4 Months Old

Another month has gone by--can you believe it?!

On Thursday Bree turned 4 months old.  She celebrated with a trip to the pediatician and an immunization--poor girl!  I was quite excited about her weight after all of the struggles with lactation that we have had over the last month.  She weighed in at 11 pounds 11 ounces.  I had done a "nurse-in" last weekend to try to increase my supply and in the end I came out of it stressed, exhausted, and sore.  Reid gave me a blessing on Sunday night and I decided that I was going to take a break for the evening and reevaluate on Monday morning.  Thankfully Monday morning brought results and lots of milk and Bree was eating good most of the week.  We won't talk about the lack of milk today, though.  Gosh, darn it!

Anyway, back to being 4 months.  She weighed 11 pounds 11 ounces and was 23.5 inches tall.  She currently takes three naps a day that are normally an hour and half to two hours long.  She nurses 8 to 10 times a day.  She is gaining better control of her hands everyday, has found her feet, and has the sweetest little voice.  She rolled over once on the 21st from her back to her tummy and then didn't do it again.  Until Thursday when she turned into a complete roly poly.  Now if only she can figure out how to get off of her tummy!  She loves to be upright and she still adores her big brothers.  She has begun to reach for me when she wants to be picked up, or if she's on her back she may arch up.  We all love this little girl to pieces!  She is an absolute blessing.

Enjoy my attempt at some quick pictures right before her bedtime!

And then she fell over!  Timber!

This one makes me laugh!

And then she fell again.  This was the end of our picture session!

And here's her new found talent:

Fun with Finn

The first few days after Kai started school were quite busy.  But since I have been trying to slow things down a bit we have had a lot more time at home, just the three of us.  And with Bree taking three (normally) long naps a day, it really is just the two of us for a good portion of our day.

Finn is used to having a play buddy ALL THE TIME.  Kai really is his best friend and so having him in school has been really hard on Finn.  Finn spends his day asking if we can go pick up Kai.  I have found that the more I engage him in activity the better the day is for both of us.  So, there has been a lot less cleaning at home and a lot more play time.  I've been surprised at what we have come up with.  These pictures don't include our time riding tricylces (Finn) and plasma cars (me) up and down the driveway, throwing water balloons at each other, or doing the dishes and laundry together.  (Yes, some chores just have to be done!)

Playdough is always a hit

This day he wanted bracelets.

A colander and pipe cleaners--who knew?!

Talking about our letters and spelling our names

Bubbles--another favorite

Can you guess what happened to cause this devilish grin?

Watch again!

And when Bree joins us, she does things like this.

She found her feet!  Don't mind the board game that's out next to her (or the overly wet diaper for that matter--I was getting ready to change her when she started to play around).

And look at all of those scratches from finding her feet!

Practicing a tripod sit

LOVE this little girl!

Oh-What a DAY!

Wednesday August 21, 2013

Part 1--First Grade

Today was Kai's first day of first grade.  Yesterday afternoon was his school's open house/meet the teacher day.  While I wasn't thrilled with his teacher assignment, I do feel that this can be a good growing experience for him.  It was interesting to hear the range of reactions from people when they asked which class Kai was in.  And as far as Kai knows, his teacher is awesome!  (At least that's what I'm telling him!)  When we walked into the 1st grade pod yesterday I found that I was actually getting emotional again, gosh darn it.  Seeing his name on the "Look who's Popping Into First Grade" was the trigger point.  I'm glad I was able to collect myself, though, as Kai has had a rough time of it.  He spent the day moping around the house and not eating.  And then this morning he slept in and when we were ready to leave he said, "Bye, Dad.  You were the best Dad I ever had."  Seriously, did he think he wasn't coming back??

This morning I got him up and ready to go.  Even Bree cooperated and slept in a bit so that I was able to pack a lunch, feed and dress the kids, and get Finn hooked up to treatments before she got up.  After treatments we headed outside for pictures and then loaded up in the car for the drive over.  Because Kai is wary of school right now he wants me to drive him both ways.  For now, I'll oblige, but we'll see how long that lasts.  The pick-up line today was awful!  Apparently we had a huge increase in the number of students at the school and it was pretty obvious this afternoon.

Anyway, Kai found his teacher's line and joined the crowds this morning.  And then we waited for him to walk away.  It took a while, but he finally did and then Finn, Bree, and I were left to ourselves for 7 full hours.

The day before school started we went over to meet his teacher.  This is the bulletin board outside of his grade's pod.  It says, "Look Who's Popping Into First Grade" and then everyone has their own popcorn kernel.  See Kai?

Eating popsicles after the teacher meet and greet.

First day of school

Lining up with his teacher

Someone was a little bummed about going to school

Waving goodbye!

Part 2--Play group and More

After dropping Kai off, we ran home for a bit to nurse Bree and get ready for play group.  About 20 minutes after getting home, we went back to play group at the park for Finn.  It was a small group today, but it was good for Finn to be distracted after saying goodbye to Kai.  We enjoyed a full hour and a half at the park before heading back home for a 30 minute lunch.  After lunch we were out again.  This time I was dropping Finn off at a friend's house before heading back to the hospital for a lactation consult with Bree.

