August 2014 – Over The Deep End

Sunday Funday!

August 27, 2014 No Comments

This past weekend Emerson declared it was going to be “Sunday-Funday!” What is involved in Sunday-Funday, you ask? Well, she decided it would be a blast to only nap in short 15 – 20 minute bursts and then stay awake ALL day.

She slept and ate well the night before, so it’s a mystery as to why she decided to rebel against all normalcy. At least Kyle was home to share the brunt of the work: Rocking, shushing, mamaroo-ing, swaddling and re-swaddling.

In the end she napped on and off in these short bursts. She’d wake up a tad happier, but it always was quick to turn into anger. This pattern could mean one of two things for the night: Emerson would either sleep for a good solid chunk – maybe stretching closer to her longest 6 hour stretches — or she’d sleep in 20 minute bursts and it was going to be one hell of a long night. . .

We managed to get her to sleep during an episode of Doctor Who. Kyle managed this spectacular feat with what we like to call the “Vacuum maneuver” performed with the rock n play. Since it slides so nicely on carpet, we pretend that it’s a vacuum and push her around in an almost “M” like shape. She fell asleep around 8:30ish.

We went to bed around 11. I went to bed thinking, “Any second now, she’ll wake up wanting to be fed… we’d be lucky to make it to midnight, maybe 1:30 if she’s feeling generous.”

Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle, this girl slept until 4am. That’s right folks, she slept for seven and a half glorious consecutive hours. Granted, I was constantly waking up and checking the monitor because I was “SURE” she was about to wake up at any second…

Kyle gave her a bottle and back down she went. I was up at 7 when she started to fuss, so I snuck in and fed her while she settled and went back to snoozing. She woke up a little after 8:30.

Let’s hope we can repeat this nighttime performance, but keeping some daytime naps!

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Two Months

August 25, 2014 No Comments

Dear Emerson Claire,

You have rapidly entered the second month of your life. I still cannot believe how quickly you’ve grown, and continue to grow each and every day. Your second month of life started off a bit rough, as we had to take you to get your 2 month shots. It’s safe to say week 8 was a tough week. You were cranky, tired and hard to soothe.

Thankfully week 9 has turned things around. We’re seeing more and more of your happy, calm, alert self. Don’t get me wrong, we’re still having some evening where the Mamaroo has proven its worth over and over again, but for the most part you’re back to being an easy baby.

One of your favorite things is to sit up and watch the world. You particularly enjoy being outdoors. You’ll hold your head up nice and high, taking in the surrounding as long as your neck muscles allow. I must say, you’re head control is getting better and better every day. It sometimes surprises me how long you can hold your head up by yourself. During tummy time you’re starting to push up more on your hands to lift your head even higher– just so you can look around even more. You still like to scoot around with this semi-army crawl; something the pediatrician says is both exciting to see so early on, but also terrifying (since it most likely means you’ll be a quick learner of crawling/walking).

I’ve started giving you a bath towards the end of the day since you’ve acquired a new skill of drooling. You’re exploring new movements of your mouth, one of which involves repeatedly sticking your tongue in and out of your mouth. You’ll suck on your hands and you’ve figured out how to produce spit bubbles. Needless to say you get quite slobbery towards the evening. I’m also hoping the nice calm bath with help make bedtime easier over time.

You enjoy being in the water now. Before it was just a big cry fest! I’m also figuring out what keeps you calmer in the tub. That’s one of the things- you’re in the big tub already! You love lounging on your tub cushion since it holds lots of warm water in it so it keeps you pretty toasty. In fact, the last two times I put you in the tub you proceeded to give me a wild grin! I’ve noticed that if the water is too cool you are not a happy camper. Sometimes you’ll even kick the water with your feet.

You and I have been busy during the week while Daddy is at work. We go walking on Fridays with our Summer 2014 babies group, we go to our breastfeeding club on Thursdays, and we’ve been getting together with our birthing classmates during the week as well. Don’t forget that we also run errands! I couldn’t think of a better sidekick to have while running errands and doing chores.

Well my little Claire-bear, everyday you look less and less like a generic newborn and more like Emerson… Every day a little more of your personality shines through as well. We’ve been having so much fun watching you grow and learn. Being your Momma rocks.

Baby, sleep

Just go to sleep!

August 17, 2014 1 Comment

Emerson got her two month check up this past Wednesday. She weighed in at 8 lbs 6 oz. She’s 21.5 inches long now, and she still has a big ‘ole noggin. This was the appointment I was dreading! She had to get 8 vaccines; granted, some were combined into the same shot, but it still totaled one oral vaccine and 3 separate shots. Ever since, we’ve had a fussy, cranky, “I hate to sleep”, baby.

Baby that we have

Baby that I miss

Oh, sleeping child, how I miss thee!

Grandma and Grandpa Overdeep had come down this weekend for a visit, and Emerson did nothing but squirm, cry and fuss. There was one twenty minute period of a happy baby complete with lots of smiles and coo’s, but that was about it! It was exhausting.

