On Monday, with
last week’s “all-clear”, I started up my new diet and exercise plan. I have a
series of programs by a trainer that I really like, Lindsey Brinn, and I’m
starting off with her “Post-Natal Boot Camp” program. It worked really well for
me in the past, so I’m hoping to see the same results. As far as dieting, I
won’t necessarily be restricting myself, just watching what I eat and making
some better choices. Now, we’ll have to see how things go. I’ll have to first
see how my foot holds up. It’s been 7 weeks since the break, but it’s still
fairly sensitive and I don’t want to risk any permanent damage. And, we’ll have
to see how my milk supply handles the changes. I won’t risk nursing, and
eventually pumping, issues to lose weight. For today, I got my workout in, even
with the 3 girls home, so go me! The big girls spent most of the morning
playing dress-up and acting like princesses (seriously, TOO much diva in our
house!). After naps, we all made our way up to the park to play for a while.
Eliza actually took a little snooze (with the help of a pacifier, for a
change!), so we were able to stay for quite a while. I’m not sure if I’ve
posted about it at all, but none of our girls have taken a pacifier. With
Olivia, we thought it was our choice
to be pacifier free. I never wanted to battle trying to take it away, so we
weren’t going to allow her to have one. Turns out, she really just never needed
one, she was so dang easy. Amelia was a HUGE comfort nurser, but we didn’t want
to cause any of the dreaded nipple confusion, so we withheld the pacifier.
Eventually, we had to start giving her a bottle of pumped milk in the evenings
to break up her cluster feeding. That went well, so we thought we’d give in and
try a pacifier as well to help her learn to self soothe a little bit. No matter
how much we tried, she would not take it. Sometimes I could slip her off the
breast and onto the pacifier swiftly enough to get her to sleep, but that was
about it. With Eliza, we’ve pretty much been trying to get her to take a
pacifier from week 1. I could tell immediately she was going to be another
comfort nurser. We tried the soothies (which it seems EVERY baby takes), for quite
a while, to no avail. We’re now trying Avent, and it’s going a little better,
but it’s still a struggle. I know that in the long run, just like with Amelia,
we’ll one day be very happy if she doesn’t take a pacifier, to never fight the
battle of taking it away, but it’s still frustrating. Nevertheless, she let me
hold it in her mouth long enough to doze off for a while, and that’s really
what I want it for. The rest of the evening was pretty standard…dinner,
baseball and bedtime.
Tuesday was a rough
day. I woke up just completely exhausted, my entire body ached from yesterday’s
workout, my head was completely stuffed up (PLEASE be an allergy thing and NOT
a cold that I could pass on to baby) and my eye is hurting pretty bad, and
seems a little swollen. Again, hopefully an allergy thing that will go away. To
top it off, Eliza was NOT a happy camper today. She was absolutely miserable,
all day long, with nothing but cat naps. Not sure what is going on with her,
but hopefully it passes quickly. It ended up being a very, VERY long day. But,
I did get my workout in (barely), so that is a major plus in my book! While I
had myself a quick, healthy dinner, Christian picked up food for the rest of
the house because I was way too exhausted.
Wednesday was not
as tough as Tuesday, but still not great. I was feeling a little better, but Eliza
is back to nursing pretty much all day, and was really fussy every time I tried
to feed her. Again, I just barely got my workout in today, but of course, I’m
starting to worry that her new nursing issues are related. It could be a growth
spurt though, so we’ll see how the next few days go. I picked the big girls up
today with a little picnic in hand and we met Christian at baseball. We quickly
made our way home after baseball for the premier of Big Brother. This is
absolutely my all-time favorite show, so the wait for it to come back every
summer is so painful. When we first bought our house and signed up for cable we
had some movie channels for a free trial period. We had Showtime, which showed
“Big Brother After Dark” where you could watch the “houseguests” for a few
hours late at night…I became obsessed, I’d be up WAY too late, it was
ridiculous. Yeah, it’s sad, but I don’t care. I love this show, and that was my
excitement for the day!
LOVE our sunflowers!
Thursday was again
a successful day in the workout department! Yes! It was the hardest day by far
though. I was cuddled up with Eliza in bed, trying to get her down for a nap,
and definitely did not want to get up when she finally dozed off. Who wants to
leave a cuddly bed with a super cuddly baby to work out?!? Not this lady. You
better believe I crawled right back in once I finished cooling down afterwards!
My aches and pains are going away, and I’m feeling much better than I did when
the week started, but my eye has continued to swell, and is getting pretty bad.
