Weeks 16 and 17

I'll do a bigger update next week, but for now here's a quick Mac 'N' Cheese update.

At 16 weeks, the babies were about the size of avocados: 4.5 inches and 3.5 ounces. I was feeling movement, but not regularly and it was still very light. Babycenter told me that my uterus should be halfway between my belly button and my pubic bone. 

Ha! I think Babycenter is unaware that I am on a third pregnancy, and it's twins. My uterus is more like halfway between my belly button and my ribcage! If I have a full bladder and I'm lying down, I can palpate the top of my uterus about at the bottom of my ribcage.

 As usual, Azaria looks to Shane to make sure she is doing her job correctly.

At seventeen weeks, my helpers deserted me to run through the sprinkler out back with Grandma. However, the twins are supposedly the size of onions (which are smaller than my avocados, but whatevs).  The babies are about five inches long, and weigh about 5 ounces. That's a nice growth spurt, and I can tell as my stomach got better and I've started feeling regular strong movement! One of the babies, A I'm guessing, can usually be felt to the lower left of my belly button. The other, B I think, is mostly often in the very top right of my uterus, in my ribs. Azaria spent most of her time lodged on my right side in my ribs, and I well remember how uncomfortable it could get!

Babies skeletons are turning from cartilage to bone now, and they are practicing sucking and swallowing. I've started to get some energy back finally, which probably has to do with the amount of naps I've been able to get while I've been staying at my parents--between one and two hours every day the first weekend, plus every day of the week that my dad was home during the kids' rest hour. It was amazing!

16 Weeks {6 Days}

The baby doubled in size this week, and I think I can see the difference in my belly. I meant to take a picture today but I forgot.

How Far Along: 16 Weeks, 6 Days
Total Weight Gain: 4 lbs, as of two days ago
Maternity Clothes: Yup. I need a new pair of jeans. My ones from last pregnancy have holes in the thighs. Big holes. The cold air whistles through.
Stretch Marks: A bazillion. But no new ones.
Sleep: Terrible, but I can't really blame it on the baby. It has more to do with my mind racing and turning and thinking about some things going on. I just can't seem to turn it off to sleep.
Best Moment of the Week: Feeling the baby move multiple times a day. Watching Shane be a ham.
Worst Moment of the Week: Some news that we are dealing with--I'll post about it after we know more tomorrow. It's not bad news, just stressful news.
Movement: At 13 weeks I thought I felt movement. At 14 I was pretty sure. At 15 I knew it. And at 16 weeks I'm feeling movement not only daily but multiple times a day. It's not very strong yet, but I know it's there and I love it!
Food Cravings: None
Gender: We don't know yet. I can't wait to find out!
Labor Signs: I started having Braxton Hicks around 14 weeks. They are getting a lot more frequent now.
Belly Button: No change really.
Wedding Rings on or Off: On.
What I miss: A good night's sleep. But I've been missing that for a long time now, and I expect to continue to miss it for as long as I have little kids or am pregnant! It's a privilege of motherhood, right? If you'd like to wake up early to feed my eternally starving son so I can sleep in, let me know. I'll take you up on it.
What am I looking forward to: More/stronger movement, gender ultrasound, getting answers tomorrow, finishing out the semester, getting my house organized.
Weekly Wisdom: The night your husband asks you to stay up with him, your baby will wake up early as well, ensuring you will get five or less hours of sleep.
Milestones: Baby doubled in size this week! I can tell too, my belly got bigger!
Weekly Verse: Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a hope and a future."

I Spoke Too Soon...

The icky, horrible, painful, bleeding, nasty rash is back suddenly. Ugh. Here we go again. I thought we had this stupid thing beaten!

Cloth Diapers and a Yeast Infection

Somewhere near the end of October, Shane came home with a terrible diaper rash and no matter what I tried, it would not go away. In fact, it went from a simple little red rash to an angry, raw, painful bottom with open sores. I took him to the Doctor where they confirmed what I suspected: yeast rash. Ick. The Dr. prescribed a VERY expensive cream to apply once a day. Thankfully Shane’s insurance took it from being a $290 tube of cream to a $5 tube of cream. Seriously!

Now, with cloth diapers you aren’t supposed to use diaper creams since they ruin your diapers.  So I switched for a while to my go-to disposable, Pampers Cruisers. They made the rash worse, even with the cream (which I had to apply multiple times a day to see any improvement, by the way). So then I went out and bought a pack of the Huggies Naturals, that are supposedly for sensitive bottoms. They seemed to help a little, and after a week or two the yeast infection cleared up. So I went back to my cloth diapers.

And the stupid rash came back. Like, instantly. Sores.  My poor baby! Disposables again. In case you ever wondered, going from soft chemical free cloth diapers to chemical filled disposable diapers is NOT good on little bottoms. I was frustrated that we couldn’t get rid of it and I felt so bad for little Shane, you could tell his bum hurt! And then something popped up in my news feed on Facebook about how yeast bacteria can continue to live in cloth diapers. Ding ding ding! A light bulb went on in my head.  And I decided to make some changes to my cloth diapering routine.

First, I stripped my diapers according to the manufacturer’s instructions. This involved bleach and blue Dawn original dish soap with multiple hot rinses.  I also added tea tree oil as a few websites recommended, as that is a natural antiseptic.

