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.

A {Doll} House!!

A few weeks ago the mail-lady delivered a very big, very mysterious package!! (Susannah now thinks that the mail-lady brings us surprises!!) I had not ordered anything and was not expecting anything so I was a little puzzled. I did some thinking and putting two-and-two together (the address, the handwriting, etc.) and had a good idea of what the packaged contained.

Reading the letter from Miss Wendy

A phone call to my sister confirmed my suspicion. Her sister-in-law had built a doll-house and sent it to our girls!! The rest of that week was full with happenings and Daniel was busy so we waited until Sunday afternoon to open the Big Box.

Susannah and Sylvia were very excited to see that it was a doll-house and they were eager to help pull off the packing paper and find all the goodies carefully packed inside the house.

Wendy built doll-houses for her nieces (Sally's girls) and Susannah and Sylvia recently had enjoyed playing with their houses while they were visiting Sally's family in July. Little did they or I know a doll-house had been in the making for them since January!!

They love the house and spent many hours each day playing with it for the first several days. They have since moved on to other toys, but the house is still here and I know they will enjoy it again when they get tired of the "regular" toys.

I love the house!! I think it would be a fun house to live in if I were a tiny person. :) The details are so intricate, down to TEENY-TINY, framed photographs of our girls and a larger one (maybe 1.5" inches tall?) of our family hanging in the living room. So many details that personalize the house to the girls, our family and lifestyle (a rooster wall-hanging in the kitchen, a cat, ladybugs on one of the bedroom walls...).

A big, BIG "thank you!!!" to Miss Wendy for the love, time and detail put into making this beautiful house for the girls!! This is a treasure they will have for the rest of their lives.

A GOOOOOD Day

In the 10.5 years that I have lived here, I don't ever remember having such a cool summer.  We had the air conditioning turned off for an entire week in JULY. I turned it off yesterday and opened the windows and it's still off. I don't know if the official temperature has hit 100° this summer (I suspect it has on a few days).  Usually summers are so hot and muggy that I dread going outside.

God has been giving us a wonderful gift of lovely, lovely summertime weather this year. Oh, I know it could still get super hot since sometimes our "summer" lasts through October, but I am thoroughly enjoying this mild summer!

I guess Daniel and I must comment to each other about what a "nice day" it's been weather-wise, and apparently little ears pick up on that. :)  Yesterday several minutes after one of us said how nice the day was, Sylvia said "It's a GOOOOOOOD day." It was a lovely day. After lunch I strapped on Charity (I think with baby #3 I have finally gotten the hang of baby-wearing!) and we went to visit the chickens. After we gathered the eggs the girls frolicked in the yard, running up and down the hill several times.

While it was Sylvia's turn in the swing, Susannah went over to the tree, sat down and said, "I'm going to sit and talk to God for a bit." Then she told me what all she was going to talk to Him about. I don't remember what all, but it was appropriate 4-year-old conversation topics. :)

Sylvia wanted to swing for a while so I was pushing her "up to the sky" as we call it. After a bit she called out, "Mama! I see the great, big sky!!"  I turned around and indeed, it was a lovely view of the sky. 

I love where we live. I do miss the mountain views that I grew up with, but these little 2.5 acres are pretty nice. :)  It's usually quiet. Dark at night so we can see the stars. A rooster crows in the mornings, and afternoons. :) Country enough that we can walk down the road and watch the combines in the field, or hear the hay-haulers driving back and forth on the road. Some evenings if the windows are open and the air is still I can hear cows lowing somewhere nearby.

 

I am so thankful for these GOOOOD days that we are given. Not only in terms of the weather, but the time given to me with our girls.

First Day of Home-School, 2014

Susannah, age 4

Kindergarten

Goal: Learning to Read

Sylvia, age 2

Observer and master of wooden puzzles. :)

We're eager to see what the year ahead holds for us. :)

Charity was napping when I took the previous photos, so here's her First Day of School picture:

 Charity, 4 months and 2 weeks old

Charity's goal: figure out how to move!

Mama's goal: get her to like food

The Good Ol' Summertime

It is hard to believe that we are already to August!! I was gazing at Charity today (yes, gazing :) ) and felt some sad twinges to realize that she will be 1/2 a year old next month. The end of next month but still...

 
She enjoys playing and holds her head up well. She CAN roll herself over but has yet to do it intentionally. That is nothing new for our babies. They learn at their own speed. :) She is one happy little girl! Matchbox cars are a little advanced for her, but I took these pictures when Sylvia so kindly shared a car with Charity. :) 

I feel like I am finally back on the wagon of maintaining our house since Charity was born. A big boost in that department was when my sister invited Susannah and Sylvia to spend a few days at their house last month. Charity and I hung out here and I did some serious "get things back in shape" cleaning!

I am learning to harness the power of the natural energy that lives in our house. ;) The girls love running the vacuum sweeper so I let them each take a turn or two after we've cleaned up the floor. Once it turns into a "turn it on/turn it off" game I take over and sweep up everything that's left.
 

