The sleep thing is sort of…. okay, for now. Naps are still great. Bedtime is better, for sure… but she’s not sleeping very well at night. She’s taking and and a half hour long naps during the day, but at night is waking every half an hour. WTF? She used to sleep a 2-3 hour stretch – by herself – before I came to bed. I don’t know. Last night I brought her to our bed just so I could actually get some sleep instead of having to run in there every 30 minutes. At least when I’m next to her she can wake up and fidget and look around and then puts her head down and goes back to sleep. Which is new, btw. She used to always cry when she woke up – she didn’t know how to go back to sleep without me holding her on her side next to me and/or nursing her. Now if she’s really tired and I don’t try to leave her she’ll just wiggle over closer to me, put her head up against my face, and fall asleep. That part is pretty cool! When I put her down for naps she’s started rolling onto her belly before she’s fully asleep – it took me a while to figure out what she was doing, flailing around and whimpering. Then soon as I moved back she flopped onto her belly and was content. She still needs me right next to her, but she’s figuring it out. :) I’m really quite proud of her for the progress she is making! It is slow, but it’s all at her pace.

She must be having a growth spurt right now, all this sleep is crazy! She is only up and awake for about 2 hours between naps right now. And sleeping approximately 12 hours a night. Crazy! Plus we had a couple of rough evenings because my boobs were emptied out before bedtime and she was mad because she wasn’t getting the flow that she wanted – I expect my supply will jump way up shortly. (This could possibly explain the fitful sleep at night – she is all hungry hungry hippo and I have less supply in the evenings.)

She’s growing up so much right now, it’s crazy. It feels like she just learned to sit up, though it was 2 months ago already. Now she’s crawling and pulling up on everything (we have to make sure there are no objects around that will easily tip over!) and already trying to stand without holding on. She’s had a lot of crashes lately, but she busts out in the biggest grin when she is able to keep her balance for a few seconds. She loves standing up. Love love loves. I’ve set up her toys – exersaucer and music table and little piano thing – in a row so she can stand up using them and move back and forth to play with them all. It’s fantastic because she can occupy herself again! There are no pillows behind her anymore, since when she falls it’s usually just to land on her butt (usually – sometimes she she tumbles sideways or hits her chin, sigh). Plus with the crawling and pulling up she can make her way around the room, going to her toys if she wants to, and crawling over to her standing toys to play – all without help. The whole idea just thrills her. Everyone said once she was crawling we’d be in trouble, but honestly it’s way more help than trouble. She seems to show zero interest in crawling off somewhere, she still stays on the area rug where her toys are, for the most part. The only exception is when she beelines straight for me, whining pathetically the whole time.

My silly girl, showing off her new skills: sitting-from-hands-and-knees, crawling, pulling up, and standing without holding on. It’s nuts around here, people. Nuts!

A good look at what color her eyes really are, it shows up well in the sun. Some days it’s more grey, some days it’s more brown, it seems to depend on her mood. They’ve been like this since she was a newborn, too… well, they’ve gotten more brown in the center, but they’ve been this half/half for months now. Maybe they’ll stay like this!

Lunch time. I have some yogurt to feed her, and she has cheerios she’s feeding herself.

“Want some yogurt?” I ask her.

“Mmmmm!” she says in reply, excited.

I hold up the spoon and she reaches for it, but she has a cheerio in her mouth. “You have to eat that first.”

So she does. She opens her mouth wide and leans towards the spoon, which I am about to hand her…

And then her hand sneaks up and pops in another cheerio.

Dear Nature’s Purest:

What the fuck were you thinking with this highchair? (And what the fuck was I thinking, purchasing it?)

I love a lot of things about it. It was easy to assemble, it’s easy to adjust. The tray comes on and off no problems and is easy to wipe down. The straps work just fine. (But it doesn’t fold up, which could be a problem for some families…. though not an issue to us.)

But the seat cover. Holy shit dude, seriously? Cotton? Yeah, it’s a wipeable surface for the bottom part. But did you really think that babies couldn’t possibly reach above their shoulders? That’s the first place my daughter’s hand flings the spoon, straight over her shoulder. The cover now has applesauce, squash and sweet potato smeared across the top half, and I’m going to have to put it through the wash – and I’m not even sure that will get it out at this point. And besides, I can’t do that every time! I have enough to clean up without worrying about taking the flipping highchair apart to wash it, too. I curse at it every time I pull her out of it.

I rant to all of my friends to never, ever buy this highchair. You suck.

Without love,
Natalie

Evenings are still atrocious around here and I’ve stopped trying to fight it. I don’t know what Kate is doing – maybe she’s teething, maybe she’s in the process of dropping an evening nap, I don’t know. I do know that when I put her down for bed at 9pm she needs me to put her back down half an hour later, and then maybe an hour after that she’s awake again and really fighting it. Drives me crazy. The last two nights I said “Oh screw this” and just got her up for a little bit. She’s very chill (and she’s not normally a chill baby, by any stretch), kind of zombie-ish, and she sits and watches us play our video games for an hour until we all go to bed.

