What a Doll

Yesterday was a rough day.  Drew had his 2 month doctor's visit.  Everything looks great.  He truly is growing like a weed- he grew another 2 inches!!  That means he grew almost half a foot in his two short months of life!  He is now 25 inches long.  He also weighs a healthy 12 lbs. 8 oz.  He is 94th percentile for height and 66th for weight.

You may be wondering how that makes yesterday a rough day... but if you're a parent you may know that with the 2 month visit comes the 2 month vaccines, and if you're a parent I believe you also know how hard it is to watch your poor helpless baby get jabbed in the thighs and scream bloody murder and stare at you like "why are you putting me through this!?"

As if that isn't bad enough, Drew was not a happy baby for a good couple of hours after the shots.   This little guy is a tough one... he generally doesn't cry, and if he does, all it takes is being picked up and bounced a few times to get him to stop, but that was NOT the case yesterday.  He cried and cried, even in my arms, even with me bouncing him, even while I rubbed the soft blanket on him, even with the music playing, even doing all the things that usually get him to stop.  At least it was better than the SCREAMING that came from him if I set him down (a girl's gotta pee at some point!) or stopped moving!

Thankfully he finally fell asleep in his swing (while glaring at me and grumbling his little thoughts about what a mean Mommy I am) and awoke back to his normal self.

While he slept peacefully my friend Cassie dropped by for a visit.  I felt bad that she couldn't hold Drew (I wasn't waking a sleeping dragon!), but she definitely brightened my day by bringing a CD with all the pics from his photo shoot a few weeks ago (he was about 3 1/2 weeks old in these)!  Here are just a few of my faves but check out more on the page "Drew's First Photo Shoot" in the right-hand column.

Why is everyone staring at me?

Does the ribbon look familiar?

Happy family!

Remember my beautiful maternity photos?   Cassie was the one behind those as well.  Be sure to check out her other work here! She does awesome family photos, wedding photography, portraits, head shots, nature photography.... you name it, she does it, and it's beautiful! THANK YOU CASSIE!  And thanks for helping me chill after a rough day!

This time I'M the one LOLing!

Two Monthiversary

Hooray! I'm 2 months old today!

Oops, I think I got a little too excited!

Gotta show what I do best!

Maybe being cute is actually what I do best!

Or maybe it's this!

P.S. I stole the term "Monthiversary" from another Mommy in the blogosphere.  I liked it, so I'm taking it! :)
P.P.S.  Just like my monthly belly photos there is now a "Monthiversary" page in the right-hand column where you can watch Drew grow!

This sucks

Thanks for the great suggestions yesterday!  Now I need your help again.... remember this photo?

That was mostly just a fluke... he got his thumb in his mouth by accident and though he seemed to enjoy it, he didn't really do it again after... until this week.

He started by sucking furiously at his fist, trying to get at his thumb.  He often accomplished sucking both his thumb and forefinger because he just couldn't seem to figure out how to get the forefinger out of the way (he makes such tight fists that his thumb was often stuck between his middle and forefinger).

But he's finally figured it out...

Ahhh... sweet success!

Again and again and again....

I think he's ready to "rock out"!

The nice thing?  He can "self soothe".  He can put his thumb in his mouth by himself; he can't do that with his pacifier.  This means he can put himself to sleep, like yesterday when I put him down in his crib for a nap and walked away when he was still awake- there was no crying, no fussing, just sucking then sleeping.  It also means he can wake up in the morning and suck quietly for a while before fully waking and wanting to eat (giving me just a little more shut eye).

See his neglected pacifier?

The bad thing?  Thumb-sucking is bad for your teeth, right?  And thumb-sucking is a hard habit to break- I know from personal experience.  I sucked mine until I was 8 and my sister sucked her thumb even longer. (Do you suppose there's any kind of genetic factor??)

