A newborn neccesity

This is called a Moby Wrap (www.mobywrap.com). It is a long piece of cotton fabric that you wrap around yourself to hold your baby. It's an alternative to a Baby Bjorn or Snugli and I think it works much better. I couldn't get over how happy Addie was in her Moby Wrap. She could fall into such a deep sleep in the wrap and I could get so much done. I gave the girls baths, cooked dinner, went on walks, etc.

It felt great on me. My shoulders didn't hurt, like they did with my sling and the Bjorn. THe Bjorn hurt both shoulders and the sling hurt one shoulder.

The other great thing with the Moby Wrap is that you can use it for many other holds. You can use it in a front carry, a side carry, a back carry, etc.

The only downfall is that it is kind of a pain to put it on. But way more easy to put on than the Bjorn when someone else has used it and adjusted it to their body size.

So, there's my newborn tip for you new moms!

The Floor Saga Continues

So, it's Wednesday morning and my kitchen and sunroom furniture is all still in my family room. And there is still dog hair in the finish of my floor. Am I just being picky? Do other people have dog hair and dirt and craft glitter in the finish of their floor?

Four days in a row, I have packed up my kitchen for my 3 children and dh and myself in anticipation of not being able to use the kitchen. I'm getting quite tired of it!

On Monday, he finally showed up around noon and snaded down the floors and added another coat of finish. It was a frustrating day because we were here all day. I opened all of the windows and closed all of the bedroom doors so that we hopefully wouldn't smell the chemicals. Thankfully, there is a door to the basement, so we were able to be down there without the fumes.

By Monday night, though, I was able to tell that there was still dog hair, dirt, etc. in the finish. By this point, I had just given up. It seems that we'll never be able to move in to our sunroom. I'm not even thinking about unpacking my desk, etc. Now, I'm more concerned about getting all of the furniture out of the family room!

Tuesday around 11 am, the guy shows up again to survey his work and leaves with a promise to be back in the afternoon to apply yet another coat. He promised to get a different kind of finish.

Needless to say, he didn't show up. Never called, never showed up. So I had packed up our dinner and the kitchen for nothing.

This morning (Wednesday morning), I called the guy's cell phone and a recording said, "This subscriber has requested to no longer receive calls." What is that about??? I've never heard of that.

So, I called the floor company and the owner was so embarrassed. He stopped by around noon today and promised that a new crew would be here tomorrow morning to re-do the floors. So, the nightmare continues. We'll see how it goes tomorrow! Could we finally be done??

Worst Birthday Ever!

So, my birthday was on Saturday. I turned 33. It looked like it was going to be a great day - sunny and the warmest day all week. Plus, it was a Saturday, which meant that my husband would be able to at least take the older girls out and give me some peace and quiet or something.

Rewind to Friday night, the floor guy showed up out of the blue at dinner time to take a look at the floors. He agreed that they didn't look great, that he should have used an oil-based finish, instead of the water-based finish (since that's what we have in the rest of the house). So he promised to be there at 8 am on Saturday morning to re-do the stain and the finish.

So, I didn't get to sleep in on my birthday, I had to wake up early to shower and pack up lunches, snacks, drinks, etc for the family since we were going to have to leave the house. Meanwhile, Brian is moving furniture around trying to get it out of the sunroom and kitchen. He chose not to wait for my help with the kitchen table and when he picked it up, the bottom half of the table (it's the kind with leaves), fell on his big toe (no shoes on) and literally broke the bone in half. He looked miserable and in so much pain. Somehow he managed to help move the rest of the furniture and we got out of the house.

We went to my parents's house (again) and set up shop in their basement and the kids had a great time. It wasn't too bad, just a pain. So, we called the floor guy around 6 pm and he said that the floor should be dry and he would be over in the morning to make sure everything looked okay.

We went through Wendy's drive thru for cheeseburgers for the kids (they took enzymes before eating them) and came home. The floors actually looked okay, much better than earlier in the day, but not exactly what we had hoped for. Once we got the kids in bed, I had some noodles (awesome birthday dinner).

