Two years, Two Kids later....

So it has seriously been over 2 years since I blogged last? I had all these great intentions of keeping this blog up to date, but then I went back to work (from home) and was taking care of an infant who should have belonged in the marsupial family, it hardly left time for me shower let alone work on my blog. Alas, here we are over two years later and now I am a mother of two! WHAT? When did that happen? I am still asking myself that because honestly I still feel like I am 19 (without the awesome metabolism or ability to stay up past 9 pm, but I can buy my own wine!)

Turns out your gynecologist really has a point when they keep asking you what your birth control plans are after having your baby. At first you are like, "well I am about the size of a Beluga and can hardly sleep comfortably, I don't even want to think about sex right now." Then you have the baby and they want to talk about it at your six week check up and you are like, "Did you just see what I pushed out that thing? Are my stitches even healed yet? Plus there are probably only 20 minutes a day that baby is not on my nipples and I would like a few moments with no human touching my body."

Then you get 8 months out and your baby is finally sleeping for a sold 10-12 hours a night. Baby isn't nursing as much so you can wear stuff other than spit-up stained tank tops you are able to pull one breast out of. You actually have time to do your hair and makeup. You start Weight Watchers and start to drop a few pounds. You get cocky and pack up all the maternity clothes. Soon you are looking at your husband again like "How you do'n?"

BOOM PREGNANT

So here I sit, back in my spit-up stained tank top and nursing bra. Hair back up in a messy bun taking on baby number two!

I feel like a real pro this time so stick around and you can watch me eat all my words later!

Cheers!

Mrs. J

Happy Two Months Hudson!

Has it really been two months since this bundle of joy blessed our lives with his presence? I tell Todd we are going to give Hudson a complex because I tell him all the time how perfect and wonderful he is. Luckily he still gets as excited with my babbling back to him as he does when I have real conversations with him, so I think we are ok telling him he can do no wrong for a little while a longer.

I have to say, month two of motherhood has been so much better than month one. For one thing, we have Hudson's reflux pretty much under control. Our pediatrician had us start Prevacid and it took about 9 days to really kick in, but once it did, it's like we had a whole new baby. We only get super fussy baby Hudson when he has a really big gas bubble in his tummy. I think it's because he so used to the pain coming along with the gas that he gets really tense and has a hard time burping it up.

It's amazing how much our little guy changed in one month too. One day I looked down at him and realized I didn't have a newborn anymore! It seemed over night he started really looking at us and recognizing us. It was so funny one day while nursing, Hudson pulled off and turned to look up at me and looked very surprised. It was like the first time he realized my boob was attached to me! Every morning we sit for about thirty minutes and just talk. He also gets excited when Todd gets home from work. 

Hudson's Two Month Stats:

We now weigh a whopping 9 pounds and 7 ounces, dropped down to the 2 percentile for weight.

He stands 23 inches long!!

Hudson's Two Month Highlights:

SMILING and COOING! He loves to smile when you talk to him and he loves to "talk" back to you. Sometimes he just really gets going and it is the cutest thing. I can have "conversations" with him for hours.

His first Super Bowl! Granted he spent most of it sleeping, I think he really enjoyed it. 

Dad did double duty of watching the game holding Hudson while I helped cook all our yummy snacks.

Speaking of Daddy holding Hudson, this is his favorite way for Todd to hold him. He loves to sit up and be able to look out around him. I think this particular photo they were watching Baseball Tonight together.

Napping! Hudson is getting much better at taking naps by himself. He usually has one very long morning nap and then sometimes a long afternoon nap, although it usually is more nap, nurse, repeat during the evenings. The kid loves his food.

Not freaking out during diaper changes! He used to scream when I would change his diaper, now for the most part he laughs and smiles during them. I think since he is getting a little meat on his bones, he is actually enjoying being naked. Now if he could only not have a breakdown when I take him out of the bathtub!

Trying to enjoy tummy time! We aren't there yet, Hudson prefers being held to anything, but I can get a few brief minutes of happy tummy time before the waterworks turn on.

Baby wearing! This is one of my favorites! Since Hudson is so clingy I had to do some kind of baby wearing. We bought the Moby Wrap and at first he didn't like it, but now we have the hang of it and he loves it. Usually he falls right asleep when I put him in it, but he also will just hang out while I do laundry or clean up the kitchen. So nice to have two hands and I love that his need of being held is met. I know there will be time when being held and snuggled by me is going to be last thing he wants to do so I remind myself to enjoy it while it lasts.

People say your baby seems to grow in a flash and I definitely understand what they mean. It seems like every day there is something new he is doing and learning. It's fun to see but also bittersweet knowing how fast this time is going to pass us.



-Mrs.J

Four years down, a lifetime of happiness to go!

So my anniversary post is a little late. Our actual anniversary is the 16th and I sat down to blog about it, but then Hudson cried all the time while switching reflux meds, guests came to visit and at some point I had to take a shower. Now I have a baby who is sleeping in a swing and two free hands to type so I can finally write my love letter to my amazing husband. This last year of marriage had our highest point so far (the birth of Hudson) but it also had the hardest and lowest point of marriage so far, the loss of our first pregnancy. It's amazing how much life can change in a year.

