The Paternity Leave Beard (& Other Recent Phenomena)

Well, Zelie is now 2.5 weeks old and things are going really well. Like, too well. It will all surely devolve into chaos, right? Surely.

The adjustment from 1 to 2 so far has been much easier than 0 to 1. It's mostly because Will is still home on paternity leave (and not TDY across the country for two months), which has been a game changer. He goes back to work next week, but I only have to survive two work days in between his parents' visit and my mom's visit. All said and done, I have helpers for Zelie's entire first month. We expect his days will be pretty long once he goes back, so I'm just trying to brace myself for it. 

This little guy has one more month of being a one-year-old, so let me tell you all about it . . . 

We've been trying to teach him the lyrics to Happy Birthday in anticipation. Not going great. He's gotten plenty of practice blowing out candles thanks to our Advent wreath.

God bless him. I was promised by other moms that he would have a language boom when his sibling arrived. I'd say for him that proved to be about 80% true. When you talk to him, he will mostly just repeat the last two words of whatever you say, but then much later he will sometimes spontaneously say something that will show he was actually comprehending what you were telling him. E.g.:

Me: We are gonna go to Esther's house to play after night night today.
Will: Nigh nigh today!
Me: Yeah…. Wanna go see Esther?
Will: See . . . Esther!
An hour later, sitting at the table eating brunch . . . 
Will: Esther house after nigh nigh?
Raised eyebrows, tears of joy, and relentless applause from overly proud parents.

He still has hilariously odd pronunciations for words we use every single day. Water = Mah-woo.  As many times as I shout "WA-TERRRR" at the kid, I just can't break him. Charlie = Bye-ee (House - he always tacks on "house" after he says Charlie. He really likes visiting Charlie's house). Zelie = Wuh-ee. Even when we have him make the Z sound, he'll say "Zzzzz Wuh-ee!!!"

He also does cute stuff, like when we ask him, "Hey do you want to go for a ride with Daddy?" He'll say, "Otay!" as if it's a given. "Do you want a banana?" "Otay!" But mostly he'll again repeat the last word of your question.

He can count . . . to 2. "One. Two. One. Two." as he points to whatever's he's counting. We're working on it.

He's been an gloriously awesome sleeper lately. His schedule has shifted since Big Will has been home on paternity leave, since we've all been able to stay up later and sleep in later, but it's definitely been for the best. Bedtime is typically closer to 8pm, wake ups between 7:30 and 8, naps around 12:30 (lasting 2-3+ hours, hooray!). I'm hoping it keeps up because I'd like to wake Zelie for her first feeding at 7am and be done before Little Will wakes for the day. So far, so good. Just trying to prepare myself for juggling two.

He's beginning to take more interest in Zelie, in an aggressively affectionate way, like climbing on her rock n play and/or violently rubbing her head and/or going in for the head-butt kiss.

Anything and everything is a telephone. He will hold lunch meat up to his ear and pretend it's a phone. I've encouraged him to pretend the person on the other end is a woman named Denise. We don't know anyone named Denise and I just think it would be hilarious for him to put a toy horse up to his ear and say, "HELLO DENISE!!!" In time it will happen. With repetition. In time.

Of course, he's pretty temperamental, as is typical. Terrible twos or whatever. Meh.

He is constantly begging to go outside, like in these photos (from Sunday), when it was freezing outside. Constantly whining and begging to watch Mickey Mouse (which is just code for cartoons, in general). Constantly begging to drive the car (sometimes we let him sit in the driver's seat, which he just think is the best thing ever). Sometimes he just whines and we don't know what he's asking for, thanks to his odd pronunciations of things discussed above. When he doesn't get his way he makes these faces. 

But, again, he's pretty easily distracted by his existential pain, if you so much as make a fart sound in his direction . . . 

He is still utterly obsessed with the mailman. He shouts MAILMAN! whenever a UPS, USPS, or FedEx truck goes by. He has a sixth sense for mailmen, I'm telling ya. On Sundays or holidays we have to tell him that the mailman is at church, so won't be coming by. 

Forlorn. "Where mailman go?"

He pretty much loves any and every cartoon on Netflix (which I'm sure will prove helpful, if not make me feel really guilty that I'm neglecting him). Lately it's Special Agent Oso, which if you didn't know, is a show about a stuffed bear who helps children complete important tasks like checking out a library book, setting up a gerbil cage, or preparing pancake batter. Oh, I happen to have some photographs of Little Will helping his father prepare pancake batter. What ARE the odds?

