Day 2 of being sick

I am beyond congested and poor little Christophe had such a hard time sleeping last night. I think he wok up at least 10 or 15 times because he was too congested to breath properly. We had the humidifier going but it did not seem to be enough. This morning I used saline spray and it seems to have loosen some of his goobers.

All in all I think Christophe has more energy then me. I have spent the day sitting at my laptop and drinking tea; while Christophe seemed to have found the energy to make toum with his papa.



If you want to try to make your own toum:

Ingredients:

* 3-4 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
* ¼ cup of vegetable or olive oil (or less depending on garlic used)
* 1 lemon, juiced
* ¼ teaspoon salt

Preparation:

For a truly authentic preparation of Toum, a mortar and pestle is used. If a mortar and pestle are unavailable, ingredients can be blended using a food processor.

Start by crushing the garlic cloves until a smooth consistency. Add salt and mix further. Once garlic and salt are of desired, smooth consistency, gradually add oil.

Add lemon juice and mix. The finished product should be smooth, paste-like, and creamy. Serve immediately or chill in the refrigerator.

Recipe taken from About.com

Sleep is overrated

Well at lease Christophe thinks it is; I on the other hand quite enjoy sleep. Last night I swear the devil took over my child; well maybe not the devil cuz he was still his very cute self just an awake cute self from 11pm to midnight; then from 2:30am to 4am; then from 4:30am to 5am; then from 6:15am to well now.

That leaves 2 very tired parents.

I have to say thank god for my sling, when he was up last night and wanted to be bounced will I was standing half asleep otherwise I am sure we would have both ended up on the floor due to shear exhaustion.

He has been very gassy all morning but not producing so I am wondering if he has a tummy upset that kept him up...

Hopefully it will sort itself out before tonight as I NEED A "FULL" NIGHT OF SLEEP.

Mommy mile stones

So during the past 11 weeks not only has Christophe passed tones of mile stones so have I.

• Not caring what other people think of my parenting style
  
• 1st day at home solo with baby
• fitting in my pre-pregnancy clothing
  
• 1st weekend away from dad solo with baby (well we went to visit grandmama so I had help if needed)
  
• Breast-feeding in public without a nursing cover (and not caring what other people may think)
• Left Christophe alone with grandmama while i went for quick shopping trip down the block (I have to say I never felt so guilty)
• First mommy and baby class (We now do yoga once a week)
  
• Leaving the house with baby in arms in less then 15 minutes (the trick to this is to always make sure your diaper bag is ready)
• Letting Christophe sleep a full night in his room alone (this was a mile stone for Christophe also)
• As much as I want to jump in; not intervening when Geoff is taking care of Christophe and he starts crying. He is just as great a dad as I am a mom and can handle it :-)
  

Nursery Sleeping

Christophe's been co-sleeping with us since birth, in a co-sleeper. We've been talking about transitioning him to the crib, but Pierrette wanted to do it on a night where the next day, I'd be home (e.g. a Friday or Saturday) so that if the sleeping went badly, I could help out the next day.

So today was the first experiment. Pierrette fed Christophe in the early evening then gave him to me. I settled him, then put him down, while Pierrette went to the bedroom to sleep. Half an hour later, Christophe was firmly asleep and Pierrette came back to the nursery with a pillow and blanket. She's in there sleeping on the floor right now.

Ah, mummies. :)

Sleepy Mommy

Well, after the rumors that I was the sleepiest parent of the family, we've finally proven that this is Pierrette's area of expertise. With a newborn, particularly with a less-than-perfect latch or jaundice, falling asleep while feeding is not uncommon. When they start to nod off, you can employ a number of different techniques for re-engaging the nursing, like tickling them, blowing on 'em, pumping limbs, etc.

Last night, when feeding, I had two jobs -- keep Christophe awake, keep Pierrette awake. So, as Christophe would begin to slow at nursing, I'd blow on him. When Pierrette's head would start to dip, I'd blow on her.

