Zombie parents

These days, all Brian and I do is feed the baby and change the baby and rock the baby when he is fussy and sleep somewhere in the middle if we can even get a chance. The first week with Rhys at home with us was tough because I was doing what is called "Triple Feeding" which is basically me taking Rhys to my breast for 20 or so minutes and then feeding him whatever he will eat of my breastmilk that I express into a bottle and then pumping my breasts for 15 minutes. He would eat and then sleep for about 3 hours so after all was said and done including cleaning the bottles and pumping accessories, I would have under an hour and a half to rest....if we were lucky. Usually he would be fussy sooner than 3 hours. That was a tough time indeed for all of us. Brian and I were not getting any good sleep at all.

Luckily these days my milk has finally come in and Rhys is feeding off of me much better than he used to. I am now exclusively breastfeeding, with a pump or two during the day to make a supply for brian to use when he feeds Rhys in the middle of the night so I can get some shut-eye. Right now, Rhys is sleeping under my arm while I am typing this out. He only at for about 10 minutes or so, so I imagine that he will wake up soon enough and complain of hunger. In any case, I am so glad that I don't have to pump. Pumping and cleaning the pump took about 20 minutes or so and having him take a bottle of expressed breast milk took an extra 20-30 minutes too. These days I will just put him at the breast for 30 or so minutes and if he is full enough, he will sleep for a nice hour. I guess I still don't get much sleep because he wakes up a lot more often than he used to. He used to feed about 7-8 times a day and now he is eating about 10-12 times a day. I am still not as frustrated about him getting enough to eat as I was doing with the triple feeding so life is a little bit nicer than last week.

We weighed Rhys today and he came in at 6lbs 5oz. He has already gained his birthweight and is now starting to gain weight! The lactation consultant that we met up with yesterday told us that she doesn't see any problems with me breastfeeding. She said that in another week or so, he will be doing great on my breast alone. That was good to know. Actually, the nurse and the doctor were both very happy that Rhys was feeding so well on my breast. It made me feel like I was doing something right.

Hopefully they are right and Rhys will grow leaps and bounds in the next few weeks.

We have officially run out of the Mi Yuk Gook that my mom has made for us. Luckily she will be back in SD for the weekend to make all that again and stock pile us with yummy foods. yay!!

In the meantime...Chipotle??

Here are some pictures of Rhys with his eyes open.

Look at those big hands! He is gonna be a big boy!!

 

 

Knitting a scarf in September

 

So I started really getting into cable knitting. I started knitting this scarf on Friday. I've been slowly knitting it little by little and having lots of fun looking at the results as it gets longer and longer. I think I'm about a quarter of the way done. However, unlike other scarves that I've knit in the past, this one really feels like a project. I showed it to my mom and she was impressed with the design that the cabling was making. I imagine that this should make a pretty nice gift once I'm better at knitting in this style.

This past weekend was a whirlwind. Brian and I went to LA to have dinner with my dad for his 60th birthday. We went to a Korean Seafood buffet called Hansong I think. The buffet was OK...but it was pretty fricking expensive. $26 a person! Plus dad always orders his soju so that was a nother $10 bucks on top of that. Anywhoo....we had a good time. Brian and Peter made a suicide pact to try and eat a snail that they were serving up at the buffet. They both had a really hard time swallowing it...bleh!!

After that, Brian and I were off the next day to Huntington Beach to have a belated birthday dinner for Sheila. Ruby and Raf decided to join us as well so it was a nice gathering. We went to a Peruvian place called Casa Inka. The food was decent, but there was waaaay too much salt in their cooking. I know this because I woke up the next morning just about to burst because I was so swollen. Brian had the runs the night before and apparently Ruby had the runs the next day as well. Raf had some heartburn, so we were all suffering in some way because of the dinner.

Brian's grandpa is in the hospital, recovering from Jaw surgery. I guess some of his teeth rotted so badly that it started to eat away at his jaw. The surgery was successful and he is recovering well. We went to visit him in the hospital after we had dinner with Sheila and Ruby. It was a whole lot of driving...but all in all, worth it because we got to meet up with a lot of important people in our lives.

Today is Labor Day and we plan on doing absolutely nothing. The dogs have been walked and they are le pooped. I will probably watch some more Harry Potter or Julie and Julia and continue knitting.  

Cable Knitting

 

I learned how to cable knit last night. I've been knitting for a little while, but I never got around to knitting cables because I thought it was going to be really hard to do. To my surprise, it is quite easy to do! I spent a few hours last night on various websites as well as youtube.com to get better acquainted with this style of knitting. I first started off by cabling every row and ended up with a big bunch of knots. Later, I realized that I only needed to cable after every few rows. Once I figured this out, it was smooth sailing. I started with this swatch of 12 stitches and worked my way into the evening. This morning, I learned how to add stitches to my work. So now I have successfully added on 7 stiches to my beautiful cable swatch. My plans are to make a scarf with this new skill of mine. Don't they look like those twisted donuts? Twisted donuts with glazed sugar are pretty much my favorite type of donuts.

 

On another note, I tried to put my ring on...just to see how well it fit me. The last time I tried, I could get it in, but it was a rather tight fit. This is as far as it goes as of last night.

 



 

This ring used to fit so loosely on my finger that I was afraid that it would fall out when I washed my hands. Sigh...but this is a sacrifice that I am happy to make for our little Stompie. Hopefully my fingers will go back to normal soon after Stompie comes out. What a pretty ring that I can't even wear out these days.

 

Finally, this is Julian...sleeping soundly after long and hot day. As you can see, he is quite possessive about his toys...but I thought it was cute.

