Thank God for Sprout!

I am sooooo glad we get the 24hour PBS Kids channel known as Sprout - Jay LOVES it!

I know and have read about some parents who don't let their babies watch any TV, however I need something on in the background for noise as I can't stand silence and we noticed that Jay was sometimes watching the TV when it was on so we figure that if it's going to be on, might as well put something somewhat educational on so if he does watch it maybe he'll absorb some of it and we won't have to worry about it being anything inappropriate.

Anyways, he started watching Sesame Street around 3 months old after he 1st saw Elmo in Barnes and Noble and was instantly drawn to the stuffed animal. He doesn't always watch all of Sesame Street but he does seem to pay attention more when Elmo's on.

I looked up what shows Nick Jr, Disney and Cartoon Network plays and really weren't impressed (there's not really much anymore on those channels for really little kids) and so I opted to let him watch PBS instead - you can't go wrong with Sesame Street and the rest of the shows on there seem to be pretty appropriate too (save for a few shows that seem to appeal to slightly older kids, such as Electric Company, Ruff Ruffman, Wild Kratts, WordGirl etc). WordWorld, while a cute show, is hit and miss with Jay - he'll watch it somedays and other days he just won't have any interest. Same with Super Why, Thomas, Caillou and Dinosaur Train. Sid the Science Kid and Martha Speaks both bore him right now. He does seem to like Clifford (which is usually on while he's drinking his 1st bottle of the day), Barney, Curious George and Arthur (which are usually on when I'm getting ready for work and he's stuck in his Pack n Play).

On the weekends it was a bit tougher though, as Sunday mornings PBS plays the more older kid shows and on Saturdays there just isn't much good on for kids nowadays (which is sad as I remember Saturday morning cartoons being AWESOME in the late 80s and early 90s... now ABC is the only channel with a 2hr block and the Magic School Bus is the only decent show in the line-up!). When Jay stayed with my parents for Thursday through Saturday trip hubby and I took up north for a wedding at the end of June and beginning of July my dad realized Sprout is on the basic digital starter line-up and I've been soooo glad for it!

It's nice to have something little-kid friendly on in the evenings, especially when he's eating his bedtime bottle and it's been great on the weekends too, as they show Sesame Street on there also.

Nina and Star
hosts of The Goodnight Show

The Goodnight Show with Nina and Star starts at 5pm and replays at 8pm and 11pm, so we usually catch the last hour and the first half hour around bedtime. It mixes the Sprout hosts teaching stuff with kids shows and other fun songs - we usually watch The Berenstein Bears, Driver Dan's Storytrain, the Rubba-Dubbers, the Nurdle Gurdle Aquafresh tooth-brushing song, a Jim Henson's Pajanimals song, Chica and the day's host from the morning's Sunny Side Up Show announcing the day's birthdays (he LOVES the Chica chicken puppet and watches her whenever she's on) and the commercials for the afternoon Sharing Show with the Patty the pig puppet (again, Jay LOVES the Patty puppet and watches her too whenever she's on).

Chica with the morning Sunny Side Up Show hosts Danesha, Sean, Kelly and Liz

On the weekends we usually catch the last hour or so of the Sunny Side Up Show with Chica and the 1 of the 4 daily hosts they rotate each week and sometimes Sesame Street at noon. In the afternoon we usually catch a little bit of the Sharing Show - he really likes this show called The Mighty Jungle which has... puppets! I swear, anything with puppets Jay will just sit and watch, lol... Bob the Builder is also on the Sharing Show and he seems to like that one too.

Patty from the Sharing Show and the main characters from The Mighty Jungle

She's ALWAYS crying about
something!!! WHY?!?!

The only show I really CANNOT stand is Angelina Ballerina. Now on Fridays, PBS plays a newer version of the show, but the version we often catch during the Goodnight Show is the older version and oh my gosh... I swear that mouse cries about something in EVERY episode - I have yet to see one where she doesn't cry about something. It gets really old and annoying. Fortunately Jay doesn't seem interested in her. I know a lot of parents complain about Caillou whining a lot, and while I notice he does whine from time to time, it's honestly not every episode like Angelina and her crying.

I also find the DirtGirlWorld show to be slightly creepy too, the way it merges actual people's faces and expressions with animation... soooooo creepy!

These guys creep me out with their big heads and realistic faces & expressions!

I know, I'm a horrible parent for letting my 7 month old watch TV... oh well, it works for us and honestly, while the TV may be on, he's usually playing with us or his toys half the time or eating or falling asleep so it's not like he's sitting glued to the TV like a zombie, it's just background noise and sometimes when something catches his attention (like whenever there's puppets on) he'll stop and watch for a few minutes.

My Top 10 Diaper Bag Must-Haves

I recently got an email update from What to Expect (much like I do everyday) with an article link to "Diaper Bag Must-Haves". I agreed with all their suggestions, but had a few of my own to add.

1. Diapers
This is a no-brainer as it IS called a "diaper bag." I usually try to keep at least 4 or 5 in there so I don't have to constantly be refilling it as the only time he goes through more than 1 at a time is when he's over at my mom's while I'm working or out.

2. Wipes
I always keep a package of wipeys in the diaper bag

3. Diaper rash ointment
I prefer Desitin and always keep a tube in there

4. Sunblock (in the warmer months)
You never know when you might go outside for an extended period of time & you don't want baby to get burned so it's a good idea to keep some of this in the diaper bag. We use Huggies Little Swimmers waterproof spf50 sunblock.

5. A spare bottle
Cuz kiddo might randomly decide to get hungry at the most inopportune times!

6. Some baby food
At Target and Babies R Us you can find small formula containers like the one in the picture by Munchkin where you measure out the formula powder beforehand and then just pour it into the bottle when you need it. I LOVE this product and am soooo glad to have it - it really comes in handy and I don't have to carry an entire tub of formula with me! This particular one has 3 separate spots.

7. Your kid's "lovey"
Jay's is his stuffed Elmo so I make sure to always put him the diaper bag before we go out.

8. Bib/Burpie
Jay drools A LOT right now so for us it's mandatory to have an extra bib in the bag and of course a burpie cloth is needed in case he eats while we're out and about.

9. A blanket
More for the colder months, as you never know how the weather will be - one minute it's in the 70s and your kid is in shorts, the next it's in the 50s and you need something to throw over his legs! Plus, if you're driving in the colder months and something happens where your car breaks down, doesn't hurt to have a blanket on hand, especially for kiddo!

10. A spare set of clothes
In case your child has a blowout in his diaper that goes up his back or some other massive mess that requires a change of clothes while you're out.

Honorable Mention: A bottle of water
More so in case you get stranded somewhere like if your car breaks down - if kiddo gets hungry you can mix a bottle for them (assuming you have #'s 5&6).

A busy week is upon us...

I must say, we have quite the busy week!

Today we're heading up to Madison for Jay's appointment with his new pediatric urology specialist, as his local urologist isn't a pediatric specialist (he's a urologist with some background in pediatrics, but he isn't a pediatric specialist) and has deemed Jay's case to be a little more severe as the blockage being down near his bladder instead of up by the kidney is a little more rare and uncommon.

Then I am on call at work from 5-10pm, which I have a feeling I might be needed as we're in the process of changing the store over for our Back to School collection.

Tuesday I am also working from 4:30-close.

Wednesday we have our family photo for the new upcoming pictorial directory for our church, as they put one out every 5-10 years or so (last one was during my early college years). I'm pretty excited to get a professional family portrait of the 3 of us, as it'll be our first official one and we get a free 8x10 of it too, not to mention being in the directory with my now intermediate family is something I was always excited about getting to do someday when I was a younger and now that day is here!

Thursday and Friday we have nothing really planned (that I can recall), aside from Friday being payday and I'm looking forward to a decent sized check considering how many hours I got to put in last week.

Saturday I'm working open til 1:30 and being on call til 3.

And Sunday is another big day - hubby's first "real" Father's Day (last year we made the announcement that Jay was on the way) and Jay's Baby Dedication at church. We have to be there at 915am, which is early for us, as usually we're strolling into 2nd service at about 1030am, just before the actual sermon starts (service itself starts at 1015). After church we're doing Father's Day lunch with my inlaws at Famous Dave's and then I'm assuming we're grilling or something with my family for dinner later in the day.

