We've moved

Please redirect your blog links to follow us to our new site.

http://lilmouse.blogsite.org/

New blog...

Please redirect your browsers to THIS SITE. It is my new combination website for both my mommyness and my humanness. Those are words, really they are. I find that Keeley takes up too much of my time to update 2 blogs plus read everyone else's, and I've wanted to have one that the family could read. If they happen to not like the content on my former blogs, if they can manage to find them, then that's just too bad!

Guess who slept from 9 pm to 6:30 am?

Thanks for the bibs Grandpa Jay.

See my smile

Guess who learned to smile the first of this year? Actual real smiles! :-)

Happy baby-nursery!

Finally, we wiggled stuff around in the baby's room the last 2 days, and although we may continue to move 'stuff' around to make it right, we have a REAL nursery without junk in the way. Also, got our diaper pail and cloth diaper bag so we can do things the right friggin way. Awesome.

Also we got a desk for my hubby's computer stuff so that now I have my own desk for paying bills, blogging and sending out cards and such, and he has his, in the living area, so that he can do his stuff and still be with baby and me! Yes!

I take it back..

She had no gas at all this morning and she was just a grinning up a storm for me. Finally! I feel like I got a real all-for-me smile! Yeah!

my motto is

KJ's motto should be.. I only smile when I have gas!

Let the cloth-ing begin!

We finally got 2 diaper pail liners and bought KJ some diapers for Christmas. Soon enough she'll be in the 'medium' size and we'll be washing every other day probably. At this point in time we need to use up the size 1 disposables I bought a big box of, considering she seems to be growing out of them at an alarming rate. What the hell, kid? All the sudden Boom! She's huge!

Anyway, the diaper pail liners came in today, so we need to grab a new trash can and get started. Much better than the rubberma1d snap on lid container I was using.

Bum genius

We got one bum genius diaper from diapers.com along with the disposables I ordered. We tried it out last night, and it was pretty cool. the only thing is you have to stuff it with an insert. Blah. Then you have to dig it back out.

They do, however, have a multitude of sizes that DONT require an insert, and its more like a disposable diaper than the others we have. It may very well be worth it. It was very trim inside her clothes and didn't seem to be any different as far as fit or leakage than any of the others. The best thing is that the damn creator/store is just down the friggin road. We CAN go look at them, see if they have 'seconds' that might be a bit crooked in the seams or something, and perhaps get a good deal. I don't mind the other diapers, but they are hard to get under her clothes... which sucks.

It's happening... ahh!

Her eyelashes have slowly changed color, and voila! You can officially see them against her closed eyes. Dark lashes. Amazing.

Smiles all around..

So far I haven't really gotten a big supply of smiles from miss KJ. She does give a half a grin to her dad when he tickles her lips with a burp rag, or just his finger. When I do that? She screams her head off at me for not feeding her. Go figure.

But... I did get a half a smile (probably gas) when I was bouncing her on my knee. Guess she likes playing horsey.

Meet and greet...

We went Sunday and surprised my folks with a visit for their fortieth wedding anniversary. Saw everyone at church, only one person touched her face, but didnt appear sick and I wasnt about to yell at an old lady... anyway, she got passed around to my family, but they were all healthy. We also met the puppies. Everyone couldnt wait for that.

Willie liked her. He smelled her right away and tried to get into the playpen with her. He sniffed her like crazy and wanted to lick her. His tail was wagging like crazy and we finally had to put him outside so he'd not actually knock the playpen over. The other dog, Cole, was right beside her and didn't make any mention of her at all. Then we were changing her diaper and she made noise, and boy did he pay attention then, he sniffed her foot and later he nosed her hand. I don't think she liked that very much. Too cold. Anyway, she didn't know anything about them, but they will definitely remember and be looking for her at Christmas. They are smart like that.

Just when you think there's a victory...

My sweet baby of the day turned into an "I dont want that, no I dont want that, yes that soothes me for 15 seconds, no I don't want that" baby. In an instant. Her dad got tired of her not going to sleep and dumped her on me. I had just pumped, so I couldnt nurse her to soothe her and she seemed tired and hungry. Great. So I got out the bottle and what little milk was in there and tried to calm her unhappy butt down. It worked, for a while. But when you're sitting there knowing you're a pee away from having absolutely no diapers, and it will take hours to get more cloth ones ready, you have little milk and she keeps spitting it out, but doesnt want to burp, only scream, and you feel so alone, what do you do? Sit and bawl your eyes out right along with the baby of course. What else can you do?

