A Meltdown over Poop

This is only ONE of the many differences between our 2 kids, but its a difference I'm struggling with a lot.  Aria has had a rough go with her tummy since 2 weeks old.  First was a battle with colic (here was the beginning) and now is a battle of constipation.

Aria has been breastfed until a week ago, when we began introducing formula 1 bottle at a time.  Her first formula bottle was 1 week ago and she spent the next day "spitting up" (I called it throwing up because it was everything she'd eaten... the nurse didn't agree since there wasn't any "wrenching").  My initial thinking was... omg, what did I do to our poor baby girl?!  But I followed the nurse's urge to continue formula and allow her little body time to adjust.  The next day, I noticed that she was only "spitting up" when she was straining to poop.  (Pooping has never been her strong suit, usually going days -a week, a couple times- between bowel movements and often times harder stools.)

After talking to the doctor and nurse on the phone a few times, we have tried: eating prunes, drinking prune juice, tummy massage, water, and bicycle legs. The catch-22 of the situation is that she doesn't poop every day, which means she doesn't have to feel miserable while pushing every day - but also I'm sure it makes it worse when she does since it's not a daily occurrence.

This morning, on the way to preschool, she began straining to poop and "spit up" clear liquid, enough to soak her shirt.  I hurried home to get her cleaned up and hopefully find a dirty diaper.  No luck.  All that pain for nothing... just a wet diaper. For the next hour, she went about her day eating and playing without any trouble.  Until she tried going again... up came most of her food, again (but this time it came out of her mouth and nose and was very thick).  She did successfully get a small nugget out, but man... this is not OK.

A serious conversation with her doctor (and the med student that always happens to be there for appointments when I don't want him to be) about her tummy troubles, and our major concern for her not growing more quickly, I left with our 12 lb 2 oz, 8 month old and headed to Walgreens to pick up Miralax and some high calorie baby food.

1 teaspoon of Mirlax into a bottle after dinner last night, a good night's sleep and a painfree poop later... she can suddenly crawl!  Imagine my surprise when I set her down on the floor this morning.  Poor girl must have been miserable!

Is she the only one with these tummy troubles?
XO!

Overwhelmed... or maybe underwhelmed?

The last couple of weeks I've been down.  I want to blame it on the rainy, cold weather, but I don't even think that's it.  
I feel like one of those balloons that is only doing enough to just skim the carpet, but doesn't have the air to float.  Its even worse that I know I'm being like this.

I keep going through all of the excuses in my head, and reassuring myself that once this is over or once that happens, I'll go back to feeling normal... I know it's in my head... I know it won't go back until I make it happen.

Here's to pushing through
XO!

The Color Run

Have you heard of The Color Run? Have you ran it?

What is The Color Run™?
The Color Run™ 5k is a unique experience focused less on speed and more on crazy color fun with friends and family. Color runners come from all different ages, shapes, sizes, and speeds; but everyone toeing the start line has a blast. Whether you are a casual morning mall walker or an Olympic athlete, the 3 miles of The Color Run™ course will be the most memorable and colorful run of your life! (thecolorrun.com)

I am not a runner.  I have never been a runner.  The e-card that talks about 'if you see me running, you better run too!'... yeah, that's me.  I sometimes dream about becoming one though.  My hubby was an outstanding runner (Olympic material, no joke) until a car accident in 2004.  I've gone through phases of begging him to teach me how to be a runner and he tried - but when you've always been a runner, and a good one, it's hard to teach a non-runner.

3 weeks after Aria was born, The Color Run came to Iowa.  The photos make it look like so much fun, I knew people from work were going, I wanted to run.  ...but 3 weeks after giving birth is not the time to suddenly decide to run a 5k.

I will run it this year. I will run it this year.  I will run it this year!

I am starting this endeavor today.  In 135 days I will run my first 5k.  I will become a runner.

Want to do it with me?!

XO! 

The Internet is a Scary World

While killing some time online tonight, I was checking out my blogger stats (page views, post views, referring URLs...) and to my shock, I had a referring URL from an unbelievable site.

www.louisvuittonspringsale.com

"How?!?" as I click on the link excitedly, thinking it's way too strange, but still secretly hoping its true because who doesn't love them some Louis Vuitton.

