Our little girl has TONS of clothes. Most gifts from fabulous family and friends (and of course daddy’s purchases) and a lot of them are ‘on loan’ to her from her cousin Addie, who has more clothes than any little girl I know.
Here are some of the outfits she’s been wearing lately:
ICK, right? But it was a gift and she wore it..so here it is. 
Some play time on a quilt from Great Aunt Janet!!
An outfit from her crazy aunt Rachel (see the fish?)
Here she says, “hi everyone!”
Lately I’ve been going a little crazy shopping for our house. We finally picked a date for our housewarming party – June 5th! and I want to finish the rooms with bare walls or ones that are missing that extra “something.” Plus, I should probably finish some of the projects we’ve started….
One room in particular that needs some personality is our main floor powder room. (The infamous room that needed renovating after we moved in!) I have some pretty hand towels with a coral accent on them and this weekend at one of my favorite discount stores I found this fabulous coral accent and planter, which makes a great trash can!
to match the print I ordered on Saturday that will go above the toilet to add a nice pop of color.
It will be nice for this room to be finished since most guests will it when they’re here. I really want to paint this room, too, but Ryan isn’t all that excited about painting any of our rooms right now. Boo.
I also did a little work on our entry way to give it a little color and make it more inviting. We are STILL waiting for the porches to be painted white, but for now, this looks pretty good.
The other room I want to spruce up is Georgia’s room. I also want to paint that room, make it a little more girly, but Ryan isn’t sold on that one. I’m going to “frame” a big ‘G’ above Georgia’s bed and move the crossword to above her rocker. Ideally, I’d paint the room a super light lavender/grey color, like this Behr color MUTED MELODY or LOVELY LAVENDER:
….we’ll see if I can convince Ryan.
We’re also making a headboard for the bed in the guest bedroom and working on our entry way inside the house and the bare wall in the kitchen. Lots of things going on and we have many projects to wrap up before the party on June 5th! Time to get to work!
There are a lot of reasons I’m glad to be back in Iowa and close to our families and here are two of them. A couple of weeks ago when Georgia was being a beast, I called my mom in tears and asked her to come down here to help me. Of course a few days later she made the 2 hour drive down to help out and spend some time with Georgia and I. Then, over the weekend Ryan went up to our lake house in Minnesota to help my brother get it opened up for the year, and I was going to be on my own with Georgia. A totally scary thought!! So, Ryan’s parents came up here to stay with me and help with the baby. A Godsend!
Of course, there are days (many days) where I miss the people we met down there, or the restaurants, or the big city feel, but having our families a couple of hours away so they can watch Georgia grow up and help us out when we need it is more important than fancy restaurants and warm winters.
Even though these Iowa winters have really been pushing it…..
I swear, the minute I think we have Georgia figured out, she does a 180 and we’re back at the beginning.
Starting on Wednesday morning, just a few hours after my mom (Nama) left, Georgia started screaming again. And screaming. And the screaming hasn’t stopped (until now and only for a short while because I’m wearing her in the Bjorn, rocking back and forth as I type this).
This morning, we took her back to the doctor to see if there was anything we could do. I did tell him I thought the reflux medicine was working and now we seemed back where we were a week and a half ago, so like a lot of you recommended, we got a Rx for Prevacid, instead of Zantac.
Our other concern is that we’re now feeding her solely formula since my breast milk couldn’t keep up with her and it was impossible (ok, not impossible, but a lot of damn work) to pump and make bottles or breast feed her and then make a bottle IF she was still hungry afterwards, and maybe we needed to switch to a difference kind? I know lots of people have said that they had to try a few different kinds before they found the one that works for them. Our doctor suggested trying the Prevacid with the Silmiac R.S. formula, which has rice flour in it and thickens in the stomach to reduce the amount of spitting up due to reflux. So we’ll see.
