Category Archives: Parenting

Wolfie: Month Three

March 30, 2017

Man, what a month this has been. It feels like it flew by but I think it’s mostly because I wrote his “2 month” post pretty late, so it FEELS like the month was just between baby posts. I said it once and I’ll say it again, each day he becomes more and more human like and more and more massive.

Wolfie is now becoming an infant- not a newborn, but a full blown functioning baby. It’s pretty exciting! The crying is much less, he tries to talk, grabs things, and is drooling…a lot. The scary thing is how fast he is growing. I think I can say he is growing at a not-so-normal pace. He is now wearing 6-9 month clothing…. at 3 months! I could kind-of wrap my head around him wearing 3-6 month clothing at 2 months. I mean that isn’t too far away, right!? It was just a few weeks early! Today I grabbed a footsie jammie that was warmer but larger in size since it has been pretty cold. I figured it would be baggy on him, but it actually fit really nicely. At this rate he will be a full grown adult by the end of the year.

It is too early to be happy about booze.

All of his rapid growing has actually taken a toll on me. I guess little Wolfie is growing so fast that he has been waking up after only 4 hours of sleep for midnight feedings. This led to me being sleep-deprived, and a sleep-deprived me leads to crying me. At one point I went out for grocery shopping, and it was just a bad day. I was expecting a day off from watching Wolfie, but my Mom cancelled. I didn’t get any continuous sleep like I normally get. And it was incredibly windy so that Wolfie was constantly crying inbetween the car and the stores. It became clear that he wasn’t going to stop freaking out, and I started to get upset that I couldn’t even go grocery shopping. I had lots of produce and bagels, and couldn’t put them back so I went to pay for them. The cashier asked how I was doing, and I just lost it. I started crying, and the poor guy had to deal with a crying baby and a crying Mom. I feel as though I must not be the only Mom to have a meltdown, which helped me to feel better again. I figured I would try and make the trip again for the rest of the groceries, and it was MUCH more succesful.

Wolfie has discovered the joys of shoving things into his mouth. Too bad he isn’t very good at holding things and putting them into it.

I have to say though, Wolfie is a champion sleeper at night, just a crummy napper (10 hours and 20 minutes of solid sleep!). In fact the napping gets worse everyday. I rock him for 30 minutes, and he only sleeps 30 minutes. And it is just getting to the point of him getting too big to hold for long periods of time. Worse yet, he is such a light sleeper that transferring him from my arms to the bed usually wakes him up. So I have been trying to get him to cry it out to help him learn how to fall asleep on his own.

Let me tell you guys… it sucks!!!

Wolfie is getting really good at holding things. He also likes to munch on the dino horn.

I know most doctors say it doesn’t hurt the baby. Many people compare it to driving around in a car. You don’t stop the car, and hold your baby till he stops crying. You keep going until you get what you need done. But there is something awful of just sitting around waiting for him to stop crying. In fact this is the first time I waited long enough for him to fall asleep. It felt awful. I hope his crying lessens and lessens ’till I can just put him down. He would be such a happy baby if he just naps for an hour twice a day. YOU HEAR THAT WOLFIE?! THAT’S ALL YOU NEED TO DO!

Overall I am feeling much better. Maybe it is medication, maybe it is the therapy, or just getting more sleep. I am getting all those squishy baby feels, and I am not getting all excited about seeing other people’s babies (who am I?) The other day I caught myself just walking around with Wolfie for an hour and enjoying it. I think it helps that I am getting out more.

This photo was taken the day after Alexa visited. This lil man is pissed that she’s gone.

Oh and Wolfie (finally) got to meet his Aunt Alexa! I think he was thrown off by her pink hair XD. The visit was great for me, since it has been forever that I’ve hung out with people my age, well, I’ve been hanging with my friend Justine a few times. We tried out a restaurant that will hopefully get posted. Also Alexa will be proofing my posts since I am too tired to notice run-on sentences and misspelled words.

