Weeks 6 and 7

This week, Charlotte and I both had doctor's appointments.  I had my 6 week check up and Charlotte had her 6 week check up as well.  I got the all clear to resume my normal activities.  It seems that everything has healed properly and I am all set!  Well this now means that I have lost my excuse to not vacuum and not do more exercise than walk.   Yipee.  Just kidding.  I am happy that all is well and I have actually been looking forward to working out again.

I purchased a jogging stroller and Charlotte and I have broken it in!  We have gone for 2 jog/walks.  She enjoys it and I have been dealing with it....   When I first found out that I was pregnant, I had been running and I planned to keep it up as long as I could while I was pregnant.  However, the first time that I ran I had some very very minor spotting and after that I was all finished running for the next 9 months.  I walked and did yoga throughout my pregnancy but I have forgotten what real exercise feels like.  It will take me a while to work back up to where I was but I am motivated.  I also purchased a step.  I love step classes at the gym and I thought since I am home right now I may as well try and step at home and I love it!  My step came with a great DVD that is just my style of aerobics and it makes me very happy to step it up and watch my little Char at the same time : )  When she gives me the 45 minutes to do it that is...

Charlotte's doctor's appointment went well too.  She now weighs 10 pounds 4 ounces and is 22 inches long.  Her head has grown as well and she is right on track for all of it.  Yay!  She also received her first round of shots  : (  Sad for Char and sad for Mommy.  I got my flu shot while I was there.  I tried to get it through work for free but they would not give it to me since I am nursing.  Whatever.  I got my shot first and I did it like a champ  : )  Maybe I am getting over my fear of needles.  Kinda hard not to after all of the sticking they do when you are pregnant.  After my one shot it was time for Char's.  She got one thing orally then she got three sticks.  The nurse told me to come hold her hands and I was thinking  - ya know - people hold hands for support when getting sticks - I know Scotty held mine for a lot of them.  Well that's not what she meant.  She meant hold her hands down.  So I hold Char's hands for the first shot and I'm loving on her and then she sticks her and her hands fly out of mine and I realize what she meant about about holding them down.  Char screamed and then the nurse stuck her 2 more times and she was screaming so hard and jumped everytime she was stuck.  When I could pick her up she was sweating so hard.  Poor baby!  I was proud her and proud of myself as well.  One for not passing out and two for not crying.  I cried in the hospital when Charlotte got her Hep B shot.  Oh well.  That is over for this time and she doesn't have to go back until 4 months.  But that will be here before I know it.

Charlotte has discovered that she has hands.  She now places them in her mouth.  She sucks on her fist all the time and I have now caught her sucking her thumb.  Crap.  I have been on her like white on rice trying to keep that hand out of her mouth and the paci in instead.  I am not happy about the thumb sucking at all.  Such a hard habit to break so I am trying very hard to nip it in the bud early.  Fun stuff.

Well I have woken up in the bed wet twice now.  One from milk leakage - TMI I know.  The second from sleeping on a wipe.  It looked unused when I picked it up.  Geeze.  That's what happens when you have to change diapers in the dark.  Sometimes when I change her she spits up and I don't see it so I then get her back to sleep and finally can climb back into my nice warm bed into a lovely puddle of surprise spit up.  Yay.  The things we go through as mothers.  I just climb back out of bed, lay the burp cloth on top of the puddle and climb back in.  It will dry eventually  :  )  Sleep is more important than a little wet spot.

Speaking of sleeping, Charlotte does pretty good.  She will go down about 10:30pm and then wake up between 4:30am and 5:30am.  I'm good with that.  She will then go back to sleep and sleep until 7 am or so then back to sleep again until 8:15am.  After that she is ready to get up for the day.  That is when she comes into bed with mommy and we play and snuggle and I get some of her best smiles.  It is my favorite part of the day!  During the day it varies.  Some days she sleeps all day long!  Other days she can be very needy and will only sleep if she is being held and will not sleep if you lay her down.  Those days I get nothing done.  She is funny too because she is picky about where she will sleep.  She does not like flat surfaces.  She does not like to sleep in the pack and play or the cradle.  She will sleep in the swing and in the rock and play.  Both of those sit on an incline and they are more enclosed.  I think they make her feel safe.  I am still working on the flat surface thing because she can't sleep in the other two forever!  

I have discovered the best baby thing ever.  It is called Gripe Water.  It is a ginger and fennel based liquid substance that cures hiccups.  CURES them.  Like instantly.  Charlotte gets the hiccups all the time and she is starting to get frustrated by them.  Before she wouldn't cry when she got hiccups and now she does and these drops save the day.  They hit her tongue and the hiccups are gone.  I am so trying them on myself the next time I get the hiccups. 

Well my mom comes tonight to stay for the weekend.  South Carolina plays Missouri this weekend in Missouri and I am making the trip with the team.  My mom is SO looking forward to having Charlotte all to herself this weekend.  I am sure Charlotte will get lots of snuggles and be held the whole time.  Spoiled rotten thing.  It will be so weird for me to not have Charlotte with me.  She has been with me like literally every single hour since she has been born.  It will be nice to have a break but this is a long one!  I am sure I will be calling my mom for updates.  A lot.  It will still be work for me though since I have to keep up with my pumping the whole time I am gone.  That should be interesting.

I am looking forward to seeing what Missouri looks like.  Who knows when I would get a chance to see it again.  I actually am looking forward to the cool weather there as well.  It is finally starting to cool off in SC and it is really nice.  Plus I love fall clothes :  )

Well here are some pictures from the last two weeks.  My girl is getting so big!

Jogging Stroller

After her shots  : (  She her sparkly band aids.

Scotty using the boppy

The 10 pound baby!

Strong girl!

