Waaaaaaaah!

 

I have bad news, people.

After about a week of Isaac crying for a few hours every night, I have cut dairy out of my diet. 

And he is doing much better.

Wait, you say, why is that bad news?

Well, dear readers, while I am THRILLED that Isaac is feeling better, be selfish for a minute and think about a certain dairy something that I am going to have to give up for an undisclosed amount of time.

And if you say yogurt, well, you can’t be my friend.

That’s right, it’s my dear love, and the light of my life (just kidding Brian and kids…sort of…)- CHOCOLATE!

How can I go on without it?

I was all full of talk about how I would eat healthy after I had this baby, but… well…I didn’t really mean it!

And now I am forced to.

.

I know that there isn’t anything that you or anyone else can really do about it.

So can you guess what I really want to hear by writing this post?

That’s right:

All together now: “Pooooooor Caitlin!”

As I reply in a martyr-ish voice: “Sigh, anything for my baby.” 

.

.

PS:  Send Gummy Bears.  And maybe some sort of non-dairy doughnut?  I’m dying here!

 

(Who Do I Choose?!)

I Love My Little Old Man

 

Why 2 years 4 months, and 13 days May Be Too Young To Dye Easter Eggs

It started out innocently enough, with me deciding that, this year, Joseph was going to be allowed to dye Easter Eggs.




Brian opted out and was put on camera duty, so it was a one-woman-egg-dying show.




(Note to self: Opening your eyes really wide doesn't make you look less tired. It just makes you look crazy.)



Now, when I cook, Joseph always helps me crack the RAW eggs into the bowl. So, he decided that these eggs needed to be cracked too!

(cracking on the side of the bowl...)




I tried to quickly show him how we GENTLY placed the eggs into the bowls of dye...as he proceeded to crack every single one except for the one that I had. After he was done cracking them, he placed them gently in the bowl to be dyed.



And then:








Don't I look like I am in physical pain? That is because the dye went all over the floor, onto Joseph's booster seat (which stains easily), onto our table (which stains easily) and onto his only pair of sweatpants that fit him right now.
Ouch.
But, I think that I recovered quite nicely.

So, in the end, Joseph had a lot of fun





And, as for me, I had a slightly stained table, booster seat, sweatpants, and a sticky floor.


But, it was WAAAY more memorable than if everything had gone as planned!


So,


Happy Easter from Joseph:

6:11 pm

 

The view from my kitchen sink

They all look so happy, but Joseph was actually mid-whine, telling me to be “all done camera.”  But it ended up looking like a smile anyway.  So take that, little whiny pants!  (I call him that with love.)

The “Mom-Arm” phenomenon

 

(Not to be confused with the First Trimester’s “This baby must be growing in my arse because I have to buy a bigger size of underwear before I have to buy maternity jeans” phenomenon.  Although I am betting [hoping?] that you have all been there too…)

I used to have pretty toned arms.

For no particular reason, my arms were muscular and defined.

And then, I had kids.

.

Why is it that having kids made my arms soft and slightly flabby?

My stomach? I understand.  A baby stretched that puppy out to high heaven- it deserves a little understanding

My hips and rear?  Well, I can get behind (no pun intended) the whole body-is-saving-fat in case of famine thing.

But my arms?

I am hard-pressed to find a mom, no matter the age, that has really toned arms.  And I bet that every mom finds them a bit flabbier than before.

What’s the deal?

.

I know that I am not working out per-se (haha! that makes me laugh.) but I am lifting a whole heck-of-a-lot more weights than I ever did before:

a 35 lb. weight named Joseph

and a roughly 12 lb. weight named Isaac

plus heaping laundry baskets

all

day

long.

Yet, the softness remains.

.

And please don’t tell me that moms get softer arms to “give better hugs.”

One, you lie. My body doesn’t want to give better hugs.  It wants sleep.

Two, hugs from strong, muscle-y arms are not so bad.

Think of a nice big hug from Jacob a’la “New Moon.”

Ahhh…

See?  Not so bad.

