Playtime!

Roo decided to sleep WELL last night which I, for one, was extremely happy about. We fell asleep around 8ish in the papasan chair, I fed her and we moved to bed at 12 and then she got up at 3 and 6 to eat - actually, I kind of made her eat at 6, she was out like a light. She then didn't wake up until 8 when Joe and I woke up! Thank goodness, because I needed the sleep after the night before last. Joe was kind enough to take her at 6:30 yesterday morning for an hour after she was up grunting and moving around ALL night long. It's times like that that make me absolutely love him to death - because that hour of sleep was phenomenal. I finally figured out that she is probably cold at night - so last night I put her in one of those baby sleep gowns with long sleeves instead of the short sleeve onesies she is usually in. I guess it worked!

We have had a good weekend so far - Roo and I went shopping yesterday to Albertson's and she slept a bit on the way and then slept in the Baby Bjorn once we got there. I mainly had to go because I was picking up my 100 4-packs of TP - all free! They had some other good deals as well - I ended up paying 30 bucks for:

100 4-pks TP (saved $235 - free)
4 12-pks of Coke ($3 each - not that great of a deal but it's my treat)
3 packages of instant oatmeal (3/$5)
5 boxes of Wheat Thins (made 9.45 on them)
20 pkgs. of KoolAid ($4)
1 bag of sugar (free)
2 Ken's Balsamic Vinaigrette Spritzers (free)
Baby Tylenol drops because teething is coming up (saved 4.70, paid 4.59)
5 lbs. of boneless skinless chicken (saved 11.61, paid 8.53)
3 ears of corn
3 zucchinis
1 bunch of cilantro
and a baby book for Roo since it was only .50!
Total I paid out - 31.71, savings - $309! I thought I did pretty well on it.

I came home last night and Joe had cleaned up the living room, done the dishes, and done laundry. I seriously love that man. He reminds me of the guys in the book, "Porn for New Moms"! I honestly thought it would be easy when Roo was little because she would sleep alot; however, I didn't factor in a baby that wanted to sleep on people and not in bed. Well, actually, it's more that she doesn't really transfer from person to bed very well, not that she won't sleep in the bed. She is actually sleeping in her crib right now - we sidecarred her crib so she is right next to me while she is sleeping. Basically, we took the side off of her crib and put it right up next to the bed, so it looks like an extension of our bed. It's working really well so far!

Roo has gone to sleep SO well today - no crying or even any fussing! It's amazing how well behaved the child is when she gets some sleep and her tummy isn't hurting :-) Dave and Lynda came over for dinner tonight and Roo was actually happy and smiled and cooed for them! Roo had always been cranky when they were around (just bad timing) and so I was glad she was doing so well tonight. Joe made some AMAZING marinade (he has this knack for marinades) and we had grilled tritip steak, corn on the cob, cheesy bread (I abstained but it was hard to!) and grilled zucchini and yellow squash. It was really yummy. After the diet I've had lately (which has consisted of mainly chicken, spinach, LOTS of oatmeal, Wheat Thins and Powerade), it was nice to have "real" food. I am very appreciative for whoever came up with rice milk, but it honestly is not that great of a substitute for real milk. It tastes like really watered down skim milk with an odd aftertaste. I'm not complaining much though; having Roo happy almost all of the time is totally worth it.

We are going in for her 2 month checkup on Tuesday - I am very curious to see how much she weighs and measures! I swear, I woke up this morning and she felt heavier. I don't know if I'm getting weaker or she just gained a pound, but Joe agreed, so it can't ALL be in my mind! I'm guessing she is 15 lbs. or so. She was 12 lbs., 7 oz. at 5 weeks and was gaining 3/4 of a pound a week, so at 8.5 weeks that should put her at a little over 15 if she gained at the same rate. It's hard to tell though because just as she gets chubbier, she then gets longer and thins out. She was wearing a 6 month romper today and was almost too long for it, so I'm guessing she has gotten quite a bit taller than her 22 inches at birth! They say that they gain an inch a month - I bet she is at 25 on Tuesday. Everyone should guess in the comments and we will see who is the closest!


I put a NB sized sleeping gown on her tonight, it wasn't quite as bad as the orange pants from a few days ago (which were really not that bad in person, I swear!), but the bottom of the gown came to her knees! The funniest part was that it made her look so chubby and it totally looked like she had cankles :-D At any rate, it made me laugh. I'll stop this diatribe now before your eyes tire, but leave a comment with Roo's guesstimated weight and height and I'll tell you who is the winner on Tuesday when we get back!

