Life in Color Photo

Okay I don't really know what worked. It was probably a combination of things, but yesterday went well and last night was great. It's funny because I tell people she doesn't sleep, then have visitors and she sleeps! Yeah for visitors, keep them coming (if nothing else they can hold Tuesday so I can eat :). After our friend Beachwood went on a walk with us to lunch I fed Tuesday and then her, Bj and I took an hour and half long nap, it was glorious. I think this may have worked because I put her on her stomach (advice many of you gave). The little nut can already roll over (I freaking know!!! She started this trick at 13 days old) from front to back and has amazing head control so I think the odds of her suffocating this way are low.


After that nap we played and nursed and bounced (OMG she is so addicted to the bouncer. I kinda feel bad that she's in it so much but she loves it). At 11ish I put her down to sleep on her belly and she totally slept… for hours. I didn't wake her at one to nurse, I just couldn't bring myself to do it, in fact I let her dictate when she wanted to nurse last night and the sleeping periods were much longer. I think she's still gaining weight though… she out grew her first outfit! This cute little onsie Kay made her, I went to snap it and I couldn't. So I have to make sure and take more picture of her in all the cute outfits:


A onsie from Erin (see her cute hear onsies at her Etsy shop!)

I am learning so much with my little one. I've watched so many kids in my life, I lived for baby-sitting in high school (and after). I was constantly entertaining my little friends. I think one thing I'm realizing is that I can't feel terrible if I'm not dangling something in front of her every moment. It's okay to want her to sleep so I can blog and scrapbook and do a few things for myself. Of course she's the coolest little person so I want to be with her as much as possible. But hey I can always nurse and knit:


This mystery object is going to be awesome, just wait and see (ravelry link).

I am trusting my own instincts most of all, I think they are generally good ones. That's not to say I don't appreciate the advice, I just pick and choose what to take 🙂 Hopefully I won't look back in a few months and find these blog entries are all wonky because of my lack of sleep. I suppose they are different because of it, but that's okay. I know she can't sleep "through the night" anytime soon, and I don't want her to. I know she needs lots of milk to keep her getting big and strong, so that's what I'm going to keep giving her. There really is nothing like nursing my little baby in the middle of the night. Just me and her, I love it, sleeplessness and all!

Taken at 11:37 last night with my phone. What comes after tired? Because I'm there.

Okay so the little baby stayed up late again last night… until one a.m. (went to sleep not long after I published the last entry). She is so happy right now…


Oh yes! Amber Lee for the win! I just snuggled her after her last feeding (around 4:30) and then slipped her into the bassinet from the stroller. She's been sleeping for over an hour!! And my mom came over today to play with the little bird for a while (and help me with the Ribbon Jar) so I got to take an hour long nap as well. We are both quite happy today. I think we are going to get most of the baby pictures on the changing table because Tuesday loves hanging out there:


She loves looking at the mirrors. I dangle other things in front of her, but she likes the mirrors best. Bj picked this up at Ikea, we'll put it together tomorrow. I'm thinking she'll like it since she seems to love that kind of thing. She likes looking at her little bird too:


I'm obsessed with her smallness and her very small parts, like her tiny cute belly button:


Bj loves these little Zutano booties:


Okay I did have a real point to this post. I wanted to talk about cloth diapering, as so many thought it would be so hard, and it one of the easiest things about having a new little baby, for sure!


(that's a photomerge so it looks a little like the changing table is whacked out, but it's not). My neighbor gave me this awesome changing table and my mom painted it white to match Tuesday's cradle. The metal bins are from various antique stores, and thrifting adventures. The top shelf holds the things we use the most. On the left are kissaluvs size 0 and thirsties XS covers. These are the "daytime" diapers now that her stub has fallen off (they have a fold down for that so we were using them exclusively until the umbilical cord was gone). Observe:


The cloth diaper part (I do put a little powder on her bum before I put this on).


The waterproof cover. This does make her bottom a little big:


But she loves it, hehehe. She really doesn't mind them, but can get a little frustrated if you take longer than five seconds to get the diaper on. The cloth part you wash after every change, but the waterproof covers just need to be dried if wet, and washed occasionally. For night time we have the diapers on the right Thirsties XS AIO (all-in-ones). These have a fleece type material inside and wick the wetness away a little better so she can sleep a bit longer in the night, plus one step for 3 a.m. changes make it way easy. In the middle of those two things we have the wipes that Sciarrino made. Fleece and terry cloth, though we mainly use the softer fleece side now for her sensitive bottom. We have a spray bottle with water and a drop of lavender oil that we clean her with (usually just spraying the wipe, occasionally her if it's really bad).We haven't had a blow out yet… go cloth diapers!

