Is it a fluke?

I'm sure it is. Surely, my baby can't be sleeping through the night. She has to be teasing me, right?

Yes, folks. Evie decided to sleep through the night for the first time last night. I must say, it was AMAZING! I have a feeling this will not be a trend, but hey, we're moving in the right direction.

So here's how it went, I put her to sleep (in her swing because she absolutely must be in the same room as me) around 7:00 pm. I "woke" her up around midnight to dreamfeed.

For those that don't know what that is, essentially, you pop a bottle in the kids mouth, while they're still sleeping, and they eat. The theory is, it will reduce nightwakings because their belly is full, but that's not why I do it. No, I do it for very selfish reasons. I do it because I know if I don't feed her at midnight, which is when I go to bed, she'll wake up an hour later and want to eat. Sorry, I'm not sleeping for an hour, and then waking up to feed her, if I don't have to.

Anyway, not the point of the story. So she ate around midnight and I put her in her sleep positioner, in between us, and next thing I know, it's 6:00 am! I was in disbelief. I really thought that we would be waiting a long time for her to STTN. Although, again I say, it's probably just a fluke. Those sneaky babies like to trick you.

Oh well. Here's hoping she continues to do it!

Kept my cheat day and lost 3 lbs!

::does a little jig::

I'm so excited! I lost 3 lbs. last week! I did cheat 2 days, instead of 1, but hey, it was the weekend. After the week I had with the nighttime fussiness lasting 2-3 hours every night, can you blame me?

I stuck to my diet through the week though, but I didn't really get any exercise in. Unless you call running around with a 2 month old exercise...and I do. I honestly think carrying her around in the Moby is helping. My God, she weighs 11 lbs. now! How could it not be helping, right?

In other news, I am now addicted to Diet Dr. Pepper. No, seriously. We bought a 12 pack on Saturday and it was gone last night! Yes, Brian helped me polish it off, but the majority of consumption was by me. Shameful, I know. It's better than regular Dr. Pepper though, so at least give me credit for that.

So 3 lbs. down, 7 more to go before Hawaii. I'd really like to lose 13 more though. That would put me at 145. I haven't been 145 since I was 17 years old! Oh, to have that body again. Free of stretch marks and a flabby tummy. With 3 lbs. down though, I'm well on my way.

Can I pull it off? Tune in next week to find out.

Current stats and goals:

Current weight: 158
Goal weight: 145
Weight loss goal this week: 2 lbs.

Sleeping Success

We had a breakthrough in the sleeping debacle last night. My friend, Lacey, has a little girl who is 5 days younger than Evie, so we made a little play date yesterday. We were talking about how her daughter, Lilly, is pretty much sleeping through the night, while Evie is still attached to my arm during the night.

I told her I was going to try and find an inclined sleep positioner because she doesn't seem to like lying flat on her back. She, being an awesome friend and my current favorite person, offered to let us use her inclined sleep positioner because Lilly didn't like it.

Armed with the secret weapon in hand, I was determined to get this child to sleep somewhere other than on me. Anywhere else but me.

We did our usual night time routine. Bath, massage, story time, and rocking. She had only eaten an hour and a half before that, and wasn't acting hungry, so I didn't feed her. I had put a heating pad on the sleep positioner and set it in her bassinet. I laid her down and hoped for the best.

I came downstairs to eat dinner with Brian, and 20 minutes later...she was awake. Ugh. I guess I should have tried to feed her anyway. She ate and then screamed for about 30 minutes because she was over-tired. She finally went to sleep around 8:30 and I had to wake her up to take her upstairs at 11:30.

I feed her, rocked her back to sleep, and stuck her in the positioner. Get this, she slept for 5 HOURS!!! Holy cow, I was amazed! I hope tonight goes the same. I'm going to feed her before laying her down though. Maybe that will do the trick!

Cheaters ain't just a white-trash reality show

Sadly, the term cheater, also applies to me this week. Why, oh, why can't I just maintain this diet? I will say, I was doing really well until this weekend.

Brian decided he wanted to have a date night on Saturday, so we made arrangements to have Pappy and KiKi (Brian's parents) watch the babe, so we could go out for some mommy and daddy time. We started with dinner and some adult beverages at an Italian restaurant. The food was AMAZING! I endulged in Spinach and Artichoke Pasta. It was penne pasta and chicken, topped with a spinach and artichoke cream sauce. To. Die. For. Along with that, we had the ol' bread and olive oil dipping sauce. My guilty pleasure. Add on a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and you have a meal that was designed to clog every artery in your body...and I enjoyed every minute of it.

