Now that we have a spare moment . . .

Now that her highness is in bed, I can finally get a spare moment on the computer.  I do so miss my laptop these days.  Little JoJo has become the clingy koala bear who doesn't like to play independently for more than five minutes.  This picture was only possible after she accidentally fell asleep after screaming to be picked up while I was busy making lunch.  Thanks for small miracles.

She is now five months old and sixteen pounds.  Her new skills include laughing and sitting up in the bath.  She's mastered all the toys on her jumperoo already, so we'll have to use some ingenuity to keep it interesting.  She's broken her winning streak of sleeping through the night, and now calls for assistance regularly around 2 and 5AM.

In other news, I've finally decided to walk the walk when it comes to plastics and an ecologically conscious household.  The first steps include reusable lady pads, which I discover are called "mom cloth."  I sprung for the organic cotton ones from Etsy rather than the polyester from Amazon because of the plastics issue.  They haven't arrived yet, so I can't comment on their performance.  It was a very short leap there from JoJo's cotton diapers.  I was also finally brave enough to buy a man razor, which I'm finally getting the hang of after some trepidation.  I can't continue to rant against single-use plastics without being willing to make some changes.  That also means a win for Smuckers natural peanut butter over the other brands because of the glass jar.  I've been saving them so we can eventually get rid of all our plasticware food storage.

Stay tuned for many more posts about the crafting projects that have been going on.  The felt food got bogged down in the green beans, since they need to be sewn by hand and free time is in short supply.  I still have to post pictures of the busy book I finished before she was born, and I managed to bang out a growth chart and a rewards jar.  One other extremely forward-looking activity which has captured my interest is printing out handwriting worksheets from an online generator, both printing and cursive.  Seems you can find an online generator for anything.  Little JoJo will have plenty of practice for her penmanship, and the extra busy work will let her earn marbles for the aforementioned rewards jar.

Baby Progress Report

For about five minutes, I imagined little premature JoJo would be a petite, underdeveloped baby.  Now three months old, Princess Chunk is closing in on 15 pounds and wearing clothes sized for a 12 month-old.  No problems catching up to the average here.  I am also extremely gratified to report that she has figured out how to deal with a normal breastfeeding routine, and we have been able to put away the pump.  Hooray for many fewer bottle washings.

Her current interests include morning stroller walks and lounging on the porch with the dog.  She's reached that awkward phase when she's awake more often and completely bored by the activities she's capable of.  Hopefully that will spur her on to more manual dexterity and we can break out some of the cool toys.

Most fabulous of all, she's consistently sleeping through the night in her own bed in her own room, generally from 9:30 PM to 6 AM, with no diaper overflow.  I feel like we've won the parental lottery.

My every spare baby-free moment is spent on a new all-consuming project - a deluxe kitchen and felt toy food set for her future use.  We've finished making hamburgers, lettuce, spinach, tomato slices, onion rings, mushrooms, avocados, bacon, fried eggs, cheese slices, condiments, cookies, sandwich bread, luncheon meat, linguine and farfalle pasta, two kinds of cereal, and pancakes with all the toppings.  Currently in progress are kiwi, banana, strawberry and peach fruit slices, ravioli, breakfast sausage, and more cookies.  Getting some little green pom poms for peas, and considering making green beans.  Loads of fun, but very time consuming.  Someday we'll have our dining room table back.

Positive Developments

Olive oil to the rescue, once again.  Great for raw skin,and for lubricating flanges of unfortunate size. We are back in business where the pumping is concerned.

Also, JoJo has finally (mostly) overcome her uncoordinated attempts at nursing.  She still comes down pretty hard with the gums sometimes, but we've had more success lately than not, free from the pressure of lactation specialists.  No nipple shields, supplementation tubes, or other strange devices.  She just needed some time to sort herself out and grow a bigger mouth.  Nipple confusion is totally not a thing in her case; she knows exactly what everything is for.  Again, smart but lazy.  We'll have to practice some more mobile positions before we attempt it in public, because I'm not dragging that ergonomic pillow she likes so much around everywhere.

Joys and Woes of the First Month

They weren't kidding when they talk about the proverbial sleepless nights.  I don't actually have any room to complain, because for the most part JoJo sleeps pretty soundly, wakes up to be changed and fed, and then obligingly goes back to sleep.  My routine is slightly encumbered by the subsequent chores of pumping and cleaning pump parts, after which I am allowed to go back to bed.  The trouble is that I don't ever remember sleeping, just constantly waking up to the same tasks, like groundhog day.

Pumping milk is a drag.  I waffle between loving it and hating it, and right now I'm not a fan.  I can build the thing and break it down like a Marine field stripping a rifle, sometimes literally in my sleep.  Unfortunately for me, my skin obligingly expands to overcrowd any size flange available, so chafing has become a real problem, aggravated by JoJo's chomping pseudo-latch when we attempt direct nursing.  At this point, I've discovered it's less painful and sometimes quicker to express by hand than to be bothered assembling and cleaning the pump.  I have a new affinity and pity for dairy cows and their lot in life.  It doesn't help that the largest nursing bra Amazon had to offer is too small, resulting in an almost constant war on blocked ducts, which has in turn made the baffling lack of hot water in the shower a critical issue.  I begin to suspect we share a hot water heater with the neighbors upstairs.  On particularly bad days, sleep once again takes a back seat to a steamy therapeutic shower at 0300, because it is absolutely worth it.

