What I Wore Sunday, among other things

And other fragments of the weekend...

 This is to be used for the What I Wore Sunday

I keep forgetting to get the whole body shot...

Dress: Old Jcrew

Necklace: Some store I can't remember in Greensboro, NC

Shoes: Same Paisley Flats from Old Navy

Saturday morning we (I) invited ourselves to the wonderful Offner's for breakfast, they kindly obliged and proceeded to feed and clothe us (Mary Margaret really) while we caught up on the last month + of our new lives...

Sweet Sofia said "Baby" approximately 5000 times

We then made our rounds with the aunts...

Aunt Allison was only making Thanksgiving dinner for... oh, 14 people and dropped everything to hold sweet MM

I didn't get a picture with Aunt Callie, but when we were there we (I) ate popcorn, Almonds, and Thanksgiving leftovers... She was so sweet to feed me (see a pattern here? I do buy/make food myself, promise) and we watched old episodes of Parenthood (amazing show!)

After a long night of 2 hour sleep sesh(s)... compliments of sweet 3M we were up before the sun and I was doing this for about an hour until she finally feel asleep...

Bounce wit me

We sat here and watch 3 episodes of this seasons Glee, she was of course inthralled by the love triangle with Finn, Rachel, and that new super hot guy she's in school with. I'm loving that they have been using some non-current pop songs in the episodes (first time around No Doubt! Awesome!)

How granola is all this baby-wearing i've been doing? I hope she's super attached to me for her whole life. I plan on breast feeding for up to 3 years and pre-chewing her food and feed it like a baby bird just like Alicia Silverstone (yea.. "search engine" that non-sense).

We went to a good friends house for a early Holiday season party. Where Mary Margaret got to meet the Jolly Man for the first time. She was crying the whole time and he was an amazing Santa (apparently the Governor uses him... how fancy) and he made Charlie and I BOTH sit on his lap while we were taking the picture.

We tried to believe it wasn't strange having two grown people sitting on Santa's lap... SC said that when she looks back at the pictures, she won't recognize herself, but will recognize us... makes sense I guess.

If you look VERY closely you'll see that 1/3 of us had an outfit change... someone had an EXPLOSIVE diaper on her super cute Christmas outfit.

Ho Ho Ho.

What I Wore Thanksgiving

So, to humor Mrs. Patton

I'm joining all the cool people at Fine Linen and Pearls with the "What I Wore Sunday" but this is a special addition for Thanksgiving.

I know that is was supposed to do a full length shot, but the one I took I didn't like.

Top: Lauren Conrad for Khols
Jeans: Old Navy Maternity
Paisley Flats (not that you can see them): Old Navy

We began our first Thanksgiving con Baby with a peaceful non-screaming 1.5 hour trip to High Point, NC.

When we got there Gran began her watch of holding her granddaughter for 18 of the 24 hours in the day. While she was baby-holding I got to type this blog post, and watch My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding on TLC, I'm not proud to say that we (I coerced my family to watch it too) watched for 4 hours. I will mention that we don't have cable so we gotta have our guilty pleasure when we (I) can.

Gran and I popped out for traditional (?) Pre-Thanksgiving Chinese food between beers. While we left the boys with the little one. This was the first time that Charlie was left with Mary Margaret, it thank goodness it was a short trip.

Her Highness' sleeping habits were of course disrupted where I was up many hours of the evening because she wanted her Thanksgiving meal early (naturally)

Uncle Daniel was able to get some MM time in, he couldn't get over how cute and little she was. He's going to be amazed at how big she'll be next time he sees her.

She was a little angel of course during everyone else's Thanksgiving dinner, she only required my pinky finger directly in her mouth (not a paci fan) and rocking her for about 2 hours. Easy Peasy. Actually I only ate half of my Thanksgiving meal one handed, apparently it's a must learned skill my new parents (read: usually the moms).

Gran spent her Thanksgiving making everything for the whole meal, with little help from me, Grandpa George, or Uncle Daniel. Charlie was a bit of a help, because he made a really good Apple/Pear Kabob with some topping that was fantastic.