After dinner, we headed over to the movie theatre across the street. We bought two tickets for It's Complicated and made our way to the concession stand. Why quit stuffing our faces now, eh? I bought a box of Buncha Crunch and a large Mr. Pibb to share with Brian. Come to think of it, there wasn't much sharing going on on my end. The movie was hysterical, the Buncha Crunch were awesome, and we had a terrific date night, so I don't feel too bad about cheating...

Except, you see, that was supposed to be my only cheat night last week. Yesterday resulted in more shameful cheating though. I did really well for breakfast and lunch, but then I decided I wanted chocolate chip cookies for an afternoon snack. So I had 5. Then, for dinner, we decided we were too tired to make anything, so plans were made to order chinese food from the incredible Master Wok. Mmm! After chicken fried rice, crab rangoon, egg rolls, and more, I was stuffed. It was so good! I did feel kind of bad after that one though. Especially, since Brian has A LOT more to lose than I do and I'm just pulling him down with me.

Alas, maybe we can get it right this week. I'm actually content if I don't lose anymore weight before Hawaii, but it would be really nice too. I weigh 10 lbs. less than my pre-pregnancy weight, but I'd like to lose another 10 before we leave. I haven't lost any weight, but I haven't gained any either, which is awesome! I'm going to try to work a little harder at it this week. We shall see how it pans out.

Stats and goals for this week:
Current weight: 161
Goal weight by end of the week: 159
Other goals: ONE CHEAT DAY, NOT TWO, FATTY!

These are the days I wish I was going back to work

Before I say what I'm about to say, just know that I love my daughter and she is my entire world...but she is driving me up the freakin' wall!

For almost 2 weeks now, she has been super fussy. It wasn't bad during the days, just at night. Well, a couple of days ago, she started getting fussy in the mornings. Today was no different.

I exclusively pump, since Evie stopped latching, and I don't pump after midnight. So when we get up in the morning, I'm extremely engorged and need to pump as soon as she's done eating. I normally swaddle her, put her in her swing, and she goes right to sleep. This has never been a problem until the last few days.

Lately, she's been super fidgety at night. I have no idea why, but it makes for a crappy night of sleep for both of us. Last night, she was up every 2 hours and was fidgety in between that. So when we woke up this morning, I figured she'd go right to sleep in her swing. WRONG! We played a game of "Spit the Paci Out". If you don't know what that game is, it's a game that entails seeing how many times Evie can spit her paci out before Mommy loses her ever-loving mind. Today...it was 10. Oh, and I forgot to mention, when you try to put the paci in, she gives you that huge gummy smile that is impossible to resist.

I hated to do it, but I had to let her fuss for a few minutes. Not cry. Fuss. I let her do that for about 2 minutes and then went over and stuck the paci in her mouth. She took it instantly and now she's snoozing peacefully in her swing.

It's days like these that I'm thankful for the person that invented coffee. Oh, and mother-in-laws who will watch your baby at a moment's notice. If only I was going to do something fun while I'm baby-less. Alas, I'm going to my office to give my 2 weeks notice to my boss. Maybe I can squeeze in a massage too? What do you think? ;-)

She's supposed to wait until she's 16 to scare mommy!

Yesterday was a rough day to say the least. Evie decided she was going to give Mommy and Daddy a good scare! Shouldn't she wait until her teenage years to make us worry?

Yesterday morning, Evie woke up around 8:30 and Brian fed her 2 oz. She normally eats between 3 and 4, but I thought maybe she just wasn't as hungry. She went right back to sleep, which she normally does, and woke up to eat again around 12:30. She ate about 1.5 oz. and started fussing, so I figured she needed to burp. I started trying to burp her and she went into full-on shrieking mode!

I didn't know what was wrong, so I tried giving her the bottle again. She kept screaming. Tried burping again. Kept screaming. This went on for almost an hour. I finally started rocking her and she fell asleep around 1:30 pm. Brian and I took her upstairs to lay down with her.

