Sleep

Last night Lena went seven hours between feedings.  The night before, she went six hours between feedings. Which means I got four and a half hours if sleep! In a row. I was giddy with excitement.  Could this be a trend?!  *Fingers crossed*

I've been reading a lot about infant/baby sleep and trying to set Lena up to have healthy sleep habits. It's a bit overwhelming and daunting. If you rock her to sleep now, she'll never go to sleep on her own! Put her down when she's drowsy, not asleep! Let her sleep in your room! Transition her to her own room! Let the baby cry it out! Don't ever let a baby cry it out! If you develop bad habits now, they're horribly difficult to reverse later!. I'm trying to cut us some slack and just do what works and feels natural. So far, it seems to be working. *Knock on wood*

For the past six weeks, Lena's slept in a portable crib in our room. I'm both ready and reluctant to transition her to her big crib in her own room. She grunts and sighs for 15 to 30 minutes before she fully wakes. This wakes me up and is definitely reducing the quality of my sleep. If she were in the other room, I'd only wake up when she cries and fully wakes.

Any reluctance on my part is all about my emotions (which I fully recognize is not a valid reason to delay). At first, it was about convenience. But when I wake to feed her, I need to get up, go in the other room to change her diaper, and then go on the couch to bottle and breast feed her. So there's really no difference whether she's in our room or the other room. Right now it's entirely about me feeling comforted by her being nearby. Not only does it quell my OCD (it's a lot easier to peek over the side of the bed with a flashlight to check that her blanket isn't swaddled around her too high than to walk in the other room to check, or God forbid! trust that I did it correctly and not check) but it also feels good to have her near me. We spent her first nine months with her in me and the last six weeks with her very near me. Having her nearby feels comfortable.

It's this last reason that makes me know I need to rip this band aid off. Because in seven weeks I return to work and she won't be near me for eight hours at a time (sob!). Because I never wanted to have a child sleep in our bed or even our room. Because I've had sleep issues for the majority of my life and don't want to pass them onto her,

There's a lot of responsibility that goes along with this parenting stuff ;)

 

 

Disclaimer:  I would never let her sleep like this alone.  She fell asleep while feeding and I covered her while pumping, seated on the couch right next to her.

Party of Four

Since I don't have a gym membership, my main form of exercise has been walking/running the dogs in my neighborhood. Which has been great for the dogs - they each lost 10 pounds of flab this past year - until I underwent surgery and had to take 4 weeks off of exercising. The first three weeks after Lena's birth, they were awful! Especially Puck. He would jump up and run to the back door every time I shifted or stood up. I kept threatening to find them foster homes for the month.

So when I was cleared to resume walking last week, I was excited to get out of the house and exercise the dogs again. But I wondered how well it would go with the addition of a stroller. The dogs often pull me so that they can stop and mark a bush, etc.

Yesterday I decided it was time to try out a walk. It had rained for a few days and the dogs were overdue. Much to my amazement, they were FANTASTIC. Puck stayed right by my side and did not pull or try and stop once. Nugget stayed on Puck's other side and only tried to pull over a few times. We passed all the houses with vocal dogs and the didn't get overexcited or lunge for the gate. We even passed the greyhounds and their crazy owner (both dogs have been bit by the male greyhound) and they didn't flinch. The best part was when a fire truck passed us and Puck started howling (so cute!). I was so proud of them; they realized with the baby they needed to be on their best behavior!

Lena at 1 Month

Lena,
You are one month old today! I can't say this month has flown by - in fact it seems to be trudging along rather slowly! But I wouldn't have it any other way; I'm relishing my time with you. At 1 Month, you:

-Have started smiling. Your smiles are my favorite thing in the entire world! You don't give them out frequently but when you do, you focus on the person and give them a huge grin. It can't be confused for anything else but a smile.

-Use your hands a lot. You like to cover your face with them when you're eating and you also use them to grasp onto my shirt, your blankets, and your bottle. You really look like you're trying to hold your bottle.

-Are much more alert than you used to be. You've started skipping your first morning nap and are also awake from 6 pm -8 pm. I call this time "Unhappy Hour" (no drink specials here). A friend of mine dubbed this time the "witching hour" with her daughter - such an appropriate term! You're a bit fussy and require to be held during this time. Though from what I've heard, your "fussy" is nothing compared to what it could be. When you're awake, you like to stare at lights and walls that are lit up.

