Baby's 1st Road Trip (Part 2)

5 days later we are finally home. Phew!!! 5 days away from home, away from creature comforts and all the stuff you know at arms length is not only tough to begin with, it is even tougher when you have an infant who is still trying to take all of it in. But we survived................barely!!!!

We drove out to Gammy and Poppas house on Thursday afternoon and had dinner and spent the night. we got a real early start on Friday morning after packing the motor home. When arrived in Folsom around 5pm ish. A quick unpack and clothing change and we were off to Larry and Ritas house for dinner. Here is where the trouble started......

Sophia has been having a hard time with gas bubbles and producing a loaded diaper. Lets just say the plumbing is backed up. She literally screamed her lungs out for 3 hours while we were over there trying to have dinner. Dan and Poppa went to Walgreeens to get some Gripe Water to help settle her stomach. And although it helped slightly, it wasnt until shje made one of those Luvs diaper commercial diapers where the babies compete for 1-10 scores for how big they can poop in their diapers did she finally settle down. She then proceeded to stay up till 1am and Gammy took the first shift rocking her and trying to get her to dose off. Daddy and I took the rest of the night. Up 2 or 3 more times and we finally finished night number one.

While there we got to see my sister in law and her kids. Gabriel was so excited to meet his cousin Sophia. He remembers from Christmas that I had a baby in my belly. He asked if the baby had finsihed eating in my belly and that was why she came out. So cute, so innocent. Better yet when he saw Sophia, he patted my belly and said it was beautiful and sooooo small. Gotta love kids...... they never lie! LOL We also got to go shopping at the outlet malls. Lots of fun.

Night number 2 was a repeat of night number 1. Gammy was up till 1am on that shift and then Daddy and I took her again. More crying, more fussiness, more burps, farts, explosive diapers and hiccups. This poor kid. She is a walking gastronomic disaster. She can burp and fart witht he best frat brothers it is ridiculous. She clears a room even. Poor baby, her stomach has got to be in knots.

Daddy and Poopa did worl in the yard, what we call the back 40. It is an acre and a half estate with tons of trees, bushes, flowers, rose garden, vegetable garden, compost heaps, tool shed, patio and veranda for sitting under in the mid day sun. Just beautiful. I call it my happy place. It truly is the garden of eden.

Night number 3 was better. Sophia slept inb cycles and gave us little trouble. When she did finally wake up and was fussy I went our into the living room and let her sleep on my chest in the lazy boy recliner. It was actually kind of cute.

Monday was a quick pack and back in the motor home. Oh no!!!!! Severe weather alert. Snow in the Grapevine. We are trapped. Can't get home. Time to take the scenic route through Pao Robles, down to the 101 and around to Santa Clarita. It added 4 more hours to an already 7 hour trip but we had the motor home and it made it more comfortable. So off we went on our final adventure home. We stopped in Buelton at Pea Soup Anderson's for dinner and then it started. Crazy angry Sophia came out and she screamed the entire meal.  We all took turns taking her out side and upstairs away from the rest of the patrons so she didnt disrupt theor dinner. A quick toss of the food into to go boxes and we were out of there. The rest of dinner will have to be by over head light in a styrofoam box via motor home. No big deal we can survive. 3 hours to go to get home. And more crying and screaming. She fussed and screamed on and off the remaindser of the time. We got back to Santa Clarita around 10pm. Straight to bed we all went, even Sophia. She had cried herself out. Up 2 times in the middle of the night with mommy for diapers and feeding and our last night wasnt so bad.

Up early to unload the motor home and clean up. It was a good day. Going home tonight after dinner. Looking forward to my own bed and some staying at home time.

Baby's 1st Road Trip

The story of little Red Riding Hood is about a young girl who heads out to her Grandmother's house and the trouble she gets into along the way and when she arrives. We are living that fairy tale this week. Sophia's 1st road trip is this weekend. We leave on Thursday afternoon and in fact we ARE heading to Grandmother's house (that would be Gammie's house in Northern California to be exact). We seem to have packed everything but the kitchen sink. Literally. Thank goodness we are taking the motor home instead of a car. This gives us more room for our stuff and a lot more space for feedings, rockings, walkings, diaper changes, play time and anything else Sophia can throw at us. Keep your fingers crossed for us that it goes well!