Almost 34 weeks

So I'm a couple days from becoming 34 weeks pregnant. That's about 8.5 months along. I feel more and more like a big balloon, waddling my way here and there. Brian says that these days my waddle has gotten quite prominent, especially in the mornings. As I waddle into the kitchen to get some water in the morning, Brian says "waddle waddle waddle." I went shopping yesterday, thinking that I would be fine walking around a mall for 3 hours. I was being passed left and right by walkers who I normally would have passed with ease before pregnancy. I bought 4 maxi dresses because I figure that it's too hot for pants and since I can't fit into my prego jeans anymore, why not opt for some nice flowy dresses! I went to Macy's to start my search for these dresses. I found a really pretty dress that was black and purple, but it was a petite size and came above my ankles. I was really debating whether I should just get the dress and deal with the shortness of it. Luckily I kept walking and came across the Plus size section and there it was! The same dress, but in bigger sizes! I picked the smallest size which was a 0X and it fit perfectly! The dress came down to my ankles so it was an easy decision to purchase it. The retail price for the dress was $99.50. I thought it was funny because it was $10 more than the petite dress. I imagine they take into account the extra fabric it takes to make the dress... who knows... Anywhoo, I went up to buy the dress and the cashier lady told me that the dress was $35 dollars!! Apparently the dress was on sale for 65% off! I checked the petite and the normal sized dresses and those were NOT on sale! I was pretty glad that I checked the Plus size section cuz I ended up with a bargain!

The only bad thing was that I went to the Motherhood store afterwards and bought two more maxi dresses.

 

 I didn't like the orange rope that came with the dress so I found a black sash I had lying around from another maternity top and used that instead. Then I found this other dress that was on sale...so I had to buy it as well....

Mind you, I won't be wearing any of these cute shoes that the lovely models have on with their dresses. I will be wearing my trusty flip flops. I literally can't fit in anything besides my flip flops. Well, I exaggerate. I can fit into my tennis shoes, but only because I have let out the laces. When I have it on, I look at my feet and to be honest, they don't look like my feet. They look like a fat woman's feet, or even a fat man's feet! sigh.

So, after my three hours at the mall, my feet were in quite a bit of pain. I found brief relief while driving home, but that soon ended as we went to the Food Truck Night thing at Mira Mesa High School. That was another hour and half of standing. Food was good, but definitely not nutritious. I blame my SUPER bloatedness to yesterday's bbq pork and mac and cheese sandwhich as well as the creamy crabcake sandwich and roasted garlic fries. I can hardly make a fist with either hand.

6 more weeks!! Ugh...the last 2 weeks went by sooooo slowly. How will I wait 6 more weeks!?!?!

Here is a video of the alien in my belly!!! It's ALIIIIIVE!!!!

Not nesting but Knitting

As of Monday morning, I started knitting. This red and green newborn knit hat is my first project. Brian thinks it's pretty hilarious how it fits so perfectly on the koala's head. I was actually quite surprised too, but it does look like the size of a newborn's head. After I finished, I realized that the color was a little too dark for a newborn so I drove myself to Joann's to look for some baby colors. I ended up buying close to $40 worth of yarn! I bought yellow, lanvender, white, minty green, orange and black (for halloween), and a couple multicolored ones. I am currently working on a yellow and lavender knit hat. The brim is yellow and the top is lavendar. I almost gave myself a headache while knitting it, but I stopped in time last night. I either keep Julie and Julia or one of the Harry Potter movies on in the background when I am knitting. I believe that I've watched Julie and Julia probably over 100 times by now. But for some reason, it never gets old! I can always count on that movie to pick me back up again. It used to be You've Got Mail or Sleepless in Seattle, but these days, this movie is by far my most favorite. A close second is the movie "It's Complicated", but that's only because Meryl Streep is in it. I think she is my favorite female actor out there. I think I like her as Julia Child better than the actual Julia Child. I find myself watching actual episodes of The French Chef and getting a little bored. I am more amused to watch Ina Garten who is now my favorite chef over Giada. I can watch that lady cook every day! Now only if my DVR will function properly today so I can get in some good Barefoot Contessa today...

Oh the swollen feet~



This is a picture of me lying down on my bed, staring at my belly with my camera and another of me in the bathroom. These days I wake up in the morning with my fingers stuck open. I try to make a fist and my fingers almost spring back open! There is so much fluid around my joints that it is quite difficult to move my fingers as well as I used to. It hurts even to pull the covers over me...not that I have to often since it's so hot these days. I must be overheating because Brian, the one who is always complaining that it's too hot, actually sleeps with the blanket on without a complaint. I sit there in awe that he is not dying from overheating under the heavy blanket, but apparently I am the only one truly suffering in this heat. My feet are the size of elephant feet. I push the tops of my feet in with my finger and I get about a 2+ pitting edema score. I feel like a marshmallow. I can tell very much when I am swollen because I can't even fit into my pants or my shoes. I have resorted to wearing loose-fitting pants or spandex. I can't wait until I deliver and can shed this unnecessary water weight.

I saw Jill Elder the other day. She is about 1 week less pregnant than I am. She is having a boy and I can tell that she is carrying her baby much differently than I am. She is carrying it all in front. We were sitting at a table and she barely had any room between her belly and the table whereas I had a good amount of space still available. Her belly looked pointier and more round than mine. So this makes me think that I may be carrying a girl instead of a boy like everyone else is thinking. I actually had a dream about having a baby the other night. I had a dream that I had a girl. It was interesting because the baby was already a few months old in my dream...but I definitely remember feeling that sense of responsibility for this child. Funny how other people have been dreaming that I would have a boy and I end up having a dream about a girl. I think it would be more fun to have a girl, so I can dress her up in cute little outfits. Jill said she already picked out a halloween costume for her baby boy. He is to be a little skeleton this year. I think I will make mine into a pumpkin if I decide to get a costume. It should make a cute announcement photo.