Meanwhile, all day, Brian's toe is looking more and more disgusting - it is now dark purple and it's bleeding because somehow the table had broken the skin and while it didn't bleed initially, it did once the toe started swelling up. It was disgusting. So Brian took himself to the emergency room. Thank goodness we live in a small town and the ER is not too bad to go to. He was home within 2 hours with some good drugs and tape.

While he was gone, I took a closer look at the floor and suddenly started noticing that there was dog hair in the finish, there was dirt, etc. It was awful! I mean, how do you not clean the floor before putting the finish on? Seriously! We even asked the guy if he wanted us to sweep the floor and clean it and he said no. I was fuming at this point and beyond frustrated. So, I just went to bed.

On Sunday morning, 9 am came and went. So, we finally called him at 9:45 and Brian read him the riot act about the job he'd done. So, he said he would get there as soon as he could and fix it. So, we packed up AGAIN and left the house to go to my parents' and camp out for the day. We finally go a hold of him on the cell phone around 6 pm and he said that by the time he got to the house, our contractor was already working in the sunroom and so he couldn't do the floors. So, we left for no reason! Argh!!

Meanwhile, we were supposed to be celebrating my birthday at my parents' house and Brian was going to make the cake, etc. Well, the poor guy couldn't even stand for that long, so I had to make my own cake. :( It was just a comical day.

So, it's official, we decided to just make my birthday this Saturday, where hopefully I can get some time away from all 3 kids. :)

Floor Update

The owner of the floor store came over yesterday and agreed with us that there is something wrong with the job that was done on our floors. So, he told us to give him a couple of days to speak with the installer and figure out what happened and we'll go from there. I'm sure we'll have to re-do them, which is a huge pain! But it needs to be done right!

3 Days in a Row!

I've got 3 days in a row now of exercising. This week I've been doing Total Body Sculpt with Gilad (from FitTv). And boy are my legs and butt sore! He kicks my butt every workout! I love it because it's pretty short, but I always get a pretty good workout.

I'm waiting for my new yoga mat to arrive so that I can start doing some yoga. I've learned that attempting yoga on carpet just does not work - my feet slip everywhere. So, on a recommendation, I got this mat: http://www.gaiam.com/retail/product/95-1041_OLIV. It's non-toxic, which is a huge plus for me.

I really hope to be able to do yoga at least a couple of times a week. I find it very difficult now - downward dog is a killer for me. We'll see. Hopefully I'll get better. :)

I'm holding onto an extra 10 lbs right now, which I'm sure is from nursing. I wish I could lose it, but I know that I need at least an extra 5 lbs for the nursing. But I would like to lose some of my thighs. :) Hopefully the exercising will help at least tone me.

Snow Day!

Wow! We had our first snow day today! Seems pretty crazy for Virginia. We hadn't seen snow all winter! And yesterday while shopping at the grocery store with my 5 yr old, the clerk announced over the loudspeaker that it was snowing! And we got about 2-3 inches, I guess. It also sleeted a bit, which gave it a shiny glaze.

My kids were so excited! And I was really excited for them to get out in the fresh air. We've been painting and had the floors refinished, so I'm sure the toxic levels are a bit too high in our house right now, so I know the fresh air was good.

It was so fun to see them outside throwing snow balls and building snow forts, etc. I couldn't believe how long my 5 yr old stayed outside today! She had a friend over and the 2 of them played in the snow for hours! It was great to watch and made me think about my childhood. I really hope that my kids are enjoying their childhoods like I did.

And of course, with snow, everyone wants hot chocolate. And since we are dairy and refined sugar free, Swiss Miss isn't an option. So, I found some great chocolate sauce (www.ahlaska.com) and just add it to their respective rice and soy milk and they love it! The company also makes an actual hot cocoa mix as well. So, there's my tip for the day! It's so easy to be dairy-free!

Our House

At the end of September we moved into our house (a 1958 rambler) and we immediately began a renovation on the kitchen and the screened-in porch. I'm happy to say that the kitchen is done and the sunroom is almost done. The windows still need to have the trim put on them, but it's a functioning room at least and even has paint, etc.

