Bad Blogging + Promised Update

There's no excuse for bad blogging - it's really self-imposed pressure to create something worth reading that prevents me from blogging more often.  My own answer to that: "Lame, Mary. Lame."

And so, I'm going to TRY to make sure that I don't miss these massive milestones that fleet through our daily lives. Especially as I reiterate to myself how quickly it all goes by. 

Baby #2 update: we do not have a name picked out for our 2nd daughter.  No, we are not simply "not telling people", "keeping it a surprise" or any other version.  I thought we (read: I) was sold on a name that suddenly was bounced after reading Elizabeth a story about a Saint from Peru and she liked the picture.  Lots of high level reasoning on this one, huh? 

We're pretty boring in general these days.  I've taken to trying to rest as much as I can, but I may have jinxed my own luck, after merrily responding to questions about sleep and comfort with, "I'm very blessed; I've been sleeping great!" Until 2 nights ago when I stopped sleeping well. Another great example as to why mother's have a short memory.

Elizabeth is still biting the heads and faces of the baby dolls that we work to lovingly introduce; but when her sweet 2 month-old cousin, Brandon, visited yesterday, she was all eyes and seemed to recognize the difference between plastic and skin. Thank Goodness!  Molly did find her curled up inside of Brandon's carseat, yanking on his toys and clamoring for his bottle and pacifier.  But...when he made any sad sounds, she perked up and looked equally distraught on his behalf. Very sweet to see her concern.  He's such a great baby; I was thrilled they made the trip and helped get E used to babies.

Thanks again for all of the well wishes!!! We are so fortunate to have loving family and friends helping at all corners.

xoxo
The Slaugs

Quick trip to Whole Foods & Some Hats

We couldn't help ourselves!

What is this obsession with ice?!?!

We just solved this mystery...

Whenever Ellie is allowed to drink from an adult glass, which she does rather adeptively, she has started to stick her hand down into the liquid to grab or search for ice. It's a game to her, and she loves it. We don't.
Well, as I sat asking myself why she insists on clamoring for the ice chunks, I haphazardly popped one into my own mouth. C'Mon, Mom! She has been imitating me. I haven't even been adding liquid to my glasses, just crushed ice. I chew it (yes, I know it's bad for teeth...but it has helped me to stay hydrated and really quells nauses.

Lesson: look to yourself first, Moms, when you can't figure out a wacky behavior.

Sleeping Days

I became nostalgic when I came across this picture recently...it's of my beautiful sleeping baby...intense nostalgia because she has stopped napping all together.  It's not a new game and it's certainly not funny!  She snagged a cold, popped a tooth, became pacifier-less and has decided to strike this awfulness with a no-nap-sit-in.

We ditched the pacifiers since it's impossible for these bimbas to breathe through their noses with a cold, and the pacifiers keep them from being able to sleep well - since they're so accustomed to it.  We're on day 8 right now...she doesn't seem to mind missing them as much as the general jackhammering it's done to her schedule.

Dave thinks she looks big in this shot...probably just the angle.  :)

Don't tell her, but she's got a good chance of winning this fight!

The Best Part of Weekend Mornings...

...is that at least there's homemade lattes! Thanks to the mukka bialetti from our wedding...we enjoy a hot cup during Sunday Morning and the Philly Inquirer...mmm...

Here Dave takes a sip of a fresh cappuccino!

Favorite kitchen activity

It's nearly impossible to stop her from pulling all of the seasoning packets out of 'her drawer' several times per day. 

He ran off and left me...

Teaser - some people know this story, but it's a wacky new mom one.

I just retold it to my S-in-Law, Molly as to why new moms shouldn't be left alone for a few weeks. And why no one prepares us enough for our brains melt.

...I can't post more than once a day - plus, I have real Ellie updates that need to be shared, and another post sans photos is pretty boring. :)

Preparing for 2

We hit the last trimester today, in doing so, I am reflecting on how unprepared I felt when we brought Elizabeth home. Not physically or with tangible things, but with the "4th trimester".  Sleep deprivation, managing it all, feeding, clothing and cleaning myself, let alone another human being made for some tears, overwhelming and pure exhaustion. 