fluffy diaper butt

Okay, so here's the deal. Bought the small size of diaper stuff to try it. I really wanted cloth diapering to work. We got them, got them prepared and I changed her 3 times in the hour and a half before she went to bed this afternoon. Not unusual even with the disposable ones. Not that much more of a problem with the change, I'm sure I'll get better at it. It's just a 2 step process instead of one and you have to wrangle the inner part to make sure it stays in the cover. The only real huge problem is that the diaper and cover is about six times the fluffiness of a disposable. Which is cute, no doubt, but umm, her clothes just aren't going to fit over them. Just looking at it you can tell. So unless she runs around without any bottoms on for the whole winter or wears a size 2T in pants with the cuffs rolled up a foot, it just isn't going to work. Granted, there are other options, and in theory I could buy them, sell these, try them and if it doesnt work, sell them, etc. etc. But right now, I'm exhausted, we barely have breastfeeding down and I think trying this out right away was a mistake. Unfortunately, we already bought the covers and such, which were most of the cost outlay, and they'll only work up to 15 pounds. Heck all of it is only good up until 15 pounds.

I will keep trying, but honestly, what good is it if your baby has to be wrapped in a blanket all day because she can't wear bottoms? I'm frustrated, not unusual for me, especially lately, and its' only been a couple of times, but the guilt is already setting in. I really really really wanted it to work and had no idea that they'd be 'THAT' fluffy. So what do I do? Stomach the guilt and use disposables even if it galls me that we're killing that many trees? Use these until she runs out of the 15 pound limit and go back to disposables after that? After all, they'd pay for themselves in 6 weeks or so, 10 if you compare to the cheaper diapers, and we'll be inside for the most part, so we can keep the heat a little higher and/or use blankets.

What do you think? Am I too frustrated too soon? Bravo for even giving it a try? Leave her nekkid and hose her down?

My little sweetheart...

My baby went to sleep at midnight, she made some noise at 3:30 so I went in and checked on her and put her laundry away while I waited to see if she would wake up.
She didn't so back to bed I went at 4. I went in at 7:30 and woke her up.
She slept 7.5 hours.
I got her up and she didn't cry.
I changed her diaper and she didn't cry.
I nursed her and tried to burp her and nursed her some more, she got hiccups and nursed some more, she sat and looked at me, and I finally went in and got her dressed and put her down in her crib. She stared at all the stuff in there, and she didn't cry.

And now she's asleep.Ahhh.... what a wonderful life!

Keeley is a ...

Mouse
Puppy
Kitten

If you could choose only one, which would you choose? And why...








She's a mouse because we are mice, oh and she squeaks
She's a puppy because she shakes her leg like a dog does when you scratch it's belly
She's a kitten because she spits (like an angry kitten) when she is REALLY hungry and mad because you're not feeding her already, dammit

Guess what I can do?

I can reach out with a hand and grab ahold of something, like a shirt sleeve, and make it impossible for mom to turn me around to feed me. Oh yeah, and pull on a towel that's laying above my head. It's not like I'm doing it on purpose yet, but I found out that there are things to grab on to, cool!

Poll results

Well apparently those of you that voted like KJ's name and also know that she weighs more than the turkey. But I have a sneaking suspicion that that was my husband and he knows we only had a turkey breast for lunch and it was six pounds, WAY less than our growing girl.

Generous...

Besides a shower gift and a welcome to the world gift, my friend S sent a 15 lb box of her baby girl's clothes for KJ to borrow. Umm, yeah, she wouldnt even go through each outfit once, I don't know how her baby did, and she didnt even send ALL the clothes she had.

When I get a chance, I will have to photograph them all to be sure I can get them all back to her. I may separate them in a plastic bag or something to be sure I have them all accounted for. Seriously, 15 lbs. of clothes.

One Month Check-up

KJ -- 11/24/2008-One month check-up
Weight: 9 lbs 7 1/2 oz
Height: 22 inches
Head circumference: 14 3/4 inches
Temperature: 97.4 F

She's got a cool temperature just like mom and dad. She's trying to grow out of 0-3 month socks and she's making really good eye contact the last couple of days. Breastfeeding is improving, although we're still trying to get the hang of 'eating' and not 'eating, napping, eating, napping' so that a feeding takes 2 hours. But we're working on it. Occasionally we sleep 5 hours at night. We also are lulling ourself to sleep so mommy can get some stuff done during the day. Yeah!

New and improved...

real tears came out when my baby girl cried this morning... awww....

but someone HAD to suck the boogies out, I mean she could barely breathe. She didn't thank me for it though. Well, maybe she did, twice now she's kind of lulled herself to sleep once I put her in the crib, just rested there with eyes open and no pacifier and eventually fell asleep. Thank heaven for little girls...

Best or worst

Do you ever feel like your best at the time isn't good enough, like it will never be good enough, like you're never going to get everything done, or at least get close to caught up?