And of course I should be in bed, as it's going on 4am and I need to be up around 830am or so as I have to get myself showered and ready to go before Jay's up so I can feed him his cereal and bottle before we hit the road to Madison (which takes about an hour and half drive, but I want to give us at least 2 hours in case we hit traffic - his appointment isn't until 12:20 but I want to aim to leave around 10am so we have plenty of time). I find that I can *never* fall asleep at a decent time the night before a busy day... so annoying! I just hope there's a point to this doctor's visit rather than just driving all the way up there for a simple meet and greet with our new specialist that could have been done over the phone.

Some late night thoughts

Several thoughts I've been meaning to post about:

1. Remember when pregnant how they were concerned about Jay's femurs measuring small and started scaring me into the possibility that he might have Downs Syndrome? Well, as I mentioned when he was born, he's perfectly proportioned. They did briefly also mention that it could just be his height would be in his torso and not his legs, like me and mom rather than his daddy. Turns out, that's just what it is! Jay seems to have a long torso while his legs... he can still fit in newborn size pants while a good bit of 0-3 size ones fit a bit long on him. See though? No big deal and they me got worried over nothing.

2. Thinking it over and knowing after the fact (having been told at my 6 week post-partum appointment) that they discovered a knot in his umbilical cord when he was born... that's probably the cause for why his growth slowed and is likely the reason why we had that "failure to thrive" stuff. Somewhere between weeks 30 and 37 it got knotted up (no surprise really as he was quite the active bugger in there, which hasn't stopped since he was born!) and slowed down the amount of food he was getting. He was still getting enough to survive, but because he wasn't getting as much his stomach probably shrunk and he probably just got used to not eating as much to be full which carried over after he was born - his stomach shrunk so much and couldn't take in much and needed to be stretched (which the continuous feeding in the hospital did) in order to hold more so he could eat enough to grow! I'm almost positive that's what happened. And if that's the case, it explains a lot!

Toddlers and the Discipline Affirmation Conundrum

So I mentioned briefly in my previous post that this week's sermon was really insightful as a new parent.

Last week at church our pastor - Rusty Hayes - started a new series called Generations and kicked it off with the topic of mother's for Mother's Day. This week the sermon was on toddlers and discussed bringing them up and "training" the right. While it was called toddlers, he said it can apply to kids up to ages 8 and maybe even 10.

Anyways, he talked about what he called the Discipline Affirmation Conundrum and how as a parent you need to find the balance between the 2 for each of your children as each child is different.

If you give too much or only affirmation and not enough or no discipline and never say no to your child, your likely to end up with a kid who is a total spoiled brat and thinks the world revolves around them. However if you give your child too much discipline with little to no affirmation then you're like going to to have a child who's an overachiever when they're young, doing anything they can just to get any sort of praise from you, and then they're likely to rebel and go wild with their newfound freedom when they go off to college or move out on their own. So as a parent it's your responsibility to find that balance for your child. Some children are a bit out of control and need a little more discipline than others, other kids may have low self-esteem for whatever reason and need more affirmation.

So many parents today are more concerned about being their child's friend than being their parent and are afraid to tell their child "no" and/or discipline them, which looking in general at society and the teens we have today, clearly there's a problem. As a parent though it's your job to teach your child right from wrong, disciplining them when needed so that they understand that bad actions are wrong.

As far as disciplining goes, he pointed out that there's really 3 options or "ouch factors" that work with toddlers, the 1st being spankings and pointed out that the Bible even mentions using "the rod."

So many parents today think of spankings as child abuse or don't do it, however, a study from very liberal college UC-Berkeley showed that spankings in moderation (ie: when necessary) actually are effective, as they did a study that lasted 10 years and looked at several kids who were disciplined differently - the ones that did get spankings from time to time ended up growing up best (for lack of better terms). Now our pastor pointed out, you never want to spank your child while you're in a rage as your likely to lose control and take things too far, and really it should be more of a last resort and only done when the situation warrants it - if you're spanking a child multiple times a day then something is clearly wrong, either your child isn't getting it or you're missing something.

Another "ouch factor" is the lose of privileges, such as putting your child in timeout, and by timeout we mean somewhere away from toys and distractions where the child can have a few minutes to sit and reflect on what they did wrong. Don't send them to their room or they'll just see timeout as a time to get away and go play and not learn anything. In my parents house, the timeout spot was on the bottom landing of the stairs that go upstairs. My sister was quite familiar with that spot, as they would have her sit there for several minutes at a time (my mom would set the timer on the stove so my sister would know when she could get up off the landing) until she cooled down and was ready to behave. As the kid gets older this would be more in the terms of grounding them or "no TV or video games for x-amount of time."

The third "ouch factor" is to make amends. The example our pastor used was say Billy throws his little sister's favorite dolly out in the trash, just for fun. Well then Billy would have to give one of his favorite toys to his little sister to make amends. If they break a sibling's or a friend's toy on purpose and get an allowance, have them save up to replace it. Teach them that if they wrong someone it is their responsibility to make it right.

As far as affirmation goes, he reminded us of 4 points.

Be sure to have fun with your kids - laughter is the closest a person can get to each other. Be silly and have fun, do fun things together. Have a weekly family night where you all watch a movie or play a game together (we used to do pizza and board games when I was little).

Make conversation with them, talk through stories. Say you know your kid got teased at school but doesn't want to talk about it. Have them help you come up with a story where you act out what happened and get them to discuss it. For example, use their stuffed animals and incorprate them into the story - let them come up with the names in the story, point out that one of them (say the bunny stuffed animal) got teased, ask your child how they think bunny feels. Try to get them to talk about how they're feeling.

"Date" your child - make time for some one on one with just them. Dad's take your daughters out one on one for something as simple as McDonald's for a meal, same goes for moms.

And of course be sure to make your child feel blessed - make them feel good about themselves, show praise and affirmation when they do good things.

Overall, I thought it was a really good and insightful sermon, especially being a new parent who's soon going to be dealing with a toddler before you know it! I look forward to the rest of the series.

Weekly Update

This past week has been somewhat busy with some amusing moments as well!

Tuesday it was hot and sunny! Jay and I met up with my friend and her 1 year old and went walking for a bit at a nearby park around a mini-lake. Good thing too, as the lake offered a little bit of a nice breeze! It finally felt like summer though and I'm not sure Jay knew what to make of it as on this day he got to go out in just a onesie with no shoes or pants on bottom when usually when we go out he's all bundled up! I'm glad I bought the Huggies Little Swimmers spf 50 sunblock recently though, as it came in handy and kept Jay from getting burnt like I did! He was sweating a lot though while we were out so I went on a search to find him one of those water spray bottles with the fan on the end so I can take with us and mist him while we go for walks this summer.

It's a good thing that our basement is super freezing as it felt really nice when it was 90 degrees outside!

Also, I got my Mother's Day present - a trip to a nearby salon for a mani-pedi! And at this place you get a complimentary beverage too - neat! We're going to a wedding out of state on the 1st of July so I'll probably use it sometime the week before.

We think Jay might be going through his 3 month growth spurt as Thursday he literally slept almost all day - he didn't wake up in his crib til after noon, I picked him up and he fell back asleep and slept til almost 3pm before he woke up for food, sleeping on and off throughout the day only waking up to eat or have his diaper changed. He seemed more like himself on Friday, but I looked it up and they say increased in appetite and sleeping more than usual is a sign of a growth spurt coming and he's due for his 3 month one too... he does feel a bit heavier, as I've noticed I've had to shift him a bit when he's laying on me as my back or side starts to hurt if he's on it for too long. He's also eating 8oz bottles regularly now too - finishing off several in a day that we had to go out and buy another 3 pack of bottles so we have enough to get through the day! We weighed him on the scale by weighing daddy while holding him and then without - it showed that Jay added about 12lbs to daddy's weight, so we're assuming he's at least 12lbs by now. His 4 month check-up on June 8th - wouldn't be surprised if he's at least 13lbs by then!

