Is anyone still reading this?

Lol. New year, new start, new focus.

Isaac is now almost 2 months old and doing well. He does not give us much downtime though, as he currently refuses to sleep outside of our arms. I never realized how frustrating it would be to only have one free hand for most of the day. (Sometimes, I actually miss doing laundry!) Luckily, I am an expert at one-handed typing.

I go back to work in 2 weeks, and I'm pretty nervous. Not only will I be out of the loop on a lot of things work-related, I will also be trying to juggle household chores, baby, and not losing my mind. I think it will be nice to have a little grown-up time though. And I did pay a lot of money for my Master's degree, so I might as well use it.

That being said though, we are going to aim for having me work part-time eventually. We have a significant amount of credit card debt to pay off first, so we need to be aggressive with that. Without those payments, and without the cost of daycare, the money lost from cutting my hours would be minimal.

One of biggest problems is spending money on restaurant food instead of eating at home. Often it is just a time factor, or is due to lack of planning. The kitchen is a mess and we're starving, we don't have the right ingredients, etc. My goal for today, if little pal cooperates, is to go grocery shopping and get ingredients for quick and easy dinners. I figure if we just focus on eating at home more--almost exclusively--then we will save a lot of money that we can use elsewhere.

life with baby

the past few weeks have been tiring, but we're starting to settle into a routine and get comfortable with taking care of a newborn. Isaac is doing great--he is back above birthweight now and has had no health problems other than an eye infection that was quickly cleared up with some antibiotic ointment.

We have been using disposable diapers for now, because the cloth ones we had were all WAY too big on him. However, we have been really unhappy with our disposables experience so far, so are working on transitioning to cloth as soon as possible. The Pampers we were using have been leaving gel crystals all over his skin, sometimes so many that we've had to give him a bath just to clean them all off. They are supposedly non-toxic, but something just seems unsettling about it.

Today I bought some Seventh Generation brand chlorine-free diapers to tide us over until we are doing cloth full-time. While chlorine-free is a nice concept, it makes for stiff, crinkly diapers that feel similar to wrapping his butt in a brown paper bag. Turns out, they're only about that absorbent too, because within 30 minutes he was soaked with pee that leaked out the waist and legs of the diaper.

So, I bought a bunch of Isaac-sized diapers -- both simple prefolds w/covers, and some all in one diapers, and we are finally using them pretty much full time. He seems to like them, too. They are very soft inside, and his butt doesnt get red like it does with disposables. Now I just need to make more cloth wipes, and we'll be all set.

Surprise!

Baby Isaac surprised us by coming two and a half weeks early. He arrived on Saturday morning at 5:01am after a very quick labor. He was 7lbs, 18 1/2 inches long and a whole nest of brown hair. So far he is a very good baby. He only fusses when he's cold or hungry. He likes classical music (so far Bach's Cello Suite, and Erik Satie's Gnossienne), and boobs. After nursing he likes to take a nap with his mama.

We've already had some professional pictures done (thanks Jason). Here are a few from his second day of life:

sleepless nights

For Tim, not me. I'm sleeping great, but apparently have developed an annoying snoring habit which is keeping him up at night. I've tried the nasal strips, and they helped at first but now seem to have lost their effectiveness. I've also been sleeping propped up, but that isn't helping either. Apparently, women who start snoring while pregnant will stop snoring almost as soon as the baby is born. Of course, once baby is born, we will both be getting less sleep....but at least it won't be my fault ;)

Baby Shower!

Today was the baby shower and it was so much fun! Gwyn and Aunt Jamie did such a great job organizing everything. My mom made the cake, and a really cute centerpiece made out of bibs, onesies, and baby socks designed to look like a pot of flowers. Unfortunately I don't have pictures of either of those, but I know there are some floating around, so I will post pics from the shower when I get my hands on some.

We got nearly everything we still needed for baby. Really just missing a changing pad for the top of the dresser, a diaper pail, and some cloth diaper covers, all of which we can easily purchase on our own. He has a bed (two of them actually! a crib and a pack n play), TONS of clothes, pacifiers, bibs, blankets, hooded towels, washclothes, bottles and even medicine. I was overwhelmed by everyone's generosity. Thank you!