However, the trade-off? At midnight she goes down EASY and then SLEEPS… only waking twice to nurse briefly. I’ve brought her back into our bed because I missed her and because she was sleeping like crap. So we all go to bed at around midnight. I nurse her, I move away and get comfortable, she rolls around a little bit and hums. Then she rolls onto her stomach, wiggles close enough to touch me, and falls asleep. Two nights ago she woke up 5 hours later (!!!) and last night I had to wake her up after more than 4 hours because I was stuck up against my husband and I was absolutely roasting (having a dream you’re stuck in a fire is not a good sign). This makes me SO HAPPY. Firstly because she hasn’t slept a 5 hour stretch in a LONG time (months). Secondly because I am not nursing her to sleep, or rocking her, or holding her even. Yes she has to be touching me, but she’s putting herself to sleep!

Granted that trick only works after midnight when she’s actually really tired, for naps I’m still snuggling her until she falls soundly asleep so I can creep out of her room. And if she’s overtired for a nap or cranky for some reason then she still sometimes fights me and I have to rock her to sleep in my arms. BUT I feel that things are improving… it’s getting easier.

We’re consistently waking up in the morning at 10am. Sometimes a little earlier, but I set my alarm for 10 so I don’t let us sleep until noon (god forbid her night times get any later!!). If needed I can start pushing the waking and bedtime earlier, but honestly right now I’m just happy that it’s predictable. It’s funny how having everything tossed to the wind can really make you appreciate predictability, lol! And I am REALLY loving actually getting some sleep at night!

Holy shit man. She’s trying to climb me in her sleep. All day today she’d be almost fully asleep and suddenly she’d twitch and either throw herself onto her back (and cry because she hates sleeping on her back) or grab a fistful of my shirt and haul herself up onto me, flop her head down (because SHE WAS ASLEEP), then pull up further. I’d lay her down, she’d cry, I’d get her back to sleep. Repeat. The only way I am able to get her to sleep right now is by holding her tightly to prevent her from moving until she finally she drops fully asleep. Then I have to extricate myself and escape somehow without making a sound, because if she so much as twitches she does it all over again. I feel like I’m wasting half my day in there just trying to get her to stay asleep. And I’m the only one who can do it – Den can sometimes get her to fall asleep, but he can’t get her to sleep in her bed.

On top of that today she was awake again in only half an hour. The third nap I finally went in and held her tight so she’d fall back asleep get a good nap in (which she NEEDED, she was whiny whiny), which meant I fell asleep too – which does NOT help me at all, I end up with insomnia at night. I’m tired. I’m cranky. I know this stage will pass once this whole pulling up and moving thing isn’t quite so interesting, but man. This is exhausting.

And we definitely can’t cut out the evening nap yet. She gets so freakin’ cranky. And then today again at 9pm she was wicked tired… but only stayed asleep for half an hour, then maybe another half an hour. Then she was just fidgety and I knew even if I did get her back to sleep that it would be up again in less than an hour. I hate the fidgety.

This is just a stage. This is just a stage. This is just a stage. Maybe if I say that enough my head will stop hurting.

Sometimes a break is just what I need. I was just so frustrated this weekend, heightened by the fact that Den was home and yet unable to really help – I’m the only one who can put her to sleep on her bed. Today was my work day, I put her down for her morning nap and left. Turns out she slept 1 1/2 hours for that nap, and then in the afternoon layed down on/with Den in her room and slept for 2 hours. He couldn’t put her down, but she slept. Just the two naps today, and she went down for bed at 9pm, peacefully and easily, and didn’t wake up for an hour and a half. Considering the hell the last week has been in the evening this was such a huge lovely thing! (Guess she is ready to drop a nap – but her sleeping 2 hours is a rare thing.)

I came home from work to find a happy, well-rested baby. I gave her some dinner while I ate mine, then we took a bath together. I haven’t done that in a while; I like to have my shower in the morning, which is when I used to bathe her too, but since starting solids she needs an evening bath. She sits well enough on her own that I’ve just been doing the “traditional” thing and sitting outside the tub washing her. Today I really needed a shower so she sat in the tub playing with her tubby toys while I showered – she even crawled between my legs, which seemed funny to me because she was getting drenched but didn’t seem to mind! When I was done I soaped her up and rinsed her off, then I filled the tub up so we could sit and play. I forgot how much fun it was! She doesn’t keep trying to climb out when I’m in there with her. Plus I can fill it up higher, since I’m there for balance and support (when it’s deeper she tips over much more easily!). She played with her little tubby toys for a while. Then for the first time I let her float in the water with her ears submerged, supporting her head so that her mouth, nose and eyes were out of the water. She just layed there very peacefully, gently flexing her feet and moving her hands as she made sounds. She hummed and “aahhhhh”d, letting out a couple of screeches just to pause and listen. I remember doing that as a little kid, listening to how funny I sounded in my head with the water all around. When she was done playing she pulled up on me and rested her head on my shoulder, both of us all warm and wet from the bath.

Later, when she was tired, I layed down to nurse her and then cuddled her as she fell asleep. She dropped off easily and slept for an hour and a half. I went in without any expectations of her sleeping or not, and after humming with me for a little while she fell back asleep. I just layed there for a long while, smelling her hair and soft little baby breath, arms wrapped around her. It was then that I realized that my work day did wonders in re-setting my brain.

