Baby DJ

For the last several weeks, Baby has been acting like a DJ every time he breastfeeds or starts to fall asleep putting his little baby hand up on his baby ear and whatnot.

ow

It finally happened.  Two teeth later and Baby bit me.    Here's hoping that he is just like Gabe and it only happens once or twice

Baby's First Tooth

That's right.  Baby finally has his first tooth.  It popped out on Thanksgiving!  Hopefully that's why he was struggling so much with sleep and crying so much (b/c he's doing much better now).  He's been crawling for months and he's been standing unassisted since the beginning of November, but now he has a tooth

nicknames

Since I did it with Gabe, I feel the need to have a nicknames lis ror New Baby too.
He has adopted some of Gabe's old nicknames like Mr Kickster a few times and Baby Nana a decent amount because he's so sad sometimes.  He also has been known as Hux, Zach, That One, Your Life Is Hard, etc.

crawling and pulling to stand

I was tonna be good wife and lie that Hux did anything big until the first time he did it after Hubby came to be with us in a few days...but Hux crawled a few steps yesterday (not army crawling or scooching) and today be pulled himself to stand up at Gabe's bed.

As I Cry Here In The Dark *expletive warning

It took about an hour to get Baby to stop screaming.  It was so bad that Gabriwl and I had to go in the other room (alhough Gabe was very good for about fifteen or twenty minutes).  I feel wo had for Gabe.  I feel way less had for Baby.  He will be six months old in less than a week.  He does not.need.to.be.waking.every.hour.or.two.  I've been vwry spoiled this last week.  Mom was so great and just took over the nightshift ever since I got home from the hospital, even now that I'm less braindead.  I feel so bad for her that she had to put up with this.  I love Baby.  I really do...but I just about (and by that, I mean I did in reality) yelled at him to shut the fuck up and just go to sleep.  I told you: me? I'm over it.  I can't very well do the modified cry it out like we did with Gabe whwn !) The boys are sharing a room, b) Hubby isn't here to offer a fridge bottle in case he truly is starving, and c) we're about to be moving/going through tra nsitions again.  But I also can't handle the waking up and the incessant screaming anymore.  Huddled up in the dark struggling not to bal my eyes out isn't how I normally roll.  I just don't know how many o be a good mom and balance both meeting his needs while still making sure we both get enough sleep t function throughout the day

No, Baby, Noooooooo!

We meet up with Hubby again in two weeks.  Baby keeps gettint up on all fours...and now he's rocking back and forth.  I know you're about there, Haby, but please just hold off for two more weeks so your daddio can be there to see.  I know how hard it was to miss all of the firsts while working when Gabriel was a baby...but I was at least there at night and could reexperience things.  I feel like I should be the guy from Life Happens (?) And push him down when he does that just so Hubby doesn't miss it!

On another note: Baby only woke up for two chunks last night.  I went to bed at 8:30 I was so worn oit from the every hour experiences...  I'm just so hapoy right now.  Baby is much haplier.  I'm much happier.  I feel more like my normal, happy, productive self.  Woo hoo

Sleep Training Fail

Alas, sleep training at all is a massive fail when it's just me.  Last time, Hubby would go in with a cold bottle of milk so Baby could eat if hungry, but if he was just nursing for comfort, a cold bottle wouldn't be very comforting.  This time, I'm pretty much just laying here listening to New Baby bawl/scream...but I can't just pick him up because it will make things harder in the future.  Really, I'm totally over him waking up every single hour to eat...but this just isn't working...and of course I'm wide awake because it's been an hour of crying...

