Does the Laundry Ever End?

Yes, I'm griping about laundry.  Probably because Natalie has once again out-grown a size, and that always makes more laundry.  It's washing the new clothes (in this case, the 6 month sized clothes), and washing the old clothes that were worn that week (in this case all her 3 month sized clothes).  Her drawers are packed!  Between hand-me-downs from Alli and all the clothes people gave us as gifts, I'm hoping we get through all of the clothes before she grows into the next size!!  :)

For an update on Natalie and the probiotic, after a week of taking them, everything started moving along just fine.  But what we have noticed is if she skips a day of taking them, she skips a day of a BM.  So, every day, I make sure she takes 1 bottle at least, and I put the probiotic in it.  It's usually her 9am/10am feeding.  Then we have all day to let it do its magic and that typically is working.  She seems much happier, and I know I am much more relieved.

For an update on my hair, well, it's still shedding.  From what I've ready, when you are pregnant, you get huge amounts of Estrogen in your body.  The Estrogen interrupts your hair cycle's normal pattern (grow for 1 month, then fall out).  They way it interrupts it is grow forever, never fall out.  The problem is, after you have a child and your Estrogen levels go back to normal, your hair goes back to it's normal pattern, but there's a lot of hair that didn't fall out over the last year, so it all goes at once.  This is a horrible trick to play on mothers, and I think evolution should change that somehow!  ;)  So, I'm just waiting to see what I'm left with.  I'm not allowed to take Estrogen (not even in a birth control pill) because it has a tendency to reduce milk production.  So, it is what it is.  Maybe next year, when I'm done being Natalie's cow, I will look into some ways to help my hair.  But until then, I'm not going to mess with anything that might affect her via the milk.

For an update on Alli, I can only say she is an amazing big sister.  Natalie just *loves* her.  I can't stress that enough.  Alli will pull and squeeze and lay on Natalie, and all she does is just give a big smile and a laugh.  It's really amazing.  Alli has been doing great in school.  She reads like crazy and is starting to feel comfortable enough to try to read books she hasn't seen before.  (This is big for her - she wants to know she can do something before trying, so it means she is feeling more comfortable with her abilities.)  We are also amazed at how much she talks.  And talks.  And talks.  Kim and I spent last night at dinner looking at each other and just laughing because we couldn't get a word in edge-wise.  Alli just kept going.  "Mama - pretend you think this red stuff on my pizza is hot lava and try to stop me from eating it."  Now imaging hearing that repeated about every 20 seconds, for 20 minutes of dinner.  Holy crap!!!  We are dying!!!  We clearly do NOT know how to play with a 4-1/2 year old!!!

But we love her to pieces!

We feel very fortunate to have our happy, healthy family.

p.s.  I have no updates on Kim.  He is basically the same through all of this, just a little grumpy because I make him get up at 6:30am every day with me and the girls.  :)

NO!!! There Goes My Hair...

I thought I was just imagining it, but no, my beautiful pregnancy hair is falling out.  :(  I had amazing hair for almost a year, and I'm going to really miss it.  Even though I'm losing it, I'm fighting as hard as I can.  I'm still taking my prenatal vitamins, and I've been using coconut oil on my hair before washing it, to try to keep it as strong as possible.  (Yes, Kim is loving seeing me walk around in a bright pink shower cap for 30 minutes before taking my shower!  That's part of the coconut oil hair treatment...)

I find it interesting though that my hair loss coincides with me going back to work.  Stress already??

What Color?!?

I've been watching Natalie's eyes as of late.  They are changing color, but I can't tell what they are changing into.  They are still blue, but they are definitely not the same blue as they have been.  I'm guessing they are going to turn into Kim's hazel eye color, but again, not sure.  We are watching and waiting.  I sorta home she gets some of my green/hazel, but I'm sure she will be beautiful no matter what color her eyes turn!

Back To Work

Yesterday was my first day back to work.  It was hectic in the morning, trying to get everything ready.  Don't forget to put together milk bottles for Molly/Natalie.  Make Alli's lunch (like normal).  Put together a lunch for me (since I'm on such a particular diet now), and don't forget everything you need for pumping!

