5 Years Later...

Me: [meandering over from the kitchen to my honey-man, a sky blue plastic plate in my right hand, carrying my homemade mini-pizza, fresh from the toaster oven. I have a smug smile on my face.] "So, we've been together for FIVE years now. Do you finally admit and accept that you DO like my all my plastic and melamine dishes?"

Mah honey-man: [laying casually on the couch, reading one of his 'application architecture' books after having his own lunch on a dark blue plastic plate, a huge grin spreads on his face as he looks up at me standing over him] "Yes, yes I do. I love them now, especially for my lunches."

Me: "When we met, you hated them. For years you hated them."

Mah honey-man: "Yes, yes, I did, but they're sooo handy."

The latter is precisely the reasoning I'd offered him 5 years ago, as to why I had them.

Why I Love Mah Honey-Man ~ Reason 44

Because he can still make me weak in the knees whenever he comes home from work and gives me a good "ten second kiss" before even taking off his backpack.

Two Weeks Left

I have only TWO WEEKS until I am to resume my full-time employment contract, and my baby sweet potato girl will then begin attending daycare full-time. After this weekend, I will be spending ALL MY WAKING FREE TIME with my baby girlie!

I wrote the above on Friday, September 11th... um, I hope to catch up on some blogging soon (particularly our family blog), whenever my lil' babe is dreaming away come her bedtime, that is, if I can keep my own eyes open for more than an hour after she's hit the hay.

Our Sicky Baby is, um, well, Still Sick

I'm That Tired

This morning, I nearly left for work without any shoes on -- really, I did. I had my arms and hands loaded and I was headed to the garage, to my car, to leave for work...without my shoes!

And tonight? I just came downstairs after taking my shower, during which, I'd discovered I was still wearing my sunglasses on my head. Yeah.

I will be going to bed as soon as I click 'publish post' here (and finish with my mama-dairy 'pumping').

09-09-09

My mum would have been 56 years old today. Man, what I wouldn't give...

Sicky Baby

Late Wednesday night, our lil' girlie woke up in the night with a super stuffy nose, but once we had her humidifier running, she managed to sleep 6 hours straight. By this morning , however, it became official: Our lil' baby sweet potato girl has her first cold. Her eyes have been watery, she's sneezing here and there, coughing whenever laid down flat. Her nose began to run an hour ago and we now have a light fever of 99.9 registered on the thermometer... and this is all in time for her big brother's first weekend stay in Vegas since his new school year began in UT. Lovely.

She was with me at work today... we had a very productive day together (heavy sarcasm).

She'd been in daycare for 2 weeks and already, she's sick!

Ah ha! Total nerd now, posting via Blackberry!

Testing...

Nappy Times

Okay, so daycare began well. Now we just gotta work on the sweet potato girl's concept of nap time, both morning and afternoon. She used to run like clockwork, but ever since she hit the 4 months mark, nappy time hasn't been all that consistent. And now that she's in daycare, it seems she will no longer embrace the idea of a morning nap for any longer than 10-3o minutes at a time. The afternoons at home are no better unless she's glued to my side, or rather, to a boob. We did quit napping in her beloved swing weeks ago, about the same time she moved from her bassinet to her crib - - Yeah, absolutely no more 'based-upon-swing-motion' napping, that became the rule once I found out swings don't exist at her daycare. So now she's gotta learn to fall asleep simply because she's tired.

The ladies at her daycare tell me they have to rock her, more often than not, to get her to doze off, but that either way, she tends to fight nap time. It's not that she'll cry or protest (yet). She'll lay in their arms, drowsy as all heck, rubbing her eyes while smiling and cooing quietly, simply refusing to give it up and just conk out. And they say that once she does finally pass out, they'll lay her down in her crib, and she'll either wake up immediately or 10-30 minutes later. Today she had one 10 minute nap, and then an hour later, a nap for 25 minutes.

I arrived yesterday right when they had laid her down. The young lady in charge of her that day told me with a huge grin and a laugh that it was her 3rd time getting her to fall asleep that morning (and I'm hoping they continue to handle her refusal to nap in the same jovial manner weeks from now). By the time I had my jellybean's bottle bag in hand and had signed her charts, etc. etc., my lil' girlie had turned on her side and was smiling at me from her crib from across the room. Lil' stinker!

She just doesn't want to miss out on anything... sounds a lot like someone else I know (guilty grin spreading across my own mug).

Okay, I'm Ready Now: Our Babe's Daycare Dealio

Last week was mah baby sweet potato girl's very first week of daycare, and I gotta say it went very, very well. Yup, this mommie is very, very pleased.

First of all, I had told myself to expect some tears that first week. So, when I picked her up around 11:30am on her first day, and I found her wailing away in the arms of her group's head teacher, I wasn't too alarmed. They were both sitting on the floor on a playmat together and mah baby girlie was upright, clutching her white silky blanket to her face with big fat baby tears streaming down her chubby cheeks. I had actually heard and identified her crying from outside the entrance to her group's room, so I wasn't at all surprised when I saw her...

