Scarlett :: 2 Months

Stats
Length- 24.5" (20.5" at birth) 96th percentile
Weight- 12 lbs 13 oz (7 lbs 5oz at birth) 97th percentile

Details
Eating- She seems to be a bottomless pit! She still eats about every 2 hours during the day and about 3 times per night. While I'm at work she'll eat about 5 bottles, each at 3-4 oz. She did go through a growth spurt a couple weeks ago where she was (what felt like) constantly eating and getting fussy when she wasn't eating. She's a long and lean little blue eyed baby girl! I can't believe how much she weighs since she's not getting too chubby yet!

Sleeping- She sleeps like a dream for other people during the day when I'm at work. When I'm home and on weekends, she likes to sleep in my arms (or Alex's.. he's just better about putting her down). Some days it seems like she won't let me put her down at all for naps so I give in to holding her so she can get a couple hours of shut eye. I don't mind at all but hopefully having her crib in our room now will get us accustomed to laying her down in there for naps and for bed. Night time is still pretty unpredictable, some nights (mostly nights I let her sleep with me) she sleeps for up to 5.5 hours. Nights she's been in the bassinet have averaged about 3-4 hours at a time. Again, hopefully the crib in there will help. She was getting too long for the bassinet and the fact that she could touch the sides and kick the bottom wasn't helping her sleep.

Activity/Skills- She's getting so good at holding her head up while sitting (with support) and while we're walking/moving around with her. She's getting better and better at tummy time too, when she feels like doing it. She's been smiling and talking up a storm in the last week or so. She has certain periods where she's completely satisfied with life and will smile and chit chat for at least half an hour. Having her look right at us and smile is heart melting! She's also sucking on her hands a lot more which is hopefully helping her self-soothe. She still startles herself when she's sleeping which wakes her up, so hopefully she's going to grow out of that soon. Doesn't it sound irritating to be asleep so soundly only to be startled awake?

Other thoughts- The cloth diapers are still going well. I think this has helped us prevent blow-outs because sometimes she'd go a couple days without pooing, so when she did it was monstrous! Now she's back to normal. This month we started putting her in the swing from time to time and rocking on the rocking chair. She enjoys both things greatly and they help her fall asleep from time to time.

At her two month appointment she got two shots, one in each leg. She was quite fussy that evening and slept from about 6:30pm until the next morning (but waking up to eat of course). And now she's been pretty happy. I'm hoping that last night was the worst of it!

We feel so lucky to have a happy and healthy baby girl! She is an amazing little person!

See Scarlett's at 1 Month

iPhone Photo Adventures :: v1

I take a ton of pictures with my iPhone, so I figured I should start putting some of them on the blog for other people's viewing pleasure. I use Instagram a lot to post photos to facebook, my apologies if you see duplicates on this here blog but some of them are just too cute not to use!

 Mostly Scarlett but one picture of a ton of starlings that were in the yard and tree's. I took a video for Alex so he could hear them. It was insane how loud they were. When I opened the front door, they all flew away which I got a couple pictures of as well. Crazy!

Back to Work!

This morning my alarm went off at 6:30am. I had to set an alarm for the first time in 8 weeks. I last nursed Scarlett at 5:00am and I knew that I would only have another hour or so to sleep after her diaper change so I selfishly kept her with me to sleep for that final hour. The alarm chimed, I turned it off and laid there awake for 10 minutes drinking in the time I was holding my baby girl that I was about to spend 9 hours away from. The longest amount of time since she was born 8 short weeks ago.

I got ready, made my lunch and ate breakfast. I even had some extra time to read some blogs. I used to wake up with just enough time to get ready and get out the door but the silence in the morning was lovely. I went in to say goodbye to Alex and Scarlett as they slept and fought back tears as I shut the door behind me. Needless to say, things got easier from there.