So I get to work and it's the usual "nothing is ready".  The day is spent with men in my office trying to configure my computer.  I pumped 2x, but missed my 3rd.  :(  I under-estimated the traffic going home, and was 10 minutes late.  (Not that big of a deal, but I'd like to be as close to on-time or early as possible.)  And then I had to pump cause I missed one.  So I pumped while Alli colored and Natalie watched.  Then I had to make dinner, so I asked Alli to take a bath while I cooked.  I had to wear Natalie in the MobyWrap while cooking cause she wanted to be held.  Dinner was nice with the family, and then it was bed time.

Where did all my time with the girls go?  I was sad.  But what did I have to do?  Spend the next hour+ getting everything ready for the next day of work.

NOW I have the baby blues, cause I miss my girls...

Beer

Even though Natalie is such an easy going baby, we are having quite a journey together.  When we were both sick, my milk supply dwindled.  I wasn't eating, she wasn't eating, and therefore I wasn't producing.  So, after getting better, I started trying to pump more and drink dark beer.  Not a bad combination, but the beer was much more enjoyable than the pumping!!  Anyway, after about 4 days of beer, it seemed like my milk supply was at least back to where it had been.  But I also started noticing Natalie would spit up a bit more, but this was completely clear spit-up.  So, another food test - no more alcohol, and see if the spit up goes away.  And guess what...  Yes, it got much better.  Ugh.  And after Kim went out and stocked the fridge with 3 different assortments of dark beer - it's going to take years to go through it if I can't drink it anymore!  :)

The other thing that happened to Natalie (just recently) is that she skipped a day for a bowel movement.  Now, doctors will tell you that breast fed babies can go a whole week without a bowel movement and as long as it's soft when it eventually comes out, all is okay.  Me?  Not a fan of that idea.  So this week, we had our Nanny (Molly) start working and she was giving Natalie bottles while I pumped.  And Natalie went 2 days without a bowel movement.  And of course, she started getting a bit out of sorts.  So I went to the health food store and walked away with a probiotic (that both she and I could take), and some gripe water, just in case things were painful.  Well, I can only give the probiotic to Natalie by putting it in the bottle, and wouldn't you know it, we did it and she was so out of sorts she would not stop crying to even try the bottle.  So that didn't work too well.  But I started taking it so it would at least get into my milk supply.  I'm hoping this will keep her bowels moving daily, but we'll see.  Oh, and the end of this episode?  She finally had the blowout we were expecting, and of course it was at the most inconvenient time/place.  We were at gymnastics watching Alli and I heard the noise.  I picked her up out of the car seat and it was all over her back and all over the car seat.  So much for watching Alli!  I had HUGE cleanup to do!!  (I guess putting her into the size 3 diaper didn't quite cut it.  But based on what I saw, it wasn't a quantity problem, it was a force problem, cause it just shot straight up her back and barely soaked the diaper.)  Oh well.  Poop happens.

New Years

We spent New Years Eve with some friends that live about 45 minutes away.  We call them "Big Allison" and Greg.  Yes, Alli's name for her of course!  They have a 6 month old, Karena.  And we were joined by 2 other families, all with small kids.  The girls had a blast, especially wearing the tiarras and blowing the horns.  We had to actually put them away until our count-down, which co-incided with Brazil's new year since they are 4 hours ahead of us.  Yea for an 8pm new years countdown!  Go Brazil!

I don't have any good pictures of the girls, but we have this one of our party animal husbands:

New years day started slowly, because, even though we were in bed by 10pm, we were exhausted!  (Gotta love how parenthood drains you!)  But new years day has also been a time for hiking for us.  In fact, I was hoping to hike a new trail, but  when lunch time came and we hadn't dressed yet, we went to our old stand-by, the Dixie Mine trail, because parking for the trail head is about 2 miles from our house.  Our family of 4 hiked almost 1.5 miles in before we turned around to head back to the car.  Alli was pretty tired, but quite the trooper.  Not only did she hike the whole way, she talked the whole way. Seriously, I'm not sure there was a moment of silence for the whole hike!  It was hilarious!  The blob in front of Kim is Natalie!  It was cold, so we had her pretty bundled up.  And if you can see Alli's New Years tiarra, everyone that walked by and said "happy new year", she claimed must have read her hat.  Of course nobody would have known if it hadn't been for her hat!!  :)

After hiking, we enjoyed a little relaxation.  Here's a cute pic of daddy and the girls watching Spiderman and his Amazing Friends (Alli's favorite right now).

By the way, both girls are in their Christmas PJs, or 'jamas', as Alli calls them.  We had a great New Years and I'm glad everyone is finally healthy!

