Friday, May 22, 2009

Ok, 1 more photo


My friend Kat touched up one of Jack's photo. Didn't she do an amazing job?!

The top 10 things no one ever tells you about breastfeeding

10. Breastfeeding is the most unnatural natural thing in the world. Baby has a mouth that fits a nipple and you have a nipple. Seems like it should go together right? Not so

9. You can do EVERYTHING right and it can still hurt like a son of a bitch at times

8. There are more books, products, and services catering to your boobs that you would ever know

7. You start to feel like a cow after about 4 days. Your child looks at you as a meal and is constantly touching your boobs, other people's boobs, etc

6. Your boobs lose all sexuality. You really don't care who sees them. It's like someone wanting to look at your pizza; it's all utility

5. The first time you spray your kid in the face, it startles them but makes you laugh your ass off

4. You can spend your whole adult life whining about your small little B cups. Then you get D's, and miss your cute little boobs

3. You have to think "how can I stick a kid's head in there discreetly" while shopping for shirts

2. It is possible to pump blood. And yes, it's as creepy as you would think

1. The first time your kid falls asleep on your boob and smiles with the nipple still in their mouth, all of the above becomes worth it

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

A whole lot of attention whoring

Last night Jack's Auntie Erica came over with her super fancy camera and had a photo shoot with Sir Jack! She took a ton of photos, and it was so fun! These are a few (and by few I mean 17...) of my favorites. I love them all, but the one where Jack looks like Harry Potter in the Mickey hat makes me crack up whenever I look at it.



Sorry about the layout...I don't know what happened.










































Monday, May 18, 2009

Another video - my son the sucker fish

Jack fell asleep in his bouncy chair (first time ever!) on the kitchen table tonight while Troy and I enjoyed dinner. He was facing me and I was cracking up really hard watching him enjoy his binkie. Sorry the video is so shaky; I was laughing too hard to have it be steady!




Thursday, May 14, 2009

Photos and a video of Jack!

Here are a few photos of Mr. Poopy Pants
Here is the best photo we've gotten of his smile. He smiles like this for about 15 minutes while playing on his toy/exercise mat. The reason for the smile? There is a mirror directly above him. So, he basically spends 15 minutes smiling at himself. Vain little baby!

How Troy calms Jack down:How Mr. Jack Barry relaxes at the end of the day. Bath and a bottle of bubbly!

And here is a video (sorry for the sideways shot AND for my singing voice) of Jack doing the "Maniac" dance from Flashdance.

Cloth diapering and baby wearing 101

If anyone is interested (because they're thinking about doing it in the future), here is a quick run down on my cloth diapering and baby wearing experiments with Sir Pukey Pants.

Cloth Diapers
Overall, going really really well. I would say it adds a total of 10-15 min of extra work to my day. That includes laundry and folding/stuffing, etc. For those of you who are skeezed out about touching pee/poop, etc, I can tell you that I've rarely had to touch any pee or poop, and as a mom you're going to get pissed and $hit on anyway.

Prefolds (the flat square diapers you picture when you think of cloth diapers): I bought mine from Green Mountain Diapers. The diapers were great, but I don't think that they're for us. They were pretty easy to learn to fold (thank you YouTube!), but Jack is so squirmy that I always had a hard time getting them on him tightly enough. I was able to sell them for the same price that I paid for them because they're such great diapers!

Kissaluvs size 0 - these are fantastic! They have a newborn cord cutout and we never have a blowout in them. We pair them with Thirsties covers size xs. Troy loves these and always reaches for them when he's doing diaper changes...which is most of the time!

BumGenius3.0 - we like these just fine. They tend to fit better once the kiddo is 12 lbs, so Jack has about 8 oz to go. I'll see how they are once they truly fit him. They're a great night time diaper since you can put extra inserts in to make them more absorbent.

Baby wearing
I love baby wearing because it almost always calms Jack down when nothing else is working. It also allows me to have 2 hands and get stuff done around the house.

Moby wrap - love this! However, I can see how quickly this can become obsolete once the kiddo gets too heavy. Because it's a stretchy fabric, Jack will slide down a bit as we walk around. He also HATES HATES HATES having his head covered with the panels which are supposed to support the newborn's head. He has good head control so I can still wear him ok. He also screams bloody murder when I'm putting him in it, but calms down within a few minutes of being "worn". I would recommend a gauze or woven wrap from the get go over the Moby wrap because you can use it longer/with heavier kids. I love the Etsy seller LoveyDuds for wraps

Sling - just started using it last night despite having it for weeks. Jack would straight up lose his $hit whenever I tried to put him in it before. I was trying to put him in the "cradle hold" in the sling, and switched to the "tummy to tummy" hold last night and he loved it! The sling is nice because it doesn't require wrapping. When I wear Jack around the store in the Moby, I have to tie it at home and wear it in the car so that I don't drag the fabric in the parking lot.