I took tomorrow off to recover from the long day, and to organize his stuff as much as possible. Hopefully we will get the crib put together within the next few days as well, and I can start feeling like we have a real nursery and not just a room filled with baby clothes. That should also give Payton a chance to explore the room while it is still baby-free, so she will be less interested in hanging out in there later. She is already pretty interested in all the stuffed toys we got, so I know it will be a challenge to keep such a curious pup away from all the baby stuff.

In preggo news, I *think* my iron count has improved somewhat by drinking the molasses "tea" frequently. I can't be sure until I go to my prenatal appointment on Wednesday, but I am not quite as run-down lately, and my inner eyelids are not as pale. (Apparently pale inner eyelids are an indication of low iron. If they are brighter red, you have good iron levels).

And, taking longer lunch breaks this past week seemed to help reduce my swelling. I am still having some swelling, and I don't think I will get rid of it completely until after Isaac arrives, but being able to put my feet up for an hour or so each day has definitely helped.

Complications

After so long with no real issues to speak of, I've had several different thigns pop up or get worse in the last week.

Despite my iron supplement, my iron levels appear to have dropped. I'm now trying something new...blackstrap molasses is a very good source of iron, and I found this drink recipe. I tried it tonight and its actually really good! Hopefully a serving or two daily will help raise my iron before my next prenatal appointment.

I have had a few random bouts of morning sickness this week too. On Tuesday, I got sick in the car on the way to work. I never got sick in the beginning, but I've been a bit queasy on several other occasions recently. My midwives recommended making sure I'm not only getting enough protein, but that I'm getting protein more often. I've now been making sure to get some protein first thing in the morning, and every few hours after that, which seems to be helping so far.

My biggest issue seems to be swelling at this point. On days that I work, my feet are often very swollen by the time I leave for the day. Unfortunately there isn't a couch anywhere in our building, so I don't have anywhere I can lie down and put my feet up. For the next week, I'm going to try arriving at work earlier and staying later, so that I can take a 2 hour lunch break. That should give me time to go somewhere and lie down, and hopefully help reduce this swelling, since paying close attention to my water and protein intake hasn't done the trick. Most likely I will end up at Tim's parents' house...although they don't know that yet ;) If my longer lunch breaks seem to help, it should allow me to keep working until closer to my due date.

car seats and strollers and diapers, oh my!

It seems that I jumped the gun a little bit with my initial free and cheaply acquired items...While I thought we had carseats covered, it turns out carseats--even if they haven't been in an accident--expire after 5 years, and both of the ones I had are nearly expired.

I had also gotten a secondhand breast pump with the intention of buying new accessories and tubing, only to find out that it is defined as a "single-user" pump, which means that anything carried in the original owners milk could have contaminated the pump and then re-appear when I use it. So if the original owner happened to have HIV, or took some medication that shows up in milk, etc, then it could transfer to Isaac. Not good. So I'm now looking at a brand new pump for the bargain price of nearly $300. Another option is to rent a hospital-grade pump, but it may end up being more cost-effective to just purchase my own. I'll have to look into it and see how much the rental fees are.

Because of these discoveries, I spent several hours yesterday working on our registries and trying to sort out what will be useful, and what is extraneous, and adding things that I didn't think I needed to register for, but now do. I spent so much time walking around Babies R Us and Target that I think Isaac slept all day, because I hardly felt any kicks at all. He made up for it as soon as I woke up this morning though, by performing a little drum solo on my belly.

I've also been trying to research which brand/type of cloth diapers to get and I've finally decided to just register for a variety of things. It seems like every type I read about had reviews ranging from love it to hate it, depending on the baby. If little pal is long and lean, diapers will fit him differently than if he is chunky, so variety seems to be the way to go right now. I think we are going to do disposable for the first month or so though, because it seems silly to buy cloth diapers in newborn size, just to have him grow out of them right away. I never thought diapers could be so complicated...