Mom, Trisha and I staged an impromptu photo shoot with Charlie. These are pics from that day.

fun face paints

Bored? Well, just go to the Halloween aisle at Wal-mart and buy yourself some face paint. I painted the boys' faces one night just for fun. They loved it.

Huett was obviously Spiderman...not bad huh? Sam was the Green Goblin...not to be confused with The Incredible Hulk!

cute...yet terrifying. I love those big brown puppy dog eyes...I can't help but wonder if we'd ever had a daughter would she've been blessed with those big eyes and his good hair?

He's so silly

Huett's really is a little more scary. It won't be long until Charlie is joining in...

No news

There's nothing exciting to write about in the last few days. Charlie had his 2 week appointment on Monday and he weighed 9 pounds and was 21 inches long. We have some good nights and some bad nights but all in all, he is just a normal newborn baby. I just love to kiss on him. I can already tell he is getting bigger. That makes me happy and sad. I am ready for him to sleep through the night, but I want him to stay a tiny little baby too. I guess I should just get over it huh? You can't stop time in it's tracks.
I swear since Charlie was born, Huett and Sam have started acted a lot older too. They play well together which is great, but they also fight with each other over everything. I think when they used to argue over a toy, we could just redirect Sam's attention to something else but not anymore. And they just pester each other. All the time. Mikey says that is to be expected but I want them to go back to the way they were when they played so well together without all the bickering...this, however, will probably be the norm for the next...oh 16 years until they grow up and become best friends again like most siblings do. I keep telling them not to be mean to each other and that they are their own best friends but I don't think they quite understand it. They will, one day. When I ask them who they play with at preschool, they always name each other so I guess they get along outside of the house which is important.
Charlie's awake. gotta go

Isn't this hat the cutest thing evah!! My big sis bought this for Charlie Bucket(that's what Huett and Sam call him sometimes...remember off of Willy wonka and the Chocolate Factory) It looks so sweet on him!! i love it

That is one giant pacifier!! I tried the newborn ones and he hated them. This is the 6 month size and he can hold on to it really well. Thank the Lord!

The woombie...AKA sanity-saver!

I thought that I had seen it all when it came to newborn sleep-aids/swaddlers. I swaddled Sam for as long as I could when he was a baby and he loved it, but Charlie and Huett did not. So with Huett, we suffered through, but got over it. Some friends of ours, Christian and Christina welcomed a sweet baby girl, Alex, around 5 months ago and their pediatrician recommended this new-fangled contraption called the "WOOMBIE". In a traditional swaddle, the arms are down by the side, which Charlie hates. It makes him really mad. The woombie, however, allows him to move his arms around, without being able to hit himself in the face or startle himself. He is a much quieter sleeper the last 2 nights and has been sleeping for 4 hour stretches as opposed to 2 or 2& 1/2 hours. We borrowed theirs just to try it out and it looks like we are going to be buying some of our own. Let me just say, I recommend it and really thankful to have stumbled upon this little treasure! Thanks Christina!!

It also unzips from the bottom so for late night diaper changes, you can keep the arms swaddled and just let the legs out, then zip it right up for quick and easy diaper changes.






I love it!!!

Finally, some pictures of Charlie's almost completed nursery.

It's my favorite of the three nurseries that I've done.

It's the same baby furniture from Huett's nursery.

My grandmother and mom made the great curtains. They really make the nursery.

So cute! They look perfect and really couldn't have been matched to the decorations any better.

My mother-in-law bought this for Huett when he was born and of all the baby furniture we have, this has gotten the most use and will be carried with them into adulthood. We actually have 2 of these and Archer is borrowing one of them for his nursery right now.

This is my rocking chair from when I was a child. My mom made the cute cushions and it has been in all 3 nurseries.

some more of the cute wall-hangings.

My grandmother personalized this jersey for us by painting HILL and #3 on there. She did an awesome job and it looks like we bought it that way. We just haven't gotten it hung yet because I didn't have a big enough screw for it.

We literally got all this stuff up the day before he was born. We are just waiting on a few more throw pillows and a crib bumper and it will be completed! I love it

A day in the life...

Just trying to keep it real. I feel like lots of blogs paint people's lives as if they are nothing but rainbows and sunshine, but life with a newborn is often nothing of the sort. Now, I'm not complaining at all, and Charlie is actually sleeping better at night than I think the other two did at this stage, so everything is good. However, there are some things that people forget about when dreaming of having a new baby. I will touch on just a few of these with this post.

Sleep like a baby?? What an ironic statement. Guessing what will help your newborn sleep through the night is what drives most new mom's thought process.

What can I do to get 5 more minutes of sleep out of this child. Maybe if I swaddle him like this, or if I mix formula with his breastmilk at night, or maybe if I lay him on his side just a tiny little bit, or maybe he needs a sound machine for some white noise...and these are just a fraction of the ideas I've had throughout having 3 little newborns in the last 4 years. I behave like there is some little trick that will magically click and the baby will sleep 4 hours straight with no interruption between feedings. Lets be honest, this rarely ever happens. At least not for the first several weeks anyway. So if you are about to have a baby or know someone who is, keep this in mind. Sleep deprivation on top of the worries a newborn brings can turn the most sane person into a complete nut job. Cut us some slack.