Hux can now army crawl and/or roll across the room

Baby can't crawl just yet, but atarting a few days ago can army crawl quickly across an entire room to get things he ahouldnt

Rolling

I know he's been rolling for months, but now Hux is rolling across the room to get what he wants (and has been for a week or so)

Baby foodies

I was trying to wait until Hubby and I were back together to feed Baby his first solids...but it's just shy of 5 months and for over a month he screams when he sees me eating and he doesn't get any.  Today, I wrote Hubby and asked if he even cared (to which he said no but thanks for thinking of him) and Baby was crying inconsolably no matter what I did.  Gabriel refused to eat his dinner (and put himself to bed at 6:00?...which sorta makes me wonder if he has the sickness that I've had for the last day) so I squished up the innards of the plum that was meant for Gabe and fed it to Baby Zach.  And by that, I mean Baby grabbed my hand and wouldn't let go and kept feeding himself.  I also have an avocado squished up and in the fridge for him tomorrow if he so chooses.  Plum is maybe not on the list of logical firsts, but it was easy and it did make him happy (really happy) and I figure we'll start with more logical things (like the avocado I initially thought I'd feed to him) tomorrow.  I figure none of us have any allergies so I'm not gonna worry too much about Baby having allergies unless he starts acting weird, in which case I'll cut back on everything.  He will still be eating almost fully breastmilk, but it's just so fun to see him eat squished up *real* food.

*hangs head in shame*

It happened.  It happened bad.  In the last two weeks, we've been having a hard time with the parent-child relationship.  On the drive up to visit my best friend, Gabriel was spitting on his brother.  After being told to stop several times and him continuing while kicking my seat (another thing he knows not to do), I pulled over to talk to him (which used to always work).  It didn't.  Bad choice 1: I slapped his hand.  Not hard, but enough where I thought it would get his attention.  It didn't.  Bad choice 2: when he spit in my face, I maybe touched his face (I didn't slap it, but I wanted to hard).

Worst experience 2:  The other day we went out for a short excursion to have dinner and get scissors from Hobby Lobby.  Gabriel was doing *whatever* it was again and we were next to the Jeep trying to talk when he started hitting/kicking/spitting again.  I swatted his bottom.  I thought for SURE that would work.  Maybe I didn't swat him hard enough because that kid didn't even blink!  I'm generally only a fan of spankings when it's a life and death type of thing (your kid keeps running out into the road and won't pay attention). 

I'll be entirely honest that my fuse has been way shorter with Gabe.  I've been trying to make a point to spend positive time with him, but it's hard with how busy we are.  And it's extra hard when I offer to read books and he keeps saying no.  And then add on top that he's been a huge goober lately and it's extra, extra hard and I'm sorta over it.  I HATE feeling this way as a mom.  I used to LOVE spending time with Gabriel.  I get that he's struggling with all of the transitions.  But I'm sorta just over it.  Turn four already and be a responsible, kid child again. 

"If you're gonna act like a turd, go lay in the yard."

Baby Unbreastfeeding

Baby had his first non-breastmilk/formula (which is used on road trips) two days ago.  He had a smidge (an ounce...most of which ended up on his bib) of pear juice.  I don't know if it was the traveling or the formula or something I ate or what, but he was having a very ouchy tummy and hadn't *gone* in numerous days, so I tried the pear juice.  It totally helped the little bubelah out.  I'm still hoping to hold out on starting foods until after six months since my supply is generally pretty good.

Rolling

He's been rolling from front to back for a LONG time, but yesterday/today was the first time he's rolled from his back to front.  My little baby's growing all up.

Health Goals

I decided I'm going to try to be healthier (for actually).  I have a general eating plan I'm going to try to follow (and it's not too hard when Dad doesn't request I make three desserts for his birthday...I can't resist chocolate chip cookies and brownies!) and decided that if I take before and after pictures, it'll be more inspiring.  So despite the fact I don't particularly love my body right now (although I don't hate it either), I'm going to post them in hopes it will help keep me accountable.  These were taken the middle to end of June (just before our trip to go help Devin move).

Roller/Scoocher

Hux *may* have a) rolled over for the first three times before he turned two months old, b) gained to about fifteen pounds by two months, and c) started scooching around (he can scooch off of the playmat, etc, but is definitely not crawling yet) by 2.5 months.  Gosh this kid is weird...

