Charity ~ The First 5 Weeks

Here is another post I found waiting in my drafts folder today, May 6, 2017.  This was originally written probably about the same time 3 years ago.  Charity is now 3 years old. :)

I am not sure when I blinked and two whole months have passed without a single post about Charity!! I have memories that I don't ever want to forget that I must get written down or I will forget them.

Let's see...

We brought our sweet girl home from the hospital on Wednesday (she was born on Monday), and because her biliruben levels had been up a little bit (low teens) we had to take her for a check on Thursday. She left the hospital weighing 8 lbs, 12 oz. and the next day weighed 9 lbs. even! I wasn't sure my milk had even come in yet but she must've been getting something! I was pleasantly surprised. :)

The first week and then into the second week I got into the "feed every 3 hours, round the clock, even in the middle of the night" routine. I set my phone alarm when it was night so I would be sure to wake up since I, of course, was dead tired. I stopped setting my alarm after she turned 2 weeks old.

She was a pretty good eater (feedings took 45 minutes, sometimes an hour) but I did have to work to keep her awake to eat. That part is always so, so hard to do! She was not a good sleeper. The first week, so many of my sleeping times ended up with my sleeping either in the rocking chair holding her, or lying in bed with her on my chest. If I put her down either in her bed or even in our bed beside me, she would just fuss and fuss and fuss.  At first we thought she was just getting used to life outside the womb. By the time the second week started and this was still the case, I asked Daniel if she seemed to be fussier than our first two babies or had I forgotten? He confirmed that she was fussier. At that point I just about came unglued many times, not knowing how I was going to "get through life" with a baby who most days would fuss her entire naptime at least once, and other naptimes weren't so great, either.

I made sure I wasn't eating gassy or spicy foods and she still fussed. It wasn't at any certain time of the day or night; there was no consistency or regularity to it at all, which made survival with the two big girls HARD. I well remember Daniel's first loooong work day after Charity was born. I didn't get the big girls supper until about 7:30, Charity was crying and crying and crying the entire time I was trying to get their food on the table, both Susannah and Sylvia were very out of sorts and very uncooperative, I finally was able to get Charity and hold her and she continued to cry. Susannah wanted something her way (which was just not possible at the time) and had a major, MAJOR meltdown, Sylvia wasn't eating her food, and Daniel wasn't going to be home until after 9pm. Charity FINALLY fell asleep (it was getting close to 3 hours that she had been awake; way, way too long for someone her age to be awake - in my book!) and I wasn't about to put her down for fear that she would start crying all over again. Susannah was still having her melt-down and I finally decided the big girls were going to bed. That was it. I didn't care that it wasn't bedtime yet, that they should have baths, teeth brushed or even pajamas on. I managed to change Sylvia's diaper while holding Charity and both crying big girls were put in bed with promises that Daddy would kiss them when he got home.

Then I went and had my own cry, deciding that I couldn't handle having a fussy baby and not knowing how on earth I was going to survive if this was how it was going to be for a long time. I prayed so many of those "I am so tired I don't even know what to pray" prayers.

Charity was a really good baby... except when it came to naptimes. Sometimes. It just didn't make any sense to me, at all, and I wasn't ready to just chalk it up to her being a fussy baby. Something just seemed wrong. She didn't spit up, she didn't have excessive gas, she didn't scream or act like she was in horrible pain, she ate, peed and pooped like a normal baby, but my gut feeling was that there was a reason she wasn't sleeping well a lot of the time. She would have better days and worse days, seemingly unrelated to ANYTHING (going to church, noise levels in the house, etc.).

