Monday, April 30, 2012

6/7 Month Photo Session

Yesterday we had the very wonderful and talented Marian Lozano of Marian Lozano Photography come and take pictures of Rylee for the second time. Rylee was a bit crabby after not having taken any good naps all day and teething, but she cooperated for the most part. I was a little sad that we didn't get to see her super happy, smiley self that I get to see every day, but we managed to coherce a few smiles out of her! I can't wait to see the photos!

Here is Marian's blog post from Rylee's newborn-ish session (she was actually almost 3 months)!
I love my little squishy baby!

(I was going to add a recent picture, but my phone hates me and keeps unmounting my SD card, so I can't pull anything up!)

Thursday, April 26, 2012

6 Month check up (just a little late)

Rylee had her 6 month check up on the 11th, just two days after she became half a year old! She is getting older so fast!! I hate it.

We spent Easter weekend with my mom and sister just hanging out at the house and relaxing. We also took a trip to the Amish Market in Laurel and got some DELICIOUS food to cook on Easter Sunday. My sister and I tried to do a little, mini photoshoot, but Rylee was not having any of it. In most of the pictures she is either screaming, or has her binkie in her mouth.

It's ok though. She's cute anyway.

At her appointment the following Wednesday, she weighed in at 13lbs, 13 oz and was 23 1/2 inches long!

Developmentally, her Pediatrician said she was at about a 4 month old level, and physically she is the size of an average 3 month old. So she is doing just fine! :)

She has taken to laughing A LOT when she's in a good mood, and screeching. Sometimes, the screeching is cute, and other times I feel like I'm going to go deaf. Apparently she has taken a liking to yelling at the other babies at daycare and then laughing when they look at her. She also laughs when they cry. Ha. Taking after her daddy!

Rylee also had her first plane ride on Friday April 13th! We flew to Arkansas for my Aunt's wedding. She did GREAT! She slept through both flights there, and both flights home. When she did wake up, it was brief and uneventful. She got lots of snuggles and got passed around like a hot potato while visiting everyone.

That's all I have for now!

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Ain't no rest for the wicked

Since my last post, Rylee has gotten sick a couple of times. Last week I stayed home a couple of days to take care of her because she had Bronchiolitis. It was making it hard for her to breathe, and we had to use a nebulizer every 4 hours for the first 2 days, then 3 times a day for the next 3 days. When we went back to the Pediatrician on Friday, her doctor said she didn't need it anymore and sounded much better.

When do I get to put her in a bubble? I would like that very much.

But it has to be self cleaning, wash her cloth diapers and carry itself when I'm not able...

Speaking of carrying- a friend sent me an Ellevill Zara woven wrap to borrow and try out. Babywearing just became SO MUCH MORE COMFORTABLE! We had been using the Moby and Baby K'tan, but since they are stretchy wraps, they don't provide enough support. My neck and shoulders would burn like the fiery gates of hell after about 30 minutes of wearing Rylee. I think I found a new obsession.

Damnit.

At doctor's office waiting on the nurse to come in.


Everything else is going well I suppose. I still hate leaving the house every morning, barely getting to even kiss her good bye, let alone hold her, knowing someone else is getting all the Rylee snuggles and I'm not.
:( It makes me sad. Hopefully we can figure something out in the near future that will allow me to work from home! I miss my baby.

We don't know her exact weight anymore (I'm guessing somewhere between 11.5-13 lbs), but she will be going back to the Pediatrician on Friday to get her next Synagis shot so they will weigh her then! Hopefully we don't have to do those for much longer. I can't remember how many doses she has to get.

I ordered a bunch of Baltic Amber online to make teething necklaces and bracelets for babies and mamas too. Hopefully I can find a bunch of ladies to buy them!!!

Rylee is wearing a hazelwood necklavce in this picture. We got it for her reflux. It seemed to help! Now I can't tell if he reflux is gone completely, or it just doesn't bother her anymore. Either way, we leave the necklace on her all the time and only take it off when she gets a bath.