The Girls' Room

Alli had mentioned she wanted to share a room with Natalie a while ago.  I kept quizzing her on it, to make sure if we switched the rooms, she wouldn't change her mind.  

This vacation, we did it - switched the rooms.  We went a lot of items from the green room to the curb to donate to the Upward Foundation, who was kind enough to send a truck.  We got rid of the bed to Stacy (our hair stylist), and then it was a matter of tearing down the house and moving it, as well as go through both closets.  So, it took a couple of days (and I have to say, I still have some work to do with the stuff we have for the green room.)  But the switch has been made - toys in the green room, sleep stuff in the girls' room.  Here are some pics.  I guess we need to work on the wall stuff again...

By the way, we have the card table set up on our green room (game room) now so the family can play games together.  We are trying to use it quite often!

Christmas

This year's Christmas was different.  Not because of the newborn factor, but because of mommy being so sick!!  Yes, Christmas was the worst day of this sickness for me.  It was all I could do to stay awake and try to put a smile on my face while Alli was opening gifts.  We had many "pauses" in the Christmas morning gift opening.  And Alli was patient through all of them.

Natalie loved all her gifts (not that she can even tell that she loved them!)  Alli also loved all her gifts, and has now played with all of them!

Christmas dinner with the neighbors was just Alli and Daddy.  Natalie and I stayed home as she was still a bit sick too.  Never got the fever (knock on wood).  We are still watching and waiting, just to make sure.  This bug is just awful!


So, projects for the rest of vacation:  Switch the bedrooms around, get Alli to Gymnastics day camp, do some clothes shopping for mommy and daddy before going back to work.  I think we should be able to tackle it all...

The Clapper

I can't believe all us girls are sick, again!  (And I'm not sure how Daddy keeps bypassing it!)  Alli was sent home from school on Monday with a 102 degree fever.  It stayed at 102/103 until Tuesday night, when it broke around 10pm with lots of sweats and chills.  (Poor thing.)  I just got the nasal/chest congestion part - no fever.  Alli has all of the above.  So, her last week of school before Christmas vacation was spent at home sick.  Poor thing.

And now Natalie is congested.  I made a new rule that with every diaper change, we have to suction her nose as well.  And I check for fever regularly.  I'm hoping it goes through her system quickly - I hate sick babies - too scary!  But she still smiles like crazy, including when she is getting her nose suctioned!  Hilarious!!

So, about The Clapper...  Last weekend we went to a Christmas party with a White Elephant gift exchange.  I came home with "The Clapper".  You remember from the 80's commercials:  "Clap on. {clap clap}  Clap off. {clap clap}  Clap on, clap off....  The Clapper!"  So, I figured out a great place for this little device - attached to a lamp in Alli's room that she can't reach.  So I plugged it in, tried it out, and then showed it to her.  She was thrilled!

Ok.  Now fast forward to last night, and her coughing fit.  Can you see where this is going?  I went to check on her after she had been in bed for a little, since she had been coughing so much and she said "Mom.  I coughed 2 times and my light came on, so I had to clap it off!"  hahaha  I thought that was pretty funny.  And it was.  Until after she fell asleep and she was coughing in her sleep and her lamp kept turning on!  Ok, that's pretty funny too.  Kim turned the lamp off so it would keep turning on through the night.

Oh the joys of sick kids!

Our First Gingerbread House

Ok, I have a confession.  I've never actually made a gingerbread house before.  I know!  Right!?!?  Seems like everyone does on the holidays, but I've never.  And then I was asked to help out in Alli's class because one of the parents donated some gingerbread trains and they needed adult helpers for the building.  Oh boy.  So, I had my first shot of building this stuff at the school.  Not bad - got some tips of how to do it with little kids, had some good ideas, figured out some ways to keep it cleaner...

But Alli didn't get a turn to build one because she went to the other preschool in the afternoon.  So we decided to get her a gingerbread house for home and we would build it together.  (Of course, after we purchased it, we found that she really *was* going to get a turn with the gingerbread train, just later in the week.)

So we planned to build today!  And, we had an unexpected friend over, so we had 2 helpers with the gingerbread house.

Here's Gage and Alli showing off their work:

And a better view of the finished house.  (Gage decorated the left side and back.  Alli decorated the right side and front.  Mommy built the house and added the "snow".)