Part 3--Lactation Consult

It seems that since early July my milk supply has been dwindling.  I would have periods where I would recognize what was going on, increase nursing and occasional pumping to accomodate it, see it come back decently and then have it dwindle again.  It has been a crazy rollercoaster.  The Friday before school started I began taking a supplement of Fenugreek to see if it would help and finally this Tuesday (the 20th) I decided to call the lactation consultants for help.

It was interesting to go back to the labor and delivery floor for this appointment.  And it was a good experience to see the consultants.  They weighed Bree and then had me nurse her and weighed her again. (She initially weighed 11 pounds 5 ounces and then after eating she weighed 11 pounds 6 ounces.) She ate all of one ounce!  And then I couldn't get her to latch on again.  So, we pulled out a pump and pumped a bit, and got very little.  My supply had tanked again!  The consultant advised adding another supplement, More Milk Plus, and then pumping after every feed.  She also advised that we start teaching Bree to take a bottle (silly little thing refuses, even if it's expressed breastmilk).  She told me that it would take a week to see if everything was working but we were both hopeful that since my supply had been fluctuating that we would be able to get it back again.  We decided that my body is super sensitive to supply and demand as well as very responsive to stress.  In order to make sure my supply came back I realized that I needed to cut a lot of outside appointments out of my life.  Reducing stress is important for Bree, so if it's not essential these days, I'm going to try to not do it.

After an hour, we left the hospital and made a quick trip to the store to get the supplement and then headed back to pick up Finn.  From there it was back home to nurse Bree again, and then back in the car to pick up Kai from school.  Poor Bree did not want to go back in her carseat!  And I didn't blame her!

Part 4--Surprise!

While going through Kai's backpack and reading all of his paperwork I had Bree on her playmat.  Finn was wanting to play with Kai and was hanging all over us.  I kept trying to send him off so I could have a few minutes with Kai and all of a suddne I hear Finn exclaim, "Bree rolled over!"  I looked over and wouldn't you know, she had rolled over and none of us had actually seen it.  There she was on her tummy all by herself.

On her tummy all by herself

It was a crazy, busy day for everyone!

Photo Dump

I know I said the next post would be about our visit with the cousins, but then I realized that I don't have those pictures.  Reid's sister was our awesome photographer that week, so when things slow down and we have the chance to get some pictures then I'll have to update the blog.

In the three weeks since their visit, we've been pretty low key.  There have been no major events or trips.  Just ordinary life.  Errands, grocery shopping, play group with friends from the ward, soccer class, and physical therapy for Kai.  I do need to blog about that sometime soon....

So, while there are no really big moments, I do have some random pictures of what we have been up to.

On Tuesday July 30th, we had a bunch of errands to do in the Springs.  I packed a picnic and in the midst of all of those errands we stopped at a park to get the wiggles out and eat.  We hung out for about an hour.  This was Kai's first trip to this particular park and only Finn's second.  The boys had a great time!  If only this park were in a better part of town or closer to us.  The equipment is great.  The boys enjoyed testing out their skills on the chain ropes.

 Ahhh....we've been using the staircase for timeout lately.  This is both boys hanging out in a time out.  LOVE Kai's face.  I ended up separating them after I took this pictures.

 On August 3rd I put Bree down for tummy time to find that she was finally getting the hang of it!

She has had a few chances to try out the activity center as well.  She still needs some supervision with this, but it's a fun change for her.

Kai has been begging for me to take a picture of him with his sister on this mat, since he has a similar one with Finn from three and a half years ago.  This one didn't turn out quite so sweet!

Patient Bree!  She doesn't like this at all but she endures it for a few moments before completely melting down.

Reid worked later one evening and we went all out--pizza and brownie sundaes!

 The first weekend in August, Bree began to work her way out of the swaddle and she continued to sleep despite it.  So over the next two days I began to back off of it.  For the first few days she did great, and then she went through a bad spell, but she has finally adjusted.  Little Miss has found that she likes to suck her fingers for comfort and she loves to have her hands up.  Sometimes she'll even pose for me!

She had been sucking her fingers her to comfort herself.  She sucks on her pointer and middle fingers together.

A week before school sstarted the boys were playing in the kitchen while I was doing my morning chores and I realized that in just one week Kai would be in school all day.  I couldn't decide who was going to miss him more, Finn who just loves him and can play with him all day long, or me--the mom grateful for some help taming the craziest three year-old around.  Here they were working on a drawing together.  Finn was in charge of the colors and Kai was doing the drawing.  And Kai made that assignment himself and even proposed they do the work together.  He's a gem!

My mother-in-law bought an outfit for Bree made by Burt's Bees.  Who knew they made clothes?!  Here Bree is modeling it for us.

 On the 13th we took one last summer trip to the zoo.  It was Bree's first visit and my first time to see the completed elephant house.  So fun!  We only got to stay for an hour and a half because of all the rain we had been getting.  We would have loved to stay longer but I was nervous about being stuck in a downpour with the kids and having to drive down the mountain.  So, at the first sign of rain we high-tailed it out of there.  It turned out we porbably could have stayed, but oh well.  We were safe and dry!

The moment of excitement right as the train began to move.

On our way out this man was demonstarting the bubble blower.  The kids had several minutes of fun here before I made them move on.  I think this guy was happy to see us move on as the minute I told the kids to go he stopped blowing the bubbles to make sure the kids left!

 Finally, Bree has learned to use her hands and reach for toys.  She's getting quite good at catching the toy she wants and will even roll onto her side to get closer if she needs to.  She's just a doll!