Charmed Life Chronicles

Monday, July 19th, marked the day of my little baby boy turning 1 month old. They truly do grow too fast. I love love love the baby stage. If I could handle pregnancy better, I might actually want another one! No, I'm just kidding. I love the baby stage but I have no desire to ever be pregnant again, and 3 children is plenty for me. I just can't believe my baby is growing so fast already. I feel like my pregnancy went by so slow but having Tristan here, it's just gone by so fast.

Monday I took the kids and dragged Willie down to a park to take some pictures of the kids. Was hoping to get one of all 3 of them together but that was a no go. I did manage to get atleast 1 picture of each child though. I haven't taken any pictures of the girls in quite awhile so I wanted atleast 1 new one for my frames.

Aren't my babies absolutely beautiful?!! I absolutely adore them.

This week is an uneventful week for the most part. I didn't plan anything at all and we've just been planning things day by day. Last minute stuff mainly. Today (July 21st) I made a last minute decision to take the kids to the pool. We went after dinner and got there around 6pm. It wasn't too hot and without having the sun shining down on us, it wasn't a problem taking Tristan. It was Tristan's first time at the pool and he slept the entire time. He didn't even get to experience the water. Heck, he didn't even experience the scenery LOL!

Tristan's been doing well with his night schedule. He's been about every 3 to 4 hrs from about 8pm to about 6am. After 6am he moves to an every 2hr schedule and stays that way throughout the day. Big improvement from the every hour to two hours all day and all night that I was getting from him.

This weekend is my nephews birthday party. He's turning 6, so we will be headed to Virginia on Saturday afternoon to celebrate his birthday. The girls will have fun!

Here's a few pics from the past few days that I'd like to share....

Wow! It's been over a week since I've posted on my blog. Last week and weekend was pretty busy though and I'm still getting used to caring for 3 during the day.

I spent most of last week on Wednesday and Thursday catching up on laundry and cleaning the house. I had a newborn session on Friday (July 9th). I am on maternity leave until August but I always make exceptions for newborns. I don't like to do newborn sessions after 3 weeks old so I wanted to get her in right away. Unless another newborn comes my way before August 1st, I really am done working til then.

The past weekend was family filled. We went to Willie's aunt's and uncle's house on Saturday. It's always nice to catch up with them, and we don't do it enough. We really should be going up there more often. The girls had a blast with Uncle Lee, and they also cling to their big cousin Erin too. It's good to see them opening up more when around people, especially family members. Erin fell in love with Tristan (who couldn't, right?). She had said she doesn't hold babies until they can hold their head up. LOL! We got her to hold Tristan though and then I don't think she wanted to share him with Aunt Kim. Aunt Kim made dinner for us, and it was really yummy! We haven't had too many home cooked meals lately. Willie usually does all the cooking and he's been bad about it the past few months. And me? I am not sure I'd find the time to cook! Heck, I can barely find time to eat without Tristan being hungry at the same time. Anyways, it was so yummy that even Kayliana ate the chicken she made. Anyone that knows how much of a picky eater my kid is knows what a big deal that is! My point and shoot camera had died before leaving the house so I didn't get any pictures. I know that Aunt Kim and Uncle Lee have some pictures from that day though, so I'm hoping to steal some from them sometime soon.

Sunday, my dad and Sam came by. It's actually the first time my dad has come to visit in a few years. Sam's never been here. They commented how large our new room was. The girls had a blast playing with their Paw-Paw. Here's a picture from their visit with Tristan. My dad makes some of the fakest cheese smiles sometimes. LOL. Tristan was also mid-yawn.


So far, this week has been pretty uneventful. Laundry is never-ending so I was doing some of that. I also made the decision to stop cloth diapering. Between all the laundry I already have with 5 family members and the breastfeeding, cleaning and my business, I just don't think I have the time to worry about washing the cloth diapers too. It sucks in a way because I LOVE the cloth diapers, but either the breastfeeding had to be stopped or the cloth diapers had to go. Obviously, the breastfeeding was more important than the cloth diapers. I got my hair done today (July 14th). It's a bit blonder now and it's cut shorter again. It'll be the last time I have it blonde though. We're darkening it back up a little in September before we leave for vacation. Willie is going to want me to grow it out though, so I guess I'll be starting that from here on out, but most likely, I will cut it off again next May. LOL! July 14th, 2010 also marks the day that Willie and I have been together for 12 years! <3

Tristan is weighing over 8lbs now. He's getting big so fast. I can't believe he will be a month old in 4 days. Maybe we'll take a family trip to the park on Sunday if the weather is decent and I can get some pictures of him for his 1 month and get some pictures of the girls too since it's been awhile. He's going longer in between feedings and even last night he was on a 3hr schedule. I'm starting to learn his cries and which is which. Willie is still struggling with that. He thinks he is always hungry when he cries when a lot of the time I just think it's him being tired and fighting sleep (an apparent trend with my kids I guess). Tristan sure does love to be held and be close to me though. A true momma's boy.

