Today

Today was one of those days. You know, the days where only a couple hours in, you're ready to call a do-over? It really all started last night. Last night, as I was getting C ready to take a bath, she had her first walking catastrophe. 

The bathroom makes me nervous anyway. While virtually the entire house is baby proofed at this point, it's pretty impossible to make tile floors and bathtubs not hard and scary. So, as I was filling the tub, C was unrolling the toilet paper (I pick my battles). She was so excited to have toilet paper in both hands, that she ran toward me, arms outstretched with her new find. Then, because she's been walking for all of four weeks, she lost her balance and, before I could catch her, face planted into the edge of the tub.

It. was. terrifying.

There was screaming and crying and then I saw the blood and then I was screaming and crying. I completely lost my composure. I called Husband, who was still at work, in hysterics. She wouldn't let me look in her mouth so I couldn't tell where the blood was coming from. I was hoping she had just bitten her lip, but was imagining an ER visit and stitches. She was doing that kind of crying where she gasps for air in between screams, only making me cry harder. 

Husband quickly snapped me back into gear, reminding me that my freaking out was only going to make her more scared. So I took a deep breath and began treatment. We used ice chips in a mesh teething bag, a cold wash cloth, and a sippy cup of ice water to soothe until the Advil kicked in. Then we snuggled and snuggled and snuggled while she cried for a couple hours. Finally, at 10:00, she fell asleep. I thought we had made it. She would sleep it off and feel fine in the morning.

Then she woke up... an hour later. We watched Baby Einstein. We watched Elmo. We had a snack. I even got desperate and reverted to a bottle, but when your lip is cut and swollen, no bottle or paci will work. She finally cried herself to sleep at 4:00. 

Today, our morning started at 7:00. She woke up screaming. A sippy cup of milk and some morning cartoons (plus more Advil) calmed her down a little, but our day was pretty dicey from there. No morning nap. She finally crashed around 12:45 for 30 minutes. Then, with dinner plans at 5:30, I put her in the car at 4:30 hoping for a car-induced nap on the way.

But...surprise! The garage door broke. It went up 6 inches, it went down 6 inches. I used the manual release and all the strength my arms could muster and it wouldn't budge. We were trapped in our garage. Awesome.

So I cancelled dinner plans, unloaded C, and gave her a snack since a nap was clearly not happening. Then it was decided. This day was in desperate need of brownies.

So C got to eat brownies for the first time AND the whole mixing and pouring process was distracting enough for her to forget she was tired and cranky. Win win.

And then, against all odds, she actually let me rock her to sleep at 7:30. Tomorrow is another day. Until then, I think I'll eat a few more brownies and go to bed. Sometimes being Mommy is exhausting.

Late in the Game Product Endorsement

We just started using an Angel Care baby monitor. I realize it's a little late in the game to break out the big guns with a motion sensor monitor, but we just didn't need it until recently. Up until now, she has been a pretty restless sleeper. I was never worried that she was sleeping too soundly. Ever.

The cheap monitor worked just fine when paired with our wireless IP camera mounted over the crib (yes, I married a nerd) for 11 months... or so I thought. But recently, we've had a new issue emerge in the form of a fuzzy blanket. C has become even more attached to her fuzzy blanket lately. It is the blanket that matches her bedding. It's toddler sized. And fuzzy. And she simply must have it. at. all. times. 

Naptime

Dinner

Reading

Music time

This blanket which was once neatly tucked around her while she slept, has become wound around her body,   thrown over her head, covering her face. I would sneak into her room, carefully reposition it, and by the time I got back to bed and checked the camera, she had pulled it back over her face. I couldn't take the blanket away. She reaches for it in her sleep. She would surely notice. So, I finally programmed the new fancy monitor that I bought a couple months ago. 

And I slept like a dream.

In fact, I actually had (and remembered) dreams for the first time in months...11 months to be exact.

I never realized how jumpy I had been before. I didn't realize I was only half sleeping, constantly on alert to jump out of bed and check on her at a moment's notice. The sense of calm I now have knowing that this monitor will beep loudly at me should she stop moving for more than 20 seconds, or should her room get below 69 degrees or above 77, is indescribable. 

I'm a little angry at myself for waiting this long to jump on board. The Angel Care monitor rocks my world and lets my little angel sleep with her favorite companion without fear of suffocation.

Win. Win.

Happy Nine (and a half) Months!

I am super late with this post, but on the 23rd, our sweet girl turned nine months old! The holidays pushed her nine month check up to December 1st, so I was waiting to have stats. Anyway, here they are: 17 lbs, 9.5 oz (25th percentile); 28.5" long (80th percentile). We have a long and lean little girl!


She is so brave. She didn't cry at all when the nurse pricked her finger and took blood and only cried a little when she got two shots. She's such a big girl!


