A Day with Wifey and O.G.

Mary and I had a nice day with baby O.G. We ended up going to a mall and having lunch. The baby comes with a lot more stuff but definitely way easier to take him around at this age. He slept through most of it except to wake up, smile, and eat :-)

Of course my intention was to shop for myself but I ended up just getting things for the kids. I can't resist baby clothes and Cam needs some new things for the Fall after a major growth spurt. Plus, I was just done after trying on some jeans. I can't complain TOO much since I have lost all but about 5 pounds of the weight I gained during my pregnancy but this pouch that used to be a toned stomach has got to go. I planned on getting back into power yoga but this tailbone thing has me in major pain just after walking.

Anywho, we paid extra for Cameron to do a full day of camp - he normally does a 1/2 day. Since it was his last day, he was thrilled. And I got a running hug as he yelled "mommy!" when I picked him up. Unbelievable! I was so impressed, he got a milk shake.

That concludes my spastic pick ups at gymnastics camp. Did I mention one of the days, when I got home, I realized I had been leaking and had breast milk all over the left side of my shirt...and I was wearing a white t-shirt. That's hot. Oy. I'm sure I'm known as the crazy lesbian mom there.

And on a side note - McCain = SMART. Damn.

Pick Up Time

I resumed my duties of picking up Cameron this week....by default since Mary was teaching a class and had some sort of orientation. The Cam pick up has gone well for the most part. Monday was the best since when I went to sign him out, the boy that works there offered to go get him from the gym. It was the only time I can recall where I wanted to kiss a teenage boy. LOL.

Today as I was begging Cameron to leave and some little punk boy says, "he just wants to go on the trampoline". Umm, he's gone on 8 different things since I've been here, it's time to leave. He's also the one that always wants to touch O.G. Today he decided to press all the buttons on his car seat even when I told him to stop. I don't like other people's kids. Then he grabbed O.G.'s pacifier (a/k/a MY LIFESAVER) by the part that he sucks. Aaaaaaaaaah!!! Then he told me that he has a baby brother. His poor mother. Cam barely acknowledges the baby which is nice.

So gymnastics camp ends tomorrow. I am sad even though I think he's just learned how to be more obnoxious rather than much about gymnastics. Next week is nothing and the following week starts pre-school.

On a side note, I think that Cameron and Owen have gotten together to make sure I'm the most sleep deprived as possible. Owen goes out like a light (usually) when I go to get Cam up until the time that Cam goes in for his nap. On Monday, he was up from about 4 a.m. until about 12 p.m. So I thought he would sleep during some of Cam's nap (which starts at about 1). Nope, literally, as soon as I put Cam down - Owen was up. It is evil.

In other news, Mary is taking the day off tomorrow. Can you believe it? I can't. I wonder if there's a way for me to shut the computer down so she really can't work :-)

My Baby is Getting Huge ;-)

Yesterday, Mr. Owen George had his 1 month check up (a little bit late since we switched his and Cameron's physical apptmt). I definitely thought O.G. had gained a decent amount of weight but I didn't think he was 10 pounds, 8 ounces! Yikes. This was quite a bit considering he was born at 7, 10.5 and was down to 7 pounds at one point (it's pretty common for babies to lose weight in their first few days especially when breast fed). He's also 23 inches now which means he grew 2.5 inches from birth. I want him to stay little!

He seems to change every day. The bonus of him getting bigger is that he's starting to do the cutest things. He smiles a lot more especially in the mornings when he's the most happy. I think he's excited he can be awake without me trying to get him to sleep. He's also starting to coo a bit which is way too cute. It also looks like his eyes are going to be green :-) Of course, their also changing every day. I've heard you can't tell the actual (or final) eye color until 6 months and recently read it can even be a year. But my fingers are crossed for green like me :-)

We also got our announcements in last week - here's the crappy scanned version.

Oh Randomness

When you have a baby, time flies. I always plan on doing so much during the day and then boom, the day is over and I've done little to nothing. Now I can relate to everyone's blog's fading out once they give birth.

Anywho, it was a pretty random week and I'll spare you most of the details...though mostly because I don't remember them. Can I remember anything other than feeding times???

Yesterday we went into the city for brunch and to walk around. Though brunch was more like breakfast since we went in early to avoid the actual Sunday brunch crowds. Magically, Owen stayed sleeping while I ate *a rarity*. Of course, we have to visit the ducks. Cameron's had a cold so he freaked out when we thought he kept saying he has to see "the dots". It took Mary and I about 10 minutes to figure out it was the ducks which we were heading to anyways.

Then he had a bit of a flip out because I told him not to yell. Luckily, he settled down where we were able to go to the Prudential shops and hang out at the pretty courtyard.