I thought it would never get easier, but here I am, relaxing over a hot cup of coffee, having given myself a pedi, finished 2 loads, put away groceries, ordered Christmas cards, researched photo stuff that I needed to find an alternate print lab, cleaned out the fridge, put up some Christmas decorations, cut the hair and strings off the underside of the vacuum spinner, eaten & showered (huge bonus!) and enjoyed a quiet moment as E sleeps. It did get easier - much to my own amazement. :)

So...with 2. I'm taking the survival approach. Whatever we need to do to survive. I hope my dear husband can live off crummy food, wrinkled (hopefully clean) clothes and a narcoleptic wife for a few months.  I really can't imagine having 2 kids to do everything twice though. I look around and see other people everywhere doing it (somehow).  I guess the lesson to print out for my wall and paste on every flat surface in my house is: "It does get easier...whether you believe it or not!"

Why I'm a bad blogger...

Around the 5 month mark, Elizabeth was playing while I was typing, likely blogging on the floor of our dining room. I pulled her onto my lap and she hurled onto the keyboard of the laptop.  I quickly threw her off my lap (ok, well not threw, but you can imagine) turned it upside down and blotted like there was no tomorrow. It seemed to salvage all of the keys, but I didn't dare turn it on or use it for fear of squishing regurgitated breastmilk further into some electrical board. 

Later that night, or the next day, I forget, we discovered that the "o" doesn't work.  We tried everything to no avail.  Dave developed his own shortcut by copying and pasting each time you need to type an "o"...I took it to Best Buy's Geek Squad and they offered the sweet estimate of $135 to send it out and then they would call to give me the price to fix it..."if they can". Nice, huh? So, since I make a habit of throwing $100 bills down the drain, we figured we'd save the dough and just keep doing the copy and paste for each "o". 

Thankfully, we have an iMac for photography work, but when I'm on it in the office, I feel like I'm slacking on post processing stuff, so I don't play on that computer, just this beat-up-freakizoid laptop that can't spell "Mom".

Excuses excuses. My New Years Resolution is to be better at marking the milestones and the daily life of my expanding family.

Lesson here: don't let your kid near your computer. Duh, Mom.

Baby Girl Update

Well, one of our biggest struggles recently was a nasty cold...she was pretty cheery through it all.  I finally caved after she wasn't able to breathe through either her nose and mouth enough to eat or drink.  I wasn't able to get any liquids into her, so I knew it was time.  Poor sweet child, she suffered really badly through this cold.  And it went on for 2 WEEKS!  She cleared up her nose on the 13th day, and we finished off the antibiotic for her bad ear infection that was starting to blister.  BAD MoM! I kept thinking she was teething or something!

I guess it pays to keep your Mommy intuition in check. :)

Mommy tip: don't stress about your kid feeling dependent on a pacifier - anytime they have a bad cold, you can help them kick the habit.  Logic here: they can't breathe through their nose, so they need to sleep using their mouths to breathe - thus, they can't breathe and suck on the pacifier.  They choose breathing. :)

Happy Halloween!



How cute that they match?!



Overdue

Wow - sorry for the overdue posting here - I'm going to have to make it short, since Ellie's on her way up from a nap. 

I realized it's been almost a month since I last posted!  Crazy. Quick synopsis of the big things that have come and gone:

• Trip to Germany and Austria (basically the reason I went missing on the blog for a month). Lots of funny stories from this trip that deserve their own post.
• Baby play dates that get so much better each week!  Because the 'play' date actually involves 'playing.'
• Dave has been shooting a LOT. So there's lots of post production that I need to get on - thus, my time normally spent blogging went toward my 'other job'. Which I enjoy just as much, albeit keeping me away from my fun social avenues. :(
• Switching rooms around in the house so that Ellie now has almost an entire room to be safe and play in.  I'm sure the commitment to the kid is much to Annie's chagrin, but it's nice that I can be in the kitchen and keep an eye on her destruction.
• David has been super Dad.  He took on watching Ellie all day yesterday from awakening to nearly  sleeping - he was exhausted when I got home and said, "I don't know how you do it every day." (HUGE GRIN HERE)
• She's started sleeping through the night!
• Nana visited and saved Mama on a few occasions.
• Oh yea, and we're pregnant!

All of these items deserve their own post, so I'll have to get on that!