Friday Jay had a few "scares." We decided to go out to a sit-down restaurant on Friday night for dinner so while I was in the bathroom putting on make-up hubby was watching Jay when I heard him shriek and scream and start crying out of nowhere! I rushed out of the bathroom to see what had happened and saw hubby trying to comfort Jay - hubby decided to play "Elmo Attack!" with Jay but Jay freaked out at the sight of his favorite stuffed animal lunging towards him, lol... poor kiddo! And at Texas Roadhouse, whenever it's someone's birthday they yell it out so everyone in the restaurant can hear and have everyone yell "yee-haw!" Well, it scared Jay, as the 1st time it happened, the birthday was just a few tables over from us. They started yelling out the person's information and his face scrunched up and he started wailing... I picked him up and held him to get him to calm down but then a few minutes later they announced another birthday in a nearby section and he started crying again. So yeah... guess he wasn't fond of that, although he didn't mind the rest of the loud atmosphere! LOL...

I had to quit the 30 Day Shred, unfortunately. It's a good work-out and it is doable, it's just I realized my knees are HORRIBLE! They can't handle the intense workout and I'm afraid if I kept up with it I'd really do something to damage them and make em even worse. So I'm watching my calories thanks to the My Fitness Pal smartphone app and I'm making an effort to go walking at least once a week if not more so I'm doing something. Plus wearing my Shape-Ups help too as I can feel those toning my legs and butt.

What else...

I started on Jay's baby book earlier this week, filling out the info so far. I need to get some pictures printed up for it though.

Also, Jay enjoyed sending text messages to people this week! I was holding him while we were hanging out in the basement on a hot afternoon and I had my phone in my hand too, which is a touchscreen. On occasion Jay likes to smack my phone, put me on who knows what screen and how he got there, lol... well this day he got it to open a text message to one of my friends. Seeing how he was hitting the screen of my phone with his hand I decided to just let him send messages to people (with a follow-up one that it was from him) and let him go to town punching in random characters! He had a blast and it provided us with some entertainment for a little while! He sent one to a few of my friends and daddy as well as both of his grandma's and my dad (as his other grandpa doesn't text). They all thought it was cute and amusing. Gotta love touchscreens!

I almost forgot last week that Jay "watches" TV now too, as I had TBS on late one night and a horror movie came on. It was about 5 minutes in when it hit me to see if he was asleep or awake, as I was on the laptop and had Jay propped up on some pillows on the couch laying next to me. I look over and sure enough, he's wide awake, staring at the TV, sucking on his binky and snuggling with Elmo. Fortunately nothing graphic had happened yet so I flipped the channel over to Disney Channel which had Little Einstein's on! Oops!

Sunday I had a Mary Kay party and got a bunch of items (at least 10) for just $41.27! I stocked up on the items I use that I was either really low on or pretty much out of and got a handful of fun extras too! It seemed like everyone had fun too! Jay spent the evening downstairs with daddy at "the man party" as hubby invited one of his co-workers over to play video games with and my father-in-law hung out with them too as my mother-in-law and sister-in-law were there for my party and with his health issues he can't be alone at the house for very long. It all worked out though - us girls did our thing while the guys did their thing.

We took Jay to church again this week and kept him with us rather than dropping him off in the nursery - he did well once again, sleeping throughout most of the service, except at the end in which he started laughing and we had to try to keep him from being too loud during the prayer, lol... the sermon was really good too (they're doing that Generations series I mentioned last week and this week's was on toddlers) and as a new parent I found it to be pretty insightful, but I'll be posting more about that in a bit =)

We also got a call this week to participate in the upcoming church pictorial directory. They haven't put one out since shortly after I started college. My family had the time slot after hubby's family so I remember him and I hanging out for a bit as his family was taking forever, holding up the photo shoots, lol... part of the problem was his brother insisted that his girlfriend at the time be in the photos and they had trouble picking one they liked that she wasn't in or something along those lines... hubby and I just remember it taking forever, lol... we setup a time for the 3 of us, not sure if we're also going to join his family to get one nice big family photo or not - that's up to them. I'm excited though as they've done these pictorial church directories for years and it's neat having them and looking at them from time to time... I remember being a kid and thinking about the day I'd get to be in it with a family of my own and now that day has come! How exciting!

My 1st Mother's Day

This year was the 1st year I got to celebrate Mother's Day!

We found out on Thursday that we were doing Mother's Day brunch at 10am with my inlaws, so I ended up going to the Saturday evening service at church as they started this Generations series this weekend that I had been looking forward to and really didn't want to miss, however we'd have to miss our regular Sunday service at 1030am and hubby wasn't too thrilled at the idea of going to the 830am service and having to get up earlier than that.

So I took Jay with me (hubby works Saturday evenings) and dropped him off in the church nursery. They said he did really well - he snuggled with one of the ladies in a rocking chair and she said he took a little snooze too. They asked me to bring him back again sometime as I guess they don't get too many really little guys in the nursery much these days!

I also won a goodie bag during service - they had us fill out the comment and turn it in and they drew 4 names and mine was one of them! In my bag was a small candle, some chocolates, a journal/devotional, a pen, some "Thank You" notes, and a little manicure set. Pretty neat!

The sermon was pretty good too - this week's was on Mothers, next week's on Toddlers. Should be interesting!

Sunday, hubby told me happy mother's day when our alarm went off. Baby boy joined us in bed at 815am, after sleeping for 6hrs or so in his crib, and I passed him off to daddy at 9am so I could get ready to go. Kiddo was tired - we could barely wake him up to get him to eat! lol...

We met my inlaws at Stockholm Inn (this authentic Swedish pancake house that's ALWAYS packed when we go there as Rockford has a huge Swedish population) and had brunch with them. We got done around noon and they came over to the house for a little bit before we all went for a 2pm showing of Thor.

We put a blanket over his legs to keep him
warm - we took it off at the end & this is how
we found him curled up, snoozing! LOL

I was hesitant to take Jay with us, as I used to manage a theater in college and I really didn't want to be one of *those* parents that has the screaming little baby with them (and while Jay is usually pretty good, he is teething right now so there's no telling when his mouth will start bothering him!), but he did GREAT! We fed him before we left and then he fell asleep in the car and HE SLEPT THE ENTIRE 2 HOURS OF THE MOVIE! I was shocked! There was a few times he stirred a little in his carrier, but he just readjusted himself and fell back into sleep. He woke up as we were leaving and strapping him back in (we undid his straps just in case we needed to pick him up and take him out in a hurry and we did sit down near the front on an aisle). He seemed a little confused as to where he was though! lol...

We swung by the house to get my mom's gift and headed over to my parent's house, as it was already 430 and dad said to be there around 5. We had a cookout and hubby and I took a little snooze on one of the couches while Grammie played with and read books to Jay.

We came home and daddy took care of Jay for me for the night - feeding him, changing him (stuff I usually do), etc. We watched the new episode of HBO's Game of Thrones and Jay and I fell asleep on the couch snuggling together while daddy did stuff in the office.

Overall it was a nice day.

I'm still waiting to see what my actual gift is - I gave hubby some ideas earlier in the week as he really had no clue what to get me... so far I got a card from him and one from Jay though (both were really cute!). He said I'd get it today as we didn't have money til Friday and he didn't have a chance to get it on Saturday, but I haven't gotten it yet and I don't want to be a nag, asking, so I guess we'll wait and see! =D

We got my mother-in-law this tulip reed diffuser set with tulip scented oil from Yankee Candle and we got my mom this cute votive/tealight holder with a duckie in a raincoat and umbrella with a little froggie like they're sitting on the edge of a pond together (like Grammie and Jay) and a pack of tealights to go with it.

"It's Time to Build a Word..." - kid's shows, moving & more!

Just realized it's been about a week since I last posted.

Not too much has really happened. We're officially closing on the house this Thursday at 230pm so by evening we will have the keys to our own house! Yay!

Jay, 2 months old
(8 weeks, 3 days in this photo)

Jay can fit into his 0-3 month clothes now as I've had him running around in the onesies this past week. He's also been able to finally wear his shoes too - they don't look like giant clown shoes on him anymore!

We also started using the size 1 Pampers Swaddlers diapers too and I like them much better than the Parent's Choice Walmart brand we were using. While the Walmart ones fit great, I've noticed the past week or so he's been getting a pretty bad case of diaper rash. The Pampers ones are nice as they're a lot softer on his skin and they're virtually leak proof which is nice as we've been having issues with him leaking lately.