My question?  Do I try to break the habit now?  Do I pull out the thumb and replace it with the pacifier (a habit that will need to be broken too, but it's easier to throw away a paci than a thumb!)?  Is thumb-sucking truly bad for your teeth?  Maybe Great Aunt Pat has some insight... seeing as how she's a dentist and all.... :D

P.S. Grandpa Simpson is to thank (or maybe to blame) for the title!

Movin' Mama

Ever wonder why you see so many pictures of Drew like this?

No clothes, ma!

It's because, here in Georgia, the temperature has been above 90 (and many days above 95) for the last two months (and more!).  It's so darn hot!  Drew has developed an almost permanent heat rash; even inside, with the air conditioning, it just doesn't seem to get cool enough, so he stays in only his diaper most of the time.

That heat has also been my excuse for not being more active yet.  I've been wanting to "get moving" for a while, but getting to the gym means I need to plan ahead so when I think about it I just keep telling myself, "oh, we'll just take a walk when it gets cooler this evening."  But it doesn't ever really get cooler.  

On the particular evening shown above we thought it was finally a comfortable bearable somewhat tolerable 84 degrees at 8:30 pm.

But now I've had my 6 weeks of recovery time (plus some!) and it's time to get serious because of this...

That?  That's my bridesmaid's dress for my friend Lisa's wedding on September 11th.  September 11th!? Yup, that's less than 3 weeks away (probably pretty darn close to 2 weeks by the time I get this post published!)

Thankfully the dress fits.  Fits is about all I'm going to say though because it definitely doesn't look very complimentary.  I may already be below my pre-pregnancy weight, but my pre-pregnancy shape is nowhere to be found.  Where there used to be (some) solid lines there now seem to be squishy circles and curves. And while some of those circles and curves will probably be part of my "new shape," I'm still hoping to rein things in a little.

So I've made the commitment to hit the gym again.  Stacey, my faithful gym buddy while I was pregnant, teaches right by my house and gym so we've agreed to meet up again on the afternoons that Jason is off from work (so Drew doesn't have to go to the daycare yet).  We've finally been able to get shakin' on the ellipticals again (my fave!  But they were a little too bouncy for a woman with a watermelon for a belly) and we've even hit up a Spin class (talk about a good butt workout!)

And while the cardio is obviously good for me, especially my CF, my main goal is to tighten these abs again.

I left this picture out yesterday because of my wonderful marshmallow belly

My dress thankfully zips up around the belly just fine (believe it or not but the place it doesn't really fit is my chest! I've never had that problem before!), but it hangs funny and sort of makes me look like I'm expecting #2 already. So... Stacey and I are also getting all comfy on the mats for some of these bad boys...

and these...

 and these...

and even some of these...

But I'd love to know your go-to moves for tightening this problem area!

The most beautiful flower in the garden

Before my mom headed back up to Chicago we decided to check out the Atlanta Botanical Garden.  During our wanderings we ran into an older woman, obviously a grandmother herself, who proclaimed, "Look! I've found the most beautiful flower in the garden!" upon seeing Drew.  Now, I know I'm biased, but I'd have to agree.

On the canopy walk

I wish you could see the purple flowers that matched my mom so beautifully

Drew dipping his feet in the splash fountain

He enjoyed it more than he appears to

I can't wait until he's a little older and we can take him back to play in the dinosaur garden! (Or maybe I can... he's already growing too fast!).  The dinosaur garden had a sand pit with buried bones and fossils.  Maybe we'll actually be able to drag Daddy to the garden with us then, too!

Heads Up

Look what Drew is learning to do!  He is growing too fast!

That head is still a little heavy, though!

Groovy Booty

I told Jason we must be becoming hippies... natural birthin', breastfeedin', cloth diaperin' hippies.

Drew is a hippie too!

He says we're not hippies because hippies smell bad (and we obviously don't).  I say we're rebels!  Either that or just too poor to afford anesthesia, formula, and disposable diapers!

So, cloth diapers you may be asking?  First off, take a look! Not the cloth diapers you may be imagining.