When we finally made it home on Friday afternoon sleeping was fantastic, MM slept in her crib with a receiving blanket swaddle (we have learned that swaddling her legs is the key, we think). And slept a great 4, 3, 3 hour sleep cycle. Before her and Charlie took a daddy-daughter bath. It was nice to try and get on a "schedule", I say that very loosely...

Here is her sleeping next to me as I'm typing this. She's out, and amazingly cute.

Great photography skills

Let me know if you'd like me to come and photography you're next big event...

It's inspiring how much I can not like her when she wakes up multiple times a night, fights her swaddle, wiggle and fights my boob when feeding... and then I fall in love with her all over again when morning comes.

I hope everyone is excited to hear this some multiple times in the next month!! I was excited in July

Our New Typical

Breaking news!  I found this on Pinterest!

This my friends is Wine Ice Cream there is 5% alcohol and is only found in Florida, DC and NY. It comes in something like 5 flavors and is a combo that equals to awesomeness.

In other news, this is now my Saturday looked:

• Woke up after 3 times night time feedings, once that included a sheet and outfit change (Charlie got that one, hehe)
• Sent Charlie out for Frozen Waffles, Cabbage, and Holiday Starbucks ( I got the Gingerbread Latte and Chuckles got the Eggnog Latte, they were both really yummy)
• Watch the Raleigh Christmas Parade while eating aforementioned waffles, 1/2 a banana and some peanut butter
• Continued to watch Christmas Parade while sitting in my mistletoe PJ pants and applying cabbage to my chesty area
• Went to Target - which didn't involve the meltdown that we expected
• Mary Margaret and I look a walk/run where we almost died, but didn't. I did feel like a real person again.
• Took a shower (was working on day 3 without a shower)
• Watched 3/4th of an episode of Friday Night Lights
• Watched 2 episodes of Parks and Rec season 2
• Fought with Mary Margaret to go to sleep for 4 hours

She loved the fall chill in the air

So far today (Sunday) we woke up really tired and went to Mass (our first!!) where she was of course "the" person to see at he end of Mass. We had leftovers for lunch and watched another (2) Parks and Rec episodes.

OK that's all we've done.  

We're going to High Point for Thanksgiving and it will be Mary Margaret's longest trip so far! Get excited and maybe bring some ear plugs.

Now I'm done.

Enjoy your Sunday Funday, or whatever.

Let the games begin

Yes, this is happening.

We are so blessed to have so many friends and family visiting, and coming with very full and tasty hands. It's a good thing I'm breast feeding, because I can eat as many helpings of the yummy foods and drink as I can take, right?

I'm going to get back on the wagon soon, I hope... We do have some frozen dishes that may keep me stuffed until the REAL Thanksgiving. So it may continue

In other, more important news... Mary Margaret only woke up ONCE last night!! It was amazing and may have involved a certain sound machine and lots of feeding earlier in the evening. The night before she slept 5 hours and then woke every 2 hours, but I was still thrilled!

Charlie and I woke up at 1:30 am and just stared at her trying to decide if she was breathing. Charlie had put her down in her crib and gone to sleep in the glider (notably uncomfortable) while I had gone to sleep at 9:00 pm in a huff because she was still cranky after lots of feeding. 

Anyway, not sure if that makes any sense, but she is still alive and only woke up at 2:45 am to nurse and then went back to sleep immediately until she slept until 7:30 am. It was fantastic and I'm sure will not happen again for the next 2 months.

She's slightly confused with the state of my angry nips

So onto my breast issues I'm STILL dealing with 

I had been told to get Mupirocin and use that for a while to see if it would heal the large crack and puss "looking" stuff on my nip.

Well that was a bust, so I went to the midwives and she prescribed me Newman's Nipple Cream. Which you can ONLY get at a compound pharmacy and costs almost as much as it cost to birth Mary Margaret. 

I was told to come back to the midwives if there was not a signifiant change by Friday, so still no improvement, I go in... the lack-luster OB that we saw (note: not a midwive) told us that the only thing he could do is prescribe Difucan in case it was yeast-y and to see what happens, because there is so little research on nipple problems.

I believe that there are SO few people that have few breast feeding/ nipple break down issues, that there should be research or something to tell people what to do when these problems happen.

