30 day shred my stomach to pieces.

I started the 30 day shred.


OH MY GAWD.

That's all I'll say about it. I did take some bile inducing before pictures that, even if I ended up with the body of Jessica Alba via her "Honey" days, I would never post online....or show anybody, including my husband. Let's just say I'm currently wishing I knew how to encrypt files, or password protect a folder. Oh, and I refuse to work out in front of anybody. So this is going greeeeeeeat. I love not being able to bend down to sit without whincing in pain! [cue false enthusiasm]

Nobody tells you what a hot, flabby mess you become after baby! The jelly rolls are the only thing I can really blame on Little E, because....let's be honest, I wasn't exactly Victoria's Secret material before hand. But, hey, isn't that one of the perks of motherhood? Blaming that train wreck that resides between your neck and ankles on that adorable little monster you're carrying around?

Onto fun(ner) things. Cloth diapering is.....going. We're having trouble going to full time cloth due to me being put off work for so long, I never got a chance to complete my stash. However, I have some Sunbabies on the way and can't WAIT. The 12 I'm waiting on will  "complete" my stash, and we'll be able to go to 24/7 cloth! I say "complete" because I know I won't be able to resist some new fluff every now and then!

NOW! How's un bebe? He's hilarious. He's smiling like crazy, thinks the phrase "HEY BABAY!" from Dave Chapelle is the funniest thing ever....and well....tummy time is just a tragedy. Seriously, you would think somebody was prying his cute little nose off. But oh well, we try. He's blowing raspberries, and he's also gained some wicked head control so we've been making some great use of the Bumbo!!

I went back to work on the first and I managed to survive. Noah seems to think we have to be on the same scheduling and has since been keeping Daddio up all night. [evil laugh]

SO now you're updated! Here's some killer cuteness to reward you for reading this crap ;)

And what have you learned?? Babies smell. (In a cute way of course)

With almost 8 sweet sweet weeks gone by what's new? He's starting to smile. I don't mean those accidental, -maybe it's gas, happened to snap a picture and it looks like he's smiling-smiles; Im talking about a -real deal do something funny and he grins like a goofball- kind of smile! And, even though he's done it a billion times by now, Dustin and I still get all giggly when he does it. Yep....we're THOSE kind of parents.

So what have I learned from being a mom? The snotty teenager inside me wants to roll her eyes and say "Ummmm nothing...because I already knew eeeeverything, what-evs." Well I didn't of course so that would be  lame so here's my list:

-You don't bounce a baby within 30 minutes post meal.
-Blogging one handed is all the rage.
-Your next long relaxing shower will be at least 13 years from now.
-You now have the ability to carry on an entire one sided conversation with the only response being "ooooooh" from a very interested 7 week old.
-Babies stink. Seriously! Nobody ever told me that babies had the potential to be so smelly!
-Farts* are super funny again.**

Admit it, it's funny when babies are, shall we say, "flatulently talented." Not even the most sophisticated of souls doesn't find it hilarious when an 8 lb baby cracks one off that sounds like it came from the trunk of an elephant. My kid's got game.

Okay, I may have learned other stuff....but, let's be honest, if this was an entry about the value of burping would you actually read it? Nope.

Oh! The most important thing I've learned????

There is nothing more squishably cute than a baby in a tarzan diaper.

"Oh hai, I iz King of the Crib"

*-only baby farts
**-Okay all farts....let's be adults here.

Adventures in cloth diapering.

We had our first cloth experience yesterday! Granted it was only one cloth diaper and he only wore it on a car ride to Nana's but hey! Baby steps.

Can I just say if you had asked me 5 years ago about cloth diapers I would have said
#1-Ew.
#2 Who cares?

I guess the magical thing about motherhood is that the most idiotic thing you can imagine becomes the most adorable thing you've ever seen. He looked downright ADORABLE! Straight up cute enough to pinch. I'm mobile blogging or I would post his pic. I'll post one soon though, I'm currently waiting to have my arm stabbed AGAIN! To make sure my "gestational diabetes" has gone away. Lame.

