2 Months: Sleeping & Smiling

2 Months

Size of Corbin: 13.1 pounds (84.1%), 25 inches long (99.9%), 16 inch head (96.4%). Yep. He big.

Corbin's new skills: smiling! "Smiling's my favorite." and rolling over from belly to back! and if sleeping is a skill... he is the master.

What's that chunker eating: I stopped giving him a bottle because I got lazy. And now he's decided he doesn't like it anymore. So we are definitely going back to AT LEAST one bottle a day. He eats about 5-6 times a day.

Getting any sleep: Corbin is sleeping 7-9 hours a night! Rockstar!!! During the day he takes 4-5 naps, some of them catnaps, and some of them marathons. Last night he slept 10 hours. Actually he slept 8 but he was happy for 10... so I count that. :) I really love that I am sleeping again. Andrew and I prayed that our baby would love sleep as much as we do and it would appear that God answered our prayer with a big fat yes! :)
Weight: 173

Weight loss so far: 27 pounds

Best moment this week: Corbin being an awesome traveler to Pennsylvania! Seeing my family, successfully shopping with my mom, and seeing Corbin's big smiles.
Miss Anything: I kind of miss Corbin's squishy newborn cheeks. But I'm reaching for something here.... Life is pretty perfect right now.

Wedding Rings: still. don't. fit.
Looking Forward To: another wonderful day with my little man!

2 months

Journal:
Let's start this journal out on an "intimate" note...
Since we last chitchatted one-sidedly, I had my 6 week checkup and my doctor said everything was great! What a relief. I expressed to her, my disgust at my personal smell. She said to try a douche! hahahahahahahahah! Sorry. That's just funny. Well here is my summary of that experience. It's not pleasurable. It's cold. And it works. That's all!

I was also ready to start exercising again! Wait. what? again? No... I was also ready to start exercising! I learned my first rule to exercising as a nursing mother... empty the boobs first! Wow, and get a better sports bra. Or just wear a pre-pregnancy tiny sports bra on top of the other one. That holds them pretty tight. I am not used to bouncing boobs. I do not like bouncing boobs. That's what I miss! I miss my small perky chest. Now its big and saggy. Next it will be small and saggy. How very sad.

I'm about to get all serious up in here, but before I start whining more about my body, let me point out one thing about my body that Corbin has improved. At least I assume it's compliments of Corbin. My armpit hair has GREATLY diminished! I used to look like I needed to shave them an hour after I just did, and now... I can go TWO days without shaving and it STILL looks better than it did! It's like the hair stopped growing! Talk about life changing.

Ok, here's something I was definitely not expecting- mainly because I didn't really give it much thought. (I now see that I'm repeating myself from last post, but it's still bothering me...) I am having a much harder time with my post-pregnant body than I ever thought I would. My legs and hips and butt have never been much to brag about... always bigger than I wished they were. But I've always been proud of my flat stomach. It's never been hard to keep it flat. When I didn't exercise and ate like a junkie my stomach never got bigger. It all goes to my hips. I did think about this when I got pregnant though. I was afraid I was just going to look like a huge ball of fat because my flat stomach was going to be gone and my hips and thighs were already huge! However, dressing my pregnant self was fun. I liked showing off the bump and it was pretty easy to do. I wasn't ashamed of how big I was getting (even when Andrew kept commenting on my "counter-weight") I felt good about myself! WELL. I knew I wasn't going to like the jelly belly after I had my baby and I was amazed at how pregnant I looked the first couple days after delivery. I was still ok with it, even when Andrew's Grandma sounded amazed when she said, "Oh! You still have a pretty big belly there!" Um. Yeah. She's a grandma so I decided to not take offense. By the end of that first week I had lost 20 pounds and 5 more the second week. My stomach was shrinking like it was it's job and I was NOT even trying!!! How great this is!! Well then it stopped. I didn't loose an ounce of weight after that 25 pounds (remember, I gained 50) and my stomach was done shrinking on it's own. Andrew and I were both getting tired of me wearing yoga pants and his button-downs and my pregnant sister wanted all the maternity clothes back. I packed them up and sent them to PA and dug out my pre-pregnancy clothes. I knew I wouldn't fit into all of them, or even most of them. But I certainly thought SOMETHING would look alright! Not so. I realized that all my life I've dressed a flat stomach and bought clothes that don't hide a flat stomach. I was really really really becoming quite bothered and frustrated every time I tried to find something nice to wear. So I went shopping. I bought 2 shirts and a pair of pants and felt guilty about spending the money. I felt dumb wearing the same 2 shirts every time I wanted to not wear yoga pants and man-flannels so I went shopping again. I tried on probably 50 pairs of pants and came home with 2. They are much bigger than I ever thought I would ever wear. I also got 2 more shirts. I still felt like I had little options and kept thinking how everyone is going to think I only ever wear 2 outfits. I'm sure that no one really cares, if they even did notice. But I still felt like crap about how I look and took forever to pick an outfit. (I know, I know - #firstworldprobs. It is what it is.) So on my birthday I took my birthday money and a little leftover Christmas money and spent the whole day shopping with my mom. I got some great deals and a good selection of clothes!!! I'm much more excited to get dressed now. No more staying in my PJs all day!! :)