I am loving the ninth month! C is full of personality and it is visible more and more every day. She's so curious and she raises her eyebrows when she listens to you intently. She squeals and babbles constantly and has even started talking to herself while playing with her lovey in her crib in the morning before she cries for me to come get her. She's a champion eater and is loving the introduction of finger foods. She will eat bananas, avocados, puffs, and Mum Mum cookies all day long (and most of them make it to her mouth). Banks has also learned that he can usually score snacks whenever she's eating...

She's eating three meals a day and taking 7-8 oz. bottles of formula in between. She's wearing 9 month clothes in everything besides footed pajamas. Our long little girl needs the 12 month in those!


She crawls with great speed, but would much prefer to stand these days. She's pulling up and cruising along the couch, and every now and then, she will let go and stand all by herself for a brief moment. It's so much fun (and exhausting) being with her all day as she learns these new mobile skills. 

We started Kindermusik last month and she has discovered percussion. She loves shaking and beating on anything and everything (including the dog and us) and she loves music. She is mesmerized by her reflection.

She loves being outside for walks or going to the park to swing. Really, she just loves people watching and fights sleep so she won't miss a beat. She has changed from three naps a day to two most days and is sleeping from 7:30 - 6:30 or 7:00 each night (waking up at 10:30 for medicine and usually briefly around 4:00, but she has started to put herself back to sleep which is a welcomed change!

The ninth month is usually the month moms celebrate their little ones being out of the womb longer than they were in it; but for us, that was last month! It's hard to believe that my teeny little preemie is a healthy and thriving nine month old. Amazing.

Happy nine (and a half) months to my crawling, pulling up, cruising, babbling, giggling, smart, funny, sweet, and snuggly little girl. You are my world.

Parenting Fail

I am far from a perfect person, but I consider myself a pretty good mom. That being said, I make mistakes. I have accidentally pinched C's cute little thigh when putting her in the high chair. Sometimes her bath water is a little too hot or, in my attempt to remedy that, a little too cold. Sometimes I realize at 5:00 that I have forgotten to give C her 3:30 dose of medicine. But, the majority of the time, most days, all goes well. Everyone is happy and fed and bathed and dry and playing safely behind a baby corral, tucked away from the death trap that is the rest of our house.

Today was not one of those days.

Let me preface this by saying that she is totally fine. As I (slowly) type this, we are sitting on the rug, playing with toys, seeing which ones make the best noises when shaken. But this morning, I failed.

We're still not sleeping through the night completely. While, it's getting better, C more often than not, ends up snuggled next to me in our bed after her 6:30 bottle in an attempt for us both to get a little more sleep. She was nestled next to me, engulfed in my arms, sound asleep with her fuzzy little blanket clenched in her fist. So I closed my eyes to join her. I was awakened by a loud THUD followed by crying.

She had woken up, crawled out of my arms and across the entire width of our king sized bed, and fallen off the other side onto the hard wood floor.

I rushed to her, picked her up, and panicked. I tried to soothe her while crying myself. After only a minute, she was smiling, with a little red bump on her left temple. I knew what signs to look for from other moms telling me similar stories, but I called the doctor to make sure. Sure enough, if she wasn't overly lethargic, vomiting, or crying inconsolably, she was fine. I was relieved, but still so upset with myself. For weeks now, I had been worried about this happening. C is not only very mobile now, but also very curious. Needless to say, our days of morning snuggling in bed are over (at least while Mommy is sleeping).

I share this story because that's the point of this blog. If I only shared my triumphs, I'd be censoring myself and my readers from the truth that parenting is hard and not all days are perfect. I am so lucky that she is okay and that a tiny bump on her head is her only battle wound from this morning, but I'm not naive enough to think that this is the only time in her life that I will screw up. Luckily, my good parenting moments far outweigh the bad; but, for the record, the bad are absolutely heart breaking.

The In Between

Motherhood is full of big moments. There are the many firsts, the trips, the photographic memories that grace the walls of your home. But, the best moments are the in between. They are the silly faces made behind the camera to get that big smile. They are the giggles at bed time. They are the snuggles in bed after that first morning bottle. They are the car conversations full of babbles and clicks. They are the blips of everyday life not captured on film. 

Tonight, as I put Catherine to sleep, I nuzzled her nose as she closed her eyes and was met instead with a giggle. A few minutes of giggling later, my daughter had laughed herself to sleep and I had forgotten about the exhaustion of the day and the laundry and cleaning that awaited me. It's the simple things like an unexpected giggle at bed time that make my heart smile and remind me how wonderful it is to carry the title of Mommy.

No Solicitation Here

Motherhood comes with a lot of unsolicited advice. It starts the moment you tell people you are pregnant. People suddenly feel the need to remind you that you can't drink or eat sushi or ride a wave runner or jump on a trampoline (seriously, nine months without a trampoline is just too much to ask...). 