Now, quick imagine that he is over 18 so that you don’t feel so bad about that earlier thought.

But, I digress.

.

In summary of this slightly rambling post:

My name is Caitlin.

I am a mom.

My arms are mysteriously flabby.

But maybe yours are too?

The end.

Warning: This post talks about a certain body part that rhymes with “Wipple.” So, if you are embarrassed by “Wipple”s, or if you are my father, you might want to skip this one.

 

 

Breastfeeding hurts.

Ignore all of the La Leche League propaganda, and talk to real women around you.

I would be surprised if you could find a woman who doesn’t find the whole experience painful during the first few days or weeks. (It does get better after that, thank heaven.)

My dad even claims that my mother would actually scream whenever I latched on.  And he is risking death by ratting her out, so I would tend to believe him.

My sister has scars on her nipple from her three kids.

Some women, in extreme cases have even LOST THEIR NIPPLE.  But don’t worry, folks, it grows back. (Comforting?  If my nipple started to look like it might fall off, my baby’s first word would be FORMULA…)

Ranging from slightly sore, to writhing around and kicking your legs during latch-on, everyone I have talked to has been there.

I tend to be in the writhing around, and kicking my legs camp.  Unfortunately for me.  And my nipple.

.

I was hoping that this time would be better.

After all, since having Joseph, my nipples have been less like play things and more like…well…my elbow?  A knob of leather?  Not really much sensation.

But then, Isaac the Barracuda came along.

And so did the writhing.

Oh, the pain, people, the pain.

And yes, my latch was perfect.  So, riddle me that?

.

At one point, Isaac even vomited blood.

A scary event for any new mom as they instantly think, “Why is my baby bleeding internally?!”

Well, good news, it was just my nipple.

That’s right, folks, my nipple was cracked and bleeding and Isaac was swallowing blood. 

But wait, there’s more.

After that I got thrush.

and then a blood blister.

And then the crack kept opening up every time I fed him, causing tears to literally come to my eyes.

When it was time for him to nurse on that side, I would feel slightly nauseous.

At one point I even sobbed and told my sister, “Isn’t pain the body’s way of telling you to STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING?!”

.

This has continued until about 2 weeks ago, when I finally used a nipple shield on that side for a few days, applied neosporin by the pound, and the crack finally healed.

After 5 weeks of misery, all is well and it doesn’t hurt anymore. 

.

I am so proud of myself for muscling through.

Especially for a baby who will, most likely, grow up and forget to call me, ever, unless his wife reminds him.

My nipple will never be the same (sorry, Brian.)

And my sacrifice is thus recorded, so that I can remind my kids what my nipple has given them.

Life.

Milk.

(and blood.)

 

Joseph’s “Little Chair”

 

 

Look who’s getting fat…

 

 

Isaac is starting to pull out of that awkward skinny new baby that looks like a baby bird phase.

 

And is plumping up quite nicely.

(Although he is still sporting the 80-year old man look)

He is currently in 3-6 month clothes, and the snaps are straining across the ol’ belly…

At my six week check up today (and you moms know what that means…sigh…)  my OB said that, as far as she could remember, he was the FATTEST six week old that she had ever seen!!

And really, the only thing that could have made me happier (I LOOOOVE fat babies)

was if she had said that I was the SKINNIEST six week postpartum mom she’d ever seen.

 

But, alas, she did not.  So here I sit, munching on baby cheeks.

Care to join?

Lately

I've been having some trouble blogging.

And it's not just because the boys seldom nap at the same time and Isaac is still night-owlin' it until midnight. Although that has a lot to do with it.

I have been having some trouble finding content to blog about.

Sure, I have a plethora of adorable pictures of the boys, but I hate to only post those and make you guys tell me a million times how cute my kids are. (But feel free.)

So what else can I post about?

Would you like to hear how many poopy diapers I change in a day? (at least 4)

Or how, when I went on a date with Brian last night ( Miniature golf and go-karts = romance for us!) I wore my pre-pregnancy jeans unzipped with a long coat on top, just because I can't stand to wear my maternity jeans anymore? (Pride, silly pride.)