I also learned that my key to success is the blended lemonade from Starbucks. Cameron's in that stage where he NEVER shuts up. I thought it might be less annoying when he actually started calling us "mom" and "mommy" since he never stops repeating our names but it's still annoying. Anywho, the blended lemonade gave me some good 5 minute spurts of golden silence :-) Plus, he wasn't mad that he didn't get a drink from Starbucks.

In diapering news, O.G. has finally sported his gdiapers. He has been much to small to wear them up until now. I still have to get used to using them because I'm always fumbling with the liners. It's also a process since my son seems to like to pee in one diaper and then immediately poo in another diaper. He also likes to poo and pee on his mommy so you must be quick with changing. I will say the diapers are super cute but maybe it's just the baby in them ;-)

No Sleep but at least there's a Smiley Baby

At least after he only allows me to sleep about 3 hours, he's super cute in the mornings. Some how he's well rested and smiley :-)



pardon the quality - cell phone pic

Whiney Wednesday

I'm having one of those weeks where nothing seems to go right. For example, every time I go to blog, my Internet shuts down or my computer crashes. Anywho...

My saving grace came this week when Cameron started gymnastics camp. It's only 3 hours/day but it's glorious. I can have time to enjoy the baby and Camer can get some of his energy out and interact with other kids. It does come with a down side as he's never willing to leave somewhere fun. He had an all out screaming fit when I picked him up on Monday which was reminiscence to his former pre-school days.
It was never fun not to mention quite embarassing but now that I have Owen in tow it's not exactly easy dragging screaming and crying Cameron out while carrying Owen in his car seat. Lovely. So for the past 2 days, I've picked Mary up on my way so she can go in and get him. This is absolutely ridiculous but hopefully she's setting some ground so I can resume getting him next week.

He still seems to have plenty of energy when he gets home but at least I'm not feeling bad about not playing with him enough. So with Cameron out for a few hours, I'm trying to get into some sort of groove of balancing housework and the baby. We flaked on getting a monitor which makes this even more difficult. When O.G. actually falls asleep and I can do some things, I have to carry him to each room in his car seat.

As for his car seat, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to do this but I don't think this blog is big enough for me to get sued by Chicco or something. Anywho, anyone in the market for a car seat, don't get the Chicco. We go the car seat/stroller combo and I LOVE the stroller. It's great. The car seat on the otherhand, in a nutshell, sucks! It's big and it's heavy. It's so big someone can barely sit in the seat in front of it. I did it on Saturday with my knees in the dashboard. I want to weigh it because I know it's seriously heavy which makes me worry when Owen actually gains a few pounds.

We also seem to be going down hill in the sleep department. It seems O.G. wants to eat and eat and eat which makes for difficult sleep. As I guess is normal for most infants, we go through a vicious cycle of eating. He gets fussy because he's hungry. I feed him with either the simplicity of a bottle or the difficulty of the breast. Then he's satisfied but his belly hurts. Once he clears up the belly issues, he's hungry again. It's evil. Needless to say, we were doing great with his sleeping but now that he wants to eat every 2 hours - even at night.

Mary was angry that I suggested that she sleep in the guest room last night. Yes, I still want to sleep with my wife but at least one of us needs to actually sleep. She also gets very angry about being woken up in the night even if she's not the one that has to do the work. So, last night, I get an angry Mary saying, "couldn't you have done that before we went to bed?!?" Well, I just randomly decided to feed and change the baby at 1 a.m. Ummm, hello, I'm not awake every few hours by choice. At least she realized that she was irrational and apologized in the morning and has agreed to sleep in the guest room for at least a little bit.

Staycation

Pardon the no blogging but I’ve been on “Staycation”. Since we have a new baby, instead of taking an actual vacation – we took a staycation. And what does that mean? We soaked in all the great things to do in the beautiful Boston area without the hassle of long drives, costly hotels, and luggage for 4.

We did local activities from Wed – Sat...Boston Commons, Aquarium, and Fanuel Hall. Baby O.G. was a joy the entire time even at his first sit down restaurant. Of course, I was a little bit stressed about bringing him to so many public places when he’s so young but otherwise it was enjoyable.


O.G. in his little penguin at The Aquarium


Cameron at the frog pond - we should buy stock in sun block


O.G.'s first restaurant (And on a side note, I thought I'd be thrilled to have cleavage but not so much...maybe because I thought if I ever had cleavage, it would be saline and not milk - ha!)

