Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Easter Weekend

Damon’s parents, Jake and Rita, came to visit last weekend. Apparently, Abby loves people! Rita got in the back seat at the airport, and Abby immediately started talking and smiling to her. She was on her best behavior the whole time. There was almost no fussing for naptimes or bedtime. She enjoyed having so much attention paid to her too. We took her to Sandpoint, which is a small lake community over an hour from here, and she slept the whole way there. She woke up while we ate at a restaurant, and Damon got really nervous, but she drank her bottle and enjoyed the different sights and sounds. Then, she slept the whole way home!

We also started the transition from co-sleeper in our room to crib in her own room on Sunday with her first nap in the crib. She had no problems sleeping in the new bed. She talked to her mobile for a little while, then fell right to sleep. I’ve been laying her in the crib for every nap since. The last few nights, she’s only woken up once at 4am to eat, so if she keeps that up, we might try putting her in the crib for a night this weekend.

While they were here, they bought Abby a high chair. She enjoys the toys it came with. I can’t believe it’s already time for a high chair. I’ve been sitting her in it while I’m in the kitchen, and she seems to really like it. She likes to turn her head to talk to the fish on the seat. She looks so small in it!






Our little family.



Three generations.



Jake and Rita with Abby.

Friday, March 18, 2005

Bigger Than We Thought

I came across this website recently, and was looking at his growth stats for his daughter's first year. I found it interesting that he mentioned she was right about average for weight, but around the 80-95th percentile for height. Of course, I had to compare Abby's stats, and I find Abby's bigger in both weight and height at 2 months. I could've sworn her doctor said she was just below average for both. But she did say that was by eyeballing the chart. I think I must've misunderstood her as far as the height. A quick search netted me this awesome site where I can enter her info and it tells me exactly where she lands based on the same charts her doctor uses. It turns out at 2 months, when Abby was 11 lbs. 11oz. and 24.75" long, she was in the 55th percentile for her weight and the 97th percentile for her height! It looks like she'll be taking after Daddy after all. (She was in the 32nd for weight and 72nd for height at birth)


3 Months

Abby’s 3 months old today. Can you believe it? The first quarter of her first year is gone forever. She really seems to have grown up a lot this month too.

Remember the aquarium? That was the beginning of the end of her evening Screamfests. THANK GOD!!! Since then, she’ll get a little cranky when she gets sleepy, but it’s nowhere near what it was. A week later, we even got her naptimes down. Before, she’d only sleep in the car seat for any length of time without fussing too much. Some days, the only thing that would get her to sleep was if we put her in the car seat in the bathroom and ran the tub. The sound of the running water soothed her. Rocking her in the bathroom was the only thing that would work at the height of Screamfest 2005.



One thing that’s really helped is that I’m trying to put her on a schedule. Basically, we’ve read the books and we’re taking from them what we feel would work for us. For example, this book says that babies should never be awake more than 2 hours at a time. Abby’s typically asleep within an hour and a half, but she’ll only nap for about 45 minutes at a time during the day, so she takes 4-5 naps. Her short naps give me enough time to pump, wash and fill bottles, and maybe eat. When she wakes up, she’s usually all smiles and coos now too. A couple times a week, though, she’ll take a good couple-hour nap. There have been a few rare times when she’s been up longer than 2 hours, and she becomes so cranky. It’s a vicious cycle. She’s tired, but she can’t sleep, so she becomes cranky. The crankier she becomes the more overtired she becomes, and the harder it is to fall asleep.



I’ve also been scheduling her feedings based on this book (great book, by the way). She says that babies Abby’s age don’t need to eat more than every 2.5-3 hours, but they shouldn’t go more than 3 hours during the day. She also suggests “cluster feeding” in the evenings (feeding her ever 2 hours), and doing a “dream feed” around 10-11pm (or as long as I can stay up). Before the dream feed, I change her diaper to wake her up just enough to eat. Supposedly, this should get her to sleep through the night. HAH! For quite a while, she was waking up around 2-3am, 5-6am, and finally 7-8am when she’d wake up for an hour before nodding off until 9-10. Feeding her every 2.5-3 hours has helped during the day, though. Before, I’d feed her when I thought she was hungry, so I started keeping track of it. She was eating about 1.5-2 ounces every hour or two, and now she’s consistently eating 3-4 ounces at a feeding.




This week has been a different story, though. She had been doing so well. When she was younger (like it’s been so long ago!), she was so noisy and twitchy while she slept. It didn’t seem to wake her up, for the most part, though. We actually took her to the doctor because I was worried about her breathing. It seemed that was the cause of it. Of course, she was fine and the doctor told me it was completely normal. She’s since quieted down. For some reason, though, this week Abby’s been waking up around 3am, and she’ll startle herself awake every few minutes. FOR THE REST OF THE MORNING!! Until about 6:30am, when she’ll let me know she’s not going to be sleeping any more. I also had a couple days earlier this week where she would not nap. I would finally get her to take a nap if I lay in bed with her and nursed her. Ironically, getting her to sleep in the evenings has been relatively easy. Sometimes I’d be so tired I’d nap with her, and others I’d get up once she was asleep. Mercifully, that only lasted a couple of days. In fact, it coincided with her learning to roll over.



Watching her roll over is the cutest thing. She’ll rock for a while trying to get over, and she’ll push with her head the way she wants to roll. Once she finally starts to roll, she goes soooo slowly. I feel like I’m watching her in slow motion. It’s funny because I’ll be cheering her on, and once she rolls she’ll look at me like “what’s the big deal?” She doesn’t seem impressed. Lately, she’s been scooting a lot when she sleeps too. She’ll start off in this position.



And end up like this:

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

WE HAVE MOBILITY!!!

