Self indulgent parent thread

Thanks mudbunny! Also, m0nk3yboy, you need to cease and desist all comical activities (see loathe ow!).
Also, I guess it's a good thing I don't like beer!

Also a bit LTTP, but I finally got the other pics to load.
Larry, I was amazed by your daughter's hair, wow!! She's so gorgeous!!
Katy, your girl is super adorable, love the now and her sweet smile!
Tboon, sounds bittersweet! I've for a ways until I send my boys off to college, but as m0nk3yboy says, it's gonna be something else when I have to send them off to preschool... It's hard to let go!!
On the other hand... Morton's... Yum... The mere thought make me salivate. All they gave me yesterday was soup and some definitely NOT homemade mashed potatoes.

Hooray! Congratulations!

Aw, he is adorable! Congratulations!

Hang in there with the C recovery. It's much more manageable after just a few days, though it really took me a month to feel close to normal. And the food, ugh. I remember finally being able to eat again...almost as much excitement as the baby! haha

On a side note, I kept the baby alive while Cpt. Domano went to Tennessee Game Days! Woo! (Giant bruise on his head notwithstanding)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/qkrHgl4.jpg)

Congrats Eleima! Hope your recovery goes well! Cute baby Also, all the other pics of these kids are adorable! I need to post a recent pic of my kids.

As I said before, Eleima, he's beautiful! I hope you're getting the rest you need (and deserve!).

Disco - that is one excited looking toddler. Very cute!

Ok, decided to make a little bit of effort and post some pics.

Here's my daughter, Chloe, in the hat her mom made her. (Yes, How I Met Your Mother is on the TV in the background.)
IMAGE(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/30027990/IMG_2656108756784.jpeg)

Here's my son, Ethan, relaxing in his chair.
IMAGE(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/30027990/IMG_2690668784859.jpeg)

Here's Ethan making a creepy face in the hat he got for Christmas.
IMAGE(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/30027990/IMG_2754492332223.jpeg)

Finally, here's an older picture of Chloe and Ethan in their pajamas with goggles on. I don't know why.
IMAGE(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/30027990/IMG_2706075279001.jpeg)

Clearly those are their swimming pyjamas! (silly)

Great pics!

Haha! That's adorable. Goggles are the best when you're a kid. We used to walk around in my parents' ski goggles.

Also, slight panic at my baby being called a toddler! He's approaching 11 months now, but the infant stage has definitely passed us by.

So many great pictures, starting with FRESH BABY!!!! What a sweet picture. He looks like he's dreaming about where he was a couple of days ago. Do they do a towel bath there when the baby's about 1 day old? Both my children loved it, and hated being brought back into the big bad world when it ended.

I had c-sections for both kids. It will get better. Do you have extra help around the house? A couple of times I overexerted myself and really regretted it.

11 month old - to me, not quite old enough for toddler (is he walking yet?), but yes, I agree, the baby days are winding down.

Love the pics of Chloe and Ethan. I have to say, my husband is not thrilled about the survival of Care Bears. We are rooting for Blue's Clues here.

concentric wrote:

So many great pictures, starting with FRESH BABY!!!! What a sweet picture. He looks like he's dreaming about where he was a couple of days ago. Do they do a towel bath there when the baby's about 1 day old? Both my children loved it, and hated being brought back into the big bad world when it ended.

I had c-sections for both kids. It will get better. Do you have extra help around the house? A couple of times I overexerted myself and really regretted it.

11 month old - to me, not quite old enough for toddler (is he walking yet?), but yes, I agree, the baby days are winding down.

Love the pics of Chloe and Ethan. I have to say, my husband is not thrilled about the survival of Care Bears. We are rooting for Blue's Clues here.

Yes, second on the overexerting yourself! Once I felt more normal I kept trying to lift things I shouldn't and regretting it later on when the soreness kicked in.

He is walking (running!) all over the place (though often into things), and within the past few weeks started refusing being fed a bottle by us -- he'll only do it with the sippy ones he can do himself. I swear, sometimes I hear in his babbles, "I'll do it!" Not talking yet though, beyond the mama/dada/hi and saying "yeah" all the time

And all I have to say about the last bit is CARE BEAR STARE!

Oh I am definitely taking it easy! For starters, I'm still at the hospital, they won't discharge me until Wednesday or Thursday at the earliest. At home, I have hubby to help. He cooks, cleans and takes care of our toddler. Family is overseas. Toddler will keep going to his home day care and hubby will drop him off and pick him up, I'm not doing all that driving for a few weeks, so hubby rearranged his work scheduled.
And I'm definitely not picking up anything heavy. Like my twelve kilo toddler! XD

Also, I second this:
CARE BEAR STARE!!

Nice to hear you have help to relax a bit and enjoy the new kiddo!!

Eleima wrote:

Oh I am definitely taking it easy! For starters, I'm still at the hospital, they won't discharge me until Wednesday or Thursday at the earliest.

I remember that -- they keep you in until you prove that your digestive system is back online.

Take care of yourself, and clutch that pillow when you need to cough or laugh.