So, hah. I'm the awake one now. ;)

Sleep deprived father

Before baby was born we were convinced that Geoff would have no issue dealing with the interrupted nights; since he normally only gets 4 hours or so of sleep each night. For me we figured I was going to turn into this evil zombie because I usually sleep 10 hours each night. Were the roles ever reversed. I am functioning extremely well on 1 to 2 hour doses of sleep; on the other hand Geoff can sleep through Christophe crying at the top of his lungs. However he is getting better or I am getting better at telling if he is awake or just talking in his sleep.

The days are starting to meld together so I believe this story happend on night number 2 at home.

I was nursing Christophe and Geoff who had succesfully woken up about 15 mins before and changed Christophe's diaper had fallen into deep sleep again. I suddently needed to go pee and could not hold it in soafter screaming at Geoff, while Christophe was screaming in my arms because he got his boob removed when he was not done with me, I slapped Geoff across the back and he got up looked up at me with blood shot eyes and nodded when I said can you take baby and try to calm him down and change his diaper.

So trusting my baby's father I passed Christophe along, went to the washroom. I could hear Christophe still crying and crying I just guessed that Geoff could not console him.

Was I ever wrong. When I got back to the room Geoff was passed out sitting on the bed, Christophe was in the middle of the bed screaming at the top of his lungs; half dressed so Geoff must of started with the diaper.

I woke geoff back up by screaming at him (I know I should not have but I think this was the only way I could be louder then baby). He just looked at me and said what is wrong with Christophe, what happened. He did not remember one little thing.

However in Geoff defense despite his extreme fatigue he is doing a great job and I have had my moments too. Last night at one of Christophe's middle of the night feeding, we were both sitting on the bed me feeding and Geoff trying to keep the little one going (he likes falling asleep on my breast) and I suddenly said "JPOD". Geoff was like what are you talking about; however in my head I had been having a long conversation of the show with Geoff :-)

socks?

I don't know if this is a weird pregnancy thing but I used to not be able to fall asleep unless I was wearing socks; now the workd has flipped if I have socks on it drives me nuts...

it's 3am and I'm starving

I am officially 34 weeks along. 6 more to go wow. My frequent trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night are calming down from 8 to about only 3 on average however a new habit is forming - hunger.  Almost every night I wake up around 3am starving and craving carbs.  This probably started about 2 weeks ago.  If I do not physically get up and eat i am unable to fall asleep again. Is it stress, is it baby, is the fact I am eating smaller meals due to heart burn who knows.  I think it all of them combined.  Tonight on the menu is homemade rosemary bread with butter.  

Well almost done my bread so I should be back off to bed.

Ouch everything hurts and I can't sleep

I slept last night. Yes, I actually slept last night. For the past 2 weeks I have been exhausted but not able to get a good night sleep. It seems that my body has started producing increased levels of Progesterone and one side effect of this is it relaxes smooth muscles, which helps keep the uterus quiet (non-contracting) as the baby grows. Progesterone also relaxes the ligaments between joints so your pubic bone can separate. For people like me that already have joint pains it can make your joint pain worse.

So evenings have been as follows: I am tired at the usual time of 10 pm, go upstairs, change in my pjs, arrange my 4 pillows. One for under my head, a large square pillow to elevate my feet (if your feet are elevated it helps with swelling of the ankles, which can irritate the joints, so I don't want to risk it), a long body pillow between my knees and a second pillow to hug (I used to hug Geoff but with the thousands of pillows Geoff can't even find me in bed if he tries, you would have to send in the army to dig me out.) Then I sling the blankets over me to get nice and warm. Fall asleep, wake up 15 minutes later because my joints are starting to hurt. I slather Absorbine Jr. on my ankles, knees and wrist. On really bad days I put on my wrist brace (I can't stand it most of the time because I can't flex my wrist). Get back in bed with the same pillow ritual. The Absorbine Jr works for about 15 minutes, so as long as I can fall asleep I am usually down for a bit, until baby kicks my bladder and I need to go to the bathroom and everything starts over again. This usually happens 2 or 3 times a night. Sometimes other things are added on top that wakes me up, for example the cats or Geoff.