27 pounds down, 33 to go!

I have been working out almost every day now too and that is making me feel better. I feel like I'm getting skinnier and tightening my muscles up so much while I'm working out and then I'm always surprised to see all my flub is still there when I take a shower. But I think I'm on the right track. Like they say- it took 9 months to put this weight on, it's going to (apparently) take longer than 9 weeks to get it off. I don't just have to keep my goal in mind of losing all my baby weight plus 10 pounds, I also have to keep in mind that I want that done by February... not tomorrow. :) I do want to thank the people who have encouraged me by telling me that I look great. Relatively speaking, I believe you (as in, compared to how I looked 10 weeks ago...). You don't see me naked so don't be surprised if I don't believe you completely. :) I love the kind words and they are encouraging to me as I try to believe them myself. (now don't go telling me I look great now that I've said all this.... because I WON'T believe you... out of spite)

Happy Easter! Rockin' the sweet outfit from Grandma King!

We took Corbin on his first road trip last weekend to Pennsylvania for my birthday/Easter. The kid rocks. He only woke up once on the way there when we were already stopped and I gave him a bottle and he went right back to sleep until we went up the mountain and all our ears were popping. *pish, flatlanders. On the way home he slept the whole way! What a great traveler... what a relief.

She is 6 months older than him.

Corbin had his 2 month checkup today (Thursday)! He's of course big and tall.  2 months means that he had his first vaccines today, too. :( Well I guess he got one in the hospital, but life was so traumatic then that I don't think he cared. He cares now. I thought I was going to be a hot mess, but I did great!! haha! I felt like a traitor, though, because I was all snuggling with him and he was smiling and then BAM screaming bloody murder as the nurse shot him with that dreadful needle. He shares my sentiments about needles. After she was FINALLY done (no really, it took just a couple seconds) I picked him up and we snuggled some more and he was fine. I nursed him and he promptly fell asleep (the order we do things around here is Sleep, Eat, Awake, Sleep, Eat, Awake. He doesn't ever Eat then Sleep.... thanks to Babywise.) He slept for 3 hours and then screamed like his heart was broken. My heart was actually the one breaking and THAT'S when I lost it and cried a little with him. It was definitely not a cry I've ever heard from him before and it was basically inconsolable. Finally he nursed and when he was finished he cried some more. Unfortunately, we weren't at home so I didn't have any Tylenol to give him so we high-tailed it home so I could give him some, but he fell asleep again as soon as we left and is still sleeping. Those dumb shots are doing a number on him. I know vaccinations are quite controversial these days with more and more people deciding not to vaccinate. I don't really want to get into that here but after much thought and discussion, we decided to go ahead with what my doctor recommends. She made me feel a little better about it when she said she doesn't follow the CDC guidelines exactly because she's a mother and wouldn't do that to her own kids. That's what I like to hear. Her deviation comes at the 1 year shots- she spaces them out more. Anyway.... so tonight we are planning to snuggle and sleep until we all feel all better. Then tomorrow- it's back to work! And by work, I don't mean my job.... I still have 2 more week off. OMG.... 2 weeks is not enough.....