I'm pretty fortunate that at the age of 4 (almost 4 1/2) Susannah still takes a nap almost every day.  However, if I put her down for a nap at 2:00 she is like a jack-in-the-box and doesn't get any rest (and ends up not in the greatest of moods by bedtime). So most days she gets the privilege of staying up and we work on something together until 3:00. Then she has to stay on her bed and rest at least until I go open her door at 4:00. It is rare that she doesn't fall asleep and take a good 2 hour nap. :) That tells me she's still benefiting from naptimes.  Unrelated, but I'm pretty certain she's going through a growth spurt. She, who never complains about being hungry and typically eats like a bird most of the time, has been coming to me about 2 hours after every meal asking for more food because she's hungry. Last night she polished off a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at 9pm!!

One day this week she helped me finish making the bread I started at lunch time. She used her little wad of dough to make tiny cinnamon rolls. It thrilled her to no end and she and Sylvia had them for their after-nap snack.

We have now officially experienced the Coxsackie virus in our family (also known as Hand, Foot & Mouth Disease). Daniel had it the mildest several weeks ago and we didn't even realize that's what it was (he had 3 spots on his arms) until the rest of us got it and we put two and two together. Susannah and Sylvia were great little patients and were pretty happy through the whole ordeal. Susannah did have an ulcer in her mouth but rarely made mention of it and always ate well. 

Poor Charity had it the worst on her skin. She didn't seem bothered by it, but two of the days she didn't have very good naptimes and didn't like being down to play. I ended up pulling out the Snugli baby carrier and used that some since she was happy if I was holding her.

I feel like I suffered the worst. Since it's more prone in children I was hoping to escape. Not helping was randomly getting Strep Throat out of nowhere to start my round off. I went to the Dr. to have that checked out and while we were getting my prescription filled I noticed the first blister forming on my thumb. That was Saturday at noon, and by Sunday morning I had 3 ulcers in my mouth from the virus. It was complete agony as my feet had blisters on the soles and felt like walking on stick-pins when I walked, and anything with my mouth besides carefully moving my lips and tip of my tongue hurt like fire. I lived on drinking smoothies and pureed soup through a straw from Saturday evening until Tuesday night when I very, VERY carefully ate some "real" food. 

At first I was thinking "it's just a virus, no big deal..." Well, I will never, ever, EVER consider it to be "no big deal." I admire Susannah's pain tolerance (or perhaps the Lord's protection over her?) and am so grateful to be mostly on the other side of this now.

Now August is here and I am turning many of my spare-time-thoughts towards school. I'm pretty excited that this coming Monday is our first day of home-school. Susannah doesn't know it yet, but she will be learning to read. :)  She really wants to be able to read and is showing all the signs of being ready. I am eager to watch it "click" in her brain! She has seen two "secret packages" come in the mail (the school books) and is very, VERY excited to find out what was in them. We plan to tell her this weekend. You might want to stay tuned for a post or two about that. :)

The Good, Full Life

I have written so many blog posts in my head that never made into the real thing. I feel like Charity's life has had so little recorded about it!!  A condensed version of her life would be that the first 5 weeks of her life was miserable for her and me. She was not a good sleeper and just cried and fussed her way through SO many naps unless she was being held. I don't know how many of her naps I laid in bed with her on my chest so we could BOTH sleep. She was a good eater, she didn't have unusual amounts of burps or gas. There was no rhyme or reason. Sometimes she slept great, others she didn't. And she wasn't spacing out her feeding times, either. I finally had a light-bulb moment when she'd had a few great days and then suddenly she was having a horrible time of sleeping again. I thought and thought and thought, going over each and every single detail of what I had eaten, where we had gone, what she had done over the last day and realized that I had eaten ice cream 24 hours before. I had been surviving on ice cream and yogurt for my "I'm starving, I don't have time to make food, there is no food ready to eat RIGHT now, I am so tired (caffeine isn't really an option)..." snacks and "get me through to bedtime" meals. I quite eating dairy and she turned into the happiest, smiliest baby just like I thought she would! Thankfully I don't have to read labels, but boy oh boy do I miss cheese and yogurt and ice cream! Hooray for Almond Ice Cream and other non-dairy frozen dessert things that I enjoy from time to time. She is just now to where I can have Parmesan Cheese on Spaghetti again. Yummy!! :) She sleeps through the night, from about 10/10:30pm to USUALLY about 6 or 6:30am. Now if I would go to bed at 10 or 10:30... ;)

 Daniel's work never had a slow season this spring. That seems typical of our baby years for some reason! He just came out of two 75-ish hr. work weeks so we are really looking forward to the 3-day weekend this week!

We make the most of his time at home when we're awake and can visit and hang out as a family.

Susannah and Sylvia adore Charity. :)  Susannah has developed and interest in the written word. She spends big chunks of time writing our names and from time to time other peoples' names. She is showing an interest in reading, too, so learning how to read may be in her future for this fall!

One day I decided I was going to make a set breakfast and lunch menu for a week, and we just go 'round and 'round with that. I eliminates 2 things for me to think about and figure out each day. :) I enjoy it and so do the girls. Ice-cube tray lunches are one of their favorites!  It changes a little each week depending on what fresh fruit and vegetables I have, but it's usually similar to below.