Zachariah Huxley; Born March 19, 2013

I went in for my 41 week appointment and had an induction scheduled (strongly recommended) and my membranes were "stretched" and I was told about it afterwards (which explains a lot).  I was a 4cm at my appointment.  Mom, Gabriel and I went to In-N-Out for lunch and I'd started having contractions at about noon.  At three or so, I texted Chris and let him know that he should plan to come home instead of going to PT.  During Gabe's naptime, I alternated between being in the front room...and then the bedroom on the exercise ball...and then finally made it into the bathtub right around the time when Christopher got home from work.  It took me FOREVER to finish watching the episode of Medium (while trying to time contractions to make sure) so that we could head off to the hospital.  Yes.  I'm weird like that and wanted to get to a good stopping point.  We headed off to the hospital at 5'ish when the pain (especially in my back...again...like I had with Gabe) was less than bearable and my contractions were 3-5 min apart.  By the time we got checked in, questions answered, and had my first cervical check, it was 7pm (I was told when I first got there that since my first labor was 14 hours, I'd probably have a 7-10 hr second labor).  I'd brought my birth plan with me, but pointed out when I first got there that if I hadn't progressed enough/if the back pain didn't get better, I'd scratch my entire birth plan and want an epidural right away.  I didn't realize I wouldn't even be checked until 7 hours after things had started.  When I had my first check, I was at 5cm.  Yeah.  Exactly.  I'd progressed one miniscule cm since 10:30 that morning.  Poo poo on that.  I wanted pain relief and I wanted it NOW.  I told the nurse as much.  It took until 10:00 to get said epidural.  And it took four times of getting sticked in order for them to find the right spot. 
Life is hard when you're me....
Please note that while we'd researched different ways to deal with back labor, they couldn't get a good reading on Baby b/c he kept moving, so I had to stay hooked to the monitors on my back for several hours.
That said: after I got the epidural, things got WAY better!  The back labor was 99% gone.  The contractions were 99% pressure, 1% pain (until the very end).  So I watched Grease (twice) and Willy Wonka (once, I think) and spaced out a lot.  Baby Fester kept having issues with his heart rate dropping (like Gabe did that one time) and I was warned that he may have the cord wrapped around his neck, so we were being extra monitored and hopefully things would go well.  Things didn't really get better.  I ended up attached to monitors, an epidural, an IV, and then oxygen by the end of things.  It was pretty crazy and I'm SO glad Gabriel never saw me like that.  I imagine I looked scary...(and scared)...  Blah dee blah blah smack... 
I was fully progressed, but Fester was having more and more issues with his heartrate, so I ended up getting rolled into the OR just in case they had to do an emergency cesarean.  By the way, this was WAY more terrifying than what happened with Gabe, but at least this time they let me know what was going on the entire way (whereas with Gabriel, no one told me anything, but 5 or so nurses ran into the room freaking out, etc when Gabe had issues with heartbeats).  Maybe it's because I let the initial nurse know what happened with Gabriel and that I wanted to be informed the whole way...Maybe it's because this time I actually talked, whereas last time I didn't really speak through the whole thing...Maybe it's just because people were nicer this time than they were with Gabe...
Zachariah Huxley was born at 0211 on 31913.  I pushed for a handful of times and then they brought out The Vacuum and sucked him out with the next set of pushings.  Despite having an epidural (which may or may not have been working uber well, since I remember two of the nurses talking about if they could get Dr Fields over in time and decided he wouldn't make it) pushing out a 10 pound (literally) baby was one of the most painful things ever!!!  Then again, I didn't have any tearing big enough to stitch and healed/am healing quickly.  And...Chris didn't get to cut the cord (again) but I'm assuming that's because the cord was, in fact, wrapped around Fester/Zach's neck and he was blue when he was pooped out, so they had to take care of that *minor* (
Oh yeah.  So last time the biggest thing was that I said maybe 3 words the entire time (and went natural for about half of it before getting hooked up to Pitocin and drugs).  This time, the biggest thing was that I was shaking...like...a LOT...because it was so painful (and later shaking because of a bit of pain and a lot of fear; sorta like how when I'm angry I go silent and shake with frustration, only this time I was shaking with pain and/or fear) and went naturally for 10 of 14 hours of labor...