I took a Claritin yesterday, and it did help clear my head up, but didn’t seem
to help with the swelling at all, so I don’t think it’s allergy related. We’ll
see how things go tomorrow, I may be heading to Urgent Care tomorrow night if
it doesn’t start looking better. It hit me today that Amelia’s birthday/party
is in a month. A MONTH. I haven’t done any planning or preparing, which is so
very unlike me. Time to start cracking the whip and get this thing planned! So,
between feedings and baby play time, I made some party invitations up and sent
them to Christian to print off at his work for me. Just have to get them
addressed and sent out, it’s going to be here before I know it!
My Throwback photo this week, in honor of getting Olivia's baseball pictures this week, a comparison to my first t-ball picture. SO crazy.
Resting with by babe. She makes it hard to get out of bed!
Friday was a pretty
rough day. My eye is definitely no better…still very painful and actually
almost swollen shut now. The big girls were home with us today, so it was tough
trying to handle everything, but we just pushed through as much as we could.
Christian always works really late on Friday, so luckily my mom came over to
watch the girls so I could get to Urgent Care right when they opened. I was
going to bring Eliza with me, thinking on a Friday night, in the summer, it
shouldn’t be too bad, but my mom said it should be fine. They were going to
walk up to the park, and Eliza likes to be outside, so I figured she’d survive
for a short time. I arrived at Urgent Care a bit after they opened and the
waiting room was pretty much empty. But, I was still told it was going to be
about an hour wait. WHAT?! Apparently two kids had come in needing stiches, and
the Urgent Care nurse had not shown up yet, so everything else was basically on
hold. I was so mad, but what can you do. They finally brought me back, checked
me in, and after another short wait, the doctor finally came in. After a quick
exam, she checked out my eye and said it appeared I have a scratch on my eye,
and it’s causing an infection. She started me on antibiotics, which was also
quite an ordeal, and sent me on my way. I cannot have the penicillin line, and
breastfeeding limits the medication I can take even more, so it took a while
for her to decide what I can take most safely. By then, the pharmacy at the
clinic was closed, so I had to have the prescription sent to Target. I was
getting too nervous about being away from Eliza, so I decided to head home and
make Christian pick up my prescription on his way home. I relieved my mom just
as she had gotten home and changed Eliza’s diaper…and just as she started getting
fussy and hungry. She left, I fed the baby and we settled in for the night.
Christian grabbed some dinner and stopped at Target on his way home, and we
were all pretty exhausted by bedtime.
On Saturday, we
were up and ‘em bright and early. We had breakfast, got ready and packed up our
bags for the day. First up, we were off to swim class…my first outing with my
horrible swollen eye. I was getting plenty of creeped out looks, which was
pretty awesome. While is still looked horrible, I will say, it was already starting
to feel better. Thankfully this clears everything up quickly. After swim class
and showering off, we were all off to Game Day. Game Day, as I’ve explained in
years past, is our annual “family reunion”, where my Dad’s side of the family
gets together. We have a croquet tournament, play other various outdoor games,
eat lots of junk food, order pizza for dinner and spend the day laughing,
chatting and catching up. Eliza did really well…she actually let a few people
hold her, and she slept quite a bit. She LOVES being outside. The big girls had
a blast playing with all of the other kids, and were beyond exhausted by the
time we left. It was our first Game Day without our grandparents, which felt
pretty strange. You could definitely feel something missing from the day, and
it was kind of the big white elephant in the room for all of us. But, it was
still great to get together. All of us cousins got to go through some of our
grandparents’ stuff, which was really nice. The girls each found a few things
to bring home, and I collected some holiday decorations my Grandma had made.
Just a few things to remember them by. I spent a little time inside nursing
Eliza, but we did give her one of her first ever bottles in the evening to give
me a little break, and tide her over for a while. She ended up falling asleep
around 7:00, just as the tournament was coming to an end. Also just as some
storms started rolling in. We packed the van up, said our goodbyes and made our
way home. Amelia passed out on the way home and went right to bed. Eliza was
still asleep when we arrived home to, so we let her be. We let Olivia watch a
video while I unpacked our travel bag. She was off to bed, Christian passed out
on the couch and I folded a load of laundry while watching some TV, waiting for
Eliza to wake up. By 10:30 she was still knocked out, and I was getting
exhausted, so I took a risk and went to lay down and catch a few z’s. I woke up
around 1:00, and she was still fast asleep, and I was VERY uncomfortable, so I
decided to pump and hope she didn’t wake up right away. I ended up pumping
8oz’s, by far the most I have every pumped in a sitting, and made my way back
to bed. She didn’t end up waking up until around 4:00. I couldn’t believe it!
Apparently some fresh air really does a baby good!
The trinkets the girls collected from my Grandparents' house.
The Garden, when planted, and today. Growing like crazy!
Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Zucchini
Tomatillos
Strawberries
Pumpkins
Our beautiful lilies, my favorite!
Until Next Week XOXO