*Editor’s Note (aka Alexa’s note): Guys I am SO IN LOVE with Jen’s lil’ Wolfie. He’s so lucky to have such a great mama and dad on his life and I hope I get to squish his baby face again soon!!!*

Posted by Jennifer in Parenting, The Girls Tags: baby, month three, wolfie

6 comments

Wolfie: Month Two

February 28, 2017

Likes:

Being asleep
Tickles
Looking at…uh… anything
Baths
Me saying “Hiiiiiiii!”
Walks in the stroller

Dislikes:

Falling asleep
Having Jon blow on his face
Car seats
Tummy Time
Gusts of wind

New Skills

Sucking on wrists
Rolling from tummy to back
Punching the dangling birds on swing

Oh man. This month has been crazy. I mean something have gotten better, and some have gotten worse. Or rather certain aspects of life has put off to the side. Mostly the blog and my computer using. Wolfie does not like to take naps during the day. I walk and rock him for 30 minutes, and he then sleeps for 30 minutes. Which gives me just enough time to take a shower, pump milk, or eat. I was keeping up with reading blogs because of my tablet but that kind-of went out the window when Wolfie got too big to feed him and see the tablet at the same time. Because of this, my sister is lending me her old laptop. It now gives me time to read blogs, write posts, etc, while pumping or eating.

It also helps that I am now seeing a therapist for postpartrum depression. I am also taking some medication, which I think helps. Luckily I read lots of blogs that helped me cope with depression- taking time to myself, trying to eat healthfully, try and get enough sleep etc. All which can be hard to do with a baby.

This kid makes me look so tiny. His head the same size as mine!

So remember how I mentioned how I have a huge nugget baby? Well he got even more massive. When I took him to his one month doctor visit (which happened after writing my post) he went from 8lb 9oz to 11lb 13oz! He was in the 80th percentile, meaning he is bigger than 80% of babies. He is now wearing clothes in the 3 to 6 month sizing, and some of his clothes are getting tight with the cloth diapers, which is a sign he will be too big for them soon. UGH! Just a few days ago we went to his 2 month doctor’s visit and he weigh much less than what we expected. He moved down to the 73rd percentile at 13lb 11.6oz (or 6.225kg) Funny thing is that I was thinking he head was starting to get big… not so much. His head measurements were in the 40th percentile. He has my tiny little noggin.

Wolfie is now giving smiles! This TOTALLY helps. Nothing sucks more than getting only negative feedback. I was patiently waiting for the smile appear. Would it be from tickling him? Cuddling? Feeding? Clearly he was going to smile at ME, right? WRONG! His first smile was at a picture frame. No, the side of a picture frame. My Mom made a needlepoint of Mrs. Tiggiewinkle and I hung it above his changing table. One day he let out the biggest smile at it. I thought I might of been going crazy, but he kept on doing it over an over again. I started to feel a little sad, but he now smiles and squeals for me. He hasn’t smiled at the frame in a few weeks. Take that picture! I’m the new favorite.

I also look at the tummy time photo from last month and can’t help me be amazed. That was impressive to me. Now he is a pro at holding his head up. He actually can even roll over (like a dog!) from his tummy to his back. He actually has done this last month but it was an accident. Then one day he did a very controlled roll. So I thought, so way, and put him back on his tummy, and he did it again. I still was skeptical that it was accidental, until later that day I put him on his tummy and he started to whine and wimper. Then he rolled on his back and gave a sigh. But he isn’t very good at this. 90% of the time he tries to roll over and doesn’t get it. So he tries harder and starts pushing on both hands, making thing worse until he melts down and his head falls to the floor. I eventually feel bad and roll him to his back. He’ll get better, I know.

I’m still getting use to a baby boy. I always have taken care of my nieces, so I am use to that. Not so much little boys, which has meant that pee has gotten all over the place. I’ve had to clean the carpet way too much. And he even has peed on the curtains. That was talent. I think all the pee is getting Toulouse’s attention, and I’ve even caught her smelling some of the pee spots.

Perhaps all the pee is helping Toulouse get use to Gavin. He is hiding a lot less, and is even stays around when Wolfie is making some noise. She is even snuggling with us more again. When I head to bed and Jon stays up, she will come over and stay in his lap. She has even come over and slept on the bed again. He doing some sniffing of Wolfie. Sometimes he sniffs him. Mostly in the car seat, but I got him to sniff his head once.