It's now a week and a day post partum and everyone's doing well.  I guess the one upside to being nauseous for all of pregnancy and then pooping out a ten pounder is that I'm already back to my pre-pregnancy weight.  Yay?

It's my due date and I'll cry if I want to

40 weeks today.  I'm up to almost 165 lbs (from 148 starting weight).  Luckily (?) I've gained 5-7 lbs in the last month or so.  Woo hoo???  A few weeks ago at the doctors office, he said it could be any day now (that's what they said with Gabriel too and Gabe was born at 40.5 weeks).  I made a joke about Baby Fester being born at 40.5 weeks and Dr wasn't going out of town, was he (that's what happened with Old Dr; Gabriel was born the day she left town for a week)...  Little did I know, Current Doc is (what do you know) going out of town for 4 (or is it 5?) days starting 2 days after my due date.  Awesome.
What can I say?  My kiddos just love to stay inside of me for extra long!
I wouldn't mind so much if my back and feet weren't so owie (although it's not all the time, so I'm grateful for that) and if I, you know, wasn't still feeling nauseous (although it's also gotten rare'er this last month, so yay for that!)...
I'm extra glad my mom's in town.  She let me sleep in yesterday and has been uber helpful around the house and with The Gabe (who's been loving her visit).
On our way home from church on Sunday, I asked Gabriel if he was excited to meet Baby Fester and Gabe's all "yes I am.  I'm also excited to meet my baby brother."  He's such a cute weirdo.

So...Fingers crossed...Any day now...Just like I've been told for the last several weeks...

Feb 2

Yay!!!  Long story short: I've generally stopped taking nausea meds since Dec 21st.  I've had to take four pills since then b/c it got so bad, but haven't puked once since then and have only had to take the rare pill.  I'll totally call that a win.
I'm also now a good 10 pounds heavier than when I got pregnant (yea).  I'm honestly grateful to be able to eat *most* things again and not feel wretched, so now I've gotten to the point where I need to really focus on eating a balance of healthy things and delicious bad-for-me things while still moving my body (aka exercising) which I've not been very good about these last two weeks.
I'll be honest:  this is our last pregnancy.  I'm 100% sure.  We've already made plans to ensure this will be our last biokid.  I'm good with that.  However, I do still get the rare feeling where I'm semi-sad...like with Alien Belly (which seriously creeps me out): Fester's now so big that he doesn't really kick/punch all that much b/c there just isn't space.  Instead, you see this huge lump move slowly across my belly and it's really freaky.  (Seriously, it freaks me out.)  But then a small (very small) part of me thinks "Enjoy it; this will be the last time you get to be creeped out by Alien Belly on/in your own body, yo).
I don't remember getting middle back pain with Gabriel, but it happens pretty much every day with this pregnancy.  In the middle of my back?  That doesn't even make sense!
And Fester still prefers my right side.  Previously, he would try and kick through the right side of my belly (it hurt pretty bad sometimes b/c he'd kick and/or kick/stretch so hard).  Now, though, he seems to love to be nestled up under my right ribs...  I have no idea what body part it is, but it's always there...and it's generally just a weird type of uncomfy...Yesterday, though, he moved crazy fast and it felt like he almost broke my rib.  I literally gasped in pain.  Ah...  Good to know he loves me.  :)
So I have about a month left to go.  We'll see how long it takes.  I'd *thought* I'd read somewhere that second pregnancies often were slightly shorter than first times...but almost everyone I've talked to has said their second pregnancy went longer than their first (which is sorta scary since Gabriel came a half-week late).  Now it's just a guessing game.  I prefer him to stay in there for at least three more weeks or so...  We'll just see what he decides to do.