BRAT diet

just in case you were wondering what we have been eating at the Schmitt household over the past couple of day. we have been on the BRAT diet…bananas, applesauces, white bread, Pedi lite  (which charlie thinks is poison). yep – we are rocking a GI bug that I thought was a charlie only thing, but eleanore and I got it this weekend. ugh!

I heard ellie say “mommy bapoo please” at 3 am on saturday morning. I thought it was weird so I went in to check on her and immediately I knew we had trouble. it smelled like vomit. ugh! so I carried her into the bathroom and was so thankful bill was home to help clean her up and hold her while I dealt with the dirty crib.

in the morning we were waiting to see how things were going to go. so ellie and claire were watching a video on my phone to figure out our action plan. ellie was holding her puke bucket.

ellie was so funny. initially she was acting totally fine. she even insisted on eating some banana (faster than normal days) and applesauce. asking for “moe moe”. we felt bad not letting her have some, but I knew it was going to come back up. and it did.

I was incredibly good at determining when she was going to puke. I caught one in my hand and after that we would head to the sink when she started coughing.

after letting her stomach settle for awhile she perked up when I busted out new play phones that I was going to give them at their birthday party. but since we were home bound I figured we would get more use out of them this weekend then next. the girls instantly started calling people.

2 phones. such a busy life!

claire trying to send a text.

after ellie threw up for the last night – claire said “me too” and insisted that she needed to puke too. she I held her up and she spit a few times. I was cracking up.

thanks claire for a little comical relief.

the Lord knew we could not have handled a showing yesterday so thankfully we didn’t have any (even though this is supposed to be a busy time of year with the Match just happening). we did have 2 for today and I woke up in the middle of the night sick, which was a bummer. but thankfully bill was home to help with the cleaning and we were able to pull it off. claire and bill still have not gotten sick. ellie and charlie are officially fine. it took ellie 4 days to show her signs from when charlie was officially sick.

tonight I was able to eat a bit of ramen, which totally brought me back to high school. for not being sick all winter I am really getting slammed now – sinus infection and GI bug.

here’s to a better week with laura coming late tomorrow night and my mom coming for over a week!

picky eaters!

ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!! e+c are getting so opinionated about what they want to eat. they won’t eat any purees anymore (this has been for about a month now) – EXCEPT – if they are the really expensive pouches that they can sip on. see below. I have surrendered and decided it makes my life WAY easier if I just use the pouches so I am going to go with it.

they also want me to change it up. I can’t repeat meal options more than every couple days or they turn their noses up at it. they don’t like bananas – too mushy. they prefer fresh food – any leftovers are rubbish. basically I feel like I am feeding them a carb and a cheese for every meal with a pouch mixed in for some nutrition. sometimes they want a fork, sometimes they don’t.  here are some of the looks they give me.

ellie being a goofer.

claire assessing the food on the fork.

apparently she didn’t like it.

claire has been squishing up her nose frequently at things.

ellie loves to slant and squint her eyes like this.

love those choppers!

in sweet news, I have been making lots of homemade bread because the kids are cranking through it. charlie, especially, loves my bread and will always ask for his pb&j on “homemade bread”. it totally makes the extra effort worth it.

finished

for the last 15 months I was contributing to most of ellie and claire’s growth. that has all changed as I am officially done nursing. yeah! with charlie I definitely had mixed emotions, but with the girls it has been different. nursing was much more a way to eat for them than comfort (I was definitely ok with that!) and after they became more interested in things around them than me, nursing became more and more challenging. trying to find a quiet and dark place to nurse 1 baby when you have a toddler and another baby on the loose is pretty challenging. all that to say I think we were all ready for the switch to bottles and the timing was perfect because bill and I were in DC alone last weekend. 

updates on the honey badgers

**to say the girls don’t like solids is an understatement. they hate them! I have tried everything to get them interested. I started with water and rice cereal, then quickly tried bananas alone and with cereal. I also tried to mix the cereal with formula, which they really rejected and makes me nervous for when I want to start using bottles in a month. today I tried to mix a little breast milk with the cereal and they didn’t instantly gag so that was a good thing. since I actually like starting my kids on solids I am bummed they didn’t take to them as quickly as c little did. hopefully they will pick it up over the next couple weeks.

**a little less than a week ago, we started putting the girls to bed earlier and more abruptly (ie – not bouncing, etc). again I am reminded that most of the changes/transitions you experience with parenting (crying it out, taking away things, moving rooms, etc) are never as big of a deal as you think they are going to be.  the first couple nights we put them down around 8/8:30, which is when I thought they were tired. a friend really encouraged me to put them to bed earlier than later because they go to bed easier when they are not over tired. she really suggested 6:30/7. I knew when we did it with charlie we were putting him to bed around that time, but it seemed super early for the girls (especially since it is summer it is so light out!). anyway – I started watching the girls after their naps and saw them getting tired around 6 so I started trying to do baths around 6:15/30 and trying to get them down by 7/730. so far it is has worked! they are going to bed easily and it is so nice to have them asleep by 7:30! the only downside is that our evenings are INSANE! after naps (around 4:15/30) things are just go go go to get dinner on the table, keep babies happy, get everyone fed (or in the process of) before we start baths. It is pretty smooth if another adult is around. without that things start falling apart. not sure how I am going to fix this, but most nights will hopefully be smooth (until bill goes back to real life in october). I now need to figure out how to keep them content during the day so I don’t have a mental break from hearing so much fussing!

