Bath Time!

A few days ago, Kyle was giving Jane a bath and thought it would be funny to give her a soap hat.

At first, she hated it.





Then she didn't mind so much.



Every time I look at these pictures I laugh. That face is just too much.

Beef Noodles

This past Saturday, we had what we like to call adult hamburger helper for dinner. I grew up eating a lot of hamburger helper and have always liked it but this has so much more flavor. Kyle even likes it and he is soooo not a helper fan.

Beef Noodles
Slightly adapted from Homemade By Holman (one of my favorite blogs for recipes)

Serves 4

1 lb ground beef
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 pkg wide egg noodles
1 can cream of mushroom soup
4 oz velveeta
1/2 cup milk (I use whole milk, but any kind will do)
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese (I just kind of toss in however much I want)
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp paprika
Salt and pepper, to taste
Green onions (optional)
mushrooms (optional)
Minced onion (optional)

Brown ground beef with garlic and drain liquid. Cook noodles. After beef is browned, add soup, velveeta and milk. After cheese melts, add onion powder, paprika, salt and pepper, and noodles. Add shredded cheese and stir until it melts. Serve with chopped green onions on the side so people can add how much they want. We didn't this time, but sometimes we like to sauté some chopped onions with the beef and add in some mushrooms, canned or fresh.

We served this with spicy corn (a can of corn heated with butter and Tony Chacheres) and garlic bread, which I burned. Oh well. It was still good.

Once again, I didn't think to take a picture so here's one from Homemade By Holman.

2 Month Appointment

Jane had her 2 month appointment today for a checkup and vaccinations. She weighs 11 pounds and is 22 inches long! We found out last week that she has reflux, so it was nice to see that she's gaining weight well since I can't be sure how much she's eating with breastfeeding.

She did really well with the vaccines. The first was an oral one for rotavirus and the nurse said it was a sweet, syrupy liquid. Halfway through giving it to her she stopped to let Jane swallow and Jane cried out because she wanted more. It was super cute. The shots were not quite as easy though. One in each thigh. It took about two seconds after the first shot for her to start crying. Once I fed her and gave her some good snuggles she calmed down and fell asleep in the car.

The rotavirus vaccine has live cultures in it that made her belly hurt and when we got home she threw up (a ton) all over both of us. After a bath and some comfy pajamas she seems to be doing better, but she clearly doesn't feel well. I have a feeling she'll be sleeping in my arms tonight. I don't think I'll have too much of a problem with that though :)

Blueberry crumb cake

My parents came up to our place this weekend to visit and spend time with Jane (she's growing so fast!). While they were here I made a few different dishes that were a big hit and they asked for the recipes. I decided to post them here so they would be easy to find, rather than searching for a piece of paper or trying to remember a website, and thought other people might like to have them.

The first one I will post is a blueberry crumb cake I made for breakfast Saturday morning. We shop at Aldi a lot and they had pints of blueberries for 99 cents each. For that price I couldn't pass them up and after trying this recipe I'm glad I didn't.

Blueberry Crumb Cake
Slightly modified from Simply Scratch

For the cake:
5 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3/4 cup milk
1 pint blueberries

For the crumb topping:
3/4 stick butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour

To make the cake: preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8x11 glass baking dish. Mix together butter, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add vanilla and egg, then flour and milk. Fold in blueberries then pour in pan.

To make the crumble topping: blend butter, sugar and flour until large crumbles form. I don't have a pastry blender and I hate doing the two knives thing, so I just smush it all together using a fork. A food processor would probably work well too. Sprinkle the crumbles over the cake and bake for 45-50 minutes. Take it out and eat it! We like to slather it with butter :)

I didn't think about taking a picture, so here is one from Simply Scratch.




Also, I would love for anyone who has been reading my posts to "follow" the blog. All you need is a gmail account. Just go here and log in or set up an account, then add The Early Bloomers to your blog roll!

1 month pictures...oops

I guess tomorrow turned in to almost a month. I really need to get better at this thing called blogging...

I thought it would be fun to take a picture of Jane with the same stuffed animal every month to show how she's grown. My parents gave us a big stuffed elephant that I thought would be perfect. Jane didn't really care for her photoshoot though.







"Do you hear me Mr. Elephant? I hate this!"



She was trying to nurse from the elephant. Needless to say, we took a food break after this picture.



She looks so scared lol











I think I had more fun than she did, but I got some pretty good pictures. Next week she'll be two months and maybe I'll get the pictures up here before she turns one ;)

One month checkup

Jane had her one month checkup today and she is already 9lbs! But more than anything I am shocked by her length/height( does it change to height when they start walking??). At birth, she was 19.5 inches and shrinking (at her one week appt she measured 18.5 in), so a pretty petite baby. Today she measured 21.5 and her doctor said "She's a long girl! In the 74th percentile." I cannot believe she grew almost three inches in a month. She is still so tiny though :)

Tomorrow I'll post her one month picture to put in the frame Karen gave us. Until then, here's a picture of Jane sleeping in her swing!

Jane's birth story

I figured I would start this blog with Jane's birth story. I want to always remember what it was like bringing her into the world and I want to be able to share it with her when she is older. I'm a horrible story teller, waaaay too many details, so I'll try to keep it relatively short.

The craziness started Sunday night, April 22nd, but I would never have guessed it earlier in the day. I had gotten roughly two hours of sleep the night before with a brief cat nap in the afternoon after our trip to the fish store. So, all in all, I was working with around three hours of sleep for my labor. If only someone could tell you, "Hey! You're gonna start popping a baby out tonight. Maybe you should work on getting a little more sleep." Other than some mild cramping throughout the day, I had no clue I would have such an eventful night/morning.

