We have a winner!

Well, maybe we have a winner. My lactation consultant recommended I try to go dairy free to help improve Charlotte's spitting up. I kept trying to make it a day without dairy, but I'd end up not thinking about it and having cheese on accident. Basically dairy is in everything. Vegans are far more disciplined than I am! So I decided to try those pills you take when you eat dairy to break down the lactose.

I had a pill with my dinner last night and again with my dinner tonight and so far the spit up seems to be improved.

Right now my mom is cooing the Jeopardy theme at Charlotte who seems to be enjoying it as she's cooing back. I felt the need to mention this since it's adorable.

For people who have read my blogs for awhile, you're probably familiar with my "3 things a day" rule. Basically I try to keep my day to 3 things. I define a thing as being stuff you do in one location or stuff that can be grouped together. Like today, I had lunch with a friend (thing 1), ran a few errands (thing 2), and cleaned the kitchen and cooked dinner (thing 3). Normally this would be a pretty reasonable day. But with a baby running errands is 1. finding parking, 2. getting out the stroller, 3. loading the stroller with the carseat and diaper bag, 4. shopping for what I need, 5. consoling crying baby, 6. going back to the car, 7. putting the stroller away, 8. feeding the baby in the drivers seat, 9. changing the baby's diaper, 10. putting the baby back in her seat, 11. reinsert binky, 12. drive to next place, 13. repeat things 1-12.

This is like 1000 things. This leaves me exhausted. So I need to either limit my day to one of my original "things" or I need to allow myself more things in baby terms. This makes it rather hard to get anything done. Parents of older kids tell you that you won't sleep and you'll be nuts until your kids are 18, but they never tell you that you will also be unproductive for that amount of time too!

3 months and working with momma

At the mall after mom trying new lipstick.

Charlotte turned 3 months yesterday. I was going to do a facebook update, but I've been so busy that I didn't have time! Actually, I hadn't really thought much about how ridiculously busy I am until I was sitting in my weight watchers meeting today.

My leader was talking about how everyone has 5 minutes here or there to exercise...while they're watching tv, while they zone out on facebook, that sort of thing. I started to think about this and realized I kind of don't have 5 minutes to do anything. My day is a combo of trying to get anything done at all and taking care of my baby. Most of the time I end up spending more time on taking care of Charlotte than anything else and even though I get things done it doesn't feel like it most of the time. Sure I could do my shake weight, but then I couldn't update my blog or reorganize my makeup, or clean on the rare occasions that I have time. I think 5 minute workouts here and there are for moms of babies that can entertain themselves or sleep more than 20 minutes at a time.

3 months old and
already posing for topless
pictures! that's my girl!

Today was the first day that I took Charlotte to work with me. I have it worked out where I have students to watch her while I'm teaching for most of my lessons. I haven't quite figured out the whole pumping and breaks thing since I set my own hours, but it didn't go too badly and my students are pretty happy to have her sitting in. Honestly working moms, I don't know how you do it. I feel stressed out by working 3 hours  two days a week!

This weekend I have the last wedding of this year to attend and then we have to repack our mess of a storage pod. We're also going to look at a house that I'm really excited to see. I think it will help keep us motivated to get on track with our finances so we can hit the ground running to buy a house as soon as possible.

Almost 3 Months

It's hard to believe that Charlotte will be 3 months old in three days. The last few days have been busy but so rewarding as Charlotte has discovered her voice. She's been cooing for awhile, but it's been kind of at random. Now she can be upset and we can convince her to be in a good mood. She's also started to be more aware of her hands. We got her a teether that she's more than happy to shove in the general direction of her mouth with both hands.  I took several videos today of her cooing and talking. It's pretty fun!

Last week she hit her milestone of rolling over on her own. She hates being on her tummy too long and honestly with so much going on we've been neglecting her tummy time. I'm glad that she's still developing properly. She's rolled over one more time, but hasn't done it again since. I'm definitely more motivated to give her tummy time now though!

Charlotte in the sweater I knitted before she was born.
Glad it finally fits!

I'm taking her tomorrow to mom group and I'm looking forward to talking to the lactation specialist. Charlotte has had pretty bad spit-up issues. I took her to cranial-sacral therapy twice and she seemed to be doing better, especially with the weather cooling off, but today it was right back to where we started. She was even spitting up clear liquid rather than the usual milky stuff. My sister looked it up and we're pretty sure she has acid reflux. I've been avoiding feeding her rice cereal and for reasons I can't really pinpoint, and I haven't filled her prescription for acid reflux because I wanted to try to improve her spitting up without the use of medications. I'm hoping the lactation specialist will either validate her doctors suggestions or offer some other ideas for how to help her. In the meantime, it's at least good that she's growing!

Charlotte isn't screaming in her bath bucket! This is a huge
improvement!

Trying, unsuccessfully, to eat her rubber ducky.

Camping and Rolling Over

I'm sitting here updating Charlotte's baby book after neglecting it after so many weeks of activity. Charlotte hit a milestone today by rolling over from her belly to her back for the first time today. It was kind of amusing actually. I had put her on her tummy (which she typically hates) and she started fussing, but then she saw football on the tv. I turned her so she would have to lift her head more to see it, and then she flipped. When she landed on her back her eyes were wide and her arms were spread like someone had pushed her unexpectedly. I was so excited I tried to put her back to get a video. Unfortunately she still didn't like being on her tummy and screamed bloody murder, so I gave up and picked her up to console her.

This last weekend we attempted our first camping trip as parents. It was fun spending the weekend with fellow new parents Zach and Sarah and baby Amy. Amy is about 4 months older than Charlotte. It was cool to see the differences in development and to spend time with an older baby for a prolonged period of time, even if it was outside of her normal environment. I feel like I have lots to look forward to! Camping went pretty well other than the weather. Here I thought that planning our camping trip in September would give us the advantage of skipping the heat. Instead we end up in the elements on one of the hottest days of the year...which would have been okay if there was somewhere to swim, but our campground was lacking. Once it cooled down, it was fairly pleasant. We're hoping to try to squeeze another camping trip in before the weather gets cold and wet again.

We're starting to get a bit more settled at my parents now. Paul and I spent some time today trying to clean up our storage pod and the garage. There's still quite a bit of stuff to find a place for, but it's coming along slowly. I have to keep reminding myself that everything will be the same tomorrow and I can take my time cleaning and putting things away. Hopefully in the next few weeks we'll be back into some semblance of a routine again and we'll have homes for all our things.