Glad to be back!

xoxo

Sleep Regressions and Transgressions

I was talking to a friend of mine who's 10th child is 14-months-old now.  She described herself as a perpetual optimist with her example being, "What, teething keeps them up at night? I don't remember." She's so lovely that we laughed it up.  I declared my sister, Annie, to be in the same memory loss camp. 

About 2-3 weeks ago, Elizabeth had roseola.  I didn't know it at the time.  I excused the initial high fever as teething.  Finally Heather diagnosed her and we confirmed it with the pediatrician later that day.  Incredibly high fever (average of 104.9 degrees); fever breaks and a rash appears to spread all over her tiny body.  My niece had the same thing, around 8 months, and Annie said, "Oh yea, I should've realized that it was roseola." Humph.

With the high fever, I was terrified that I was going to not watch her carefully enough, so I rationalized pulling her into bed with us.  Bad move in hindsight.  I should have just stayed in her bedroom and slept on the floor.  But when they're sick, you put everything on hold and it doesn't matter. You do whatever you need to do to survive.   Well, she got better health-wise, but lost her better sleep habits winding up with me doing whatever we all could to get some sleep and respite. 

You have to undo what you do to get through it all.  And so there were some tough nights there - we called in back up, Nana Slaugenhoup, to the rescue.  And she gave me some much needed rest.  She was wonderful - nearly throwing me out of the house.  I got a haircut and joined a gym.  I felt bright eyed once she was ready to leave.  Sad to see her go, and Ellie misses her for sure! 

Today. I found out how strong I am.

Disclaimer: this post is not for the weak of stomach and should not be read within an hour of eating.
We were supposed to go to Connecticut to visit Annie's house. My Mom, Dad, Ellie and I were scheduled to make the trip today; but after a miserable weekend of teething and sleep deprivation, I had to make the decision to stay home.

Now what made this a particularly hard decision to make was that I've been struggling with feeling like a shut in recently. Elizabeth, as we just had diagnosed (thanks Heather!), had roseola. The fever was insane, but she's on the mend with the fever gone. Just the rash, which isn't contagious. Oh, and a fantastic bout of teething. All of this has turned our usually amulet sweet angel into a terribly cranky, achy, child at times wailing in searing pain. Yup, it's been a fun weekend. :) poor girl. So with having cancelled so many of our outings last week and putting just about everything on hold to comfort our baby, yes, I began to feel depressed. Because frankly, it was depressing! Who wants to feel sick! Shout out to Heather who felt the same way with Pippa's cold last week.

Alright, so back to the strength finding.

No Connecticut, but yes to a Wegman's trip in Mount Laurel. Also, we have had pictures at the adjacent Costco for almost 4 months. (I figured I should pick them up.) with an itemized shopping list, good spirits and sleepy baby, we headed out after our first nap.

About midway down 295, Ellie started smiling at me and being playful. I told her how much I love having my happy daughter back and singing to her in the rear view mirror.

I got a faint whiff of a number 2, so was thankful I'd added baby wipes to our shopping list. After pulling into a clutch parking spot, I was greeted with a huge grin and laughs as I opened the rear door. Ellie was returning to her giddy self, finally! Her face was covered in chunky orange goo. I thought, oh, poor baby! She threw up! And I quickly recounted what I'd fed her for breakfast. Oatmeal and applesauce. Hmmm... Not orange colored. Dreadfully, I looked down her body and discovered, to my horror, some of that same chunky orange goo peering out of her pink cloth diaper.

Oh. No.

It's poop. There's poop on her legs. There's poop on her arms, hands, feet, neck, mouth, eyebrows, eyelashes, up her nostrils, inside the ears, hair, sippy cup, pacifier. The carseat.

So rallying my senses and reminding myself to avoid breathing deeply, I grabbed the carseat, the diaper bag and my purse. The brisk walk to grab a shopping cart offered a lovely dripping from the carseat onto my right foot. Awesome.