The pics are on my camera but how about a picture of his mean face to tide you over until then?





My child has anger issues.

posted from Bloggeroid

Baby E graduates to Noah James

and Im sleeeepy! Well not THAT sleepy actually.

Be patient, and do not judge me for my type-o-ness because I blog at you one-handed...as I am currently holding the King of Cuteness on my chest.

But I figured I should post my "He's here" update before he gains the ability to roll his eyes, be embarrassed by my messy hair, or drive off to hang out with his new girlfriend.

I know, I suck. But as mentioned before bebe boy has an uncanny ability to monopolize at least one arm 24 hours of the day, and Ive been too lazy to type an entire update with one hand....until NOW!

He was born May 28th 2011 at 8:33am, I'll spare you the gory details. He weighed 8lbs 12.3 ozs and he was 19 whole inches long. Short and wide...he was like a little linebacker!

It took him FOREEEEEVVVVVER to freaking cry...they had to give him a little "help" and I seriously thought I was going to die waiting to hear it....then I did, and I completely melted. Oh, and tears??? There were major tears just rolling down my face. That's right...I cried like a baby and Im damn proud of it! :)

Mad at the world

"What's this?? Nobody is squirming in pain when I kick?"

So about 3 hours after he made his appearance my blood pressure resumed it's steady climb to 'OMG yur gunna have a stroke" ness, baffling everybody and royally pissing me off.  It's refusal to go below 170/98 earned me a bonus day in the hospital....topping me off at 3 days of cabin fever.

Finally we get to go home, only to have to return two days later when it shoots back to 180/108....no that's not a type-o.

So yea, Ive been busy...but now Im healthy and baby boy is groooooowing! Ive been taken off of my blood pressure meds and no longer feel like I have the med list of an 80 year old woman. ANYWAY! Picture time!

Practicing his "stink eye"

First time in the swing

His favorite past time

"Whatchu doin lady?"

"Aww, I iz keeding you want to cuddle now?"

Hating his first real bath

"OH hello there! Im just busy being too freaking cute"

"Ahhhh! The cuteness...I cant hold it back"

Okay, consider yourself updated. He's 7 weeks old now as of yesterday...I teared up a little typing that. Why is it that becoming a mom makes you a sobbing hot mess?

~♥ A

37 Weeks, Lets wrap this up shall we?

So! I realize I haven't updated since I was put on bedrest. I was making the assumption that nobody wants to read a daily update that goes somewhere along the lines of "Today I drank 4 liters of water and propped my feet up on the coffee table, took a blood pressure pill, then later...a nap, the end!"

I did graduate to a "modified bedrest" as in "Take it easy" meaning I'm allowed to leave the house if I have to. Once again, nobody wants to read "I went to the grocery store, it was sweeeeeeeet!" hahaa. And the only real "new" thing is that I've seriously considered becoming an extreme couponer.

So what HAVE I done? I had my baby shower! And it was awwweeeessooooooome! And even though I've been at home, I'm still working on thank you cards, I suppose I should get those done some time. But thanks to the intense swelling in my hands, I have the handwriting of a 1st grader. Which is adorable, right???!??

[Nope....actually it's only cute if 1st graders do it!]

Every week I go for an ultrasound and a check up, usually I wouldn't start weekly appointments until 36 weeks, but with the BP issues I've been gettin to see my little tubbers every week since 32 weeks! And he's a fatty, he measured a whopping 8.5 pounds on the 13th.

[Just haaaaangin' out!]

People have literally told me I'm going to die giving birth, which is....sweet of them???? No, they weren't being sarcastic....please shut up! We won't go into other rude things because I'm sure they're no different than anything that any other pregnant woman hears, and I'm not interested!

