Befores/Afters and other random stuff

Today I'm just going to blog about random items. None of them really relate to each other. Feel free to comment on whatever or ignore whatever. Here goes:

I'm going to start by giving you a generic run down of Mark and I's schedules. Mark works 12 hour shifts at the hospital on Sat and Sun nights (7pm-7am). Which means on Saturdays and Sundays when he is not working, he is sleeping. Which means I have Chloe all day and night by myself. Monday's Mark sleeps until about 5:30, hangs out for maybe an hour, leaves for his jujutsu class and usually gets home right after or as I'm putting her to sleep. Then he works at 11pm to 7am. Wednesday's are the same, only he doesn't work. Tuesdays again he sleeps until about 5:30, works out, takes a shower, and hangs out starting around 7 or so. Thursday's are the same except sometimes he gets up a little earlier. Friday's are about the same as Thursday's.

Basically, what this all means is that I have Chloe by myself during all but a few of her waking hours a week. Plus, I get up with her at night every Sat, Sun, Mon, Tues, then depending on whether Mark decides to go out at night on the other days, I'll get up with her then as well. This makes for a very tired Mama.

Mark thinks I should go to bed earlier. Like at 10pm. Unfortunately Chloe is not at the point where she can entertain herself when she's awake. And I can't just sit her on the floor as she's getting around really good right now, then I have to keep an eye on the dogs, etc. Which means very little gets done during the day. We do a lot of shopping just to get out of the house. But it amazes me much of a mess our house gets in just a short time. I feel once she's asleep, I'm always cleaning. For example, tonight Chloe stays up until about 9pm. Once I put her down, I walk into the kitchen and am greeted by this mess:




An hour later, and I have this: Much better.

I spend the next hour cutting up and sauteing some chicken so that there is something quick and easy to have for meals. Then I have to clean up again. By this time, it's 11pm.

I still have a living room and dining room to pick up. But tonight I'm just leaving it.

So now at 11pm, Chloe is up and wanting to be fed. Which is what I'm going to go do right now.

So now it's about 11:20pm. I have two choices. I can go to bed, or I can use this time to accomplish other tasks that need to be done, plus take a little bit of "me" time.

Other tasks include: Paying bills, finding a job, cleaning, etc and just relaxing.

Basically, there is not way I'm going to be in bed by 10pm. It might be different if I had more help in the evenings, but I don't. So once Chloe goes to bed, I spend until her first night bottle around 11pm doing necessary, cleaning, bills, job searching, feed the dogs, etc. Then I feed her. Then I wrap everything up down stairs and head upstairs. Once the dogs are settled, I spend a little time online, might play a quick game, read, etc. I usually spend the whole three hours between feedings doing this as by the time I get to sleep, I'll have to be getting up again. Once Chloe gets her 2am bottle, I then will go to sleep. Then I'll again get up every three hours on the dot to feed her.

Every once in a while I get a phone call or email from Mark, which a lot of times provides me with my only form of adult interaction each day.

Now, I don't want to make this seem like I'm complaining, as I'm not. It's just my routine. It works for me. If I had a choice between this, and giving up time with Chloe, I would definitely choose this hands down. You do what you have to do. While I would love to just be able to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, you don't really have the luxury anymore once you have kid. Or at least I don't.

Since I totally went way longer than I anticipated, I won't bore anyone any further tonight with my random thoughts...

Grab Bag of Pictures

Look, I'm sitting up on my own!!!

Oh, wait a second, I'm falling. (I can only sit for about two seconds or so. Mommy thinks that it's just luck that I stay up. Whenever she tries to help me sit, I just pull myself up to stand instead...)

Hmmm....so this is the thing that Sammi can't keep her paws off of. I wonder if it tastes good???

Why yes, I can see why Sammi loves this toy so much. It tastes so good!

What??? Haven't you ever seen anyone chew on a chew toy before? Sammi does it all the time... I'm pretty sure I'm cute here...

Maybe they all know something I don't....