Probably wanted to sit IN the mixer. Or something.

Toddler entertainment haunts me. I have the 3 special steps Oso song stuck in my head during Zelie's late night feeds. Sometimes it's the Little Blue Truck lyrics stuck in my head in the middle of the night. Not annoying at all . . . 

In other news, please enjoy Will's short-lived but impressive paternity leave beard. He has to go in for a meeting this afternoon and had to shave it off. Most upsetting. But now he's rocking a 'stache (curiously within Air Force grooming standards, while a beard is not), so perhaps you have that to look forward to. 

Zelie is easy peasy compared to Mr. Temperamental Toddler. She's gotten much more efficient with her nursing and I haven't had any pain at all in the past few days. I definitely just needed some time to heal from her first few days on the outside. She is a ferocious sucker and we utilize pacis a lot. But y'all, newborns are so much easier the second time around! I'm not sure whether she's just that much easier a baby or whether I'm that much more easy-going. Probably a combination of the two. I'm not obsessing over her diaper output and when and how long she nurses. I'm already aware of the obscene amount of poop and spit up that is normal for this stage. (Will was much more prolific in that regard.) She does have much manlier gassiness (low-pitched and loud, yo). But it's chalked up to funny baby stuff, rather than being cause for concern that I'm doing something terribly wrong with her nursing schedule. 

At her 2 week checkup last Wednesday she was 8lbs, 13oz and 22 inches long. She's 99th percentile for height! No idea who that comes from, but we're not expecting it to last. ;) She's in size 1 diapers and 0-3 month clothes already, since the 2 week mark. At that point we got the green light from her pediatrician to let her sleep at night. That night she went 7.5 straight hours! It was amazing. Ever since, she's typically been waking once per night (in the 11-7ish window) around 3am, sleeping in 3-4 hour chunks, which is just fine by me. The only downside is that she's been taking a REALLY long time to fall back asleep. On the whole, however, I am sleeping much better than I was at the end of my pregnancy, so I'm just trying to get the sleep while the gettin's good. 

She's not really on the typical 3-hour routine during the day that Will fell into so easily. I'm not sure whether I'm going to put the energy into getting her into a predictable routine at this point, since she's sleeping pretty well at night. The past few days, she's been wakeful in the mornings and then sleeps a lot later in the day. Unlike Little Will was, she loves to nurse and suck, so when she's awake, it's basically offering the paci and breast a lot to see what she really wants. We'll just alternate a lot if we're home. We were out and about yesterday morning and early afternoon and she did really well in the Moby, in the car, and nursing while out and about in general. 

Even Zelie knows that's not how that works.

Whatever happens once this glorious paternity leave period is over, I'm enjoying it while I can! Maybe it's the calm before the storm, who knows. I'm sure I'll loyally relay all the minute details when the seedy yellow stools hit the fan. 

MOM BLOGGER 4 EVA!

Zelie's First Days

I wrote a similar post for Will after he was born, so in the interest of keeping things equal between siblings (har har), here is a small taste of what we've been up to. 

Staring at her sweet baby face. (Duh.) 

Staring at the wall in hospital sleep deprivation.

At the foot of my hospital bed.

Little Will has been handling the adjustment pretty well. There have been a couple of meltdowns, mostly from lack of attention or for not being allowed to hold Zelie all on his own, but for the most part he is either (a) gently affectionate or (b) utterly indifferent toward her.  

Their first meeting was pretty cute . . .

He checked her out and gave her a quick kiss upon our prompting. Then Zelie gave him his big brother gift, a toy postal service truck. My boy is obsessed with the mailman. Probably because we are in these days leading up to Christmas where there's a UPS, FedEx, or USPS truck in every direction. Once he had his new truck, he pretty much ignored his little sister in favor of exploring the hospital and his cool new toy. He even went to bed that night with truck in hand. 

The next day, we left for home. I couldn't wait to get out of the hospital. I barely slept in that hospital bed! Once Zelie had reached 24 hours old (i.e., in the middle of the night the second night in the hospital), she could be taken to run all her tests necessary for discharge, so she was out of the room most of the night. It helped—she was kind of a loud sleeper those first couple nights!—but I still wasn't able to get much sleep. Will had gone home for the night to take care of Little Will, so I thus started penning my birth story. In case you are wondering, and rightly so, how I was able to get it up so fast.

Someone didn't like the car seat at first.

Others were a bit preoccupied with putting things in his mouth that he shouldn't. 

