Swaddle Problems

Baby A has her blankies. They are the swaddle blankets that I bought for her and they've been in her crib and now in her big girl bed basically since she was born. She has a funny habit of sleeping with a blanket over her face. Yes, it's completely disconcerting as a parent to have your child's face covered, but I learned pretty quickly that it was done by choice and unless I wanted a screaming infant, to let her do her own thing.

Now that I think about it, that seems to be a pretty standard mantra with her.

Buy anyway, this was when she was old enough to be fairly mobile in her crib, not a newborn, so the risk of suffocation was pretty low, but, to ease my own anxiety I would give her the light, linen swaddle blankets that were easy to breath through.

These have turned into her blankies and overall I'm very happy with the fact that we have four of them. I know parents who've dealt with horror situations where the one and only 'thing' has disappeared, whether it's a blanket, toy, pacifier, doll, animal, etc, etc. When there's only one, and it's gone, there can be no good outcome 99% of the time.

Baby A has four and they're completely interchangeable. She has no preferences. All in all, not that bad.

They're a perfect size too. Somewhere around 36x36 or 40x40. I found that size to be really perfect when you're swaddling a 5 lb infant. They're kind of little and the more standard size of 46x46 was really a lot of extra material. We had one of those too, but rarely used it because we'd have to wrap it around her ten times.

Well, now that we have baby #2 on the way, we always knew we were going to have to buy new swaddle blankets. There's just no way Baby A is going to give up hers, which I wouldn't expect anyway, but overall my thought process was to get the same type but in new colors/patterns so they looked completely different.

And there's the problem.

I can't find them.

Anywhere.

Ok, anywhere means they're not on Amazon and not on Target.com. That to me is pretty much the entire universe of online shopping.

I suppose I could go into a Target and actually look for them (argh) but I think I'd rather just complain about it. Plus if I go into Target, I never leave with just what I need. I always have to pick up a few things that jump off the shelves and into my cart and I'm just not ready to do that yet. Especially since I did it last weekend. I went in to buy pajama's for Baby A and left $90 later...yeah, *sigh* that's just how it goes and actually 'only' $90 is a pretty light day for Target.

I will probably have to cave and go in search of them because I really do love that size and while they're not the 'popular' brand right now (hello aden!) that's really what I want.

Sleep is for the weak

I've been fighting a cold again this week. Has been the same sore throat and cough that started my last two week long head cold. Hopefully this one will be a shorter version but even so with the coughing I've had trouble sleeping. Even with medication, I'm still up most of the night. It's not just the coughing that's keeping me up though. Add to that an amazingly active baby who is large enough now to really make an impact on my comfort at night, multiple trips to the bathroom, leg cramps and of course the Braxton Hicks contractions are making another appearance. They had settled down for several weeks and while I had them occasionally, they were pretty minor and short lived. These are waking me up at night and making my entire day pretty uncomfortable.

Yesterday apparently I hit such a wall in the sleep deprivation category that I ended up with a severe migraine with blurred vision for about two hours in the afternoon. I gave up after food, water and Tylenol didn't help and waited until I could see well enough to drive home. I then slept for an hour and a half and felt better. Not great, but better.

When I was pregnant with Baby A I didn't really have any trouble sleeping at night. She never kept me awake and after she was born, she settled into a nighttime sleep routine pretty quickly. By 8 weeks she was sleeping 6 hour stretch at night and by 12 weeks she was at 8 hours.

I have a feeling that this baby's nightly route will be significantly different.

How to piss off a pregnant woman

In one step:

Stupid Man #1:  "Are you due next month?"
Me: "No, I have three more to go, thanks."

In two steps:

Stupid Man #2: "How far along are you?"
Me: "Six Months"
Stupid Man #2: "Wow, you got big early!"
Me: ...

Yeah, two comments in one week.

Feeling fabulous.

Monkey See, Monkey Do, Monkey...Teach???

There are some days where I just have to hang my head and sigh.

My husband is a very intelligent man. He really is. Whenever we come to a subject that he doesn't know something about, it's always very surprising to me.

Apparently, raising children falls into that category.

Not to say that I'm an expert, but I think some things should be fairly obvious.

For instance...

For Baby A's birthday we bought her a toddler slide. It's about 3 feet tall and fits in the coat closet when not in use. She loves it and frequently in the evenings we'll pull that out for her to play on.

Last week, one evening after dinner, we were watching baseball and Baby A was sliding down her slide having a great time.

My husband jumps up and says "Baby A watch this!!"

(let me just insert, anything your husband, brother, son, nephew, etc, etc, says that starts with 'watch this' should be considered very, very suspect.)

He then proceeds to put her on the top of the slide, facing backwards, and slide her down to the floor. At this the following conversation takes place.

Me: 'Don't teach her that. She's going to try it on her own, topple down the slide and hurt herself.'

Husband: 'She's not going to hurt herself, besides she's not on this unsupervised.'

Me: 'She's on it unsupervised enough, if I'm cooking dinner and the slide is out, my eyes aren't on her every minute. Besides, if you teach this to her here, she is going to think she can slide down every slide backwards.'

He harrumphed and kind of got the point. Or so I thought.

Last night, I was cooking dinner and my husband was playing with Baby A in the living room when I hear...

"Here, try this, go down face first..."

So, now I've had to warn our daycare lady that my very intelligent husband has been teaching our daughter to go down slides backwards and face first without any thought to the fact that she is highly likely to try this on a slide that is not 3 feet tall with a carpeted floor at the bottom...

Really???