-Are sweet and cuddly. Unless you're hungry (when you cry) you're content to lay on someone's chest and snuggle. It is heaven. We often sit like this for up to an hour after you feed, just because we both love it so much. That and if I put you in your bassinet, you wake up. :)

-Are social. You must take after your daddy, because you have no problem being held by strangers. You'll snuggle right up on them.

-Have started your babbling words. Your first is "a-goo." I have no idea what it means in your language, but you say it very clearly and with intent. When I repeat it to you, you smile.

-Make the funniest faces. It's hard to catch them all on camera, but you frown, furrow your brow, smile, purse your lips, roll your tongue ...

When I went to take your 1 month pictures in our new recliner, I put your stuffed fox next to you so we can track your growth. You turned your head, looked at it, opened wide, and latched onto his nose. No milk though!

Here are a few of the many faces you make:

 

 

BART baby

During my one month post-partum check up on Tuesday, I took away two key pieces of information. One: I was released to do light exercise (swimming, walking, yoga), yay! Two: I very badly needed to resume physical therapy for my pudendal nerve (the reason I has a scheduled C-Section). As luck would have it, there was an opening on Thursday morning at 9 am, so I took it. Having been a weekly visitor, the office staff knows me well and said if I was feeling up to it, I should bring Lena so they could meet her. Since Mike teaches on Thursdays, I didn't really have a choice so Lena was going to visit San Francisco for the first time!

I'll admit I was nervous. Babies are unpredictable. I had visions of her getting hungry and crying for the 32 minute BART ride. Or, more realistically, her getting hungry and me breastfeeding on BART. I literally cannot listen to her cry. I have a very visceral reaction and NEED to calm her. I am 100% sure I would breastfeed her on BART just to make her happy. It's not the breastfeeding in public aspect that horrifies me here. It's the a) potential calliber of people on BART I'd be entertaining (and eliciting comments from) and b) see my blog post on the study on the cleanliness of BART seats. There would be copious amounts of antibacterial hand sanitizer added into the equation.

However, I wasn't going to let the fact that I was nervous prohibit me from bringing her. If I could just get over the first time, subsequent times would be easy. So, I made sure to give myself plenty of time and we set out. I fed Lena right before we left and as usual, the car ride to BART (even though it's only 3 min) put her to sleep. And she stayed asleep throughout the train ride. And my physical therapy appointment. I had visions of a frustrating appointment spent calming her down but she rocked it! Since it had been three hours since she ate and the doctor's office is in Union Square, I set off for the ladies lounge at Macy's to feed her. She literally woke up as we were walking into the bathroom. Our walk in Union Square lulled her back to sleep and she slept through me grabbing lunch, riding on BART, and an hour after that. Of course, she was up for six hours after that, but I won't complain. We both went to bed at 6:30 pm tonight.

Success!



Getting ready to leave with dad



Waiting on the BART platform



Sleeping on BART (and yes, after I took the picture, the screens went up!)

Sleeping through her first visit to Union Square

 

Union Square getting ready for Christmas with 200 foot creepy Brady Pitt in the background

A rare awake moment during the trip

 

Oh, I do miss BART.  Here's a guy feeding a husky on his back in the Powell station.

 

On the train ride home

Four hours later; not a nap in sight.

 

Smiles

This weekend, at about 3.5 weeks, Lena had some exciting accomplishments. My hands-down favorite is she began giving us genuine smiles - definitely not to be confused with gas! If you're holding her and she's content with a full belly she'll stare at your face. If you give her a big smile and talk in a silly or sweet voice, she'll give you a big toothless grin. It makes your heart happy. Since she was born, I've been asking Mike "do you think she loves me or do you think she just sees me as her food source?" When she smiles at me, I know the answer to that question. I took the picture below at 2:30 am after a feeding (explains the poor quality).

The other notable accomplishment is that she's spending a lot more time entertaining herself and actually falling asleep on her own. Before she was born, we set up a Pack 'N play with the bassinet insert assuming that would be her temporary crib for the first month. She did not like to sleep in it. She would fall asleep all cuddly and swaddled in your arms and the moment you out her in it she would wake up crying. I wondered if it was too drafty for her, since it was under the window. So, I swapped it with the smaller Pack 'N Play cradle I scored (in brand new condition for $30!) at a garage sale and moved it away from the window. She took one successful nap in it and then decided it was not for her. By now I was really exhausted. The only time I'd get any sleep was when I'd lay on my back on the couch, and wrap her in my arms in my chest. I never purposefully fell asleep this way. I'd wake up two hours later, simultaneously relieved to have gotten some rest and terrified that it was with her sleeping on me. Despite sleeping like a corpse my entire life, I had visions of me rolling over onto her or her rolling off and suffocating into a pillow or the mattress (Baby Care classes use SIDS threats to scare the cosleeping out of you). Even though I really like the feeling if sleeping with her, I knew I was too paranoid to make it a habit. Then, one if my friends, whose daughter is about five weeks older than Lena, told me about the Fisher Price Rock 'N Cradle. It has been a godsend.

