The Last Diaper Standing

Thank goodness for diapers.com! I placed my order yesterday morning before G's playdate and her diapers arrived today. For new moms, next day delivery plus free shipping (and tax-free) is awesome, and they have more than just diapers. I think there are only 5-6 diapers left in the house, including the ones in her diaper bags. That's pretty sad.

Today I changed G's diaper in my lap, in the car. We saw a friend do a diaper change on the lap with their kid while we were out at a restaurant and it seemed like a handy trick to learn. Unfortunately, it was in the middle of nursing her, and in the second half of her meal, she pooped, so the diaper only lasted maybe 15 minutes.

Today was a busy day, but I felt productive about it. I ran two errands with G and was out most of the day. She slept great, so well that I actually woke her up to feed her. However, since we came home, she hasn't slept at all (and I've fed her 3 times). But I was still able to cook dinner. Yay for running errands and cooking dinner!

We tried to EC her again tonight, but failed miserably. She was hysterical, poop was everywhere, and she ended up having a HUGE spit up (luckily it missed her and me and most of it went on the floor, two big waves). It was traumatizing for everyone involved. I think we may put a pause on the EC-ing for now. Oh well.

Tomorrow will be another busy day. Babies R Us is accepting old Avent and Dr. Browns bottles (they are switching over to BPA-free ones). They will give you 100% back for complete bottles, and 50% for ones missing parts, no receipt or packaging needed. You get store credit, but it's still a great deal.

Multi-tasking

Today G had her biggest playdate yet, with 6 other kids/babies (not counting two in utero)! I got together with 4 other moms, it was so good to get out, talk, eat, and see the other kids playing. G slept for the first 45 minutes, then sat on Mommy's lap while she ate, then we moved to the sofa to feed G, then back to the table because G was too distracted to eat by the other kids and noise so S got to finish her lunch. By the end of lunch G started to complain and attempted to eat some more despite still being distracted, then, as the kids went back to playing and also started leaving, G finally fell asleep in S's arms. She woke up briefly while being put into her carseat but slept the rest of the way home, even while S made a quick stop.

So, what was the quick stop and why is this post entitled multi-tasking? I went to pick up a rat to feed the snake (yes, finally!). In the time it took to for the snake to eat, I changed G's diaper, fed G on both sides, put her down for a nap, uploaded pics from one of our cameras, ate some fruit, filled up the chip bowl, and blogged. Yes, he's a slow eater. Yes, I washed my hands countless times in between.

Speaking of ECing, we haven't since that first time a few days ago (ok, I tried once, but G was uncooperative and nothing came out), but I should have today. While I was on the computer and she was sitting on my lap, I heard the dreaded squirt. I should have just taken off her diaper and put her over the toilet, but I thought it was too late since I already heard the squirt. So I took her to her changing table and started to undo her diaper. Then I paused, and just in time, because I heard a second squirt. I held her diaper closed and waited. After the fourth squirt I decided to just close her diaper back rather than holding it closed. After the SEVENTH squirt (she was still trying to push stuff out too!) I finally ventured to open her diaper. WHOA!!! There was a yellow lake in her diaper! As I was trying to figure out how to contain the mess (I didn't, it spilled to the diaper below and onto the changing pad) her hands were waving around and I was so afraid her fingers would get into it (I don't think they did but I wiped them anyways, just in case). It was only because I had already opened up her clothes that it didn't get on them too. With each squirt I kept thinking, "I should have put her over the toilet, darn!"

Her giant poop must have tired her out, she's fell asleep again.

BTW, we finally got a scale. G is 11.5 lbs and is about 23 inches tall now.

And best of all, G GOES MOBILE! She can pretty reliably roll from her tummy to her back, even with her arms at her sides (though that takes a little more effort). E has to do something to the videos before we can post.

3 months (13 weeks)

I feel like a broken record every week I'm so surprised by how time flies! In case you were wondering, her bib says, "Daddy's Girl".

This past week was rough, with G's growth spurt. Everything we knew was out the window and backwards. She slept best and longest in her carseat, even when stationary! She reverted to sleeping 3-4 hours only at night (I think she only did that like the first week or two she was born!) and hardly napping at all during the day. She was also feeding like there was no tomorrow. But I'm very happy to say that I think her growth spurt is over, as she is getting back to her 6+ hrs at night.