Secondly, there is the excitement of feeding a newborn baby...another exciting guessing game. If you are breastfeeding, you wonder, is the baby getting enough? Has your milk come in? Should I pump? How often should I nurse? Why does the baby want to nurse every hour on the hour? How do I discreetly nurse a baby who isn't even that good at it yet when I have a house full of visitors who don't seem to get the idea that I might need some privacy? ( no offense to anyone) Then, even if you aren't breastfeeding, which formula should you use?



As you can see, I have chosen to pump breastmilk instead of actually nursing him because to put it nicely, Charlie has the suck of a Hoover vacuum cleaner and he was literally killing me. It was excruciating and by day 3 I was almost in tears at feeding time. Thankfully, I have a great pump so it wasn't an issue and things have been going great ever since, but still there are worries. How often should I pump? Am I storing my breastmilk properly? What if I need to feed him formula and he is only used to eating breastmilk? Will he go on a hunger strike? Not to mention I am pumping for 15 minutes at a time 6-8 times a day, including two pumps in the middle of the night(gotta love that)...So it is very time consuming( but totally worth it, especially in light of the recent swine flu epidemic and winter fast approaching, and 2 big brothers in preschool and a mom in the medical field). Anyway, On a bright note, breastfeeding experts say to expect to get anywhere from 24-28 ounces a day by the 2 week mark and I, Bessie the Dairy Cow, am getting around 60 ounces in a 24 hour period. So as previously shown in the pictures, our refrigerator and freezer is quickly filling up with breastmilk. I am about to transfer some to my moms deep freezer. Moving right along...

Next issue. Which bottles to use, which pacifier to use, which formula to use. What if my baby is a spitter? How much spit up is too much? Should I take him to the doctor? Is he gaining enough weight? Thankfully none of mine have been spitters, but I have a niece who had terrible reflux and I know it was incredibly stressful for her parents. So throw that worry into the mix!

Next, adjustment to new baby life. My lonely husband curled up in our giant empty bed because Charlie and I sleep on the couch downstairs. All of our bedrooms are within 10 feet of each other which is ideal once the baby gets into his own crib, but until that time arrives, we are shacking up in the den so his cries in the night don't wake the older boys. So, hopefully your baby-daddy adjusts as easily to this as Mikey has (keep in mind this is his 3rd rodeo so he's has lots of practice). The adjustment didn't go as smoothly the first time around and we had our share of fights until Huett started sleeping through the night. 2 young inexperienced parents + new marriage + new house +new baby= 2 grouchy parents. But like I say we quickly adjusted and it came oh so much easier with Sam and Charlie, so moms to be, keep this in mind and react to your husband accordingly. Like my mom told me, men just don't do that great with newborns. Mikey does great with Charlie now, but I think it is because he is so bonded with our older two that he can better relate to Charlie since he knows where their relationship is headed. And it is my opinion...and if you disagree, just don't let your hubby read this, ...that there is really no need for both parents to be up in the middle of the night. If I am already up, there really is nothing for Mikey to do with us, but go without sleep and be needlessly tired for work, or to help me the next day and vice versa. If he is up with the baby, there is no reason for me to be up too. That's just me though so take it with a grain of salt. If anything, do shifts where your husband gets up the first half of the night and you get up the second half so both of you can get at least 6 hours of interrupted sleep(that is unless you have to get up and pump)

this is where Charlie and I are sleeping. We have a giant sectional and I sleep on the couch and Charlie sleeps on the chaisse(sp?) lounge that sticks out. It actually works out really well because it is on the very end of the house away from the boys bedrooms. And it's a pretty comfy couch.

This is one of my fave things that I never had with the other boys that I don't know how I ever did without. My wonderful sister-in-law bought it for me and it is one-stop-shopping for everything I need for Charlie. Still, I wonder am I using the gentlest wipes? Are these diapers going to work well? Will he get diaper rash? If so, which cream should I use(I hate the smell of desitin so I have just started trying balmex...the jury is still out on that, but so far, so good...don't try the up and up cream from target. It is runny and it didn't work) Anyway, you see the rubbing alcohol for his umbilical cord which can get infected if not properly taken care of and I have seen an infected belly button a few times at work and let me tell ya, it ain't pretty.
So yet another worry...

I didn't write this post to freak anyone out, or to throw myself a pity party, I just think it would've been nice to know a few of these things before I had Huett, but no. In my head it was all unicorns and butterflies and that just made the adjustment 10 times worse! And I should've known b/c the in the 5 1/2 years that I've been a nurse, I've never done anything but newborn babies. So imagine the shock for a new mom who doesn't even have that experience.

