Monday update

No particular reason I abandoned the blog for a few days there... Just slacking and hurting for the time to write an update.

Julia is going through ...something now. A growth spurt, a developmental spurt, I'm not quite sure what, but something is definitely up. On the plus side, she's become a ton more interesting - she talks and squeals and rolls and reaches for things and enthusiastically stuffs anything she can grab right into her mouth. She makes R and I laugh with her noises, and sometimes we can even get laughs out of her. She also started napping for longer stretches, if very sporadically.

On the minus side, we're definitely in the midst of some sleep issues (4 month sleep regression?). She's waking up in the middle of the night at all sorts of weird times, and she's been gradually getting up earlier and going to bed earlier (which worked out fine for DST but we can't keep this up!). The nighttime sleep issues kicked in right as she started taking longer naps, so I'm sure those are linked. She's also waking up hungry in the middle of the night, which makes sense because feeding her during the day is a challenge lately. She has no interest in nursing when there are all sorts of amazing things going on (a blanket! mom's sweater! a bird! the doggie!), so she won't eat unless she's starving, and then it's hard to get her to calm down because she starts to get hysterical. So I can't begrudge her a nursing session when she wakes up all upset at 2 am.

Back on the plus side, I kept hearing horror stories about the 4 month sleep regression, but - knock on wood - it hasn't been that bad. We haven't had a true through-the-night sleep (7:30 pm to 7 am) in about a week or two, but she still sleeps from about 7:30 pm to 2 am consistently. Then she's up once or twice to eat between 2 am and 7 am, and often up for good around 6:30. The wakings are pretty easy though - a 15-20 minute session during which I just feed her and pop her back in her crib. I'd like to get back to an 11 or 12 hour stretch of uninterrupted night sleep (wouldn't we all?), but it certainly hasn't been that bad. And, like I mentioned, she's napping longer during the day (on Saturday she took a TWO HOUR nap - that hasn't happened in months!) which definitely helps make up for the nighttime issues.

I'm kind of thinking I just need to accept that the next few weeks are going to be a little bumpy and plan to just ride it out. Part of me worries that I'm training her to eat at night by always feeding her when she gets up, but I think I've decided I'm not going to stress about that right now. It's clear to me that she's genuinely hungry, and the whole internet is telling me that this is just a phase while her sleep habits mature and adjust. She is truly totally different than she was three weeks ago, so I'm hoping in another three weeks, we'll be done with night wakings (and on to another issue, of course). It's funny - she used to sleep so much more easily and better if I was laying down in bed with her, and in the last few weeks that's gone 180. Now she's way too distracted (Mom! the blanket! the fan! the pillow! Mom!) and she falls asleep and stays asleep so much more quickly when she's in her crib. So all my agonizing over whether it was better to co-sleep or not got resolved without me actually doing anything anyways.

So I'm going to relax. Just like this cool chica:

(Too bad today's not a sunglasses day. It's freaking SNOWING. SNOW. In MARCH. GAH I HATE WHERE I LIVE SO MUCH RIGHT NOW WHY CAN'T WE LIVE SOMEWHERE WHERE IT'S 70 AND SUNNY ALL YEAR ROUND BAH SRSLY 9P8A7DFJHKHJDFAK DJFHUIDATU6 VIB3ATKG4ASD FHJAKSDHF.)

Busy day!

Julia had her four month pediatrician visit today. She's 14 lbs, 2 oz, which is much less than I thought she'd weigh - she sure feels like a sack of potatoes when I carry her around. I guess I just know a ton of people right now with giant babies, so Julia, with all her measurements falling in the 45th-55th percentile, seems downright tiny in comparison. She's doing great, though, and she was a champ for her vaccinations (and I didn't cry this time!). 

Then, we get home and less than two hours after sadly circling, "No" on the developmental questionnaire I get at the ped's office after the question, "Has your baby rolled over more than one time?" she busts a move and figures out the roll! 

I missed the first one, but she did it another 8-10 times in a row after that initial one and I caught one on video!

She's also figured out the high-pitched squeal. Looks like we'll be having an adventurous next couple of days, full of squealing and rolling.