It could just be that the OB was a crock.

Either way I'm just going to keep using the cream and praying, or I may try some hippy-dippy stuff and get some cabbage to put on the ole' utters.

So, we're about 3.5 weeks in and here are some recent highlights

• Sleeping for long chunks, which I'm sure will cease because I'm certain to jinx myself
• Nearly positive I saw my first -awake- smile. I may continue to cry when I think about it
• Really dislike the fact she has tears now, it makes her crying so much worse for me (always know who is really important)
• Breast Shields are hard to find (at least the local Walgreens and CVS do not carry them)
• My all time favorite daytime with her is right when we're both getting up for the day and the daylight is on her face before and after feeding, it's really when she is looking the most amazing.
• The milk jugs that are attached to me continue to spring random leaks and ruin most-all social situations

 Here is one of the fantastic pictures that my very good friend Meredith took of Her Highness when she was less than a week old. There are others that I'm saving for announcements and other events.

If I don't get around to it, happy gobble day. 

I'll obviously be wearing maternity pants to our event. Why not enjoy it while I can right? 

Although, I am looking forward to the day where I can wear pants with working belt loops again.

Ohh to dream.

Shout out from the cave

Yo All,

I'm shouting out from our cave with my little cub and the beast.

We both thought long and hard about this post

Here are a few things I've learned in the last two weeks...

Note* Most of these things may be an old hat you parents with older kids. Let me vent

1) Breast Feeding is really hard and painful

TMI: I have an infected nipple which means I put ointment on it after every use. I also have to pump that side and feed from a bottle while using the other side like normal. This is very frustrating and time consuming. I was also given supple cups... They are silicone cups to make your nips longer and less troublesome when latching. 

Ohh also, your boobs are going to leak non-stop for weeks. So prepare for that, it's a pain the in ass

2) Your baby stops looking cute all the time

When it's 2 am and your sweet pup is WIDE AWAKE and she's screaming. You're thinking, there is no way she's still hungry, and she has a clean diaper. I don't know what else to do!! Then you cry for 5 minutes and get over it and try to feed her. Then she goes to sleep like it was nothing. 

3) 3 am, you might try to burp your baby in the face

About a week ago, I was sitting in bed after many a long feeding. And started trying to burp sweet girl by patting her in the face, once I realized what I was doing I stopped, but for a second there she was getting sweet little pats to the face.

4) Swaddles are a pain 

No one mentioned that your baby will start fighting their swaddle at like 1.5 weeks. And it was a shock, I thought... well maybe she doesn't like it anymore or maybe we should stop doing it. Ohh and we're down to using the "SwaddleMe" because she can't break out of it, she looks like she's trying to pull a magic trick or something. We were given these amazingly soft bamboo swaddles that I may and probably will use as a scarf because they feel so good. We can't figure out how to use them as a swaddle. So she has really fancy blankets now for the Lamb Swing.

5) Pooping gets "real"

I wish I was talking about baby poops, I'm talking about big people ones. Ladies, if you're about to have a baby, purchase some Ducolax... Because you're going to have hemorrhoids and they are going to be painful and every time you poop it going to be an accomplishment. That is all on that subject

6) I can't tell what smells

Sometimes I think I smell, sometimes I think the house smells, sometimes I have to ask people if something smells and to tell me because I haven't been out of the house for about 3 days and I can't tell.

7) Your baby will start looking like creepy characters

While nursing for the millionth time this hour, I looked upon little Mary Margaret's "flowing" hair and for some reason this person came to mind:

Imagine a sweet baby face with that hair

 She had long hair in the back and very little on top Ok... it's more like a mullet, luckily her eyes don't look like that, mine might..

8) Crying all the time

So I hit on this a little last post, but it happened again and then again... I've cried almost once a day... Other than crying out of frustration and lack of sleep... I started crying when I fed Mary Margaret her first bottle (I'm only bottle feeding her because I'm pumping on the right side... see #1)... it was a step that she wasn't going to need me to feed her forever. That was exciting and sad all at the same time, my little girl is growing up and imagine how much of a mess I'll be when she starts walking and what-not.

OK Ellen is about to come on, so you know where I'll be.