Is anybody still out there?

Just wondering if its worth reviving my poor sad little blog!? Is anybody still out there? I’ll work up an update to cover the past 8+mos I’ve been MIA, and we’ll go from there!!

Oops! Its been TOO long!

Clearly it’s been a really long time since I blogged!! Oops! I think about it, but just never actually get around to it! Briella is 7 and half months now, crazy right? A lot has changed since the 5 month post! So here we go…

Size: At her 6mo appt she was only 12lbs13oz and 24.5”. They were a tad concerned and had us come back at 7mos, it was actually about 3 weeks later. She then measured in at 13lbs 1oz and 25” (on an empty tummy). They said she looks fine and is meeting all milestone so no need to worry. As far as clothes go she’s STILL wearing 3-6mo mostly!! She can fit into a few 6-9mo things but mostly they are still too big!

Sleep: Night time is much the same, to bed at 730pm up around 7am and usually up once for a bottle in the wee hours. No complaints here. Naps also much the same, cat naps most of the time, but on occasion, like right now, she’ll go 45min, 60min or even more! I weaned her from napping in her swing when she started sitting up in it, so ALL naps are in the crib now, the swing is packed away and for sale!

Eating: She takes 4oz bottles during the day, and is looking to up that soon. We’re still only feeding one solid meal a day, she will skip a bottle if I feed her more, and we can’t have that yet. She LOVES pears and baby yogurt, is NOT a fan of avocado though. She’s tasting a bit of lots of stuff and seems to really like just about everything put in her mouth, hope that continues!

Playing: BIG changes here, the playmate has been sold, the bouncy seat as well! She now has a fenced area with all her toys in that I can gate off to contain her.

Mobility: Oh boy has THIS changed! She’s crawling! She can army crawl very well and just yesterday learned how to “classic” crawl, and she’s working on perfecting that new skill! She can sit, roll anywhere and stand holding something. She is a VERY busy baby and keeps me on my toes!

Chatting: The chatter has actually quieted; I think her little brain was being focused elsewhere to get the crawling accomplished! She has more sound that resemble words: mama, baba, dada, hi and yeah. She laughs much more easily and it’s a regular occurrence now, tickling gets her going pretty good!

Other things: We’ve had pro pics taken twice now, and got some AMAZING photos! Brad was promoted just a couple weeks ago, I’m so proud of him!  We’ve made some great friends in the last few months and that is awesome! I’m still semi planning our (Briella and mine) trip home in Feb2012. I can’t wait to get back the sates for a bit, and have Briella meet some of her family for the first time! All 3 dogs are well and Briella just LOVES them, they are the only thing that can get her laughing hysterically!! <– Talk about the cutest thing ever!

And I’ll leave you with some pictures…

5 Months

It feels so strange to say my tiny little baby is 5 months already!! I know they say the time will fly, and boy has it, but at the same time if feels as though she’s always been here, it’s already hard to recall our lives without her. Now for some updates!

 Size- at her 4mo check up she weighed in at 11lbs 7ozs and was 23.5” long, which is the 5^th and 45^th percentiles respectively. She’s wearing all 3-6mo clothes now, and these are fitting in all different ways, some she’s about to outgrow already, and some she still barely fits into yet.

Sleep- she’s still doing pretty much the same here, going to bed around 730-8pm and getting up around 7-730am, she still wakes for a bottle at least once, and on occasion, twice. Naps still kind of suck, she really only takes short 30min naps most of the time, and she gets in about 3-4 of them a day. This could all be much worse, so I’m not complaining!

Eating- She’s doing well in this area! She’s taking 3oz bottles through the day, but I think we’re about to have to start offering 4oz instead. She gets on “meal” of real food a day. She did sweet potatoes first, carrots and now we did peas for the first time yesterday. So far she eats it all! She seems to really enjoy the real foods, and gets all happy when she’s strapped into her highchair! Once we’ve established the things she likes and what she doesn’t, I’ll start making my own baby food, for now I’m just buying it.

Playing- she still loves her play mat and it is still part of her first morning routine. She enjoys her jumperoo and bouncy seat as well. She’s a big fan of being upside down, loves to be “dropped”, and flown around by daddy, so far she’s quite a thrill seeker!