In other news, it's Ash Wednesday today and I still have no clue what I'm doing for Lent. I already limit my favorite vices since I'm still nursing, so none of those would be a good thing to give up. I ought to make time to be mindful and grateful once a day, but if it's not realistic, I won't do it and then I'll end up doing nothing. I can't give up facebook or internet - most days it feels like my one link to the outside world of grown-ups. I guess mindfulness and gratitude it is...

Photos only.

Yeah I'll do an actual post with words sooner or later.

Who's a cute little kitty? C'mon, who's a cutie wootie kitty cat? Oh? Not you? Sorry.

Sharing secrets with Daddy. (This makes my heart melt.)

This one's for the families..

Someone figured out she has a voice!

Did you catch that *splat* at the end? Just keepin' it real. :P

Using a spoon

To avoid talking about putting White Bunny down yesterday, and the fact that Julia has been a total stormcloud today (which probably has something to do with the fact that she thinks 7 minutes is an appropriate nap length (and I'm coming up with increasingly inappropriate ways to get her to sleep (or at the least just give me an f'ing break for ten minutes)))... let's talk about using a spoon! This morning I tried to spoon-feed Julia some breastmilk. It was actually pretty successful! I think I got about 1/3 to 1/2 an ounce in her and she didn't seem to mind the spoon much. Probably because she is cool with putting everything and anything into her mouth at this point.

But you don't want me to tell you about it, do you? You want to see it for yourself...

Prepped and ready to go! One spoon for her, one spoon for me.

Don't let these smiles fool you. This was her happy 5 minutes of the day.

You're getting the right idea, Julia...

Yay this is going to be fun!

Our objective!

 

Tryin' it...

Huh???

Mom! What is this?!

Push it out with my tongue... Okay....

Take a break. 

No I like my purple spoon better!

This looks pretty good, huh?

Not too shabby here! (Rookie mistake - no bib - what was I thinking?)

Look at that! All gone!

That wasn't really that great, Mom.

But I am rocking the milk mustache. Don't mess with me again.

I have to thank everyone who comments on this blog. I really do appreciate all the feedback I've gotten, and I get really super-excited when I click "Comments" 5247 times a day and once in awhile I get a new one to read. Is there a way to respond to some of these comments individually? Like, I know not everyone cares to read that I appreciate what Elli said about WB, or that I want to warn Dawn that pumping that much was a pain in the ass and I'm not sure I'd recommend it, but I'd still like to respond to the kind folks who've responded to me.

Anyways, just a short post with photos today. It's my day "off" - when Gaga has Julia - so I'm trying to get things done. Somehow my list never seems to get shorter, even though I swear I don't spend all day goofing off. I don't know where the time goes.

How do you like your fuzzy blanket, Julia?

You like it?

You like it!

Ahh it's so soft!

Ooh it feels so nice!

OMG it's too much to take!

Whew. A good day's work is done.

Catching up...

Yep, it's been awhile. I barely recovered from having family in town and then I got hit with what appears to be my annual February bout of food poisoning. So, for awhile there, my goal for the day was to get to the evening with everyone still alive. I'm happy to report I was successful and am now feeling better and trying to get back into things. I have a LONG list of people I need to email/message back and things to catch up on on the internet (including ordering pics of Julia for you, Mom), so if anyone is reading this and wondering, "Why does she have time to update her blog but not respond to my email of two weeks ago?!" I'm sorry and I haven't forgotten. I'll get there as soon as I can.

So this is just a catch-up mish-mash of thoughts. In list form.

1. We're putting White Bunny to sleep on Thursday. I'm really torn about this. His quality of life isn't terrible; he's not to the point where he clearly needs to be put out of his misery. But I can't imagine he's enjoying his life either. He falls down a lot now, and he spends most of his day sitting in a corner of his pen or inside a box - I think because he has a hard time keeping his balance - and we can't keep up with keeping him clean because he keeps falling in his own waste. But... he eats and drinks with gusto, which is supposed to be the most telling sign in rabbits of how they're feeling, so by that metric, he's still doing okay. But, as I was watching him hop around trying to keep his balance this weekend, I realized he is really an old, fragile little guy and maybe it is time.... I'm not sure. I wish it were more clear whether or not I'm doing the right thing.