A beeline down the baby aisle and snagging a box of diaper wipes, we were off to the restroom. We'd pay for them after. As we opened the bathroom door, I caught a glimpse of a woman in her Mid-eighties teetering toward the only handicapped stall, of course housing the changing table we were after. Most older women are so cheerful; sadly, this woman was as unhappy as she could be. She turned around to ask why I was allowed to bring my cart into the bathroom. She said her husband was waiting outside and they got into a fight because he wouldn't come into the restroom too. Then she asked me how old my baby boy was. (I mentioned she was in a pink diaper, right?) Ellie must've thought it was a ridiculous question because she showed her displeasure by (truly) vomiting on me. The older woman said, "oh, she just threw up on you." Ellie thought that assessment was equally dumb and vomited again. Now, with vomit running down the inside of my shirt, my arm, hands, and a baby smeared with poop, we watch the woman continue the inch by inch, foot, then cane, then other foot, then cane again move into the stall. I gave up, (judge all you want) and decided the sink was going to have to do.

Tearing open the box of wipes, I started with her face and hands, then tackled her body, then opened the diaper. The irony, the diaper didn't capture much of the poop, it was almost empty. Ha!

Finally cleaned up, the woman finally comes out of the bathroom stall, just as I'm dousing Ellie from head to toe in antibacterial lotion. (side note: it made me laugh when the same older woman walked out without washing her hands, but there couldn't have been anything dirtier than what we put into the trash can. Ha!). I scrubbed the carseat, bagging the clothes, diaper, pacifier and sippy cup. I wedged the carseat on the bottom compartment to air out while we shopped.

Ah, what do they say? Cleanliness is next to Godliness? At that moment it felt it! I marched over to the coffee bar and treated myself to a large latte. Yum!

For some reason, I felt surprisingly happy. I felt like if I could avoid vomiting, find remarkable patience and actually rouse some humor out of this, then I really can take on this motherhood thing.

Who knew I would discover my inner Mama strength in a ration of diarrhea? (dealing with the notion that my daughter may have attempted to consume her own feces? Well, I'll save that for another day.)

Items I Previously Thought Were Useless

1. Baby Bathtub - so many people said that I'd never need/use them.  I would end up bathing her in the sink, etc.  I registered for a $15 ultra basic sling for the baby, but then returned it right before she was born after the advice that it'd go to waste.  Lesson:  BUY ONE.  I wound up not bathing her  (very often at all) because it was such a complete ordeal to bathe her for the first month.  First of all, you need four hands when they first come out since they need 2 hands just to support their bodies and head.  Then you need another two hands to soap & wash quickly! And the reality is that they do NOT love being held out under a faucet or anywhere outside the cuddly loving arms being hosed or lovingly poured upon.  No matter how gentle you are, they just don't like it.  My advice: crank up a space heater, have a nice luke warm water awaiting the baby in the tub that has a sling for the infants in it; get everything you need right next to you and settle in for about 20 minutes on your knees.  Now that she can sit up, she doesn't need the tub, but I don't know how she would ever have gotten clean within the tub in the first 6 months.
2. Thermometer - I always figured I'd be able to feel her head and know if she had a fever.  Not true.  When the first cold comes along, you're suddenly at the drug store thinking the $80 instant thermometer seems reasonable.
3. Bibs - I thought it was just for food, so I'd only need one or two.  Reality check.  They drool. A lot. And they do it early and often.  I wasn't prepared to 'bib' her just to keep her clothes from being soaked (especially in the winter).  Buy extras from the dollar store. Granted you take them off when you're trying to impress someone with how put-together you kid seems, but you keep it on right up until you make your debut.
4. More than an average of 3 onesies/day for each week - I remember thinking, how many outfits can one child wear!?! And then she came along...(with ownership that I just don't love laundry...so that might factor in...somehow) and somedays she'd go through 7-8 onesies in one day. Spit up, poop, pee, more spit-up, drool, a bath, hopefully no more poop and you're averaging 5 outfit changes.  Now I had a spitter, so that could be it too.  I remember being grateful for the dozens of clothes she had early on.
5. Swim Diapers - Always figured the regular disposables would be just fine.  What I didn't account for was the triple sized blow-up the diaper experiences once you're in the water for more than 3 minutes.  Heather and Meghan (mama friends) couldn't stop laughing that Elizabeth instantly quadrupled her body weight with the swollen diaper - making it nearly impossible for her to even move her legs. There should've been a picture.

Hilarious Mommy Article - Must Read

An Aerial Disaster

Playdate pals - Pippa and Connor

Pippa, Connor & Elizabeth

baby yoga

The View

Heather/Pippa and Meghan/Connor and Ellie/I signed up for Mommy and Me yoga.  I was thinking it'll be the refreshing relaxing yoga of days past. 