The newest item in baby fashion is...

...baby straitjackets! We have discovered what a wonderful item the SwaddleMe blanket is. I put her in it the other night on a whim when she was crying and voila! The crying stopped! She also has taken an affinity to having daddy put her to sleep - mama just doesn't cut it anymore. I think it's because she associates me with eating/comfort feeding and knows daddy doesn't have productive boobs :-)

Roo has been grabbing her toys and batting them around in the last few days - apparently this is really early (8 weeks this past Thursday) but she didn't get the memo. She will sit and stare and study and play with her "babies" for 20-30 minutes plus - it's pretty insane to see a baby that focused and intense. We are really going to have to watch it with her - I have a feeling she is going to take after her daddy. Thursday's child *does* have far to go after all!

When Joe was somewhere around 18 months old, he had a set of baby tools to play with. No harm right? He decided to escape from naptime one day by taking apart his crib with those tools. Yes, he is now an engineer! He also works on cars, so I guess those mechanical skills come in handy!

*snore*

This is what the last couple of days have looked like for us - we get up anywhere from 4-6 am and stay up for an hour and then sleep (well, Roo anyway!) until 11-1. It's been very nice and the sleep has been sorely needed for both of us.

Unfortunately, my house is a mess, but hey, you pick and choose your battles, right? The good thing is that Roo's face has totally cleared up with the allergic rash (she still has a bit on her neck) and we have had 2 good days of no colicky symptoms, thank goodness!

*shakes head*

<---Mama, I think we need bigger pants...

I'll warn you in advance, this is going to be a long post.

Last night was an adventure, and not in the tralala zipadeedoodah kind of way with little birds tweeting cheerfully in the background. About the only thing you heard in my background - oh, who am I kidding - you couldn't hear anything in my background last night; Riley was screaming her head off again. I really don't know what I ate yesterday that would have set her off so badly - I had oatmeal (no allergens that I know of, at least non of the top 8), tomato soup (possibly tomato?), an everything bagel (there is some soy, but it was the last ingredient), wheat thins (again, some soy, and obviously wheat) and caffeine free Coke (my guilty pleasure). She was already reacting long before dinnertime, so the chicken I ate is out, thank goodness!

The only other thing I can think of is that she is not as reactive as I thought, in that it might take her 24 hours to react to something, in which case, it could have been the BLT or the granola that she was reacting to today. I have a gut feeling that it was tomato related though, as she reacted the night of the BLT, and yesterday morning I think she was reacting to the whey in the granola.

Her schedule yesterday ended up with her waking up at 8 - sleeping from 1-4 and then was up until 10 with a couple of 15 minute naps thrown in when she couldn't fight them any longer. That's a whole heck of a lot of wake time for a not even 2 month old baby (though she DOES think that she is 4 months, I swear, but she still needs more sleep than that).

We finally found out a new thing that works to get her to sleep - running water! I was going to give Riley a bath to calm her down (it's amazing how fast it works for her, plus she needed one) and as soon as I turned on the bath, she calmed. So I took advantage of it and bounced/jiggled her to sleep. She woke up as soon as I sat down - so she got her bath after all. After the bath, she immediately started all out crying again (she hates getting out!) and so I nursed her and then took her into the bathroom with the lights off and the tub running. In about 2 minutes, she was out like a light and so we both went to bed, as there was no way I was going to risk her waking up again. She just now woke up at 2:45 am, and dreamfed (which I think is so cute), so we got a good 4.5 hours out of it!

On another note - Joe's car is in the shop (he got tired of chasing oil leaks around the block, so he took it in) and so I'm out a car. I'd use the Scirocco, but it's a 2 door and the tags are out of date anyway (bad me). There are some really good sales this week though! Albertson's is having a sale on Ken's Salad Spritzers until tomorrow at 2/$4 and I have 10 - $2 off any Ken's coupons making them free. Their other good sale starting Wed. has Scott's Extra Soft TP 10/$10 and I have a ton (35+) of $1/1 coupons and some .50/1 coupons. We are just now finishing up the free TP I got in October/November with the same deal, so I would love to stock up.