SOME BACKGROUND INFO: Whenever my lil' jellybean cries, there is normally a very particular and identifiable reason, and it's usually easy to stop her tears and quickly at that. We've found that the only times she'll wail inconsolably is when, 1) she has either unrelieved tummy bubbles or major fluffies [IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE: Baby girls do not fart! They 'fluff'.]; or 2) she's fried due to some kind of significant unrelenting over-stimulation (like after withstanding the first 5 hours of a loud, seven-hour-long, 11-innings baseball game on the 4th of July).

So, anyhow, I could hear her from outside, and it was no wonder to me why she was upset... Two other babies were totally screaming bloody murder, crying their little eyes out with such intensity, it was incredible! Immediately upon my arrival in the room, her teacher confirmed my suspicion: She'd been totally fine all morning long until one of the baby boys, poor lil' guy, had begun to scream uncontrollably (I knew which one too, as he'd been crying like that the first time we'd met him), and after 10 minutes of his crying, both she and the other baby boy couldn't take it any longer and they lost their cool.

So how is she coping this week with the other babies' upsets? When I picked her up today, that same lil' tyke was once again screaming his lil' head off, but this time around, my baby girlie was lying beside one of the daycare ladies, playing on a playmat placed no more than 2 feet away from him, blissfully happy, smiling and gumming some toy. Yeah, she's doing well.

Baby's Pretend Upright Bass

Last Friday night, or rather, early last Saturday morning, ohhh, about 4am-ish in the midst of feeding mah hungry baby girlie, something funny happened. She was entirely docile, eyes closed, all relaxed and limp like a ragdoll... but her tiny left hand kept reaching up and slowly taking hold of the gathered elastic neckline of my pajama top, and then she'd pull her little hand back and away from me, to then let go of it with a soft thudding noise. She did this over and over, kind of moving in slow-mo, reaching and plucking the neckline of my top like it was a rubberband or an upright bass. The sound it was making actually woke my honey-man, and as he raised his head from the bed to peer at us in the dark, he began to quietly giggle, seeing and realizing what it was she was doing and taht she was 1/2 asleep while at it, no less.

Can you say, WAY. TOO. CUTE. -?

A Recent Picture of My 5th Month Old Daughter

DayCare Update: Coming Soon

Parenting Under Pr-Pr-Pr-Pressure

I haven't been able to write about this before now, cuz I've been trying reeealllly hard to keep my s*** together this morning. See, today's my baby's first day at daycare. We went to the open house for her classroom last Friday, which was immensely reassuring, but dang, this is a freakin' hard pill to swallow.

For the next month, before my part-time contract expires come the end of September, we'll be transitioning into this new 'baby-in-daycare' phase of our lives, meaning she'll only spend 1/2 her day at daycare, in the mornings. Her daddy's gunna drop her off around 8am and then I'll be picking her up between 11:30 and noontime. Shouldn't be too bad -right? We only have 5 weeks of this part-time arrangement though. Thereafter, it will be full-time daycare from then on, year round. This last statement makes me wanna bawl.

Arrgghhh... My stomach is in such topsy turvy knots!!! And she's not even there yet!

It feels wrong to have someone other than myself caring for my daughter for the majority of her day. I don't care how common it is or how many people have to do the very same thing and blah, blah, blah, whatever! It feels W-R-O-N-G! I've read countless books and I've read some of the actual research [yes, I've sought out and read some of the research journals written regarding the subject of daycare and how it affects a child's emotional and intellectual development], and I know she'll be technically fine, as will I, but I can't describe this raw and aching pain I feel in my gut and in my heart. It just hurts! Blak.

I'm hoping that come time for me to pick her up four hours fro now, I'll find a happy baby - - somehow though, I'm certain this will throw her for a loop. She'll be all wide-eyed and fascinated for the first couple hours, but by 11am, she'll be fried. We'll see. Details tomorrow.

5 Years Ago...

... mah honey-man and I, we went out on our first date! Can't believe it's been five years since we met!? And our 2nd wedding anniversary is just around the corner. Mmmm... I love him so!

I Love You Too, but PLEASE GO TO SLEEP!

Last Wednesday night amounted to more of the same when compared to this past Tuesday night = NO SLEEP FOR THIS MOMMIE. Thursday morning, I had to present myself as a knowledgeable person-in-charge, speaking at an orientation. It was a miracle I didn't wind up tripping over my own feet that day, I was so dead tired. Sooo last night, after 5 hours in the office and an afternoon juggling zee wee one while working from home, I decided we were going to try for an uber early approach to baby's bedtime. She usually bathes around 7pm, but we had her in the tubby by 6pm, and I fed her at 7pm and topped it off with a 2 oz bottle with extra cereal, which she ate while I rocked and sang to her in her bedroom... and begged her to please sleep through the night. I laid her down in her crib by 7:40pm and she was fast asleep in five minutes' time... AND SHE SLEPT UNTIL FIVE AM!

