Bath Time!

On Monday we gave Peanut her first bath…I know, I know, 12 days old before she had her first bath!  What can I say? We are definitely not the best at bathing our kids regularly. :) 

She had sort of lost her umbilical cord that morning…I say sort of because while the majority of it fell off (we found it in the foot of her pjs) there is still a little piece of it stuck to her belly button.

It was quite a big deal to give her a bath.  Both girls wanted to help, of course, so we put them in their swimsuits and let them get in the tub with her.  Buggy found a matching hat for Boo Bear, and even though it was way too small she insisted on wearing it.

I edited these pictures by blurring out baby’s “parts” as Daddy calls them.  I figured she wouldn’t appreciate me exposing her on the Internet, even if she is only two weeks old. :)

Remembering the girls’ first baths I wasn’t sure how this would go.  Buggy’s was a non-stop scream fest, but Boo just sat there, quietly disgruntled, while getting washed up. 

Peanut started out okay…

She tossed around from side to side, perhaps in sheer bewilderment over what was happening.

Boo got to wash her hands. 

With a little help from Daddy.

Bug got to wash her feet…and about that time Peanut decided she’d had enough.

I handed Noni the camera so I could help get her finished up.

Maybe she just didn’t like everyone fussing over her. :)

Whatever the case she was pretty darn upset!  We quickly got her rinsed off and out of there.  Boo was alternating between trying to comfort her and putting her hands over her ears.

Whew. All done!  She looks pretty devious in this picture. “Ah, ha! I have this figured out!  If I just scream loud enough they will bow to my every whim!  Mwah ha ha!”

Bug and Boo finished up their own bath and then Noni wrapped their hair up like big girls.  They were so proud.

Feelin’ sassy! :)

I think we traumatized Peanut more than we thought because after the bath she slept for almost three hours and went the longest she’s ever gone between feedings!  We actually had to wake her up to keep her from going more than five hours without eating! 

Maybe we should give her a bath every night right before bed so we can get longer stretches of sleep! :)

2 Weeks Old!

Today Peanut had her 2 week check-up and she’s growing quickly!  She was 7lbs even when we left the hospital and at her first checkup a week ago she was 7lbs 4oz.  Today she was 7lbs 12oz, so they are very happy with her weight gain.  She had to have the PKU test again yesterday so that wasn’t fun, but other than that she did great.

She is still sleeping great for us at night.  She wakes up twice a night, eats, goes right back to sleep, and is ready for the day sometime between 6-7:30.  If we can just push that back to about 8 o’clock we’ll be good to go. :) 

She is already starting to change and fill out her scrawny newborn body.  Her face is getting a lot more expressive and sometimes when we talk to her she gives us big smiles.

Future Flamenco dancer? :)

She was laying there so sweetly on the couch the other day that I had to get a little video of her.  Sometimes she is impossible to wake up, but most of the time she has good “waketime” (Babywise term) after eating and is bright-eyed and alert.

She is such a good baby.  She does have fussy times, but I’d say she cries less than an hour a day total.  Here’s some proof that she’s not perfect. :)

Poor baby.  She’s not a huge fan of the car seat when you first put her in but she settles down pretty quickly once we get her strapped in and moving.

My 2 week check up is tomorrow and I’m hoping I’ll have a little more freedom after that.  I know I still won’t be able to lift things, but maybe I’ll be given back the privilege of driving.  I’m definitely feeling a little cooped up.  My mind says I’m ready to get back to a more active lifestyle but my body is not cooperating.  I’m going to have to work on being patient and taking it easy but I’m ready to get back into a routine and figure out a new normal with my three girls. 

Thankfully Noni is still here helping us out.  I’m starting to feel guilty for keeping her away from home for two weeks!  I’m sure Papa is missing her!  Most people don’t have such amazing help (my house hasn’t been this clean, consistently, since we moved here!) and especially for so long!  T has gone into work for half days since Monday and will go back full-time on Thursday so Noni is going to stay through the week to help me out.  She has been such a huge blessing to us! 

Thanks so much Mom!  You’re the best!

The Fair

We had a fairly busy weekend! (no pun intended) Haha :)  On Friday night we went to our local fair for a few hours. Peanut was going to need to eat right when we got there so I made her a bottle before we left. It was dinner time so we got some good old fried fair food. Good thing it’s only once a year! :) 

After we all ate we hit the animal barns.  First up was the cows.  Boo was excited to see the animals but wanted someone to hold her so she didn’t have to get too close.

With the exception of the Poultry barn.  She wasn’t scared of any of the chickens.

And she really liked the ducks.

