Categories
Babies

Some days

Some days are good. Filled with snuggling, napping {us & the babies}, wonderful breastfeeding-good latches, good tandem, good pumping, waking up happy & going down easily. Yesterday was mostly one of those days.

Today has been different & more difficult. Looking back over last few months of posts, I feel I’m spewing sunshine. And some moments, minutes, hours, days are. Right now Lucy is happy in a bouncy seat & Zach is passed out in my arms.

Thirty minutes ago, no more like an hour plus because it took a while, Zach woke up screaming. Screamed through diaper changing & continued til he was nursing well. And no more than two minutes later, Lucy woke up from a good lil snooze starving. We tried placating her with the lamb wubbanub & hugs from aunt Sue but that didn’t last long.

Zach has realized that he prefers to nurse alone, cross cradle style. But that’d not always possible – welcome to the twin world of sharing & compromise brother. I switched him to tandem, added her on & cue screaming on both sides of me. Lucy was more interested suddenly in the lights from golf on TV & Zach & his reflux & tummy had decided this wasn’t what he wanted. Aunt Sue tried burping Z & I did what were calling the bait & switch {paci in his mouth pulled out quick & boob shoved in}. Those worked briefly.

I finally gave up on Z eating more this feeding. I gave him snuggles, his beloved orange hospital paci & Sue got him in a clean diaper. I was able then to capture Lucy’s attention long enough to switch her cross cradle & top her off.

By then, we were all frustrated, exhausted & maybe still a little hungry. But hugs all around were given, the babies calmed down & I gave myself grace knowing {hoping} that the next feeding would be better. I’m not willing to give up on fighting through the rough breastfeeding moments. The good breastfeeding moments make it worth while. And for now, the good ‘some days’ are out weighing the rough.

Whew! If you got through reading that, good for you.

Categories
Food

{Make Ahead Meals} Spanish Chicken

We’ve been very lucky & blessed that friends & family have dropped off plenty of meals for us over the last 11 weeks. And lucky that everything has been super delicious ~ although at 3a or after going almost all day without having the chance to eat, just about anything tastes wonderful! I haven’t gotten recipes for everything, but I did want to post recipes that I have gotten.

I’m going to post a bunch of recipes coming up that were all made by my sister in law & brought down frozen when she came to help for a long weekend. It’s been awesome having the freezer stocked. She found this recipe on makeaheadmeals.blogspot.com.

Easy Spanish Chicken & Rice
Ingredients
1 lb boneless chicken breasts, cut into cubes
1/2 lb Italian sausage or chorizo {she used turkey sausage}, cut into slices
8 oz package of Goya yellow rice mix
3 tbsp olive oil
Medium yellow onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 c hot water
1 c frozen peas
1/2 c Spanish or manzanilla olives, chopped {if I remake this, I’d either omit or just add 1/4 c}
Salt & pepper, to taste

In large skillet, heat olive oil over medium high. Season chicken cubes generously with salt & pepper & add them & the sausage to the skillet. Cook a few minutes, until chicken browned but not cooked through.

Lower heat to medium. Add onion & garlic & saute for about 5 minutes. Be careful not to Brown the garlic or it will get bitter.

Add water, rice mix & seasonings. Add hot sauce to taste if you’d like. Stir well to combine ingredients. When it starts bubbling, cover, lower heat to low & let simmer for 20 minutes.

Remove pan to heat & add in peas & olives. Pour into 2 & 1/2 quart baking dish. Once cool, cover tightly & freeze.

Defrost in frig for no less than 24 hrs & no more than 2 days. Bake on 350 for 45-60 minutes.

Categories
Babies Family/Travel

Lucy: Two Months

Two months of life for this little girl. My lover of food, we never worry she’s not growing! We’ll know for sure at their two month check up next week, but I’d guess she’s past the 10lb mark.