Friday, she had a "play date" with some other kids at a local park. She slept the entire time.

This week, we also tried to do some Elimination Communication with her. I had one friend successfully do this with her daughter and another one who is currently in the process of doing this. It's not like I have a huge desire to have G trained this way, but it seemed like an interesting experiement that might work, given G's habits of being very vocal and almost always doing her business while I'm feeding her. So, one morning when I thought she sounded like she might be trying to poop, I rushed her over to the toilet and took off her diaper. I quickly realized that she didn't like the cold toilet seat on her legs and she didn't want to be dangled over it either (her feet sometimes went into the toilet and I was so afraid she was going to step in the water, gross!) so E came to help hold her feet. We waited for a while, and some pee came out, but nothing else. I think G was too startled by the whole thing and just kept looking around and smiling. So we gave up and cleaned her up and put a diaper on her. Don't know when we'll try again. But it also seems like a good way to help with the whole diaper/landfill problem.

Today is Memorial Day too, and E had the day off. After a nice relaxing morning and breakfast, we did a family trip out to Rancho San Antonio for a picnic and light walk/hike to the farm (FYI, apparently the farm is closed on Mondays so we only got to see the goats up close and the pigs from far away). We guess that G enjoyed it, despite the farm being closed. She slept thru pretty much the entire trip. I could barely wake her in the beginning in the car to nurse, then she slept the whole hike and picnic and the hike back. I woke her again in the car to nurse her. The hike was tiring for both S and E (E took a nap in the car while G was eating). That night, G slept long enough that we also got to watch a movie during dinner (recorded on the DVR, with one break when she woke up to eat).

No time today...

Getting back into a normal routine entails figuring out our ministry capacity between E & S. We've decided that we can commit to 3 nights a week between the two of us. Ministries that don't take up a night don't count (like E being on the Prayer Team). We are still discussing how this will work out. This month I was only on the Worship Team two weeks, just to see how we can manage it. This week will be the second week, the first one went well, we managed to get to church on time despite G letting us sleep in and only having half an hour to get all of us ready. I fed her once the first worship set finished up, and handed her over to E for the second set, where she fell asleep in his arms. This week might be more tricky, as E will have prayer helper duty at the end of service too. I guess he'll have to do it with G.

It also means that I have to figure out how to do all the normal household things I used to do. I've been able to keep the floors clean by swiffering everything to a central place, then I vaccuum the pile and swiffer (we're actually using the Method brand of swiffer sheets because they are more enviro-friendly, made of corn, though some may argue that making it out of corn takes away from the food supply...) Anyways, so I'll also have to figure out grocery shopping (went to Costco w/ G earlier this week, was too tired afterwards to go anywhere else), cooking (we got our last Meals for Moms this week, so sad, so grateful for this awesome ministry from our church), laundry (E had been doing it up to this point because our washer is in the garage and it had been really gross w/ boxes and construction stuff and piles of dusty furniture pads.

I put together her crib yesterday and have been washing the bedding stuff for it. I tied on the crib bumpers last night, so cute! I'll post a pic later.

The reason why I have no time? G is definitely in her growth spurt. She used to average 6-7 feedings per day. Recently, she's averaging 7-9 feedings, with three day of hitting the 9-feeding mark.

Output

So G hadn't pooped in two days. We were not terribly worried, as we've been told by her doctors and books that breastmilk is easier to digest, so sometimes babies can go for several days or even up to a week without pooping.

Well, what goes in must inevitably come out... and last night it finally did. E was changing her before we put her down for the night. We usually change her diaper in the middle of her feeding, it helps to wake her up so she'll eat more. From the other room, I heard E. Usually, it means she spits up. When I came by to investigate, I saw the aftermath. It took 3 diapers and two burp cloths and her onsie to contain her explosion. I was told that there were at least three waves. Needless to say, we did another load of laundry that night.

Yes, it was the second load of laundry, as the first one contained the massive waterfall spit up from the afternoon. It was so big, it got all over both layers she was wearing, both legs of my pants, the sofa (luckily it's leather so it wipes off nicely), the floor (hardwood so it's easy to wipe up), and S's new glider chair (good thing S had the foresight to cover the chair with several of G's burp cloths). We're trying to figure out if her big spit ups are related to what S eats. S had lunch at Costco, eating samples of everything, so maybe it was from the spicy sausage. We have been suspecting garlic, though dairy is another possibility that we know others have had trouble with.