We used that original Pack N Play for tummy time and she's starting to have more interest in things in there. It's fun to see her gain more and more interest.  



A big smile during a 2 am feeding
 

Tummy time on the activity mat (she always rolls on her side)

Sleeping on mom

Swaddled in her Rock 'N Cradle

Templeton

Our cat, Jasper, adopted us the first day I moved to Oregon. Mike had moved in already and I came up about a month later. The first night, after dinner, Jasper followed us up the stairs, ate a leftover piece of shrimp (just the start of his begging) and decided we would be the perfect couple to feed and house him.

Fast forward five years.

Jasper is one of those stereotypical, I'll-love-you-when-I-want-food, pet-me-when-I-want-it cats. The only times he's affectionate are when 1) he's really sick or 2) we're moving. He absolutely FLIPS when we move (and this is our fourth move with him). He was abandoned when he found us and I'm pretty sure he's terrified that we'll leave him, too. So when I scored a truckload of free boxes on Craigslist this week and threw them all in the garage, he started flipping out. Gone was our aloof cat. In his place was a super needy, clingy replica. That first night, he woke us up with his cries EVERY hour all night long. I gave him more food. He woke me up. I let him out the front door. He ran to back of the house, came through the kitty door, and woke me up. He sat staring at me while I slept and would let out little "MEOWs". He sat on my laptop while I tried to work. He cried outside the bathroom while I took a shower. For a few days there, I was exhausted. Then, he calmed down a bit. Until two nights ago.

I was awakened at 1 am by Mike, who very calmly said: "Babe, wake up, there's a gopher in our bed." Thinking that Mike was either a) sleep-talking (which he never does) or b) pulling my leg , my reply: "Shut up." I mean, the guy was completely composed! Here's a rundown of our conversation after that:

"No, Christy, wake up. There's a gopher in the bed." Again, completely composed.

"Shut up."

"Babe, I just felt it's f-ing foot. I'm serious! There's a gopher in our bed. Jasper brought it in and put it on me. I thought it was Merlin so I started petting it and then I felt it's foot. Can you please turn the light on so I can get it out!"

"Oh, SHIT! Okay." Turns to side table to turn light on. Light bulb is out (has been for about a week). Jumps out of bed and runs to doorway light switch. "Ok, on the count of three, I'm going to turn the light on. One, two, three...." Simultaneously turns light switch on and bolts down hallway to bathroom. Locks herself in bathroom. Yells through door: "Okay, just get it out, I don't want to look at it."

" Are you serious?" Laughing. "You've trapped rats for two jobs! You scraped dead rats out of cages in Hawaii! How can you not be able to look at this?"

"I dunno, it's in my house, it's in our bed, I can't! Just through it away, PLEASE!" Not composed.

"Okay."

Listens to Mike's steps as he walks from bedroom to garage and pens garage door. Hears a little bit of clanging. Garage door shuts again. Slowly opens door and peers through it. No one in hallway. Steps out of bathroom. Mike jumps into the doorway, holding a dead rat wrapped partially in a sock. "Who ate all the pecan sandies? Charlotte? I named him Templeton! Get it, after Charlotte's web?"

"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

New Year, back to blogging

Yikes, I have been baaaaad about posting. So much for last year's New Years Resolution. Here's a recap of the last twelve months in one sentence each:

January: Long weekend in Tahoe

February: Started a book club and met great girls

March: Mike's birthday night out: great night, queue 36 hour hangover

April: Became President of the Morro Coast Audubon Society

May: Competed in my first 10k - but ran 10k before the race, so it was really a 20k

June: Completed my first half-marathon

July: Began tearing up the backyard to relandscape

August: The kids I used to nanny came to visit - they've grown up!

September: Got another year older, celebrated 3 years of marriage

October: Started taking a kick-your-ass yoga class weekly

November: Helped our friends move to the Central Coast from Santa Cruz

December: Started physical therapy for the third time in my life