I have to admit the first day was a little rough as I received pictures and video from Alex throughout the day. We even got to facetime so I could see her for a couple minutes. I also have to admit that it was easier than I thought it would be. I was distracted with things that needed to be accomplished and an email inbox that needed to be cleaned up. Not to mention that i'm still continuing to breastfeed or in this case, pump so she has milk during the day, so pumping takes a good chunk of time. At least for now because I don't have it down quite yet.

Alex enjoyed his day alone with her which I think will definitely help grow their father daughter bond. We're quite lucky that our parents have also offered to help. My mom will be watching her on Tuesdays and Alex's dad will watch her on Thursdays. The thought of dropping her off at daycare at such a young age sounds awful to me at this point, so I'm glad we don't have to do that.

I think once we get our new schedule down things will be just fine! The mental stimulation during the days I work are great and I still get plenty of time with Scarlett. It's so nice that my workplace is so flexible to let me have this schedule for a while. Plus, blogging will be more regular now since I have a half hour at lunch to dedicate to it! Get ready for some photo blasts!

This is how we play!

Playing on the mat with Harper!

Tummy Time. We're working on it!!

Relaxing and looking around!

Adventures in Cloth Diapering

Ever since I read about how much money cloth diapering saves and how easy it was, I figured why not give it a try? After running the numbers and talking to my cousin, Sarah, who cloth diapered her two children and soon to be third, we went for it. We bought a 24 diaper set from SmartiPants and received 2 as a gift so we have a total of 26 diapers on rotation. On their website it's about $280 plus tax and shipping for 24 diapers. We spent $120 on two packs of newborn diapers and three packs of size one diapers in the first month of Scarlett's life. I can't imagine continuing that trend.

So far I've received lots of questions regarding cloth diapers so I thought I would share. First of all, these aren't the diapers that your parents may have used to diaper you growing up (or that you diapered your children with, trying to cover all ages). We bought what are called pocket diapers. There is an insert and the shell as you can see below in the top right corner. The size of the diaper is one size fits all. It is supposed to fit from 8lbs to 35lbs (typically). Scarlett's little thighs were too thin for them at first, hence the need for disposable diapers. But she's chubbed up just enough now and though we've had some minor leaks due to that, I don't blame the diaper. It will be great once she's chubbed up even more! After they're washed and dried, you just put them back together again (bottom left) and reuse

I rigged up a line drying system using door handles, sweet huh?

 Cleaning is also a snap (ha, get it?). At each changing station in our house and in the diaper bag there are things called wet bags. These are the bags we put the used diapers in until they are cleaned. I should've snapped a photo because I love the pattern on the one set. Every other day or so, I take the wet bags and empty them directly into the washing machine. That's right, I don't take apart the diapers and I don't have to scrape any poo from them (at least not yet, this will come when Scarlett starts eating solid foods). I wash them on HOT with regular Tide powder with an extra rinse and what our washer calls power boost (or something like that). They come apart in the washer and I remove them to hang dry (or at the least, hang dry the shell, the insert takes longer to dry so if i'm short on time or diapers, I put those in the dryer). Simple as that!

And our model, Scarlett showing off her cloth diaper!

Check out these links for more info.

Jillians Drawers - Huge resource. Lots of different types of cloth diapers. Great explanations of each. They also sell lots of good nursing bras and accessories. Not to mention they have super fast shipping, esp if you're anywhere close to NY, where they ship from.
SmartiPants - We bought our diapers directly from the website instead of through Jillian's Drawers. Mostly because they had all the colors and Jillian's Drawers were out of stock on most of them. They also had a discount for buying larger quantities and we got a small wet bag for free.
PlanetWise - Wet bags in so many patterns. They have other things for sale on the site as well and this brand is on Jillian's Drawers too. Sometimes it's just easier to go direct though, so that's what we did.

Christmas in February :: Adobe Elements

I didn't get anything for Christmas this past year from Alex because I couldn't figure out what I wanted. I downloaded the trial for Adobe Elements back in December and used it one time in the 30 days that I had the trial. What a fail on my part. Anyway, I couldn't pull the trigger on actually buying it because I kept thinking of other things I might want for christmas.

