This morning I woke up gushing with extra milk. I must have fed Sophia from the wrong side during her 3am snack. I had a hard time going back to sleep after she ate then I woke up around 5 and couldn’t go back to sleep. By six I was in pain but I didn’t pump cause I figured she would wake up soon. The later it got the more I thought, “oh, she’ll be up any minute now”. She finally woke up at a quarter to seven and I was quite ready to feed her. Unfortunately she was more interested in looking at the night light beside the bed. Ok fine. I covered her face and turned on the room light then turned off the night light. Now pay attention kid! Nope. The little shit just wanted to play with her newest toy – her damn feet!
Category Archives: Pregnancy and Motherhood
I have feet!
Sophia discovered her feet yesterday and has made diaper changes more difficult. She already insists that she keep her knees tucked into her armpits when we change her but now she also has to hang onto her feet. This morning Kurt stayed home sick and Sophia would not cooperate in keeping quiet so daddy could sleep. I tried everything but nothing calmed the little fuss budget until I took her socks off and laid her in her bassinet so she could play with her toes. She actually used her feet and legs to spin herself around so that she could play with the toys dangling above her and she was able to push the button on one of them that played music for her.
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Nighttime sleep
Before we changed the rules on Sophia and started sending her to bed at eight at night, I would nurse her when she became hungry at around nine. Then I sit there holding and rocking her until she was in a deep enough sleep that her body was limp and I could tip toe to her crib gently setting her down usually at ten but sometimes at eleven/midnight/or the always lovely two in the morning. Now I can reliably go upstairs do our half-hour routine and set her in her crib half awake without doing specially choreographed dancing around eggshells type of maneuvers. Sometimes she falls asleep right away and other times we’ll hear, “ah-heh ah-heh” for a few minutes before she’s out.
From birth she’s been really good about sleeping at night only waking me once a night for a feeding and then going back to sleep for another four hours. Up until last night going back to sleep meant she got to sleep next to mom. Dad would enter in the morning to see us side by side sleeping in the same position. I never intended to start “co-sleeping” but when we first brought her home I didn’t want to be away from her at all. I was also afraid I wouldn’t wake up to her cries until she’d been at it for hours if I slept in another room. After a month and Kurt went back to work I still slept on the spare bed in her room so that Kurt wouldn’t be disturbed in the middle of the night, but when I wake up on a Saturday morning such as this Saturday to her turning her head back and forth so hard that she actually scoots herself up to me and then continues pounding her head into my spine till I wake up, it’s time for me to sleep in my own room. Last night I thought I’d try it. I even put her back in her crib half awake after her 2:30 feeding and all I heard was, “ah-heh ah-heh” and she was out! Yay!
This afternoon Kurt put her down in her crib for a nap. She started to wail, but it only lasted a minute and she was asleep. WOO!! Now if only I could have her let me sleep past 6:30 in the mornings. 
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Fun words
Last night as I was changing Sophia’s diaper getting her ready for bed Kurt stood on the side saying, “nAkkid, nnnAkiid” and Sophia was smiling and giggling at every utterance. Apparently, she likes the word naked.
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Splish splash bath
For about the first month of her life Sophia was ok with baths, and then she changed her mind about them. A couple of weeks ago I gave her a bath that she was tolerant of and Thursday she decided she loved it. Sophia discovered splashing and she flailed her arms and legs about smiling and giggling.
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Wordless Wednesday: House Heater
Baby sleep battles
Monday last week at Sophia’s doctor appointment he checked her ears and throat and all is well. Friday and Saturday were actually her worse two days although she was a little grumpy on Sunday. By Monday, all she had left of her cold was a runny nose. The doctor said that we could always give her some baby Tylenol because she can get the same achy pains adults do with their colds.