Tracking...

Newsflash:

When we concentrate really really hard we can follow a face or something like a bright blue tube of chapstick with our eyes. Then they go unfocused again. But hey, we are reaching milestones.

Stay tuned for doctor's appointment news this week. We think there's a good chance we've gained at least 2 pounds.

I did it...

A sparse sampling of cloth diapers in teeny tiny sizes is ordered. We'll see if we can make it or not. So far, a lot of other things I have failed at:

Giving birth without drugs
Giving birth naturally
Using no pacifier
Patience
Breastfeeding (still kind of iffy at this point)...

So I'm really not holding out hope. But my husband is all behind it. We'll see how long that lasts.

Thank you for being a friend....

My friend KT needs some help, she got me into blogging, and she's entered a photo contest. I have to admit, among all the frosting and photoshopping, hers is a good, clean photo.

http://www.5minutesformom.com/4857/prego-photo-contest-finalists/

Please consider voting for #8!!!!!!

Christmas time with baby...

Any ideas for what to ask for as the baby's gift? I'm sure the grandparents would like to spoil, but she already has plenty of clothes at this point in time, a tub full of 'toys' she can't play with yet, and enough soap, lotion, etc. etc. to last until she's about 5. Okay, maybe not. But still.

Savings bonds?

We were thinking of doing savings bonds for her and maybe getting her an ornament. At this point in time, we have no idea what we're doing for anyone else, so really, she's the last of our 'worries' as she doesn't respond to anything except food, diaper changes and the occasional snuggle or song if she's in the mood.

Oh and I wouldn't be asking if we hadn't been asked what 'she' wanted or what we wanted for her. This is not a 'gimme' sort of thing.

All things bowel related...

We have pooped through 2 outfits, peed through one, and also peed all over mommy's lap in the last 24 hours. Good grief. What did we get ourselves into? Eh, at least it all comes out in the wash, literally.

What do you think?

My friend Stacy (2 kids who breastfed with no problems) suggested that with every hell that we're going through that I don't need the guilt of breastfeeding or not breastfeeding and basically I need to give myself a huge friggin break.

Bulletin: I tried it yesterday morning and she ate from both sides, sure it took half an hour, but she was satisfied and went to sleep with no problems. Didn't take any longer than the bottle and we were both happy. Ecstatic, really.

2nd Bulletin: I tried it the rest of the day and night and also this morning, each time she ate, and nothing. She won't latch on, she just screams and pushes away like she's being murdered. Yes, I strip her to her diaper, I do everything the LLL people suggest, as well as suggestions from my mom, Matt's mom and my other friends who have breastfed and nothing seems to make her happy.

When we were in the hospital, she had done reasonably well before my milk came in. But she had jaundice and everyone said she should stay on her bilirubin bed the whole time and not even be held or cuddled, just be fed through the SNS feeder which is the little tube you can put on your finger and get expressed milk to run through it and when they suck your finger, they get milk, etc. So we did that, and skipped the breastfeeding, thinking we'd pick it right back up the next day (assuming she'd get better right away), well then she didn't and time ticked by and she didn't get better and she didn't get better, and finally it was time to go home and they said, well we could send you home with a blanket if necessary, but we don't think it is right now, and we said 'blanket?' no one ever told us about a blanket, you mean we could have HELD her all this time? They didn't have an answer about that.

I feel cheated. I really do. Even if she had never gotten breastfeeding in the hospital, I lost all that time with ooey gooey feelings where I could have held and cuddled her and gotten a really good bond with her, and I don't really feel like I have it. All the laughter and joy I had in the hospital is gone, replaced by sadness and frustration. Sure, I love her, but now that we're home (and I'm alone with her), there is no cushion of food delivered, beds made, fresh towels, etc. etc. that I could have taken advantage of holding her, and now I have to do all those things by myself and with struggling to feed her and being in pain 24 hours a day, quite frankly I can't wait for her to fall asleep because I really really need to get things done, and get some rest myself, and I can't do that if she's awake and screaming. Right now, she doesn't do anything but scream or sleep, really. Which is fine, she's a newborn, good GOD do NOT friggin write a message to me and offer me platitudes, I'm college educated, I GET IT. Doesn't mean I can't complain about it.

So here's when I ask what you think. My friend suggested I try to feed her every time starting with breastfeeding and if she won't do it to go ahead and give her the bottle (duh, she has to eat), and to do that for a week, and if I can't get her to do it, then to make a decision then (whether I continue to pump and feed her from a bottle, switch to formula or keep on trying the breastfeeding) as to what to do. What do you think?

And has anyone else gone through this? Your baby WOULDNT breastfeed or you got through it eventually and they did it, and how long did it take, or whatever.