I'm happy to announce that I have TWO potty trained kids now. We still have accidents, but I think it's official. Addison IS potty trained. She's doing very well with it! She's such a big girl now. The other day I caught her breastfeeding her baby doll. I thought that was hilarious!

I'm so thankful for my children! I feel so lucky to have 3 beautiful healthy children. They are generally well behaved kids. The girls crack me up every single day with their little personalities and the things that they say. Tristan is such a cuddly lil man. He's such a sweet baby! I can't stop giving him lots of hugs and kisses throughout each day. I truly am blessed with a perfect family!

Today, I got a good glimpse of how proud I am of my family!

Today, I had Tristan's 2 week appointment. He had to get his PKU done and when they pricked his little heel he screamed bloody murder and turned purple. My poor little snuggle bug. They weighed him and he is 7lbs 14oz. I am so proud that he is nursing so well and gaining well. Here's a little glimmer of how he's done for weight.

Birth - 7lbs 1oz
3 days old - Lost nearly 10% of his birth weight and weighed 6lbs 7oz
2 weeks old - Not only got back up to his birth weight like doctors like them to be by 2 weeks, he gained even more! Weighed in at 7lbs 14oz

I think that is wonderful growth for him and for me! Makes me feel so much better about everything! The doctor said his weight gain was amazing, and that overall he is doing very good, super healthy and that he looks perfect!

Kayliana has been playing on the Wii for a few hours today. We don't generally let her play too many video games. It's probably been months since she's actually played, so I figured while it is 100 degrees outside, she could spend her day playing the video games. Willie put it on for her, and I'd normally say it's time to turn it off after a little while but she's been playing for about 4hrs now, maybe longer. She's getting a pretty good workout from it though. LOL! She's so smart, and knows how to get around it really well and does so well with all of the games.

I'm so proud of Addison today! She's been using the potty more frequently today. She's been in panties all day today and we've had a few accidents she is already showing a huge improvement from yesterday. I think she is finally starting to get the hang of it. She is excited about being a big girl! Maybe she really will be potty trained by 3yrs old. That would be wonderful! Might make our Disney trip a bit tricky if it takes her a couple more weeks to fully understand it though. Either way, I'm proud of her progress!

I sure don't have a lot of time to do a bunch of updates or much time online being a mom to a newborn. Luckily, the girls are pretty independent until they are ready for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with the occasional asking of a drink and snack. Kayliana and Addison play so well together (most of the time) that it gives me more time to take care of Tristan.

Speaking of Tristan, it seems as though he is very much a high needs baby. He likes to be held and will hardly sleep without being held. I actually had to take the shirt I was wearing today off and then stick it underneath of him so he'd stay asleep without me holding him. I needed to get some things taken care of around the house and I certainly can not do it while holding him. I could always put him in the sling but sometimes it's difficult to still do certain tasks while having him in the sling. He seems to be doing well with the breastfeeding, and it's hurting me a lot less now. He has gained more weight since last week, so he should be well above his birth weight by now. I'll have his stats tomorrow since he has his 2 week checkup at the doctors tomorrow afternoon. I will update tomorrow on how his appointment went. Hopefully the doctor wont make me feel like a horrible mother again!

We have begun potty training Addison... sort of. I know I said I wasn't going to, but the cloth diapers are starting to get WAY too small on her on the highest rise settings and I am not buying disposable diapers for her. We have pullups, and she does wear them at night time, but we've been putting her either in a pullup during the day or underwear. We've been doing this for a week now so she is strictly off of diapers. We've had a LOT of accidents. She'll go a little bit before she gets to the potty and then not go on the potty, change her panties and then go a little bit more. We did have a successful pee on the potty last week, but she never did it again until today. She had a successful pee on the potty today and she was extremely ecstatic about it. She was clapping and laughing and you could just tell that she was very proud of herself. It would be nice if she'd keep this up today and eventually completely potty trained, but I still have a feeling we'll be going through a few weeks of trying to potty train her before we are mostly successful.

