Sick baby :(

What a tough few days.  Cooper hasn't been feeling well.  He usually poops 3-4 times a day and for the last several days he's only gone once a day, if we're lucky.  He also seems to be teething.  This makes for a very uncomfortable, very fussy baby.  He whines and fusses all day, then wakes up with a high pitched pain cry every 1-2 hours at night.  We are all a little miserable and ready to have our happy boy back.

We took him to the doctor on Wednesday to check out his penis since the tip of it was very red.  They weighed him and he is now 17 lb, 4 oz!!  That's really big for 4 months old.  When the doctor inspected his penis, Cooper started smiling and then giggled after awhile.  I was almost embarrassed, but then realized that he's just a baby and doesn't know the difference.  We joked that this isn't the woman he wants to get excited over, she's just the doctor.  Turns out that he has a diaper rash on his penis, so she gave us a prescription for some ointment.  She said to help with the pain of teething and constipation to give him some Tylenol to help him sleep. 

Even with the Tylenol, he is miserable.  Today seems a little better, but wow it is killer for him not to sleep through the night and to wake Charlotte up.  He's been so sleepy and tough to get and keep asleep.  We've just let him sleep everywhere.  Here are some positions that we've been lucky to get him to sleep in:

Curled up on the couch with Scout.  I was laying with them but wanted to get up and get stuff done.

On his side curled up on the Boppy....so cute.

So exhausted, pajamas around his waist and neck he fell asleep sitting up in his bouncer.

I'm looking into joining a mom's club, maybe one that has other children who are adopted.  I've realized that my feelings post-adoption (even though it's not finalized yet) are very similar to postpartum baby blues.  With pregnancy I had 9 months of doctor's appointments and reading books to prepare for the arrival of Cooper.  For Charlotte we really only had just over a month's notice before she came, and even then we didn't know the exact date or if it would fall through.  Plus without the adoption finalized it still feels like we are in limbo  It's a major change to suddenly have two children and I think support from other mothers would really help.

We went to Costco today.  We were quite popular with the double stroller.  It's like having paparazzi around without the flashbulbs.  Honestly, I just want people to leave me and my children alone, especially when we are trying to get something done. 

We haven't been to Costco in forever and now that we don't have our big freezer (it's in storage) we have to be careful how much we buy.  We did find the formula for much cheaper.  Although at the rate I'm producing breastmilk, I'm not sure we'll need it!  Since Charlotte has come home we have been steadily increasing the breastmilk in her bottles.  She now gets half breastmilk, half formula.  When she came home I had about 150 oz in the freezer.  Now I have 180 oz!!  So even though we give her half breast milk, I am producing more and adding to my stash!  I was trying to reduce the stash to 50 oz.  This is just plain crazy.  On the weekend mornings I have to pump to relieve engorgement and I usually pump 12-14 oz total.  This means Charlotte can start having 2/3 breastmilk!

We have to decide what we should do about our deposit from our old place.  Of course the landlord is unreasonable and only returned $454 out of $3000.  We contested many of the items they deducted for and asked for approximately $2000 out of $3000 returned to us.  We haven't heard anything back from them.  We're not sure if we should continue pursuing and take it to court, or just move on and be done with the situation.  Yes, it's a lot of money, but we're not sure it's a good use of our time, especially right now.  We know we would easily win since they didn't even give us receipts, but it still requires us to continue dealing with the situation.  Argh...I just want that whole thing to end and I want our money!!

I got a weird phone call at work.  It went something like this:

Me:  Hello?

Recording:  This is the third and final call regarding the expiration of your car warranty, please stay on the line to speak to an agent.

Man:  Can I help you?

Me:  Yes the recording said you were trying to contact me about my car warranty expiring.

Man:  Make, Model and Vin of the car?

Me:  What?  Actually that's what I wanted to ask you about, which car?

Man:  Umm, ugh.  [Click.]

Me:  Hello?  Hello?

Yeah, I'm positive it was a scam.  If they were calling me about my car warranty, wouldn't they already have that information?  Nissan always identifies themselves when they call us.  So don't fall for it if it happens to you!

Fun pictures of our lives lately:

Charlotte has been super fun the last several days.  She LOVES her jumper and really gets rocking in it.  You can see her two little teeth in the picture.

Me with Cooper in my new wrap (he loves being wrapped like this since he can play with his feet...despite the sad look on his face).  I really love this wrap better than my homemade wrap.  The fabric is much more breathable.  I bought it from Gypsy Mama:

The kids enjoying play time with each other.  Cooper is getting much better at tummy time and propping himself on his arms.  Charlotte still tries to roll on top of him or lick his head.

I was trying to play peek-a-boo with Charlotte and Scout had to come over and play too:

Pictures have been uploaded to the Shutterfly sites.  Notice that Shutterfly has made some improvements to their Collection Sites.  I'm still learning how to use it, but it looks a lot better!