He's become more alert in the past week or so and so we've started watching kid's shows on PBS/WTTW. He usually watches some Sesame Street or WordWorld while he eats his morning bottle and falls asleep during them for a few hours - he usually sleeps about 6 or 7 hours at night and then wakes up to eat  and falls back to sleep for about 3 or 4 more hours. During his afternoon bottle (after he wakes up) we usually watch either Clifford, Curious George or Arthur. I'm not let him get hooked or addicted to TV or anything, but since he is more alert now and we've noticed him watching the TV when it's on I don't see any problem with him watching early learning shows while he's eating throughout the day. PBS seems to have the best younger kid friendly shows too. I really like the WordWorld show - everything in the show, from characters to objects and buildings, is made out of the word of the character/object/building. Like the duck character is made out of the letters "d-u-c-k". It's really cute! And the show uses bright colors too so it gets Jay's attention.

 

Sesame Street's Abby's Flying Fairy School
segment with animated background - most
of the segments in the show now have
animated backgrounds!

Has anyone watched Sesame Street lately? To be honest, I'm a bit disappointed by the current format. Growing up, it took place on the actual Sesame Street with the adults and kids interacting with the puppet cast of characters with various short segments dispersed throughout the show. Well now, we briefly see the actual Sesame Street (at least from what I've seen in the episodes we've watched) and the whole show is in various segments. Many of the puppet characters are now standing in front of CGI animated settings rather than actual real settings (half the time the puppets look CGI animated too!). And between each segment is a red monster who's hanging out in some city park introducing each segment (such as Elmo's World and Abby Cadabby's Flying Fairy School) with a real kid. Maybe it's just me, but I miss the old school Sesame Street from the 70s, 80s, and 90s that I grew up watching myself as well as with my sister. This new "updated" version just isn't as good in my opinion.

I started back at work this past weekend, working a 4.5 hour shift (it was supposed to be 4 hours but we were busy and the store was trashed so they asked if I could stick around for an extra half hour). It wasn't too bad. They changed the keyboard on the registers so that took a bit of getting used to (I hadn't worked a register since the very beginning of January!) and by the end of my shift I was doing returns pretty well too. After maybe the 1st hour or so I was feeling comfortable with everything again, as far as working a register.

After my shift I bought Jay a pair of sunglasses as we had display of them but only a handful left in the 0-2yr size and he's going to need a pair for this summer. They're a little big on him, as his nose isn't big enough to keep em on his face yet, but he'll grow into them! They're $3 each right now (normally $4.50 or 2 for $6) if you want to pick some up for you kid. After my employee discount I got them for $2.41 total - not a bad price considering they're Children's Place and not Walmart! There's a cute pair of sandals I want to get him too but I think I'm going to wait until this weekend to get them for him as they're $9.95 and this weekend we have employee appreciation days where we get to take 40% off instead of 25%.

The next few days are going to be quite busy.

Today (Wednesday) Jay has his 2 month check-up where he's going to get several shots which I'm sure he won't be too happy about! Hopefully the doctor will cut back his calorie count and just let him eat the normal amount so we don't have to mix extra into it and the formula can last a little longer. I'm guessing he weighs close to 10lbs too - guess we'll find out for sure tomorrow! Also, I have work tomorrow night for a few hours in the evening.

Thursday, like I said, we are closing on the house and then that evening my dad's coming over to fix the drywall in the one room while I start painting Jay's room as I need to get the blue layer on first and then the brown and then do the detail. Friday I'm going to be over at the house alllll day as we have our washer, dryer and fridge being delivered and Comcast is being installed - I plan on working more on Jay's room and doing some basic cleaning before we start moving everything in. Also Friday we're borrowing my dad's jeep and transporting all our boxes over from the apartment and then going shopping for other household items we need to get. Saturday is the big moving day as we're renting a U-Haul and moving over all the bigger items. Sunday I'll be back at the apartment for a few hours cleaning up here.

Parental Ponderings

Two thoughts that occurred to me this week:

1) Only do babies and hilarious old folks poop their pants with a huge grin on their face.

2) From the time of conception worrying about your child starts.
The whole time you're pregnant you worry about if everything is okay on the inside there, you worry about doing something wrong that could bring tragic results or harm to your little one in utereo. After they're born you worry about if they're eating enough, growing enough... you worry about the big scary SIDS acronym as it seems the list of things that cause it is growing daily - is your baby going to be a victim of it. Then when they get older you have to worry about the dangers of the world they're innocently being exposed to - them being kidnapped or taken advantage of by a predator... and of course as they grow up and into their teens all the mess of stuff to worry about that it seems like kids these days are getting involved with earlier and earlier in life... once the worrying starts, doesn't seem like it'll ever stop as you'll even worry about them when they're an adult.

Additional thoughts from our "vacation" at the hospital

Friday evening (right before I was about to take a shower too) they had to bump us out of our single room into a shared room as the pediatric unit was filling up and they needed our room for an isolation case. I was kinda sad too as hubby was finally able to stay overnight on the weekend and we lost the pull-out couch bed that was in the single and got stuck with a small pull-out chair bed. We made it work - one of us always had to be laying on our side and it was an excuse to get some much needed snuggle time in too!

When we moved rooms, there was another younger couple, close in age to us, with a baby - maybe a year and a half old, as he could watch Mickey DVDs and grasp what was going on. They had brought him in earlier in the week for a fever, but the doctor's couldn't figure out what was causing it. Saturday they did an MRI on him and turns out he had a huge abscess on his hip that was bigger than his bladder and they needed to do surgery to get it drained! Poor guy! He was crying in pain a lot too and scared of any of the hospital staff in uniform! They had them move to a different room for recovery while he was in surgery though. I saw the mom a few times in the hall the rest of the weekend - she looked like she was doing okay so I'm assuming the surgery went well.

Our next "roommates" for the remainder of our stay... well, I feel bad for their little guy! Apparently the baby - about 4 months old I gathered - is a twin who was born 10 weeks early, but has had one health issue after another and was on oxygen when they brought him in Saturday evening. Also, since he was born he's been in the hospital the majority of the time - the longest stretch at home was just 2 days! This morning one of the doctors that's been working with them came in and was telling the nurse how annoyed he was that they brought him back in again as there seemed to be nothing wrong with him this time, other than the mom freaked out over something that was nothing. Like I said, I felt really bad for the little guy as his parents just kinda left him there! They were there til about 11pm or so Saturday night before leaving to check-in to a hotel nearby (guess they didn't want to try the pull-out chair like we did!) and they came back a little bit briefly Sunday afternoon but left by 6pm - soon after they left, their little guy woke up, crying, like he was lonely. I was holding Jay as hubby went to go get us dinner, and I just felt so bad for the guy I called for the nurses, letting them know his parents had left recently and he was just crying so much - one of them came in to hold him for a bit til he fell asleep again. They had doctors in and out throughout the night checking in on him... we left today just before noon and his parents still weren't back!

I couldn't imagine leaving Jay alone in the hospital like that! Yes, he's not even a month old yet and he won't remember any of this when he's older, but still... I couldn't bare the thought of my baby waking up, crying, in a strange foreign scary place like the hospital without a familiar face there to comfort him and hold him! I'd feel like such a horrible parent!

Also, the nurse we had our last night there... yeah, not a fan. All the other nurses were great and really helpful, this one was just really young and seemed a bit inexperienced - it showed. She also got on my nerves a little bit later in the night, as she had offered to feed Jay for his 3am feeding so I wouldn't have to wake up and could catch some extra sleep since hubby wasn't there to help me. Well I put him down around 130am but he woke back up by 2. She walked past in the hallway and saw us and came in to check up on us. She thought he was hungry despite his feeding not being for almost an hour and she offered to feed him early so I could climb back in bed. I hesitated at first but ended up agreeing due to my tiredness and her insistence. I was half awake, half asleep but I had a bad feeling he'd spit up while she fed him because she wouldn't make him slow down (Jay starts out acting like he's starving and downs the first .5-1oz like it's no one's business and by the end of Sunday he was wolfing down 2oz bottles in 10minutes or less!). And I was right... she gave him 1oz and burped him, but I could hear him gulping like crazy, not stopping to actually swallow, and he "threw up." I was kinda pissed but too tired to get up or say anything. She stopped the feeding, cleaned him off, and put him down without offering him anymore to fill himself up (I noticed that if he spits up a little, after a few minutes for his tummy to settle he'll eat a little more to make up for what he spit up)... he started fussing again 20min later and I got up with him. We gave him more to eat at 4am and I insisted on feeding him myself this time - he ate all 2oz, no problem for me. The nurse was shocked. Clearly, mommy knows how to feed her baby. He ended up sleeping on my chest that night - I think the doctors and nurses coming in every hour or so to check on oxygen baby was waking him up when he was sleeping alone in the crib. I woke up at 8am, shocked that 1) the nurse didn't wake us up for his 7am as she was so anal the night before about us waking him up at the 3hr mark so he wouldn't get off schedule, and 2) she didn't tell us at the 730 shift change that she was leaving and inform us who our daytime nurse would be as they did every morning! Yeah... the rest of the nurses were great... but her, she kinda got on my nerves as the night/morning went on.