sweet ellie.

charlie wanted to pose with claire the other morning.

mmmm…

one of charlie’s new favorite foods. kale chips! I love our CSA!

tandem nursing

the past few weeks I have started almost always feeding the girls at the same time. it has been great and saves me lots of time. I don’t use the classic football hold, but instead let them sit up/lay up at me. what has also been great is that the girls are eating a lot faster – I don’t feel like I am spending most of my day nursing anymore. yeah!

when it is just me and the girls we spend a lot of time like this. I recline back in my rocking chair and the girls eat and then crash out, which means I can nap too. I love it. cuddling with sweet newborns is such a treasure.

eating for 3...

i had to post about my erratic eating. it is out of control. i am hoping that as i move into the 2nd trimester i can eat more healthfully and more normally, but i thought i would record a bit of what i have consumed.

basically, i can't cook anything that i then want to eat. i am usually the queen of thinking what i want to eat, making it and enjoying it. not so much with these babies ruling my body. i am currently the best thing that ever happened to rochester's economy. now we usually spend around $25 dollars a MONTH on dining out, which means we almost never do it. it is too costly for us and not healthy. however, the last 6 weeks i have eaten out more than i can count.

here are some of the places i have randomly decided i had to eat at NOW:
olive garden (the salad and breadsticks) - i honestly thought about it in the middle of the night (i wake up hungry constantly) and was determined to go there the next day for lunch. thankfully, i have loving friends who joined charlie and me otherwise i would have gone alone :).
papa johns
pizza hut - deep dish (reminds me of my childhood - remember the personal pans you would get after reading a certain amount?)
noodles
jimmy johns
subway (full foot longs)
five guys (i downed 2 burgers, bill only had 1!)
dos amigos

crazy things i do:
i drink chocolate milk by the gallon. (i have now replaced this with carnation instant breakfast to make my mom happy)
i went to the premade counter at our grocery store and asked them to make me a mexican dip/7 dip party platter for me to take home and eat myself!
i bought freshly baked pizza from the grocery store so i could eat it on the way home.

now most of you should know me well enough to know i would NEVER do half of these things. yes i crave mexican once in awhile, but i never buy something to eat when i am 5-10 minutes from home. usually i would just suck it up. definitely not now.

and lately my best find at the target one spot...fluffy stuff! it is just like the cotton candy at a fair. i will now be buying 5 or more every time i go. yum!

thankfully i have a loving husband who has put up with a much different meal schedule than normal. my goal is to make 2 meals a week....now just to decide what those meals should be...ahhh.

for the love of ketchup

charlie discovered his love of ketchup while eating fries at the rac on sunday. try not to gag.

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he got it from his mommy

charlie’s love for baked cheetos that is. i love them. so does he.

summer theme

root beer floats (diet barq’s only). delicious! we have them every night after c little goes to bed :).

a very hungie bungie

so this video is from awhile ago (first week of jan), but bill and i were watching some videos before going to bed last night and loved this one so i thought i should put it up. this is to show how hungry charlie is right when he gets up in the morning. remember that he usually gets up around 5:30-6 to nurse and then lays in his crib until around 7 am sometime he falls asleep other times he just chats and hangs out. after he gets up and has a diaper change we go out for breakfast. i just crack up at how vocal he is when he is hungry. must get it from his mommy :).

what a trooper

this video was taken a few weeks ago, but it shows how great he is at eating anything we put in front of him. these are his vitamins and he obviously hates them, but after getting half of the dropper down he opens his mouth for more. too cute!

normal??

charlie likes to eat and eat and eat. he will even eat in large crowds or at restaurants when he is distracted by everything going on around him. he just turns his head to look at things and then opens his mouth and waits for the food to arrive.

yesterday is a perfect example of his bottomless pit. by 12:30 he had nursed 4 times and had a nice sized breakfast and lunch. at 3:30 i nursed him again and by 5:30 he showed his signs that he wanted to eat again (ie: "attacking" me, crying when i leave the room, you name it). charlie usually has a dinner of oatmeal and bananas around 6ish so i nursed him and then prepared his oatmeal and nanners. bill and i had an ENT dinner to go to and bill's aunt amy was babysitting. amy fed him his oatmeal and nanners and was still wanting more so he got some applesauce. she played with him and then did his bath and bedtime routine. around 7:15ish she gave him his bedtime bottle - he took 8 ounces down and said he would have probably eaten more! since i nurse him i rarely see how much in ounces he eats, but i couldn't believe after almost 4 feedings in 4 hours he would have had more than 8 ounces!!! i can't complain though - he is one happy baby with a big belly that hangs over his pants!