ONE MONTH

I have officially been off work for one month, and have been taking care of this tiny human for one month.  I can't even believe it.  Since I'm sort of over breastfeeding right now, I'm counting down until 12 months, which is when I plan to stop.  If she (or I) can make it longer, we'll do it, but I want to at least get to 12 months, like I did with Jayden.  In any case, one month down, eleven to go!

"Official" one month photo.  Yes, I bought bows.  They were on sale at the Nordstrom Anniversary sale.  And one flower too.  They look pretty cute on her, if I do say so myself.  ;)

All of my 12s: Jayden at 3 years and 10 months, Dakota at 1 month and Jasmine at 10 years and 1 month.

Dakota had her one month doctor appointment yesterday, which is why I waited to put up the one month post.  She weighs 8 lbs, 10 ounces, which is almost a two pound weight gain since birth!  She's "packing on the pounds," as my friend's dad would say.  She's also grown an inch, so she's now about 21 inches.  Although, to be honest, if you've seen the way the pediatricians measure infants, it's not an exact science.  They do their best to stretch this wriggly baby out on the paper on the exam table, and mark around about where their head is and mark around about where their feet are and then measure between the two marks.  So yeah, they could be off by a little bit for sure.

We got the go-ahead (and actually even encouragement) to give her a bottle once a day or so.  This way she can get used to the bottle for when I go back to work.  We probably won't do it once a day, but will start trying bottles, once this week is over, to see how she does.  Fun times!

She does follow objects when they move (verrrry slowly) in front of her face.  She makes some little cooing sounds - not a ton, but a few.  And she has some facial expressions.  Not really smiles, but some almost-smiles.

I've been wanting to do this since she was born - and these aren't the two greatest pictures to use, but check this out:

If it weren't for the clothes, could you tell which baby is which?!?
Their faces, noses, eyes, and mouth to an extent, are all so similar!  I wish the picture of Jayden wasn't so dark.  But I'll do this again at two months, to see if they keep progressing similarly.

This week is ESPY week, which means Carmen is barely home.  It's a little rough on me.  He was in L.A. Sunday night for a meeting, was in L.A. last night to pick Von up and bring him back to our house, will be in L.A. tonight for a party, may be in L.A. tomorrow night for the ESPYs and/or parties, and then should be home Thursday, but it's still up in the air.  He does at least come home to sleep, but that means he's there about 11 pm or midnight.  And it means I get to do bedtime with a one month old and a three year old by myself.  I've tried to get baths in the last two nights and just haven't pulled it off.  So I finally convinced Jayden to shower with us this morning so I could wash his hair.  I seriously have no idea what I'm going to do when I go back to work and he travels.

Me and the kids at bedtime.  Dakota screaming in her carrier and Jayden requiring a piggy back ride.  Jayden was running down the hallway and tripped and fell on his wrist.  At first I was afraid he had seriously hurt it, but I think he really was just overly tired and landed on it funny.  But.  Because his wrist hurt, he couldn't walk.  Clearly.  So I carried 40+ pounds on my back and 9+ pounds on my front into the bathroom to brush teeth.
At least I don't really need to worry about getting back into an exercise routine yet!

The other fun thing about Sunday is that we had workers at our house from 8:00 am until 9:30 pm.  Yes, that's right, 9:30 P.M.  Thank goodness Jayden is also a championship sleeper, and he was able to fall asleep despite the pounding and banging just feet outside his door.

On a positive note, Dakota has stepped up her sleep game.  Over the last three or four nights, at least twice or three times she has slept for a solid three or four hours - which means going four to five hours between feedings.  Amazing.  She basically wakes up once or twice at night.  I try to feed her between 5 and 6:30, then again around 9:30 or 10:30, and then she sleeps until sometime between 1 and 3 am.  Usually she then sleeps until 6:30 or 7, but it all depends.  Funny enough, even though I'm getting more sleep, I actually feel worse during the day.  It's the whole thing of being so sleep deprived that the only way to recover is to sleep for 24 hours straight - which is just not possible, really ever.

