Fluidity

Just four days ago she couldn't do this.  Or wouldn't.  It is amazing the speed with which things change.

Just four days ago she was waking up every two hours at night, breaking out of her swaddle and just ... having fits.  After four months of not sleeping, this lady (me) had kind of reach a limit.  I'm constantly snapping at the boys (who only most of the time earn it) and I'm functioning ... but barely. So Tuesday night, when she woke up at 930pm after going down at 730pm (for the millionth time), I decided she could cry.  I was prepared to let her cry for ten minutes.  Which is my limit for CIO.  If baby can't figure it out within ten minutes than parent figure comes in and helps.  Because after ten minutes, I figure, the jig is up.

The one caveat to this ... if they can't be consoled, and are just screaming at me while I'm rocking, bouncing, trying to pacify ... that's when I let D cry for 45min at 8mo.  And G for 30 at 6mo.  Which, coincidentally, the very next day they both had cut teeth.

Anyway, but as a rule, I'm a ten minutes kinda gal.

So I was watching the clock, biting my nails and in all other ways hating listening to her cry, and within five minutes she had stopped.  She went back to sleep.  She slept till 1230am.  At which point I fed her, changed her and sent her back to bed.  She slept until 6 something.

On Wednesday night she slept till 1am.  No tears.  Went back to bed until 5.  Last night, she slept till 1am, she woke up at 4am but in the exhausted, I-have-not-recovered-from-sleep-deprivation-yet mode, I turned the monitor off.  I next woke up at 630am and she was happily cooing in her bed.  Obviously she had gone back to sleep.  Otherwise she'd have been screaming. (right?)

And I'd have heard that through the floor no monitor required.

So while I completely know that this situation is fluid and will change again very soon, it's progress in the right direction.  And that is a good thing.

They both think she's pretty neat.  G loves that she smiles at him.  Big gummy grins.  She tracks him all over the room.  He understands his number one job (with sister) is to smile at her and talk to her and love on her (gently).

Other older brother she just thinks is funny.  She smiles and laughs at him but already, even at 4mo, I see, or rather feel their relationship is different.  There's this awe when she looks at G, and affection when she looks at D.  I know, I know ... but seriously ... it's how it feels.

Middle child here deserves his own post and it's coming.  He's giving me fits.  I need to buy some parenting books on parenting strong willed, emotional children because holy cow.  He comes by it honestly and I think he will be the child that is most like me.  Hence, our issues.  Seriously he just laughs at me.  He doesn't like consequences but he knows they are fleeting.  Bedtime is a disaster.  Summertime and the sun is just DESTROYING me.  With sister and her early bedtime needs I have to get the boys in a safe, ENCLOSED environment around 730.  But they aren't falling asleep until 830 or 9.  I'm okay with quiet time for an hour on their own.  But they are wrestling and making a mess and I just worry about someone getting hurt.  Thankfully, this period of our lives in short.  But it's giving me fits right now.

Like I said.  It needs its own post.

G has wanted to take his dad to legoloand for months.  So finally yesterday we did.  It was a bit of a mess but we got it done.  I was not pleased with their amenities for mama's with babies.  I may write a letter.  The changing table was right underneath the paper towel dispenser so as I'm changing her everyone - EVERYONE - was all up in our space.  Me with my naked baby, which just makes me protective? Defensive?  I was obviously visibly peeved at the situation because one stranger said ... "they don't give you a lot of room, do they?"  To which I said, "Seriously."  It was really just ... disconcerting to have strangers so near my naked baby.  Made me very mama bear.

Also, no where discreet to nurse.  I'm all about nursing in public with wee babies.  I just cover up and go.  No issue.  But with a bigger child who has preferences about how things go that just doesn't work.  And I don't like nursing in public, in public.  Like visibly.  Not for me.  I support those that want to do that.  I'm in awe of them.  But for me, nope.  I'm happier in the ladies room (which usually isn't the hole most people say it is, usually they are nice and clean and some even have chairs).

And if the ladies room isn't clean or large enough or nice enough I usually feed in the car.  The one caveat to this is airports.  I will find an empty gate and sit and nurse my baby.  And I nurse on the plane.

This post has just completely degenerated in focus.  I blame my still tired brain.

 She has just exploded with new abilities.  She plays with toys and rings and teethers.  She plays with her fingers and her toes.

 I was looking at her infant book and I'm just amazed really.

It is amazing how quickly things change.  And as I look back I didn't write a lot down.

Her first two weeks she wouldn't let me put her down.  I fell asleep feeding her on the couch and was exhausted.  I did that for a long time, maybe a month?  The above is after one such night March 9, so baby girl was 12 days old.  Lewis was leaving for work and this is how he found us.

Then she slept with me for three months.  Intermittently sleeping in her crib whenever I could get her to do that.  Which wasn't often.  And she'd wake up every two hours.

At naptime I would hold her in our bed and she'd sleep and I'd watch Netflix.  I watched all of Gilmore Girls, Once Upon a Time, When Calls the Heart, The White Queen (again), Daredevil, all of the Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn movies, and I think something else but I can't remember.  Gilmore Girls and Once Upon a Time were the big ones.  But if you add up all that time, that's a lot of time spent nursing.  In total, it's 267 hours. Or, 11.5 days of nursing.  In four months.

Nursing is a marathon not a sprint.

She was jaundiced for a solid five weeks, and only started looking right at about 6 weeks.  She had what they call breast feeding jaundice which means her liver levels were fine, but she had the other kind of bilirubin in her blood that was making her yellow.  There are some doctors that would have panicked and freaked and had her hospitalized and under lights.  But we kept checking her bili's and as long as her liver was fine, the doctor said keep nursing, it'll work out.  Other doctors would have also said, stop nursing for 48 hours and let the bili go away and then nurse again.

I was not going to do that.  That sort of thing can kill your nursing relationship.

She has had silent reflux, with periods of really bad reflux.  I think it's related to my dairy intake, so I watch that.  And she had a really bad reaction to the rotavirus vaccine at 2mo.  But it passed.

Can't really believe how much things have changed.