And then we ran out of ice cream. I had been surviving on ice cream, eating some almost every day. And fruit and yogurt, and chocolate milk. It was protein, it was fast, it was easy, it was filling and I didn't have to cook it, make it, heat it up or anything. I could get a spoon and just EAT.  A few days went past and we did our first grocery shopping since she had been born because we desperately needed some groceries. I bought yogurt and ice cream. That night I had a banana split. The following evening Charity was the most fussy that she had been in a few days. Following my stress-eater instincts and because I was hungry at 10pm, I ate yogurt and fruit. While eating the yogurt I went over each and every single detail of the previous several days to try and make a connection to ANYTHING and her fussing.

Dairy. I hadn't eaten ice cream or yogurt, then I did eat ice cream and exactly 24 hours later she started fussing again. What? Dairy?! I put the idea out in Facebookland. Several people replied that yes, dairy can certainly make for fussy babies. The next day was Friday and I ate pizza for supper. The pizza had cheese on it and I gazed upon that cheese and relished it to the last morsel. I was giving up all things dairy to see if it made a difference.

It made a difference. By the time 36 hours had passed since I'd eaten the pizza, we had a sleeping Charity at naptimes. Which meant a sleeping MAMA, too!!  She slept better, which meant she woke up better, which meant she ate better... which meant life was better for all of us.

Real Housewife Reveal

After I wrote this post, and then read what Amy wrote on her blog, I thought it would be fun to once in a while post a "real" post.

Yesterday I:
Started a load of laundry.
Made a batch of bread.
Ground up already cooked roast beef, chicken and corn for baby food and froze it.
Made a strawberry roll (the cake part).
Made a batch of Monster Cookies (Arrrg!!!)
Picked peas.
Shelled peas with Susannah climbing all over me and "helping".
Picked up shelled peas that she dumped on the floor.
Read a couple books (to Susannah).
Fed Susannah meals x3.
Helped her get a drink countless times throughout the day.
Changed 6-ish diapers.
Did online stuff (mail, blog, blog reading, facebook).
Asked Daniel to bring home a free pizza for supper.
Gave Susannah a bath.
Watched the NCIS and NCIS L.A. Finales.
Asked Daniel to put the wet laundry in the dryer right before we went to bed.
Folded and put away the 1 load of clean laundry that was piled on the bed.

Yesterday I didn't:
Take a shower.
Wash any dishes.
Pick up or sweep any floors.
Do any cleaning, period (except for cleaning out a couple diapers).
Do any baking or cooking that was actually for a meal yesterday (breakfast was leftover pancakes, lunch was leftovers from Monday).
I did brush my hair yesterday morning, but after picking peas I looked like this:... and didn't brush my hair again until evening time shortly before Daniel got home.
I didn't exercise.
I didn't take a nap.

Today the kitchen is piled high with dirty dishes (mostly baking utensils, bowls and dirty sippy cups). The floors are in bad need of a picking up and vacuuming. The trash cans are overflowing and the slop is starting to smell. Laundry needs folded. Laundry needs washed - and then folded. And put away. I need a shower. I hope to get a little more on top of the inside housework, but there's much of the day left yet, we'll see what happens... there's always the chance that something will come up that changes the course!

Cloth Diapering: Take 2

So, barely a week into using cloth diapers most of the time (except for night-time or going away), we're back to using disposables until Susannah's nasty diaper rash goes away. I've been looking at "how to kill yeast in diapers" searches this afternoon, and everybody has their own way. Which one to pick, which one to pick??!! Arrrrg. I don't know that what she has is yeast, but she's had more and worse diaper rash since I started cloth than she's had in the entire 51 previous weeks of her life.

I've been changing her more often. I've always wiped her clean regardless of wet or wet & poopy. I've been using Desitin very liberally and with verrrry slow results. I started using Coconut Oil, too. I'm not sure if that's making a difference or not but I figure it can't hurt. By the way, is it just me that get's aggravated at who.ev.er designed the Desitin can so you have to stick your WHOLE HAND in it to use the bottom half of the cream?!?!?!
This morning at Kroger I stood in an embarrassing section of the store - which is directly in line with the cashiers! - trying to figure out which box of Monistat-like product would get me just a TUBE of the grease. I think every single box has all sorts of things I don't need with it. Arrg. And price ranges from $6 to $26. I suspect that Susannah has a yeast infection instead of just diaper rash, and a friend recommended Monistat. I put some on her before her afternoon nap, we'll see if there's any improvement here in a bit when she gets up.