The bin holds the dirty diapers, and we have two. Now we have enough diapers that I do them only every other day (I think 14 of the kissaluvs, 5 covers (we really only need two), and 12 thirsties AIO). To wash it's so easy. Because we're exclusively breastfeeding I won't need to pre-clean off poo until she starts on solid food. So I don't even touch them, just turn the bag inside out into the washing machine. I do a quick load in my front loader since I can't soak them, with little or no soap on cold to get everything off and prevent stains from setting. Then I keep the door closed and do a heavy duty load on warm/cold with Country Save detergent. The wipes, covers, AIO, cloth diapers, and changing table pads all go in together. Then I pop it all in the dryer. This part takes a long time, and in the warmer months I will hang these to dry outside. It takes about 75 minutes to dry.

The bottom shelf has bigger diapers, we're going to try some different types when she outgrows her current selection (I'm thinking 4-6 months, depending on how she grows). I also have a roll of liners that I use when we put diaper cream on her so it doesn't ruin the diapers. We also have extra inserts for the diapers and burp rags down there.

Okay so once again this post has taken me most of the day to write. It's ten o'clock. I've read all the advice and I do swaddle her tight (she will not sleep unless she is bundled). My mom and Bill went and picked me up this fun toy. She's in her bassinet with it right now. So I'm hoping for an early than one a.m. bedtime tonight!

(Bj past midnight last night)


(me and Tuesday this morning, Bj came back up and snapped this on his iPhone)
Oh man, another late night last night. Less craziness though. No more letting her get to crazy levels of crying. We are letting her figure out when she needs to sleep. It turns out not very often. It's 12:23am and I just tried getting her to sleep after a nursing but she wasn't having any of that! I'm wearing her right now (in the baby hawk) and wiggling while I type (and getting up and walking around… this post is going to take me hours). It wouldn't be so bad if princess sparkly pants took naps. I guess I didn't get the memo but naps are for suckers! After I got her to sleep at one she slept a whole six hours (minus a couple of feedings). Then she slept for another hour this morning and later today (and don't worry I slept too). For a total of seven hours in a 24 hour period. That is nuts! So what does she do?


Looks adorable and sleepy after nursings, but then refuses to sleep.


Looks so cute and is so funny after changing her diaper. She loves to lay there, air out and play.


Trying to get a good picture of her eyes, I think they are changing.


Tiny ears!


By the afternoon she is just fighting the sleep monster. Sometimes it seems like she is going to loose:


But that lasts for maybe 5 minutes, and then my bounce speed must not be to Miss Picky Pants liking, because she wakes right up again.

Okay I started this post around 5pm, then got back to it after midnight, then took a couple baby bounce breaks, now it's nearly one a.m. and I don't think she's going to handle me sitting around much longer. So signing off for now… one very sleepy mama.

Oh man we've had a rough couple of nights. Not last night, last night we did something different, otherwise I doubt I could even string words together to write a post (and I'm still recovering so this might not be the most eloquent thing either). No, the two nights before that, those were insane crazy! Luckily Bj and I have pretty happy personalities and instead of breaking down and crying with our darling girl we totally lost it and cracked up, I mean everything was funny those two nights after hours of a screaming Tuesday. Bj had me run and go get the camera to take a picture of this after we laughed about it for five minutes:


She had been grabbing his pinkie like it was a sucker she wanted held in her mouth (but stopped when I came up with the camera). Now it doesn't seem so funny, I can see how tired Bj is, his eyes drifting closed… Awe and she still looks so cute!

Our problem really started (this is all in hindsight of course) when we tried to put Miss Tuesday down to sleep at a time that we deemed "bedtime." First we tried I think 9 o'clock, but we take forever getting ready so by the time we wanted her to close her eyes and sleep it was ten. She started crying, and crying, and crying. It was 2 am by the time we could settle her down. The next night we determined that we had started too late, so after she nursed at 8 pm Bj started trying to put her to bed. I swear I've never seen a human being as upset as my little Tutu. She squawked and yelped and nothing we did worked, NOTHING. Of course we took her temperature, and checked her diaper a million times and rocked her and walked her and I nursed her then burped her, she wasn't having any of it. And it was 3:15 before she went to sleep (after a early morning call to Pamela with pleas for help). We gave her a couple drops of chamomile tea and I nursed her again, but it was hard to tell if that is what got her down or if she was just so exhausted by being upset that did it.