We didn't go and see fireworks for the 4th of July. Tristan is just a bit too young for all of that. We did end up taking the girls to the Natural History Museum in Washington, DC on Saturday (July 3rd) though. They really liked the mammal exhibit. It was my first time breastfeeding in public (with a cover ofcourse) and it went pretty well. I haven't mastered feeding him in the sling though, so I actually had to go outside and sit in the shade and put on my nursing cover to feed him. All of the kids did pretty good considering the girls only got about 7 hours of sleep. Tristan was not happy in the carseat though. Reminds me of how Addison was when she was a baby. I didn't take many (well, practically none actually) pictures since both of the girls were in the stroller most of the time and Tristan was in the sling for most of the time as well.

I can't believe more than a week has already gone by since I had my sweet boy! His first week home has been really good. He really is such a good baby. He hardly cries and he sleeps pretty well. He eats ALL of the time; absolutely loves to eat. I swear he eats about every hour to two hours during the day and at night it's around every two to four hours. So, not bad in my opinion. I was worried that his frequent feedings meant that he wasn't getting enough but he's had plenty of wet diapers so I know he's definitely getting something. Last Tuesday he weighed 6lbs 7oz (June 22nd) and today, less than 7 days later he is back up to his birth weight of 7lbs 1oz (June 28th). They say 6oz for a breastfed baby is normal, and he just gained 10oz in a week so that is WONDERFUL news for all of us all around.

I took his newborn portraits the other day. He did good! I have a lot of favorites, now I just need to figure out which one I want to get in a 16x20 to put into his bedroom. Here's one of my favorites from the session. There are more on my photography blog if you are interested: http://www.chapmansphoto.com/blog


Kayliana is still all about him. I feel bad sometimes because she just really wants to be near him but when I am feeding him and she's right next to me, it really stresses me out. Probably because it's still very painful for him to latch on. Once he latches on and after about a minute passes by, it's all okay and doesn't really hurt anymore. I've heard that the 2nd week of breastfeeding is the worse so I'm really hoping that next week we will be much better at this.

We had our very first paranoid ER visit lastnight (June 27th). Tristan's circumcision appeared to be pretty swollen with some discharge and a bit of an odor and since all of those are signs of infection, we took him in. We would much rather be safe than sorry. The urologist came down to check him out and said that he was fine. He got a plastibell circumcision and it's literally hanging 1/2 on and 1/2 off. It is scary to clean as I don't want to tear the other 1/2 off and cause him to bleed.

On a much brighter note, Addison FINALLY made contact with Tristan today. She touched his head! It was very brief and she hasn't done it since but it's improvement. I knew she'd warm up to him at some point! I can't wait until all 3 of my kids can interact together.

I've been trying to adjust to being a mom of 3 now. I'm also adjusting to being a breastfeeding mom since it's the first time I've ever breastfed. With Kayliana, I never started or tried or even really gave it a thought since I was working full time and didn't want to have to mess with pumping while at work and stuff. With Addison, I guess because I didn't do it with Kayliana it didn't even cross my mind with her. Being a stay at home mom and getting to know other parents and their parenting style you really do learn a lot of wonderful things. If it weren't for some of the people I've met on message boards there would be very little that I knew. For one, I'd never had known that I was practicing attachment parenting from Day 1 with Kayliana. My attachment parenting style has just evolved into being just a co-sleeper with my first, a co-sleeper and baby-wearer with my 2nd, and now a co-sleeper, baby-wearer, breastfeeding and cloth diapering mom with my 3rd.

Anyways, my biggest adjustment has been the breastfeeding. If anyone tells you it's easy and it isn't painful then they are just big fat liars! It HURTS really bad while you are getting used to it all. Outside of the pain, I'm just having trouble making sure that Tristan gets an adequate amount. We had our doctors appointment on Tuesday, June 23rd for Tristan. He is pretty jaundice and because of it, is sleeping a lot. I'm supposed to be nursing him every 2 to 3hrs but he wants to nurse every 4hrs instead. Waking him up like I've been told is practically impossible. He's lost nearly 10% weight loss from the day he was born, and the doctor was sure to make me feel like a horrible mother for it. Tristan wasn't doing what the doctors like to see. The day we left the hospital, he was circumcised and he didn't eat alot that day so I think because of that we were about a day or two off schedule. Things APPEAR to be better today and I'm hoping that tomorrow will be even better. Ofcourse, I wont know for sure until we have another doctors appointment and check out his weight. He is supposed to be back up to his birth weight by 2 weeks of age. But, we went from 7lbs 1oz to 6lbs 7oz so he has quite a bit of weight to catch back up on! I'm just hoping that breastfeeding doesn't fail us and my lil man starts to gain weight.