<3

The Thumb Sucker

One Month and 5 Weeks!

So I am already behind on my blogging.  Geeze.  I swear this little girl knows when I sit down to do something - that is when she is wet or hungry or wants to be held.  Silly girl.  But I can't get enough of her!!  She is just the sweetest little thing!  I could just sit and hold her all day long. 

Ok - so I will try and remember what has happened in the last 2 weeks.  Well Charlotte is getting more vocal daily.  She interacts with me more everyday as well.  She will look intently at me and smile and coo back at me.  I can be so tired in the mornings and she will start that and I just forget about everything! 

She gets fussy in the evenings from about 6-11pm (not everyday and not that whole time) she will fuss then be ok then fuss.  During that time she eats almost every hour as well.  She will even be nursing and be ok then fuss then nurse then fuss.  Finicky thing doesn't know what she wants!  Typical girl  :  ) I don't mind the fussiness though because that night she usually sleeps well.  She hasn't been sleeping as much as I would like during the day.  She will sleep when we are out running errands but when we are home she wants to be held.  There are some days though that I can pop her in her swing and she will watch the ceiling fan and drift right off to sleep on her own.  Like she is now  : )  That is when I bust my butt to get everything done. 

I guess the biggest news that happened over these last two weeks was that Charlotte and I flew to Virginia for the weekend.  I was nervous about it but she is such a peaceful little baby that I figured she would be ok.  I took her in the Baby Bjorn so she just slept on my chest the whole time and she was very happy.  We were so lucky that both of the flights were on time.  That is probably what I was worried about the most.

We had a wonderful time in Virginia.  We visited with family and friends and they just oohed and ahhhed over her.  I can't tell you how many people have told me how she is such a good baby.  That makes me so happy!  I hope she continues to be that way!  Charlotte attended church for the first time as well.  It was pretty special for me because we went to the church that I grew up in as a child.  I hadn't been there in so long and it was so cool to be sitting in there remembering everything while I held my own child.  Pretty surreal.  It was pretty weird also to be in my childhood home with my own baby.  That was very different.  I think both my parents and I have thought about that scenario for so long it was interesting for us to experience it.  It was like a vacation for me.  My mom wanted to do everything, so I let her  :  )

Charlotte also visited her other grandparents house for the first time as well.  We went to Scotty's parent's house for dinner on Sunday night.  It is something that we do often as a family so it was fun to finally have Charlotte there to join us.  Charlotte also stayed with her aunt Melissa while I ran out for a couple of hours.  She was very good for her first babysitting experience.  Let's hope she keeps that up as well.

Another big milestone in Charlotte's life in the last 2 weeks is that she attended her first football game!  It will be one of many I am sure.  We were so blessed that we did not have to sit outside and we could sit in the football offices.  I had all her stuff spread out everywhere and we were both more comfortable that way.  She looked so cute in her Gamecock cheerleader outfit.  It was nice as well because my friend Kelly was in town and she helped me with Charlotte at the game and at home.  It was nice to have someone to help me for my first gameday experience with Charlotte.

This week (beginning of week 6) is the first time I have really wished that Scotty was home more.  Not that I don't miss him on a regular basis or anything but I would enjoy more help this week.  I really take pride in the fact that I am independent and I have really jumped into this mom thing head first but this week my allergies started to bother me and it is really hard to take care of someone else when you don't feel good.  I knew that this would happen at some point and I did not look forward to it but it is kind of empowering as well.  I look at the things that I have accomplished while not feeling well like taking care of the baby : ), getting bills paid, going to the grocery store, doing laundry, etc and it make me think, "Heck yes!  I can do this!"  I thought the same thing after our successful plane rides. 

Here is a funny story from Charlotte's birthday that I remembered a few days ago.  So I was in the hospital and I was in active labor.  Well Scotty and his mom went to get something out of the car or went somewhere (still on hospital premises but I can't remember where - I was in labor.)  So they came back and I thought nothing of it, once again, I was in active labor.  Well after Charlotte was born and they moved us to the postpartum room and my mom had left and it was just Scotty and I for the night, he said, "Well I guess it is safe for me to tell you now."  Uhm what??  And he continued and said, " I almost got really badly hurt today."  Again, uhm what?!  And then he said, "When my mom and I went to (...do whatever he said they did) I rolled my ankle and almost broke it."  I said, "OMG!  Did you fall down?  Like to the ground?"  And he said yes.  He said that he thought he was on the last step and wasn't and he fell down to the ground and that all the hospital personnel were running toward him asking if he was alright.  They were looking at his ankle and wanted him to get checked out and he said no because his wife was upstairs in labor.  He said he told his mom not to tell me until after everything was over.  He is lucky that he was ok because if they would have come and told me he had broken his ankle while I was about to birth his child they would have been fixing a lot more than his broken ankle in the ER.  He then showed it to me and it was all swollen and bruised.  I couldn't believe that he played it off so well!  I told him he didn't act like he was hurt when he stood next to my labor bed for hours.  He said it did hurt him while he was standing holding my hand and while he was holding my leg while I was pushing but he didn't want it to show and me to worry or get upset.  Good for him, he does understand   :  )  I just think that is a funny story to think back on now that he was all concerned about me not knowing and I think about how differently the day could have turned out. 


Well here are a ton of pictures from the last 2 weeks.  Enjoy  :  )

Smiley Baby!

First bath in the sink!

Ready for church!

Charlotte with Mimi and Great Aunt Steph

Another pumpkin picture

And here is the link to a video of her sounding like Maggie Simpson from The Simpsons show with that paci  :  )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxWfnwqIeKo&feature=youtu.be

And here is the link to a video of her just being cute and talking back to me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUQ2yBBQF7w&feature=youtu.be