L-R: Organic Animal Crackers, Strawberries, Lunch-meat Roll (cut into wheels), Cheese, Avocado, Ranch Dressing, Bell Pepper, Croutons, Cucumber

I love being mama to this sweet girl!!!  It is strange, though, to look at her sometimes because she just has peach fuzz for hair. Both Susannah and Sylvia had at least 1" long, dark hair by this age. :) Charity looks a lot like Daniel when he was a baby.

Walking on the ceiling is fun when Daddy's home

 And sleeping on the ceiling, too... :)

In Daniel's "spare" time he has been busy building a large chicken house onto the back of our shed. We are very eager to have chickens again!!  He has made a lot of progress since I took this photo, and we hope that he will be able to have it chicken-ready very soon!!

 

I don't plan to leave you all hanging for another 2 1/2 months before I post again, but for now I must go see about dinner. Happy 4th!!!

The Never-Dull Life

One Saturday the girls - with Daniel's help - picked me some bouquets of  dogwood blooms. We put them in a vase on the table and enjoyed them for a long time. "Long time" as in... ahem, I just threw out the dead twigs and dried petals yesterday. ;)


Susannah has a very creative imagination these days. That may be an understatement; I'm not sure. She also doesn't have much of a filter between her mind and tongue so I get to hear just about every thought that passes through her brain. It makes for quite the entertainment sometimes, and very tired ears others. Most consistently, though, has been her imaginary kids/friends, Iryn (pronounced "eye-rin") and Hepsabah. She has conversations with them and talks about them as if they are real people. Most of the time when we go somewhere, at some point on the way to where we're going she'll say "Oh! We forgot Iryn and Hepsabah!" I'll respond by saying "well, tell them to come hop in!" She'll move her arms around and then say "They jumped in!" and then she'll verbalize how and where they are sitting in the car and so forth. Sometimes she'll say "Where's [either Iryn or Hepsabah]? ... oh, he's being silly and running beside the car! He needs to jump in!"

Last week she was outside playing, and I heard her come in the back door doing her best fake wailing. I asked what the matter was, assuming that Sylvia had done something she didn't like or some such aggravation. She continued with her fake emotions and said "Iryn died!!" I quizzed her about Iryn's death, and she said he had died because his body got old (most of the time he is either 69 or 70 years old, even though he's her "boy"). She put on some very good fake sadness over his death. About an hour later I asked if Iryn was still dead, just in case he had miraculously resurrected. She was again sad and said that he was still dead; he had died because he had a "sore froat".

A few days later Iryn came back to life and is a regular part of her imaginary play again. :)
 

Susannah and Sylvia asked me to spread their blankets out 

so they could join Charity in having some blanket-time.

A "best friends" moment on a day when there were plenty of NOT-best-friends moments. ;)

(Sylvia is saying "cheese!" with a mouth-full of food.)

The girls love to hold Charity.

My mom has been coming for a day a few times a month and my brother, Glen, came along the last time. Susannah and Sylvia loved having him here!

The Season of Worms. Ew. Gross. Creepy-Crawly. I don't remember what kind of worm it is, but EVERY spring here where I live, for a couple of weeks these worms are EVERYWHERE. They strip full-grown trees of their leaves, spin their long single-strand webs everywhere, and during the peak of their "season" it looks like the trees are raining worms because hundreds of worms dangle from their web-strings beneath the trees.

That was the preface to these next two pictures (you're welcome ;-) ). One afternoon Susannah came in really happy and excited. I quickly realized she was so happy and talkative about her WORMS! She had 3 worms on her hand and was talk about them, to them, and showing them to me. I was about to crawl out of my skin but she was loving it!!

When one started to fall off, she would talk to it and gently reposition the wormy so he could stay on her hand. **spine shiver** Anyway, I'm just glad she didn't try to convince me to let her keep them in her bed like she asked about doing with an earthworm a year ago...  I guess she still enjoys her wildlife.

Since Daniel's work has picked up with a bang, the girls clamor for time spent with him when he's home. I encourage it, too, because it makes a big difference in their behavior when they get some Daddy-time... and it gives me a little respite as well. Win-win. Anyway, Sunday afternoons between lunch and naps are one such time. They like to play a game, wrestle, read books or just have good fun together. Sylvia isn't quite able to play board games yet so she usually watches while she climbs all over Daniel. :-)

Life As Five

Is an adventure. :)

 

Morning pajama clad bed-heads. :) (And one wearing Sunday shoes because she loves shoes like that.)

Picnics in the living room when Charity needed to eat at lunchtime.

Lots of playing on the couch. Sometimes it's a house (they are actually both sitting in the "bathroom" in these two pictures!), sometimes it's a car, and when they throw the cushions on the floor it becomes an ocean for jumping and diving. (Hopefully no stitches or casts will come from these grand adventures...) These kind of adventures are the reason we said "yes!" to this ugly, huge, well-worn couch that fits nicely in our living room. It provides a great indoor place to have lots of fun of all kinds!

Talking to Aunt Lucy who lives far, FAR away with her big dog "Gunfer" (as they say "Gunther").