Abby just rolled over!! She's been trying to roll over for several weeks now whenever she's on her tummy. She could get an arm and leg up pretty high, but she just didn't have the momentum to actually roll. Until now! I typically lay a blanket or two on the floor to giver tummy time for a few minutes each day. She doesn't like the tummy time. See:



There's usually a lot of grunting and whining when on her tummy. While I had her on the floor, I went to the kitchen for just a minute, and I noticed it was pretty quiet. Sure enough, she'd rolled over! I laid her back on her tummy, and she did it again. She did it 4 times in a row, pushing off her right side. She then tried to push off her left side, but her right arm was in the way and she couldn't figure out how to move it.


Monday, March 14, 2005

Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes



Aren't these the cutest shoes ever?! They're Robeez, and they keep her socks on her feet, so I'm not having to constantly search for that missing sock. There's a boutique in Coeur D'Alene, called Mother's Haven, that sells a ton of pregnancy and nursing stuff. It was only my second time going, but I love it in there. They had every style in every size of these shoes. They're so adorable!

Last week, I started dressing Abby in mostly 3-6 month clothes. I'd been stalling because when she was born, her 0-3 month clothes were huge, so I expected this next size up to be the same at this age. That, and I just didn't want her to grow up. So far, everything has been just a little big, but not much. I've had to roll up the sleeves on some of her sleepers, but her going out clothes fit too well already. I made it official this weekend: her 0-3 month clothes have been packed up and put away. You know, it was difficult to do, but it wasn't as emotional as I'd expected it to be. I just kept looking ahead instead of back, and that really helped. Plus, she has a ton of cute 3-6 month stuff! That's where her clothes become more kiddish than babyish. One thing I learned the hard way is that if an outfit only shows one size, that is the bigger of the two sizes. So, an outfit that says "3 months" is actually 0-3 months. I bought her a couple of cute springy dresses only to find out when they were 0-3, not 3-6 months. After making so much room in her closet, I did notice one thing. She has a ton of 3-6, a lot of 6-9, but only about 3 onesies in 9-12 months. That means it's time to go shopping!



Friday, March 11, 2005

Good Morning, Abby-Style

So, I get my usual 5am wake-up call from Abby this morning, and as we sit down in the glider together to give her a bottle, I notice her back is wet. Her diaper leaked, but luckily it was just pee. That definitely woke me up, though! I had to wake up Damon to bring her a clean outfit and change the changing pad cover once we were done because her outfit was so wet she'd soaked the cover too.

THEN, as I'm feeding her, we hear the tell-tale sound of her going poop. Damon recognized it right away, but I've been fooled before so I just thought it was gas.
Once she was done eating, I put her back on the changing pad to check. Sure enough, she'd pooped. We got her cleaned up, and just as I got a fresh diaper under her tooshie, she pooped some more. We went through about 8 diapers because she kept doing this! It was hilarious! I'd clean her up, lift her legs up to get a diaper under her, and she'd poop some more. This wasn't just a little here and there, either. She kept filling diapers! By the time we were finally done, we had to change her clothes and the changing pad cover again! While trying to clean her and hurrying to get a fresh diaper on, I made a mess of her clothes and the cover. I ended up having to do a load of laundry to clean everything up. All the while we were changing her, she looked at us and laughed in our faces.


Wednesday, March 9, 2005

BFF*

Abby has made a friend. She loves her new friend. If she could, she'd spend all day long talking to him. Whenever she's near him, she laughs and talks to him as long as she can.

Meet Bob.















This is the light fixture in our bedroom. She LOVES to stare at it when she's upset. When she's in a good mood, she'll talk and giggle at it. If she's getting fussy while I'm trying to feed her, I'll position her so she can look at it while she eats, and all is right with the world again. She loves it so much that I named it Bob. Bob is part of the family.




*BFF=Best Friends Forever

Monday, March 7, 2005

Abby is quickly outgrowing her 0-3 month clothes. This was at about 3 weeks. See that long-sleeved shirt peeking out of her left arm? That became a Britney Spears belly shirt a couple of weeks ago.


This is the same sleeper today. It's about time to put it away for good. The sleeves are too short and it's pulling at the crotch and legs when she extends them. She's growing up too fast!


Spending quality time with Daddy after work. Abby's quite the chatterbox these days.Those jeans? 3-6 months! They're already fitting a lot better than when I first bought them a couple of weeks ago. Another month and they won't fit either!

Baby Crack

This is what we lovingly call "baby crack." We were introduced to the Ocean Wonders Aquarium when we spent the night in the hospital with Abby for jaundice. It seemed to calm Abby while she was under the bilirubin lights, at least in the beginning. It definitely calmed our nerves. A few weeks ago, I finally remember to buy one and when we turned it on, she instantly zoned out looking at it. It became a life-saver immediately. When she would get fussy, we'd lay her in her co-sleeper with it on and she'd calm down. As she has become fussier and fussier, it seemed to have the opposite effect, so we quit using it for a while. One day last week, though, she was starting to get really cranky in the evening as she has been doing, so I decided to try it again.

Once again, the lights and music calmed her right down! Since then, when she starts to get sleepy and cranky in the evenings, we'll turn it on and she becomes transfixed. She'll still cry out for us a few times before falling asleep, but I'm not having to rock and bounce and carry her to calm her down anymore. We just hope it lasts!

Friday, March 4, 2005

Can you handle this much cuteness?

She woke up not long after I got out of the shower, so I put her in the car seat and brought her into the bathroom while I dried my hair. She had a great time.







Away she goes!



Her new favorite toy.



She loves to look at herself in our new mirror in our bedroom while I change her.

Wednesday, March 2, 2005

By Request

The many faces of Abby.