In other news, Ryan is out of town this weekend helping my brother open up our lake house, and LUCKILY, Ryan’s mom is coming to stay for the weekend and help with the baby. And after a week like we’ve had, I’m pretty nervous to do it all without Ryan here. Not only is it the baby who needs to be taken care of, but Ari needs to be let out and he’s a freak about going into the backyard on his own. You’d think he’d be over the moon excited about having a yard ALL TO HIMSELF to poop and pee in. Turns out, he sits on the deck, near the stairs, and won’t go into the grass unless we go with him. He’s so weird.
And maybe a little bit of space (and sleep for him – LUCKY!) will calm things down around here. Lack of sleep and a screaming baby doesn’t bring out the best in either of us and we’ve been pretty short with each other the past week or so. We knew to prepare for a change in our relationship, but I thought it would be more like making time for each other outside of the baby, having sweet date nights…I didn’t anticipate it making us frustrated with each other the second we get frustrated by the baby’s crying.
Being a parent is much harder than I thought, so props to those of you who have been where we are and survived!
To quote my mom, “That’s why God makes them cute.” Amen to that.
I’ve read a lot of books in preparation of having the baby and since she’s been born, I’ve read LOTS of stuff to try and make this transition to a little family easy for us and easy for her. Not until I received a package from Ryan’s cousin and his wife (parents of ADORABLE twins) via his Aunt Susie did I find a book that I could actually see “working” on Georgia.
I’m becoming a baby whisperer! This book, Secrets of the Baby Whisperer, is fabulous! The author gives concrete signals you can take in from your baby and teaches you how to “read” what they are wanting or needing. In the past 48 hours (and I’m on page 125!) I learned that a lot of time when we were feeding Georgia, she was just overtired, which explains a lot of the spitting up – she was TOO full. And when I have her nap during the day, taking her to her room instead of having her sleep down here with the laptop keys, me on the phone and the tv on makes her much happier when she wakes up. Little things that have made a big difference!
The author also teaches you how to discern their cries by listening to them and the pitch, but I’m not good at that yet….but I’m working on it!
Thanks Jimmy and Rachel!
I’ve learned at least one thing in the last (almost) month since Georgia was born: listening to your baby is way more important than what books or pediatricians say.
We thought Georgia was colicky or had some major digestive issues because she screamed.. a lot! She was never content, never calm and always awake and restless. We tried all sorts of things for gas and reflux and I asked tons of people for advice.
You know what we ended up doing? Feeding her and she stopped crying. Honest.
Here’s what happened: she always seemed hungry but I’d “read” that babies who are gassy act hungry because eating is the way they calm their stomach. Also, with breastfeeding you’re never sure exactly how much the baby is getting, but everyone, including the pediatrician, said if she is gaining weight she’s getting enough to eat, and she was gaining the exact right amount of weight, so we didn’t worry.
But she still seemed hungry.
So finally one night last week we decided to supplement her after I fed her with some of the formula they sent home with us from the hospital and oddly, she stopped crying. And slept. For 3 hours.
And it was glorious.
Needless to say, we’ve been supplementing with formula ever since and she is a much calmer baby who actually sleeps for an hour or two at a time. No more screaming fits, either. Thank God.
It seems so simple and I feel incredibly guilty about not trying it sooner, but all of the books we read or people we talked to said it ‘sounded like colic,’ ‘she must be gassy’, etc. Our poor peanut was just hungry! She is growing like crazy, too. Some of the jammies she didn’t fit in when we first brought her home now fit perfectly and she is long enough to have her feet fit into the footies. She won’t be in NB clothes for long!
This is the part of the pregnancy I have been dreading: the after.
Over the 40 weeks of my pregnancy I gained…40 lbs! ick…sounds so gross to say it outloud (or type it), and now I have about 19 or so of those pounds to lose on my own through sweat and determination. And no pressure, but I’m in a dear friend’s wedding in July and I have to be in good shape by then! HAVE TO.
I feel like I don’t look terrible, but stepping on the scale is enough to make me cry. That and I’ve been working a few nights a week and need to wear pants other than yoga pants for those appointments and each time I get ready, I stare longingly at the dozen or so pair of jeans in my closet, try a pair or two on, and then feel more depressed when they won’t button.