This is a screenshot from the site!

See it?  Free "Shopping" over $60.  Whomp whomp... 

I told my husband what a sad thing it is that people create fraudulent websites and being the computer geek that he is, he immediately jumped on his phone.  3 minutes later...

I now know who is responsible for such a horrible act on unassuming people looking for a good deal on a Louis Vuitton. 

And it hit me, the internet is a scary world.  With the click of a few keys and 3 minutes, you can gave your credit card information to Shirley Sanchez159, or find out everything about that "her" and "her" other websites meant to steal your hard earned dollars. 

Tip for browsing safely:
If it's not from the original domain (louisvuitton.com), it's not affiliated with the real store.  They won't buy a new domain for a sale (or any of reason) because it's a wasted effort on their part to not have it connect to their other products.

Safe purchases!
XO!

Cradle Cap Confession

Our first babe was a baldy. Well, that's not entirely true... she had a severe old man thing happening where she only had hair around the bottom 1" of her head, but it was blonde so nearly invisible. 

Our second babe was born with as much hair as Chloe acquired over the first 9 months of her life.  What a surprise when she made her entrance! (I was already in shock throughout labor because of the intensity and speed of everything, but when the doctor pulled her out, my initial thought was "Whose baby is that?" because of how different she looked that Chloe)

I used to think about how sweet it would be to have a baby with hair who could wear hair clips, or a little pigtail.  I used to!

Some things that never crossed my mind until having to deal with newborn hair

• Tangles.  Yes, at less than 1 month old, she had tangles in the back of her hair.  And when I tried to oh so gently comb them out, it pulled out her hair and I about died.
• The bald spot.  All babies get them, its just what happens.  But with a head full of dark hair, this is what stands out: 

• Cradle cap.  I'm fairly sure that almost all babies experience this as well.  Chloe had it when she was a few months old, and now Aria does. 

Dealing with cradle cap is fairly easy.  It doesn't hurt the baby at all, it's dry skin (although it looks FAR worse and makes any new mom lose their ----).  A nurse friend of my suggested rubbing a small amount of baby oil onto Chloe's head before her bath and, low and behold, it was gone after 2-3 treatments.  So when I noticed Aria's (which wasn't as obvious through her hair), I gave myself a mental thumbs-up and went to grab the baby oil and comb. 

It was not a happy ending though! It was so much worse than I could have expected.  It did it's job of loosening the dead skin, which then began to "float" around her hair for days and days, even after multiple shampooings.  Luckily her 4 month appointment was a short week away and after a quick conversation with her pediatrician I learned: Do not use baby oil and try to comb out on a baby with hair.  Her sad story ended with her own daughter losing all of her hair from being pulled out with the comb.  I was experiencing this the first day when I was attempting to pull out the dead skin with the comb - the comb with pull the flake, and with it would come the hair! I left her little head alone after hearing her personal experience but it still bothered me looking at it (I know it doesn't hurt her, but it looks like it should).  

A few days ago, we tried something different.  Head&Shoulders shampoo.  It works with flakes on adults, maybe on babies too? Totally did!  After living with huge flakes laying throughout her hair for nearly a month, no more flakes! 

Underneath, she still has cradle cap, but it makes me feel better not having the urge to pick out pieces and risk pulling out her hair.  Now I just have to force myself to be patient - it will clear up itself. 

*When using anything other than baby shampoo, be extra cautious of shampoo getting into eyes. 4 hands comes in handy when dealing with a wiggly baby and a stingy shampoo. 

How did/do you deal with cradle cap?

XO!

...Ugh

I've fallen into a funk the last few days.  I don't know what to say about it.  That's not true, I don't have the energy to say anything about it... it's that bad.

I'm trying to pull myself out but it's hard when each days seems to be the exact same thing and all I can think about it Groundhog's Day.

What do you do when you need a pick-me-up?

ugh

Working Out

If you remember my breakdown of not fitting into my clothes 10 weeks after giving birth (catch up here) I bucked up my attitude and hit the gym.  (My gym looks a lot like my living room with a Wii controller in my hand and Jillian Michaels yelling at me via Biggest Loser).  I started keeping track of everything I put in my mouth via MyNetDiary's iPhone app.  And drum roll please....