Watching Gold Cup soccer before bedtime last night.  Baby girl snuggled on my chest and Jayden happy because Mama is "cheating" and letting him watch television before bedtime.  I thought I had gotten Dakota to sleep so I could put her in her crib while I put Jayden to bed, but she only lasted as long as it took me to read books.  At least we got a little bit of Mama-Jayden snuggle time.  

Today Von had a workout and a commercial shoot in Orange County, which is why he spent the night at our house last night.  I did three loads of laundry yesterday to get ready, including making Von's bed and our bed, and now I get to do another load today or tomorrow to clean up after him.  I also haven't done my own laundry in probably two weeks, so am going to get desperate.  And I need to do Jayden's laundry and Dakota's laundry in the next couple of days as well.  There are definitely reasons why I think I could fill my days pretty easily if I were a stay-at-home mom.

But.  Before I did anything responsible, I decided I needed a pedicure.  And I went super girly and even got flowers painted on my toes.  I have never done that before, and may never do it again, unless Dakota and I go together (which, by the way, sounds like SO much fun to me!), but it was a fun way to spend my morning.  And the timing managed to work out.  Since Carmen was busy with Von, I had to drop Jayden off at Juju's this morning, so on the way back I stopped and it was about perfect timing for Dakota to nurse.  So I sat in the chair getting my pedicure and nursing Dakota to sleep.  If only it were that easy all the time!

Jayden has been exercising his imagination lately.  He tells me about his "friends" who live in various places, usually "Norf Care-lie-na" ("North Carolina"), where it takes either 9 or 11 airplanes to get to.  Because of the recent soccer tournaments, we've explained to Jayden that the U-S-A is our country, so he also decided some of his "friends" live in a different country too.  His friends often tell him he has to do things that we've told him he can't do.  His friends also "see" cool things, like airplanes landing or dinosaurs on mountains, or other creative things he has come up with.  I love it and just play along, trying to get him to tell me his other awesome ideas.  His stomach also continues to tell him things - like his stomach isn't ready to go to bed, his stomach really wants him to be able to watch the soccer game so he can see the USA score a goal, his stomach needs him to run outside before we go upstairs, his stomach doesn't think he should go for a walk with Jasmine in the morning, etc.  Who knew stomachs had so many opinions.

And now it's almost time to go pick Jayden up from Juju's and to figure out what to do about dinner.  I hate to stop and pick up food because managing two kids in and out of the car is not fun.  But it's also not easy to figure out what to cook when I have to nurse the baby and play with the three year old.  Life is hard.  Last night I made tortellini with alfredo sauce and vegetables for Jayden and I ate crackers and carrots.  I have a feeling tonight may be a repeat.  Hopefully I can get to the grocery store tomorrow so that I can have some other food available for me to eat!  I'm mostly looking for prepared food or food that only requires stirring and minor cooking (as little chopping as possible!). Since my diet is still somewhat restricted, also trying to avoid beans, dairy (including cheese, which is KILLER), broccoli/cauliflower/cabbage and anything too spicy. Any ideas, let me know.  I'm pretty much over it.

Oh, and one more piece of news: Jayden is going to preschool in a couple weeks!  We found a school near us that actually takes kids starting at 12 weeks, meaning Dakota can go there too.  We haven't completely decided whether or not she'll go there or go to Dorkis' house, but we know there's an option.  He is super excited to go to school and pretty much asks me every day whether or not he's going to school.  He's definitely ready to be around a group of kids his age.  The school is a little more than a mile from our house, maybe two miles, which is great.  I'm trying to figure out how I can walk/run to drop him off or pick him up.  Me getting there or home is easy enough, it's figuring out how to get Jayden to/from there if all I have is a stroller.  The school reminds me a little of my elementary school growing up, in that the outdoor space is not a traditional playground space.  There is a muddy river for them to play in if they bring their rain boots, there are boxes and pool noodles around, there are tables with pens and paper if they want to color.  There is a slide, but it's smaller and definitely not the focal point.  Most importantly, when we went to visit, Jayden didn't want to leave and actually sat down a couple of times as if he was going to participate.  It was very cute, but also reinforced to us that it's the right place to go.  Here's the website, in case anyone wants to check it out: http://www.cvpreschool.com/.

Hope everyone is having a good summer.  I cannot believe that it's mid-July already.  Time flies!