Bug was pretty offended by the smells in the pig barn. :)

We asked Boo which was her favorite pig and she pointed to this one and said, “This Mommy one.”  To which we replied, “Oh is that one a girl?”  “Yes!” she said emphatically.  “How can you tell?” I asked her.  “The girl pigs are pink and the boy pigs are black!” she explained. Pretty good logic if I do say so myself. :)

The girls were SO squirmy while Noni was trying to take this picture!  They literally would not stand still!  It was kind of funny to watch…usually I am on the frustrating end of trying to take a picture of moving targets. :)

Why the long face? :)

“Bunny wabbits!”

I was starting to hurt and figured I was overdoing it a bit but then I realized I had forgotten to take my pain killers before we left and hadn’t had any in about 8 hours.  I finished one set of them today and have a few days left on the ibuprofen.  Hopefully things finish healing because at this point I can definitely tell when I haven’t taken anything in a while!

We headed back towards the fair entrance after the animals but of course we had to stop and get an elephant ear!  We let the girls play in the kids area and then headed home for bed.  We didn’t get to stay too long but it was nice to get out of the house and enjoy some fair fun! 

First Days

I can’t believe our little Peanut turned a week old yesterday!  It has been a fast week.  I guess it’s good I feel that way since you’d think the time would be dragging considering I haven’t done much of anything but sit for a week.  I am starting to feel a little cooped up, but it hasn’t gotten too bad yet. :) 

My mom and T on the other hand have been making up for my lack of motion.  T has been working around the house and getting a ton of stuff done!  He roofed the playhouse, put two windows in it, re-sheeted it (with plywood), and plans to put up siding soon!  It is going to look SO cute! 

He also did all the cleaning and prep work required for our new garage doors that came yesterday!!!  I am SOOO excited to be able to park in the garage again!  It will be a million times easier to get the kids in and out of the house in the rain and snow.  Not to mention we will no longer have a pile of shoes and coats at the front door.  I need to get started on my plans to turn the breezeway into a mudroom/exercise/playroom.  Very very excited.

Noni has been buzzing around like a little worker bee keeping the house clean, doing laundry, organizing things for me, and the biggest job…keeping the girls entertained so I could get some rest.  We are so very very thankful for her help!  I don’t know how we would have done this without her!

So here are some pictures from the last week…

Getting started with nursing has been pretty painful so I’ve been pumping one bottle a day just to have a little relief.  I figured out (while nursing) that I am spending 4-5 out of every 24 hours nursing.  That feels like a lot at the moment!  The girls are thrilled to have a chance to feed their sister and have been taking turns each day. 

Big sister kisses.  They love her SO much and have been so sweet with her.  The only problem is making sure their “loves” don’t smother her!

Blowing out the candles on Peanut’s birthday cupcakes.

Grandma and Grandpa came over on Sunday and brought us lunch.

Boo’s turn to feed Peanut.

Here’s Bug’s friend K and her mom when they brought us dinner.  Peanut was awake so they got to hold her.

Lots of help with a diaper change! :)  T has been doing the majority of the diaper changing since I was trying not to get up and down too much the first few days.

Boo “reading” a book to her little sister.  So sweet. :)

Mama came out yesterday to see baby so I convinced Bug to give up her turn with the bottle. 

Another big thing around here is we are getting one of our trees taken down.  This tree has been sickly since we moved here.  Every time we have a good wind storm it loses more and more branches that have fallen on the phone line more than once. 

We had an estimate to get it taken down and the guy said he would do it for half price – $1800.  I don’t know if it really would have cost us $3600 but we decided to wait.  I’m glad we did because the power company has been going around town trimming and taking out trees the last few weeks so T called to see if ours qualified.  Yesterday they stopped by and said it did!  It’s an 80ft tree and it’s smack in the middle of two sets of power/phone lines.  I will be sad to lose the shade it provides, but I’m so happy that it’s getting taken down…and even better, for free!

I tried to get a picture of Peanut on her one week birthday but she was pretty tired and didn’t want to look at me. :)

She is doing amazingly well!  Technically she only got up to eat once last night!  I had gone to bed after her evening feeding but T was still awake when she was ready for a feeding at 10:30 so I got up and joined him on the couch where he was playing his PS3.  After that she slept till 2:30, ate and went back to sleep, and didn’t wake up again until 7 a.m.! Four and half hours between feedings!  In the daytime she has got herself on a three hour feeding schedule.