While we were in the office, we told the nurse about Sophia’s napping habits or lack thereof. There have been times the child has stayed up for 12 to 14 hours straight, or only had a couple ten-minute naps during the day. She might fall asleep when nursing but as soon as I set her down she’s wide-awake, and I’m not about to hold her ALL DAY LONG. Car rides usually work but we didn’t invest in one of those detachable infant carriers so she wakes up when the ride is over and we actually have to go in the store or back in the house.
Picture taken 12/30/2007. The non-sleeping little bastard. 
I use a front pack when I go grocery shopping that she’ll sometimes fall asleep then too, but getting back into the car wakes her up again. I know those detachable infant car seat carriers make things easier when at a restaurant and just going in and out of the car to run errand all over town without disturbing the baby, but then you have to carry the weight of the seat and the child and that gets HEAVY! I’d rather carry a 15-pound baby against my body than a 15-pound baby with a 10-pound seat by hand. Those seats can be expensive and aren’t used for very long anyway. Sophia will be able to sit up on her own in about three months (probably less) so she’ll be able to sit in restaurant highchairs and shopping carts soon besides, her lack of napping is more of a problem on the days that I stay home. – I haven’t figured that one out either.
I would wear the front pack around the house but about the only chore I can do with it on is vacuum the house and we don’t have much carpet. I’ve tried hauling laundry up and down the stairs with her in the front pack and I do ok, but I don’t think bending down to put clothes into the drier is good for my back, and folding laundry would require much longer arms. The same goes for doing dishes and loading the dishwasher with her attached to my front.
So the doctor gave us a printout that was meant to help parents get their baby to bed at night, but he said we might be able to get some tips from it for napping. Because that day Sophia had not slept at all during the day we took the opportunity to use the suggested techniques to switch her usual bedtime from 10pm to 8pm. This special technique was basically – put the kid to bed and let her cry herself to sleep. Oh GOD was it hard!
It said to develop a bedtime routine that starts about thirty minutes before bedtime and that the baby needs to associate the crib with falling sleep instead of falling asleep in my arms. She also needs to learn to calm herself to sleep without me holding her, swaying, driving, using “white noise”, standing on my head, or juggling axes lest she later learns to wake up in the middle of the night without needing to be fed and require me to juggle the axes some more.
The routine I started was to change her diaper, put her in nightclothes, close the curtains, put some of her baby things away for the night, turn on the nightlight, and offer to nurse her even if she just ate thirty minutes ago. I nursed her until she showed her usual sign of not being hungry which is to attach and detach A LOT and look up and smile at me. The looking up and smiling at me is what made the next step so incredible difficult because she was being all cute and sweet and here I am about to do something that I know she’ll hate. I put her in her crib still awake like the magic doctor sheet said to do. I kissed her and told her goodnight. She smiled and cooed. Oh why do you have to make it so difficult? I made the “goodnight” brief just like the magic doctor paper said and I left the room. She quietly entertained herself for a few minutes and then the crying, screaming and crocodile tears began. According to our directions, we were to check on the baby every five to fifteen minutes and talk softly to her without any harshness in our voices. Visits should be brief and boring. We could give her kisses, hold her hands, etc. But under no circumstances were we to pick her up (well ok maybe if there’s a fire we can pick her up). We were to only be in the room for a minute and you know that Kurt was very precise following each guideline to the letter. I pointed out that our directions gave no time limit for the whole process. I mean at what point each night do you just give in and start over the next night? Because she eats about every two hours during the day we decided if she isn’t asleep in that time I could pick her up to feed and change her. Every ten minutes we took turns to go check on her. On my turns, Kurt came with me because he didn’t trust that I wouldn’t pick her up and only stay a minute. The torture ended after an hour and a half when Sophia threw in the towel.