On the positive side, she's much cuter now!  And she opens her eyes a lot more.  She doesn't mind being put down, and is still quite content to sleep most of the day.  You would think I'd have many opportunities to nap, but having another diurnal critter around who would very much like to play or just howl bloody murder at passers by complicates things.

As babies go, she's remarkably low maintenance.  She sleeps in the car, and is generally happy to carry on napping in the car seat through any errand I need to run so long as we keep it under an hour or two.  We have yet to manage her grand debut at church, but we hope for the best.  Today will be the first time I attempt to take her along to Andy's doggie playdate.  I look forward to the day when she can finally hold her head up and fit in the Ergo carrier, which is a lot easier to get into alone than the wrap.  We broke in the stroller for the first time yesterday, and managed a casual pack walk with the dog, who is fortunately better behaved in the presence of baby than otherwise.

Interesting updates to follow as they occur. 

Cute Easter Outfit

The First Two Weeks

There isn't too much more to report.  JoJo continues to be a great sleeper, except at night.  But even then, it isn't terrible.  A few well-placed naps make that situation manageable.  Also, my incision is healing nicely, so getting in and out of bed is much less odious than it used to be.

Nursing seems to be a complete bust at this point.  Her latch is terrible and she either gets frustrated or falls asleep before we can work on it much.  I want to assign her some reading from a book on the subject, but sadly she doesn't seem interested.  In the meantime, I'm pumping enough for twins, and the only drawback seems to be fussing around with cleaning bottles several times a day.  It's not what we envisioned, but I think we can make it work.  We've replaced all the plastic with glass bottles to avoid as many of those nasty endocrine-disrupting chemicals as possible.  She's gaining weight nicely, which is the important point.

More interesting updates to follow as she approaches her due date and becomes less grub-like.  She would be 38 weeks by now.

27 Weeks and Closing

I realized yesterday that we only have nine weeks left.  We've been doing lots of things we don't usually do, like preparing a nursery, but the part of my brain that deals with emotional perception hasn't caught on just yet.  I've been tidying up the extra room; I do that all the time.  I've been building furniture; I do that all the time.  I've been painting walls; I do that all the time.  I've been painting and decoupaging decorative canvases; I do that all the time.  I'm used to pregnancy being a sort of incidental bodily function that eventually resolves itself and disappears without any long-term consequences.  Eventually it will seem real, but in the meantime there's lots of puttering around to do.

I'm still going in every week for a progesterone injection, and every two weeks now I have to get my cervix looked at just to be sure nothing untoward is happening.  So far, so good.  JoJo apparently weighs 2+ pounds and is right on target.

Gift Registries and Other Updates

In response to popular demand, and the need for more detailed guidelines than "not pink," we have created a few baby gift registries.  They are by no means the be-all-end-all lists of what we want or need, but they're a start.  If somebody finds a cute outfit at the thrift store and washes it a few times, that's cool too.  But we really do love the Burt's Bees stuff.

• Burt's Bees Baby
• Amazon

In other news, we had the 18-20 week ultrasound at the hospital last week.  Everything still looks good, but they want to follow up in a month to look at whatever they didn't get a good enough look at the last time.  My blood pressure is in question, so I've been monitoring that at home in addition to a delightful 24-hour pee test and blood panel.  Results to follow.  Getting the progesterone injection has been a bit of a bureaucratic nightmare involving second-party distributers, third-party pharmacies, lost paperwork, and lots of waiting on hold over the phone.  I think we finally have all the bugs worked out, and I'm supposed to go in for a shot in the butt every week for the duration.  Cervix still looks good; we have another ultrasound this week to check it again.  Blood pressure follow-up is next week.  If our insurance didn't cover all this, we might well have been tapped out by March.

I'm told they usually deliver people in my circumstances around 36 weeks, which would be the week of March 15, the dog's birthday.  I'm seeing some very cute birthday snapshots in our future.

Johanna

Our 16.5 week ultrasound today promoted "Baby Julian" (aka "Baby #5") to Baby Johanna.  I'm happy; Dave is understandably a little disappointed, but he'll be over it in about two minutes.  It's made it a little bit more real for me.  Up to this point, I haven't had a chance to feel pregnant; I've felt like I have a strange degenerative syndrome.

Nothing appears to be seriously abnormal, so thank goodness for that.  My cervix is behaving itself so far, but they want to see me again in two weeks just to make sure it stays that way.  The progesterone seems to be doing its job effectively.

Oh, and this time I have placenta previa.  If it had to be something, it might as well have been that, because it doesn't change our plans at all.  We were already definitely having a caesarian because of the classical incision they did on me before, so another reason labor could be life-threatening is purely academic.

Here's hoping for the best.  Just once, please.