Around 2:00 pm, she started fussing, so I thought she was probably hungry since she didn't eat much. I tried giving her the bottle and the screaming started again. I knew she was gassy, but she just couldn't get it out. She was screaming like she was in so much pain, so I started crying with her. My poor baby was in pain and there was nothing I could do for her. She would not calm down, so we decided to call the pediatrician to see if we could get her in to be checked out. We made a 3:30 pm appointment and off we went.

She fell asleep on the way to the pedi, and was fine, at first, when they woke her up to weigh her. They checked her resting heart rate and it was 184/bpm. They said this was a little high, especially, since she was calm. About 5 minutes later, she started screaming again. I tried feeding her to no avail. The doctor didn't know what was wrong. I kept telling them I thought it was a combination of gas and being over-tired since she couldn't sleep through the pain.

Finally, the pedi decided to send her over to the ER for a work-up. Right about that time, Evie started farting. After she got a few good farts out, she was back to her old self. That poor little girl just needed to fart!

We still went over to the ER to make sure her vitals were ok, and they were. They sent us home and told us to pick up Mylicon drops on the way. We gave her the drops last night and she passed the eff out. Hallelujah! She slept from 7:30 pm to 11:00 pm, ate, and went back to sleep until 5:15 am, ate, back to sleep until 8:00 am.

Today, she has been a perfect angel. Although, she's been sleeping all day, only waking to eat. She can do whatever she wants though. I'm just glad she's ok. She did gives us a good scare though!

Just another McFatty Monday

As I sit here, eating my bowl of Special K and drinking my coffee, I remember what I would normally be eating for breakfast right about now. A Sausage, Egg, and Cheese McMuffin. I lived on those when I was pregnant, but I'm not pregnant anymore! I don't have the luxury of just eating whatever I want and not caring because "I'm going to get fat anyway". Which is why the first week of my diet sucked ass.

Like I said in my last McFatty post, I am 100% addicted to fast food, so giving it up cold turkey is so effing hard! I did pretty well for my first week though. I did cheat a little over the weekend, but I'm a firm believer in endulging yourself a little. Otherwise, you'll go crazy and eat everything in sight.

I mostly stuck to my special k for breakfast, ham sandwich and low fat chips for lunch, and for dinner, we just cooked something we would normally eat, as long as it wasn't too fatty. I only worked out one day last week. That's the downfall of having a baby who is supe glued to you at all times. I did manage to lose 7 lbs. in the past 3 weeks though. 7 down, 13 more to go.

Goals for this week:
Weight loss: 2 lbs.
Eating habits: Try to only cheat 1 day, instead of 2.
Exercise: Try to work out at least every day for 30 mins.

I just like to smile. Smiling's my favorite!

I've been trying to catch a smile on camera for the past week. My failed attempt to catch one of video can be seen in a post below. Instead of smiling, she gave me a great video to show to all her future boyfriends in effort to embarrass her.

She was wide awake yesterday morning, which is unusual, so I busted at the tutu and camera hoping to capture that beautiful, gummy smile. Mission Accomplished.

At first she was sad...

Then came the smiles!

That smile melts my heart! :-)

Silver white winters that melt into springs...

Yeah, that probably won't be happening anytime soon. With the high being 1 today, it's the coldest it's been all winter. This 5 inches of snow we got the other night isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Brian and I bought Evie a bear snow suit from Old Navy and have been dying to take her out to see her first snow. Not that she even knows what it is or what's going on. I mean, really, what else can we do besides hold her and take pictures? So we bundled her up yesterday and took her out for some snowtime fun.

Well, last night sucked

I knew I would jinx myself when I made a post on the bump yesterday about Evie sleeping all the time.

She woke up around 4:00 pm yesterday and she was up for the normal 4-5 hours. Well, 9 o'clock rolls around, which is normally her bed time, and she gets really fussy. Great. She's over-tired. I rock her and she falls asleep for about 30 minutes, so I try putting her in her swing. Screaming ensues. Pick her up and try rocking her again. Her eyes get really heavy, but they just won't shut. I get her drowsy again. Put her in the swing. What happens next, can you guess? If you said, "screaming ensues" you would be correct. Come on down and claim your prize!

This went on for the next hour. I finally took her upstairs, with the seahorse, and rocked her to sleep. I had to pump in an hour, so I didn't want to fall asleep with her like I normally do. So I laid her in her bassinet. Yeah. She stayed in there for about 20 minutes. Then...more screaming. I tried feeding her, rocking her, etc. She would stop screaming, but she was incredibly fussing.