Good news???? My doctor says I will NOT go past 39 weeks due to the increased risk of pre-eclampsia. So this will probably be my last blog entry before he shows up! WOOOOO! :D

So we're "ready" for him, except I still haven't packed my hospital bag or washed clothes, although they're nice and organized into sizes and ready to be washed! I'm afraid if he knows he has clothes to wear he'll take that as an acceptable reason to make an appearance, oh  yea THAT'S RIGHT, I don't want to go into labor yet! First pregnant woman in history that's just fiiiiiiiine where I'm at thanks hahaha. Except when he's ripping my stomach open from the inside...then I get a little anxious to have him out! And looking at my puffed up Shrek face in the mirror is somewhat motivational to end this pregnancy...but EH! Oh well. Although apparently I'm so excited about the prospect of not being swollen anymore that I had a dream last night about being able to wear my wedding band again! WOOOO PARTY OVER HERE! I'm really living on the edge, right?

And I know that I need to do those things so that we're really ready, BUT, HIIIIII have we met??? I'm a procrastinator....This wouldn't be the child of Dustin and Amanda Edwards is SOMETHING wasn't left until the last minute. That would be weird, hellooooooo!

Sooooo I know this one wasn't very funny, but I don't have anything funny to write, sowwwy!

So I'm signing off for probably the last time as Amanda, next time I write I'll be "mommy"

=)

♥ A

What me, worry?

Apparently.......


I'm too stressed. As evidenced by my uterus of doom.

I went for my check up (going every two weeks now woot!) and even though my appointment was at 2:15 and I didn't get called in until 3:20 I was actually not even impatient or upset because I made friends with the other pregnant ladies in the waiting room.

How's this for an ice breaker "HOLY COW!!! YOUR BABY IS TRYING TO ESCAPE!"
Said by the 9 year old daughter of the woman across from me in the waiting room. Lesson number one on how to tell if you have a hyperactive baby apparently; if the people sitting 8 feet away from you can see your child beating you to death. Love it! So this comment lead into "How far along are you" etc and I actually had a really awesome time with waiting room lady; I never got her name. :(

So then I get called, and I get weighed and I get my first "You suck as a mother" moment of the evening...

Nurse- "You didn't gain any weight"
Me- "No way, I've been eating like a horse"
Nurse- "For real...I know math."

Then I sit down for vitals. HELLLOOOOO hypertension! My bp was 150/90

There's my second "YOU SUCK!" moment, as the nurse insinuates that I'm eating too much, therefore getting too much sodium.
For real??? How can I not be eating enough.....yet eating too much all at the same time. Suck it nurse.

So then the doctor comes in and says "You are a horrible human-pod!" Or something along those lines.....
Ketones...they were all up in muh peepee...not cool. Means I'm wicked dehydrated. Which made no sense since I'd been having horrible braxton hicks contractions and had intentionally UPPED my water intake, and had already chugged a crap ton before I even got there. AND the babies heartrate was high.


So to sum it up, no weight gain, dehydrated, high bp, high fetal heartrate=guess who has two thumbs and gets to go to the hospital for fluids and fetal monitoring??? This chick!!!!!

[Jack Black gets the joke]

The highest my blood pressure spiked was 190/79, which is....let's be honest, pretty crappy. So they gave me a liter of fluid for the dehydration, Baby E is great, very active and his heartrate was back to normal once I finished the fluids. They put me on light bedrest for the weekend (I'm allowed to get up and move around every few hours) and told me to sleeeeep. Even gave me some fancy sleeping pills to take (which I won't be taking because I'm paranoid,) and I'm told to check my blood pressure twice a day. I go back to the office on tuesday for a follow-up. Soooooo obviously I'm exhausted and I'm going to bed! (Doctors orders!) No picture for this one...I don't have any because I'm lame.

My kid's gonna have a fluffy butt!

So lets start this blog entry off by saying "I'm over the hump!!!! WOOOO! And it's all down hill from here!" Yep, I know...the third trimester feels like forEVER and I'm going to be uncomfortable and miserable and unable to sleep and the baby's going to break my ribs and it's going to feel like he's trying to escape.

