A life of P and Poo

Well we are over a month into being a new family of four and we are still adjusting. Poor little Peyton has spent the first 5 1/2 weeks of her life not happy and largely due to not feeling well. She was never happy after she was done nursing and would spend most of her time crying and arching her back in pain or spitting up/having projectile spit up on me. The doctor said she had acid reflux and gave me a prescription for Axid to give Peyton 3 times a day. Now call me crazy but the idea of giving this poor child meds for at least the next 4 months of her life seems sad.



Jenna goes to daycare on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays, which makes things easier with just Peyton on those days. Tuesday mornings my mom has been coming up to help me juggle the two kids, give me time to prep everything for dinner and get a shower. Then on Thursday afternoons, both of my folks come up to help with the kids and have dinner with us. They have witnessed the worst sessions of Peyton just being miserable and in turn wearing me out. I joke that she has 4 phases: sleeping, nursing, being burped, and screaming. She does not just sit content and look at the world. My heart just breaks for her as you can tell she is in pain and not happy. She finally wore out and fell asleep in my mom's arms this past Thursday.

Valentine's weekend we headed down to my parents' house, because my grandma Shirley, Aunt Kitty and Aunt Sara we coming into town from Ohio for a visit. I was excited to see them and because it would be the first time we would get to see our niece Kandice since Christmas. Plus my sister-in-law Nicole was finally going to meet Peyton.



Here's a picture of Mimi holding her two new great-grand babies! We call them salt and pepper because Peyton is a solid sweet potato with a very round head and Kandice is a long and thin string bean. Peyton is also VERY vocal and loud, where as Kandice's cry is so sweet and quiet.

Everyone watched/heard Peyton deal with her feeding issues and by Saturday afternoon when she had the worst fit, Aunt Nicole drove to the grocery store and bought a can of Similac Sensitive formula I had told her about. She made sure I knew that she wasn't pressuring me to use it, but she wanted me to have it in case I decided I wanted to try giving Peyton the formula to see if it helped. I gave Peyton her first formula bottle that afternoon and used formula for the next few feedings just to see if it would help. Peyton was a different kid. She wasn't pulling her legs up or crying while feeding. On Sunday I was actually able to capture my first picture of her in weeks where she was awake and just content looking at the world!

So we have now switched to just formula. I feel guilty that she is not getting breast-fed for as long as Jenna did, but it just wasn't working for her or me. The bottom line is she needs to be happy/healthy and I need to be happy and the bottles are just working for us. (I also got a definitive answer when I decided to nurse Peyton on Wednesday and we had the WORST afternoon after that as she was screaming and arching again). Now that she is getting formula Peyton is also sleeping longer, going longer between feedings and she is not as fussy. So we are happy.

Jenna is also starting to embrace her baby sister more. She on numerous occasions has come up to kiss Peyton on her head or her foot. She also has told us that she will teach Peyton things such as how to run and jump.

The biggest thing though that Jenna is going to teach Peyton is how to pee-pee on the potty. We have been working on this with Jenna for over a week and a half now. Every time she goes she is rewarded with a sticker on her sticker chart. She has been doing great, and now we are working on her trying to let us know that she needs to go. Here's a shot of her sporting her new sunglasses that were her prize after a great week of earning lots of stickers. (I am all for bribery if it makes potty training a success!)

Snow in the South

So we woke up to a little bit of snow, which I didn't think would happen. They had mentioned on the news a few days ago that we might get some rain that might turn to snow. You never know when it will really happen down here in the South and sometimes the weather doesn't hit us the same here near Lake Norman as it does in south-east Charlotte where my folks live.
Since it did snow that meant that Jenna's daycare was closed, which meant another day of mommy, Jenna, and Peyton (I was kinda looking forward to Jenna going to school so I could take multiple cap-naps with Peyton, but oh well!) Since we needed to come up with things to keep us entertained, Jenna and I decided we should go play in the snow while we had the chance. We couldn't venture far as I was not about to take a 3 week old out in the cold just to play. This meant that Jenna and I could only play on our deck so that Peyton could stay inside in her papasan seat next to the window so we could keep an eye on her as she slept. Here are a few pictures of our first snow experience. I forgot to take pictures of the brick wall that we threw snow balls onto, but at least we got to make and throw them.

Jenna's first steps onto the snow! Thank goodness our neighbor had just given us a pair of boots her daughter had out grown.

Peyton all snugglie inside sleeping.

What's this mommy? It doesn't snow here, I thought you and grandma said we have to go to New Jersey for snow?!

We love snoooowwwww!

This is fun mommy, but let's go inside and get some hot chocolate with marshmellows (which we did)

Jenna just loves her cousin, Brianna Sue. This shot was taken after grandma Jan and grandma Deb had taken then to Chick-fil-A to play and eat lunch.

The Cowley girls just hanging out.

This shot cracks me up. Peyton looks like she is thinking, "What's going on here?!"

Sisters gotta hug!

So I have a new favorite thing. With Jenna, my favorite thing was the swing as she would sit in it for hours and it calmed her. My new favorite thing with Peyton is the Peanut Shell baby sling. I went and picked one up on Saturday morning, by Saturday afternoon it had already paid for itself. As I was getting ready to take Jenna to a birthday party, Josh needed to shower and Peyton decided to have a screaming fit. I put the sling on, got Peyton in it, and within seconds she had stopped crying and was asleep. I was even able to clean up the kitchen before I left. Then on Sunday night Peyton was having another crying fit and we couldn't calm her. Once again I put the sling on, got Peyton in it, and she settled down in seconds. It is a wonderful thing!