By work, I mean- we are going to start learning how to take daytime naps in the crib. We've been taking a gradual approach to this. I used to rock him to sleep every time and then transfer him to his snuggle rocker. Well when I realized I was rocking him every time and probably shouldn't (I want him to go down for a nap without that "prop") I eventually got him to sleep in his bouncy seat with the vibration on. He was doing great with that - falling asleep on his own after looking around for a while. Well now when it's naptime I am going to try getting him to fall asleep on his own in his crib, instead of the bouncy seat. The bouncy seat is a fine and great place to sleep but what happens when we are somewhere else and it's time for a nap? So that's our next step.
This is the 3rd day I've been writing this blog and today is now the day that we are learning to take a nap in the crib. I was organizing his clothes upstairs and just had him in the swing all cuddled and pacified and he was watching and looking around. Then I watched him falling asleep. I know he would have probably taken a nice long nap in that swing and trust me- I would love him to take a nice long nap right now.... but I said we were going to nap in the crib and I was going to stick to my guns.... So I gently picked him up and wrapped him up and gave him a kiss and laid him in the crib. He has been crying/sleeping for the last 45 minutes now. He will fall asleep but won't stay sleeping. It's not easy letting him cry and keeping him there when I know he would sleep so much better somewhere else! Am I crazy?!?!

Well he's been quiet now for 30 minutes so I'm going to assume he's finally put himself to sleep.... with some occasional encouragement from yours truly. Let's hope he learns this quickly because I am not enjoying it!!!

The First 6 Weeks: 5 Things I Wasn't Expecting After Having a Baby

6 Weeks

Size of Corbin: at one month he was up to 11lb 6 oz and 23 1/2 inches long. Since he's 6 weeks old now, I'm sure he's MUCH bigger

Corbin's new skills: He holds his head up really good, but he's done really good at that since he was born!

What's that chunker eating: His favorite booby milk. Corbin eats on average about every 3 hours for about 15-20 minutes. He takes one bottle a day of breastmilk to get him geared up for when I go back to work... boo. He's usually pretty good with the bottle, but sometimes half of it leaks down his chin. He doesn't seem to mind. (usually)

Getting any sleep: Corbin goes about 6 hours through the night followed by 3-4 more hours after that so I can sleep til 7-8:00. :) During the day he sleeps for about 1-2 hours every 3 hours. My sleep is SOOOOO much better than when I was pregnant!!! I usually go to bed around 10ish and get up once or twice to feed Corbin before I'm ready to get up around 8. It's so marvelous! Of course, once I go back to work I'll have to stop going back to bed after that early morning feeding. boo.

Weight: 175
Weight loss so far: 25 pounds!

Best moment this week: Since we're playing catch up... I would say that first week was probably my favorite. I was so overwhelmed with love that my soreness didn't bother me. Corbin was awesome, very rarely cried and slept awesomely.... I had to wake him up to feed him! More on that later... But this past week, the best moment? hmm... getting my diapers to stop leaking was nice. Also, being able to go outside and go for some walks in the park with my darling babe.
Miss Anything: knowing how to dress.

Wedding Rings: I've been wearing my fake band so I look married, which was a first step, since even that didn't fit at the end! I've gotten my real band on with some effort and would have left it on if I could have gotten my diamond on. Since they are both so nice and shiny I don't want to dull the band before I can wear the diamond. I wasn't able to get that on, which is, I think, a half size smaller than my band. I do wonder if I'll every be able to get it back on. Perhaps when I start losing weight with exercise...
Looking Forward To: being able to exercise so I can wear my clothes again!!!!

