’s such a pain to go out to eat around here, the waits are so long. But IHOP always has space for us and a million other kids so we don’t worry about his squeals. He said the pancake smell was vaguely familiar from when he was in the womb…

When we got home he had a dirty diaper. And man, are formula poops different from breast milk poops! Peter and I think we may have to invest in gas masks. At least we avoided it for 5 months! Logan however, thought it was quite funny:

A bath was in order after that, where we got some cute smiles from him:

And this is what happens when he gets tired and we know it’s time to wrap up the bath…

Today was fabulous because Grandma and Grandpa K came to see us! Logan had a great time showing them how much he has grown.

Helping Grandma clap

Showing Grandma all about the exersaucer

Burping after grandma fed me…she says I am a much better burper than daddy!

Grandpa K was like the papparazzi, I felt so important!

Daddy threatened that he was going to start sunbathing! But, lucky for us the deck is in the shade. He’ll have to wait for the beach!

Then grandma and I started playing peek-a-boo.

And she left me under there! (haha, just kidding, grandma would never do that!) I thought hiding was so funny!

Ha! You found me!

I liked playing with grandpa’s fingers.

Guess what? Grandpa K knows how to play spaceship too! It is so much fun!

We had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa, and are so excited to eat Grandma’s enchiladas tonight. They spoiled us all!

Hope you had a great weekend too!

Thankful on Thursday

I had a craptastic day at work today (I am a mommy and not supposed to use words like that. But I have no other explanation for it.) . I should not check work email at home. I’m not going to elaborate, because well, this is the internet after all…but yes – craptastic. Enough that it distracted me from my wonderful baby boy yesterday evening when I should have been enjoying his bath…and well, that is just NOT cool.

So instead of continuing to wallow in my cruddy day, I’ve decided to hop on board with one of my favorite bloggers and do a “Thankful on Thursday” post.  It’s been a rough week of good and hard changes here at the Z’s, so here’s what I’m remembering to be thankful for:

1)I got to breastfeed exclusively for 5 months, 6 days. It was a special thing for me and I’m trying to look at how long we did do it instead of what I’m missing now.

2)I’m still pumping enough for him to have 10 oz. of breast milk a day for now.

3)Hubby can now give Logan one of his bottles in the middle of the night = pure bliss!

4)Logan slept from 8pm – 5:20 with only 1 wake up on Wednesday night. Last night he slept from 8pm – 6:15 with 2 wake ups. I prefer the 6:15 wake up, but both are SO wonderful!

5)Peter for listening to me vent about work and breastfeeding or lack there of. He reminds me what really matters.

6)Rain coming to wash the pollen away. It hit me like a ton of bricks after recess today.

7)Wonderful parents and in-laws ! They all listen, don’t judge, give advice when asked, and love us and the little guy unconditionally. And they all still make food for us, 5 months out. Fabulous!

8) My awesome friends who listen to me vent about everything and still humor me. A bestie who must be SO tired of hearing everything baby but still listens, KJ who has put up with all my questions, my facebook mommy friends who give me answers too, and E for letting Logan crash her party weekend!

9)My new friend J at school, for being a new friend. I love new friends. And I love that she brought cake to school today. It was definitely a cake day.

10)The best little boy in the entire world. Here’s all the proof I need that I have SO much to be thankful for:

Bedtime Stories

Daddy gets to help with feedings now!

This outfit is totally for B&MR…he is ready for a baseball game (excuse the color…it is not meant to show allegiance to any particular team, possibly starting a war at your house!). He would not smile for me – I think all the drool was in his way!

So, there’s lots to be thankful for in our little lives – we continue to be so blessed and appreciate everyone’s help and support over the past year. Here’s to tomorrow being a MUCH better day!

Headed Back

Well, we’re headed back to work and daycare tomorrow. We had a great week at home with lots of changes, but a very happy baby! Hope you enjoyed all the blogging. I’m hoping to keep it up!

“Hmmm, what is this?”

“It’s tasty.”

“Hold on, I just have to try a  little more.”

“I’m trying hard mom…I’ll get a bite of it.”

“I’ll just have to settle for licking it. And I’m not sharing!”

5 Months

I figure if we do every monthly photo shoot a week late then they’ll all be fairly evenly spaced apart, right? More like ugh, why can I not remember to dress him in a white onesie so we can put his month sticker on to take pictures? Here’s our little cutie…yes, lots of the pictures look the same, but humor me…that smile is just too precious to choose just a few!