I need a nap. Or 10. And a vacation from cleaning the house. At the end of the vacation I want to come home to a spotless house and no chores or groceries to buy for at least a week. That would be nice.

Keep dreaming.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Updates on Rylee, diaper rash, and returning to work!

Age: 4 months, or 18 weeks
Corrected Age: 6 weeks, 47 days

A couple of weeks ago (I know I've been slacking) I posted about the horrible diaper rash Rylee kept getting. For the life of me, I could NOT figure out what the culprit was. Well, after about 2 weeks of trial and error and through the process of elimination, I discovered it was indeed the detergent. I'm still not sure if it was because the Rockin Green we were using was scented or not, but once I stopped using it, her rash cleared up in days. We still use the RnG on our clothes because it does a good job and I bought 4 bags of it when they were on sale around Thanksgiving, and I'll be darned if I was wasting $40 worth of detergent!

Now we use Eco Sprout for her diapers, and I love it! I bought the unscented detergent called "In the Buff" in case she was allergic to some ingredients in the scented batches. It works fabulously! The diapers smell clean...not like anything in particular, just CLEAN.

Rylee had her 4 month check-up yesterday. She is doing great and weighed in at 10 pounds 2 ounces!!! She is still super tiny for a 4 month old, but much bigger than she was 2 months ago! She's finally starting to chub out. It's so adorable. I can squish and kiss her chubby cheeks all day!


Waiting for the doctor to come in!
 She also started going to daycare last week. UGH! I hate putting her in daycare!!! I feel so horrible not being able to spend time with her all day. She is jut now starting to laugh and smile intentionally, and I'm missing it! I am seriously thinking about finding a part time, work from home job so I can be home with her. It's hard to find the jobs that aren't scams though!

We have also been battling reflux and colic since she came home from the hospital. Although now, the colic is gone (YESSSSSSSSS!), but the reflux is still there but going away as well. She sleeps in a Nap Nanny at night. It has worked WONDERS! The first two weeks that she was home, I slept sitting upright on the couch with her on my chest. It was extremely uncomfortable and I barely slept. I was constantly worried she was going to slide off of me and I was going to suffocate her, or she was going to end up on the floor. Her home nurse suggested the Nap Nanny so my mom bought one for us. They are pretty expensive at $130 a pop, but they go on sale at Babies R Us often, and you can use a 20% off coupon too! We got her the pink minky one. :)

That's all for now! We are exhausted constantly, and have no time to get anything done. Our Christmas stuff is still out!!! I'm glad I didn't put up a tree this year, because then it would really bother me!

YAY parenting! ;)


Playing with Grandma in her cute Bum Genius 4.0 diaper! :D


Monday, January 2, 2012

Battling Diaper Rash in Cloth Diapers

Rylee got a diaper rash about 3 weeks ago, and it started to get better, but then got progressively worse. :( When I took her to the Pediatrician last week, she said it wasn't yeast (which I thought it was because it was SO PERSISTENT) and wasn't fungal. She suggested we try Lotrimin (for foot fungus!). She said the rash looked like it was from Rylee pooping SO.MUCH. I think she has very acidic poos and pees. So for the last week, Rylee has been in disposables instead of her adorable cloth diapers so we could use non-cloth diaper safe creams to clear it up.


You always hear that babies don't get rashes very often with cloth diapers...but they have been pretty regular for us. I stopped using some things that we had been putting on her during each diaper change to see if she was allergic to any of them.

Rockin Green Laundry Detergent? I thought maybe I wasn't getting the diapers clean enough, or rinsing then out well enough. I washed them in multiple hot washes with and without detergent, and then multiple rinses.

Grandma El's diaper cream? Worked to clear up redness for awhile, but then the rash just wouldn't go away.

Wipes solution in a spray bottle? Used it during each change before wiping her bum with cloth wipes to make sure she was clean. Boasts soothing/minute healing properties from it's natural ingredients... Made some redness go away but also came back later.


CJ's BUTTer Plus (for yeast)- Didn't use it long enough to see if it helped.