Home from the hospital

We were finally discharged from the hospital late this morning (Monday).

Since my last post on Wednesday, Jay's made quite a bit of improvement!

Jay's first wagon ride!
When they discharge the kids from the pediatric unit, they wheel them out
and down to the entrance in these wagons! How cute!

Thursday they started upping the amount of formula he was continuously being fed every few hours, trying to get him back up to 20mL as they had bumped him down to 10 after the first night of the continuous feeding as he was spitting up still. We got to about 15mL on Friday evening when the stomach doctor that started seeing us decided to go ahead and have us start feeding him by bottle again (50mL of 24 calorie formula) every 3 hours as he felt that the continuous feed wouldn't help get us out of there any quicker as with Jay constantly having food in his tummy, he wasn't getting that sensation of being hungry and wanting to eat. They had us do that for the rest of the night and all of Saturday before Sunday just letting him eat as much as he could/wanted every few hours - 50mL is just under 2oz, and when they let us, he was averaging 2oz per feeding on Sunday and he was keeping it down for the most part too!

Since he was eating fine on his own and keeping it down pretty well and gaining weight they let us go today - much to my pleasure as I was sick and tired of sleeping on the hospital pull-out furniture and just being there in general.

They have us feeding him Enfamil's Lipil formula, mixing it a special way so it's more concentrated giving him 27 calories per oz. He weighed 6lbs, 12.1oz this morning when we left - a huge improvement from the 6lbs, 1oz he came in at!

Because he has to be on the higher calorie formula, obviously I'm not breastfeeding. There's no telling how long he'll need to be on the higher calorie formula and my supply already seems to have depleted. I'm fine with it though so don't think I'm beating myself up over the fact I can't breastfeed him - I'm not and like I mentioned in a previous post, I kinda welcome the fact that we have to give him formula as with all the post-partum crap (I was dealing with the depression and emotional stuff of it to a lesser degree), the stress of breastfeeding wasn't helping it any.

He's been doing good since we got home though - he ate 2.5oz for his afternoon bottle before taking a 2.5hr nap IN THE BASSINET!!! It was a shocker to me too, as he fell asleep after eating and I put him down in there so I could at least do some stuff before he woke up... and Little Man was passed out! He's napping in there right now too - I expect him to wake up around the time daddy gets home from work for some more food before we try putting him down for the rest of the night/morning. He did spit up a little tonight though - he drank 1oz that was left from before and then I made another 3oz bottle... there was a lot of foam but from what I can tell he drank nearly 2oz before spitting up probably 1 (all over himself and me - fortunately none got on the couch!); I cleaned him off though and he ate maybe another half ounce before tiring out. I'm not too worried though - he had already met his ounces for the day (for his size, he needs about 15oz of the normal formula and about 12oz of the higher calorie stuff).

2nd week thoughts

In roughly 7 hours Jay will be 2 weeks old.

So glad this week is finally over - it started out good, but got boring real quick as plans were tenatively made but then canceled and yeah... didn't help that while it was supposed to hit 50 today, it was really damp and rainy-looking out so I didn't get out to take that much needed walk, pushing Jay in the stroller, on the nearby walking path.

I gotta say, this week turned a bit boring during the daytime. I'm looking forward to hubby being around a little more next week, as he scheduled his vacation at UPS for the week after Jay's due date - these last 2 weeks, being the one mainly taking care of Jay, has been rough.

I really want to make a better effort at getting him to sleep by himself, preferably in the bassinet. Hubby doesn't mind him co-sleeping with us for now (currently he often sleeps curled up on my chest with me laying on my back, slightly propped up), but once mommy has her 6 week post-partum check up and is cleared for "stuff", well, kiddo needs to give mommy and daddy their space in bed.

I also really would prefer to supplement his feedings with formula too.

Tomorrow we have Jay's weight follow-up appointment at the doctor's office... one of the things about breastfeeding that is annoying is that I have no clue how much he's actually eating, whereas with a bottle you can know how many ounces kiddo is getting. I also *hate* how I'm the only one that can feed him while exclusively breastfeeding. Yes, I can pump, and I have, but again, I have no idea how much he's actually eating and so who knows if I'm pumping enough! I can get anywhere from 1-3oz per pump session... but how much does that feed him? I would really like for hubby to be help out with feeding him - when he was getting up with Jay in the middle of the night to calm him, he'd always end up waking me up anyway just to feed him. I've also read that formula doesn't digest as quickly as breastmilk too, causing there to be more time between feedings, which if logic serves correct, means he'd sleep a little longer between nighttime feedings and mommy and daddy would be able to get a little more sleep. Who knows, maybe he'd be able to sleep alone a little longer too if he's not waking up so often for food.

I figure it's worth a try.

I don't mind breastfeeding him when we're at home here during the day or in the evening, etc, but it would be nice to get a break and be able to have a little time to myself, not having to drop what I'm doing to give him a boob because daddy or whoever is over helping me out can't feed him.

We have a smaller can of Enfamil premium newborn formula that the hospital gave us - I figured I'd try it out, at least see how he takes to it, as I'm pretty sure the doc is going to tell us to supplement tomorrow anyway.

To be honest, I wasn't originally planning on ever breastfeeding my kids, as neither my sister or I were breastfeed - in our house, formula was the norm. Hubby is the opposite though - in his family breastfeeding was the norm so he just figured that would be something we would be doing. I figured I'd give it a shot, especially seeing the price of some formula brands, knowing it could save us money. But it's been 2 weeks and I've stuck it out like everyone suggests and I really feel like for my own sanity and for the sake of my nipples we NEED to supplement (some nights Jay can sleep a good 3-4 hours straight, others, like last night, he wakes up every hour wanting food).

The first week

Well, as of 7:26am tomorrow morning, Jay will be 1 week old.

To be honest, this whole first week has been a bit of a blur!

Leaving off from my last post, Sunday night was our first night home with Jay and boy did it NOT go well.

Jay did not want to sleep in his bassinet AT ALL. It was a loooooong night as he was crying throughout most of the night and hubby and I would take turns holding him with hubby waking me up when Jay wanted fed. He's fine when he's held but he doesn't like be put down it seems. I think I ended up falling asleep with Jay curled up on my chest for a few hours.

Tummy Time with daddy

Monday my mom stopped by, having run out in the morning and early afternoon to find us some more newborn size clothes on sale, as we were originally expecting Jay to be on the bigger side rather than the smaller side and well... aside from the newborn sized stuff we were given at the baby shower, most of the clothes we have for Jay are 0-3months. She also bought us a box of newborn sized Pampers. She stuck around for a few hours in the afternoon until hubby got home from work around 7pm so I could get some stuff down around the apartment - with Jay being early, we didn't quite get all his stuff put together, not to mention we were so tired and exhausted Sunday that we didn't get a chance to put any of the stuff we took with us to the hospital away.

Also, my milk came in Monday evening... gotta say, Tuesday morning was another horrible morning as Jay cluster fed for a good 2 hours straight, meaning he was nursing non-stop, only stopping for a few minutes in between to poop, as it seemed my milk was going straight through him! Needless to say, my poor boobs were in pain!

Tuesday my mom stopped by again to drop off a D-battery so we could give Jay's bouncey seat a try. His activity mat also arrived and hubby and I tried a little tummy time with him too, although he got a bit frustrated.

Wednesday night we gave Jay his first spongebath since the hospital... and well, he christened mommy AND the kitchen floor! Doh!

Today we made an amazing discovery - put Jay in his bouncey seat with a binky and he's golden!

