Boondocks

We went to Boondocks yesterday for Corey's birthday, which is today actually but he didn't have to be to work until 6pm yesterday so we took advantage of the situation. We went there for his birthday last year too. Everyone had fun, Bella was just barely tall enough to do more this year. She got to ride in the go-carts with Corey and play laser tag (well I don't think she did much playing but she went in. John got to ride on the bumper boats (boaps as he calls them) which he enjoyed but he was so sad that he couldn't do the go-carts like Bella.











And Phoebe slept in the stroller the whole time, which she seemed to enjoy.

5 Weeks

Legos

Bella and her lego house



And her giraffes



And this one is a t-shirt







And miss Phoebe, who's now one month old

Just stuff

A whole "photo shoot" today and only two pictures worth anything. A bit annoying but I really like the first one so I guess that makes it worth it. It'll be a lot easier once she learns to hold her head up.

And in good news Phoebe takes a pacifier and loves it. I desperately wanted Bella and John to take one (because they were so colicky) but neither would. Bella took nothing and John eventually found his thumb (which he still sucks.) Anyway Phoebe likes hers and anytime she fusses Bella goes running to get ones and quickly puts it in her mouth, really makes my life a little easier. John tries to put it in too but seems to only try while she's sleeping which is a bit counterproductive.

I was looking through old pictures of Bella and realizing how much like Bella Phoebe is starting to look. Before I thought she looked more like John. But when I look at the pictures of Phoebe it doesn't show. It's like she has two looks, the one you see when you look at her and the one that shows in pictures. When I see her pictures I don't see Bella at all but I really see her in Bella's. Don't really have to guess what she'll look like in a few months, probably exactly like the other two.

4 Weeks

Phoebe's 4 weeks old today. She's starting to wake up a little more during the day too. She's sleeping pretty well at night but I'm still not. She does great the first half of the night, I feed her at 1am and then go to bed myself for the night and she sleeps until 5am. After that feeding though she grunts and squeaks and makes so much noise. It seriously sounds like there's an elephant in the room. She's asleep though so there's nothing I can do to stop it, and it's always like clockwork after her 5am feeding. Corey sleeps through it just fine (as he does everything else) but I totally can't. I remember John being a noisy sleeper too but she's worse for sure.

Phoebe is back to puking again too, which is frustrating. Right now my entire life is spent feeding her, pumping 10+ times a day and washing bottles and pump parts. I'm so sick of washing things, and since we're using the Dr. Brown's bottles that just means even more parts to wash. So after all that work I finally get her fed only to have her projectile vomit the whole feeding, it's just really frustrating to say the least.

Bella has become completely obsessed with Lego's lately. We've always had Lego's around the house since she was a baby but she never really played with them. We got the huge Lego castle for them in '06 with all our Pampers Points and still she wasn't that interested but then one day she just started playing and loving them. Now she literally plays Lego's ALL day long, everyday. And she's really good at it too. At first she just did houses and cars and stuff and now she's creating her own animals (that actually look like the animal.) John's getting into it more too but he usually just makes "towers" and then crashes them.

Toddler Fashion

Bella is in love with dressing herself. She always comes up from naptime wearing a totally different outfit than when she went to bed. Last time it was her soccer uniform, complete with shin guards and everything. Anyway I got some tulle on sale and made her a tutu and she loves it, she's been wearing it all day (along with some other weird fashion accessories.) She's too funny. Dress up clothes are definitely on the list of things to get for her birthday and Christmas.



And for a Phoebe update. I guess I spoke too soon about her eating better because she totally stopped eating a couple days ago. After almost 10 hours of her not eating at all I finally managed to get her to take a bottle. So I've just given up on breastfeeding her, the more we tried the worse things got. And any time one small problem resolved itself another bigger one came up. And between her constantly biting me and a bunch of plugged ducts I was in horrible pain anyway. So I'm just pumping full time now, she still gets all breastmilk and I figure that's what really matters anyway. I was having to pump constantly anyway too since she wasn't eating much so not a huge change. And since switching she has started waking up on her own like clockwork to eat during the day and is actually eating, before I was spending almost an hour trying to get her to wake up and stay awake. Plus she's puking less as well and overall just seems happier. Also sleeps one hour longer at night (and when you're sleep deprived one hour is a lot.)

Monster Bus

We were driving around the other day and I saw a sign that said "Monster Bus Rides" which I thought sounded kind of cool. When I looked I saw a monster school bus driving around the Sears parking lot. We of course had to take the kids to check it out, turns out it was to raise money for the March of Dimes. Corey and the kids took a ride on it, and it didn't just drive slowly around the parking lot it drove pretty crazy (I hear it's really quite the ride on the inside.) The kids of course loved it.

3 weeks

Phoebe is 3 weeks old now and doing well. She's finally back to her birthweight and is getting better at eating and even starting to look a little fat to me (which is crazy because she really is still tiny.) Unfortunately she's refluxing and puking a ton which isn't too surprising I'm just hoping she doesn't get as bad as John (actually anywhere near as bad as John.) I now start every morning by doing a full load of dirty baby blankets and giving Phoebe a bath as she seems to puke the most at night. Luckily no colic yet, I can handle the puke but the screaming really gets to me.

My Babies

Tiny

Phoebe went back to the doctor today and she's still tiny. 5 lbs 14 oz (John's birth weight.) I was hoping she'd be back to her birth weight by now but not yet. She is gaining at a normal rate though so no worries yet. Her hair is growing fast, it was long at birth but it's getting longer. At this rate she'll have pigtails soon.

Bella and John got haircuts today, I'll have to take some pictures tomorrow. Bella's turned out so cute too.

Phoebe's video

Update

We're all doing good. Still struggling to get Phoebe to eat, she'll have a good day and then a really bad one. Today has been good, yesterday wasn't. But I'm determined to breastfeed her and she doesn't like bottles anyway so that makes it easier to stick it out. So far she sleeps well at night and only wakes a few times, it's just that it takes so long to feed her that I'm up for an hour or two each time.

Bella and John are doing good and haven't shown any signs of being jealous so far. The newness has worn off and now they don't seem to even notice that she's around really. John's been trying to share his cars with her though.