I didn’t follow this technique with naps because to try it four times a day would just drive me insane and I think it would just be too much. Despite me not changing anything during the day, Tuesday was a breeze. She took three good naps (each lasting about an hour) and fell asleep within thirty minutes that night. Wednesday she took three ok naps (each only lasting about 30 minutes) and took an hour and a half to fall asleep that night. Thursday was a no nap day and it took an hour and a half to get her to sleep that night. I blame Kurt for falling for the old, “I need a drink of water” routine. On one of his turns to check on Sophia, he checked to see if she was hungry by letting her use his pinky as a pacifier. He didn’t realize that’s all she was doing was using it to calm herself. I tried to nurse her and knew right away that she wasn’t actually hungry but I sat with her anyway just as much for her comfort as my own. Friday and Saturday night we only had to check on her once on each night. Sunday night she actually prompted me to check the time when she started to fall asleep while nursing – it was 7:30! Not only was she right on cue but that night she slept right through the night for NINE AND A HALF HOURS STRAIGHT!! Monday night and tonight she fell right to sleep on her own. Each night the screaming a wailing became more fussing than calling out to save her life which was nice, and with exception to Saturday she did pretty well with naps too.
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Wordless Wednesday: Baby Quilt
Not made with real babies.
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Friend, Old and New
When Kurt was a baby, his mom made him a blanket from scraps of yarn. From the stories I’ve heard along with the fact that he still has this “blanket” in our closet I’d say that he has an unnatural attachment to it. It was crochet with red and blue flowers and there had apparently been another color made with an angora yarn which baby Kurt didn’t like – He chewed all of the angora flowers off and spit them out.
Toddler Kurt named his blanket “friend” and used it as his superhero cape. One time when young Kurtie was sick he had “friend” balled up next to him and Kurt’s mom came by to cover him up with another blanket. Young Kurtie protested, “No, you’ll cover his eyes”. Kurt’s mom looked down to see “friend” arranged in such a way that two previously flowered gaping holes were staring back at her.
Young Kurtie was also upset every time his mother decided “friend” needed a washing. Kurt would stand at the washer the whole time and then watch “friend” tumble in the drier. Kurt would then complain that “friend” had lost its smell and proceed to rub “friend” all over himself to get the smell back.
This year for Christmas, I unwrapped all of the presents for Sophia. A couple of her presents were specifically from Kurt and I was not privy to their contents. The first present I opened on Sophia’s behalf from him was a green and white striped onesie with blue lettering that read, “I (green heart shape) Mommy”. All together now, “aaawwwww, how sweet!” The second present was his old “friend”, which would have been a very nice sentiment if “friend” wasn’t a stringy thirty-five year old brown semi crochet mass of musty fermented Kurt spit with a few red and blue flowers left on it. EEEWW!! Get this hepatitis and e-coli ridden thing away from my baby!
Kurt’s mom had no idea that he had wrapped his old “friend” for Sophia let alone that he still had the musty old ball of yarn in his possession. When Kurt’s mom saw me open the gift of “friend” for Sophia, she dug through the Sophia gift pile for a specific box. I opened it when Sophia’s turn came around again. Inside I found three pictures of young Kurtie with his “friend”. “Friend” was originally a WHITE crochet blanket with burgundy red, dark blue, baby blue, white, bright pink, baby pink, lemon yellow, and pistachio green flowers and a baby blue cloth backing. Under the pictures and wrapped in tissue paper was a new “friend”. We dubbed it “Friend 2007”. We’ll see what kind of memories this one creates. 
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Long fingernails to bloody stumps
I’m never cutting baby nails again! I don’t care how much she scratches her face up with her own nails. I was cutting her nails while she was nursing but didn’t get them all, so I made another attempt when she was a little more fidgety. I should have known better. At first I though I cut her nail too short, but after her red-faced-screaming and crocodile tears subsided I saw that I had actually lopped off a tiny chunk of skin. Now I just feel like shit. 
I held her close, rocking back and forth, and almost produced my own crocodile tears. My poor baby is now sick with a snuffly nose and sporting an adult sided band-aid on her left thumb, which she promptly popped into her mouth.