Chatter- she is chatting up a storm these days, I think she likes to hear herself. She learned to blow raspberries just recently. She has also learned a loud shrieking that is her FAVORITE noise right now, she uses it when happy, excited, and grumpy, you name it! Needless to say it can get old FAST as it is very loud and high pitched! She is also laughing much more! I still get the most laughs out of her, but Brad is starting to be able to get more. She laughs when tickled and if I talk silly to her sometimes. It is truly the cutest thing EVER!!

What she can do- she can sit up on her own for decent amounts of time when she wants to. The problem is she much prefers the game of flinging herself backward onto the pillow that is usually placed behind her. It’s cute, but she gets so caught up in that that she just won’t sit at all! She can roll over tummy to back and back to tummy now. She reaches for everything, if she sees something she wants to play with/chew on, her little arms are just stretched out to get her mitts on it!! She loves the remotes, but anything within reach is fair game, we have to be careful of things now! Yesterday she grabbed her bottle I had sitting in front of her and put it straight into her mouth, first time she’s done that with such precision! I was so proud!

Fun stuff- She went to the pool again last weekend, and loved it as usual! I got her an SPF50+ long sleeve long pants romper for swimming, so I don’t have to worry so much about her having enough sunblock on, now I only have to put it on her feet, hands and face, since she generally wears a hat too. It a cute little thing too, pics to come! We took her to the base Freedom Fest this weekend, and she seemed to enjoy all the things to look at, and of course she got dressed in her adorable red, white and blue outfit!!

She just woke from her nap, so I suppose that’s enough of an update for now!

Not Just Jammies

Briella is wearing what would look to most people like a normal pair of boyish jammies for the first time tonight. But the fact is they are so much more than just jammies. These are her very first jammies ever. The ones I bought long before she was even in existence, before I had a clue the road we would travel to be graced with her presence, before I lost hope of getting knocked up quickly, before I realized I probably wouldn’t get to use these jammies in a surprise to tell Brad we were pregnant. Yep, I bought these jammies nearly 3 years ago, in the first couple months of trying, thinking I would plan some big cute surprise that included a baby item, said jammies, to tell Brad the good news. That was a lifetime ago, I was naive and clueless. So these jammies got pushed further and further back in my undie drawer, where I was hiding them. When we did finally get the good news, if you will recall, there was nothing cutsie or fun about it, but it was amazing either way! So, the jammies made a reappearance once we got that BFP, and I’ve been eyeing them ever since. They are a size 6mo, so I’ve been waiting a LONG time for the day to come for these jammies to fit my long-awaited child. They are a bit big and still look kind of boyish, but feel like the final step in our journey. I feel like putting these simple fleece jammies on my daughter somehow is the final chapter in the story of our path to a baby. Now we start fresh, on the story of our path of parenthood.

 

Drs and Dates!

Briella had her 4 month check up on Monday. Everything looks good, she’s weighing in at 11lbs 8oz and 23.5” long, still only in the 5^th percentile for weight, but moved up to the 45^th in length! We got the ok to very slowly start some solids, we haven’t yet, but likely will in the coming weeks, I’m hoping maybe she’ll be a champion eater and get out of the itty bitty 5^th percentile! I’m also hoping maybe eating more solid food will help her keep it down better, we’ll see. We discussed the fact that she still only eats 2-3oz bottles at a time, every 2 hours, which is a very small amount and quite frequent for a baby her age. The Dr didn’t seem too worried, said it could be her reflux that makes her more comfortable eating small, frequent meals. She didn’t seem worried about her lack of nap time (she takes cat naps, 20-30mins average), but commiserated about the lack of free time most moms get during longer naps! She got 3 more shots and had a pretty cranky day after, but is much better now. Dr said she’s meeting all her milestones so that’s great. Speaking of milestones, she rolled over, tummy to back! Last Thursday, I went to pick a few things up from a friend and run to the store, I got a call from Brad maybe 15mins after I left telling me that she just rolled over. Its ok I missed it, at least Brad was there, I’m sure there will be plenty of firsts I see and he won’t. But she has done it about 5 times since then, and I’ve seen them all, the funny part is, Brad hasn’t seen her do it since the very first time!
We were given a jumperoo and Briella is in LOVE with it! She spent a good 55 minutes straight in it last night, which is a long time for a baby to do anything! I need to get some pictures of her in it, it’s too cute! It is still a bit big for her and we have to stuff blankets in the seat to keep her upright, but she doesn’t care in the least!
Today she and I had a quick final play date with her boyfriend Elim and his mom Stacy. They are leaving on Sunday so we sadly won’t be seeing them again. Elim is 11 days younger than Briella and a whole LOT bigger! It was too cute to see them together, if you friends with me on facebook be sure to check out the video of them I shared, it’s adorable! Elim was lying on his back happy as could be; Briella was tired and started to fuss/cry, about 30seconds later, Elim busts out bawling! We picked them both up and they clamed. Elim was laid back down happy again, I then laid Briella down in a way I knew would make her fuss (on her tummy), sure enough she did, and 30 second later so did Elim! It was super cute and funny, he did this like 3 times, and then we got it on video.
So for now that’s all, pictures of the jumperoo to come, until then, I leave you with Elim and Briella’s last date…