Look at those adorable chunky monkey legs! He’s still our long and lean little boy, but those legs are just so cute!

In sleep news (because I know you are dying to know), last night he woke up 3 times, but they were all super quick except the last one when he did cry a little, but we made it through. Tonight was incredible…he drank his bottle, we put him in his crib at 8:00…and he babbled to himself for a minute, moved around a little…and  fell asleep! As in, we didn’t have to go back in once to console! Um, awesome!

We’ll see what the rest of the night holds. He is drinking bottles like a champ now. We did one bottle of powdered formula today and I don’t think it agreed with his tummy (we’ve been doing the ready to feed stuff) so we’ll have to try something else. He’s still getting lots of breast milk too. I actually haven’t even touched my freezer stash yet, still pumping for now. He’s on about 15 oz. of formula a day plus 20 or so of breast milk.

One more day of spring break tomorrow, then it’s back to the grind! Hope everyone had a great Easter!

Simply Fabulous

In 2 words, that’s how I felt all day today and I think my little family of three would agree with me. Allow me to share the details…

First, I’m sure you are on the edge of your seat wondering how last night went, right? Well, here ya go:

8:38 – down in crib (much later than usual, book advised making sure they were extra tired)

9:00 – Asleep in crib after a few reassurances every few minutes from mom and dad.  Yes, there were some tears, but we did not let him “cry it out.” We soothed, he did get upset, but we never just didn’t come back.

11:30 – Awake and got a bottle since it had been 3 hours since he last ate. Mostly slept while eating, stirred a little when put down but back to sleep. Did not have to heat this bottle because breast milk is good at room temp for 8 – 10 hours, so I used what I had pumped before bed.

2:30 – Awake again and we had to heat a bottle…how the heck do people do it (no microwave heating allowed – good old coffee cup with water. KJ, I shall be asking you for advice on this!)? He was wide awake after having to wait for the bottle so did not go back down easily. There was some crying. He was back asleep at 3:20, then woke a few times until he was finally out again at 3:50.

6:40 – Woke up for the day.

WAY better than  6 times! And I slept in my bed, not his recliner! Fabulous!

Tonight was just too good to be true. We came home, did bath and bedtime routine, bottle, put him in his crib awake…he cried for 1 minute, I went in to soothe, left, he cried for about 30 seconds…we watched him move around a bit on the video monitor, suck on his hands…and he went to sleep. Asleep by 8:00.  And that, was just wonderful.

So right now we’re doing a mix of formula and breast milk, about 2 formula bottles or so a day. And my supply is surprisingly rocking right now. But I have really enjoyed seeing how much he is getting, especially at night. So I plan to just keep pumping and see how it goes. I did actually nurse him this morning, which was nice, but we are going to stick with pumping for now.  I was able to pump enough late this afternoon and tonight that we shouldn’t have to heat any bottles tonight…fingers crossed!

But all of that good stuff wasn’t even the best part of the day! We went to Grandma and Grandpa F’s today for a little Easter dinner and we just had the best time. It was so relaxing, Logan was in a fabulous mood, and we all just really enjoyed each other (not that we don’t always enjoy them, this just seemed extra wonderful for some reason). Here are some a million shots from our fabulous day!

Grandma F bought Logan a pool – a good place to play in  outside even without water!

“Mom, how does that camera follow us wherever we go?”

“Have you seen all my fun new toys?”

 

“Let me pick the one I would like to chew on next.”

“Grandpa I am so glad you have this nice umbrella for some shade.”

“Mommy and grandma took me to the playground. We played on the swings. I loved it!”

“I went down the slide too. I am so big!”

“I’m so spoiled. The sun was in my eyes so grandma strolled me backwards. Mommy has to buy me a hat!”

“I was very tired after all that playing and fell asleep on the walk home. I slept in the shade while mommy, daddy, grandma and grandpa (and great grandma!) talked about how big I am now. Oh, and do you see my cool sandals? Thanks Grandma F!”

It was a simply fabulous afternoon topped off with a delicious dinner. Thanks mom and dad! We can’t wait to have a great day next weekend with Grandma and Grandpa K – how did we get so lucky to have such fabulous grandparents?

Oh, and just in case you’re curious, here’s my new hair:

Yes, it has looked exactly like this before, but not for a while. Love, love, love. The highlights, the cut, everything. I feel like a whole new person, it was so great to get pampered this morning!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Easter (if you managed to make it all the way through this L-O-N-G post)!