She is just moving right along the Babywise plan so easily!  She has definitely adapted to it a lot faster than the other two.  They required much more effort on my part.  It’s hardly been much work at all to get this one on a schedule.  So nice!  I’m so thankful that she is such an easy baby! I hope she continues to surprise us with her good behavior! :)

Bright Eyes

Our little peanut is SUCH a good baby!  She had her first doctor’s appointment today and they said she looks great!  She is 7 lbs. 4 oz so she has almost regained her birth weight already. 

She is a model baby!  The first two nights at home she woke up three times to eat, fussed a tiny bit and then went back to sleep.  The last two nights she has only woken up twice to eat, and gone right back to sleep giving us 8-9 hours of (interrupted) sleep!  What a good baby! I hope this pattern continues!

We are doing really well, getting lots of rest and enjoying the time together as a family.  T is home for the whole week and Noni is here taking care of us, keeping the house clean, and entertaining the girls.  Sooo nice!  The church family is also taking turns bringing us dinner every night!  We are very blessed.

Here’s a short video of our little peanut, not doing much of anything, but being her usual cute self. :) I love how big and bright her eyes get when she is happy and looking around!  She is a very content baby and really doesn’t cry very much.  What a good girl!

More Pictures

While Daddy, Baby A and I were in the hospital for three days, the girls were having fun at Noni and Papa’s house.  The first day, after they met A, they went back and made her birthday cupcakes after naptime.  They love cooking so we had gone to the store and let them pick out a cake mix, frosting, sprinkles, and candles.

I had also bought some new books and written a congratulations message on them for the girls to open that first night.

These are our first “Gigi: God’s Princess” books and they are very cute.  Gigi reminds me a lot of the girls so they are perfect books for them. :)

On Thursday Noni brought them up to the hospital again, but first they stopped and bought us some gorgeous flowers.  I think every single nurse, doctor, etc. commented on how beautiful they were.  They made the whole room smell fresh.

They love her so much!

Making the round of snuggles.

Love this picture!

We kept the visiting times short, but sweet since there really wasn’t anything for the girls to do and they seemed kind of hyper in that tiny room.  Noni took them home where they had tons of fun painting, playing games, jumping on the trampoline, and just doing all the fun stuff Noni thinks of doing!

We, meanwhile got to entertain some other visitors.  Auntie Nae and Waylon came up with Grandma.

Miss B and S came to visit, but I didn’t get a picture.

Miss K and H also came.  He was so sweet and it was great practice for him to come the hospital because he is going to be a big brother in just a few weeks!!!  Can’t wait to meet your own sweet baby girl, H family!

Usually when we have a baby we are out of the hospital in 24 hours so I was getting pretty antsy being cooped up in that little room, and confined to the bed. 

We thought we were going to have to stay an extra night because my blood pressure wasn’t doing great and I was still feeling very dizzy every time I tried to get up, but on Friday morning around 3 a.m. I felt like something changed.  I just started to feel human again and the next time I got up I did much better.

I was definitely ready to get out of there! I don’t know how people say that they get more rest in the hospital!  It seems like the doctors and nurses are in and out of your room every five minutes.  We would finally get little peanut to sleep and someone would come in to do tests and wake her up again.  Very frustrating.  That first night I got 10-20 min. catnaps all night.  The second night I did get a couple of one-hour stretches, but for the most part I cannot sleep in hospitals. 

So on Friday when they told me I could probably go home I got up, took a shower, and got dressed and ready to go. :)  Noni and Papa brought the girls up and we all had lunch together while we were waiting to be discharged.

We bought the girls new baby dolls “from” A and told them that she got them so they could take care of their babies while Mommy takes care of her. 

Sweet baby girl.

Boo inspecting her baby.

It’s nice that Bug’s room is pink and Boo’s purple because whenever we can we get one pink and the other purple and it cuts down on the confusion of who’s is who’s.

This flower cracked me up…bigger than her head!  She did great on the car ride home!  She slept the whole way and only woke up once we got to our little town.  She was making herself heard while we were at the Pharmacy drive-thru but considering she was overdue to eat she did great!

She is doing amazingly well here at home!  Now that people aren’t poking and prodding her she has gotten right onto a schedule.  She is eating every three hours and at night she goes right back to sleep as soon as she has eaten. 

I guess that is one pro of being in the hospital a little longer…it always takes a few days for them to get their schedule figured out so she seems ahead of the game.

I am actually feeling really good! I am MUCH less sore than I was with the other two girls.  The incision is definitely not comfortable, but if I keep on top of the pain meds it really doesn’t bother me that much.  I am laying low and taking it easy like the doctor said.  I really haven’t done much of anything, but I feel a lot better than I ever did with the other two girls. 

We are starting to find a new normal and while I know it will take a while to get into a new routine I feel like we’re off to a really great start!