While we were in Vietnam, everyone always asked if Chloe was a boy or girl. My thoughts are that she so looks like a girl, plus she is always dressed very girly, so I didn't get it. However, I just assumed that in Vietnam people put whatever is available on their babies', so they didn't really follow the pink and flowers are for girls type line of thinking.

Being back in the US, tons of people assume that Chloe is a boy as well. I cut them some slack if she's dressed in something gender nuetral, but otherwise I don't get it.

For example, today I went to Kohl's. I was looking for some pants for Chloe, as she doesn't really have any that fit. I bought a couple of 6-9 month pants and shirts, as they were the smallest there was.

To set the stage, here is the outfit that Chloe was wearing:

Notice the pink pants.

Now here are the outfits that I got while shopping. Mind you, these were my only purchase. (On a side note, there is no way that these outfits are going to fit Chloe anytime soon. They don't look 6-9 months at all to me!)

But to the scene at the checkout. The cashier looks at Chloe and says, "Looks like someone is getting new clothes." We smile politely and don't really say anything. Then a little time passes, as she is having trouble accepting my gift cards. While she is waiting, she looks at Chloe again and starts talking to her. "You are being such a good boy! What a good boy! I bet your mommy is happy to have such a good little boy!" I don't really know how to respond to that, so I just say, "actually she's a good little GIRL". To which the cashier responds, "Really!?! She's a girl!?!?

Hmm...now maybe I'm wrong, but I really don't think that I am biased when I say that Chloe looks like a girl. But who knows...

Happy Baby...

These aren't the most flattering pictures of Chloe, but it was so cute how big she was smiling.

She had just finished eating and I kept running a baby wipe along her face. She thought it was hilarious!!!

Poor Baby...

Fair warning, this isn't going to be the most pleasant topic...and could fall in the realm of too much information.

Background info: When we were in Vietnam, Chloe was a VERY fussy baby. It always took me FOREVER to get her to sleep. I'd have to walk around with her for hours. When I laid her down, she'd kind of push her little butt up in the air so that she was on her face and feet. From this, I gathered she was probably having gas issues. She cried ALL the time!

Whenever she had a bottle, she would vomit most of it up. If you remember my posts from Vietnam, it was actual gross, watery, acidy vomit. Not spit up. Plus constipated a lot.

Towards the end of the trip, I was really at my wit's end. Not that I couldn't handle it, but I just felt REALLY bad for her. I was at the point where with every bottle I was giving her Tylenol and gas drops. One of them helped a little bit, not sure which, but figured some relief was better than nothing, though I didn't know which one was doing the trick.

Once we got home, I switched her to a lactose free formula-cold turkey. (I was going to do it gradually as I had a small can of formula from VN, but after closer inspection, I realized it wasn't exactly the same) It isn't soy, it's actually milk based, just without the lactose. Well, instantly she stopped vomiting and spitting up so much. And she became much less fussy.

Present

For the last month and a half or so, she has been VERY constipated. I mean, to the point, where anytime she has to poop she gets hysterical and cries. I can tell when she has to poop because she starts with the little grunting sound, then gets this hysterical painful look on her face and she can't breathe. At this point, I usually lay her down on the floor, take her diaper off, push her knees to her chest, and help her. This really is a pitiful ordeal. And it probably takes a whole five minutes. I feel bad for her because you can just tell how much pain she is in. At the risk of becoming too graphic, I've been watching this show called Baby Story, which documents the birth of babies. It actually shows the mother in labor. Well, this process with Chloe reminds me of the baby version, as she has to keep trying, she's breathing hard, crying in pain, and it takes several tries.

So her poop is always rock solid, and bigger in circumference then any baby's poop should be. It's so bad that she'll wake herself up at night by pooping and then just be inconsolably crying.

She also has gas a lot. A lot of times I'll hear it and think she has a diet diaper, but no. And not everyday like in Vietnam, but occasionally, like tonight, I'll be trying to put her to bed and she'll be pushing her little butt up in the air again, crying in pain.

We tried giving her prune juice, but it's disgusting and she didn't seem too in to it, so I scrapped that. Her pediatrician recommended Pear Juice, 2 oz juice, 2 oz water. Well, she's just not into drinking juice. So I mix water and pear juice into her cereal. Since I started this, she occasionally has softer poop. Occasionally.