Journal:

    I would like to start off with some things I wasn't expecting after having a baby.

1. I was expecting my hooha to be sore for a while after pushing a large body through it, but I was NOT expecting my tailbone to be so sore. In fact, my hooha didn't even hurt hardly at all- just my tailbone! Unfortunately, it STILL hurts, 6 weeks later. I have a friend who also had back labor and tailbone pain following her delivery. I asked her the day how long she had it and she said it still hurts her sometimes. Her baby is 9 months old. NOT COOL!!! I am planning to see the chiropractor to see if anything can be done about that. I just need to call and make an appointment!!! (which is a big deal, if you don't know me.)

2. The day after Corbin was born I realized that my biceps were extremely sore.... like I had done a serious arm workout the day before. I mean really, my whole body felt like I had just run a marathon, and it took me a little to realize why my arms were so sore. It wasn't because I was holding him so much... It was from pulling so hard on those handlebars when I was pushing!!! Yikes.

3. Another thing that was sore the next day was my jaw!  Monday morning it was so sore that I couldn't open it the whole way. As the day went on it got progressively worse. I could no longer eat hard foods, or big foods since I could barely open. I had to shove food between my teeth to get it in. This has since gotten better but unfortunately I still can't open it the whole way. I was definitely NOT expecting it to last this long either! At first I just assumed that I must have been clenching really bad the night before like I do sometimes. I have a nightguard to wear but didn't take it to the hospital and hadn't worn it for a while before when I was pregnant. Usually when my jaw is sore in the morning it gets all better by the next day or so. I don't remember if it was Monday or Tuesday night when I realized why it was still so sore. It was also from when I was in labor! I re-enacted my yelling while telling Corbin's birth story for someone and I jutted my jaw out and WOW that hurt! Still does. So I think it's from being so tense from the pain and I was clenching and jutting my jaw. Bad idea. I was also a little hoarse Sunday and Monday from the yelling. hehehe

4. Ok, this next one, I admit, I was warned about. My friend told me how her hooha smelled so awful after she had her baby. She told me this while I was still pregnant and I responded with, "Yeah, mine already smells wretched!" Which it did! But I tell you what, this is an entirely different kind of smell and it is WAY worse. I guess it's from a pH imbalance. I am very ready for things to balance themselves out because honestly.... it's embarrassingly AWFUL!

5. Finally, I did not think about how hard it would be to dress a post-partum body. I enjoyed dressing my pregnant body because it was fun to show my little then big belly! The great thing is, other people thought it was cute too! The last week or 2 before he was born is the exception because I was getting so big by that point that the cute clothes weren't fitting anymore. Anyway.... the very large majority of my maternity wardrobe was borrowed from my sisters' collection. (that's not a grammatical error, Courtney... there were 2 sisters, one collection.) Well, my sister is pregnant now so I had to give her all those large clothes. That left me with only a couple larger shirts that I had bought early on in my pregnancy and my pre-pregnancy clothes. Before I was pregnant, I had a flat stomach and small boobs. I bought small and medium shirts and usually they showed my flat stomach. Relatively speaking, my boobs are HUGE now and I have a hideous pooch on my stomach that I've never had before, and therefore have no idea how to dress it!!! My shirts are all too tight and/or too short since my larger chest makes them shorter. I am far from comfortable with letting my pooch be seen by anyone other than my husband (i don't even like that!) so I basically don't have any clothes I'm comfortable wearing. We are trying to save money while I'm not working and since we have some nice big bills to be paid, so I wasn't sure about going shopping for new clothes but it had to be done. I got 3 new shirts and 3 new pants. I feel comfortable in those clothes, and my yoga pants and that's about it! So if you see me wearing the same 3 outfits, now you know why! 