I didn't realize things were getting serious until we layed down to go to bed. As soon as I got comfy the cramps seemed to be a little stronger, kind of uncomfortable, and maybe even coming pretty regularly. I decided to do what any modern pregnant woman would do: download a contraction timing app to my smartphone. Oh, technology. While waiting to time the first contraction I felt a "pop" in my lower abdomen that actually hurt and freaked out. At that point I was thankful we had diaper bed(what Kyle named our bed with a plastic mattress protector on it) because I swore my water broke. I clenched my muscles, got up and sprinted to the bathroom. No gushes, just enough fluid to make me think I may have peed my pants instead.

I decided to pace our apartment and see where the contractions were at. Maybe they would go away and I could get some sleep. Nope. Contractions were three minutes apart, lasting around 45 seconds. This was when I fully realized it was go time because I was supposed to call my midwife when they were five minutes apart and they were well past that. I gave her a call and she said to take a shower and head on in to the hospital. We scrambled to get a bag together. I had started one but I think all it had in it was ponytail holders and a pair of socks.

We stopped at a gas station on the way to the hospital to get some snacks and energy drinks for Kyle. The night was young and we both were already exhausted. When we got to the hospital we got checked in and they put us in an exam room. A nurse checked me and I was 4cm dilated and 80% effaced. I was shocked but happy with my progress. We were moved to a labor room, which was huge and awesome, and I knew it was time to call my parents. Kyle wanted me to say "Thundercats are goooo!!!!!" (from the movie Juno) when they answered, but no one answered. Not the house or the cell phones. Thankfully Kyle took over, because I really didn't want to chance having a contraction while talking to my parents. Kyle had to google my dad's work number to get a hold of someone. It sounds bad, but it was one in the morning so I forgive them :)

Soon after, my midwife and her student showed up and the contractions started coming on strong. They kept two monitors strapped to my belly to watch Jane's heartrate and monitored me every half hour (although it felt constant) because my blood pressure was up. I was also having really intense lower back pain that they thought might mean Jane was face up (sunny side up!) instead of face down like she should have been, so they had me try different positions roughly every half hour to try to get her to turn. They had me try leaning over the back of the bed, sitting on a labor ball (also known as a glorified yoga ball), the shower, which was really nice because I could hold the shower head on my lower back, and finally the tub. I really liked the tub but nothing was relieving the back pain. They had me move back to the bed and checked me again. 6-7cm dilated and 100% effaced. I didn't really know how to feel about that. I remember being a little bummed.

The midwife commented that because I was so tired it might be good to try to speed things along so we chose to have her break my water. That was a really weird feeling. A tugging sensation and then a huge, warm gush (gross, I know). It definitely sped things up though. Pretty soon I was feeling the urge to push. They attached a birthing bar to the bed for me to prop my feet on and tied a sheet to the bar so I could pull on it. It was fantastic. Like playing tug of war with myself.

At one point a bunch of people came in setting up tables with crazy looking tools. I guessed that meant we were pretty close. There were two other women from our midwife's practice giving birth that night (one showed up and delivered baby number eight in a water birth in what seemed like minutes) so another midwife was called in for backup. She brought with her a senior in high school who was interested in midwifery and I was asked if she could stand off to the side and watch. Sure, why not? Everyone else in the hospital is here staring at my lady parts. But really, I was perfectly fine with it. How are students supposed to learn if no one allows them to experience anything?

I pushed for two hours with Kyle holding me up and encouraging me through every contraction. I couldn't have asked for a better labor partner. He kept telling me how good I was doing and that he could see her hair covered head. I just couldn't believe he looked down there. They asked if I wanted a mirror to see and I quickly refused. I wasn't sure if it would help me or hurt me and I didn't want to take any chances. Beforehand, I had thought of all these things I did and didn't want to do in labor, like gradual pushing to help prevent tearing, but all that quickly went out the window. The midwife said push and I pushed. She said push harder so I pushed so hard I thought I would throw up. It was all very intense and, because of the horrific back labor, not at all what I had imagined.

Normally, the baby's head comes out, they turn a little, then each shoulder comes out one at a time and the body slides out after. At 11:24am on Monday, April 23rd, I pushed so hard that Kyle said she shot straight out into the midwife's arms, sunny side up just like we thought. It was the grossest, most relieving feeling I have ever experienced. They wrapped her in a blanket and put her on my chest. I felt horrible because she had the worst conehead I have ever seen from being in the birth canal for so long. Kyle told me when they measured her the nurse actually said "19.5 and shrinking," and at her one week appointment she measured 18.5 inches!

Kyle cut the umbilical cord and after getting her weight, length and apgar score, she was placed back on my chest for skin to skin contact and breastfeeding while the midwife and nurses took care of my nether region. I didn't stop bleeding on my own so they put me on pitocin to make my uterus contract, they had a little trouble getting the placenta out, and I had two tears that needed stitches. Kyle said it looked like a scene from Saw with the blood everywhere. I remember asking the high school girl if she was ok because she was looking a little rough. Kind of ironic now...

We couldn't believe how un-alien-like Jane looked. Most babies look so strange when they first come out and, yes I know I'm biased but, she was beautiful. After breastfeeding, my parents came in to see their first grandbaby. We all admired her tiny features and dark hair before getting moved to the recovery room. The midwives asked me soon after if I would go pain-med free again and, at the time, I didn't know. It took me a day or two before I realized I couldn't wait to do it again. The feeling of accomplishment, doing what my body was made to do, knowing I did everything I could to bring my baby into this world without any kind of drugs in her system. It was an amazing feeling and if we decide to have another baby I will definitely be doing it again.