I am excited to get back to running and working up a good sweat. There is no better feeling than having a great workout, and during the pregnancy I enjoyed relaxing and taking it easy, but that also left me feeling lazy at the end of the day. I’m ready to kick that feeling! (and get my butt off of this couch)
It’s all part of the “process,” I know, but it’s not a part I like! And I don’t have the excuse to eat ice cream every day either…..bummer!
It was so beautiful out today we had to be outside and enjoy one of the first non-rainy days in weeks, but I didn’t want to carry Georgia. And setting her in the car seat in the driveway while I planted flowers seemed odd….then I remembered the Baby Bjorn! She’s borderline on the weight limit (it says for babies 8+ pounds, but she’s almost 8, so I figured it was safe), so I thought we’d give it a shot. I figured she’d hate it, since she’s not too crazy about her swing or the vibrating chair….but the second I got her strapped in it, she was alseep! It was fabulous.
So, I planted flowers in some pots, watched Ryan put my Mother’s Day patio set together, walked the dog down to the mailbox, all with Georgia strapped to my chest – content and asleep! Incredible.
Those Swedes sure are smart!
Two nights ago when Georgia was screaming from 10:30 (after I’d just texted my mom and sister a picture of her being a “baby burrito”) until 2 a.m., I did what lots of people had suggested – even though it was really hard – I walked away. Well, walked about 10 feet into our bathroom. I knew she was dry, fed and safe and I hadn’t showered in close to 40 hours, so I sent Ryan to the guest room to get some sleep at 1 a.m. and I jumped in the shower. I don’t know if it was the 5 minutes of semi-quiet or the hot water, or the combination of the two, but I got out of the shower feeling a little less rattled. I’m glad I listened to friends and our pediatrican that it’s ok to walk away from the baby if you need a minute to gather yourself. I knew I wasn’t helping Georgia at all being stressed and at the end of my rope.
I got out of the shower and as I was drying myself off, the hugest clap of thunder I can ever remember feeling vibrated the floor I was standing on. And suddenly, the screaming stopped. I ran into the bedroom (from our attached bathroom) to make sure she was ok. Asking myself, why did she stop crying!? and there she was, lying in the co-sleeper, eyes wide open, and quiet. What?? Maybe God was tired of the screaming too and was like, “QUIET, child!”
Anyway, since then, she has been a pretty “normal” baby. I’m not sure if its the combination of Zantac and mylicon and extra burping that is doing it or what…but last night and today she has been a good little girl. If all it took was that thunder to scare the screaming out of her, more storms, puh leeze!
I’ll be honest..the thunder scared the crap out of me, too! I actually ran into the guest room in my towel to ask Ryan if he thought we were ok or if we needed to go to the basement. (If you’re heard the story of me as a little girl, a tornado and going to the basement, you’ll laugh at this…if not, it’s a story for another day!)
Last night and today when Georgia has been awake, she has been so present and wide-eyed, looking at us, listening to us talk and taking it all in. It’s an incredible feeling to look into the eyes of your baby and feel like you’re doing a good job, especially after the last week where it felt like nothing Ryan and I did was right or helped her.
I know it won’t always be as hard as the last week or as easy as last night, but something in between is fine by me!
So, in talking to lots of people about whats going on with Georgia (and after her screaming fit last night until 2 am) and what we can do to help her feel better and help us get some sleep, chiropractic has come up twice. I have a friend from ISU and a friend of a friend who have both suggested getting her adjusted and have told me about the major changes it can make in a newborn who is colicky, has GI issues, etc…
Of course the thought of something that after a few treatments will make her a happy and rested baby is super tempting! But if it’s so great, how come more people don’t know about it or talk about it? How come regular doctors don’t suggest it if it helps that much?
Is it safe? I know the chiropractors who do it are licensed as pediatric adjusters, but still, with teeny tiny bodies and bones, it just is scary. But if it will make her feel better and not hurt or scream, then I’m all for it. Watching the pain in her face just breaks my heart.
Any experience with this out there? Suggestions? Thoughts?
It’s another option that I’m weighing and thinking about and researching. Ryan isn’t as psyched about even considering it as I am, so we have to keep talking about it and weighing all the options.. To be continued!