She finally fell asleep for good at 1:00 am. She woke up to eat at 4:30 am, then 6:00 am, then 7:30 am. Needless to say, it was a rough night last night. She's sleeping in her swing right now, peacefully I might add. We shall see how tonight goes.

::crosses fingers that Evie calms the eff down and goes to sleep tonight::

Evie Rosenblatt

Is it wrong that my new favorite pastime is making up Jewish old man names for my daughter?

Now, before anyone gets offended, Evie Rose is a quarter Jewish...not too shabby (Adam Sandler fans, anyone?) Seriously though, Brian's father is Jewish and he thinks it's hilarious!

Brian and I sit around and see who can come up with the best name and profession for her. It's just hard not to think of "Howard Feingold, MD. Damn glad to meet ya." when you see this hair!

It's the hair that started it all. She has more hair on the back of her head than the top, and it's longer. Which gives her the appearance of a balding old man. Brian started calling her Don Rickels and it just kept going from there.

So far, I'm winning the "Best Jewish Old Man Name" contest with "Morty Rosenblatt, Tax Attorney". We've also got Harry Weinstein, Henry Finkelstein, and Elliott Rosenburg.

Geez, I need a hobby, huh?

Asked for a smile, got something else

Watch for the hilariousness of this video around the 1:05 mark.

Clean up, Clean up, Everybody do your share.

Can I have two New Year's resolutions?

To say I'm unorganized would be a gross understatement. It was hard for me to stay organized before the baby. Now that she's here, yeah...nothing's getting done around this house. I'm lucky if I'm able to get dishes and laundry done in one day. I keep things picked up to where they look presentable, but my house is in desperate need of a deep clean.

Which brings me to my second resolution. Today, I will be deep cleaning my entire house and it is going to stay that way come hell or high water! It's pretty sad that we still have Christmas presents lined up against the living room wall, because we don't have the time or energy to put them away.

After my, very strong, cup of coffee. I plan to get to work. I just hope the babe stays asleep long enough for me to get this shit done. I'm tired of looking at this clusterfuck I call a home. Wish me luck!

Sleeping Arrangements

Why won't my child sleep anywhere but with me?

I swear, at this rate, she'll be sleeping with us until she's 30! She's been this way since birth. She will only sleep in bed with me. She will nap in her swing if she is swaddled, but when the sun goes down, only mama will do.

We're leaving for Hawaii in less than 60 days and she's staying with the grandparents. I would feel terrible if she wasn't able to sleep alone by then. Also, having her bed-share with anyone, besides us, makes me nervous. Brian's mom did not seem too thrilled when I informed her of the sleeping arrangement we have going on now.

I just spent about an hour walking back and forth to her room to put her paci back in. We were trying out the crib and it just wasn't working. She would fall asleep to the soothing sounds of Margot, her soothe and glow seahorse, only to be awakened as soon as it turned off. Then screaming ensues. Dammit.




Dear Evie,

WTF? Be a good girl and go to sleep somewhere other than right in mommy's face, mkay? Also, please don't scream bloody murder and then smile when I walk in the room. It's very frustrating and hard to be mad at you. Thanks in advance.

Love,
Mommy

Love at first sight.

Is it bad that my first baby blog post was about me?

I thought it was, so I decided to make my second post baby related. This will be, sort of, an introduction.

I got my BFP on March 10, 2009. I was completely shocked and surprised. Most of all, scared. Brian and I weren't planning on having a baby quite so soon, but we were excited! Since I was not planning to get pregnant, I had no idea what was in store for me, so I went out and bought the bible (aka. What to Expect...) I knew pregnancy lasted for 9 months, but seeing that "40 weeks" written out just made it seem like an eternity. I was going to be pregnant for 40 weeks?!

But, the weeks went by and it became more real. I was going to be someone's mother in just a few short months. We changed our whole lives in those months. We moved, from our loft in the city, to a townhouse in the suburbs. Instead of a spending our Saturdays hungover from the night before, we were up at 9:00 am and headed to Babies R Us. I sold my 2 door hatchback and bought an SUV. Our second bedroom was not for guests, but for this tiny baby that was growing, ever-so-quickly, inside of me.