Now last night was different, my naturopath gave my this drink to have before bed and said it should help. I don't know if it was that or the fact I went to bed at 1:30 am and was very tired, but I am well rested and feel like I will have a productive day. Yippee for me.

That is all my lamenting for now; I just needed to complain a bit. You have to admit that I have not done much complaining since the beginning of the pregnancy, so I am entitled.

Why would you even think of cooking at night?

Last night started perfectly. I went to bed at 10:30pm, Geoff kissed me and baby goodnight. We put headphones on my belly so baby could listen to Mozart. Geoff went off to do a bit of work in the nursery before coming to bed... so I thought.

At about 1:30am or 2am don't really remember at this time. I wake up to a sweet and spicy smell. Geoff was cooking. Let me give you a bit o background: Geoff likes making his own lunches that involve meat. However he tends to cook them late at night. We had went through this same issue a little while back and he promised he would not cook in the middle of the night.

When I initially woke up, the smell not that bad -- last time he did this I thought I was going to puke, because the smell was so horrible so I tossed and turned for a half an hour but could not fall asleep. Now the late night tumble-effect kicks in...

I get heart burn at night but don't notice it cause I'm sleeping, my joints ache at night but I don't notice it because I am sleeping. It's all about getting to sleep before all of this kicks in; but after a half an hour of tossing I now need to go pee and that is the trigger for everything else. (See it had been 3 weeks I had successfully slept through the night).

So I crawl out of bed, make it to he washroom get woken up by the lights still on in the hallway. However I do notice the nice progress Geoff made with the home reno. I crawl back towards the bedroom, call out Geoff 4-5 times he is in the basement don't really want to go all the way down there. He comes up and says: I hopped it would not wake you up, well he was wrong and felt it for the next 2 - 3 hours with while he tried to get me back to sleep, ease my heartburn, rub my back, numb the pain in my joints...

I am still tired this morning and don't like what he did last night but love him dearly. He is a sweetie.

Hopefully he wont try this again and hopefully I wont be as sensitive to smells once baby is born.

Sleep and Heart Burn

Well last night it took forever before I could fall asleep I kept on waking up and tossing and turning (as much as you can when you have this big belly). Once I finally crawled out of bed to do a few stretches I figured out what was the matter I HAD HEART BURN. That's hat I get for eating fried rice for supper. So I made my way to my kitchen and took some Genestra Cal Mag Liquid it works wonders for heart burn and its all natural. If anyone is interested you ca get it in Toronto at the big carrot dispensary. It tastes minty. Crawled back upstairs did a couple child poses (this is a yoga pose) and a few squats to stretch out my legs and arms that were also tight and hurting; drowned my ankles, left knee in Absorbina Jr. (pain killer for joint pain) and crawled back into bed to snuggle with snoogle. I think it probably took 5 mins after that for me to pass out. It's amazing how heart burn can be so annoying.

Baby says hello this morning as he is tumbling around as I am writing this.

Yoga, sleep, birthing info night

Last night I started yoga again. I had stopped for a few weeks because I found it too difficult to get to class on time. I found a different class that starts 30 mins latter. This gives me enough time for a bit to eat. The instructor is this sweet lady for scotland, it's her own business so it's also nice to be supporting a independent teacher rather then a huge studio. The classes are held in the basement of a church near Queen and Carlaw, so I can get home fast afterwards.

That said because I yoga'ed last night I actually slept the entire night :-) It's amazing what a little exercise and stretching can do for one.

On wen. we when to a home birthing information session. I am seriously starting to think about doing a home birth. Alot of the myths and worries I have about home birthing are gone now. I am planning to do a drug free labour so why not do it in the comfort of my own home. My grandmother did it? Some of the things I was worried about was the cats - they said most of the times animals just hide or watch and you can always lock them up somewheres. I was also scared I would not have enough space but my midwives seem to be convinced that there is tones of room. All you need is a bed, shower/bath, long dresser and small table. Christie (my midwife) also mentioned that it would probably be much easier to try alternative methods if I was not dilating fast enough or wanted pain relief at home because there would be no medical staff to interfere.

Got to go I have a dentist appointment.