And yes, you read correct, he’s younger!!! Now you really get a feel for how tiny she is!

Yeah, they held hands a couple times!! Cue the awwwwws!!!

Videos

I am in the process of uploading some videos of little miss Briella to youtube. I shoot a lot of random videos and don’t post them to facebook because A. most people will find random videos of my child kicking her legs for 4mins boring,  B. they take forever to load, and C. if you don’t happen to see it when I posted it you might miss it altogether. With them being loaded on youtube, you are free to watch when and as much of them as you want. They still take forever to load, but I can just let it run in the background and forget about it. I probably won’t cut the videos down as much as I usually do, or at all, so there will be more potentially boring randomness to enjoy!! I’m loading 3 in the background right not, so the only one on there is several months old, but here’s the link to where they will be soon… YOUTUBE

Pictures

I linked a Facebook album back when Briella was born and told you it was easier for you to view her pics there, well then I went and created more albums, and didn’t link them here! So those of you that I’m not friends with on Facebook have been missing out!! All her newborn and first 4 weeks are in the album I linked, since then I’ve made a new album for each months pictures. So here are the links to the rest of her pics…
Newborn- http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150127099538832.325105.636838831
March- http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150152265043832.335858.636838831
April- http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150179497268832.342070.636838831
May- http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150226947578832.362606.636838831

Pink Line-iversary!

One year ago today we finally saw those 2 wonderful pink lines! Happy anniversary to my little LL Cool Bean!! Time sure flies, and if it’s possible I love this little girl more everyday! What’s not to love?…

Cloth Diapers: My Take

As most of you know, we are cloth diapering Briella’s little tushie! A lot of people have questions about this: do you put the poo in the washer, do they stink, how much does it cost, what do u do when u leave the house, where do u start, etc etc etc. So while I realize there are a million and one cloth diaper blogs out there, I’m going to write this one anyway, for those people who are curious. I’ll try to touch briefly on options, but I’ve only used one style and that’s all I can really speak of with any real knowledge. The way I see it there are 5 different styles cloth diapers, and dozens of options within each style. So here we go….

Flats- basically a flat piece of cloth folded in origami like ways to work as a diaper. From what I hear just about anything can be used, flannel receiving blankets, old t-shirts or what ever. This is one of the least expensive options, but it’s also one of the most work, in my opinion. Why? Well because you will have to learn to fold each diaper, put pins or a newer doodad called a snappi to hold it on, and then add a water proof cover of some sort. For me this is way too much work, but if cloth is all about saving money, here ya go!

Prefolds- these are probably what you picture when you think of a cloth diaper from yesteryear, you likely even have some cheapie versions made for use as burp rags. These ones are kind of like a flat with some of the folding already done; they have a middle section that is usually twice as thick as the 2 outer sections. These, like the flats, need to be folded, pinned or snappied and covered. This is another of the cheapest options, but still a bit of work. Again for money saving, this is a great option.

Fitteds- This diaper is like it sounds, it’s fitted, meaning no folding needed! It actually looks like a diaper before going on the bum. Generally these have some sort of inner material different and more absorbent than the outer. Most of the time you’ll also want to keep a waterproof cover on. Some need to be pinned or snappied, others have their own snaps or Velcro. As far as pricing, they can get up there in price fairly easily, and I’ve yet to see them as cheap as pocket diapers. 