I lost 46 pounds from August 31st - December 18th!  AND MY JEANS FIT!! 

Since then... we've been through the holidays and a nasty cold for both myself and C.  I hate that I have to confess I am back up 5-6 pounds on the average day and I haven't even turned the Wii on for 2.5 weeks.  While watching The Biggest Loser today on DVR, I have given myself a challenge that I will continue to add to each week throughout this season. 

This week's challenge - begin entering all of my food and drinks into MyNetDiary again.  When I began doing this in November, it wasn't in an attempt to cut calories but in an attempt to recognize how many things I was nibbling on throughout the day that I wasn't thinking about or aware of even.  It was surprising how many times I opted out of eating the cookie I really wanted because I didn't want to see the number of calories added to my daily total - I hope it was have the same effect this time around! 

Anyone out there want to join me in my challenge? 

Until next time... XO! 

New Year Resolution

Oh yikes!  How has it been so long since my last post?!  I often think about posting, even have everything written out in my head... but I haven't gotten to anything bigger than my iPhone for what seems like an eternity.

I'm ready to change that.

My New Year Resolution:  organize my life (and my family's) throughout the months.

• I want more time for crafting and blogging about it. 
• I want to update my Etsy store... which hasn't had much activity in some time.
• I want to solidify a cleaning schedule so I don't feel extreme anxiety when someone wants to drop by and I feel like I should hang a huge sign on the front door

• I want to play with my kids more... wasn't that the whole point of becoming a stay-at-home-mom??
• I want to declutter everything
• I want to start working out again

Is that too many? I think I could add to it, but we'll leave it at that for now... small goals *wink*

What's your New Year Resolution? 

XO!

Closet Overhaul

It's been 10 weeks since Aria was born... 10 weeks! ... and I still don't fit into my jeans.  UGH.

I have 1 pair of jeans that have always been very big and (I can't believe I'm saying this but..) they are the only jeans I've been wearing for nearly 10 weeks.  Ridiculous.

In other clothing news... I am also having trouble feeling comfortable in any of my shirts (not size comfortable, but how my body looks).  My typical days includes throwing on another T-shirt and my only pair of jeans, take Chloe to school, come home and switch to sweatpants, repeat to pick her up.  I hate that.

 I hate it so much in fact that this is what I spent today doing:

With the exception of a few pairs of jeans that I know don't fit yet... this is all of my clothes, so sad

I emptied every drawer, every hanger, every laundry basket (after a laundry spree, it's all clean expect for what I was currently wearing - small victory around here).  I sorted all of it into piles - T-shirts, tanks/camis, sweats, sweaters, skirts, etc.
Then came the hard part.  I put on every shirt I own and made an impulsive decision to keep or toss.

First came tank tops and cami's... most of them are for under things so it was fairly easy decision - if they fit they stayed. The left is the starting pile, the right is the keepers.

Next came T-shirts... my most embarrassing pile.  Almost all of these shirts were from high school/college or free.  (Am I the only one who feels obligated to keep stupid shirts because they were free and ya never know when you may need a shirt to paint in or... lounge in... or...)

My most dramatic cutting by far.  Left is toss, right is keep.

I went through sweaters

I widdled down the sweatshirts and sweatpants by several pairs and discovered a couple more pairs of jeans that fit I had stored away when I started wearing maternity clothes (Happy Day!)

By the end of my painful task, I realized several things. 

1. I have mostly black or white clothing... I have no idea why
2. I do not stop and think about clothing purchases for long enough.  I had many pieces of clothing that I know I haven't liked since day 1, but continued to fold them and put them away.
3. I love (HATE) Pinterest for making me so self-conscious about my wardrobe with all of there cute outfits pins. 
4. Time to go shopping and hope for better and longer lasting decisions. 

These is what went back into drawers and onto hangers (expect of the cutey helper of course).

Do you have troubles with hating your clothing or is it just my post-baby (won't go back to where it was - damn second pregnancy body)?

Until next time... XO!