Then, as soon as your belly protrudes enough that you have obviously not just eaten a large lunch, complete strangers join in. A server at a restaurant asked me to turn around when I was only 18 weeks pregnant because she said she had a gift of predicting the baby's sex from my body shape from behind. Not kidding. A few weeks before I had C, a woman behind me in the Target check out line told me I must be having a girl because she looked like me when she was pregnant with her daughter. Random people at the grocery store would comment on the food in my cart. One of the managers of a band I had booked at my job proceeded to discuss how important breast feeding was and asked me if I planned on doing so. And one of my favorites: while buying (an obscene amount of) beer and wine at Costco for our Christmas party, the check out lady actually asked, "this isn't for you, is it?" I only wished at that moment that I was buying a carton of cigarettes as well.

My point is, even before there is a baby, there is much much advice on how said baby should be raised. But once the baby is actually here, it only gets worse. Should she sleep on her back or stomach? Breastfeed or formula? When to introduce solids? Rice cereal in the bottle? Homemade food or not? Organic or not? Soy or dairy? Stroller or sling? Cradle vs. crib vs. family bed? Pacis? Tv? Daycare vs. stay at home? To sleep train or not to sleep train? O.M.G. It is exhausting.

Card my parents sent shortly after C was born

As if raising a tiny human were not stressful enough, you begin to consider all of this unsolicited advice and second guess your instincts because quite frankly, you're exhausted and pretty sure your brain's deductive reasoning skills shut down months ago.  I guess I open myself up to it as I throw a blog about my parenting decisions out into cyberspace for all to judge enjoy. And as in most circumstances, some advice is helpful and others not so much. But it's what you do with the advice that's important. It's about learning to take all the books and articles and advice from family, friends, and complete strangers, lump it all together, and go with your mommy gut (not to be confused with the 6 pounds that linger at the midsection). 


I have really been struggling with C's sleeping situation. It seemed I was fighting a losing battle. I felt like I was somehow failing as a mom and my lack of sleep was wearing on me physically and emotionally. And even though I knew that sleep training could end all of it, my gut just wouldn't let me do it all. My heart couldn't take letting her "cry it out." I have nothing against those who have gone before me and conquered. If anything, I am impressed. Sleep training is not for the weak. Instead, I took a few notes from the method (earlier bed time, routine naps, using sleep cues) and added in a few theories of my own. And, as I type this, we are on the third night of a normal 11-12 hour sleep stretch. Who knows if it will stick, but I have to give myself a little pat on the back on this one. I am so proud of my sweet girl for learning to soothe herself back to sleep; and I am so proud of myself for helping her do so without feeling like I was abandoning her. Maybe one day I will be able to sleep though the night without sneaking into her room to make sure she is still breathing.

Motherhood is no joke. It is wonderful, all encompassing, challenging, frustrating, amazing, exhausting, and so much fun, all at the same time. But, if you can't cut yourself a little slack and trust your own instincts (and vent to your other mommy girlfriends once in a while), you will absolutely lose it. Of this I am certain.


Goodnight.

Such Stuff As Dreams are Made On...

...And our little life is rounded with a sleep.

Yep. You guessed it. I'm complaining about not sleeping again.

I've been working on sleep training (lite) with C. No matter how hard I try, I just can't let her cry it out. Maybe after a few more months of no sleep, I'll change my tune. But for now, I'm just working on keeping her on a regular schedule of naps and a routine at bed time, hoping it will fall into place eventually. 

She goes to bed every night at 7:30. At 7:00, we start the wind down routine with a bath and lavender lotion. Then on go the footed pjs and the sleep sack and we snuggle in the rocking chair with her paci and her lovey for story time and a song while she drifts off to sleep.

Easy right?

Nope.

Around 8:30, she squirms and wiggles and rolls over and cries. It's time for a bottle. Then we sit in the chair and rock and rock and rock until her eyes flutter to sleep.

9:30 or 10:00 and she cries as if awakened by a nightmare. I pick her up, wrap her in a fuzzy blanket, and rock her back and forth, back and forth, back and forth until she relaxes in the comfort of my arms, breathes out deeply, and she sleeps.

She sleeps hard. So hard that I watch her tiny chest move up and down on the monitor just to make sure she is still breathing. And I like to think she would stay this way, BUT, her next dose of medicine is at 11:30. So I wake the finally sleeping baby for a little formula with her meds, a diaper change, and more snuggle time until she sleeps. This time is much harder than the last. The wake up call is uncalled for and it throws off the rest of the night.

1:00... 2:30... 3:30... 4:45... then I am awakened for good at 7:00 with tiny fingers poking me in my eye and pulling my hair. I guess I should mention that somewhere among the hourly wake up calls, I give up and put C in bed with me, hoping she will sleep better if she is near me. Sometimes I am lucky and we sleep for three consecutive hours.