This post has taken me so long to write, that it is almost already month three! So we are almost out of the newborn stage and off to the normal baby stage. Whoo!

Posted by Jennifer in Parenting Tags: month 2, toulouse, wolfie

3 comments

Wolfie: Month One

January 16, 2017

Highs:

Being able to put Wolfie in his crib and being able to pee without him crying. Super rewarding.
I am pretty sure I saw a smile late one night. Right towards the end of the month, but then again, it could of just been a very big smile twitch

Lows:

Crying, lots of crying. One night was exhausting, and Wolfie was just NOT tired. At one point I had to put him in the crib crying just so I could loose my shit and wail around on the ground. We pretty much looked the same- one baby and one adult crying on their backs, flailing their arms.
Desperation to get a baby go to sleep is real. The other night I was rocking Wolfie to sleep with one boob hanging out, soaked in breast milk, my shirt half on exposing my stomach stretch marks, and queefing each time I swayed my hips. Not a flattering picture, but he fell asleep so I don’t care too much in the end.

Let’s start with me. I am all healed up and for the most part my body feels pretty much back to normal. Except for my boobs. Breastfeeding has been a little bit of an emotional challenge. I had a hard time having to be the only source of food for the first week or two. Sadly, I am convinced that I am made for baby making. Fast delivery, very minimal tearing (for such a huge baby), and I am making lots and lots of milk. Breastfeeding wasn’t that hard to pick up, probably because I’ve been using nipple shield. Luckily I have been able to pump, and have successfully transitioned to a bottle, making it possible to share the feeding workload. But sometimes it is hard to find the time to pump, but I am sure it will get easier as Wolfie gets older.

In fact feeding was such a problem at first. It felt like I was nursing every hour, and when we went to the pediatrician Wolfie lost more than 10% of his body weight dropping from 8lb 13oz to 7lb 15oz, which is problematic. We scheduled another appointment to get reweighed. BAM- it really felt like I was nursing all the time, except it became obvious that my milk had come in. All I had in my head was Rufus is a Titman at every feeding. When we came back, he weight 8lb 9oz, gaining 3oz each day. He is still a little eating monster, growing out of some of the newborn clothing before week 2. By week 3 we have only one fleece onesie that still fits.

Before we even reached week 4, we started Tummy Time. If anyone doesn’t know, pretty much to prevent SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) you are suppose to put baby on their backs for sleeping. Because of this, babies can’t practice strengthening their necks, backs, and therefore can’t learn to crawl. So you are suppose to watch baby as you place them on their tummies for a few minutes. Well, Wolfie has such strong neck muscles I figured, why not? Naturally I am setting myself up for disaster as the second he can roll over, he has to stick with crib for sleeping, not the vibrating rocker that makes it easier to put him to sleep at night. But I welcome this new baby who can entertain himself.

As for me? Well, I think it is true what people say, you will never be prepared for what it is like to have kids. I had some idea of what it would be like, and the first two weeks weren’t as bad as what I thought it would be- but it is was still really damn hard. I think what I wasn’t prepared for was the healing I had to do. The first week or two involved lots of steps in the bathroom while everything healed. And since I was in labor during the night, I was just so exhausted and never was able to catch up on sleep. By week two I was just so tired of taking 10 minutes to have to pee, and waking up every 2-3 hours. It is particularly hard if you plan on breastfeeding. At first it didn’t dawn on me that it would be harder. It wasn’t until I realized there was no way Jon and I could take “turns” at night. It would always be me to feed him. Which meant I will always be the one to wake up in the middle of the night. Okay, that isn’t true. Now that we have reached 4 weeks, Wolfie isn’t feeding every 2 hours, that means finding time to pump is easier. I have also reached the point where I am being a little more relaxed to the idea of using formula. Overall, I am not sure if I will continue to breastfeed. It takes up so much time. Some days I think it isn’t so bad, and then other days I think all I want to do is just pass him off to someone else.

