One of my 35 things!

So we made ranch crockpot pork chops last Sunday.. They are on my pinterest dinners board. There's only 3 ingredients, great right? Well they turned out just ok.. not great.. a little dry even tho they were submerged in cream of chicken soup and not a lot of flavor. Needless to say this was not a favorite of mine. We even doubled the ranch packets and still not that much flavor. ill spare you the pin since I'm giving this such a bad review.. the sad thing is the gal who originally posted the recipe said it was soooo great... maybe if you like bland, lol. But to each their own of course!

Sleeping

Abi has been sleeping since about 7:30... It is now 10:20 and she its still asleep! She has changed her routine dramatically in the past few Weeks, and this is one of the good changes. Unfortunately while she goes to sleep earlier she also gets up earlier. I'm lucky if I get to sleep in till 8 anymore and it used to be 10 or 11. Plus she doesn't really nap during the day, which makes her cranky. We try to get her to nap, but I'm lucky if she's napping for a half hour tops...

Just an update..

Abi is now 3 months old and weighs 13.7lbs!!! :)

I should know better by now...

Than to read sad titled blogs... I followed a link from Ali's blog to one that she follows because I enjoy reading other mom's blogs. But I had a feeling it was going to bite me in the butt. Yup. First of all, the most recent posts were about her beautiful baby boy, which are wonderful and he's a cutie! But I read back further to find out her inspiration for all the SIDS research and info.. well I kinda knew why, but I was there and I wanted to read her story. I bawled my eyes out to say the least. I should know better than to read such sad things... especially now with my little Abi at 13 weeks old. She's in the middle of the "greatest SIDS risk" age (2-4 months) and it just kills me to think how that poor woman must have felt. Putting myself in her shoes.. I just can't fathom the pain. Now I'm going to go kiss my little peanut and make sure she's breathing. (Even tho she's sleeping on daddy right now...)

Life is good.

I am in awe of my life. My baby and my hubby are so wonderful and I feel so blessed. Abi is 12 weeks old (as of this past Friday) but honestly I feel like I've known her my whole life. I think I've said that before, but it's true. Her smiles and partial giggles (no real laughing as of yet) bring my heart so much joy and fills me up with a love more sweet than any I could have ever imagined. Even when I'm frustrated with her crying or waking up every 3 hours at night (which she's started again these past two days...) I just think about how wonderful the happy baby times are and how I won't always have this precious little baby to snuggle... and I smile. She's growing up too quickly, and everyone seems to want her to do more; sit up better, giggle and laugh, try baby food etc. I'm not ready for my baby to grow up yet! So I'm not forcing her to grow up faster than she already is. She's not going to be on rice cereal, and baby food will not start until at least 6 months. I am trying to do tummy time with her, but she hates it! I think the longest we've gone without her crying is 4 minutes. Which isn't too bad, but then I feel awful for making her cry so I don't do anymore tummy time that day! lol. I look forward to the day she sleeps in her own room and through the night.. but we don't even have a crib mattress, and I'm not willing to part with her until at least 4 months (after the greatest risk of SIDS has passed). That day will come eventually and until then I will cherish every moment of sleeplessness due to listening for her breathing and being woken up by her fussing or snorting. 

I have been having a few issues with her pulling at my nipple when breastfeeding.. it HURTS but I'm still offering it to her every chance I get. And I'll continue to do so until I get bit with teeth.. but even then if I have any milk left I'll pump and give it to her. I'm bound and determined to give her as much breast milk as I can. I was breastfed and I was hardly sick as a child. (I had strep a lot tho, but once my tonsils were removed I was fine) I keep trying to look at it this way, every ounce of breast milk is an ounce of formula she doesn't have to have. I still cry when I feed her formula. Not every time, not anymore anyway. I will never again listen to a pediatrician when they say "you have to supplement" at 2 weeks old. I will go to a lactation consultant the day after I leave the hospital and every other day after if I have to! I know there could be other factors effecting my not being able to exclusively breastfeed. Including the fact that I was induced with pitocin and had an epidural. I don't know if the dr who delivered Abi used suction to clean out her nose and mouth but if she did, that could be a reason for Abi's weak suck too. I will probably always get an epidural, but hopefully next time I can wait longer. And hopefully next time I won't have to be induced.. That is if we have another baby, lol. 

Anyway, Here are a few recent pics of my lil princess. More reminders of how good life is. :)

"Why yes, I am too cool for my shirt."  LOL

Abi and daddy on Father's Day watching a slide show of pictures from our honeymoon in Hawaii!

I had the camera on my phone set backwards so she could see herself. 

Mom!

Recently Abi has started"saying"mom when she cries. I know its not on purpose, but its so cute! I can't wait till she's saying it for real. And she's talking more in general now. Oh her coos and ahhs are just so heartwarming, they make me smile, which makes her smile and its one wonderful cycle of smiles and coos. The other day I was singing to her and she was ooo-ing along with me... So darn cUte!

More naps...

