Cinder LOVES Pumpkin!

Grandma Julie gave Maylee a pumpkin about 8" in diameter.  We put it on our retaining wall.  When Cinder was outside with Kevin she smelled the pumpkin then jumped up, bit it, and carried it into the yard.  She was so excited about her new treasure that she went into "Hammie Mode" and ran around with this pumpkin in her mouth.  Then she decided to settle down and eat it.  Fearing she would have orange runny pooh, we would hide it from her to ration the pumpkin out over the next three days.  It just made her gassy!

1st Halloween

Maylee was a ladybug for Halloween.  We joined Wendy's side of the family to celebrate so Kevin could go to the Vandal game that weekend too.

Sweet Tart

Grandma Julie calls Maylee Sweet Tart because "sometimes she is sweet and sometimes she is tart."  :-)

Maylee's Friend Brynlee

Kevin's high school friend Katie gave birth two weeks early to a baby girl.  Brynlee was just over 5lbs but dropped below 5lbs after post-birth complications.  Thankfully, Katie and baby are doing well now.  This picture was taken when Brynlee was two weeks old and Maylee was six weeks old.

Week 6 - Maylee Sleeps Through the Night!

We are so thankful that Maylee sleeps through the night now.  She feeds about every 3hrs during the day with her last feeding around 10pm.  She is usually out for the night around 11pm and sleeps until 6:30 or 7am.  You know she is in a deep sleep when she cocks her head way back or way over to the side and her mouth is open.

Maylee's Calming Recipe

Week 5 of her life was life changing for us all!  I went to free mother support classes with a lactation consultant available on Tuesdays before I had to return to work.  I enjoyed meeting other moms and knowing I'm not alone with my experiences.  Moms of older babies shared ways that work to calm their babies and I brought these ideas home with me.



Crying after she wakes up = feed me now!
Crying after she eats = change my diaper (even if the last change was only 5 minutes ago)
Crying and the diaper is not wet = I'm tired and need help falling asleep
Crying & heavy kicking of the legs = I don't like what you ate mom so now my tummy is upset.  I need Gripe Water and lots of bouncing.


Ingredients:
*1 crying baby
*1 swaddling blanket (our favorite is the Miracle Blanket because it has no Velcro that startles her or wakes her when she is asleep)
*1 Sleep Sheep (Her favorite sound on the Sleep Sheep player is the last button which is whales singing - she'll grow up to be a marine biologist)
*1 Soothie pacifier
*1 exercise ball to bounce on while holding her
*1 CD with the shower playing (One day she went totally silent when she heard the shower running.  We were wasting a lot of water so I recorded the shower running and burned it onto many CDs.  Now we can listen to the shower in any of our vehicles and if different places of the house)

When she is tired, we swaddle her tightly, bounce on the exercise ball, help her keep the pacifier in her mouth to suck on, and give her something to listen to.  If she is kind of quiet we play the whales singing.  If she is really mad and screaming, we play the shower on a louder volume to calm her.

When we put her to bed, she sleeps on her side with a sleep wedge.  We place the Sleep Sheep player set to the whales singing (times out in 45 minutes) above her head.  She falls into a deep sleep every time!  In the morning she sometimes she starts to fuss so we will reach into her bassinet and turn the whales back on.  She will continue sleeping for another hour or more.  We love the Sleep Sheep!!!

No More Garlic!! (Atleast for awhile)

One evening at camp, I had two servings of spaghetti and two pieces of garlic bread.  That night was horrible for all of us!  Maylee just cried and cried due to her upset tummy.  A little camper is not an easy place to calm an upset baby.  Kevin didn't get much sleep that night for hunting the following morning.  She finally slept from 2:30-5:30am but was up again and crying the next day.  Her spit up looked like cottage cheese and she would kick her legs so much. The only thing that sort of helped her quiet down a bit was to stand up and bounce her heavily with her in an upright position. 

After this night of hell, Grandpa Bruce walked and bounced her around camp after he got back from hunting so I could sleep.  When Grandma Julie came up to camp she also helped us a lot.

Since then, I have cut out garlic.  I've never liked garlic by itself but we use garlic salt to season things.  It is also in many of the foods we eat such as spaghetti sauce, alfredo sauce, and even Campbell soups.  She became a much easier baby to live with after cutting it out of my diet.  I'm better at reading labels...still need to find a salad dressing I would like with no garlic.

She was an easy baby for the first two weeks of her life.  At two weeks old she started nursing more off of me and I think the garlic seasoning in my food started really bothering her.  So from Week 2 to Week 5, she was very fussy during the day.  At night she usually did pretty good of sleeping 3 hours at a time, but daytime was a different story!  I'm just glad we figured it out.

Cinder at Hunting Camp 2009

Cinder and her ball at camp.

 

Cinder thinks she is a lap dog!  She also likes to curl up in a chair and sit around the campfire like we do. Sometimes I wonder if she thinks she is a human too.

Cinder and Kev totally out from a busy day (Kev from chasing elk and Cinder from chasing balls).  She is like a kid when she is tired.  Cinder whines and needs her daddy.

Maylee & Cousin Sarah at camp

Cousin Sarah loves hunting camp! You don't have to twist her arm to go when she knows Baby Maylee, Cinder, and smores are at camp. When Maylee was awake, Sarah was right there to talk to her and help with her socks and snaps. When Maylee was eatting or sleeping Sarah would throw the ball numerous times for Cinder.  Sarah is a good cousin to both Maylee and her ball crazy sister!

Maylee & Uncle Kevin at Camp

Uncle Kevin drove from Portland on his two days off to spend time at hunting camp and to see Maylee.