I had no earthly idea what a big can of worms switching to cloth would be. I'm trying to decide if I want to stick it out or just avoid all the headache and go back to disposables. Regardless, I need to de-yeast the diapers. What does that mean? From the best I can figure out, I need to use HOT, HOT, HOT water and some sort of oxygenating bleach. Or I could use Tea Tree Oil. Or Grapefruit Seed Extract Oil. Or Motor Oil*. Or rub them with organic compost*. Or send them into outer space and do a handstand while facing the equator with one eye closed and both shoes untied while I wait for the diapers to re-enter and come back to Earth*. And then hang them in the sun to dry (which I'm already doing).

*Ok, yes, I'm exaggerating, but there's a billion different theories. I just want to kill the dad-blamed stuff!

*Don't do these things. I was joking.

So yeah. Here I thought I was going to be adding a cutesy little "super-domestic-mom-who-CDs" button to my hat and all it's done is add headache. On top of that, I thought surely this week was going to go great. I mean, Daniel and I had a mini-getaway for our anniversary (that never got blogged about... sigh) with lots of R&R, and I was rearing to go Monday morning. I think Monday went great, Tuesday went good... and Wednesday, well, I'm about to go bury my head in the sand again.

And on that note, I need to get off and go empty the slop that is stinking up the place.

Oh, and not to mention that Susannah's first birthday is tomorrow and I have done ZERO to prepare for it. I want to do something fun tomorrow for her!

Cloth Diapering: Take 1

For a while now I've been slowly warming to the idea of using cloth diapers. My initial reasons for not using cloth was

(a) I do not want to scrub poopy diapers in the toilet. No way. My mom did it - good for her, but I do. not. want. to. End of story. Oh, and I do not want poop in my washing machine. I know people do it, kudos to those who do, but I don't want to. My washing machine isn't a toilet, Haha!

(b) With coupons and sales I was getting Huggies (my fav. brand) really cheap, so I was thrilled to use disposables.

Now that Huggies isn't trying to give away the old style with the old packaging offering the rock bottom sales and coupons on every corner like they used to, I've been paying more and more closely to the shelf price when I buy diapers. And I'm starting to dread having to pay another $20 for a big box of diapers.

When I got to thinking about it, I usually only change Susannah 5-6 times a day, and most of those times she's just wet. And when she does have a dirty diaper it's no longer the ooey, gooey breast-fed baby poop, but stuff that would be a lot easier to get off the diaper with minimal cleaning.

So... I thought I'd take the cloth diaper plunge, at least part-time. My SIL had given me a huge grocery bag full of cloth diapers back when Susannah was born, so I already had diapers. Friends have loaned me diaper covers and a Snappi.

Yesterday I washed and line dried everything, and this morning I could not figure out the best way to fold the diaper to get it to fit well. These aren't the pre-fold diapers, but the enormous, huge, single-layer diapers. I was a little bit ashamed that I couldn't remember how Mom folded hers! I managed to get it on Susannah, but I think I need to experiment a little and see if I can improve.

I'm not sure what Susannah thinks of it. She has been a royal crab this morning (she's down for a nap now) and I don't know what the deal is. She is not usually this way. I'm hoping it's not the diapers, cause she'll just have to get used to it if that is her problem!

But now that she's wearing a cloth diaper, I'd better go find something to use as a makeshift diaper pail until I can find something suitable...

If you use the huge, non-prefolded diapers, please comment and tell me how you fold it! I think I could do ok with the way I did it this morning if I was going to use diaper pins, but I like the idea of the Snappi better than poking my fingers or Susannah.