Yet again hubby and Abi are in the other room napping.. this is the second night in a row Abi has gone down for a nap about 6pm.. yesterday she slept till 8:30 and was a lil fuss pot when it came to bed time. Let's hope tonight she gets up a lil earlier so she goes to bed at her normal time. I have class tomorrow so we actually have to get up earlier than normal and if tomorrow morning is anything like this morning was I'm not going to be getting any sleep. Abi started fussing around 5:15am and kept falling back asleep. When that happens I just leave her to fuss till she's sleeping again.. who wakes a *mostly* sleeping baby? lol But by 5:30 she was flinging arms and kicking legs so I got her up to change and feed her. She didn't go back down till about 6, at which point I went and pumped till 6:45. She was sound asleep when I got back into bed but by 7:15 she was up again. I got her up, changed and fed her.. put her back down around 7:30.. and she was up again at 8:10!! GRRR. But at that point it was mostly fussing and falling back to sleep so we both "cat napped" between the fussing until 9 when I finally decided I was getting no more sleep and pulled her into bed with me to talk and play until she got hungry again. I have to find a better way to swaddle her than just the blanket I'm using. She keeps wriggling free and batting herself in the face. She really sleeps much better on her belly. No I don't put her on her belly to sleep at night. But during the day when I can't put her down she likes to sleep over my shoulder/on her belly and is mostly fuss-free that way. It may be that it's because she's sleeping on me, and she's currently on her belly on daddy and is fine. In a way I can't wait until she's able to sleep in her crib in her room AND sleep however she wants. But then I keep thinking about how fast she's growing up already and I don't want her to grow up any faster than she already is! She's already holding her head up more (still a lil wobbly) and "talking" and smiling... All these wonderful milestones make me so proud and so sad at the same time. I'll never have another first smile from my first baby. Never see my first baby lift her head for the first time again... It's bad enough that I'm still having supply issues and have to supplement with formula ... still. That in it of itself makes me cry almost daily. I am getting better but I just can't help but feel inadequate as a mom. Tho hubby read on Yahoo that 85% of women who attempt breastfeeding give up by 3 months and Abi will be 12 weeks Friday and I haven't given up yet. I decided I will make it to Friday and then we'll see from there. I can't stand the thought of not giving her any breast milk after 3 months.. I had originally wanted to go until she started teething and biting.. or 6 months... I'd love to make it to a year but I don't see that happening. Anyway, before I make myself even sadder I'd better get back to the living room and check on my two loves.

Sleep

Everyone in the house is asleep.. but me. Snoopy, our cat is sleeping on top of the couch. Hubby and Abi are snoozing on the over sized chair and Abi is snoring. :) I on the other hand am not a napper no matter how tired I am (unless I have a headache) so here I sit blogging and doing some other random things before the chaos begins again. Abi has been cranky much of this week and I think it's because hubby has been working nights. It's been a while since I've been able to get her to take longer than a 30-40 min nap (except for this past Thursday when I was actually able to put her into her bassinet and she slept for an hour.. then woke up screaming because I was in the other room pumping..) I hope I'm able to break her of the need to be held during the day since she will be in daycare this fall... And I need to be able to get homework done. At this point I have not wanted to try to put her down too much. I figure there will be plenty of time that I won't be able to hold her so I should get my fill now while I can. Anyway back to the crabbiness.. hubby has been crabby lately too. Especially when he's got Abi and she's fussy. He's fine and wonderful when she's calm and chatty, but for some reason he's got less patience with her fussy. Not that he's mean to her or would ever EVER hurt her or anything, he just gets frustrated and you can hear it in his voice. And that frustrates me. But I try to let him figure out how to calm her because if I take her she will never get used to anyone else. I worry that she'll stop trusting us as it is when I am driving and she's screaming and no one can help her right away. Makes me want to cry with her.

Smiles!

First time I've been able to catch a smile with my camera! She smiles a lot more now and a lot bigger but never lets me take a picture. Little stinker!

Hubby is on the night shift for the next week.. ugh. Which means I don't get a break like I usually do, and Abi has been really fussy lately. Not to mention that she hasn't been napping very long. Maybe 30 minutes at a time. So she's very over tired. Plus, even though she's "sleeping through" the night, she's fussy from about 6am till we get up for the day. Which doesn't allow for much sleep for mommy. I'm still trying to breastfeed, and I pump probably 2 times at night while she's asleep. Equaling even less sleep for this mommy. I'm only complaining because I'm a tad sleep deprived today. Honestly I don't mind pumping so long as I can continue giving my little girl that sweet liquid gold. Abi is laying on a blanket on the floor right now, "talking" to me and trying to giggle. Yes, she's started to try to laugh and it just cracks me up! And when I smile and laugh it makes her try harder.. soooo cute! She's getting so big! She was 11 lbs 13 oz and 23 inches long at her last appointment. I weighed her yesterday and she was 12 lbs 4 oz!! She is now 10 and a half weeks old and fitting pretty well into her 3 month clothes. Some I've even had to put away because she's too long for them. EEEK! She is starting to see farther I think because she's tracking things from farther away. And!!! She's starting to recognize daddy and give him TONS of smiles now too! At first she was really smiliey for me and only gave daddy her gassy smiles. But now when I'm holding her and he walks in the room she'll give him a big ole' grin! It makes me tear up to see her smile at her daddy. Happy tears of course! I think she's going to be a daddy's girl. :)

ugh...

I wish my right side would pump as much as my left.... grrrrrrrrrr. Then again it might take me six hours to pump if that were the case. Still worth it.