Katy wrote:
Eleima wrote:

Oh I am definitely taking it easy! For starters, I'm still at the hospital, they won't discharge me until Wednesday or Thursday at the earliest.

I remember that -- they keep you in until you prove that your digestive system is back online.

Take care of yourself, and clutch that pillow when you need to cough or laugh.

This might venture into TMI territory, but make damned sure your digestive system is back online. The first poop I had after I got home - well, I remember thinking, "so this is what labor must feel like." It's a lot harder to "push" when you have a cut in your abdomen.

Congrats, Eleima! Both of ours were c-sections. We made it home from the hospital yesterday from a one-day extension. Had to put the little one under the lights for jaundice. That was pretty rough on everyone as he wasn't happy, so nobody was happy.

Ok, I started this post yesterday, so I'm just hitting post now.

A swift recovery to Mrs Tomayto as well!!! And I hope the little guy doesn't have to spend too much time beneath those lights that's no fun at all!

Aye, this might be a bit TMI territory (skip to next paragraph if bodily functions are too much for you, but I figure, we're all parents, we've all had to deal with our offspring's anyhow) but everything is definitely back online in that sector, no issues there! I was in fact pleasantly surprised by how quick, no more than 36 hours after the surgery for #2 (which took the "longest"). And it wasn't bad at all, Dee! The secret with pooping, anyhow is not to push but relax and let it happen! Seriously, teaching our kids to push to poop isn't the best of ideas when it comes to the perineum and constipation.

Anyhow, everything's peachy except for the tenderness around the incision and the increased pain of the uterus during nursing. I'm definitely not up for a marathon but I'm feeling well enough to start feeling bored and to want to go back home! And today is only day three! Definitely thinking that I did had him vaginally with no complications, that I'd been out of here the next day! XD

I'm pretty amazed by how "well" we slept last night, he woke to feed around midnight, 3am and 6am (and this being the tropics, we're all up with the sun around 6am anyhow). Now maybe it's been a while and I've forgotten, and maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but it feels so much easier than with his brother! He definitely feels like a more mellow baby. We'll see though, it's still early to tell, but I'm definitely feeling a vibe.

Eleima wrote:

A swift recovery to Mrs Tomayto as well!!! And I hope the little guy doesn't have to spend too much time beneath those lights that's no fun at all!

She's doing better than last time, and he was only in there for a bit less than a day.

Glad to hear it!!!

Definitely second Eleima's suggestion not to "push." Peristaltic movements don't stop at the small intestine! Many healthy individuals should be able to just relax their PC muscles and let gravity and peristaltic activity do their thing. This form is less susceptible to complications down the line - just takes some patience and the ability to sustain relaxation for a long time.

GWJers as a group have the cutest kids, I have to say. Every one in the last few pages is too adorable for words.

My wife is supposedly due on the 26th, but it looks like they made a mistake in the estimates. She went to the clinic today and the nurse says she's due any time now.

Both of our kids came early, nothing quite like the "oh sh*t we have less time now?!" moments.

Asterith wrote:

Both of our kids came early, nothing quite like the "oh sh*t we have less time now?!" moments.

Yeah, I won't lie. I'm sitting at work and really struggling to focus.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

I'm sitting at work and really struggling to focus.

Get used to that feeling

In other news, sending a pic like this through to your wife ensures you get to leave the department store with the Sheep Wreck Island expansion pack...

IMAGE(http://members.iinet.net.au/~monkey.boy/SIPT/SheepWreck.jpg)

Ah, I love that pic!!! M0nk3yboy, your girls are just too cute! And those expressions... Love 'em!!
Also... Sheep Wreck... Hehe...

MrDeVil, don't forget that term can be anywhere between 37 and 42 weeks. Get used to living on someone else's schedule.

This is the parent thread.

I don't think you can TMI poop, really. One way to know you're a parent, is you've had a discussion of the color, consistency, water content/looseness of a poop-filled diaper. You want to know your baby's digesting well, handling that new food you introduced, and all that.

Now here's TMI

Spoiler:

If the only way to make sure our babies were healthy were to taste said diaper...we'd be doing and discussing that. These are OUR BABIES.

Tasting is superfluous. A nice, good sniff at close range does the trick well enough.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/phCliXh.gif)

Eleima wrote:

Ah, I love that pic!!! M0nk3yboy, your girls are just too cute! And those expressions... Love 'em!!
Also... Sheep Wreck... Hehe...

MrDeVil, don't forget that term can be anywhere between 37 and 42 weeks. Get used to living on someone else's schedule. ;)

Indeed.

'gratz Elieima!

For what it's worth, Mrs Jonman, 5.5 weeks after a C-section, is pretty much back to feeling like herself. Still not done healing fully, and definitely didn't take it as easy as she coulda/shoulda, but doing fine.

I was driving a week later; I was going stir-crazy, and I also had Percocet for the painful nights. I know most guides say not to drive for two weeks, but my midwife said I could drive as long as I wasn't high from Percocet. I was also fully cleared after 4 weeks (though I delayed telling the hubby).