Ergo - Super pink puffy heart it! We borrowed the newborn insert from a friend and this has been awesome. The Ergo is more expensive than many soft structured carriers, but distributes the weight very comfortably for both mom, dad, and baby. Can be worn from newborn (with insert) to (I think) up to about 45 lbs.

Hope some of this might be helpful!

Little dude is a sleeping machine!

So, yesterday I decided my goal was to force Jack to nap. Sir J takes after me and usually avoids naps like the plague unless someone is holding and snuggling him.

He took a one hour nap in the morning, and a TWO hour nap in the afternoon! It was so great for him to nap because it allowed me to get stuff done around the house and have some personal time.

I don't know if it was the naps, or if he was just tired, but little man went peacefully to sleep at 8 pm last night and slept 5.5 hrs in one stretch (3rd night in a row!). It was lovely.

Wish me luck with forcing another set of naps today!

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

The best part of my morning

Is NOT Folgers in my cup. It's when Jack wakes up, I take him out of his bassinet and remove his swaddle. His arms shoot out in this "I win" stance and he spends the next 3 minutes stretching and being so freaking cute.

We then head to the changing table where he spends a few minutes smiling about being naked, and letting us kiss his tummy. Sir Jack is then served breakfast in bed. Hopefully at that point he's still very snuggly and then acts like the only thing in the whole world he wants is to snooze on my chest. Now that is a good way to start your day folks.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

A whole new baby!

Well, it appears the Prilosec seems to be working pretty well. As of Thursday, Jack seems to be a whole new baby! He still spits up...a TON, but the milk is no longer curdled and I would say his fussiness has been cut at least in half. Hurray!

He's also growing really well, and has gained 3 lbs and 1 oz since he was born. My fatty fat fat baby is very healthy and according to our pediatrician, "well endowed" (insert Troy's thumbs up here). We're also getting lots of smiles which makes all the crying and fussing worth it!

In sleeping news, he's getting better (crap, as I typed this he started crying on the monitor). It's probably a product of him just being a little older, and the medicine helping him out. We've been able to get him to sleep before 10 the last 2 days, and the little chunk has slept 5 hrs in a row both nights! Thank you all for your suggestions in the last post.

My first mother's day was great. We had breakfast with Troy's parents in the morning, and a late lunch with my parents in the afternoon. Troy and Jack got me a very sweet card and a lovely fuchsia hanging basket. And Monday evening they made me breakfast for dinner.

In butt news, cloth diapering is still going really well. Jack's favorite game is to poo in a brand new diaper right as we're putting it on him, but he's so darn cute it is hard to be mad at him.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks

This is going to be one of those kinds of posts...random! Shall we begin?
First, congrats to 3 of my friends for their new pregnancies! Elisa (nope, not my CA friend), Shannon, and Hanna! I'm so happy for all of you and can't wait to meet your little munchkins. You're going to be fantastic moms and I'm so proud of all of you.
Second, if anyone has seen my ass, please tell it to return to it's previous location. Breastfeeding has helped me lose all the baby weight, but it also stole my ass. Thanks Jack.
Third, if anyone has any tips for getting a squirrely 5 week old baby to sleep, please let me know. It takes us 2-5 hours every night to finally get this kiddo to sleep. We've tried the whole routine (bath, boob, rocking, etc), we've tried the noise machine, we've tried the massage, we've tried to sleepy but awake, etc, etc. I'm thinking his natural bedtime isn't until about 10:30 pm because that is usually when he finally passes out most nights. He doesn't seem to have his days and nights confused, because when we finally get him down for the night he sleeps for a really good chunk of time (6.5 hrs in a row on Monday night!). If you have any tips, please leave them in the comments section.
Fourth, photos! Johnny Depp has said that kids remind him of little drunks. Here is a photo of my little drunk in his bassinet, complete with small pile of spit up next to him.

A hilarious forward someone sent me:

A photo of Jack passed the F out in his Moby wrap. I think he hates it...what do you think?:

And finally, Jack's version of "tummy time". I think he's doing it wrong. And yes, I'm wearing a shirt. Why does it look like he has a unibrow in this photo?