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.

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.