I was getting a bit frustrated with the fact that 1) putting him in his bassinet didn't last long so I couldn't really get much done while he slept and 2) it seemed like he was CONSTANTLY eating. I get that he's little and needs to eat every 2-3 hours but there's no reason for him to eat for a good 20-30 minutes, go down for 20 minutes or less and wake up hungry again! A friend of mine that stopped by today suggested letting him try a pacifier as it might just be he likes the sucking motion. I was a bit hesitant at first, as I've read if you're breastfeeding not to give them a bottle or a binky for a few weeks to avoid nipple confusion, but my friend, who has 2 kids and breastfeed them both, said she only heard that about a bottle and it worked fine with her kids. I gave in and tried and OMG - it worked!

Morning snuggle-time with mommy

I think tonight for sleep we're going to try putting him in his bouncey seat with the binky and see if he sleeps longer than he does in the bassinet. The hospital strongly stated NOT to co-sleep with baby, however lately I've been finding that letting him sleep on my chest while I lay on my back slightly propped up is the only way that myself and Jay can get any sleep during the night. Hopefully the bouncy seat and binky will workout in our favor tonight!

As it is, we seem to be getting a nighttime/morning routine going on - daddy leaves for work around 10pm, mommy feeds Jay and puts him down for a little bit to take a shower and do anything else before Jay wakes up again. Jay gets fed again and then snuggles with mommy on the couch until it's time to take a nap watching TV. Then shortly before daddy gets home at 330am, we move to the bedroom, feed Jay again, put him down for a bit and try to get some sleep before he wakes up howling in the bassinet. Daddy tries to stay up a bit with him so mommy can get some sleep in bed but mommy ends up getting woken up for another feeding. By the time daddy gets up to go to work in the morning Jay gets fed again and then snuggles with mommy for a few more hours before it's time to get up for the day.

Jay seems to be pretty bright though, considering he rarely ever opens his eyes yet... the few times we've done Tummy Time this week he's started doing the crawling motion with his legs, like he's trying to go crawl! Also, early Monday morning while he was snuggling with me, he started lifting his head up! I Googled just to see if that was normal - they say the average baby doesn't lift their head up on their own until about a month old - Jay was barely 4 days! He can't hold it for long - just a few seconds, but I still think that's quite impressive!

So, as far as house hunting goes, since we've been pre-approved and just have paperwork to finish gathering for the bank before we make an offer, we have a meeting with our realtor Saturday morning to look at some houses - including this one down the street that I have a really strong feeling about - it has A LOT of what we want and is finally in our price range too (I've been watching it for awhile and the price has dropped a lot). It's also just down the street which is nice as I really like the walking path nearby not to mention we're in a nice area. We're looking at several others on Saturday as well, but this one seems to be one of the better deals given the condition and price.

My mom is going to be babysitting and while I am trying to pump some milk daily, considering how often Jay eats, I'm a little concerned that I won't be able to get enough pumped and he'll run out and my mom will be stuck (since I started Wednesday, I've been able to get about 2-3oz pumped a day since my supply is still so new), so hubby and I agreed to keep a little formula on hand for such occasions. Mom is also going to be watching Jay Monday night too so hubby and I can go out for Valentine's Day, since my dad's out of town and she's on her own.

Jay's first doctor's appointment is on Monday too - we'll see if he's gained anymore weight now that my milk is in or see if the doctor thinks we should start supplementing formula (something he mentioned before discharging us last Sunday as Jay's so small). We'll also find out what his kidney ultrasound says too, although I'm assuming it's nothing too major as if it were, then why would they let us go home from the hospital?

Can't believe it's already been a week though!

37 week appointment & hospital growth ultrasound

Today I had my 37 week check-up today and the NST stress test looked good, as did his placenta and fluid. Jay's still head down and in the correct position too, with his fundal height measuring 36cm, and heartbeat was in the mid-upper 130s. I mentioned this glob of mucus that was on the tissue when I wiped the other day and the doctor agreed with me that it was probably the mucus plug.

I got home from the clinic and the hospital called me, requesting I come in early this afternoon for the growth ultrasound, so I went before the weather got bad. Felt kinda bad as hubby couldn't get off work at such short notice or take a long enough lunch break as he just started a new position at work today, however he told me to go ahead and go since it took so long for them to get it scheduled. Kinda wished he had been able to come though, given what we found out...

I'm soooo confused though!

At the 30 week scan the hospital did, Jay was measuring a bit bigger than average overall. Then at the 35 week scan my clinic did, everything was showing right around on target, minus his femurs, give or take a week. Today he's measuring small - his gestational age is showing him to be measuring about 34weeks instead of 37 and his femur is still showing to be about 32-33 weeks! They estimated his weight as being 5lbs, 12oz - only a 7oz gain in the last 2 weeks (he was about 4lbs 13oz at 30 weeks).

They said it could be a number of things - he could just be on the shorter/smaller size as no one in my family is taller than 6ft, they said it could be that I have an infection that may be causing his growth to have slowed down that much, and then they said there is the possibility that it could be Downs Syndrome (we didn't do the additional testing for it as I'm not at high risk and it doesn't run in our families and it's not like there's anything you can really do about it anyway).

Honestly, I think it's this low-carb diet they have me on, as that's the *only* thing that's changed in the last 7 weeks, although the high risk doctor I met with for this ultrasound said it shouldn't have had *that* much of an effect on him... if it was Downs they can usually tell by the face though, right?

The doctor said I could have an amnio if I wanted, but hubby and I don't see what the point in that would be - if he has Downs, he has Downs... can't really do anything about it - even the doctor said the only point would be to confirm or deny it and help us "prepare."  She also said I could get some blood testing done to see if I have any infections that could be affecting him so I think I might do that, as if I do have any infections obviously we'd want to get that cleared up anyway...

As far as his kidneys...

At first they couldn't tell if it was fluid or a double kidney, but the doctor looked in closer and said it looks like fluid and said it's not uncommon for that happening with little boys. She said there's not really much we can do about it until he's born, which then they'll check and make sure it's functioning correctly or not and go from there. She said they prefer the liquid to be 10% or less and his was at about 11% so she was going to mention to my doctor when she talked to her about maybe having me deliver next week at 38weeks, meaning they would induce me and Jay would be 2 weeks early.

Aside from the kidney and his growth having slowed down they said the rest of his vitals look good...

Can I be done already? I'm tired of all the doctor appointments and the frustrations that keep coming up =/

Nesting and Snowmaggedon!!

We're having a huge snow storm here right now - it's been dubbed Snowmaggedon.

It started snowing a little bit last night but stopped for awhile before starting up again this morning and then getting really bad this afternoon - apparently we're supposed to be getting "thunder snow" which basically means you get several inches all at once within an hour!

Hubby said that UPS shutdown the hub tonight, giving everyone the night off since planes won't be able to come in and out - he NEVER gets a snow day there! The mall closed early tonight too apparently... I have no idea if I'm supposed to work still tomorrow or not as I didn't get a call but I'm assuming not... guess we'll find out in the morning, as everything else seems to be canceled for tomorrow.

I stopped by my mom's after my ultrasound at the hospital this afternoon (see next post for details on that) and we found one of my old Cabbage Patch dolls that's just about the size of Jay that we're planning on carrying around at home so Tiger gets used to seeing us with baby. Hubby and I have been sitting on the couch for the past hour or so and he's been "holding" the baby doll while playing Playstation - it's actually pretty cute!

Not sure if it's the weather or not but I've been in full nesting mode the last 2 days now - I spent last night working on the Super Mario panels a bit, washing all of Jay's clothes, and putting together some of his stuff such as the stroller and the pack n play we got. It's killing Tiger that she's not allowed to climb in the pack n play - she keeps jumping in and dashing off as soon as she see me coming to take her out!

I also had an increase of Braxton Hicks last night too while I was doing everything - not sure if I was just pushing myself or what, but I noticed them while I was standing at the sink doing dishes, then when I was carrying laundry and stuff back and forth from the laundry room and then later while sitting at the computer. They came and went though so I know they weren't "real" contractions.

37 weeks is finally here!!

Today I am 37weeks and 1 day.

And 37 weeks is technically considered to be full-term, so at this point, it's all just a waiting game, as Jay can make his arrival at anytime!

In other news, the baby shower was this past Saturday - I'll be making a separate post about that soon as I need to upload some of my photos I took.

We're also expecting a massive blizzard here in the next day or so (supposedly starting sometime tonight), giving some parts of northern Illinois up to 2 feet of snow! I hear my area is supposed to get 12-18 inches. One of the things they kept saying during our birthing classes at the hospital is that they often see a huge increase of women going into labor during bad weather and snowstorms and a few friends on Facebook have confirmed this as well, saying they went into labor during snowstorms or tornadoes and the L&D floor was PACKED with other pregnant women also going into labor! Not getting my hopes up too much, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't crossing my fingers or at least keeping the thought/idea/possibility of it happening in the back of my mind! lol...