Yikes, again...

The big poo mess is not quite so funny when it shoots across the room like a water hose.
Onto everything. Furniture, brand new carpet in a brand new apartment, you get the picture.
Especially when you dont have any carpet cleaner.

Moving with an infant

Advice on moving with a baby. Moving with an infant. Moving while pregnant. Moving during pregnancy. Been there, done that. Didn't even get a t-shirt, but since I looked for advice when I was about to undertake the adventure and couldn't find anything, I thought I would post some out there for those in cyberspace that might move soon and need the advice. So here goes: as with any move, you should have the boxes labeled as to which room they go in and what is in them. Example: Bathroom: Hygiene. Spare room: Craft items. Nursery: Clothing. Be sure to label anything you KNOW you'll need ASAP when you get there, for example, we always end up eating pizza when we move, don't ask, we just do, so we would label a box with pizza pans and a pizza cutter, because we know we'll end up with it soon after moving. We had most of the nursery stuff in plastic totes, which was really nice because we knew that it all stayed nice and tightly packed in there and nothing needed rewashed or anything unlike maybe with a cardboard box. Skip down to blue text if you already HAVE the baby.

Note: If you plan to move while you are pregnant: WARNING! Pack your hospital bag and keep it with you at all times. Also, go ahead and install the carseat, even if you're not due for a month or so. You may very well need it (I did)--make sure you have at least one newborn or 0 mos. outfit washed and in the bag for going home in and hospital pictures.

We had none of this done and when my water broke, we weren't prepared at all, the carseat was still packed up (at least we knew where it was), I did not have more than one set of clean clothes (we were planning on doing laundry the next day, and had nothing to pack for me to wear), and no pre-washed baby clothes. Most likely, your husband will have no idea which clothes still fit you and which don't (mine packed clothes twice and we still had to go buy some in order for me to get through the last 2 days of hospital stay where I had to be up and walking around after the c-section). Although, please take note: All is not lost: We had family buy and wash some baby clothes, which we used for pictures and taking baby home in. My husband ran out and bought some plain men's tshirts and some yoga/stretch type pants in a larger size and a new package of underwear and a nursing bra straight off the shelf and it all worked out just fine.

Although I must admit, running around with amniotic fluid gushing out and trying to stuff a towel in your pants, put plastic bags and towels on the vehicle seat, and etc. was quite hysterical. I wasn't in labor, yet, though, so I still had a sense of humor. Also charge your camera every couple of days and leave it plugged in and 'with' the hospital bag. The hospital took pictures for us. I'm really glad they did. Our camera and cord were in separate places and was not charged.

Okay, as far as moving goes... Have one box or container that you keep with you or know where it is at all times. Contents: Napkins or paper towels, cups, plastic plates and cutlery, toilet paper, hand soap, a dish towel and hand towel for bathroom washings and kitchen spills. Also very important: Trash bags! Pack this stuff all into your (clean) trash can or laundry basket for an easy carry into your new place. Load your vehicle with bottled water or sodas, and if you have the baby of course enough diapers/wipes/ formula/pre-expressed breastmilk, etc. to get you through the move and a day or two beyond.

Don't forget your pump if you're expressing and a bottle brush and other items necessary for feeding baby at whatever stage you're at-utensils for cereal, etc. If it's just a short move and you'll have time to hit a grocery store, don't worry about food, but if not, keep a cooler out and grab some microwave meals, chips, cookies, cheese and crackers, bagels, yogurt, and other finger foods to get you through a couple of days while you unpack. Bottled juices that don't have to be refrigerated, water, etc. should be stuck in the floorboard of your vehicle.

Go ahead and find out the pizza delivery place nearest to you and pre-program the number into your phone before you move. Chinese, Italian, or whatever else you like instead, we just like pizza. This is where your 'box' comes in, you'll already have enough stuff to get you through the night and ready for the next morning. Tuck some juice and water in the fridge before you go to bed and either plan to run to starbucks, or find your coffeemaker/keep it with you and set it up for the next morning. This is where cash comes in handy, as well. Keep $50 of mad money tucked into your wallet for emergency diaper runs, lunch on the go, etc.

Impractical advice for some, but if you can, have movers pack and move you. Sometimes they can even hold your stuff for a day or two so you can get your new place cleaned to your satisfaction before everything gets in. We have moved twice, once while pregnant with the movers doing everything and once with a newborn and we did everything. Luckily most everything was still in the boxes that the movers packed for us. What wasn't: we put back in. If you plan on moving close together, keep your boxes, bind them together and stick them in a garage or spare closet so you'll have an easier time of moving the next time around.

Feel free to e-mail me with questions or add comments on anything I may have forgotten.