My Monkey

My little monkey wore a cute little monkey suit today! We went shopping this week to get him some warm weather clothes, and they are so stinkin’ cute. I just cannot get enough of his chunky little legs!

We had so much fun outside today! We went for a walk this morning and at about the halfway point I noticed he wasn’t babbling to me anymore when I talked to him (yes, I must look like a lunatic going down the path talking to him in his stroller, pointing out every squirrel and dog!). So I looked down at him and he was fast asleep…clearly I am quite entertaining. Then this afternoon I pulled the exersaucer out onto the deck and he played quite happily for a while.

It looks like it rained baby toys in our living room…

Come here Duck Bunny…

We need to have a serious conversation.

Other news…he had bottles of breastmilk and formula all day today and I pumped. I feel a little better about how much he took in. It might have been fine before, but I just have to make sure. I’m not sure where we’re going from here with breastfeeding…we’re on a day to day basis right now. I have enough frozen milk that he could have at least one bottle of breastmilk every day until he gets to 6 months even if I stopped pumping and everything right now (which I can’t do that abruptly because, well, owww!). I will say we went out today and I was like what? I have to take a bottle? I shall be looking for some guidance on bottles/formula from some of you mommies soon!

Sleep last night was terrible. Just as bad as the night before. Up 6 times, spent 2 hours in the recliner (well, at least we didn’t have the 2 hours awake). Tonight I did not nurse him to sleep. We let him get himself to sleep and it took him 22 minutes. We went in there to comfort him at various increasing intervals (only got to 5 min) and he was asleep after 22 minutes. And yes, I was crying. But I know HE is not getting enough sleep for him to grow and thrive. If it was just about me I could suck it up and keep going, that’s been working fine…but HE needs more sleep. We are still going to feed him in the middle of the night if it’s been more than 3 hours, because he is used to eating a lot at night, but we will be gradually giving him less at night, which is one good thing about the bottles, we can see that we are giving him less. When he’s nursing I’m never sure if he’s actually eating or just sucking for comfort.

I just cannot quite get over how much I adore this little boy. He has brought so much to our lives and he just amazes me every day. That smile…so special.

And in completely different news? I’M GETTING MY HAIR DONE TOMORROW!!!! This is so exciting…I have not gotten pampered in a long time and I cannot wait. Getting quite a bit cut off, a picture may grace the blog this weekend. Daddy and Logan get to spend the morning together!

All right, fingers crossed for a good night…and so many hugs to everyone who has offered suggestions and advice during this sleep stuff, especially my sister-in-law who called today to sympathize and had some great advice. Thanks everybody!

Who Needs Sleep?

Oh my, I have a baby that does not know how to sleep at night. What’s interesting is that I can tell you exactly what I think the problem is. I’ve read all the books, I know what we’re doing wrong. He nurses to sleep, and we put him down asleep. It really isn’t intentional – he just falls asleep and is out. But then when he goes through little wake ups at night he can’t get himself back to sleep. He has a serious sucking to sleep association. At least I think that’s what’s wrong.

The other thing that is a possibility is that he is hungry at least some of those times he is waking up.  This would be why I sometimes hate breastfeeding. I have been majorly worried about my supply again recently. Today is was really bad. I pumped at one point and Peter was like uh, that’s all you got? Yep. Not good. So, we decided that we’d give him some formula. And we did. And the world did not end.

So for a little while I once again thought I was going to stop breastfeeding. I went through all of the emotions that I did last time. I just have a hard time handling giving up nursing, I feel like that’s a special thing for us, and I hate to lose it. But, I have to at some point, and whenever I do it it’ll be hard.

But I pumped a little while ago and did pretty well for myself. So the plan right now is to continue pumping and see how things go, and give him the bottle of either formula or breastmilk so we’ll know how much he’s getting.

This is never just easy, is it? I never expected it to be. But he certainly makes it all worth it when he has moments like these:

Yep, he has Batman on. Daddy loves his superheros! And  even when you’ve gotten no sleep and are in the most uncomfortable position ever in the recliner – the little sleepy sighs and cuddling into your neck? That’s what makes being a mommy so wonderful.

So here’s hoping he wakes up less than 6 times tonight, that he isn’t awake for 2 hours in the middle of the night, and that I don’t spend 2 hours sleeping in the recliner with him…because that’s the fun we had last night – all in one night!