Also, I am *still* waiting on the hospital to call and schedule me for the ultrasound my clinic wants me to have to look more closely at Jay's femur and kidneys.

My clinic called early on Wednesday saying that they talked to my insurance and it was good to go and that they sent my paperwork over to the hospital and that they would be calling me soon to get it scheduled. On Thursday at my follow-up my doctor asked if I had it scheduled yet and I told her I was still waiting to hear from the hospital, so she told me if I didn't hear anything Friday to call the clinic and let them know so they could look into it. Well, Friday came and went, as did the weekend, so I called as soon as I woke up this morning. They gave me the number for the Maternal Fetal Medicine ward at the hospital and I called explained the situation to them - the woman I spoke to pulled up my info and looked, as they have me on file from the last one we did at 30 weeks, and said it was showing they hadn't gotten any recent paperwork for me and requested I call my clinic and let them know so they can resend it and that they would call me shortly after they received it. So I did and spoke with the girl I talked to last Wednesday - she said that was strange as she has confirmation showing that the hospital received the paperwork they faxed over for me but said she was sending it over again and I should hear something soon.

So... I'm still waiting.

I'm starting to wonder if there's even a point now - I mean if it were earlier and we weren't at the point where we can expect him to arrive at any time I'd get it, but it seems like a waste as with my luck we'll schedule it and I'll go in labor before the appointment or we'll have the ultrasound and I'll go into labor like 2 days later. At this point too, since hubby kinda wants to be there for this one in the event that something is "wrong," the only good time this week that we could schedule for that works with both our schedules would be Thursday morning - otherwise we'd we have to wait until next week and I'll be even further along... and the further along I am the harder it's going to be to check his femur... ughhhhh

Weekly follow-up, morning hysterics and other thoughts

Today I had my follow-up doctor's appointment, however the morning started out with quite a bit of hysterics!

I'll admit, I didn't get much sleep last night as I napped A LOT yesterday (I went to lay down for an hour and was out for almost 4 hours!) so I was a little crabby from that. Didn't help that as I was getting ready this morning I realized I could have gotten an extra half hour of sleep as I noticed the card for my appointment said it was at 830am and not 8am like I thought. Regardless, I was ready to go at 8am and went out to clear off my car.

We had a nice little snowstorm on Monday and I hadn't driven my car since so there was some some harder snow packed onto my windshield, but it only took a moment to break it off and clear. So I get in my car and go to back out and.... my car won't move. I get out and look around, checking to see if there's a lot of snow blocked around the tires and sure enough, on the entire right side of my car there's snow packed up around the tires, including the front passenger one that has crappy tread at the moment. My car is also front-wheel drive so this doesn't help. Apparently whoever shovels our parking lot thought it would be nice to shovel walk-ways between the cars, but obviously wasn't paying attention that he was packing snow up around the car tires in the process. I knew this had to be the case as when I parked it Monday I went back and forth a few times, packing down the space around my tires to ensure I could get out!

Frustrated, I take my long snow pick and try to shovel out and break down the snow packed around my tire and get back in the car and try again. No luck - just burning rubber and my car won't go anywhere. I spent a good 15-20 minutes trying to get my car out and was really frustrated and being preggo, when I get frustrated and upset I tend to get a bit hysterical and start crying! I tried calling hubby to see if he could come push me out or at least bring me his keys so I could just take his car, but he wasn't answering either as he was asleep.

I think I scared the crap out of him when I came storming inside, all hysterical, worked up and in tears quickly stating I had to drive his car this morning because I couldn't get my car out thanks to the "dumbass that shovels our lot." Looking back later today, I had a good laugh with hubby over how hysterical I got!

I was a little more calm by the time I made it to my clinic, with 5 minutes to spare (if you're not there within 15 min of your appointment they cancel it, make you reschedule and charge you a $50 missed appointment fee).

The stress test went normal - Jay was quite active this morning, I think largely in part due to the fact I had gotten so hysterical (he started beating the crap out of me during that whole ordeal too and didn't slow down much afterwards - oops!).

I lost 1lb since Monday, which doesn't surprise me as I just haven't been all that hungry these past few days and for lunch and dinner I've been eating just enough carbs to meet my minimum quota.

They had trouble getting my blood pressure - the one girl tried 3 times and couldn't hear anything so she had another girl check it and it was a little high. They waited about 10 minutes, the 1st girl tried taking it again, realized something wasn't right with her stethoscope, fixed and could hear and my blood pressure had gone down a little bit. I still got lectured a little bit by my doctor though about my blood pressure being high the first time, saying I need to be aware of that... something having to do with headaches and things that can occur at this late in pregnancy. I told her I was a bit stressed out earlier this morning and that was probably why it was a little high but had gone down...

She did say my glucose readings still look good and Jay's fundal height is measuring 34.5cm, which is just fine.

I got my appointments set up for next week - a little annoyed that I still have to go twice a week when it's obvious we have my glucose numbers under control now...

Also, all these sites and pregnancy books that say babies tend to slow down their movements near the end and that it's common not feel so many pokes/jabs/kicks from baby as they don't have much room in there to kick and punch like they used to... yeah, starting to question their expertise! If anything, Jay's movements have gotten more aggressive as the weeks go on as he doesn't like having less space and wants to make it known! Seriously, the kid has been beating up my uterus almost non-stop for the past week, only stopping briefly to nap in there! It's to the point where half the time it's a bit painful! lol...

Today also marks 1 MONTH EXACTLY until Jay's estimated due date! Can't believe how these last 8 months have just flown by - where did they go?!

34 Week Appointment and other news

Today I had my 34 week appointment, which seemed to take FOREVER as by 9am the my clinic was really backed up for some reason! I was there for 2 hours today when normally it doesn't take more than hour!

I was a bit scatterbrained this morning too - I was being lazy and didn't bother washing my face this morning, opting to throw on some quick mineral foundation, but in my quest to leave and be on time I realized halfway there that I forgot to brush my teeth, trim my "womanly" facial hair and I left my urine sample sitting on the bathroom counter. Honestly, I'm surprised I left the house in actual clothes and not pajamas! lol...

Anyways, we had the stress test again this morning - took us a minute to find Jay's heartbeat as we couldn't find it in the spot we had been the previous times, and they didn't have the volume up quite so loud, but regardless, he started squirming and getting all antsy/fussy like he usually does.

That took about 20 minutes and it was back to the waiting room to wait for our weekly quick ultrasound check of the placenta, fluid and his placement - that was a good 15-20 minute wait. Fortunately they had the movie Despicable Me playing in the waiting room today which was a nice change of movie, as usually they rotate between Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat or one of the older musical classics like Sound of Music.

The ultrasound went quick - it seems Jay is still head down like he needs to be, but he's shifted a little bit which explains why we found his heartbeat for the stress test in a different spot. They said his fluid is measuring at 16.5, but that's still plenty and he seems to still have some space in there too. Next Monday we're doing another growth anatomy scan to see more accurately how he's doing size-wise and if we can expect him to be early or not at this point.

I met with the doctor briefly and was able to get my glyburide prescription refilled. She went over my glucose numbers with me too. A friend on Facebook who has diabetes suggested the other day that I try doing a few minutes of cardio after lunch to see if that helps my number any so I started doing 10 minutes on the exercise bike after lunch on Saturday and Sunday and sure enough, my numbers were under the cutoff. I mentioned it to my doctor and she said if I wanted to keep that up instead of increasing my dosage that that was fine with her, so we're going to try that and see if it continues to work, as the rest of my numbers look good.

I am quite surprised at just HOW MUCH of an affect 10 minutes of cardio after lunch can have on my glucose reading! For example, today I had a Jimmy John's sandwich for lunch and didn't exercise right away as I was a bit tired (more on that in a minute), I took my reading an hour later and it was 150 (remember, my cutoff is 140). I promptly dragged my butt over to the exercise bike and rode it for 10 minutes and took my reading again - 131! Talk about what a huge difference just a little exercise can make!