They're called gDiapers.  I've talked about them before.  Basically they are considered a "hybrid" diaper.  You have a cloth outer and a disposable inner.  The inner part is biodegradable; all you have to do is rip it open into a toilet, swish with a stick, and flush!  No diaper genie, no landfill mess, no piles of stinky diapers... BUT the biodegradable refills are more expensive than regular disposable diapers (and Jason and I don't have a lot of extra $$ to spare).

But the "gee"niuses at gDiapers came out with the cloth insert (since I last discussed diaper options)!  A perfect choice for us!  No worries about folding and pinning regular cloth diapers, no worries about leaks or plastic diaper covers (the outer shell has a plastic liner inside), and it saves us moolah!

gPant on the left, plastic snap-in liner, gCloth insert on the right

All put together

The biggest inconvenience I've found so far is all the stair climbing I'm now doing!  Instead of having "diaper changing stations" around the house I find it easiest just to change him in his nursery where I keep the pail for the dirty inserts and where I keep the clean and pre-loaded gDiapers.  But hey, I'll have a nice buttocks, right? (YOU try carrying a 12 lb. baby up and down the stairs 5+ times a day!)  Really though, I keep a bunch of the gPants preloaded so all I have to do during a diaper change is take the old one off, toss the insert into a pail and put the new one on.  I toss the inserts in the wash every evening or every other evening, then put them on the line in the morning (or in the dryer if I don't have enough clean ones left over). We installed a diaper sprayer for the particularly messy inserts, but in general breastfed baby poop is water soluble and doesn't need to be cleaned off (or so I've been told).

Is it really more environmentally friendly?  Well, besides the fact that disposables don't break down for at least 500 years (at least that's not as bad as the 1 million+ years it takes styrofoam!), there also aren't as many chemicals used in the production of cloth diapers (or the packaging and shipping!).  I know there is more water waste and chemicals used in cleaning, but I am trying to offset that by using environmentally friendly detergent and by line drying!  (Line drying is supposed to help bleach out any stains too!)  Check out the clothesline Jason and I built:

And does it really save money?  Our initial investment was a bit high.  I paid about $110 to get 6 gPants and 12 inserts on diapers.com (with coupon code workingmom15 for 15% off).  Because I can't resist cute colorful things I bought another gPant in a color I wanted for $15 off Amazon.com (because I had 20% off + free shipping).  Then I also bought another package of 6 inserts for $25 at Babies R Us (I used a $2 off coupon that came in one of my packs of gPants).  So I spent about $150 and I have more than enough gPants and inserts to last me 2 days.  Let's say we go through 8 diapers in a day (fairly average for us).  That's 240 in a month.  A box of 150 diapers costs about $40 making each diaper 27 cents; that's about $65 a month.  So, in less than 3 months we will have paid for our gDiapers.  And unless Drew is miraculously potty-trained by 5 months that means we will be saving money!

Leaks?  Well, so far, yes....we've had a few.

Oops!

I'm attributing it to a) the fact that I bought size "Medium" which fits 13-26 lbs. and Drew is not yet 13 lbs. (It didn't seem worth it to buy "Smalls" knowing that he will be 13 lbs. sooner rather than later).  And b) me still learning to put them on properly.  I've been having less leaks as each day passes.  I'm actually surprised how absorbent the liners are.  They are made of cotton fleece and hemp- the cotton helps keep the moisture off his skin and the hemp absorbs all the liquid.  I actually have a hard time telling if he's wet sometimes!

Overall I'm very pleased with them.  Besides the fact that it saves us money and is better for the environment I haven't even mentioned that he has less diaper rash!  Without all the chemicals next to his delicate skin his diaper rash has cleared up!

And on top of all that they're just so darn cute.  Check out Drew's cutie "g"roovy booty!

Snuggling with Daddy

Drew looks good in green!

Girls, we know you gotta have neutral toned under-garments too, right

 I still want this one though:

Won't help with the money saving aspect :P

We will be still be using disposables when we're out and about, on vacation, or when someone else is watching Drew, but these work for us at home!

Considering cloth diapers? There are so many different types and styles.  Research them and find one that's right for you!