Luckily, Jon was able to take two weeks off from work, and since Wolfie was born during the holiday season, he had a few bonus days off. Sadly because of the holidays it made things crazy for the first two weeks. Yes, we got to play “pass the baby” during parties, but it meant a fussy baby. Then we would hear all our relatives saying “oh that’s just what babies do!” but in my mind I am just thinking “it isn’t that way at home, so no, it isn’t what MY baby does.” The worst was Christmas Eve to the day after Christmas. It was just shlepping Wolfie from house to house. By the third day, I just wanted to nap, and I was spending time with a relative that I don’t particularly get along with.

I am also super thankful that my Mother in Law loves babies. I am not particularly fond of them. I know many people might scratch their heads at that idea, but I love kids. Hell, if I had the option, I would of spent more time pregnant if I could give birth to a toddler. It would totally have to be a c-section, but that is besides the point. It kind-of drove me nuts when people would say things like “cherish him now” or “how can you not love this face?” It made me happy when I listened to the podcast One Bad Mother, and the person they were interviewing said staying home with kids was boring. And she said how she loved it more when her kids got older. Anyways, since my Mother in Law loves babies so much, I have been able to get a few hours or days to myself. It is nice and refreshing to not have to lug a baby all over the place.

That doesn’t mean I don’t love my little nugget. Everyday I am growing a stronger bond with him. But I think it is more “fun” to see him grow. He hasn’t made that many advancements yet, except getting massive, being able to hold his head up more, and being more alert. He is starting to see better, and loves to just look at things. But again, that doesn’t really give me much to do with him. I see my Mother in Law dote on him, and I don’t see much of a difference between what she does and playing with a doll.

Oh and speaking of him getting massive…. dear lord is he starting to get hard to hold. I mean, it is fine until I stand trying to rock him asleep at night for 30 minutes. My muscles start to burn. My muscle endurance are really being tested in my arms, abs, and back. He is now grown out of all of his newborn clothing, and there are some other clothes that are too snug/a pain to put on him. The other day there was a day he just kept eating, and eating and eating. I was fed up, walked downstairs and mixed up 4 ounces of formula. I told Jon if he looked hungry to feed him that bottle. I was pretty convinced he was just sucking my boobs like a pacifier, because you really have no clue how much milk is going out when feeding. Wolfie ate the whole 4 ounces, and that was after feeding for 45 minutes an hour earlier, and eating another 45 minutes from me within the next hour or two. The kid clearly was going through a growth spurt, I just wasn’t prepared for it.

Now I am moving to the second month, and I will be welcome it since he will be getting closer and closer to being able to entertain himself a little. I am also hoping he gets even better at holding his neck up. He loves to be held upwards, but his neck muscles get exhausted fast and he flops all around.

Posted by Jennifer in Parenting Tags: breast feeding, parenting, tummy time, wolfie

5 comments

A Little Wolfie Was Born

December 26, 2016

justborn

Here I am, 2 weeks later and just getting around to writing this post. It isn’t that I haven’t had time, but the time has been spent going to various places to visit family for the holidays. And if anyone knows, going anywhere with a baby takes time. So I have been writing this post a little bit here and a little bit there, so I am sorry if it sounds chunky, and is filled with spelling and grammatical errors (I’ve already tried to write fulled and grammerical, so you know.. sleep deprivation)

So I reached week 40 without giving birth. As I mentioned in the past post, I had been getting lots of signs that labor was drawing near. In fact, my patience was getting thin. My back was killing me, which was more or less a new symptom. The worst part were the contractions. I was getting them almost every night but they weren’t consistent, and would go away after an hour or so. So when I went to the doctors for my 40th week visit, they checked me again, and said that I was 5cm dilated and pretty much ready to deliver. I was asked if I would be interested in scheduling an induction, and I said yes, thinking it would be towards the end of the week.