We also made a trip to IKEA which is my new favorite store. IKEA is total chaos but why is it my new favorite store? Because you can leave your kid at an awesome play area and go shopping. It’s great. Of course, security may need to be called when your kid won’t leave the awesome play area but it’s still the best thing EVER – good for the kid and good for the mommies :-) As for baby, he slept in the sling the entire time.

Since we were in the South Shore, we decided to pay a visit to my dad (a/k/a “Papa Bill”) who recently moved back to my home town. It was totally random and we brought Cameron to the local playground. I can’t believe I grew up in that town. A little team called the New England Patriots does play there but otherwise there is absolutely nothing.

Pre-School from Hell

Yesterday I brought Cameron to a "play date". Some moms and kids from his pre-school were going to be at a local park. Since Cameron is very shy, I thought it would be nice for him to meet some of his classmates before school starts. He's also been in desperate need of kids to play with. However, it was quite awkward. First, it was hard to find who was actually from his pre-school and there were some kids that had gone to the school but were now going on to kindergarten. It was a bit confusing and weird to say the lest. Cameron also kicked what I think was one of his future classmates. Yay.

We're also already overwhelmed with the pre-school and it hasn't even started. It's a co-op which we weren't really into but beggars can't be choosers - basically, it was the only place that seemed kosher to a 2 mom family and had availability. So with the co-op, one of us has to work there twice/month. Basically, we act as the second teacher on those days. Also, on those days we have to send in snack for all the kids.

So whatever, we justified this as it being nice to be involved with Cameron's school. Afterall, though we weren't obligated, we liked getting involved with his previous school.

Then we signed up and were sent a packet with a list of jobs. Jobs you say? Oh yes, apparently I am secretary and have to take notes at the MONTHLY board meetings and send them out to everyone. Then we got notification that we have to participate in the school clean up the weekend before school begins. If this wasn't enough, they also notified us that we'd have to solely clean the school on certain weekends (apparently, this alternates between all the families). Since Mary has agreed to do the teaching duties (since I have the baby at home), she thinks I should be the cleaner. Umm, I already have to keep our rather large house clean so I'm not super into sacrficing weekends to clean my kid's school.

If this all wasn't enough, they like to take "field trips" once/month and want parents to be available to drive groups of children to them. I just hope that the school is not going to be as much work as it seems.

Solo

The weekend was pretty lame. We spent most of it cleaning and organizing. On Sunday morning, I took Cameron to a playground. Note to self: when you have tailbone issues, don't attempt to go down a large plastic slide...even if your kid think it's quite funny. Second note to self: don't do it again even when your kid says, "do it again!". *ouch* We did have plans to ALL leave the house on Sunday afternoon but the rain cancelled that out. It is rainy so much lately and randomly. Anywho, I wasn't too bummed since I'm not super into taking O.G. to public places (since he's so young and without much of an immune system).

Today was my first day flying solo. Mary decided to let Cameron have an entire donut before leaving. Aside from health reasons, we limit sugar since he has quite enough energy on his own. So he was pretty much bouncing off the walls. He also managed to spill his full cup of milk at lunch. Speaking of lunch, I think I'm going to start making it the night before. Making his lunch while balancing the baby was not an easy task and I guess it will give me practice since I'll have to do that when he starts pre-school.

With all my focus on managing both kids, I forgot about the Chloe factor. As if Cameron and O.G. weren't enough, throw in a bit of a comic element of me letting Chloe out - her running to bark at people walking by and then me chasing BoBo who escapes from the house. (All the cats are indoor) So it was a spastic day to say the least but I did manage to at least start some laundry though after cleaning all weekend, the house already looks like a bomb blew up.

On a positive note, thank goodness Cameron takes a nap and for the baby sling though of course he managed to pee all over it. What's with babies pee'ing *and poo'ing* outside the diaper?

Pain and Exhaustion

My recovery continues. My lower back/tailbone has still been causing me quite a bit of pain so I mentioned it when I went in this week for a 2 week follow up. So along with two 3rd degree tears, apparently the baby also bruised my tailbone. Mary told me that her mom had bruised her tailbone and that it took her a year to recover. The midwife said it should be about 4-6 months. Yay. I definitely didn't expect this pain level so many weeks later...and now to hear that it will continue for months is disheartening to say the least.

In other events, Mary is home and Nana Patty (a/k/a my mom) is home in Ohio. She was flying out early this morning from Providence, RI. The flights were ridiculously cheaper out of Providence (compared to Boston) so that's why she flew out of there. I had the privilege of waking up at 3:30 this morning to drive her there. Of course, I didn't mind doing this since she's provided a lot of help over the past month but I am totally exhausted. I thought I would get to sleep when I got home since I planned on Mary taking over Owen's feedings. Then I realized we were out of formula so Mary could not feed the baby. Just another saga in breastfeeding. Obviously, if he was exclusively formula fed, we wouldn't run out without me realizing it.