Well, I finally decided to just go for it. I want to edit photos. I want to group photos. I can't do that (easily) with any other program so I need to buy one. I already know photoshop and elements is the cheaper version so I did it, I just bought it.

I didn't realize however that I need to wait for my order to be processed. Why?? I already have it downloaded from the trial, all I need is the license code to put in to access it. I wish they would just email that to me because I actually have some free time and want to edit some photos! Of course I can't. So i'm writing with some frustration that I can't do what I want to do after finally buying my long overdue christmas gift.

I hope I don't regret the purchase (i probably won't) and hopefully it won't take long to get the order processed and get the code. Though who knows when i'll have time to sit down and edit! This all just means that the photo quality on this here blog should increase exponentially, haha just kidding! It might but let's not hold our breath!

Here's a cute picture of Scarlett to end the post!

Scarlett :: 1 Month

Guess who is 1 month old!

Big girl! Ignore the spit up on her pants, lol.

I was going to post this last friday when she turned 4 weeks but didn't have time this past weekend or even Monday the 20th when she actually was 1 month, so I took the pictures today! Still counts, right?

Stats
Length- 21 3/4" (20 1/2" at birth)
Weight- 10 lbs 3 oz  (7 lbs 5 oz at birth)

Details
Eating- This girl is a champion eater. Look at how much she's gained since birth! She eats on demand every 2-3 hours day and night. For all the issues we had breastfeeding in the beginning (see this post), she's basically a pro now. We've also gotten pretty good at using the hooter hider, I don't know what it's actually called, it's that thing you wear when you're in public so people can't see your boobs. Who would've thought that takes practice to use!

Sleeping- Scarlett does not really have much of a sleep schedule at this point. Which we are totally fine with. She does have more alert times during the day and not too many at night which is all the progress we can ask for at this point. We are trying to adjust one of her 'alert times' though to earlier in the evening instead of from 9pm - 12am at night. Most of the sleeping she's done in the past 4 weeks have been while being held. I looove holding her while she's sleeping. Alex has been soaking up his paternity leave by holding her as much as possible. I don't believe you can spoil a newborn with too much holding, so I do it every chance I get. She often sleeps on my chest or spooning at night in bed after feeding. I'm working on staying awake long enough to put her down in her bassinet but honestly, it's difficult when I fall asleep waiting. I'm a very very light sleeper, so I find no issue with this. Feel free to berate me in the comments section.

Activity/Skills- She's been holding her head up pretty good since Day 1. I joke that it's because I spent the last 6 weeks of her life in utero pushing on her head to make sure it was still her head. I'm pretty sure I strengthened her neck because most of the time she would push back! Regardless, she does great when we're holding her upright as you can see in some of the pictures. She is also working on tummy time and is getting better every day. She makes a lot more eye contact with us now as well. She definitely knows who mommy and daddy are! We haven't gotten any real smiles yet, just the fake ones, but we still enjoy those.

Other Thoughts-
Diapers.. We're doing cloth, yes we are! But we haven't officially started yet. Scarlett's little thighs are too thin still and the diaper is not tight enough not to leak. Last week we did a trial run and she ended up peeing through onto our comforter and sheets which I then proceeded to change at 3am. So we bought another pack of size 1 diapers. So far we've spent $100 on diapers. I hope this is our last pack we have to buy because the couple of cloth diapers I did get to use went awesome!

Exhaustion.. I don't want to make it sound like it's easy, but I don't find myself to be exhausted at this point. Is it because I get those small blocks of sleep at night and that's enough? I don't know. I just don't feel tired, at all. I hope this continues. This week Alex started back to work. Now I understand how difficult it is to get things done during the day when there aren't two people there to hold her.

Love.. We are totally in love with this little girl. She is amazing. We stare at her constantly and just can't get enough of her. We can't wait to see how she grows but at the same time we want to freeze these moments in time. I told Alex the other day that we need to really try to remember how great the first month of her life was and how awesome it was that we got to spend it all together.

Thank you to Amy and the rest of the Lewis and Carmichael family for the stickers and headbands!