On hold...

I'm on hold with Verizon, and have been for nearly an hour... which gives me time to think about the things that I haven't been writing about!

Dax is smiling a lot more lately. :)

We had his 8 week checkup at the midwife yesterday, and he's a whopping 13 pounds, 10 ounces! What's cool, too, is that my midwife told me I can't feed him too much. I can't hold him too much. And I should try to sleep with him more (which is what I've been doing, since discovering how to breastfeed lying down in bed with him - and feeling guilty about him wanting to feed to sleep, or cuddle with me to sleep, instead of wanting to be held by his daddy). She also said his "witching hour" (as I've been calling it) is really normal for breastfed babies - they'll "tank up" (or "cluster feed") before they go to sleep at night, feeding every hour or nearly constantly for several hours. I was starting to think Dax had colic - he was fussing and eating so much from 8 to midnight, sometimes 2am - which now I get it that he'd be staying up late because I wasn't feeding him as much as he needed to finally go to sleep for any longer duration than 2 hours! Go figure!

We had a nice long night of sleep after a big day at Honey and Popi's last Sunday - Honey mentioned putting a swaddle on him to hold his arms in, so he wouldn't feel like he was falling, or keep slapping his own face in his sleep (waking himself up suddenly and screamingly) - something we tried to do when he was new, and he wasn't having it - he had to have his arms out. But this time? It worked!! I used the arm-swaddle piece of a swaddle set (sleep sac and arm swaddler thing) - and just pinned in his arms, and I'll be darned if he didn't sleep for 7 freaking hours straight! I was like Snow White when I woke up that morning at 6 am - birds and forest creatures were flying around me - it was great!

And it hasn't happened again since.

Dax has a new "cry" for a new emotion now. He cries when he's tired - but he keeps himself up, like he doesn't want to miss anything! So now he cries when he's hungry, cries when he's gassy or has to poop, and now cries when he's sleepy and doesn't want to go to sleep.

I've already had a period (I know, TMI for some readers) - but that's pretty quick in the scheme of back-to-normal for moms; I got it about 6 weeks after Dax was born. And I now weigh less than I did when I started this crazy ride, too!

And Dax is finally using his cloth diapers! We finally got him in them on Mother's Day, and we haven't looked back. I've only got 24 of them, so I do laundry about every other day, and if I'm not paying attention, I have to do them two days in a row. If I had 12 more diapers, and a larger diaper pail, I could do them every third day... which would make it seem less "dramatic" to get the diapers done. So I'll have to buy them slowly to bulk up my stash (or sew my own too - I have some I just need to sew up, but I also have Dax's curtains to finish, more spit-rags to finish, and then I can think about those diapers).

What else?

Mom started chemo on Monday, and seems to be handling it pretty well. I think the anti-nausea medicine is a GODSEND. And that's what will get her through most of this, I think. We'll go down there on Sunday to see how she did after week one.

I feel like I'm finally getting a little more sleep, or at least I'm getting used to getting no sleep... :) So I'm starting to feel like a normal human again. Not bad - 2 months to "normal". :)

The book I won - From the Hips - is really a pretty cool book so far. It's just what it said it would be: "a comprehensive, open-mided, uncensored, totally hinest guide to pregnancy, birth, and becoming a parent." I highly recommend it for soon-to-be, or brand new mommies.