Is this normal??? I'm wonder if we might want to try going to complete soy formula. I really want to avoid that if at all possible, but I don't want her to keep having to deal with this. I'm also wondering if the lack of lactose might be causing the constipation. I thought about going back to regular formula, so see if maybe her improvement was just a coincidence, but it really did immediately fix the vomiting. So I don't know...

We've been trying to limit what she eats, as it could be food related among other things.

Thoughts???

Too many decisions

Mommy takes too long between bites so I have to fill the time with something:

I think my thumb tastes pretty good...

But then again, so do my toes....

Maybe I'll just do both...

Wizards, Lizards, and Playdates

WIZARDS

I admit it! I went out today and got a copy of the newest Harry Potter. It's kind of funny when you hear that people are lining up at midnight to make sure that they get their copy. My secret is to just go to the grocery store or Kmart. You can just walk right up, grab your copy and leave. No lines, no sold out sign. And I waited until noon today!
I really am facing quite the dilemma here. I actually just started a different book that I got from the library. I'm about 1/4 of the way through it. I would really like to finish it before tackling a 700+ page book. But I'm afraid if I don't get to reading, the ending will be spoiled on the internet. That's what happened with American Idol while I was in Vietnam...

LIZARDS

So Chloe and I went to Target on Thursday. They had a bunch of toys on clearance, so I was looking through them to see if there were any good deals. Chloe starts to get a little fussy, so I start handing her random toys to keep her entertained. Well, she didn't seem to be interested in them...that is, until something caught her eye. What, you may ask, did our little princess girl find that made her eyes instantly light up??? Was it a princess? A barbie? A baby doll? Nope! A small lizard/dinosaur type thing. With sharp teeth! She loved him! I could not get the thing away from her, and since it was only $1.99, she got to take it home with her. We named him Henry. Don't ask why.
So, INTRODUCING, HENRY THE LIZARD!!!

PLAYDATES

So we briefly attended a playdate with Chloe this afternoon. We couldn't stay very long, as Mark had to work, but we had a lot of fun. I'm really excited because it's a group a little girls adopted from Asia. I'm so excited that Chloe will have other Asian princesses to play with! I think they usually hold play dates once a month. So I think that's going to be great fun!

Chloe's first haircut...

So Chloe doesn't have THAT much hair. A set of clippers assualted her sometime between when her referral pictures were taken and we got to Vietnam to see her for the first time.

That being said, she does have some longer hairs. She has this one particular hair that stands out and is longer than the rest that we keep trying to remember to cut.

So I'm holding her when I see Mark break out the scissors. Finally, we were going to get that stubborn hair. And chopped it we did.

I then notice that Mark doesn't put the scissors down yet. You see, the hair above her ears was getting a little long as well, starting to come down past her ears. As he starts to go in for the kill, I off-handedly mention that most little girls like for their hair to grow out.

Apparently Mark is so used to cutting his own hair he forgot that we were going for a different look for Chloe. Luckily, I was there to remind him! ;)

***Edit*** After reading this entry, Mark wanted something clarified. He didn't actually go to cut her hair. "I said I was going to get smaller scissors first"-Mark 07-20-07

I also thought that I would add that we went out to dinner for the first time since being back from Vietnam with Chloe. We went to Johnnie Corrino's-an Italian place.

Well, I am excited to report that Chloe did superb!!! She did not cry or get held once during the whole meal!!! She stayed in her car seat the whole time!!

New Title...

Ok...so I've been thinking. I need to change the title to the blog. So be on the lookout.
We didn't do much today. We did have a good time visiting Ma today. Chloe woke up eaerlier than normal, and then only slept for a total of about 2 hours all day. It's 8:45 and I just got her down to bed for the night.

It's kind of funny, about half the time I can put her down and she will fall asleep on her own. The other half of the time I have to pat her little butt until she falls asleep. I do this so often that it's almost down to a science. She immediately cries if you stop too soon, so you have to very careful to make sure you keep going until she's asleep. So there is a magic number. And that number is 100! My arms definitely get a workout!!!