Pockets- Speaking of pockets diapers, this is our diaper of choice. This is an almost All-In-One (more on those later), meaning no folding, no pinning, no cover needed. This diaper is generally made with a waterproof outer PUL, and soft stay dry fleece or micro suede inner. The absorbent part of the diaper comes in the form of a separate micro fiber insert that you stuff into a “pocket” created by the fleece inner and PUL outer, hence the name pocket diaper. They stay on with attached snaps or Velcro. These dipes come in many sizes or what is known as an OS (one size), which has adjustable snaps to change the size of just about all the openings. They go on and off just like a disposable, with the exception of pulling the insert out. I chose this option for the price and simplicity.

AIOs – An all-in-one is pretty much like it sounds, it works just like a disposable, snap/Velcro it on and off, no folding, pinning, cover or insert needed, it all there. Like pockets, they come in a range of sizes, or the OS option as well. This is also pretty much the most expensive route to go. If your biggest concern is ease of use, look no further than the AIO.

So there it is, my in a nutshell review of cloth diapers. Now, be warned others will have vastly different opinions of their chosen style of diaper, flats and prefold people will swear they’re not that hard, AIO people will swear stuffing a pocket is the worst task ever, and on and on. As I said before, I went with pockets dipes because they are cheap and easy to use. For the other questions I get asked, yes I put the poopie diapers straight in the wash; the poop is gone after the first pre-rinse cycle. When we leave the house, I pack cloth diapers, I have a little bag that is waterproof and has a zipper, dirty diapers go in that until we get home. At home the dirties go into a step lid garbage can with a waterproof pail liner, or wet bag, in it, I don’t even touch them once they go into the pail, I pull the whole bag out and just turn it upside down over the washing machine, and toss the bag in as well. For soap, I use Tide original powder, just a tad, and my diapers come out totally clean. Mostly the diapers don’t stink, I will say the bag of dirty ones doesn’t smell pretty shen I dump it out, but it’s not a stick you really notice until you take the bag out. But hey, Brad stinks the bathroom up, why isn’t ok for the diapers to smell a little when they’re dirty? An added bonus… if my diapers and/or inserts ever get a bit of a stain, lay them in the sun after washing and the sun actually takes the poo stains out! Works on clothes with poo stains too! For the “how do I get started” question, that just depends, do u want to try different types of diapers before deciding? If so there are trial programs out there that allow you to do just that, basically rent all the styles and return or purchase when you decide. I knew I wanted to go with pockets, I have 2 brands and I LOVE one brand in particular, they cost me $5 each, and with 28 diapers I do a load of laundry every 2-3 days. With all my diapers, the travel wet bag, and the pail liner, I’ve spent under $200 total, the diapers I’ve chosen should fit Briella until potty training!! I’ll be the first to say I was totally unsure about this whole thing, but I was willing to give it a shot, who can’t when they see the savings? Turns out it is SO much easier than I ever thought, really, I add 2-3 loads of extra laundry a week and maybe 30-45mins a week stuffing the inserts in the diaper. For that we save $1000s over the next 2+ years? Totally worth it!! Other bonuses of cloth: less diaper rash, it is said cloth diapered kids are easier to potty train, saving the environment of disposables, less chemicals on your kid’s tushie, and hey, they’re CUTE!! See for your self…

My How Things Change!

If you’ll recall this time last year was right smack in the middle of my 2ww, and I had little hope of being pregnant, as posted here. And how are things different this year? Well the obvious would be Briella of course, but what you don’t know is that I took a pregnancy test today! And the big change from last year? Is that I was hoping for a big fat NEGATIVE, my how times change! To clarify, no I never suspected I might be pregnant, I saw the Dr today to change my birth control, and since I haven’t had a period yet since Briella was born, she just wanted to be sure before giving me something to start a period so I can start the NuvaRing again. I rolled my eyes at her, I mean really? This, the girl who took nearly 2 years and a ton of meds to get pregnant and doesn’t ovulate on her own, and doesn’t want another baby, yeah she’s going to get knocked up 15 weeks postpartum while on the pill!! So anywho, more to come, updates on both Briella and myself, and maybe Ill throw Brad in there too!