And so, this morning at work, I was as happy as could be (amazing what some good sleep can do for a person), and I had a spring back in my step for the first time this week. And my baby girlie? She was soooo smiley this morning and has been such a darling all day, today, well rested and happy. A friend's 13 year old was watching her for me this morning while I was at work, and the two were situated together in a room 2 doors down the hall from my office. Throughout the morning, I could clearly hear my darling babe cooing, giggling, and laughing, and occasionally they'd come past my open office door and my baby sweet potato girl was all baby drool n' dimples! And she even took a nap! Bless you, Millie! And thank the creators of baby rice cereal! Or maybe it was just a fluke - - or maybe it was the earnest begging? We'll see if we duplicate the same circumstances tonight and wind up with the same result!

I Wrote Too Soon, Part II

The night before last, our sweet potato girl went to bed at 8pm, and she woke up at midnight, 2am, 3am, 4am and 5am. Apparently, once more, I wrote too soon...

And so, yesterday morning, I was a bit of a zombie at work. And after work, after picking up my baby girl, I failed to get a nap, and then I didn't get to bed until 10:30pm last night. She woke up hungry at 11:30pm and again at 3am. And she was up for the day at 6:20-ish am. If she keeps this up, I think I may be dead by Friday.

I Wrote Too Soon!

Not only is she sleeping in her crib now, I guess she's on her way (I hope, I hope) to sleeping through the night again (all fingers and toes crossed, let it be true! oh let it be true!). After writing this yesterday, she wound up sleeping for SEVEN HOURS straight last night! Oh yes, bless her darling lil' bottom! ~ Yup, seven uninterrupted hours of sleep. *sigh* And what bliss it was! She went down for bed at her usual 8pm and she didn't wake up until a little after 3am, at which point I fed her and then she went back to sleep.

What do I think the difference was? - - I suspect is was the TWO tablespoons of cereal I'd given her in 3 ounces of expressed milk, plus a feeding just before that = Mah girlie had a full, full belly! And so, of course, we tried that again tonight. By the morning, we'll know if it worked again...

So Far, So Fantastic

Well, our baby sweet potato girl has been sleeping in her crib for 3 nights in a row now, and tonight, being her 4th night, she went down for her bedtime and was out like a light in less than a minute! Sooo, I think it's safe to say her transition from the bassinet to the crib has been flawlessly smooth thus far. I know it hasn't even been a week yet, so I realize things could change like night and day without a moment's notice, but I'm pretty pleased so far. The only thing I miss about the bassinet is getting to be right there in the morning to see her little mug when she first wakes up for the day ~ She's ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE when she first wakes up for a new day! Although I now can't see her the very moment her lil' eyes first open, we can still hear her when she wakes up for the day, with her cooing and gurgling and blowing raspberries, making lil' 'aaah-ha' noises and stuff = also very adorable. Yeah, whenever she wakes up, especially in the night, we can hear her from our bedroom well enough to easily determine if she'll either settle herself back down without help or will need one of us to snag her before she becomes hysterical.

I hadn't mentioned any of this before now, but we decided to move her to her crib for several reasons.
1) Thought it might be good to sleep without hearing every lil' sigh that starts me wide awake in a second.
2) I had said she'd only be in our room for couple months (although I did admit later I was so crazy wrong).
3) She was basically gettin' too freakin' big for her bassinet (that's the real short of it).
4) She could actually kick the upper rim of the bassinet with her little feet, waking herself in the process.
5) She would scoot herself up and into the head rim of the bassinet, again, waking herself up.
6) She would bring her blankets up over her face and they'd stay there since there was too little room around her anymore. These following pics were taken last Saturday night. Ever since that night, she's been sleeping in a Halo SleepSack!

This totally freaked me out to find her like this!

Okay, so yeah, she's safely and comfortably sleeping in her crib now and it's going well. However, she's still will not return to those wonderful days we enjoyed when she was sleeping 9 hours straight through the night. She's always waking at least twice now, usually around midnight-ish - 1AM, and then again sometime between 3AM - 5AM. A week ago, when my honey-man went out of town for a conference, I caved the very first night I was alone with the girlie without him = I gave her a tablespoon of rice cereal in a bottle with 1.5 ounces of expressed milk. Yup, total pansy, I am. And it didn't work at all, in that she was still up multiple times throughout that night, hungry almost every time like a ravenous lil' piglet. I tried the cereal one more night while he was away, but no luck then either.

Wellll, the last two nights in a row now, we've given her cereal in a bottle with some Pedialyte, and each night, we've enjoyed a 5 hour stretch of sleep between when she's put to bed and when she wakes for the first time. The cereal --and remember too, it's just one little tablespoon as the portion-- has also changed the consistency of her diapers, for sure. Oh boy, yes it has. They're not tooo bad yet, but the days of semi-sweet (comparatively) exclusively breast-fed diapers are over now.

At first I was feeling guilty about giving her some cereal before she's reached 6 months. More so, I've also been nervous about how it will effect my 'production,' but yesterday, we met an 8 month old and a 6 month old, and both of them were her size. Yeah. Not feeling guilty so much anymore; still a bit nervous, but not feeling guilty. She's a big girl and SHE'S HUNGRY, and at night, before her bedtime, I just can't keep up with her hunger! We'll see how the next couple weeks go.