Anywho, I'm definitely bummed that my mom has gone home but I think we'll be able to get into some sort of routine here or at least be able to organize things better. I have my fingers crossed that this happens sooner than later.

O.G. meets the Fam

We made a trip to my aunt's house so O.G. could meet the fam. We haven't ventured out many places so it was a bit overwhelming. It was also my first real sleepless night. He seemed to have a belly ache most of the night so even when he was sleeping, he kept moaning. I debated cancelling with my aunt but we made plans to go there in the morning and many people were going to be there. Luckily, O.G. was a joy of a baby and awake almost the entire time. I figured after not sleeping much or well the night before, he'd make a liar out of me since I'm always raving about how alert and good he is.

Big brother Cameron was also very good. Aside from his usual of not wanting to go in the house and then not wanting to leave (this is typical Cameron fashion), he just played with my younger cousin most of the time. Though of course everyone had baby gifts but only one person remembered a "big brother" gift so I made sure Cameron was in the play room when I opened the gifts. You definitely have to walk a fine line with the older sibling as to not create jealousy or bitterness.

Anywho, there was also the interesting thing of having a new baby and then going to a family gathering. You pretty much forfit your rights to your baby and watch him get handed around...even to children. It was kind of scary and luckily my 12 year old cousin is remarkably good at holding a baby since I thought I was going to freak out as my aunt handed O.G. to him. Of course, some how every time the baby needed his diaper changed, he was given to me. Go figure!

In other news, wifey is coming home early. Instead of Friday night, she'll be home tomorrow night. Yay! I don't like when she leaves on business regardless never mind when we just had our first bambino.

Latch Without a Flash

Cameron is still napping and Baby OG is with his Nana. It's quiet and there's a breeze. :-)

Anywho, this was going to be a boob post. Breastfeeding is going well for the most part. Though I have started to supplement with formula on a regular basis because I just wasn't meeting Owen's demands and I just can't deal with a hungry baby or one that is attached to my nipple 24/7.

I have also been pumping quite a bit. As much as I dislike the pump because it's way more painful than a direct feeding, it's given other people the opportunity to feed him and I can know the actual quantity that he's getting. I also don't do public breast feedings so it's been nice to make a bottle of boob milk. I know, it's breast feeding and not a dirty thing but I just can't be incognito about getting him on the boob. Yes, once he's on, you can barely tell I'm feeding him but getting him to latch without a flash - it's just not going to happen.

It also seems that my right boob works a lot better. What's up with that? It's clearly bigger and when I pump, I get way more quantity than the left. Is this normal? Very strange.

I must say the one thing about breastfeeding that I dislike the most is - I WANT MY BODY BACK. I love my baby but he was living inside me for 41 weeks. There was also more 2 week waits than I want to remember where I had to live as if I was pregnant. Well, girl just wants some spicy Mexican food and a Margarita. I also planned on living on Red Bull once I delivered. LOL. Mary thinks I'll discontinue the BF'ing until OG gets a tooth. I think at that point I'll just pump and bottle feed more. We'll see...I can't believe I'm analyzing my boobage.

To the Zoo

Mary was home for less than 48 hours and is now back up in Maine :-\ She won't be home until Friday night. It definitely sucks to have wifey away on business when OG is only 2 weeks old. I just hope the weather holds up since she's supposed to be out on boats all week.

The weekend was pretty good though I feel I'm overwhelmed in general. We did venture out to the zoo on Saturday. This was pretty much Owen's first outing and he did good. Mary did have a little reality check of us not being able to leave the house 20 minutes after I wake up. Umm, there's a lot that needs to be done to take baby out. He pretty much slept through the entire thing accept for waking up to eat. Pretty much if you keep the boy fed and changed, he's content.



Baby stuff is easy but doing baby stuff and Cameron stuff simultaneously - not so easy. Cameron has just been chaos which I keep having to remind myself is typical 3 year old boy behavior. But it's just way more relevant now that there's a quiet little baby in the house. On a positive note, Camer doesn't seem jealous of the baby nor is he really phased by him. He does usually refer to him as "that baby" which I'd like to change but I'm just happy that he doesn't seem jealous.

Luckily, OG continues to be an easy going baby and is still sleeping good. Though we've had a few nights where he wakes up every 3 hours, he usually sleeps about 5-6 hours straight. Sometimes I will wake him up after 4 hours to feed. One since I worry about him getting enough food and two because I'd rather wake him up than him wake me up. I'm definitely jolted into a panic when he wakes me up crying so luckily we haven't had too many of those.