I'm not complaining about my life right now, I love it! But it is not glamorous, not witty, and...well..it's kind of gross a lot of the time.

Like last week when I went to run errands, forgetting to put nursing pads in my bra, and ended up in Fred Meyer with two wet patches on my shirt and no way to cover it.

Or like today when I was at the mall with Joseph and, before I could stop him, he ate a piece of popcorn- off of the ground.

Or maybe how, just now when I was walking back from the bathroom, I stepped in a puddle of spit-up (read:baby puke) on the carpet, soaking my sock, and yet I kept walking.

See? That kind of stuff.

Should I really blog about that?

Well, okay.

Do you see what I'm up against?

I have been distracted from blogging by some serious cuteness. I thought that maybe if I shared some you would forgive me?
(My Google Reader has 208 unread items if that tells you anything)

Who wants to look at a computer when they have this sweet face looking up at them until midnight?!












I'll tear myself away soon.

U is for Umbrella

What do you do when your little boy really wants to use an umbrella,

 

and you live in a place with hardly any precipitation?

Improvise!

This is what 3 hours of (non-consecutive) sleep looks like.

 

(you may notice that Isaac looks downright perky)

-

If you had told me, before I was a mom, that I could exist on basically no sleep, I would have had a hard time believing you.

I love sleep.  I mean, I looooooooooooooove my sleep. 

If given the choice between a huge hot fudge sundae with peanuts, m&ms, and sprinkles,  and a 30 minute nap I would…well…hmmm…hard to say, but you get the idea.

I was the kid who conked out at 10pm at sleepovers.  I used to beg my mom to forbid me from attending all-nighters at my church. 

To me sleep=life.

And yet, here I am.

After a horrendous night (at 3 hours, doesn’t it actually qualify as a really good nap?), I am still standing.

Sure, I may have cursed silently when Joseph woke up (“Dora? Dora?  Dora, Mommy?  Dora?  Watch a movie?”) at 5 freakin’ am.

Yes, I may have prayed without ceasing that Joseph would take a long nap (not so much.)

Isaac may have been called “Joseph” about 3 trillion times. (second child, and all that.)

And I may have looked up from where I was zoned out, nursing Isaac to find Joseph inexplicably running around naked.

But, I survived.

.

I played with sidewalk chalk.

I took the boys to the park.

I did stickers.

I received an adorable First Smile from Isaac. (survival mechanism, I’m sure.)

My laundry is done (not put away, but done).

I made banana bread.

And it only took 2 large cups of coffee (drink up, Isaac!) and a short nap for me to make it through.

.

I have found that motherhood gives you a strength that you don’t know you have.

When your body screams “Let them cry!  You need sleep!” your biological motherly-urges get you out of bed and over to that crying kid as fast as you can.  And smiling, no less!  (If baring your teeth can count as a smile…)

Motherhood can make you do what, just a few years ago, you may have deemed impossible, torturous, and insane. 

Those crazy hormones!

.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am off to get ready for bed in the hopes that Isaac will cooperate.

Because I may be a mother, but I’m still only human.

And I am tired.

1 month old

Dear Isaac,

It is hard to believe that it has been a month since you joined our family!

But, also, it is hard to imagine what life was like without you.

You are so relaxed and mellow.

So easy and enjoyable.

Except for this past week, from about 5pm – midnight. 

You have us a little worried.

We will love you through it.

And thank you for the smile that you gave me today (your first official one!)  It made it all worthwhile. 

Can’t wait to see what happens next with you, but please stay little for a while longer!

love you,

Mommy

 

 

 (thinking the couch cushion is a boob.)

 (finding out that it’s not.)

Booties

 

Don’t these baby booties make your ovaries ache?

 

If I didn’t already have one, I would seriously consider having a baby just so that they can wear these beauties.

Hand-knit by TREX Mom, you will see them in MANY pictures in the future!  Thank you so much- we love them!!!