But here's my complaint. The last thing remaining between us living in chaos and us being able to completely move in was having the wood floors refinished. When we remodeled the kitchen, we took down a wall and took out the lineoleum floors and put hardwood floors in. And we put hardwood floors in the sunroom as well. They were the unfinished kind that we just got at Home Depot. The weird thing was that there were already wood floors down in the other half of the kitchen, so we just needed to "weave" the new floors into the old. Having unfinished floors around was a pain for awhile, so we were so excited when it was finally time to get them "refinished." This consisted of us moving out of the house, so someone could sand, stain and put the finish on them.

This all took place last week. We went to my parents' house: 2 adults, 3 kids and a dog. Of course it took longer than it was supposed to, but we were prepared for that. What we weren't prepared for was hearing our contractor tell us that they did a really bad job on finishing the floors the day after we moved back in! He says that there isn't enough finish on the floors since you can still feel the grain. Plus, the new floors in half of the kitchen are so much lighter than the already existing floors. So, to us it is so obvious that they are newer/different wood floors. We are so disappointed and so frustrated!

We packed up 7 months ago and have not been able to unpack some of our stuff since then! I haven't had a desk/office and we haven't been able to unpack all of our kitchen stuff. Now, we wait for a different floor guy to come out and take a look at the floors to see what is going on. So, hopefully we'll get some answers early this week, so we know what is ahead for us. Are we going to have to move out again? Can they darken the stain on the part of the floor that is too light? When can I unpack my desk???

Stay tuned!

Big Update

So, it's been awhile and I really want to get back into blogging. I'll do as much of an update as I can, without making it too long.

I'll start with Addie. She is doing great, almost 12 weeks old and sleeping through the night - up to 12 hours at times! So, I am a happy mommy now. I think she is probably about 12 lbs now, but she hasn't been weighed since she was 6 weeks old, so I can't be sure. She hasn't been to the doctor yet, partly because she isn't on our insurance yet and partly because she isn't getting vaccinated, so there isn't a real need to get her over there. She is a very happy baby and on a wonderful schedule/routine. She eats, then is up for a little over an hour and then is ready for a nap, which she takes in her crib. Her morning nap is usually 2 hours long and the other ones ranging from 1 to 2 hours. And she goes to bed around 9 pm. I really cannot complain about her at all. She is all smiles when she is well rested and fed and only is crabby when she is tired or lonely. :)

As for me, I'm very glad the first few newborn months are over. I know some moms love that time, but I'm not so good at it. I think it's because my personality really likes routine and to know what to expect and with a newborn, that is near impossible. :) I guess I'm not a super flexible person when it comes to routine. :) My recovery went very well. I was up and about pretty quickly. No stitches or anything, which was awesome. What was strange was being at home and being responsible for my temperature, bleeding, etc. and Addie's (as opposed to the nurses taking care of it). But, looking back, having a homebirth was just amazing. I loved it. Addie didn't leave our house for almost 2 weeks! I'm back to attempting to exercise again, although schedules make that hard at times. Plus, we've been trying to get the house finished with painting, etc. so I've been spending all my free time on that.

I'm still dairy-free and even tried a gluten-free diet for about 3 weeks to see if Addie responded to it. I was concerned because she was spitting up quite a bit and I was worried that she might have a little reflux or something. Celiac disease can be linked to reflux, so I wanted to try a GF diet to see if it made any difference. But it didn't and I'm sure her spitting up is because my let-down is much too powerful for her.

Going from 2 kids to 3 is very hard, despite what you might hear! Good grief! Maybe it's because Tailyn is only 2.5, but it has been very hard at times. Hopefully we're through the hard part since Addie is napping and sleeping so well. The girls still love their baby sister, but I know it's hard for them when I can't do stuff with them because I have to nurse Addie or something like that. This will pass, I know.

So, there's a quick update, I plan to try and get some good posts up here much, much more often!