Post Partum Depression

Many women suffer from post partum depression after having a child. While I do not feel that this pertains to me (at least not yet as I have not shown any symptoms), I can understand and sympathise with the women who do. Having a child is an emotional and physical roller coaster. You lose your identitiy in the process, you body is no longer yours, you experience emotions you never had before. There may be regret, fear, anger, resentment, love, hate, helplessness and the list goes on and on.

Having a fussy baby or a baby with colic can compound these symptoms. This I do know as Sophia has been exerting signs of colic but does not meet all the the symptom requirements to be diagnosed as such. Lots of late nights, 1 am feedings, screaming and crying. It is absolutely exhausting. I do not know how moms before me have done it. I find myself at wits end some nights just praying she will sleep even for a minute so I can get some down time. Only time will tell as to whether or not she has colic. I am hoping it is just a phase and it all blows over.

Baby's 1st Starbucks

Today we ventured out to Starbucks. Baby's 1st Starbucks that is. I ordered my favorite a passion fruit iced tea lemondae, Dan ordered a strawberry smoothie, we shared a Bistro box for snack and Sophia, well Sophia took her milk mommy made, full caf, full fat, frothed and warmed, no whipped cream, LOL. We hung out for around 2-3 hours. Dan and I got some much needed WI-Fi time to check emails, Blog and surf the web. Sophia on the other hand just slept. She does a lot of that during the day. We try to keep her up and make her sleep at night but that doesnt seem to work very well. I read somewhere that babies sleep as much as 18 to 20 hours a day. Wow! That is the exact amount of time that Bandit our dog sleeps. Maybe she would sleep better at night if I let her curl up next to Bandit in his bed??!! LOL They can be bunk mates. Last night was fantastic. If there was a reward program for 1 month olds I would be rewarding my daughter for allowing us to sleep last night. She went down at 10pm, was up at 12am to 1am and then up again at 4am until 4:45am and then up at 7am this morning. Wow! Up only twice last night. That is the most sleep Dan and I have gotten since she was born. I feel like a new woman today. What a little sleep will do for you. Thanks for all of the kind words and prays for Sophia to sleep. God is a good and soverign God. He hears our prayers and answered them. Now if we can have that every night. LOL I know it's unrealistic but a girl can dream cant she??!!

Colic

Colic is an evil word. It is an even more evil condition. While Sophia does not have colic per say, she has terrible gas bubbles that are excruciatingly painful and she has made this very clear to her Daddy and I. My little girl is in pain, she cant tell me where it hurts or how to fix it and there is not much I can do to help her. This feels debilitating. Dan and I are not getting any sleep. I rarely get a chance to blog and check email let alone feed myself or shower. She is so needy at night and stays up the entire time. She just wants to releive herself of these air bubbles but doesnt have the ability to do it herself so she constantly needs to be rocked, patted, burped, rocked, bounced and cradled. This is killing me. I feel like a failure as a parent. No parent wants their chikd to feel like this or to go through this. I feel like I am doing something wrong. We are not sleeping as a result of it, we are irritable, argumentative and frustrated. We argue more now than we have our entire marriage. And let me remind you, arguing at 4am after no sleep with a screaming crying baby in your ear is not the fair kind of arguing you want to do. You say things you dont mean, you are more vicious than normal and you dont remember a darn thing the next morning. Ooops! Not good, not good. Everybody keeps saying this will go away. People say it will be a month or two. Others say no big deal, this wont last. Great then why dont we just skip it all together and forget the whole thing rather than it continuing. This sucks. I have no idea how single moms do this. If it wasnt for Dan taking half the night and me taking the other I might just collapse. Please pray for us and Sophia that she gets over this quick and we survive.