Tomorrow is my 6 week appointment with my doctor. I'm kind of excited for it. I'm assuming she is going to tell me that I am cleared to exercise to my heart's content. I have never been so excited to exercise before! It has been SO long since I've done anything other than walk. I hate running, so don't expect that out of me. But Jillian and Shaun T and I have lots of dates that we're anticipating! I've never actually exercised to try to lose weight and inches before. It's always just been to feel better about myself and to not feel guilty about my eating habits. I really hope that it isn't the hardest thing ever to lose the weight and inches. I've been trying to eat better since I'm nursing. My snacks are usually greek yogurt, hard boiled eggs, celery with peanut or almond butter, and banana/pb/choc chip quesadillas. PROTEIN! Of course I'll occasionally have some puppy chow or cookies, but not NEAR as often as I used to. Anyway.... did you see that I've already lost TWENTY-FIVE pounds?!?!?! HOLLAR!!!!!  That was all thanks to Corbin. Unfortunately I still have 25 more pounds to lose to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. My goal is to lose 10 more on top of that. So I will be trying to lose 35 pounds. That really seems like a lot, but my goal is to lose 35 pounds by February 2015 so I think that's reasonable. Is it?? I'm gonna try anyway. I would like to lose the first 25 before winter comes back again. We'll see! Yes we will all see because I'm going to keep this blog going and keeping you updated on my progress. I'm sure it's not as fun to see me lose weight was it was to gain it but it will keep my accountable. Surely, I won't want to keep posting pictures of my flubby body without exercising to try to tone it back up! :) Don't expect weekly pictures though... I know how annoying it can be to try to get a picture of myself every week. Maybe monthly though.

So with those stats up there, that is the average/norm/typical these days. However, Corbin is 6 weeks today and apparently that means it's time for another growth spurt. I hate growth spurts. They frustrate me to no end. Today he's decided that he's hungry every 2 hours instead of 3. That's only one hour of difference you say? It makes a HUGE difference in doing anything else. I'm not content to sit around on the couch watching TV and holding my baby all day long anymore and 2 hours flies by in NO TIME. It's hard to get anything done between putting him back down for a nap and feeding him. It is nice to know that's what's "wrong" though. I don't like fussiness for no reason. He's generally a happy baby except when he's hungry or tired. Ok, you're right... he's often hungry or tired. 

We are full time into cloth diapering now and I am loving it. It makes changing a diaper so much more fun. Laundry is probably my favorite chore so I don't mind the extra work there. And it really makes me happy knowing that I'm not filling a landfill with diapers and wipes, or hurting the atmosphere with trying to burn them. But you know me.... my spirit soars knowing that I am not spending hardly any money. I say hardly because I am buying detergent, which is pretty cheap, but I am using it a lot. Our water is free, and they get hung up to dry. I'm giving myself a little pat on the back, but I know it's not practical for everyone. Or enticing to most. I enjoy it, and think it wouldn't be so bad even for those who think it would be. I also use cloth wipes which are super easy and also cute, since my sister made them for me out of pretty flannel fabrics. I also use baby washcloths since I got a lot of those and go through the stash quickly. :) Now we need more consistent warm sunny days so I can hang them up outside more!!!  I did have my first issue with them about a week ago. They started leaking pee through the cover, not just around the legs. So I stripped them just by washing them over and over again in the washer without detergent and hanging them all up to dry, even the inserts. I ended up with a few that got hard water stains, so Andrew turned up the softener, but they have all worked great ever since! I used to put the inserts in the dryer but since I use dryer sheets for the rest of my laundry I think there was a buildup of softener in the dryer that was getting on the inserts, making them less absorbent. Since I started hanging those up too, I haven't had any leaks! Let's hope that was my last issue with cloth dipering. If they're gonna leak, it's not worth it to me! (after I just boasted how wonderful it is....)

Well, I think that's all I feel like updating for now.... my boys are both sleeping and I think I'd like to join them. :) Have a great week!!! :)