From the beginning, I just had this feeling that she was going to be a girl. Brian tried to warn me that his sister was the first girl, on his father's side, in over 100 years. In other words, he was skeptical that we would ever have a girl, let alone having a girl the first time. Still, I was 100% sure that she was a girl. At our 20 week ultrasound, it was confirmed that she was, in fact, a girl. We were thrilled! Brian had always imagined having a Daddy's girl. We knew, before we even knew that sex, that if we had a girl we wanted to name her Evelyn. Evie for short. We just thought Evie was the cutest name for a little girl and Evelyn was very pretty for an adult. Although, she will probably never go by Evelyn in this house.

And so, the weeks flew by, and before I knew it, 40 weeks was here...and I had no baby. I went to my OB appointment on my due date, only to be told that I was barely dilated. I bawled the whole way home and was preparing myself to be pregnant for at least another week. I got home, took a nap, got up and took a shower. After the shower, I was drying my hair, and felt a big gush of fluid. I didn't think that it could be my water breaking, but every time I walked more came out. After I soaked 2 pairs of underwear, I knew it was time to head to Labor and Delivery.

Labor was not fun. I was GBS positive and had needles and tubes galore stuck in me. My epidural had worn off some by the time I started pushing, so that was pretty much the most painful thing I've ever experienced. It was all worth it though. After an hour and 15 minutes of pushing, Evelyn Rose was born. She weighed 6 lbs. 15 oz. and was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I never knew I could love someone so much. She is my whole world and I have no clue how I ever lived without her.

Brian and I are so in love with her. It's crazy how much she's grown in the past 8 weeks. She's starting to coo and smile. That smile just melts my heart. I can't wait to watch her grow and learn even more.

McFatty Monday

Hello. My name is Jocelyn...and I'm addicted to fast food.

I cannot lie. I do, indeed, have an addiction to fast food. I think it stems from my childhood. My parents divorced when I was 3. My mother was a single mom of two, and worked 12 hour days as a manager at Walmart. By the time she got off work and picked us up from daycare, she was in no mood to cook, and I can't blame her. Every weekend, we would go visit my dad. He would, literally, feed us McDonald's for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We knew exactly how much the total of two happy meals would be. $4.24. Crazy, huh? $4.24 for TWO meals. It's more than that just for one meal now! Oh, how I miss 1997.

Since I was a child, I had a high metabolism, and I could eat that crap every meal and not gain weight. This changed, however, when I hit puberty. I grew 3 inches, my hips widened, and I was no longer wearing a kids size 12. I was a size 7, 125 lbs, in the middle of 8th grade. I moved in with an aunt and uncle of mine, who were extremely obese, and that just fueled the fast food addiction even more. By time I left my aunt and uncle's, my sophomore year of high school, I was 165 lbs. Not fat, but not skinny. I moved back home and lost 30 lbs. almost instantly. For the first time in a long time, I felt great, but I my diet consisted of salads and water. In my opinion, this is no way to live.

After high school, I decided I was going to eat what I wanted. I put the 30 lbs. back on, plus another 5. I was in college, in a relationship, so who cares about being skinny, right? When I got my surprise BFP, at 170 lbs., I was mortified! I was going to put on, at the minimum, 25-35 lbs! Did this help me make better food choices though? No. I pretty much ate a Quarter Pounder with Cheese and large fries every day. Every 4 weeks, I went to my OB appointments, and I wasn't gaining weight. I thought, "This is great!" I didn't gain any weight until 22 weeks, and luckily, I only put on 20 lbs. total. It still was no picnic to walk around at 190 lbs., but it was better than seeing 200+ on the scale. At 6 days post partum, I lost all the baby weight, plus an additional 10 lbs.

So here I sit at 160 lbs. I want, so desperately, to start eating healthy and to lose another 20 lbs. I have to for my child. I will not have her grow up the same way I did. I cannot feed her a diet that consists of grease and fat!

This brings me to joining McFatty Mondays. Today, my fiance and I, are starting our diet together. We will start eating healthy, no more fast food, and we will be working out. This isn't just about the weight. I really need to figure out and conquer this fast food addiction. Not to mention, we're going to Hawaii in less than 2 months and I'd like to not have to see a hundred pictures of my fat ass in a swim suit and think, "Why didn't I try harder?" I'm so glad Blair started this. It will be nice to have other women around that are going through the same things. Together, I know we can all do this.

Good luck, ladies! I look forward to this weight loss journey with you all.

Here is the most recent picture of myself. Notice the long sweater designed to cover my ass.