Three Weeks!

Cameron is THREE WEEKS old today!  I can hardly believe it!





I've seen a lot of people do pictures with a stuffed animal so you can watch baby grow.  I think it might be easier to see the changes like this instead of on the giraffe chair.  So I guess I will try to do both.  :)  A huge thanks to "Auntie" Beth for the super cute lion!

We had a very big day today.  I had my first check up, so we made our first long trip without Hubby!  We were only a little late, so that was ok.  I blame the road construction.  Seriously, I only left 5 minutes later than I had planned because we had a last minute poopy diaper to deal with.  At my appointment I found out that I am currently only 7 pounds above my first weeks of pregnancy weight.  Which is still a few pounds away from where I would ideally like to be, but I was pretty proud of myself for being so close to my pre-pregnancy goal weight.  We'll see how hard this last 7 pounds is to get rid of!

Not only did we have our first long trip, but we also had a lunch date with cousins!  It was some well deserved mommy time for Laura and I (you can check out her blog here) and it was fun for all the babies, too!






And of course we had to do a group photo!  At least it's almost the whole group.  I guess we could've had our waitress take one of all of us.... she was very fascinated by the twins.  I think she would've sat with us for our whole meal if we would've invited her to.







We also had our first trip to the mall.  We realized that poor Cameron doesn't get much attention when the twins are around.  Cameron wasn't as big of a fan of the mall, although in his defense he was hungry.  So we also had our first experience with nursing in public!  A huge thanks to Macy's for having comfortable chairs in the women's restroom.  So it wasn't 100% public as we were able to to into a bathroom, but it was a very busy place.

Cameron and I made a few more stops around town and went into a couple of stores that I had always wanted to go to, but never had a good excuse.  I've been having a few issues with my cloth diapers so I wanted to get some advise from a couple of the specialty stores in town that stock them.  The first store, which exclusively stocks GrowVia, was a super cute place!  However, I would never go back there with a question about cloth diapering.  The girl admitted that she didn't have children so didn't have any experience diapering, but I guess she tried her best to answer my questions.  I've been having issues with leaky diapers.  She was convinced that I need to wash my diapers with vinegar.  She said that might help with the absorbency (cloth diapers are tricky little buggers with all of their requirements to reach "maximum absorbency").  I told her that we had only been using the diapers for about 2 weeks, so there shouldn't be build up on them, especially since I'm using one of the recommended cloth diaper detergents.  I wanted to tell her that if people needed to strip their diapers every two weeks, no one would cloth diaper.  I suggested that maybe he is a "heavy wetter" because the diapers seem completely saturated when change him.  (At this point she suggested changing him more often to which I responded that people would also not cloth diaper if they had to change their baby more often than every 2-2 1/2 hours.  How would a baby be able to sleep through the night!?)  I was hoping that she would show me some kind of extra layer that I could use (called a "doubler" in cloth diaper land).  The girl showed me some disposable liners and then she told me that they have flushable liners also that you use to catch the poop and can just throw away (but they were out of stock).  Neither of these options was anything that would solve my problem.  I left there disappointed, although if I wasn't looking for something specific they have a TON of cute stuff!

Cameron and I ventured to the next specialty store.  They carry Flips and BumGenius.  The lady there was great!  She actually uses the diapers and has lots of friends that cloth diaper.  She was very encouraging and offered a lot of suggestions that would (hopefully) solve my problems.  We pretty much decided that Cameron might just have too much wetness for the newborn diapers to handle.  She seemed confident that our problem would go away as soon as he fits into the "one size" diapers I have.  That should be soon because most of them are suggested for use on babies starting between 8-10 pounds!  I also picked up a couple of hemp doublers that she said will probably help now and also be very useful in the future.  They are really thin, but she said they absorb a lot!  I like how thin they are because Cameron isn't a very big guy!  If his diapers get too bulky, his clothes don't fit!  Aside from diapers, the whole store is full of stuff that I would love to have.  I was able to check out the Aden and Anais bamboo dream blanket.  I love this blanket.  I almost bought it.  But then in a moment of "I really shouldn't buy a blanket, I am here to learn about diapers" I skipped the purchase.  But if anyone is looking for an amazing gift, I really want Cameron needs this blanket.  It's so soft, not like minky soft... it's so much better.

Anyway, we left that store with renewed hope in my ability to successfully cloth diaper and a new obsession with blankets.  On to Target.  A much bigger Target than we usually get to go to.  Cameron was not as excited about this as I was.  We hardly got my contact solution in the cart when he started wailing.  Poor little guy.  I thought he might have a dirty diaper so we headed to the bathroom.  We get there and he is nearly inconsolable.  I'm very flustered because the family bathroom was out of order.  We go into the women's bathroom only to find someone else using the changing table!  Oh no!  The bathroom isn't a quite place when there is a screaming infant.  It has a really harsh echo that only magnified his little cries (which at this point were not so much the little squeaks they usually are and more full out screams).  Ladies tried to talk to me "A line for the changing table?  I've never seen that before!" and "Oh, someone isn't happy!"  I was a little flustered at this point because it seemed like everyone who came in made a comment.  Then it dawned on me that maybe he didn't only need to be changed but he was probably hungry as well.  I didn't bring his blanket in which I had used for a nursing cover in Macy's.  I don't know what I was thinking.  It was probably something like, "This will be really quick (is that even possible?).  It's hot outside, he won't be cold."  For some reason I forgot that this was also my nursing cover.  So at that point I had a choice to make.  Did I leave the bathroom with my wailing baby and head to the Starbucks/Food Court seating area and just go for it, our first VERY public, no cover nursing session?  or do I duck in a stall and just hope that we can make something work.  So that's what we did.  Cameron's first "in the bathroom stall" feeding session.  It seemed like the better option than making him wait until we made it all the way over to the table and chairs, especially since he also needed a diaper change.  Poor guy.  I'm sure that eventually this will be something that I don't even think twice about.  I do have a cute nursing shawl that I got (do you think it was in my diaper bag today?  I didn't think so either... turns out it WAS.  I was more prepared than I thought!).  If my baby is hungry, I'm going to feed him.  I don't plan on hiding out in a bathroom stall ever again!

Anyway, we survived our first big trip without Hubby.  It was nice to get out and have some mommy and baby adventures!  Tomorrow I expect that we will both be making up for the lack of naps we had today.  Or maybe we will sleep for longer than three hours tonight, that would be nice, too!  :)