Crabby Mama

My boy has a cold. Two nights ago he started gagging and snuffling in his bed. He was spitting up often and many times it was just mucous. He makes this crazy grunting noise when he is gagging on it and it is kinda scary. Everyone keeps saying I need to take him to the doctor, but I know it’s just a cold. They aren’t going to be able to do anything for him as long he doesn’t have a fever. So I am not planning on taking him in before his next appt on Dec 7th unless it gets worse.

My trio watching a show:

Thanks, Christina, for the fabulous Gator gear!!!

On Monday, Erin had her Thanksgiving school program and feast.

She was a scarecrow and they sang the cutest song:
I’m a little scarecrow stuffed with hay.
Here I stand in the field all day.
When I see the crows I like to shout,
“Hey, you crows, you better get out!”

Here is a better picture:

On Tuesday, Leah had her feast. She was a Pilgrim and another class were Indians.

The videos of the singing are on our other camera and I don’t know where it is right now. I will try to upload them later.

After Leah’s feast, a bunch of her classmates and smaller siblings played Ring Around the Rosy.

When PawPaw got here on Saturday, Erin told him, “PawPaw, I missed you the whole time.”

Today we went to Erin’s gymnastics. We got there a few minutes early and there was another class in the gym. Erin told everyone that would listen, “My class is not going to start yet.”

When she is signing a new word like shoes, she says, “This means for shoes.”

Her phrasing has been adorable lately. I need to remember them and write down more of them.

Adam did a little coo with a smile today. I doubt it was a real smile but it was super cute just the same. I think his smiles look like Leah’s when she was newborn.

I just want to say for the record that I really don’t like breastfeeding. We are pretty much past the pain now and Adam is latching pretty well. But it is such a chore to me. I do it because I don’t want to be fixing bottles in the middle of the night and I know Adam is getting my immunities which is important right now with the flu so prevalent. BUT. I still dread it almost every time I have to feed him.

I wanted to blog about how things are going so I don’t forget. Mike has been off since Adam was born and is not going back to work until after Thanksgiving. He will actually be starting a new job then. So I have to admit I have had it pretty easy. Not only does he take care of the girls in the morning, getting them up and dressed and off to school, but he even remembered to make them lunch yesterday for lunch bunch. There is nothing cuter than seeing your husband packing grapes into a Tinkerbell lunch box. He has been amazing at taking things off my mind so I can worry about only Adam and what he needs.

I am gradually making my way back into daily life with my family. Yesterday I took all three kids to Leah’s gymnastics by myself. Adam slept the whole time and Erin watched her DVD as usual. So It was actually pretty easy except for the amount of stuff I had to haul in.

Tomorrow I am bringing Leah and Adam to a playdate. Erin will be at school. I am trying to ease into handling all three. However the mornings will be a challenge when I am on my own and I am not looking forward to when I have to get everyone ready and out the door by 8:50 everyday. Already my mind is spinning with the logistics. Adam has been pretty consistent lately with getting up for the day at about 8am, wanting his morning meal. So it should be interesting trying to nurse while finishing up getting everyone else ready.

Otherwise he is a really good baby. I am trying to use the Babywise schedule on him and he is doing well so far. He eats every 2-3 hours during the day and goes more like 3-4 hours at night. I am usually up twice between 10ish and 8ish. He only truly cries when he is in pain (gas or trying to poop) and fusses when hungry or ready to sleep, but doesn’t truly cry. I’m sure it will be harder once he is not so new, sleepy, and portable.

Adam’s cord fell off last night, so he got his first bath tonight! Mike did the honors while I bathed the girls. Here are a few pics.

Ready to begin

Maybe it’s not so bad?

Waaaaaaahhhhhhh!

All dry, clean, fed, and happy

AND here are my favs of the kiddos.

So we went to the dr for Adam’s first check up and a visit with the lactation consultant. Our regular dr wasn’t there so we saw the dr who first examined Adam in the hospital (who did NOT catch the broken clavicle). Anyway, he felt around and said that he could feel a small knot forming on the bone, which means that the healing has begun. The knot will actually remain there for a LONG time, like maybe a year, until it smooths out. But when the dr did all the reflex tests, Adam didn’t seem to flinch when his shoulder was manipulated. So I guess the pain is not so bad anymore. We haven’t given him Tylenol for pain since last night actually.

Adam weighed 8lbs 8oz, which is what he weighed when we were discharged from the hospital. I then nursed him on one side and they weighed him again. He had taken just over an ounce! After nursing the other side, he had eaten almost 2.5 oz! The dr and lactation consultant said that 4 day olds usually only take half that. They anticipate him being back up to his birth weight by next week’s lactation appt.

You always hear these stories, but they rarely happen to people you know. Apparently when the dr wrestled Adam’s shoulders out, he wasn’t quite fitting through. Unbeknownst to us, his left clavicle fractured all the way through – not just a hairline. We didn’t find out until this morning though (day 2). My mom had noticed last night that Adam’s shoulder popped when he was wiggling around. I totally thought that maybe he had loose joints like Mike. I felt his shoulder pop once that night and resolved to mention it to the ped the next morning at rounds. When the ped checked him out, I told him what we experienced and he said he thought he felt some popping while checking. I do wonder though if he would have said something to me had I not said it first. I am glad I did.

Looking back, it makes me so sad that we didn’t realize it earlier. It all makes sense now why he would scream like he was in pain. Whenever I swaddled him, I used my new Miracle Blanket, which is awesome by the way. BUT it requires you to swaddle their arms down before using the rest of the blanket and I would manipulate his arms a lot to get him situated. Commence the screaming bloody murder.

Last night went a lot better than the night before. The night nurse was AWESOME and really helped us try everything to soothe Adam. She took him to the nursery at 9pm to try to get him to poop, thinking he may have been stopped up (he was passing LOTS of smelly gas). It was successful, but did not stop the screaming episodes. Then we supplemented him again with formula, this time 35cc’s and sent him to the nursery at midnight. At 4:30 she brought him back STILL sleeping and I fed him again when he woke up at 5:15am. This seemed to be the turning point in his sleeping. Since then we have been having lots of calm time, plenty of sleep, and pretty good nursing.

After the clavicle diagnosis, we obviously started being super careful of his left shoulder. That has helped also. We have pinned his left sleeve to his right chest and keep him swaddled most of the time to keep his arm in place. The drs say that we should see significant improvement in a week and he will mostly healed in two. So hopefully circumcision, shoulder, and cord should all be better at the same time.

All in all SOOOOO happy to be home and looking forward to when this becomes our new normal.

After being circumcised this morning, Adam did NOT sleep better. In fact, things seemed to get worse. He kinda stopped wanting to nurse all that much and still screamed his head off after little naps here and there of about 30 minutes. Mike, my mom, and I were at our wit’s end. There is nothing worse than listening to a screaming child, especially a baby, and knowing you have done all you know how. So tonight when the nurse came in, we talked to her about it. She asked if we had ever supplemented formula with our other girls and we definitely had. So she suggested we try and give Adam just a sip of formula just to see how he felt about it. He SCARFED it down and we stopped him before he ate too much so he wouldn’t get used to that full feeling before my milk came in. He calmed right down and dozed off right away after burping like a champ.

I really HATE the beginning of breastfeeding for that very reason. My milk doesn’t come in for like 5 days. The baby is NEVER full enough and therefore pretty miserable most of the time. I don’t want to supplement with formula because the more you nurse the faster your milks arrives and the better supply keeps up with demand. BUT at least when I do supplement, I know how much baby ate and whether or not it is hunger when they wake up and cry. It eliminates one factor. This always stresses me out SO much in these early days.