Circle of life.

Well Charlotte's great grandfather, my grandfather, passed away early yesterday morning.  A lot has been going on since everything has happened, and as always Charlotte is a trooper.  I have taken her to my grandmothers house yesterday and today.  My grandmother loves this little girl so much! It is great to see the full circle of life and it is great for me to see how much joy this tiny little baby can bring to others.  I feel so honored to be her mom. 

I am amazingly sad that Charlotte did not get to meet or know her great grandfather, he was and amazing man who gave me so many memories and taught me so many things (including my patented crab cleaning technique that everyone is in awe of lol) He will be greatly missed but we are happy he is comfortable and resting now. 

Me with my grandparents

This was taken earlier today.  Although she is unable to meet her great grandfather, she is blessed to come from a family with amazing women.  This is her with her mom (me), her grandmother, and her great grandmother.  Four generations of great (and pretty) women!

Watching a newborn grow.

Charlotte is six weeks old! It has been a crazy six weeks, I can't believe maternity leave is half over.  I think USA should provide a longer maternity leave for mothers, or at least PAID maternity leave.  FMLA saying they only have to hold my job for twelve weeks sucks.  I def want more time with this little girl.

Everyday Charlotte does something new or discovers something new.  It is so much fun to watch her grow.  She is six weeks old now and has started smiling socially now.  She used to always smile, especially in her sleep, but it was not connected to anything.  Now she smiles at funny faces and funny noises, its the cutest. 

I guess the hardest part about watching a newborn grow is that I am not entirely sure how to entertain her.  I definitely don't want her to be over stimulated or bored, so finding something in the middle is key.  Charlotte really enjoys her art cards.  They are these amazingly cool cards that are black and white cards she loves to look at. 

http://weegallery.com/store/art-cards/

We have the sea collection.  For some reason the octopus one is her favorite! She also loves these awesome wrist rattles that her GG got for her.  She thinks its hilarious every time she moves her wrists and they jingle.  I also sometimes put one on her leg (she is still so small so it fits!) and she loves that! She is constantly kicking her feet out. 

This is her Shocked face she maes while playing with her wrist rattles

She also has a play gym.  She loves it, but she does not like it for too long.  I think it is one of the things that overstimulates her at this young age. 

                                            Chillin in her play gym!                                               

I can't wait to see what comes next! Everyday she does something awesome! She also gets noticeably bigger each day which is fun to watch.  I mostly notice her growth when she sits in her car seat.  It is truly amazing how much she grows!

Sleep when she sleeps.

I don't know who started passing out the "you have to sleep when she sleeps" advice, but whoever made that up either never had kids or completely forgot what it was like to live with a newborn.  Especially a breastfeeding newborn. 

This tiny peanut wants to eat every two to three hours.  Feeding takes an hour, then you have to rock her back to sleep.  Then you have to fall asleep, at that point your lucky if you get twenty minutes, tops. 

Now that she is six weeks old (happy six week old birthday today Char!) she stays awake more often and has more regular sleeping patterns.  Which should make the theory work.  It still does not work, because now I just have piles of laundry staring at me, dinner to cook, a house to clean, showers to take and a dog to walk.  Now when she sleeps all I can think about is how long will she be down so I can get something done. 

Slowly but surely the house is becoming less of a disaster zone.  I will be honest, since she is sleeping in the pack and play bassinet next to the bed, all of her clean laundry is in her crib.  Because she only has a limited amount of clothes that fit her small self right now I'm stuck doing her laundry every few days, so I just dump it in her crib and take what I need when I need it.  But other then that the house isn't too bad.  I am also getting used to less sleep, because I can rest during the day.  I hope that she gets to become a better sleeper when I go back to work in six weeks, otherwise I don't think that I will be any good to anyone.

My sleeping angel.

Everyday we get more and more into a routine, but rarely does this routine involve naps for me.  I will try not to tell new mothers to sleep when they sleep, because it is a load of shit to be quite honest.  Unless you do not wish to eat yourself, have a maid, a cook and a dog walker and never wish to shower yourself it is very hard to do. The most annoying part of this advice (and keep this in mind when talking to a new mother who is exhausted, recovering from a csection and trying to keep her house together) is that when people ask how I am doing, I say tired, but well, which is the truth, everyone single person responds with "well sleep when she sleeps" as if no one, including my doctor, has not told me that.  Next person that tells me this advice is going to get it.  :)

A girl and her dog.

Bringing Charlotte home to meet Dexter, the GIANT dog was very nerve wracking.  While I was in the hospital for days, Adam snuck out blankets and onesies that she was wrapped in and wearing.  Every time he came home to let the dog out he had one with him to let Dexter smell them.  Fortunately we now have extra blankets to swaddle her in as well as some extra shirts that cover her hands up (don't tell the hospital) :)

Well the day came and Dexter did GREAT.  We brought her in the House in car seat and sat her on the dining room chair, which is right as his level.  He sniffed and sniffed and sniffed.  He licked her feet.  He kept looking at us then back at her.  It was like he knew she belonged in the family. 