I also ditched the disposable wipes (except for in the diaper bag, currently) and mixed up a solution of water and tea tree oil in a squirt bottle. 

I found all of Shane’s old receiving blankets and cut them up into wipes—they get rough after one baby so I was going to replace them for the next one anyway. And if you’re making your own wipes and don’t have old flannel receiving blankets lying around anywhere, you can get them cheaply at thrift stores or secondhand kid’s stuff stores. I also cut a few into rectangles to fit inside the diaper to line it so that I can use cream and not ruin my diapers.

I also found out a week or two about a cloth diaper store that opened up recently about half an hour from my house. Shane and I took a little jaunt up there to check it out and find some cloth diaper friendly diaper cream as well as wash detergent that’s actually meant for cloth diapers. It was such a cute store and I’m excited to go back! She’s got some great stuff.  The diaper cream she recommended is AMAZING and I love it even though I’ve only used it for a week. It actually smells really good, as well as goes on easily and does a job as good as or better than the popular Desitin or Butt Paste. I am still using the receiving blanket pieces to line the diaper when I use the cream just in case, but it IS supposed to be cloth diaper safe so I am safe either way.

I am still using a disposable at night with the yeast cream, at least for a week or so until I know for SURE that the rash is gone for good. But it’s been gone for a little over a week now and the rest of the redness and irritation went away as soon as I got Shane back in cloth diapers so hopefully we are clear!

And THAT is our (hopefully one and only) adventure with a yeast infection.

Shane's Words {17 Months}

I stopped doing monthly posts for Shane a while back, mostly because it was just a guilt trip since I never did them on time. But I thought I'd want to remember a few years from now what words he was saying. I listened to him all last week and I think I got most of them.  These are only the words he says voluntarily, he imitates many more.

Keys, car, hi, bye, bye-bye, dog, no, meow, uh-oh, pretty, mamma, daddy, diaper, excuse me (me me), hot, cold (and he knows the difference), nee nee (nursies), love you, paw paw, bop bop (grandpa), meh ma (grandma), more, all done, down, bite, shoes, potty, baby, boo-boo, ball, spoon, block, airplane (la-lane), book, please, water, bite, banana, truck.

Reading with Daddy.

He's also pretty good and knowing what you are telling him to do ie "Put it in the garbage", "bring mommy her phone", etc.

The toddler in him is definitely coming out as I see him throwing himself on the floor crying about once a day these days. Sometimes it's because he was naughty and isn't getting his way (which is generally only if he's hungry/tired), and I just walk away and ignore those. Other times it's because he just can't communicate to me what he wants or is trying to do (can't finish the puzzle or get all the shapes in the sorter) and is frustrated about that, in which case I pick him up and give him a cuddle and tell him I'm sorry he doesn't have the words, and we go from there.  We are working hard on signing/asking for help instead of screeching. Overall he's incredibly well behaved for his age and I consider that a blessing straight from God. I really can't take any credit for his behavior--I think it's just his nature to be easygoing and want to please.

Lest you think he's perfect (he pretty much is ;) he does have a vice. Hair pulling, and only on his cousin Alie. You see, Alie loves Shane and gets very excited whenever she sees him. She loves to give him kisses and hugs, even though he's not into all that. They enjoy playing together. There are also times when she is very mean to him. She pushes, kicks, scratches, snatches, and bites.  And then he pulls her hair until she screams. Which my Mama heart says she deserves, but that's now how Jesus wants us to treat people. Sigh. Usually the fights are over a toy. And I'm not going to lie, sometimes it's him taking the toy from her. Mostly she takes the toys from him, yelling "mine"! I heard Shane say that to his Daddy a couple of days ago and I was NOT pleased. I can't wait until school is out!

Shane is OBSESSED with babies. I'm glad, I'm thinking he's going to be a great big brother! He just loves to be around them, give them kisses and hugs and pats.

I don't remember if I already wrote this, but he folds his hands when we pray but gets to "amen" about the same time we get past "Dear Jesus". He has to be involved with everything I do; cleaning, cooking, laundry, and is a pretty good little helper. I think I'm going to buy him a little squirt bottle and just fill it with water so that he can clean to. He also has started putting things where they belong recently, although he isn't good at picking up his toys.

At our checkup recently Shane was 26 lbs and 31 inches. He is in 18/24 months clothes and size 5 shoes. His diapers are still on the middle snap adjustment, or size 4 in disposables.  He's getting tall and slim, and his hair is getting long!

I'm continually amazed by how quickly he's picking things up and what a little explorer he is. He's just so...happy! I love it! And who knew a toddler baby could have a sense of humor? I must look at him 5 times a day and tell him he's just so cute/smart/awesome.  He's even started putting things away (not his toys, unfortunately) but other things. And he likes to help clean. He screams "Daddy!" every time he hears a pickup truck go by.  And when he gets in his truck he tells us bye and love you and hangs his little arm out the window like a grownup.

It occurred to me yesterday when I was driving home that I ought already to be praying for my future daughter in law, and not just my Shane.

It occurred to me that, while I've always thought raising a girl would be more challenging, that it might actually be more challenging to raise a Godly, faithful man. I want him to love God. I want him to be the leader of his household; strong, steady, faithful, hardworking, honest, loving, gentle. These aren't prevalent things in my generation, and probably will be even less in Shane's generation. What a challenge!