Addison still will not touch or get near Tristan. Though, she definitely cares for him from afar. At the doctors office when he was crying she kept watching him and the doctor to make sure he was okay. I have a beanbag I've been using to put Tristan out by our front door where the sun shines through to help with his jaundice and Kayliana was playing with it and Addison had a huge fit and screamed and told Kayliana that it was the baby's. I really hope she warms up to him soon. I'm a little bummed when it comes to Addison though. She's been clinging to Willie a lot lately. She's momma's girl so it's tough for me. I try to help her and do things for her but she tells me "No, Daddy will help me." I did manage to get her to cuddle with me tonight though before she fell asleep, and that was nice. I miss my cuddle times with her.

After being admitted around 6 to 7pm on Friday, June 18th, I continued to have contractions that were irregular. We called Willie's mom to let her know that we were being admitted and I had him call my dad to let him know that I was being admitted and officially considered to be in active labor. I want to say that it was around 10pm that I was told that the doctor wanted to give me pitocin since my contractions were so far apart. They started the pitocin and my contractions became more regular, stronger and closer together. I think they upped my pitocin 4 times before checking to see if I made any more progress. When the doctor checked me, I was only a 7, they let me labor for another hour and then I was told that I was going to have my water broken. I was told that I could get the epidural if I wanted and that the contractions that came after my water was broken would be much stronger and more painful. I wanted to have a natural birth from the get go and the fact that I was on pitocin to make things progress was something I didn't want, let alone the epidural too. I told her that I wouldn't get it before my water was broken and that if I felt I needed it afterwards, I'd let them know. That was probably my biggest mistake. Little did I know how much things were going to get worse for me once my water was broken. IMMEDIATELY after my water was broken, my contractions were about 10 fold and the pain increased significantly. I think I only went through 15 minutes of those types of contractions before I was in tears and told Willie that I couldn't do it, that I had to get the epidural if I wasn't making any changes quickly. They checked me again and I was still at 7cm, so I got the epidural. It took quite awhile before the epidural started to kick in, and when it did, my blood pressure dropped significantly. I started feeling nauseous and tired and felt very short of breath. I was given epinephrine to try to stabilize my blood pressure and put on an oxygen mask. It took about an hour for them to stabilize me. Once I was stabilized and more consciously aware of the things around me, I told the nurse that I felt a lot of pressure. The nurse called the doctor in to check me and I was complete and ready to push. I pushed for about 15 minutes and out finally popped my little baby boy!

Tristan Lee James was born on June 19th, 2010 at 3:04am at 7lbs 1oz and 19.5 inches long. He cried a lot, way more than my girls ever did. The doctor wasn't happy that I was going into labor at 38 weeks originally but when she heard his weight she said that had I gone to full term I probably would have had an 8lb baby or bigger so she was kind of glad that I ended up going at 38 weeks rather than 2 or 3 weeks out. Tristan is absolutely perfect. I've had some issues with breastfeeding but he's eating enough it seems and has had plenty of wet diapers so they are not worried. Hopefully we can fix our issues and get it to work well for us. My recovery has been pretty good! I have had NO edema like I did with the other 2 nor did I tear or have an episiotomy. Right now, Tristan appears to have light brown hair and dark blue eyes. Yes, out of 2 girls and 1 boy, the only child that was born with any amount of hair was my boy!!



He was circumcised today, June 20th, 2010. Right now, I'm in the hospital and both of us are doing so well that we are headed home today, a day early than they originally would. We are waiting for him to have his hearing test and a PKU test done before we can head home.

I feel bad that the girls have been away from us for so long though. Kayliana is absolutely IN LOVE with Tristan. Willie said that yesterday when he took them home to pack them up, bathe them, and take care of the pets that Kayliana kept telling him "I miss mommy and Tristan". I can see she'll be by my side a LOT. Addison is still in denial I think. She wont hold the baby but DID sit next to him and Kayliana yesterday. I hope she warms up to him soon! She's definitely jealous of him. Hopefully she doesn't convert to a Daddy's girl since I'm the one bringing a new baby in the house (in her eyes).