But let me conclude this post by reminding everyone I love this baby, and my other babies so strongly that it wouldn't matter if you told me I could never sleep again, I would agree to it because they are so worth it. Even at 2:00 in the morning, when I am bleary eyed and half-asleep, I am so in love with this baby that I am happy to get up and feed him and hold him until he goes back to sleep. His health and happiness is so important that I will gladly pump breastmilk for hours everyday if I think it will keep my baby safe. And if our family isn't proof of that fact, considering we purposefully did this 3 times in a row in a 4 year span, I don't know what is. How quickly we forget the pains of childbirth and newborn babies...

Just a quick post of pictures so that everyone knows we are still alive and well.

Charlie chillin' with mama

and with daddy

and big brother

Don't look at me!!

I'm so handsome!

for the big brothers, life goes on as usual!

The newest big brother!

The last few days have been going pretty good. It was a lot harder, it seems to me, the third time around as far as the c-section went. I guess that is to be expected. It must be tougher for my body to heal at the same spot 3 times in a row. Anyway, I have many things to do and not enough time to do it all in so I'm outta here!

blog ya later!

One Mad Mama!

Let me ask you all one question. If you read a sign that said

Newborn Waiting

what specifically would that mean to you?? Does it scream that there is a certain seriousness to the health of a newborn that doesn't necessarily apply to children of other ages? Because that is kinda what I take from a sign like that. Which leads to the following story about Charlie's first doctors visit at only 4 days old.

Mikey and I arrive after a long walk through the parking deck and hospital with Charlie and his entire stroller covered with a big baby blanket, Michael Jackson style trying to prevent him from coming into contact with any germs. In the back of my mind I am resting easy because I know that once we arrive to the office, there is a safe haven for our sweet little newborn baby, so tiny and delicate. At Birmingham Pediatrics, aside from the sick and well waiting rooms, they have an entire closed off room just for newborns. So we arrive into said room, keeping him covered for good measure and everything was fine for the first few minutes. One newborn comes and goes. And then it happened. A mother, and a grandmother come in with a set of twins... aww you might be thinking, newborn twins, double the cuteness. Except for these weren't newborns. They were at least nine or ten months old. Old enough to crawl around and spread all sorts of germs. In my hormonal and sleepless haze, panic starts to set in. I am mad and scared all at the same time. I keep telling myself they must at least be well for their mom to have the audacity to bring 2 obviously NOT NEWBORNS into the clearly marked newborn waiting room!! Then it starts. One of the twins starts coughing...and sneezing, and I am almost in tears. I think Mikey started to realize that I was upset. If I were of a more confrontational makeup I would've politely asked them if they were aware that this room was for newborns only, as in neonates, not kids under one. I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to know that if a child is mobile, they are no longer a newborn, but I digress. So Mikey takes Charlie, who is still in his stroller covered by his blanket, walking around out in the halls while I listen for the receptionist to call Charlie's name.

As I continue waiting, I become certain that one of the twins is sick by his coughing and fussiness, but if I needed any confirmation, the mom provided it. She proceeds to complain to her mom about how she hates this doctors office because you have to wait for like 30 minutes in the waiting room and then another 45 minutes in the back, and then all the doctor is going to do is, "look at him and tell me he's fine and WRITE HIM A PRESCRIPTION!" I am getting mad all over again just writing about this. So, not only was she so bold as to bring her NOT NEWBORNS into the Newborn Waiting Room but they WEREN'T EVEN WELL!! Maybe it is my maternal, hormonal instincts mixed with the swine flu hysteria that makes this seem like such a big deal to me, but how selfish can you be, to risk the health of a tiny baby who can be devastated by even the most simple of sicknesses, to protect your older children who weren't even well in the first place. I might've given her a pass if I thought that they were just there for a well visit, but they weren't.

So if you are expecting me to end this post with some big confrontation between me and this woman, you are going to be disappointed. I've never been one to stick up for myself, but in this one instance, I am ashamed that I didn't. If you think I am being irrational then give me a pass for being a new mom (again). If you agree then HIGH FIVE via the WEB, and if you, yourself have ever done something so despicable, then shame on you!!

Now that I am through with my RANT!! I will get to the stats. Charlie had lost down to 7 pounds 12 ounces on Sunday and by Tuesday, he had already gained back up to 8 pounds. Once you turn the corner from the initial weight loss, it is uphill from there. He is thriving and doing great. When he breastfeeds, he has the force of a Hoover vacuum cleaner, which has led me to the decision to pump instead of actually nursing him because he was killing me. I am feeling much better, and so is he because he is getting to eat more than he would be if I were just breastfeeding. He was really fussy for the first few days and I am convinced it was because he was hungry and he is a different baby boy today. He is and will continue to be a blessing, and I find myself continually thanking God for my many blessings!

Charlie's first car ride was uneventful. He slept all the way home from the hospital and then contined to sleep in his car seat for a few more minutes when we got home!

He looks so tiny in his car seat. Sadly, he won't stay this way for long. I just can't kiss him enough!

you first dose of the hill pill!

I've packed it all up and moved and this is my new home in the blogging world!

I would like to welcome everyone to my new blog! Isn't it cute? Anyway, now that you've found your way here, I hope you enjoy!!

The postings may be scarce these first few weeks, with the new baby and all, but I will do my best to keep everyone updated on the crazy happenings of our lives!