Having my mom here for the first three weeks of his life made all the difference in the world, not to mention Charlie's two weeks of paternity leave. I didn't have do do a thing around the house and the girls were taken care of. I could focus on myself and Quinton and it was amazing. I knew the girls were in good hands so I didn't have to worry one bit. I really truly believe doing that has helped me cope better with the change of going from two to three kids. I'm still stressed out from time to time, but I really think it could have been much worse. I'm slowly but surely still maintaining the house (if only our vacuum could get fixed grrr) Thankfully my mom kept it all up during that time or I'd be way behind. The other night I had about three loads of laundry to fold and I got all sad thinking that my mom had been doing that for me and now I'm stuck with it ha ha ha. She left on Friday the 27th, and I BAWLED. We've been doing this for months now, having her visit and go back to Colorado. But this time was different, she was here for almost 5 weeks and we got so much of her time and she was sooo helpful. I blame hormones, otherwise I think I could have been sad without crying. ;) The girls miss her like crazy and lets face it so do I. The girls have been AMAZING with the change. I was seriously dreading the massive meltdowns... Natalia had quite a few when Lydia was born. I remember days just sitting on the couch, holding Lydia, crying while Natalia was at my feet kicking and screaming over who knows what. Yes, we've had a few melt downs, and there have been times they've chosen to not listen to us, but for the most part they've been great. Natalia ADORES Quinton and always wants to be around him, hold him, and love on him. I have to remind her constantly to be gentle because she can get aggressive with her loves. Lydia is starting to catch on more and likes to say Hi to him and give him kisses. Sometimes the two girls will almost become competitive over trying to get his attention. Poor kid just needs some space! ha ha ha.
I've been pumping like a mad women trying to get as much milk as I can frozen now so I can quit pumping when I have my year supply stocked up. With Lydia it took me about 3.5 months to get that freezer full, so we'll see how long it takes me this time. I already have 15 gallon size Ziploc bags full of 8 8oz bags of milk. With Lydia's year supply it was about 33 of those bags, so I'm almost half way there already! We were having some major gas issues with him. He was so so fussy and wouldn't let me put him down. We had a couple of really rough nights where he didn't want to sleep unless being held, and even then he would fuss from the gas in his tummy. We had been doing so well with the bassinet too, so I felt like it was a step backwards. He was pooping only once every 48 hour or so and I could just tell his tummy was bothering him. At first I thought it was the caffeine. I had been so good about not drinking it starting about a week before he was born and then a couple weeks after. Then the exhaustion kicked in and I caved and had some soda... which lead to coffee... which lead to even more soda and coffee. I cut that from my diet but it didn't seem to make much of a difference. I had a hunch it was dairy but really didn't want to have to cut it from my diet completely because there is milk in everything. I had a couple of samples of dairy sensitive formula in the pantry and had the thought to give them a try. For a couple of days now he's been on only that formula and what a difference it has made. Seriously drastic. He's so much less fussy, less gassy, and pooping normally again. If he is gassy he isn't crying/screaming about it. I've continued to pump but have consumed a significant amount less of dairy, I've been really trying to be aware of how much I eat/drink any dairy products each day. Probably tomorrow I'll start the reintegration of my milk with the formula but in really small amounts at a time just to see how he takes it. If he does well with the less dairy version of my milk mixed with the sensitive formula we are on a good track. Then hopefully in a few months when his digestive system is a little better formed then he will be able to handle all that milk I've pumped leading up to now with dairy in it. I have been a total weepy mess some nights because of the extreme exhaustion and felt so extremely helpless when it came to him and his fussiness/pain. I felt so awful and guilty that it was my milk causing this pain. I hated that I was going through the pain of pumping and it was only causing him pain. I had to really question if it was worth it and if I should keep going. Hopefully now we have an answer to all that!
He is up about every 3.5-4 hours at night, which doesn't seem that bad... but when you take into account how long it takes him to eat, for me to pump, and to get him back down, I'm only getting about two hours of sleep each time. I told Charlie the other night at dinner that it's been a month since I've slept more then two hours at a time, and even then when I was hugely pregnant and up peeing all hours of the night who knows what my biggest chunk of time of sleep was. I'm so tired!!! I find myself head bobbing when I sit for too long. After the girls go to bed I'm well aware I should head to bed as well, but that's my quite snuggle time with Quinton and I just don't want to put him down. I end up feeding him and pumping around 10:30/11 and then going to bed. Then we are usually up around 2/2:30 and 6/6:30. Now that I'm on my own I just stay up after he eats and I pump at the 6ish wake up. We've managed to make it to all our activities this week and on time I might add. It's a miracle! ;) On Monday at dance I thought I had locked my keys in the car and made Charlie come rescue us... only to realize the keys were on the floor in the waiting area of the dance studio and everyone had gone home so I couldn't go back in to get them. DOH! But, that was our biggest disaster so far and I'm grateful for that.
Quinton is seriously the cutest little thing. He's still in newborn clothes and newborn diapers, but is a chunk a munk so I don't see that lasting much longer. His little buddy Cade was born exactly three weeks after him and only a teensy bit bigger then Quinton was at birth. So it was so strange to put them side by side and see how big Quinton got in the three weeks.
I've been trying to finish this post for three days now, and finally got it done! We are on our own tonight, Charlie had a work dinner to go to. I'm beyond exhausted and I swear every part of my body aches with that exhaustion. Pumping has been hard today, my boobs always seem full and hurt, and the actual pumping has hurt a lot today. Sad face. Thankfully the sun is out and it's pretty warm out so the girls spent about an hour and a half playing outside and I could just sit and relax and just watch them wear themselves out. Hoping I get the energy to join them soon, I don't like this lazy version of myself. We made chocolate chip pancakes for dinner and they devoured them, what an easy diner right? They were covered head to toe in chalk dust so I had them strip down before coming in for dinner and they thought it was hilarious to eat dinner in just panties/diaper. Quinton is of course in the Ergo and perfectly content.
Charlie's work has an annual walking challenge, they all have pedometers and are put onto teams and they encourage physical activity etc. Last year they started including the spouses. I really enjoyed participating last year because it really made me aware of my activities and pushed me to do more. I would take the girls on walks a lot more often to get my step count up. I almost always surpassed my daily goal of 5,000 steps. This year, I kept it at 5,000 knowing I'm a lot less active. It just started yesterday and I only got 5,025 yesterday... yikes. Today is going to be a really low day because I'm just so achy and all I did during nap time/preschool was sit and fold laundry. One of these days he'll give me a longer stretch of sleep and I'll feel like a million bucks that day. ;)
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