It’s funny in a way how we all get so caught up in what we’re doing that their needs can feel like an imposition. It’s hard not to feel frustration when she’s interrupted something for the third time when she’s supposed to be sleeping, especially when I’m tired and just need a break. But at the same time, do I really need to clean out the sink or finish that show? Life is easier when I let go – when I focus on what’s really important. She needs me. There will come a day when she doesn’t (or at least doesn’t think she does), when I wish I could hold her as she falls asleep.

It’s impossible to put motherhood into words. A lot of people I talk to speak of motherhood as exhaustion, demands, responsibility. I say it’s joy… the kind of joy I couldn’t even imagine. Holding Kate in the dark, her little hand flexing against my arm, I know that I would trade everything for this moment. All the heartache and pain of the past 5 years, I would do it again to get to this very moment with my daughter.

I feel like I’ve spent my whole life playing catch-up… not-good-enough. I have a serious lazy streak that combats daily with my obsessive personality. I always feel like I’m 10 steps behind… that I should be more organized, more tidy, more on top of things. Den and I are moderately organized people. We have calendars. We’re punctual. We take on responsibilities. But we’re forgetful and somewhat spacey (thus the need for the calendars – if it isn’t written down it does NOT get remembered). We’re “I’ll do it tomorrow” types.

If there is anything being a parent has taught me, it’s that I will NEVER be “all caught up.” Not ever. My house will never be perfectly organized. My calendar will never be perfectly scheduled, my days never perfectly planned. Kids just change too frequently! We settle into a routine and it works for a while, and then suddenly it stops working and everything goes to hell… until you figure out the new routine. She gets sick, misses a nap, has a bad night, poops when I don’t expect it… the list just goes on and on.

And you know what, I think I’m finally getting it – I think I’m finally okay with it. I always thought that I should have it all together, that I was somehow failing. I’m realizing that it’s a myth. We all just live day to day, especially with a family. The moms who say they have everything going perfectly? They’re lying. Right now I love more than anything sitting down with a friend and admitting all the things that we don’t have quite done yet, that the kids aren’t sleeping through the night yet, that the house is always cluttered in some way. I like honesty, it’s reassuring.

I forgot I was supposed to be at a Dentist appointment yesterday. The couple of bills that are payed by check are sometimes a couple days late (thank goodness for scheduled online bill pay for the rest). The dining table is half usable and half piled with photo albums and magazines and weird shit I don’t have a spot to put away. We’ve figured out Kate’s nap schedule for the moment, but next week it could very well change. That’s just the way it goes. I’m learning to just roll with the punches.

I can see why sleep becomes the thing on your mind when you have a child. It is the deciding factor in how a day goes.

Kate just dropped down to 2 naps a day. She was on 3-4 (depending on their length) but after our vacation I was having such a hell of a time with bedtime. She was in that rough stage where if she didn’t get an evening nap she melted down, but if she did get one she was wired at bedtime. That was not an easy transition, but now we have had several days of 2 naps and they’ve been good – even when they are shorter than we would all prefer. I did figure out that in lieu of an evening nap she needs an evening nursing session in the dark: some down time with no stimulus so she gets a good meal in, a cuddle, and then she’s ready to go for the rest of the evening. Mostly I’m appreciating how easy it is to put her to sleep again. By 9pm she’s rubbing her eyes and starting to wind herself down. Going to bed is no longer the epic struggle it was. I am so thankful.

During that time of nap transition and new skills we ended up taking a step backward on the getting Kate to fall asleep on her own progression. The only way she’d fall asleep is if I held her wrapped in my arms tight, she’d screech a few times and then drop off. If I let her go she’d roll away and try climbing me or crawling away. But now? Now she wants to have her head pillowed on my arm, my arms wrapped around her, in order for her to fall asleep. Not that I mind the cuddles (I admit, I took a while to step back again, because I just love that time with her). So I’ve just been working with her on getting her sleepy and moving a couple inches away again. Some days she’s okay with it, other days she’s not.

Today for her first nap I hadn’t eaten breakfast and she was grabbing me hard when pulling up. After about 15 minutes of being pummeled I walked out of her bedroom and said to Den, “Switch!” I knew he couldn’t get her to sleep but I just needed a break while I grabbed some cereal to eat. 15 minutes later Den creeps out of the room – alone. “She fell asleep! Just put her head down and fell asleep!” He was so excited! I was rather stunned. First time she’s ever done that!

Tonight we had a hiccup in the guise of poopy butt after she went to bed, but after that was discovered and fixed she slept 3 hours. Now it’s 2am, I’m still awake and I can hear little sounds from her room – whimpers and “uhh”. Sometimes one short cry. Obviously she isn’t asleep. But I can’t figure out if she’s awake-awake or if she’s only semi-awake and falling back asleep. This has been going on for 20 minutes now. I generally only go in there if she actually cries. Guess I’m going to sit here for a while… I’m not going to lay down only to have her crying for me two minutes later! … 15 minutes later I think she put herself back to sleep! Holy smokes!