Kickboxing strategies and how they relate to pregnancy

Back in my single days I loved kickboxing. Loved it.

This was not the aerobics class at the local YMCA or LA Fitness or Lifetime Fitness.

This was a boxing gym.

They trained fighters.

They participated in local boxing matches.

They had bruises and black eyes.

I was one of those people. With the bruises and black eyes. I loved it.

I actually did train to fight in the ring for a while. Not with the intention of actually getting in the ring, but one of the other girls in the gym did want to and needed a partner to spar with that was her height/size/class etc.

It was awesome.

I also used to go to the boxing matches in Atlanta and one of those fights will probably stay in my head for as long as I live, but probably not for the reason you would expect.

When the two fighters came out, one was a tall, broad shouldered, hulk of a guy. Thick arms, thick legs, looked like he could break a tree trunk in half by blinking at it.

The other guy was tall too, but thin, wiry, clearly muscled as well, but looked like a shadow of a person next to his opponent.

When the fight started it seemed like an obvious win.

The bell rang and the two opponents started circling. They threw out test punches and the little guy swatted a kick on the Hulk's left thigh.

The hulk barely noticed it. Never bothered to block or counter it.

They kept circling and the little guy kept deftly avoiding getting hit with anything solid and kept up these swat kicks at the Hulk's left thigh. In the same spot every time. They were solid kicks but not anything that was going to sweep the legs out from under the Hulk, he just kept ignoring them and trying to land a solid punch.

By the third round, these kicks were a little more noticeable. The little guy would swat kick that same spot and the leg would shake a bit. Then it started to buckle a bit at each kick.

The fight eventually ended with the Hulk having to withdraw because he couldn't stand anymore.

The crowd didn't know what to do. It was amazing and kind of anticlimactic. You go to a boxing match to see two guys beat the hell out of each other, right? This was done so deftly, so quietly that by the time the Hulk realized there was a problem, the fight was almost over. By repeated kicking just one spot, in a non threatening way, over and over and over the little guy slowly worked the leg right out from under his much larger opponent and won the match without ever having to land a punch or come down to a test of sheer muscle strength.

I thought it was brilliant, later, at the time I was just as amazed and kind of let down as the rest of the crowd.

Now, reference this back to pregnancy.

I have a little opponent.

Much smaller than me.

Not very strong.

But she's a kicker.

And she kicks me in the same spot.

Over.

And Over.

And Over.

And every time I make a face about it, someone has to say 'she's only a pound, she can't be kicking you that hard.'

No. She's not.

The strength behind the kick is not the issue here.

It's the fact that she only kicks me in one spot.

The same spot.

Repeatedly.

For hours every day and night.

So, yeah, she's only a pound but my little lightweight is winning this particular match.

Too Many Updates

Ok, it's been a while and I don't have any good excuses. I just haven't felt motivated to write.

First - Baby A's birthday party was great. We had such a great time and had a lot of family there but other than that kept it pretty small, just two of our closest friends with their littles. I had asked for books for my daughter because she loves to read. She can spend 20 minutes flipping through the pages of one book. When we open her toy chest, she doesn't even look at most of the toys in there anymore, she just pulls out all the books and then either sits down to read them, or wants me or my husband to read with her. I love it. I want to do everything I possibly can to encourage her love of books and reading. She was really thrilled when she started opening presents at her party and kept pulling out new books. Of course, the actual act of tearing open the wrapping paper was the highlight of the event for her, the books were a close second though.

Books!!

Secondly, Baby A is in her new 'big girl' room. I'm so excited about it. I spent the whole Labor Day weekend working on it. Touching up the paint, redoing the trim paint, hanging curtains, rearranging furniture (yes, while pregnant, I know), moving all her clothes and toys and books and everything into the new room.

The bed is enormous and she looks so very, very tiny in it, but given the space in the room, and the need to use the twin in the smaller kids bedroom, it just made sense. She has spent two nights there so far and has done really, really well. Both nights she has been a little freaked out when it was time to go to bed and we didn't go back down the hall to her old room and her old crib, but once she was in the bed, she fell asleep very quickly and stayed asleep all night. I have pillows on the floor next to the bed in case she falls out, but she hadn't fallen out of her toddler bed in several weeks, so I'm hoping we're past that phase and she's got the whole 'don't roll too far' thing down now. 

Still no name for our newest little princess. It's such a hard process and the names at the top of the list seem to change weekly. I'm 23 weeks right now and still doing really well. She is an active little thing though and has really started making her presence known. The kicks and rolls are visible now and she's not at all shy about it when my husband wants to feel what's going on.

She and I have been having discussions at 2 and 3 am. If I can sleep through, we're just fine. If I have to get up and go to the bathroom, she decides it's morning and starts dancing. There have been several nights where I really have to think about how badly I have to go and if it's worth being awake for another hour until the Rockette in my belly settles back down.

Only 17 weeks to go before we meet our second daughter. It's very exciting, and terrifying, all at once. 

I've gained 13 lbs so far, still doing really well. My glucose test is tomorrow and I had better pass this stupid thing the first time. Last time I failed and had to retake it doing the super long version with four blood draws and no food ahead of time. Of course, last time I had already developed a HORRIBLE sweet tooth and had spent the previous weekend with my in laws gorging on chocolate cake and strawberry short cake. So, yeah, failed that. 

This time, I am definitely having sweet cravings, and am definitely getting hungrier in general, but over all much more aware of controlling my eating and am finding better ways to indulge my sweet tooth that aren't super high fat/calorie.