Yesterday we had a wedding to go to. We missed the wedding but made the reception. And we came home with a new plan of attack. If Tuesday didn't want to go to bed at eight, then she didn't have to. I mean we were not going to bed at eight, so fine with us if she stayed up (and was not screaming). We played with her and took her diaper off of her and let her air out her cute little bum in front of the heating vent. I nursed her from one side only so she got the richer hindmilk. And around eleven she drifted off to sleep. DONE. We actually high-fived each other. Of course I had to wake up to nurse her at night, but really who cares. It's the screaming I can't stand, my poor little bird I just feel so sorry for her when she cries. I think we'll try the same thing tonight. Of course I'm on my own for the middle of the night things starting tonight as Bj goes back to work tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Another picture heavy post, because ack! I have a baby and I think it's the cutest! Also she took a three hour boob break today which made me feel awesome! I completely re-organized the Ribbon Jar side of the basement. Of course Bj had to do this the whole time:

But you know, I think that's a fair trade off. My little girl was so much happier after some rest.


And so were we!


(I solved the no pants fit problem… these are supposed to be shorts.)


Check out those booties (thanks again Stacey). I want to see if I can whip up a pair in time for her to wear them to a wedding we're going to Saturday.


Variations on the theme of "I can't believe she fits in the chair this way and I know she won't for long"


In my defense grandparents do read this blog 🙂

Oh and Bj learned something by watching that video yesterday:


Calmness my friends.


Telling her secrets. I did over hear him saying that he would buy her a pony if she was quiet in the middle of the night a few nights ago.

She is absolutely amazing—being a mother is everything I hoped for and more. I have so much to say about this first week with my lovely daughter (expect much more regular posts now that I have this out). But first I am very excited and proud to share our birth story. It's long and wordy and very sentimental, but I'm writing it as much for Tuesday Lee and her doting parents, as for everyone out there. So here it is—the birth of Tuesday Lee:

I have to start back in the spring when we became pregnant (after six months of trying—thanks fertility awareness method!). Through blogs and books I had become exposed to wonderful out-of-hospital birth experiences. Soule Mama was a blog that I really connected with, and I was amazed by her daughter's birth story. I'd also read about water birth and the gentle nature of midwifery care. All the "what to expect" books tell you to interview for a practitioner. I quickly found out no OB/GYN in our area did this—so I had to pick one blind (more like get assigned one by the clinic). And despite cramping so severely it woke me up at night, an initial office visit takes weeks to get. This didn't do a lot for my confidence in the hospital route. I started researching local midwifes and looked into alternatives to the birth center at the hospital, which I was hearing unfavorable things about: high C-section rates, induction happy docs, short trials of labor, and an unsupportive environment for drug free births. One of the midwifes I called got back to me the next day and I said, "My husband and I would love to meet with you." She was more than willing to be interviewed (a relief) and told me where her office was. "Wait," I said, "do you live on the other side of Tracy and Eric?" She did! Literally two houses down from ours, a midwife?! After meeting with Pamela Bj immediately told me to cancel the other interviews—we knew she was the one. All our fears about a home birth were put to rest. We learned that midwifes bring much of the "modern" equipment and all necessary emergency supplies to the birth. We learned that for Pamela a healthy baby is the goal (ours too!) and we would go to the hospital (2 miles away) if we needed to. Through her lending library we learned so much more. We watched videos, read, read, read and became educated about childbirth in America.

I kept that OB appointment, but on the advice of Pamela switched doctors. My new doctor was supportive of home births (on the down low) and with Pamela I felt like I couldn't have had better prenatal care. Our midwife appointments lasted an hour and every question was answered. I started prenatal yoga at about 14 weeks. Bj went with me to the first class—and was amazing! As labor approached I grew more confident with my choice. My super supportive husband helped, as did our Bradley classes. (Bradley isn't aimed at home birth, but rather natural birth—with Bj by my side—it's also called "husband coached childbirth.")

After the jump I have pictures of labor, nothing too risque, but my breasts are exposed, please don't continue if this offends you in any way.

Continue reading “The birth of Tuesday Lee”