Baby's 1st Valentine's Day

This year I am doubly lucky. I had 2 valentine's..... my hubby and my baby girl. My mother-in-law got Sophia a onesie that said baby's first valentine on it and Sophia wore it proudly. Daddy and I followed suit and wore red shirts for the day as well. We went out to dinner to my favorite Chinese restaurant and she slept the whole time. She is such a good baby she just has a hard time at night with air bubbles and it keeps her up most hours of the night.

I got a Valentine's card from my hubby and Sophia gave daddy a valentines day card and a custom mug with her picture on it.

All in all it was a great Valentine's day. Can't wait till next year rolls around.

Red Finger Nail Polish

I'm not talking about picking your favorite shade of red, or finding out what red goes best with your skin color. I am simply talking about plain old red finger nail polish. As a new mom I have found absolutely no time for myself. Not even for pit stops. I knew this was coming but I never knew to what extent or how bad and it is bad real bad! All I wanted to do was to paint my finger nails red for Valentine's Day. Not a huge request. And free at that since I was going to do it myself here at home. But to find the time???!!! What time. It took me 4 days to plan it and 2 days to finish accomplishing it. (I walked around for a whole day with only one hand painted). Yikes. How crazy is that. I sure hope I don't have anything important up and coming. I would never find the time, the resources or the ability to get anything done in preparation for it.

The Jealous Dog

We have a 20 pound Pug named Bandit. He is 11 years old. I have had him since he was 2. He was a rescue dog of sorts. He has always been good with other pets, people and kids and still is. He has been fantastic with Sophia and seems to be very protective of her so far. But I have to admit, I know he is jealous. Bandit normally curls up and sleeps right next to me at night on the bed. I have not been allowing him to do that since Sophia got here because of the c section. I am still very bruised and sore and my stitches are still hurting. I am afraid he will roll over onto me in the middle of the night and I cant chance that. So I make him sleep at the edge of the bed and I think he feels like he is being punished.

He loves to sit in my lap during the day as well. That got a little hard to do towards the end of my pregnancy as I got so big and there was little lap left! LOL Now there is more lap available it is just sore and I have to be very careful where he sits and how hard he leans up against me and my stitches. I get that Bandit does not understand any of this but he knows something is up. I just feel bad that things are not normal for him around here and he has a new alien in the house to deal with to boot. He has got to be jealous. So as I sit here writing this to you, Dan has Sophia and I have the dog..... curled up, in my lap, asleep. Its ok Bandit, mommy loves you!

Gripe Water... Nectar of the Gods

Sophia has been real fussy lately at night. She has been getting up all hours of the night and fussing with gas and hiccups. She will keep us up and hour or two at a stint and just wail her lungs out. It is heart wrenching for me to hear her be so shrill knowing she is uncomfortable and in pain. It hurts my heart.

Enter my sister Cindy and harmonious angel harp music here. Cindy taught me about gripe water when she had Faith. It helps with bubbles, gas, indigestion, colic and hiccups. Exactly what Sophia is fighting right now. So we picked some up at the store yesterday and make sure she got some before she went to bed last night. It worked like a charm. She only got up twice last night. She fussed much less and didn't have a lot of air bubbles. Thank goodness. We all slept well last night as a result of it. So incredibly thankful, so incredibly thankful!

So much to write, So little sleep!!!!!

Sophia is now 13 days old. Oh my gosh. It is already going by so fast. The days have blended together, I dont know what month we are in or what day of the week is. Dan and I have become so sleep deprived it is ridiculous. We are trying to take shifts at night when sophia gets up. Her usual routine is 10 or 11pm, 1am, 2am, 5am and 8am. Unfortunately this is not set in stone and she has decided to stay up indefinately from 1am to 5am and it is killing us. I am beginning to think that she is developing colic. Crap. Not good. This could get dangerous from Dan and I real quick. Looking for some help and some great advice. What do we do now????

My mom came last week to help out. Huge help. Gave me some down time and let me sleep a bit. A week by ourselves and then Dan's parents are coming out for 4 days to help. Thank God. I cant say how important all the extra help is. I would go insane. And I need my naps. Let me stress that...... I NEED MY NAPS!!!!!!

Now lets just hope the few nights we have her alone with no help she actually sleeps.