So tonight we are going to pick out the picture to use for the cutest baby contest. I'll post the winner tomorrow. Thanks everyone for your input! Voting takes place for a week, and I'll post instructions ASAP!

Of course in parting, I will leave you with some pretty cute pictures!

Meltdown at the mall

Chloe really likes her baby carrier now. She likes to walk around and to be able to see everything.

So today we took a trip to the mall. Not really to get anything, but just to walk around. Chloe was very excited and happy the whole time. We walked around the whole mall, stopping at the stores I like.

There's this little smoothie stand that I absolutely love. I always get an old fashioned, freshly squeezed strawberry lemonade. I was actually a little starving, but there wasn't really anything to eat around that would have been healthy. So I decide to just get my lemonade.

As we are walking away, Chloe eyes the lemonade and starts her grunting, meaning she wants it REALLY bad. So I talk to her and tell her that it's Mommy's lemonade, not Chloe's. It doesn't help.

So she moves from the grunting to this pathetic little whiney thing. I try hiding the lemonade behind my back, but she already had it. I tried to explain to her that not everything that she sees is hers to consume, but again, she's not interested in that explanation. She then moves on to a full out screaming cry!

This perfectly content child was SO happy walking around the mall, until she saw something that she wanted that she couldn't have. Then she went into full meltdown mode! Crazy!

End Result: Mommy throws the whole lemonade, less three drinks, in the trash. So nobody got to enjoy it. Unfortunately, the happy content child was now MIA. So we went home.

Poll

I am a little curious as to who all reads my blog. If you don't mean leaving a little comment and letting me know, I would appreciate it.

Also--For those of you that comment, do you ever come back to see if there are responses to your comments? When anyone leaves a comment, it gets emailed to me, which is where I read the comments from. I haven't been very diligent in responding to comments, which I plan to change. But before I do, I just want to make sure that people come back and look. Of course, you don't have to, I'll just know whose comments I should respond to! ;)

Some of my confessions...

So I absolutely love Bella to death. And I love being with her. And I hate leaving her somewhere. But sometimes I need a break. Not a long time, just a few minutes. And not even to get away, just to not have to entertain her constantly. Which leads me to some of my confessions:

• Sometimes I just let her cry on the floor. I figure that she needs to learn to entertain herself. Mark might disagree with this, as he thinks that I never let her cry or leave her alone on the floor. But honest, sometimes I do.
• Occassionally when we are driving somewhere she'll start crying and nothing I do will console her. I can't very well get back there while I'm driving, so there's not much I can do. So I just turn the radio up in hopes that it will calm her. But mostly to drown out her cries.
• Sometimes I let her chew on Sammi's chew toys. Now I'm sure a lot of you will think this is gross, and I hate the thought of it, but sometimes she'll be really, really grumpy and chewing on Sammi's chew toys makes her happy. So sometimes I let her. Until Sammi takes them away, as she doesn't like to share.

So I think those are my only terrible confessions. I also admit to taking entirely too many pictures of her, as evidenced below:

Date Night

Tonight was our first official date night. We went to Morton's steakhouse and to a movie.

Morton's

I must say that it was pretty awesome. And expensive. After looking at the menu, we decided to go with this Meat and seafood combo thing that I had a certificate for. So we each got a filet, salad, and hot chocolate cake. Plus we got broiled scallops, large shrimp, grilled asparagus, and potatoes. I will admit that it definitely was a better meal than you would get at Texas Roadhouse. But for the price, I would definitely go with Texas Roadhouse, unless of course someone else was paying. Even after my $50 gift certificate, we still ended up spending $77, including tip. Mighty expensive if you ask me...probably a good two weeks of groceries! But it was awesome and it isn't an everyday experience. Or every year. :)

Then we went to see Knocked Up. It was hilarious! Glad we picked it. It was either that or Ocean's 13, which I do want to see, but Knocked Up fit into our schedule better.

So here's a couple pictures of us pre-date: Aren't we cute!?!



And here are a couple pictures from the other day. Just to clarify, the child is NOT happy!