Um...not exactly.

The kids drowned out the nice soothing meditative sounds on the sound system.  Ellie was crawling all over the place; when I tried to pull her onto my chest to do a move, she pulled my shirt down to nurse; I tried to do a move where I stand on one leg and lift the other horizontally.  Ellie had another idea, she wanted to be lifted off the ground by grabbing onto my ankle and desperately trying to not let go.  Oh and this was accompanied by some real tears.  Yoga must be killing her mom - clearly that could be the only reasonable excuse.

That was last week.This week, it was awesome!!! I was able to plan better - got there early and fed her both real food and nursed.  She was able to nap beforehand, so Elizabeth felt pretty comfortable playing by herself.  The only time I had to really focus on her was when she nearly took out a fellow yoga mom (standing on one leg) by sneaking up from behind. I thwarted her attempts to grab her leg and stand up with inches to spare. 

Regardless, this week was a tremendous improvement. I got a nice bucket of sweat going (which is my goal) and no big incidents. 


Overall, a major success!  Here are some shots from the day. :)

Food Update

The girl's getting it down. She's a champion spoon eater. It doesn't really matter what's on the spoon, as long as it's reloaded as soon as she wipes it clean. If you're not fast enough, you'll be treated to a pounding of the right hand on the tray table and some bizarre fake crying noises.

It's most astounding how much Elizabeth can eat. One of my greatest fears in this whole food thing, aside from the obvious choking, is that I will somehow teach her to overeat and pressure her into a lifetime of being overweight. They say breastfed babies develop a sensor in their bellies to let them know when they're full, but it still sits high on my list of neurotic mommy fears.

The strange thing that she does when she's eating is she sticks her left hand, well up to the fingers at least, into her mouth after nearly each spoonful. After overcoming questions of infant bulemia, we've learned from Heather that Pippa does it too. Phew!!! My Mom swears that she's exploring the textures in her mouth, but when my helpful husband pitches it, the hand in mouth makes him a little crazy. (it takes twice as long to feed her when she's 'exploring' each bite!)

Going cloth...

We finally ran out of diapers - we've been incredibly blessed with generous family and friends who had outfitted us with diapers since she was born.  I was either going to have to buy new #3 diapers or go cloth.  I'd been avoiding going cloth because it seemed like a huge hassle and too much work.  Well with the addition of solid foods, we had firmer poop coming out, so it seemed like it might not be such a hassle anymore.

I had a playdate with Heather (my green-super-save-the-world-Mama-friend) and Pippa.  I was telling her that I might go cloth; she jumped on it and said she was planning to sell her extra bum genius diapers.  So I bought 7 of them.  Heather had 20 (I think?) and she felt 12 was enough for her.  I nabbed another 2 or 3 (I forget here too) from my sister who tried the same brand in the early days with my niece. (It became too difficult for her in a highrise apartment building with a shared laundry room.)  So there I was with my 10 or so cloth diapers ready to go.  I knew enough from conversations with Annie, Heather & Meghan that bum genius seemed to be the ideal brand since they can grow with the babies.  "G" diapers and others require you to buy new sizes each time the kids grow.  Bum genius allows you to snap the diapers into the right size for you. (see photo)

Well, we had an accident the first night - sad, but I had forgotten to add the extra nighttime layer too, so that could've been it.  Daddy watched the baby the 2nd night (I had my first girl's night in almost 3 months) and he put her to bed without switching a new diaper on (oops!) so we wet through that one too around 2am. Surprisingly, I've learned it's very easy to change a baby with a cloth diaper while nursing in the middle of the night. (For those imaginging me leaning over a changing table - please save yourself the brain strain.)  In the rocking chair, the cloth diapers just fold over the bottom.  They're soft and comforting so she isn't phased by it. 

Lessons learned here for the time being:  cloth diapering works great - for the daytime and for parents.  My Dad bought a box of #4 Huggies from BJs so we use them for nighttime and for babysitters (my parents). 

More Lessons: You MUST wash those cloth diapers before 24 hours.  They STINK if you wait. Which isn't the end of the world, but it can get 'stanky' if you leave it around. The sun works great to dry them out. :)