Zelie spit up a lot of amniotic fluid/colostrum that second night in the hospital necessitating use of a certain aspirator. So this is pretty gross.

(Yeah, I'm just over here snapping away rather than intervening. Yeah, that's the slight remnant of a black eye from a Flip 'n' Play collision.) 

"Don't want your paci, Zelie? I got this." - Wm. H. Brez.

He gnawed on it on the drive home until he passed out. 

Things have been going pretty well since coming home. Zelie is a MUCH better nighttime sleeper than Will was. I am jinxing it right now, fine, but she's been one that I need to wake up to nurse rather than being woken up to nurse every two hours. I'm sleeping so much better now than I was the last three weeks of my pregnancy. It's making me very impatient for the physical part of the recovery to be over with! But I'm being good and taking it easy. 

We've had a rough start with nursing, though, which I was not expecting after such a smooth experience with Little Will. During her first nursing session right after the birth, I was a bit absorbed with, oh I dunno, birthing the placenta and not dying as I was stitched up and my abdomen was crushed by well-meaning nurses, that I wasn't paying attention to Zelie's latch and she took off a chunk of my left nipple. The nips were further destroyed in the colostrum phase in the hospital. I met with the hospital's IBCLC for over an hour yesterday to work on things and they are much improved. At Day 5, she was 8 pounds even and she took in 61mL/2oz. during our in-office nursing session. (She also showed off for the LC just how nicely she was producing diapers. So proud. So proud.) The LC gave me some gel pads to "heal from the inside" rather than using lanolin, so I think things are looking up despite some marathon nursing sessions. They wear me out because I have to really focus on keeping her in tight and fixing her latch, but it will be worth it over time when things (hopefully, please Lord) become effortless. She also had another blood draw to check bili levels, but all easy fine on that front (her forehead scan was 19, borderline, but the corresponding blood draw was only 13.8!). 

It's allllll worth it obviously . . . 

. . . for those precious moments when my daughter looks up at me with that grumpy newborn scowl. 

;) 

All Very Interesting Things (7QT)

So I took some pics of baby Will yesterday and since this is my mom blog I get to share them with you and discuss the very interesting things that come to mind with each photo. (Seven photos to be exact, therefore linking up with Jen.) 

-1-

Now that we're home, we are back in cloth diapers after a two month hiatus. One month was due to a rash misdiagnosis (not yeast - just eczema) and one month was from all the travel. I spent upwards of $40+ on disposables the past month. The agony.

Anyway, I'd been suspecting the diapers weren't getting clean enough with our current wash cycle, and after two months of sitting in our storage closet, my answer was yes, these are smelling a little weird. Fellow runner/blogger/mother-of-a-baby-Will, Julia mentioned that she'd be stripping her diapers after joining a little Facebook group called "Fluff Love & CD Science," so good blog follower that I am, I joined up, got sucked in, and my world has been rocked. Rocked, I tell you!

I got away with my former wash cycle for so long because between breastfed poop and using liners, the diapers just weren't getting that dirty. Suffice it to say, after starting solids and ditching the liners . . . they get reaaaal dirty now. So, I stripped and bleached all my diapers the other day and changed up my wash routine. (Despite what you've heard, stripping is easy.) I can only share SO MANY pictures of my baby over and over again, so head's up, I'll be sharing all my wonderful laundry findings with you this week. Keep your finger on that refresh button! ;)

-2-

Will she ever stop talking about diapers? Fine. Sometimes when I'm changing Will, I think, my goodness he's thinned out so much. And then I see pictures like this and I'm like, nah, still a fatso.

-3-

While he's certainly not famished, I've been worried lately about how much breast milk he's been getting in his diet. I went from crazy strong overactive letdown, to now barely feeling letdown. I'm just not sure whether he's getting enough when I'm not letting down, and I'm only feeling good letdowns about 3-4x per day, typically in the early AM (~4am), before his morning nap (~10am), sometimes before his afternoon nap (~2pm), and before dinner (~5:30pm). I'm also offering when he wakes up around 6:30am, after his afternoon nap since he normally doesn't take much, and before bed. Opinions on a new routine are welcome!!! I'm sick of offering and him doing the sucking/popping off/sucking/popping off/whining/whining/sucking/repeat/repeat/repeat.

Oh, and he will eat his body weight in solids after a full nursing session. Last night I had to cut him off after he'd mooched half my dinner off me and was making me shovel Greek yogurt into him. Something tells me these eating habits are hereditary, but I don't know, I'm only on my fourth bowl of oatmeal (probably because he mooched so many bites . . .).