Lucy has grown out of newborn clothes except for the few dresses that are now bordering on too short. After realizing her legs couldn’t stretch out in NB sleepers, the footless pants had become capris, onesies couldn’t snap, we officially boxed up all of those clothes. {Let me know if you need NB girl clothes, my friends are PG with boys now}

She wears cloth diapers almost exclusively during the day. We’ve been using kissaluv size 0 fitteds {on the second snap still} & a mixture of Thirties smallest covers, Flip covers & Rumparoos new born covers. At night she’s wearing size 1 disposable diapers as of two weekends ago.

She happily shocked us three times this week by sleeping in a five hour stretch from around 1-6a. Fingers crossed she keeps this up. She falls asleep best on us, on our chest. Lucy’s not a huge fan of chillin in the boppy but she’ll tolerate it for a bit. The swing is hit or miss- some days she’s a fan & it’ll lull her to sleep, others she screams after a minute. The baby Einstein mat is a hit. As is postfeeding tummy time- she falls asleep after a minute. Due to tummy time & chillin on us, she has pretty good neck control.

I think due to them being six weeks early, I’m not sure baby center development stats are correct for them yet so I’m not going to list those yet. But she has started cooing a little this week & looking at us as well as following us when we walk past both with head & eyes.

Categories
Babies Family/Travel

Zach: Two Months

Zach, my little guy, is getting not so little. I’d guess he’s more than doubled his 4lb2oz birth weight. I’m looking forward to seeing if he’s jumped up to more than the 1% for weight, height & head at our doctor’s appointment this week.

Zach is now firmly in newborn clothes. He grew out of the preemie clothes length-wise a couple of weeks ago, but now he’s filling out the feet & tummy of the newborn sleepers.

After their one month appointment {at six weeks}, when we learned he was 7lbs, we switched him from the too small preemie disposable diapers into newborn ones {Huggies & Pampers are our favorites}. I also started him with cloth diapers that day. His first cloth was a size one Applecheeks but most days he uses the fitted Kissaluvs with x-small covers.

From the beginning, the NICU nurses were commenting on how strong he was & that hasn’t changed. His head/neck control is getting so good. He also likes to practice standing up. He follows us with his eyes & will sometimes turn his head to follow us. He loves to cuddle & falls asleep on us most of the time & definitely naps best on our arms, chests or laps. Boppy pillows work well for him to hang out or take a lil nap in. He tolerates the swing & likes the play mat pretty well.

He had tons of blond hair on his head & all over his shoulders, arms & back when he was born. We’ve noticed that the body hair is almost gone & he’s now sporting more of a old man mullet {bald on top & thin in the back}. Zach now has a wee double chin & the fabulous arm rolls we’ve been working hard getting him to make.

We {& our pediatrician} diagnosed him with silent reflux a couple weeks after a week of him screaming through feedings & whenever he was laying flat. Thanks to Zantac twice a day {hidden in 15ml of breast milk}, he seems to be feeling so much better. He still has occasional rough feedings but those are less frequent; I think due both to him getting bigger & the meds.

Categories
Babies Family/Travel

Nicknames

I’m writing on what I call ‘borrowed time’ aka its been over three & a half hours since I fed the babies together & I’m expecting them to wake at any moment. So this will be quick. But I want to remember all the sweet & silly nicknames we currently have for our duo.

Lucy. She’s baby girl, sweet girl, Luce, Lucy girl, Lucy Beth (which I almost wanted her to be double name called), frog or froggy (she has a super long tongue that she sticks out when she’s hungry & I ask her if she’s trying to catch flies), hippo or miss piggy (because the girl, like her mommy, loves some food.

Zach. Well I guess Zach is his number one nickname as we hardly ever call him Zachary. We started calling him Zachy-poo in the NICU (he’s gonna love this when he’s older) & its kinda stuck. Sometimes I’ll even shorten it too calling him Poo. He’s also Zachy, Zacher, Z-bud, buddy, or little buddy (another nicu name that’s stuck), little dude, or turtle because of his neck control. He’s often ‘lil’ somethings because he was & still is close to 2 pounds smaller than his sister.

Zach just woke so I was right on my ‘borrowed time’. Off to nurse the lil guy!