Plus, I haven't been grocery shopping in over a week and with my new and improved diet (heh) there isn't much left in the house to eat. I do have a lot of chicken though (thank you Costco!) so I suppose I could eat that all week, but really, who wants chicken for breakfast? I honestly think I am going to get deli meats and veggies for this week for me, minus tomatoes. Oatmeal for breakfast, which has the added benefit of upping my milk supply (not that I needed it!).

I am really hoping to get this somewhat under control before we leave for FL on the 16th. I just don't want to even think about trying to calm Riley down on a 4+ hour flight as she is screaming like she did last night. It's stressful enough when she does it here, I can't imagine it on a flight. The good thing is that our flights to FL leave at 5:40 in the morning, and she seems to be at her best in the morning, most likely because I'm not poisoning her with my milk all night.

*crosses fingers today will be better*

O what a night....

Yesterday was really nice - we took Riley out to Ike's Pizza with the VW club and she did great! I had a BLT sandwich (obviously pizza was out) and I'm wondering now if they put butter on it. Last night we had the return of Fussy Baby, the non sleeper. I can't say that I blame her, if my poor little tummy was hurting, I wouldn't want to sleep either.

About halfway through rocking, coddling, snuggling, and bouncing her to sleep, I realized that the granola!, of all things, had whey in it. Crap. I had eaten some about 30 minutes before I fed her, and apparently it had gone straight into my milk, which in turn went straight into her. Poor thing.

As you can see, this morning she is all sunshine and smiles, though she was SO SO congested this morning. She actually was breathing out of her mouth off and on, she was that congested. I finally came out around 6 am and half sat/reclined on the couch with her on my chest so that it would drain or something. At any rate, she ended up sleeping until 8 that way, so I guess it did some good.

Unfortunately, she fought going to sleep again until 11 - so hopefully she will sleep for at least a couple of hours this time. Mama needs a break! ETA: Well, the nap lasted all of 15 minutes... back to the old bouncing grindstone!

Allergies 1, Us 0.

Yesterday, Riley was doing so well with me totally off of dairy, I thought maybe I could get away with a bit of cheese on my eggplant parmesan. After all, I had had a piece of cheese on my turkey sandwiches while going off all other dairy and she was fine. Well, turns out that little bit of cheese was our undoing. Grandma and Papa B came over last night and by that time Riley was just beside herself from not sleeping (one of her symptoms - she starts to sleep very lightly if at all) and was fussy as all get out. I guess we are off all dairy totally again!

We ended up awake at 4am this morning - fun times. She was pretty happy though - so we stayed up until 5 and fell asleep on the couch. Roo is a pretty snuggly baby, all things considered. I love it.

Allergies - oh yeah!

Over the course of this week, I found out that Riley has a milk allergy. Yes, she is exclusively breastfed - apparently, her milk allergy is from ME drinking milk! Go figure. I cut out dairy this week and it's like she is a different child - she had been screaming crying at night for several hours before finally falling exhausted into bed (generally, we were right behind her). The first day after cutting out dairy (and mind you, I eat a LOT of dairy), she went to sleep a whole heck of a lot faster and without half the crying. Each day has gotten progressively better, and today she is just an angel baby! Smiling all the time, rarely, if ever even fussing. I have my happy baby back!

I have noticed that she has been eating more frequently though, I think that it is because I have almost no fat in my diet now. Since I have no fat in my diet, she gets not very much in hers, making my previously fatty ice cream like milk into practically skim milk. The good thing is that all the baby weight is gone, along with some extra - the bad is if I have lost this much weight after just 3/4 of a week off dairy, then I better find another source of fat and fast or I'll end up looking like a scarecrow. Any ideas?

Let's Grow Today!

Apparently, today was growth spurt day, and I wasn't informed... It finally dawned on me after she wanted to eat every single hour since about 4 in the morning! She finally went to sleep after a bit - (I swear, whoever invented the exercise ball must have been a new mom!) her new going to sleep routine is for me to bounce on the exercise ball while singing to her while she is in the Baby Bjorn. Next thing will probably look something like this --->

We went out today to town and walked around Safeway for a while - it's our go-to place because it has air conditioning and she pretty much always goes to sleep there. Actually, anywhere there is shopping, she is good. What am I turning her into??? Joe's going to kill me ;-)

I've been working on a project for the grandmas (all 6 of them! That includes the greats though) and so whenever Queen Riley deigned to nap, I grabbed a few minutes to get some of it done. I'm maybe halfway done now, and should have it all done by Friday. Once I finish, I'll post pics.