I've been super tired these past few days though - I practically feel like a narcoleptic I'm so tired during the day! I keep having to taking naps on and off... kinda annoying as I have other things I need to get done (like finish cleaning up our closet or work on my Mario Bros paintings). I also had my first bout of 3rd trimester insomnia as I couldn't for the life of me fall asleep last night - granted, I had Jay beating up on my uterus no matter what position I tried to sleep in, but still... I just could not fall asleep!

I worked at The Children's Place the other night, after hours. They had most of us there working on scanning and counting all the inventory. It wasn't too bad - a bit tedious, but a simple enough job to do. I spent a little time with a scanner but spent most of the night double counting clothes and rotating them.

We need to get finished on the closet in our bedroom in the next few days - I got my side of the closet cleaned out and hubby said he'd work on his tomorrow. I have a few trip-loads of stuff to take to the storage room down the hall though and I know hubby's going to have some stuff to take there of his too. Now the problem is figuring out how to get the changing table here and the couch in our bedroom to my parent's house, as my aunt has the changing table, but they're leaving for vacation on Friday and my uncle is out of town Monday through Wednesday and my dad is out of town til Friday and we need 1 other guy to help us move it. A thought occured to me though that at least 1 of my brother-in-laws is in town on Wednesday so hubby's going to see if maybe he can help... oh but I just realized, we have our Newborn Care Class on Wednesday night so that might not work as I'm sure it's going to take at least an hour to get there, carry it out of storage, drive it back and drop off the couch. Hm...

Also, I have an update on my father-in-law! They sent him today. His heart and lungs are stable, although they're still not entirely sure what the deal is with his kidneys as they're not doing a whole lot better. They are planning on having him do dialysis 3 times a week though to help with them. This is at least a lot better news that the scare we had the other day - there was some talk that he might have myeloma which is a type of cancer and they thought maybe that was causing his kidneys to not function! They tested him for it though and the results were negative, so that's good at least! Thanks for your thoughts and prayers though - they've been much appreciated!

This week's follow-up and glucose frustrations

Yesterday I had my 33 week follow-up appointment, which consisted of the 20 minute Stress Test (which Jay still hates and after a few minutes into it he seems to wake up and starts beating up my uterus) and then a brief meeting with the doctor to go over stuff.

She said everything with Jay looks good and measured his fundal height as being 34cm, which is right on target as I'm starting my 34th week on Sunday.

We went over my glucose readings... I've had some abnormally high readings this week for lunch and I honestly can't figure out why which frustrates me as I'm eating the same meals I've been eating since they put me on the diet and the readings after were fine then but now they aren't. I'm just frustrated as it seems like we get one set of numbers under control (first dinner, then fasting) but then another set goes all out of whack! She told me to get my numbers for Thursday and today and if either were still high to call the nurse after my reading today and see about upping my prescription.

Well... yesterday's number was fine but today's was 16 points over so I called and waited for the nurse to call me back only for her to tell me that both doctors were out for the rest of the day and that she couldn't prescribe me anything without their go-ahead so I'd have to wait til Monday.

Since I'm almost out of the pill (glyburide) I went ahead and refilled the 2nd 2.5mg one that they had written me prior as well as refilled the prescriptions for my meter supplies. Went to pick em up at Walgreens though and they said they couldn't fill the glyburide one yet as they were waiting on my insurance. They asked if my dosage had been upped, which I confirmed, and they said that's why, as the 2.5mg was for 30 days and it hasn't been close enough to the 30 days for them to approve the refill so I need to let my doctor know that... so I'm not going to be to take it on Sunday as I only have enough for tonight and tomorrow - guess I better be prepared to explain why my fasting number might be high on Monday at my appointment. *sigh*

Someone on Facebook who has diabetes mentioned that after meals they do a little bit of exercise which seems to help get their levels down, as it burns some of the sugars. I think I'll start doing that this weekend - hop on the exercise bike for like 10-20 min after lunch and then take my reading when the hour is up and see if that helps it any.

I'm just sooooo frustrated with the stupid glucose stuff! I'm not quite ready for Jay to be here yet, but at the same time I can't wait to be done with the glucose monitoring and all that as it just frustrates me too much, especially right now with my hormones all crazy. It's frustrating how 1 bad/high reading can dampen my entire mood =(

Less than 6 weeks to go... less than 6 weeks to go....

I was able to get my meter test strips for cheaper though this time, as I had enrolled in the Freestyle program and got my membership card. Walgreens said I can use it every time I just have to have it with me and let them know when I pick it up as they have to manually enter the info in each time, so I guess that's good as it saves us nearly $50 on my meter supplies.

I did a little bit of shopping tonight which helped better my mood a little bit.

I had to pick up a few things at Walmart we were running low on or out of and I had to get a storage bin for our walk-in closet as we're going through that this weekend to make room for the changing table/dresser unit that's being brought over later this week. I also bought a knock-off of the "Shoe-Under" product you see on TV as Gordman's had a 12 pair version on sale for $3.99 before Christmas and I checked and it was still on sale. Most my shoes that are currently in our closet I can't wear right now anyway because they're high heels or they're shoes for special occasions that I don't wear all that often anyway and since we need the space, putting them in an organizer under the bed would probably be best for now - as it is, right now I'm only wearing my snow boots, my new Skecher Shape-Ups, my lower block heels, and my slippers.

I also stopped by The Children's Place to check the schedule for this upcoming week - to my surprise I'm *actually* scheduled for hours this week rather than just all call-in's! That excites me. I also bought a few things that were on the winter clearance Monster Sale (take an additional 50% off the current sale price) and with my 25% employee discount I got 4 items for $11 - can't complain about that! I got him 2 fleece hoodie zip-ups and 2 long-sleeve collared onesies.

I think I overdid it, carrying stuff in tonight though, as I didn't want to make multiple trips so I threw everything in the new storage bin and then carried that from my car, up the front steps and into the building (then I dragged it down the stairs and through the hallway). I've been having minor Braxton Hicks contractions off and on since - oops! The annoying thing is though, half the time I think it's a contraction and the other half I can't tell if it's just Jay stretching/pushing hard like he sometimes does as I always feel the contractions on the same side that he's curled up on ><

Nothing too new with my father-in-law as far as we know. Sunday he was breathing on his own without the oxygen tube and then on Tuesday night they moved him out of the ICU and to similar room on a less critical floor. Hubby went up to visit him after work on Wednesday and said his kidney's were doing slightly better, but still not up to par, as previously they were only functioning at 15%. He had a chemical stress test done on his heart on Wednesday as well (where they give you a medicine that has your heart simulate like you're running on a treadmill) but we haven't heard the results of that yet.

Anyways, that's how things are here...

Formula feeding vs Breast feeding

Just thought I'd make my statement on this topic.

We are planning on breast feeding and eventually pumping and bottle-feeding for when momma won't be around to feed him (like if mommy's out and daddy or grandma is watching him) or we're out in public.

Now I have nothing wrong or against those that don't breastfeed - I was formula fed, as was my sister and my cousin. To be honest, I'm not all that familiar with non-formula feeding and originally when I always thought of having kids the idea of breast feeding never crossed my mind as it wasn't something we did in my family.

Hubby on the other hand... him and all his siblings were breastfed so to him, it was kind of expected.

I was hesitant at first to the idea but then I know my friend who has 2 kids now breastfed both of them (sometimes while I was over visiting as she used a nursing cover) and it didn't seem all that weird like I originally thought.

To be honest, we are tight on money. And out of curiosity, hubby and I looked at the price of formula while in Walmart one night and wow! You can easily spend $15 a week or more on formula alone, pending how much your kid eats!

Thinking about it, I decided I'd be willing to give it a try and I'm thinking we'd do it for the first 6 months until he can start eating baby food and drinking other liquids like juice and water as it'll save us money on feeding him.

And that's the sole reason we're doing it.

They say there's all kinds of benefits to breast feeding over formula feeding, and I'm sure there are as far as nutrients and I hear there's less doctors visits in the first year and such too, although I hate when people say it makes your baby smarter or whatever - as I said, I was formula fed and I turned out just fine - I was on the honor roll all throughout high school! Honestly, we're just trying it because of the cost.

I think breastfeeding in public is a bit weird and I don't plan on doing that as I'm not really comfortable with the idea - like I said, I'm planning on pumping some so that when we are out in public and he gets hungry we can just give him a bottle of breastmilk and save the actual nursing for at home or when we're with family or close friends and use the nursing cover then.