Once upon a time, C was a great sleeper. Never all night long, but usually only one wake up around 3:30. That, I could deal with. This new schedule is. killing. me. slowly.

There are theories. She is teething. She is too excited about crawling to sleep. She has separation anxiety from me. I attempt to diagnose the situation. But then I remind myself that it won't be this way forever. That I will blink and she will be too big to rock. She won't need me to rub her back until she falls asleep. She won't snuggle her tiny nose into my chest. There will come a time when all her troubles can't be solved by a lullaby. So I embrace the joy disguised as exhaustion. I celebrate the memories disguised as obligation. And we rock and rock and rock back and forth, back and forth, back and forth until all is right in her little world. 

For an hour or so at least.

The Good Stuff

Husband wore his last clean shirt to work today. I have piles of laundry and ironing to do, the last of my thank you notes to finish, and countless household projects awaiting my free time. I have yet to find the time to work out, so I wear the same four outfits each week, my weight annoyingly hovering in between pre-baby and maternity clothes. I am exhausted and in desperate need of a haircut. And to top it off, I am feeling unbelievably guilty about having to give our cat away this week.

But just when I am feeling run down, my sweet baby girl falls asleep in my arms and suddenly, all is right with the world. This is the good stuff:

With C's changes in diet and sleep this week, her schedule has been a little unpredictable, but crashing in my arms is definitely an added bonus. 

The laundry can wait.

Do Me a Solid

C is officially dining on something solid: rice cereal. By solid, I mean not a bottle (although one could also consult the urban dictionary in this case, which defines solid as superior or excellent).

Either way, rice cereal is pretty freakin solid.

We tried rice cereal for the first time around 4 months and C hated it.Then, her pediatrician told us to wait until 6 months for anything solid because "studies show that introducing solids too early causes childhood obesity." I then ignored this suggestion and tried rice cereal again last week. Because, while I'm no expert, I'm pretty sure introducing a mushy, bland, paste-like substance to my child a month earlier will not make her obese. That role still belongs to the happy meal.

So, I mixed a little in a bowl, put C in her Bumbo, and went to town. And. it. was. awesome.

C may not have gotten the whole eating-from-a-spoon thing down immediately; but, not only did she find it hilarious, rice cereal in her diet also does magical things like allow her to wait FOUR hours in between bottles and actually SLEEP at night.

I love rice cereal. I want to write a sonnet for rice cereal. I've made a small shrine in my kitchen to rice cereal. 

In other news, C has decided she no longer needs me to feed her:

If a Tree Falls...

It's the age old question:

If a baby falls asleep two hours early, will morning come two hours earlier?

sleepy girl

A Little Something Extra

Yesterday, C turned 15 weeks old. For those who don't have children, she's 3 1/2 months old. Apparently, once you give birth, you then measure the child's entire first year in weeks. It seems odd, but each week is so very different. The things she is doing in her third week of month 3 are so different than the first week. I know it's silly. I'm a recent convert. (Prepare to be annoyed when I measure the second year in months).

But C was born 4 1/2 weeks early. Often I forget this little tid bit as I read all of the mommy blogs and books and emails out there that are telling me what my child should or shouldn't be doing by now. I was reminded of this factor while doing some light reading last night: Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. The issue of sleep has been upon us recently as I have contracted my second bacterial infection in a one month span and often go entire days without remembering to drink water in between my coffee(s). I'm a little sleep deprived to say the least.

Operation Goodbye Hemangioma continues to go smoothly, but this also means that I continue to administer medication exactly every eight hours. The third dose of the day falls at 11:30 pm and the interruption in C's sleep tends to effect the whole sleeping-through-the-night thing.

So I consulted the book in hopes of a brilliant answer. Instead, I learned that C just might not be ready to sleep through the night yet, and that no amount of rice cereal or sleep training will change her inherent need to wake up at 4:30 am for a little mommy time.

It then occurred to me. I get an extra month.

Yes, I have to suffer through an extra month (at least) of middle of the night feedings and sleep deprivation; but I get to have an extra month (at least) of middle of the night feedings. Those sweet groggy moments of feeding and snuggles that will be gone all too quickly. I get a little extra time.

It is difficult to see my happy, healthy child as a preemie. She is stubborn and determined to her core and it is easy to forget that this strong willed little girl was once only 5 pounds. Today, she struggles to sit up, crying if I place her flat on her back for even a moment. She lifts her head with assurance and smiles a huge gummy grin when she succeeds. She is so very big in my eyes, yet still so very small. And as she grows and develops each day, I take pride in how far she has come, throw the rule books out the window, and relish the little something extra I get as the mommy of a preemie.