My baby has mad skills

Today Carly and I met Haden and Lauren for lunch at La Madeline. Haden is just 10 days older than Carly. I loved seeing Lauren, meeting Haden and being able to talk about babies without feeling like I'm boring someone to death with stories of thrush and projectile vomitting through the mouth and nose. You know you're talking to a fellow mommy when words like breast engorgement, yeast infection (as in thrush - what babies get in their mouths) and colostrum are a part of the conversation.

After lunch Carly and I went home. I decided that Carly could be working on developing motor skills, so I strapped the wrist rattles around her ankles (they're still too big for her t-tiny wrists and the rattle socks are too big for her t-tiny feet).

She either really liked them or she just likes to kick her feet a lot. I choose to believe that my 6 and a half week old kicked her foot, heard the rattle and quickly figured out that kicking equals fun sound. What a smart baby I have! Is it too soon to have her intelligence tested?

And lastly, here are some pictures of Miss Smiley Pants. She knows mommy's voice and smiles when I talk to her.

She's Crafty!

Did anyone sing the title of this post? Beastie Boys? Anyone? Okay. Well, moving on...

For my birthday present this year I told Freddy that I want our bedroom painted. He hates to paint.

New paint color. New quilt from Christmas. New furniture (okay, it's been a year or so, but that's still new to me). I need some art on the wall!

Art is SOOO expensive, so I decided to make my own.

Canvas - $6.29

Paint - $1.98

Stamp - $1

$9.27 and less than thirty minutes later...

I still need throw pillows, so maybe I'll hit the fabric store with my mom soon (and sweet talk her in to making them for me since I DO NOT sew).

Thirty by Thirty Update

You may have noticed that I haven't been blogging as much lately. Well, that is because I have been having my very own craft hour during Carly's naps.

I think that the cost of bows for little girls is highway robbery, so I decided to make my own. And mine cost about 25 cents each, as opposed to $3 or $4! Since I buy the ribbon by the spool, I make 10 or 12 sets of each ribbon, keep one set for Carly and the rest will become gifts for friends with girls.

Which brings me to my Thirty By Thirty List. Make someone a handmade gift.

Here are the bows that I gave Cambree, my friend Chelsea's baby and also Freddy's cousin's baby.

In addition to the bows, Cambree also got dividers for her closet so that her mommy can organize all of her cute outfits by size. Handmade! They are double-sided for when she gets in to bigger sizes.

Oh, the ways she sleeps

I love to see all of the different positions she sleeps in. This is how she was when I was pregnant - feet and hands by her face - so it's comfortable for her, I guess.

And look how tee-tiny she looks in her crib. Adorable.

This mommy has a lot to learn

Yesterday I decided that Carly was ready for a trip to one of the greatest places on earth - Hobby Lobby! So, I packed up her stroller and off we went. I went to put my purse in the basket underneath, but since I had the carrier in the stroller it was hard to get to. Oh, well. I just placed it on top of the stroller.

As I started to pick up spools of ribbon (for all of the bows I've been making, but more about that in another blog), I realized that shopping with a stroller would be a challenge. Then I picked up an art canvas (more about that in another blog, too) and the challenge got bigger.

And then, just as I was beginning to become discouraged, I saw her - the experienced shopper mom. She had her baby carrier in the stroller. Brilliant! Now nothing can stop me from shopping with my baby - except a dirty, stinky diaper which made it's way in to our shopping trip right around the picture frames.

Easter Pictures

We had a laid back Easter. We had lunch at our house with my parents and Freddy's mom (his dad had to work unfortunately). We wanted to take Carly to Easter mass for her first trip to church, but she doesn't get her first round of shots until Wednesday and there would be WAY TOO MANY germs at Easter mass.

Here are some pictures we took. Look at how blue Carly's eyes are, Aunt Cathy!

(I only cropped Freddy out of this picture because his eyes were closed and it was a good one of me and Carly).

I'll try ANYTHING!

"I'll try anything". This has been my motto for the last couple of weeks.

I dreaded the pain that would come when I quit nursing Carly. My friends told me how painful it would be. So before I quit I researched ways to ease the pain. I tried everything. I wore a sports bra lined with cabbage leaves at all times. I drank the heck out of sage tea and I used frozen peas to reduce the swelling. By the end of the first night I popped my first hydrocodone since the hospital. The end result...one - ONLY ONE - very painful day followed by a day, maybe a day and a half of discomfort. I'll take that any day over the three to five days of unbearable pain my friends had been reporting.

And then there is the matter of Carly's colic. It is definitely less intense and sometimes (not always) rears it's ugly headafter her 7 pm feeding rather than around 1 am or so (knock on wood. knock, knock, knock). Here is what we have tried: a gentler formula (I think it helped), Gripe Water (not so much), Mylicon (Love this stuff), a special tea that he got from a co-worker(can't tell if it works because we always combined it with other "cures"), the colic massage pad (calms her, but doesn't put her to sleep), heat pack on her tummy (yeah, no...) and letting her cry it out (works sometimes, depending on how upset she is). We haven't tried giving her flat Coke yet. I just can't seem to justify feeding my one month old Coke even if it is just a little bit.

In other news...Last night was her first night in her crib. Freddy and I did very well with her first night out of our room. Well, Freddy did better than I did because he doesn't hear his monitor as well as I hear mine. Maybe I will have to turn his volume up. Also, my wedding band finally fits again after months of being too tight. I am hoping that my engagement ring fits again real soon.

And here are some new pictures of our sweet baby girl.