Due to the C-Section and not having a bathroom on our main level, I set up shop in the bedroom.  In the early days Dex & Adam spent their days downstairs hanging out taking care of things and me so that I could take care of the little one.  Every time she cried and fussed he would RUN up the stairs and wait outside the bedroom door until she stopped.  Needless to say it was adorable. 

As we got more comfortable with having her around Dex (NEVER unsupervised, I am no baby expert and no dog expert, but I'm pretty sure I would never leave any baby around any dog) Anyway, he now spends his days hanging out with me and Charlotte all day.  When we lay in bed, napping and feeding (which I would estimate to be 50% of our days currently lol) he lays with us.  When I'm downstairs cleaning and cooking and doing her never ending dirty laundry he is laying next to her in her swing. I recently gave him a new bone and he went and left it on her swing she was sleeping in for her to have.  It was very cute. 

The three of us go on walks everyday and he has been doing great! Every time we encounter another human on our path he always puts his nose in her stroller to make sure she is ok before they pass us and after they pass us.  He gets concerned when people other then Adam and myself pick her up.  He is protective and clearly loves his new baby.

I hope that he loves her just as much when she gets older and pulls on his tail and dresses him up in princess garb.  We shall see.

See how I grow!

Charlotte had her 1 month doctors appointment last week and she grew almost two inches and gained a pound! She was weighing in at 6lbs 4oz. She also had her second PKU and second Hep B shot.  She was not impressed with either and screamed and screamed.  I thought everyone in the waiting room was going to call the police on me because she did not want to stop screaming, but she recovered well and is doing great. 

She is growing so fast that I don't want to miss anything so we decided to take her picture every month basically doing the same thing, with her bunny as a marker.  (This is  great idea, I know, sadly I can not take credit for it, I have seen it everywhere, people use all sorts of things to measure growth in pictures and some people even have adorable onesies with their month age printed on it! I am not that together to do that, but I wish I was lol) You can already see how she has grown and I can't wait to see all of her pictures back to back! Below are the first two, check them out and be in love with my adorable child!

Here she is at about one and a half weeks old after we got home from the hospital:

Here she is at one month old:

(doesn't she look just like Adam in this pic?)

Welcome to the World!

I propably should have started this blog a long time ago, but I have learned having a newborn makes it quite difficult to get things done. This is the story of life with Charlotte. I hope that it helps us document her growing up as well as keep family and friends who can't always be around involved in her life. I feel like I should first start with Charlotte's birth story.

  On June 13th 2012, I was getting dressed for work. I had taken a shower and put on my makeup and was just about to blowdry my hair when my phone rang. Seeing it was the doctor I answered. My doctor was on vacation, and it was the doctor filling in. She said she got the lab results of my 24 hour urine test back and told me I had high protein levels and asked that I come in to the office. So before work I stopped by the office.

At my doctors office I was informed that due to my ongoing high blood pressure and protein in my urine, I had preeclampsia. Since my due date was only a week away the doctor made the decision to induce me THAT day! After she told me I would be inducded I headed into work to clean off my desk (it was a mess!), wrap things up and change my voicemail and email to say I would be out of the office until September! I left work early that day and decided to get a pedicure and head home to pack and relax. Adam left work early and met me at home and then we drove to St. Agnes. At six pm we were all checked in and the induction process started. I did not progress well overnight on the cervadil, but in the morning they let me eat some rice krispies and started the pitocin drip. I eventually ended up with an epidural and we waited things out. Two hours after the epidural I was having intense pain again and felt like pushing. The doctor checked. I was almost fully dialated, but she instructed me NOT to push because the baby had flipped over and was breach.

The doctor told me I was going to have a C-Section. They threw some clothes at Adam, told him to change and that they would be back to get him in ten minutes. In those ten minutes they drugged me up and moved me to the OR. Adam soon came in the OR to joine me and I felt pulling and tugging on my stomach, and what felt like only a minute later, I heard crying, and then a nurse brought me Charlotte, and she was PERFECT.

At 1:41 pm on 6/14 Charlotte entered the world weighing 5lbs 6.8oz and 18inches long, everyone was thrilled to meet her. Her birth did NOT go as planned. I was bummed that we did not get to follow the birth plan and upset that I would be in the hospital for longer then expected and have a longer recovery, but everytime I see her face I am so excited to be with her, that none of it matters and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. We left the hospital on June 18th and Charlotte was able to come to her house and meet her puppy Dexter. Since then it has been a wild ride already!