I sat down many times last year to try and blog about the misscarriage. I thought it would be therapeutic to sit down and journal it, but the words just never seemed to come to me. I don't know if there is a way to really convey how you go from such joy to such sadness in a matter of minutes. I couldn't describe how it felt the day we went into our ultrasound and held our breathe as the tech tried to find the heartbeat we had heard just a week before. I couldn't write how it felt to get our families to spend Christmas together and surprise them with our pregnancy only to call them a week later and say there would be no grandbaby in August. I couldn't explain the pain, both physically and emotionally, the night we had to go to ER and how unprepared our OB had made us for what happens when you actually lose your baby. But probably the hardest part about it was telling people who didn't even know you're pregnant that you had a miscarriage. Really the blog post would be "This sucks and I cry a lot."

You are probably wondering why I would start an anniversary post with this sad story, it's because even though it was the hardest thing I have experienced, it truly solidified why I married Todd. The amount of love and support he gave me during those weeks of anguish were amazing. I don't know if I could have recovered if I didn't have him in my life. The nights that I would lay in bed and cry, he held me and told me every thing would be ok. The moments when I felt betrayed by my body because it didn't bring a baby full term, he told me over and over again how it wasn't my fault. When we talked about trying again, he only wanted to make sure I was ready. Even though he had lost a child as well, all of his energy went into making sure I was ok. When we got pregnant again and I was so stressed during those first 12 weeks, he listened to my paranoia without rollng his eyes. He was my rock. 

I think when it comes to marraige, everyone gages what their relationship is like based on all the good times, when it's really the tough times that count. How do you treat each other in times of crisis? When we lost our baby we both were heartbroken, but we came together to heal. We found comfort and solace in one anonther. Our marriage is 90% easy breezey, 10% tough times and I never want it to be 100% perfect because it's during that 10% that we grow and on the other side of it become better together.

So Todd, thank you so much for this life and adventure you have given me.

You made me your girlfriend...

Your fiance...

Your wife...

Your best friend...

and the best role of my life so far, you made me the mother of your child.

I love you and cheers to lifetime more of happiness and love.

-Mrs. J

Baby Book Review: "On Becoming Baby Wise" by Gary Ezzo

One of the first parenting baby books I read was Baby Wise. If you have had a baby in the last few years, I am sure you have heard of it. It was recommended to us by one of Todd's friends who had great success with their new baby who was sleeping through the night at 8 weeks old. I was ecstatic about the thought of only losing sleep for 8 weeks and ordered it off Amazon while I was 7 months pregnant.

The reviews on Amazon were overwhelmingly positive and I could not wait to read this miracle book. It seemed like the negative reviews were parents who fell more on the "attachment parenting" side of the spectrum. When I finally got the book, I loved it! I probably read the entire thing in a week. It made so much sense to me!

Ezzo uses a model of eat-activity-sleep to base a schedule of your day around. His theory is that babies who follow an activity-eat-sleep model become snackers and are not getting fulfilling feedings, therefore they won't go for long sleep times. You create a schedule around your baby's feeding and sleeping, as a newborn they are usually 2-3 hour incriminates, that as the baby gets older start to mold together creating an all night sleep and then naps during the day. Even typing this now it makes perfect sense to me, as kids and adults our days are eat-activity-sleep. So starting this as a baby would make it a smoother transition as they grow up. Ezzo is also against creating sleep crutches such as co-sleeping, rocking your baby to sleep and nursing to sleep. The Sleep Wise baby wakes up, has a nice feeding, plays a little and the blissfully drifts off to sleep.

So here is what I think about this book after having Hudson, I truly believe you have to have a baby with a certain disposition for this to work for you. If you have a "high needs" or "spirited" baby (both ways I have read babies like Hudson described) it won't work for you. I am not the only one either. While scouring the web trying to find resources on helping Hudson sleep, I found many mommy blogs who swore by Baby Wise for their babies until one came along who just could not be molded. Styleberry has my favorite blog post on the whole thing and made me feel better about my own Baby Wise fail.

Hudson is going to have sleep crutches, I have accepted that, but Hudson is not the type of baby that you can read their sleep cues and then put them down to self soothe. First off, I couldn't even put him down for the first 2 1/2 weeks of his life and second Hudson doesn't even have sleep cues, he goes from being happy and content to complete mental breakdown. This kid wakes up mad because there isn't a boob in his mouth by the time he starts to stir. If you think that I am going wake a baby up from my breast that has just cried for 45 minutes straight just so they can have an activity (probably me walking them around while they cry) you my friend are crazy. I rock this baby to sleep, I nurse this baby to sleep and I pull this baby into bed at 4 am and throw him on my breast so I can sleep for an extra hour or so. 

All in all I really did like to book and I am not saying it will never work for us. During the day I try to follow the eat-activity-sleep but forget it at night. I take the path of least resistance, which is very un-wise in Baby a Wise world. I have come to terms with the fact Hudson won't sleep throught the night for a while, but he has certain needs that have to met right now. It truly is his world Todd and I just live in it. When he gets a little older and can regulate his emotions a little better, we might circle back and try it again. 

The book opens up with this description of the opposite of a Baby Wise mom. She nurses they baby to sleep in a dark room then slowly creeps into the nursery and very carefully lays the baby down, taking extra care to not move away too quickly. Ezzo actually says "poor mother" while describing her. Last night as I stood over Hudson's bassinet after rocking him for an hour and gave it a few rocks so he wouldn't think I put him down yet, I had a little chuckle, I did complete something in that book...I am the Baby Wise fail!

Excuse this terrible photo (I took it on my Ipad in a dark room while blogging this) but here is a prime example of a baby who fell asleep at 3 am while nursing and I am not about to wake him up

So tell me, did you have any luck with Baby Wise?

-Mrs.J