-4-

Speaking of breastfeeding woes, I can tell you that those two little fangs pictured above are very, very sharp. His top two fangs are also juuuust about to pop through. I live in a constant state of fear when he nurses. I am getting better at anticipating when he's going to take a chomp, but . . . I hope this is a phase. If not, we are eagerly counting down to his first birthday. 

-5-

Go home, baby Will, you're drunk. Just kidding, he doesn't drink alcohol. Not until he's 6! (Good old, Catholics.)

-6-

His sleep schedule is back in a nice routine and he is so happy. I know I mentioned before that he won't let me sit on the computer while he entertains himself, but yesterday he did. And he is right now!

Yesterday, I gave myself the day "off" because, in addition to stripping/bleaching/laundering diapers, roasting a chicken, baking bread, and cleaning too much the day before, Will was on a recruiting trip all day and we knew he wouldn't be home until late. So I watched more TV than usual in the morning, and perhaps spent more time on social media than usual in the afternoon, and this kid could not have cared less.

-7-

BEST BABY STAGE EVER.

Mommy blogger.

No shame in my game.

Mom's Night Out

As I briefly mentioned last week, I made the 14 hour drive from St. Louis to Maryland with our two dogs and a car-seat-hating 7-month-old. Why would I put myself through that again? Well, to witness the certain nuptials of a dear, dear high school friend, that's why. And I will make whatever sacrifices are necessary for some free wine and crabcakes. 

The trip over was . . . okay. My mom flew out to St. Louis just so she could drive back to Maryland with me. (Will is TDY in Alabama, naturally.) We left Saturday around noon, so that my mom could have some time to visit with Will, and then we stopped in Charleston, WV for the night. My dad is actually driving back with us today (and flying back home to Maryland on Thursday).

To the meat of this post. 

My mom generously offered to babysit little Will on the night of the wedding, so that I could be baby-free at the wedding festivities. I was super anxious about how baby Will would handle being away from me all night, being that he hated the babysitter and separation anxiety would rear its ugly head whenever I desperately needed some time away from him for work and/or sanity. But bringing little Will alone to a church just terrified me. His new favorite activity, especially in church, is ripping my glasses off my face and beating me with them while screeching at the top of his lungs (which he demonstrated for all at Sunday's mass). 

He doesn't get it from me.

Spoiler: He didn't cry once the whole time he was at my mom's . . . he only (surprise surprise!) got a little cranky in the car when my mom drove to meet me at mass the next morning. And obviously was back to being a rager for the actual mass. 

Anywho, I was really excited to get all gussied up and have a big night out with mah girlfraynds. 

Parents of the bride in the background!! AKA Crazy Carl and Momma K.

{Dress deets. I used my fashionable friend's gold membership to get a killer deal, btw.} Everyone who commented on this picture on Instagram, A+ bang up job. Your checks are in the mail. 

The three of us were pretty shocked when we met up with each other and realized we were all wearing black to a wedding. And even more shocked when we got to the wedding and realized that we were the only ones wearing black. I mean, it is unofficially Fall! 

We were NOT shocked, however, when upon hearing our destination was a Catholic Church, our cabbie hesitantly asked whether we were headed to "a wedding . . . " with his voice trailing off because he rightfully feared we were headed to a funeral instead. As I struggled to walk in my heels (hey - it had been a while), I just kept thinking of the final scene from Death Becomes Her where Meryl and Goldie are tripping over their decomposing selves to Bruce Willis's funeral.

And since my personal photographer, Will Brez, was not at the wedding,
this lousy pic of the back of my dress is all I got.

The reception was at a really cool barn out in the country. The food was out of this world and I totally looked pregnant by the end of the dinner of steak and crabcakes. (I am convinced that the little black dress will be a fab maternity option when the time comes. Just thinking ahead and rationalizing the expensive purchase!)

Because I am the largest turd (FIGURATIVELY speaking here), I decided it was cool to hold up the women's bathroom line at an open bar/wine bottles on the table reception, so that I could pump.

Yes, I took a picture of it to send to Will because I'm a crazy broad and that's how I do. I came out of the stall to see about ten women anxiously waiting to use the bathroom. Oops. 

There was plenty of dancing, plenty of pumping, and perhaps a bit too much wine for this lightweight. The night was capped off with a midnight bedtime where I closed my eyes and did not open them again until 7AM. Seven straight hours of sleep had me feeling like a NEW WOMAN when I woke up, despite having to tiptoe around so as to not wake my temporary roomies.

It was a good night.