Check, check....BIG OL' CHECK!


But I feel great! And here's the part where somebody pokes their head around the corner and says  "Oooooh just wait until -[insert bad thing here]- starts -[doing something terrible]- and then you'll be -[insert crappy emotion that I don't care about]-" and that's the part where I tell you to stick it up your butt. Oh that's RIGHT I said stick it up yo' BUTT!

Oh I'm mean. But seriously, how about you be happy about the fact that I'm not considering jumping off of a cliff because my nursery wasn't completely finished by my 28th week? Or maybe be happy for me when I say "Hey...if it weren't for the terrible nausea and vomiting and the fact that I share the mid part of my body with a tiny ninja...I'd never know I was pregnant!" Nope....gotta be lame and try to make me freak out.


ONTO FUN THINGS!!!!!

I'm going to tell you a secret :)

Something I've been set on since about the 10th week of my pregnancy but I don't really talk about it, because people seem to have an opinion on it alll...the...time.

I'm using cloth diapers.


I'll give you a second to let that sink in. And then give it a few more minutes for someone to repeat the second paragraph of this post....and for me to give the same answer ;)

[giving you time to go back and read :)]

I'm a hippie at heart...and guess what, I'm also a cheap-o. I'm concerned about my "carbon footprint" as well as the fact that the average parent spends around $2000 using disposable diapers on their bebe. and I can spend about $300 ($500 if I want to splurge,) and just have to do an extra load of laundry once a week. OH! and I can also diaper two kids for that. BOOYAH!

Does this make me better than somebody that uses disposable?...nope. Does it make me a know-it-all or a goody goody....nope.

It's just what I wanna do! And I view it as sort of an adventure! If you're curious....these are NOT the same cloth diapers that they used "back in the day" It's actually just as simple as a disposable. There's just two extra steps in the process...promise! Plus there's less incidence of diaper rash and blahblahblah. Just google it if you don't believe me. :)

I will be using "All-in-ones" and "Pockets" No pins, no folding, just a cute little fuzzy fluffy butt!

and you've GOT TO ADMIT IT!!!! They're freaking cute. 

At this point I've only got 10, I'd like to be at around 25-30 before Baby E makes his arrival. Most cloth diapers don't fit babies under 8 pounds, although some I've found will fit a 6 pounder. But unless I cave and buy the newborn sized cloth (which fit 6-12 pounds) we will be using disposables until he grows into his cloth diapers :) I'm excited! Be excited too dangit! Im particularly fond of the diaper in the front of the photo...as I think it's hilarious that my son will look like he's wearing a diaper made of newspaper!

Curious as to how they work?? Notice the snaps on the front of the diaper, that's what makes these "one-sizes" or "OS" in cloth diaper speak. The snaps allow me to custom fit each diaper to my baby and they grow as he grows!

These are "pocket diapers" meaning that there's a pocket inside where the microfiber insert is placed, which is what makes the diaper absobent. They have a TPU lining...which makes the "shell" waterproof....so don't worry...if you hold my bebe and he pees...he's not going to soak your arm. This eliminates the need for the "rubber covers" that they used back in the day.

And another perk..I'm told...is that the "blow-out" is a myth when using cloth. Any mommy reading this right now, knows exactly what I'm talking about, and I guess we'll put that to the test soon enough!

Here's a few pics for those who might still be confused, or just curious!

Up close of the snaps. All undone, this is the "biggest size" on the diaper.

 

 

All snaps closed, this is the smallest size :) CUUUTE

 

Inside, completely assembled.

Removing the microfiber liner from the "pocket"

Shot of the microfiber liner. One good thing about pocket diapers is they can be "stuffed"

to be adjusted to different levels of absorbency, good for "heavy wetters" etc.



There! Consider yourself educated on cloth diapering, I'm learning as I go...and I plan to share it on here...the joys [and woes] of CD. :) And in case you were wondering, the husband is 100% on board!

 

 

♥  Amanda