By the time we got the BUTTer in the mail, the rash had already progressed to open sores. :(They weren't so bad that they were bleeding, but her poor bum was pretty raw. It made me feel like suck a horrible mom to have let her get so bad!!! We tried everyhting we knew to try. I even gave her oatmeal baths which seemed to help a little, to soothe her skin. Airing her bum out helped some too...

Her rash is pretty much gone now. Just two teeny spots that need to finish healing, and it's all gone. Good thing too because I just changed her diaper, and we are down to our last one!

Using disposables over the last week has proven to me further why I chose to use cloth. (1) Price. Cloth is so much cheaper in the long run! Luckily we didn't have to buy any because all of the diapers we had were from my Baby Shower diaper cake. (2) The smell. Not a bad smell.. but a chemical smell. As soon as Rylee pees in the disposable diaper, you can smell this perfume-y odor. They were even advertised as 'sensitive' and 'perfume free' diapers. Then why could I smell them? All those chemicals against her bum. Yuck.

I'm glad we are put of disposables. I want to get her back into her cloth ASAP! Everyone who changes her is just going to have to get used to checking her diaper frequently, and changing her as soon as she gets wet or poos.


Sunday, January 1, 2012

Jan 1, Rylee's original due date

Age: 84 Days/12 weeks
Gestational Age: 0 Days

I love staring at Rylee when she sleeps. Her perfectly smooth baby skin is so pretty and her big pouty lips are adorable.


Today was the day she was SUPPOSED to be born. I'm not happy that she came 3 months early, but I am glad I get to spend this extra time with her before she starts talking and telling me not to kiss her in public because it's embarrassing.

As of our Pediatrician visit on Wednesday December 28th, she weighs 6 pounds, 6 ounces!

Christmas weekend was spent at my parent's house. My dad went out and bought two real trees this year after having not put up a tree since I moved out over 3 years ago. Rylee enjoyed eating, sleeping and pooping. I got to SLEEP as much as I wanted to while my mom and sister fought over who got to take care of Rylee and who got to hold her next.

It was nice spending time with them and being able to relax! Here are some pictures from that weekend! :D


In her Christmas Jammies
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...
From Santa

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Getting so big!

Rylee has kept me quite busy between her colic and reflux. We have had doctor's appointments seemingly at least twice a week AND work has already convinced me to start working at least 2 hours a day to get things organized there because they miss me so much. I'm a little sad about this because I want to spend as much time with Rylee as I can before going back to work full time! I know it's only two hours, and it IS better than getting NO money at all...but still.

At our doctor's visit last week, Rylee weighed in at 5lbs 8oz (down 4oz since the previous appointment). She lost a little weight which was a bit concerning to me, so hopefully she pics it back up by the time we go to the doctor next week!

I took her to the Pulmonologist to get her monitor checked a couple of weeks ago, and he confirmed that any apnea alarms she had were false! We did have a few low heart rate alarms in the beginning, mostly during feedings, but she is completely past all of that now! She eats like a champ and is much more alert. She still can't hold her head up or do much of anything else besides destroy EVERY.SINGLE.DIAPER and keep me awake at the most inconvenient times, but she is amazing. I love just staring at her and watching her facial expressions. She unknowingly smiles A LOT now (especially in her sleep). It's so cute! :D

Did I mention before that we decided to cloth diaper Rylee? Poo on disposables and all the money they cost! We have been using mostly prefolds and covers with a few extra small FuzziBunz pocket diapers in the mix. I have an entire stash for when she gets bigger, but she probably wont be in any of the other diapers for a couple more weeks. It has been super easy so far! I do a load of laundry every day just because I didn't buy a TON of prefolds, and I don't mind at all. I have to do laundry anyway, so what's one more load!?

(excuse all of the cell phone pics!)
Rylee wearing her Rumparooz newborn cover with a prefold


Taken yesterday morning before her diaper change. She was giving me stink eyes for taking too long!
Showing off one of her new cloth diapers Grandma bought. Dad approves.
Chillin on the couch with mom and a jealous Loki