Smile

Kate had fun visiting with her Granpa Joe. He was able to stay about a week before leaving and we had several opportunities for him to hold the baby. He's pretty much smitten, like all new granpa's are I am sure.
We took Kate out to her first restaurant last weekend with some family. I was a nervous wreck because I wasn't really sure how she would do. I fed her before we left and had pumped a little bit earlier in the afternoon so I'd be prepared with a bottle if need be. I'm just not ready for the whole breastfeeding in public thing yet. We're a work in progress. Nick and I took our own car that way we could leave if she decided to throw a fit, Thankfully she did really well up until it was about time to go. It probably helped that we were at Joe's Crab Shack, which is very loud and full of lights to distract a curious infant. Here she is with her Great Uncle John:I took this photo last night of Kate looking an awfully lot like her daddy.

One month

Kate was 1 month old yesterday. She doesn't weigh that much more than the day she was born (she lost a pound after the first week) but she seems bigger. She's actually feeling wuite heavy at times now and I'm happy that she's getting used to being in her swing and bouncy chairs now. Prior to this week she was pretty much adamant that someone hold her at all times or listen to her scream. She's a bit stubborn. But last night she actually allowed me to let her swing and she fell asleep there, which was a first. Of course as I type this she is now starting to fuss in her swing, and she's been quiet up until I praised her for being a big girl.

You're using cloth diapers? Good luck.

I can't tell you how many people made faces when we'd tell them we were cloth diapering. I heard all kinds of comments from "Good luck." to "Let me know how that's going in about 4 months." All the negativity made me want to do was prove them all wrong.

We didn't use cloth right away. I wanted to wait until Kate's umbilical stump had fallen off and we had some disposable diapers that we needed to use up anyway. Sometime during week 3 or so the cloth diapering began. I wasn't really sure what to expect but I knew I was determined to make it work.So far, I love it! Not only does she look adorable in her diapers, caring for them is a breeze. I have a simple routine and so far it's worked wonders. Because she's still in that stage where she's going through 10-12 diapers a day, I have to wash dirty diapers every day but I'm thinking that once she slows down her diaper usage that will probably decrease to once every other day. I run the diapers in a cold rinse cycle to get all the initial icky out, then follow that with a hot wash cycle with detergent. I'm using All Free 'n Clear detergent because it has no dyes or fragrance chemicals and it was the least expensive of the "free" detergents. I follow the hot cycle with one more cold rinse to get the lingering detergent out because the detergent residue can affect the absorbency of the diapers. Then I throw the inserts in the dryer and the diapers themselves I hang on a drying rack. Voila! I've noticed some slight discoloration in places on the diapers, but I've read that on a bright, sunny day I can lay them out in the sun to dry and the sunlight will naturally bleach out the stains.

We've only had 2 issues with blow-outs, and I think one of those was our fault for missing a diaper change. The other I think resulted from the way she was laying when the explosion happened and the leg was not quite flat against her leg. But neither incident was terrible.
So to all those who were Mr/Miss Negative on my cloth diapering decision, I say you don't knock something until you try it. We are very happy with our decision so far, and guess what - we don't have to buy anymore diapers!

Surprise!

Guess who showed up on our doorstep last night to surprise us from Montana? Nick's dad and his wife Robbie, that's who! He has some business to take care of in San Antonio next week so they came down a few days early so they could meet their grandbaby. Kate has now officially met all four sets of grandparents. She's one lucky girl to have so many to spoil her.

Thankful

We celebrated Thanksgiving three times this year. I didn't actually get to take any photos on Thanksgiving Day or the third celebration, but I did during celebration #2.

Thanksgiving #2 was fabulous though and really made up for the drama of the previous day. We went to my Dad's and my brother and his family came up. We spent the whole day playing with the kids and taking photos of everyone. I had only seen my nephew, Logan, once before when they came to the hospital the day Kate was born. It was so great to spend the whole day around them.
Look at this little dude...how cute is he??Cousins...Kylie, Kate and Logan.My brother and I with our babies.
Pop and Nanny...and my brother.

Sometimes it's not so easy

Confession: I have not enjoyed myself 100% of the time since Kate came home. I can admit this because I know I'm not the only one who has ever brought home a new baby and at times was miserable from being tired or overwhelmed. A couple of nights ago we had a marathon breastfeeding session and Kate decided to eat for four hours, until 3 AM. Seriously. I was not happy nor overjoyed by that time. In fact I was in tears from being so sleepy and having no clue why this child insisted on going from breast to breast without sleeping. It was a drastic change from the previous 6 nights where she'd been sleeping for 3 hours at a time. I remained hopeful that the next night we'd be back to our 3 hour routine, only to be disappointed when she decided to have another marathon feeding, keeping me up until 3:40 that time.
I made Nick flip through some of our books and do some internet research while I was trying to hold my eyes open only to have him tell me that everything he could find said this would happen sometimes and there was nothing I could do but offer her the breast. If that's what she wanted, that's what I had to do. I don't think being told this was normal helped at all. In fact it just made me feel more hopeless because I realized there was nothing to do but stay up and feed her.

Last night I decided we weren't doing another one of those sitting-in-the-recliner-all-hours marathons. So to bed she went with me. Now I know some people have issues with babies sleeping in Mom and Dad's bed for safety reasons. Even Nick was against it, but I told him last night that she was sleeping with me so I could feed her in bed and he was not to say a single word about it. You know what? It worked out just fine. She actually slept quite a bit. I was able to feed her while laying in bed more comfortably and even though I wasn't asleep the whole time, I felt a lot more rested. We're still trying to get the hang of feeding while laying down. It's a bit different so I think the longer we do this the better we'll get. I definitely felt better this morning. For the moment we are a co-sleeping family. I don't intend for this to go on forever, but as long as we get sleep I'm willing to live with it for now.For an update on me, physically I am doing great. Recovery from a c-section has been far easier than I anticipated. I haven't had to take any pain medication since day 2 after coming home, and I'm getting around really well. Obviously I can feel that I'm still recovering and am limited in my movements and what-not, but as far as pain goes I have been feeling great. My scar has healed nicely as well.

I've also dubbed myself The Biggest Loser. When I found out I was pregnant I told myself over and over "I'm not going to be one of those people who gains 60 pounds while pregnant", and then I proceeded to do exactly that. I know. A lot of my weight gain came in the form of water. I swear, my legs, ankles, shins, calves, and hands have been unrecognizable to me for months now. Even my doctor noted that he thought a great deal of my weight gain was water and there wasn't much I could do about it. I hung in there though. I wouldn't have made it through the days without the many foot and leg rubs from Nick, I can tell you that much. Since having Kate I am proud to say that after 1 week I had dropped 28 pounds, and after week 2 I was down another 14. This morning I weighed and have lost another 6, so I'm at 48 pounds gone since Kate arrived 18 days ago. Take that Bob and Jillian!

Oh, and today we finally broke into the world of cloth diapers. We had some disposables that we were using up for her first couple of weeks and mostly until her stump fell off. Now that we're through both of those, we can put her in her super cute cloth diapers and my laundry fun can start. Doesn't she look adorable? This is a Fuzzibunz diaper.