12 weeks!

G is 12 weeks old today. It's been a busy week for her, and she survived the massive heat wave that we had. It reached 89 inside our house! Good thing we got insulation, it was over 100 outside. She made a new sleeping record, 7.5 hrs last night! We woke up confused, wondering if I had forgotten to write down a feeding. The down side of that is that I'm spending the day unplugging my ducts. I had to make a new heating pad because the old one I made broke at the seams. It was made out of organdy gauze, those bags that people use for gifts and potpourri, I happened to have one laying around that was the right size. I had asked a friend of mine to make me a pouch out of spare flannel she had, but forgot to talk to her more about it so it never got done. But instead I reused one of E's lonely socks (one that lost its mate) and filled it up with same stuff (oatmeal and rice for the bulk of it, and cinnimon sticks, whole all spice or cloves, and for this one I added some lavender) and tied it in a knot. It's perfect, and way to repurpose an old thing into something new and useful! And it works awesome.

She had her first day trip to Lake Tahoe, not for snowboarding, unfortunately. BTW, she did awesome for such a long car ride, 5 hrs up and 4 hrs back.

Two of S's good friends were also in town this week, one from China, the other from Tahoe. It was so much fun for S to see her friends, it was like a little wedding party reunion!


G also went to her first professional sporting event, a GIANT'S baseball game. Unfortunately, much to E's chagrin, it was not an A's game, but he insisted that if G had a Giants outfit (which S bought for the game) that she had to have an A's outfit too. She did wonderfully at the game (the Giant's, however, did not, see G crying because her team lost!) and slept through much of the game and nursed through the rest, only crying a little. She also survived the one hour car ride up to SF and back. She is doing so much better in her car seat these days as compared to the early weeks.

G also got a crib, finally! Don't know when she'll start sleeping in it, we'll try to put it together this week. And S got a good rocker chair that supports her lower back. Too bad she didn't have this chair 3 months ago, or even while she was pregnant, it feels so good to sit in it!

Friday evening was a family outing with our Tahoe friend to the restaurant where our baby shower was. This was S's last meal before G was born, as they took the leftovers to eat on the way to the hospital. Our friend's jazz band was playing there too, so that was doubly fun.

Whew! Just recapping her week makes me tired all over again!

Firsts

Last night was the first time that G woke up from a nap neither hungry nor tired. Usually, when she wakes up, she's hungry. Once in a while she wakes up in the middle of a nap and needs a little bit of consoling. This time, she needed neither. She just seemed like a happy little camper and was very content to be sitting in my arms, then later playing with her kick piano on her playmat. Maybe it had to do with the fact that S was having her women's bible study group over, so there were lots of faces and sounds for G to see and hear, she's so curious, always straining her neck to see what's going on all around her! She played like this for over an hour. I thought it would guarantee a 6 hour stretch, but I was wrong. She woke up after 4.5 hours, then 2 hrs, then 3 hrs. But we think she's in a growth spurt, so that's ok.

This morning was the first time since G was born that E & S got to sleep in, minus the two times G woke up earlier. (I won't say how late just in case some of E's coworkers read this!) It was nice to have the chance to talk and cuddle. It was also the first time S got up spontaneously without being woken up by G, our new alarm clock.

This morning was also the first time that S took a shower while she was alone with G. Usually she waits for E to be home, in case G wakes up crying or something. This morning, after putting G down for a nap, S immediately took advantage and got to wash up. Of course, G was still sound asleep when S came out, so everything worked out. Down the road, we'll have to deal with what to do when G's awake, but for now, we are very blessed with a baby who sleeps very well both day and night.

Here's G practicing her mini push-ups. Her kick piano is in the background, but it's hard to see. She can play about 3 notes on her piano without shifting, but if she's rolling around she can maybe hit a fourth note (it has 5 keys total).

Busy Mother's Day Weekend

G is 11 weeks today! Wow, it seems so amazing how time flies. I still love to look back on all our photos of her, how much she has grown and changed since her birth. We have been suspecting that her hair is starting to fall out, I've been so afraid of that because I love her hair so much, it's so thick and soft, and I love how it curls when it's wet. Plus, it hides her cradle cap (which is pretty much gone by now). I started to notice little hairs in her bed last week, and throughout the week, I've been keeping an eye on the sheet we have on her bed to catch her spit up which has been collecting hair every time she goes down for her nap.