2. Julia is four months old! It's crazy - I can't believe she's gotten so big! She's rolled over from back to side, side to front, and front to back, but not on a regular basis yet. Her tummy time is really paying off. She's still a little behind, I think, but catching up beautifully. She can rest her weight on her arms while she's on her tummy and hold her head up for a few minutes at a stretch. Her head control is much better. She turns her head to follow objects, source sounds, and watch TV when she's nursing (which is not my favorite thing in the world). She gets bored in the house but when we go out she just soaks everything up. She smiles at Robert and I all the time, laughs a little, and gives us lots of raspberries. She'll watch us from across the room, and even smile at us when we smile at her from quite a ways away. She loves being wrapped up in soft blankets - it's so cute, she'll wiggle her arms and legs excitedly, throw her arms up so the blanket goes right into her mouth, and kick her legs up and to the side so she's basically rolling around inside the blanket. She loves to grab my hair when I'm kissing her face and pull my head close to her and put my nose in her mouth. She's learned that she can not only put things into her mouth, but also take them out. She's also starting to teethe, I believe, so she's been clamping down on things (me) and gnawing on anything within her reach. She sleeps pretty reliably at night, from about 7:30 pm-7:15 am, although about half the mornings she has an early-morning wake-up between 5:00 and 6:30. Naps are fairly regular but still only for 30 minutes at a stretch (I think we're going to do some sleep training soon and not just wait around for the 4-month sleep regression to start). Her 4-month check-up is next week, and we'll talk about solid foods then, but I don't think she's ready yet - she shows absolutely zero interest in grown-up food. She's still on a diet of all breastmilk so far, although I'm not sure how much longer that will last (more on that later).

Ready to walk the dog!

How cute is this?! And yes, that's a death grip on his hair.

But, to try to get her ready for solids, we busted out the high chair this week. My grand plan was to get her used to sitting in the high chair while we eat dinner at the table, to get her accustomed to the idea of people eating solid foods. But, that'd mean I'd need to get my act together enough to have dinner on the table when R comes home from work, which obviously hasn't happened yet because I'm the world's worst housewife. So far, all I've managed to do is get the high chair set up in the kitchen (and even that required help from Robert). It wasn't what I'd call a smashing success with the baby:

Buckles are for floppy babies.

Chewing on the straps.

"Why would they put me in this?"

I should start practicing my, "Sit up straight, Julia!" huh?

Looking sad.

Blurry but it captured her expression so well.

And after a few more pictures of this, we called it a day.

So Daddy held her. However, he's no match for the flop.

...so I'll just have to start taking all my pictures on an angle.

3. I think we're going to be redoing our master bathroom sometime this spring. I'm not excited about the work that it'll involve, but I'm super-psyched for the new bathroom. Our master bath is teeny-tiny, and an increasingly large portion of it is getting taken over by mold, so it needs to get done - we're just going to gut it and start from scratch. My job will be to bring it in at/under budget while still making it look as nice as possible, which totally appeals to my deal-hunting side. I'm excited to go scope things out; I think Julia and I will have an outing at Home Depot sometime this week.

I'm also working on getting Robert on board with re-flooring our basement. I'd love to make it a living space and not just overflow storage for all our crap. We've got wiring for a TV down there, and it'd be a great space for a sofa and big toys and kiddie craft tables and stuff (please note that stuff is obviously different from crap). But, we're still trying to work out whether to do carpet (cheap but it's a very high-traffic area since our garage door is off of the basement), laminate (cheap, but too cheap?), tile (could be expensive, but I could find a deal, but cold and hard), or wood (expensive but pretty and warmer than tile). And if we go with one of the more expensive options, I'd have to find us the deal of the century. We'll see.

But... We did redo our master closet a few weekends ago. We took down the crappy shelving that was in there, repainted, and put up Elfa stuff from the Container Store. I couldn't be happier with it. I have photos for another blog post about that, later.

4. Seriously could winter please leave? Spring is taunting us, but I'd cut off my arm right now for a week of 60-degree weather. My foot isn't back to normal but feels well enough that I think I could start walking the dog now, and I'd love to be able to take the baby and the dog to the park. Is that so much to ask? I'm so sick of bundling everyone up and needing blankets all the time and not being able to open windows or feel warm air on my skin. Cheese and crackers.

Alright that's all for now. Hopefully more to follow once I catch up on the rest of life.