I get a phone call- I would be induced the next day- Tuesday. It suddenly seemed like a bad idea to get an induction. I had a feeling it I wouldn’t need it, that I would magically go into labor that afternoon. The contractions were starting to kind-of be regular. I tried to keep a level head, and go about my business. I told Jon about my suspicion that I might be in real labor, so he naturally starts worry about the mattress. “What if your water breaks? We should put some plastic under the sheets.” Even though we all have seen TV shows where the character has their water break in public and they sopping wet pants. Everything I’ve read reassured that doesn’t happen often so I brushed off Jon’s recommendations as silly. I tossed and turned all night with various pains, when all the sudden I felt something odd, and I knew exactly what it was. I bolted up from the bed scream “MY WATERS BREAKING” trying to make it to the bathroom so I wouldn’t ruin the bed or the carpet (just barely made it guys.) Yup, I had that over the top water breaking moment.

We rushed over to the hospital as soon as we could, and I was nervous about making it in time. Suddenly my contractions were 8-20 minutes apart to a short 3 minutes apart. When we finally make it to our delivery room, I find out that I am 7 cm. So I figured I was in great condition, I was pretty far along, and still handling the pain. What I didn’t take into consideration was how uncomfortable I was. My back pain was unbearable, and laying down on the bed was excruciating. It made breathing very problematic, and I wasn’t so nervous about the pain as I was about hyperventilating. So by the time I broke down and asked the epidural I was 9 cm, and luckily my Mother was around to explain to the nurses that it would be a good idea (the first thing I hear from people is that they are surprised they even gave me the epidural this late.) The only thing that made me sad was that I had to sit up to get the spinal tap and shifting positions completely took away most of the pain from the contractions. I was just in too much pain to even think about changing positions.

I can say I am glad I got the epidural. I think I would of delivered the baby faster with one, but I think I would of had less control of my actions. Which would of been more wear and tear on my body. I do have to say it sucked to have completely numb legs that I had no control over. It did take awhile to figure out how to push when you have no feeling in your lower half of your body. The other aspects weren’t as big of a deal, though I might of been more embarrassed about it if I hadn’t experienced the pain of the contractions for so long. In fact, since we didn’t really look too much into deliveries with epidurals, Jon got wrangled into holding up my leg for the delivery, which he handled very well considering.

So after 8 hours of being in the hospital and 45 minutes of pushing, on Tuesday, December 13th at 8 am, I gave birth to a baby boy. He came out screaming and peed almost immediately on the nurses, so I am pretty sure he healthy but a trouble maker. Just like my sneaking suspicions, I had a big baby weighing in at 8 pounds and 13 ounces, and measured at 21 3/4 inches in length.

I don’t think the gravity of being pregnant sank in until the plopped a piping hot wet baby on my chest after giving birth. They took him away shortly afterwards to weigh and clean him up (that’s when he peed on everyone.) When they brought him back for our hour skin to skin time, one of the first things I noticed was his very hairy back. It was in fact a full moon as well. Jon and I laughed because one of the names we liked was Wolfgang. We decided to not go for it since it was quite an unusual name, but since we have a unique last name, and for privacy reasons, I will choose to call him Wolfie on the blog.

So what does this mean for the blog? Well, let’s be real, it might be awhile since I talk about food again. At one point I was so stressed that I was getting nauseous whenever I ate. I still do. I have to eat small amounts all day, and even still I worry if I am getting enough calories since I’ve lost roughly 17-20 pounds in two weeks, although most women do loose 10 pounds after delivery, and 17 pounds by week 6.

This blog is partly a journal for myself, and partly to give information to other people. So I will be talking about my kid, and tips for vegan parents and such. There are still some posts I want to write about vegan pregnancy. I also want to create a space for vegan parents to check out. It seems that a lot of vegan parenting blogs are a little “granola crunchy” and it can be hard for some people to relate to that. But I don’t want to exclusively talk about babies and kids, and maybe strike a balance like Bonzai Aphrodite.

So if the next few months I am babies all the time, sorry. It is a little hard when your time is so broken up. But we are already starting to get longer nap times, and things seems like they are getting a little more stable (keyword here is seems.) Hopefully in two weeks I will have an update with a rough outline of the first month of Wolfie’s life.

Posted by Jennifer in Parenting, Pregnancy Tags: delivery, labor, pregnancy, wolfie

7 comments