Super baby

Owen changes the baby's diaper for me all the time and loves to get her dressed. He changed her the other day and as he came back downstairs he said:
"mom you might be mad when you see the baby but I like her clothes like this cause she looks like a superhero."

I wasn't mad at all. In fact, I totally agreed and left her like that all day.

Hope he gets used to it

We were supposed to be grocery shopping the other day but we somehow ended up in the clothes section.  I was looking for some clothes for the kids and glanced over to see what they were doing, and that is when I saw the future:

Is There Anything Left?

That baby of mine was so nice and happy and although she woke occasionally in the night to eat, she would easily go back to sleep.  Then, when she turned about three months old, all of that changed. 

About the same time that changed, I started eating a lot of eggs and string cheese and protein drinks to go along with my boot camp class in an effort to lose the baby weight (which I am 7 pounds away from – go me!).  Suddenly, little baby was really unhappy a lot of the day, cried a lot at night, stopped pooping and just acted physically uncomfortable. 

It took awhile to realize that Ivy was allergic to dairy when she was a little baby and I really only figured it out because she was eating “real food” and threw up every time she ate dairy.  Autumn started acting a lot like Ivy had.  There was a little denial on my part to in the beginning.  One cause it is hard and two cause I feel like maybe I seem a little crazy and obsessed. 

So, on December 30 I stopped eating dairy and eggs to see what happened.  Within a few weeks, she stopped being stuffy.  She had been stuffy since she was born and had a lot of mucus in her throat which made her cough a lot at night.  She also had dry skin all over her body which started improving.  And most importantly, she started sleeping during the night again, waking up just a few times to eat but able to go back to sleep easily. 

Well, I did it before, I could do it again.  She did still had some dry skin and still woke up a few times in the night appearing to be in some discomfort, but the symptoms were definitely lessening.  Then, in an effort to continue to lose the baby weight, I replaced my dairy protein with a lot of soy protein.  (trying to eat a lot of protein thanks to my boot camp instructor’s nutrition plan for me).  I started drinking even more protein drinks than before.  I ran out of my drinks for about 4 days and realized during those days the baby seemed much more peaceful both during the day and at night.  After researching the new culprit, soy, I found that some absurd percentage of kids allergic to dairy are also allergic to soy. 

Now, I don’t eat dairy, soy or eggs, oh and broccoli cause there was that one time when I ate it and she had broccoli smelling gas the entire next day.  I do eat the same thing all the time and I eat for nutrition and not for fun and imagine how crazy and obsessed I feel now.  On the plus side it is helping me back to pre-baby weight, considering all the fun is gone and I discovered I do love Almond Breeze unsweetened almond milk – delish!. 

The things we do for our kids. 

(and as a side note, I am going out for frozen yogurt with Owen the minute I can have it again)

In case you were wondering

Just in case you were wondering what your hair would like like if you hid under a blanket, cried for thirty minutes, got all sweaty and then fell asleep; well, here you go.

4 Months

Little Autumn is 4 months (well 4.5 months now).  At her 4 month visit she had these stats:

Height: 24 1/2 Inches = 59%

Weight: 12 pounds 4 ounces = 20%

Head: 16 1/4 = 59%

She is great (minus the fact that she always wants to be held and I get absolutely nothing done as a result).  She loves Owen and Ivy and is always happy to see them (minus when Ivy says “hello little one” while in her face).  She is sitting up and loves drinking from a cup.  She likes sucking on her thumb and her binky.   Like those she follows she HATES to be alone.   She started fake coughing this week.  She loves to be awake and part of the crew.  We are just to break out the 3-6 months clothes.  She LOVES to laugh with Owen and he carries her around much to her dismay.  She is obsessed with me and often cries if anyone else is holding her.  We are holding off feeding her “real” food and I am pretty sure she has a dairy /soy / egg allergy. 

Bottom line: I would take her any day over getting anything done.

Happy 4.5 months!

 

Two Fears

Owen is afraid of two things 1. Wolves and 2. Food

Wolves. His fear of wolves is odd in that the only place he is constantly afraid he may run into one is upstairs. For example: "Owen, please go get your pajamas on."
"Can someone go with me?"

"Possibly in a minute, but just run up quick and grab them."

"But what if I see a wolf in my room"

We have this conversation once a week and sometimes more. It has also been known to be on a much more dramatic level and even accompanied by tears.

Luckily I feel confident he will never find a wolf in his room so hopefully he outgrows this.

Food: He is the pickiest eater I have ever met (even beating out his cousin Evan but maybe right up there with my brother as a child). However, Owen goes beyond picky. He is afraid.

He has been known to pack up his lunch at school before he is done because the person next to him was eating something that smelled funny. He won't sit by Ivy when she is eating something like black beans or hummus. He won't eat canned peaches from the store anymore cause once he saw a little red thing on them (yep, the skin). He inspects every bite of something he is not used to to make sure a suspect food did not make its way in. And the time I put a piece of avocado on his neck you would have thought it was a bug. He turned all red and started crying and breathing hard yelling at me to get it off while completely frozen.

Owen eats sandwiches, noodles, cereal, apples, pancakes, and grapes. There is not one vegetable he eats and his list of approved foods gets smaller each month. He has been known to eat three or four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches throughout the day for all his meals. We try I swear.

And while he may never run into a wolf, he will run into a bean or two in his life so I certainly hope this is a passing phase.

We only buy things we have

So for Valentine's Day Greg and I exchanged Kindle cases. This is my third and his first. Why is it my third you wonder? One word IVY. That girl is trouble. In fact right now she is sitting here with me in the bed. She just took the lid of her sippy cup and spilled water all over the bed. Her side of the bed is soaking wet. She hopped in and said she would be ok. Before that she opened her own applesauce and spilled it all over the floor then purposefully stepped in it. She just yelled at me that she is getting one book to read for bed despite me telling her it was too late for books. I turned to find a stack close to twenty.

And back to the Kindle case. I am on my third because she keeps breaking it. Somehow she always finds it and gets her hands on it. I swear this will be the last. We were happy because this was Greg's first. It would not be so easy. He put his Kindle in it's new case only to discover the screen is cracked. So while he doesn't need a new case, he does need a new Kindle. Bonus gift I guess.

I have no proof but I put my money on MUFFY.

You Know...

You know you are tired when you almost fall asleep mid root canal.

You know you need to make some changes when you run in the grocery store and your son says, "Mom, you can run?"

You know you should not take your kids to the Verizon store when you walk out of there with an iphone and additional purchased accessories that total $150.00 in addition to the phone, only to realize once you get into the car and look at what you just bought, you don't need or want ANY of them.

You know when you are still writing the same blog 4 days after you started that you are busy (or have horrible time management)

and finally..

You know it is going to be a long night when you fall asleep with the kids at 9:30 and the baby cries and you wake up sure it is the middle of the night only to have the clock say 10:50. (and yes it was)