This weekend was also G's first long car ride (long defined in the Bay Area as over an hour), as we drove to Sacto for a family get-together for Mother's Day on Saturday. She did extremely well, considering she was out and about for over 13 hours! G started the day with S at church for a worship team meeting at 9:30am. Then E met up and we started our drive up to Sacto at 2pm, arriving at 4pm. She slept really well the whole day (pretty much 4 hours between feedings, which she usually only does one time in a day). Her eating wasn't so good because she was "Little Miss Distracted" and was continually trying to look around to see who was talking and what was going on. On our drive home, we discussed whether to be worried that she wasn't eating enough and whether the "on demand" feeding method we do should mean that sometimes we need to wake her if she sleeps "too long" during the daytime. S even called a bunch of her friends trying to find out whether we should be worried she wasn't eating enough.

So, when she woke up fussy and probably hungry, and we were still an hour away from home, we decided to pull over to feed her rather than trying to rush home. As S was feeding her, she wondered also if we needed to change her as well, as she kind of smelled something. As S was passing G up to the front of the car for E to change her, he noticed that the entire backside of G's outfit was a wet yellowish color. At the same time, S noticed that her WHITE pants had a nice big wet yellowish spot as well. We were very well prepared for G, having brought two complete spare outfits, 4 bibs, and 5-6 spit up cloths. We were not, however, prepared for bringing a change of clothes for S. It seemed that even the car seat was not spared from G's blowout. So, we changed her, found a bag to contain her mess, and proceeded home. Note to self: make sure to keep plastic bags in her diaper bags. The minute we got home, S went straight for the shower and left E to deal with G.

And deal, he did. Quite well, I might add. This was E's first time giving G her bath totally unsupervised. Here she is totally enjoying her bath, busy watching the other baby in the mirror getting a bath too! E also took apart the fabric from the car seat, as well as gathered up all the other poopy clothes (including S's) and put them in the wash (with that much poop, sanitary cycle! No, it's not energy efficient, at over 200F and 2 hrs long, but it kills bacteria. Towels and sheets also get washed on that cycle because it kills dust mites as well.).

Whew, and that was just Saturday. We made it to church on time Sunday for S's debut return to the worship team after her 11 week "maternity leave". Making it on time was a feat in and of itself, especially because we only had 30 minutes to get all three of us ready! At her 5:20am feeding, I noticed a balloon floating near the bed. It wasn't until 9:00am (the best present she could possibly give her mommy, SLEEP!) that I noticed that the balloon was tied to a big green box. S was super happy with the Mother's Day present that G picked out (with Daddy's help). The last pic was taken in our backyard, what nice rose bushes we have!

Then, Sunday night we all went out for dinner to S's favorite restaurant and then picked up our friend at the airport. While at the restaurant, G slept really nicely and only woke up towards the end. She had a big spit up, that seemed to only have gotten on her bib and her spit up cloth, mostly missing her clothes, but also on the side of her car seat. It wasn't until we left the restaurant and started putting her in the car that E noticed the car seat was "dripping". Yes, the spit up was dripping out the bottom of her car seat. Lovely. After the airport, we took apart the car seat (for the second time this weekend) to wipe up what we could in the cracks and spaces of the plastic frame and let the foam air dry. I guess we should count ourselves lucky that her car seat made it this far. I suppose later on we can look forward to cheerios and other crumbs and juice box stains in her car seat.

10 weeks!

Wow, G is 10 weeks old today. And for her 10th weekiversary we are graduating her to a bassinet, thanks to some great friends who loaned us theirs after their two kids outgrew it (actually, they didn't use it much on #2 b/c he was so strong they were afraid he would tip the whole thing over!). G has taken 3 naps in it so far (one yesterday, and two today). Hopefully, we will start her on it at night either tonite or tomorrow night.

In other sleep news, we are trying to give G a better nighttime routine to help her with her sleep. She's always been a good sleeper, but we just want to reinforce her natural tendencies. We've read that giving babies a bath can help them sleep better at night because it raises, then lowers, their body temperature (our bodies naturally lower in temperature which signals some chemical in our bodies to release which in turn signals sleep). So we decided to try it Saturday night. Unfortunately, G decided to go ahead and sleep 6 hrs before we could try it, from 6pm to midnight. S was sleeping during the same time which is why G never got woken up. Anyways, we still tried it out, gave her a bath anyways, and she did sleep maybe 4 more hours for the next cycle.