Again, I miss you sleepy head.

After about 4 hours of Kyle trying to put her down to sleep – and 4 hours of me blocking my ears trying to catch some ZZ’s I pleaded with him:

Happy Baby! (Picture not from this week)

“We just need to go get the mamaroo. It has all those different motions. At this point I’d buy anything to get her to go to sleep. It’s like 300 bucks, but I have a coupon, and I think we just need to go get it. Right now.”

She’s so cute when she’s not screaming!

We talked about it for another 5 or so minutes and decided worse case scenario, we can just return it. At this point, we were the desperate first time parents willing to buy anything and everything that claims it’ll help your baby sleep! The exact parents I had mocked when making our registry. Oh, don’t mind me as a I crawl under this rock here… On the plus side, we got ready to go in under 3 minutes!

Emerson had finally fallen asleep when we got to the store (about 40 minutes before they closed) so we decided to take advantage and do a super quick grocery store run while we were out. We went to two stores, loaded up on groceries, and were headed home all within an hour.

Kyle set up the mamaroo while I fed her one last time. –She had woken up as we were checking out of the grocery store. She settled into the rocking motion, and just like that, out like a light. She proceeded to sleep for about 6 hours. One of her longest stretches. She gobbled up a 4.5 oz bottle at 5am, and then went back to sleep until 8:30. Best two hundred and something bucks we ever spent. The mamaroo was later deemed a gift from Grandma and Grandpa Overdeep, which we can’t thank them enough for.

MamaRoo in all it’s glory

So here’s to outrageously expensive baby equipment, and the willingness to do anything for a few hours of sleep.

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Time

August 11, 2014 No Comments

Time is a funny thing. It seems as it was just yesterday I had a big ‘ole belly, and yet, it seems so long ago that I can’t even remember what it’s like to have a big belly anymore. Emerson continues to change every day. Sometimes it seems she changes overnight. I wake up, and she’s different.

This past week I’ve noticed her newborn lashes are gone. Her blonde, barely there, eye lashes have all but fallen out and been replaced with darker, visible to the world, lashes. She can lift her head a bit higher every day, and yesterday she even accidentally rolled over from her tummy to her back! She can thank her Overdeep sized noggin for that one. She jerked at just the right angle that gravity took over and boop! over she went. Needless to say we were both startled!

Emerson is smiling more and more these days, and I finally managed to catch a few good grins on my phone.

Emmie has expanded her repertoire of sounds these days as well. She’s exploring various coo’s. She continues to grunt, whimper, and cry all mostly thanks to gas.

Yes, time is a funny thing. Babies create a paradox within time; days can feel so long, but weeks just fly by.

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The Things We Cannot Change

August 9, 2014 No Comments

Our nights are getting better, especially mine, now that Kyle does the middle of the night feed for me… But mornings by far are my favorite. Mornings are usually when Emmie decides to practice smiling. Nothing starts the day off better than a huge gummy grin. Trying to capture these elusive smiles has been my goal for quite some time now, so naturally after her morning snack I grabbed my iPad in hopes of catching her smile. I snapped away trying to convince her to smile, but all I managed to accomplish was photograph the progression of her anger.

I abandoned my mission and we decided to snuggle instead. Snuggling quickly turn to passing out (on Emerson’s part) and I scrolled through the various stages of “displeased” I had just captured. I continued scrolling through old photos when I happened across a photo of Claire-bear wearing the same sleeper suit when we first brought her home, that she was currently wearing snuggled in my arms.

I looked at the photo and then looked at the girl sleeping in the crook of my arm; surely they are not the same?? Where had my tiny newborn gone? While she’s only gained a few leg rolls, added a few additional chins, and her hair has lightened and thinned she looks different: older.

I quickly succumbed to a wave of emotion. Just yesterday I was complaining about life in general: how fussy she had been when Oliver accidentally woke her up, how I got stuck with the mom no one else wanted at mommy meetup group, how tired and long my days seem and how out of shape and foreign my post-baby body feels…

And yet, here she lays. The babe that my body grew and brought into this world. She’s just sleeping so soundly in my arms, against my chest, and it was a moment I was about to take for granted. I feel that there are so many moments I’ve already taken for granted. There are things I’ll look back on and think, those were the moments I should have cherished.

I’ve dreamt of motherhood so many nights, and now finally, I am immersed in it, in all it’s glory. These wildly fleeting series of snapshots, so beautiful they can hurt. A love so raw that it feels that your heart might burst into millions of tiny shards. It can seem so daunting at times. I mean, you have this little human relying on you to feed them, comfort them, love them relentlessly, help them grow and learn, shape them into who they will become…

I need to stop worrying about the things I cannot change, trust in my ability as a mother, and learn to enjoy every moment of this beautiful ride in whatever form it comes each day.