To prevent the above from happening again, we are going to try to have G have her last feeding for the night between 9-10pm for her to start her long sleep cycle (so, like Sunday night, we had to wake her up around 9:30), which would mean she would wake up around 4-5am for a quick snack and be back asleep for another few hours.

The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades!

(Yes, they look like boy sunglasses, but I bought a blue flower headscarf thingy (apparently really popular for baby girls, saw them everywhere at the mall) for her too. The pink sunglasses were just way too pink and flowery. Couldn't find a hat that I liked and was cheap enough for me to buy, though.)

Enviro-Friendly Diaper Wipe Review & Photo Shoot

So, we've been trying out different wipes on G, and here's our verdict:

365 Whole Foods: Hypoallergenic, unscented (though there is a scent to them), alcohol & chlorine-free. Very wet wipes, size is good, slight odor but not bad. In the end, we just felt like they were too wet, like I needed to blow on G's bottom (a risky task) to dry her out before closing the diaper. Price is definitely good, so good bang for your buck. Sometimes they don't come out of the container easily, like when you pull one out, the next one should start to come out, but sometimes didn't. If it didn't you'd have to open the container to get it out, or a trick I figured out was to flip the container upside down, and then you could fish out the start of the next wipe. Either way, though, a bit of a pain.

Nature Babycare: 100% natural and chlorine free. As an added bonus, the packaging is based on natural chalk, very cool (has a matte feel to it). Size is good, we tried the fragrance-free kind. No odor. Wetness was a little on the dry side, but still decent. E found that, out of the one pack we tried, a few times they tore. Also, they were sometimes difficult getting out of the container (365 WF brand container) and would clog up requiring two hands or a fair amount of dexterity to untangle.

Avalon Organics: Flushable and biodegradable. We didn't even try these because they were so much more expensive. They may end up being the best ones, but we will never know.

TenderCare Tushies: Flushable, alcohol-free, hypoallergenic (the green package, they have others that are scented and unscented but we didn't try those). First off, the packaging is not the greatest,. Maybe it was just us, but the entire "resealable" top pulled off and never quite resealed properly. Secondly, these things are TINY. Half or less the size of other wipes, so you end up using a lot more per diaper. You also get significantly fewer wipes per pack, good for traveling, but wasteful packaging for home use. But it is cool that they are flushable. We tried them for a weekend and then stopped b/c they were just too small. I'm now using them instead of our usual Cottonelle flushable wipes and they are fine for that purpose. I've seen others state that these can be good for toddlers for potty training. They can also be good for hand cleaning. I still might buy another package for that purpose, but won't be using them for wipes. Oh, and there's no scent to them, which is nice.

Seventh Generation: Hypoallergenic, alcohol & chlorine-free, unscented. These were our favorite. Some may think they are too dry, but they are perfect for us, just enough wetness to clean G's bottom, but not so much that you have to waste time air-drying her. The size is good, and they are unscented as they claim. As an added bonus, we really like the company's overall philosophy, creating products thinking ahead seven generations of what the impact will be. (We also use several 7th Gen cleaning products, as well as their baby detergent and diapers.)

Viva towels: While I was still pregnant, several friends mentioned using moistened Viva towels as wipes. These are supposed to be especially good for newborns and those babies with sensitive bottoms. We originally decided to go this route for G, but since she was born before we moved into our home, we didn't go with this method right away. (In fact, the only reason we tried it out was because we ran out of other wipes and are trying to save money, since I had already bought a big pack of these, we might as well try them out, right?) I have to admit, these work really well, they are soft and cloth-like. So far, I've only used the mini rolls, the ones that have the 1-2-3 thing on the packaging, so you can pull off towels of different lengths. I pulled them all apart at the smallest size, folded them in thirds so that they would fit into our wipes tub, and premoistened them with just water. They work great, even on the big poops. The only downside is that you have to open the tub to get them out, and it can be tricky getting them unfolded (it would unfold better as a double fold, but then wouldn't fit into the tub).

So, bottom line for us, Viva towels and 7th Gen wipes are the best.

For those who don't care about wipes and just want to see pics of G:

Here she is holding on to her carseat toy (we put it in her hand but this time she held on):

These pictures are from her latest photo shoot: