Happy October 31st!

We spent  a lovely evening with some of our old friends from Waco.  Jill throws a mean Halloween party, so it was quite fortunate for everyone when her little girl was born on October 30!  So here we are at Sophie’s First Birthday Costume Party.

Stephen doesn’t love costumes, but he agreed to be a good sport if I kept it simple.  Drawing inspiration from a theme party Laurashmaura threw a while back, we all came as crayons.  Stephen didn’t want a pointy hat (and I didn’t have black tissue paper anyway), so he is “used.”

Abby did not seem to mind her hat, believe it or not.  She actually wore it happily for a while.

We were part of a life group in Waco for four years.  When we started, we were all young marrieds with no kids.  Look at us now!

And a little more fall cuteness:

(You can tell she’s getting tired of the photo shoot.)

 

For Karen

Big girl in her Bumbo seat.

You can admire her lovely orange FuzziBunz from this angle.  No, I don’t make her wear pants around the house.  What can I say…she does not get that from me.

All that sitting up got tiring.

For those of you who have only seen Abby when she’s sleeping…here is proof that she does in fact have eyeballs.  And they’re blue, for now!

This is her polite smile.

And here she’s really cracking up.  It’s too bad you can’t hear the accompanying sounds…it’s super cute!

Here’s Abby snoozing in the chair that makes me covet her life– a thick, ultra-silky blanket nest in a bouncing chair.  I would totally buy this in an adult size if I could.  Of course, the adult version wouldn’t need the spit rag standing by.

A family self-portrait.

 

News from the Crib

Abby is seven weeks old this Thursday!  For those of you who are interested, here are some of our highlights from the past few weeks:

Week 6 was a big one for us– Abby has slept through the night several times now (that means 7 or so hours)!  Sometimes she will wake up once, rarely twice.  Hooray!  Her first night’s sleep followed her worst night’s sleep (4 hours, beginning at 3 AM), so we were especially grateful!  Her sleeping/eating schedule during the day is not super set-in-stone, but I think we’re getting there.

The other big development is that our little nonresponsive alien child seems to have turned into a little person–she makes lots of little happy sounds, and we are absolutely sure that we have identified a social smile!  She is getting much more alert and interactive by the day.  It’s super rewarding to get some positive feedback from our little girl.  We must be doing something right–phew!

This is not the smile, but it’s a cute face.  Stephen took this while Abby was helping him fold clothes:

On Abby’s other end, we’ve started transitioning into her FuzziBunz cloth diapers.  She wears them about 50% of the time.  Somtimes we go through our stash quickly and have to switch back over to her Pampers, and sometimes I just don’t feel like messing with the cloth, especially if we’re going to be out of the house.  Also, they are much poofier than her disposable diapers, and our little chubbo doesn’t have that much extra room in some of her clothes.  But the FB are super cute and, I think, more comfortable, and I love how they slow our progress through an expensive box of diapers.  We’ll probably try to transition into using them more and more as I get the hang of it.

Speaking of chub, Abby is packing on the pounds.  According to my last unofficial weigh-in (on my parents’ bathroom scale), she’s running about 12 pounds.  And that was at least a week and a half ago!  Some of her 0-3 month clothes are actually tight on her!  Tell me that Old Navy outfits run small… But her poundage has given her those super cute marshmallow cheeks, so I’m thrilled so far.

I headed back to work last Wednesday, and I have to say, I’m loving my schedule.  I really enjoy being back in the classroom, and I love my students and my co-workers.  My work days are short enough that I can enjoy time on the job and still feel like I’m giving Abby good quality time.  So far, so good!  Plus, it’s so fun to get to put on my dress clothes again!  Jeans and t-shirts are nice, but occasionally it’s fun to get put together.

The one sacrifice that I’ve made in my transition back to being a “working mom” is my hair–yesterday I got it cut dramatically!  It was taking too long to fix at night.  When the choice is sleep or blow drying, well, you can imagine how easy of a decision it was.  I like it pinned back  in a half-pony, so it looks like this:

And yes, Abby is making a goofy face.  We were trying to capture her smile, to no avail.

 

Too much of a good thing is…too much.

My first camera was pink and had a picture of Mickey Mouse on it.  It was the kind where you  had to buy an expensive attachment if you wanted to have a flash, and it was only good for ten flashes or so.  Plus, you had to pay to get film developed, so I remember my mom instructing me on making every shot count.

Fast forward about fifteen years, and picture rationing has gone the way of walking across the room to change the TV channel.  Now that everyone and their brother carries a digital camera around in their back pocket, picture overload is a much more common dilemma.

In the spring I worked on a scrapbook of our family trip to Germany.  Of the ten people in our group, at least five had a camera with them at any given monument.  Each cameraperson took a few shots of everything to try to get the best angle.  Click, click, click…that was blurry…a guy walked in front of my shot…now one with all of the siblings…now one with Mom and Dad in it…now one with just Alan and Katy…oh, hold up your ring and let me make sure it’s in the picture…well, you get the idea.

By the time we got home, we had literally hundreds, maybe a thousand pictures of our ten days overseas.  It took forever to sort through them all, distinguish the poor from the good from the better, and select just a lucky few to represent our trip.

Fast forward a few months, and picture these diligent documentarians in the presence of their first daughter/nice/granddaughter.  Oh, my!  Everything Abby did was new, or cute, or hard to capture on camera, so from her first weeks at home we ended up with–again–hundreds of precious images!  There were so many, it was  hard to really even enjoy them all.  Rationally, I know there’s really only so many pictures we need of those first yawns and snuggles with our various family members.  But how is a loving mom to cull the photos?

Even the pictures that are blurry or poorly lit can be hard to delete.  These photos represent moments of Abby’s life that we’ll never get back again!  Even if she’s making a weird face–not the one we meant to catch–it’s hard to get rid of it.  (Of course, if I am in the picture making a weird face, or looking excessively bloated, the choice was much easier.)

Anyway, the Germany scrapbook eventually came together, and just a few days ago, I got the bulging photo folders in My Pictures pared down to a representative hundred or so.  But it wasn’t without a few regretful scrolls through the recycle bin!

I started by making five or six sub-folders, so that I could divide the pictures up and look at a manageable number at a time.  Then I arranged “like” pictures side-by-side: all six images of Stephen dressing Abby in her coming home outfit.  Of those, I picked one that was the best.  Or sometimes I’d decide I really didn’t need a picture of Stephen dressing Abby in her coming home outfit at all, and all six would be deleted.  Hitting the delete button took some determination, but I feel a great sense of accomplishment now that it’s done.

Now I have a few great pictures that are easy to enjoy and share, and I have plenty of space on my hard drive for all of the cute faces and occasions that are coming up just around the corner!

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Follow up-  My mom and I were discussing this overwhelming problem the other day, and we decided that one good technique is to sort through pictures long after they were taken, so that you are not as emotionally tied to each one.  In hindsight, many lovely medieval buildings actually look basically the same.  It’s easier to get rid of the three or four versions of “Alan holds Abby at the hospital” when we’ve since taken several other lovely pictures of Abby with her dear uncle.  Just a little tip in case anyone else struggles with the same issue!  Meanwhile, I’m trying to break the habit of snapping three pictures of every sweet scene I’m trying to capture.

 

Have I ruined my newborn already?

Advice for mothers of newborns tends to fall on one of two extremes:
1) You can’t spoil a newborn; do whatever it seems like she wants for a couple of months and worry about setting up routines when she’s a little older.
2)  Routines bring order and peace to your life and your baby’s life; unless you plan to cater to your baby/toddler/child/teenager’s needs for her whole life you need to start establishing boundaries and expectations right away.

My guess is that, as with most issues, the wisest choice is somewhere between the two extremes.  But, as with most searches for perfect moderation, I struggle with what that looks like.

Before Abby was born, I read Preparation for Parenting, which is the original “Christian” version of Baby Wise.  I love sleeping through the night, and I love routines and schedules, so the uber-order of this approach appealed to me.  But as a brand-newborn, Abby slept all the time.  She fell asleep while she was eating and would rarely wake up until it was time to eat again.  I couldn’t figure out how to force her to enjoy 15 minutes of independent wake time after eating, so I decided to let her do her own thing and sleep whenever she wanted to.  Her eating was always at least two hours apart, so I patted myself on the back for not letting her develop a “snacking” habit and figured that was good enough for now.

Well, last week Abby went through several days in a row of being irritable and fussy almost all day.  I decided that her problem is that she has not learned how to sleep on her own; she needed feeding or rocking to fall asleep, and she only slept soundly when I was holding her.  In desperation, I turned back to Preparation for Parenting.  But it was a little too severe for me this time around.  I did not appreciate the not-so-veiled insinuation that I was denying my child God’s best every time I rocked her to sleep.  So I purchased, and read, Secrets of the Baby Whisperer, which gave me similar advice about scheduling and routines, except with more warm fuzzy feelings.

So I am back to square one–I think it would be a great thing if I could get Abby on a more predictable schedule of eating, wake time, and sleeping during the day.  But how do I enforce that?  When Abby falls alseep eating, it’s hard to make her wake up.  If I do succeed, she doesn’t sleep well again until after the next feeding.  And how do I teach her to fall alseep on her own except for sticking her in her crib and letting her scream?  None of my books (and certainly not my feelings, for as much as those are worth) recommend the “cry it out” method, but I haven’t found very good tips for what to do instead.

So in the meantime I’m still letting Abby fall asleep however the heck she wants to, and we enjoy wake time whenever she feels like opening her eyes (which is getting more frequent!).  But, as the Baby Whisperer points out, bouncing a twenty-pound baby around the house to get her to sleep will not be nearly as fun as bouncing little newborn Abby, and I’m worried about sending a high-maintenance baby to her babysitters when I go back to work in a few weeks.  So I’m trying to think about transitioning her into more of a schedule.  Any tips from you veteran moms?

 

Essentials

Abby is almost a month old, and since last Thursday, she’s been in a high-maintenance phase (I’m getting a rare extended-nap break…but more on this in a post to come).  Now more than ever, I’m having to make the most of every golden moment when she is not demanding my attention, which means that my to-do list for each day has to be painfully basic.  It’s allowed me to see where my true priorities lie!  I’ve been a little surprised at what routines I have been able to give up, and what I always have to make time for.

Essentials:

-Put on deodorant
-Brush teeth (I actually forgot this one day, and when I realized it I was mortified…it made me feel like I was de-evolving into a cave woman.)
-Fix hair (It’s been in the same easy style for a month now, but it’s always pulled up.)
-Put on  makeup (Again, my routine is simple, but I don’t ever skip it.)
-Change out of pajamas.  Lately, now that I can fit back into most of my old clothes, I’ve tried to wear real outfits, not just stretch pants and t-shirts.
-Open blinds in the living room
-Read.  It’s one of the few things I can do while feeding or rocking the baby, and I’ve been blazing through some of my old favorites.
-Check e-mail.
-Make bed.
-Keep house generally picked up- dirty dishes put away, baby clutter kept to a minimum.
-Feed dogs and let them outside.

And, the sometimes-surprising Non-Essentials:

-Fold laundry immediately.
-Put away folded laundry immediately.
-Sweeping and mopping floor.
-Put on jewelry
-Check e-mail more than twice a day.
-Respond to e-mail
-Answer ringing telephone
-Exercise
-Modesty (Okay, I haven’t done anything obscene.  But pre-Abby, I was modest to the point of prudery…now I just don’t care as much, especially in my own house!)
-Grocery shopping
-Turning lights on (I think it’s gloomy to keep the lights off, but if a dim room keeps the baby asleep, I’m not going to rock the boat.)
-Blogging and reading blogs

I will say, I managed to accomplish a wonderful non-essential yesterday: I put up some fall decorations!  It took me two days instead of an hour, but I got a wreath on the door and some pumpkins scattered around the house.  It makes me feel like a  homemaker again, and it reminds me that we’ve entered my favorite season of the year.

 

Out and About

Going out of the house is a lot more complicated with Abigail in tow, but mustering up the nerve to take a few excursions has been a huge part of my return to “normal” life.

On the recommendation of our pediatrician, we’re still avoiding large crowds of friends and family, which means that we haven’t gone to church or taken visits to my or Stephen’s school.  But we got an “all clear” for being out in the world in general, so I’ve been taking advantage of my freedom!

We’ve gotten pretty comfortable taking Abby around town for short trips (so far always tightly scheduled between feedings); she’s shopped at Wal-Mart, Target, and Academy, and she’s watched me enjoy a few meals out at local restaurants, including one fun afternoon when we met my dad for lunch on his break.

Last week Abby and I traveled with my mom to go shopping in Austin, and we had a great time!  We browsed in the Domain shopping center, and walked through IKEA on the way back home.  Abby was a very good girl and even let us enjoy a sit-down lunch on the patio of a nice restaurant.

So far I’ve never been brave enough venture out for a big trip all by myself, but my nerve is up the next time I have a compelling reason to go out.  Also, we’ve introduced Abby to bottles, which she takes very readily, so that gives me even more flexibility to be out in the open with her for longer stretches of time.

 

Baby Update

Abby had her two week appointment with her pedi last Thursday, and she got a great report!  She’s gained almost a pound over her birth weight, which means that feeding is going abundantly well.  Dr. B. said that good weight gain also indicates that all of her other systems are developing normally, so hooray!  Just what this paranoid mama needed to hear.

I’ve swung back and forth like a super emotional Pong between the extremes of newborn care…when Abby sleeps in her bed, I rejoice at her independence and then worry that she’s feeling neglected and not getting enough love.  So, I pick her up and worry about training her to depend on me for sleep.

She’ll get hungry after two hours and I’ll worry that she’s eating too often…but when she sleeps long and it’s been almost four hours, I worry that she’s gone too long without food.  Or, I worry that she’s sleeping so much during the day she’ll be up all night.

I’ll hear her dirty her diaper in her sleep, and I won’t want her to sit in her mess for too long, but I’ll be reluctant to disturb her in the middle of a good nap.

I’ve read Baby Wise, and I’m attracted to the idea of a schedule, but I haven’t had much willpower to try to force my sleepy newborn to stay awake after feedings, or to make her wait for too long to eat when she’s clearly hungry, or to wake her from a good nap to keep her on an eating schedule.  I don’t really feel too much guilt about this, except when it’s the middle of the night and either Stephen or I have been up for hours doing the “rain dance” with a baby who won’t fall asleep…and I wonder if these long nights are my own making.

But, despite all of this, I am doing better about enjoying the ride, and I’m trying to be confident as I figure out what routines will work for this mama and baby.  And as far as the big picture goes, Abby is really a pretty easy baby compared to some stories I’ve heard, and we’ve been blessed abundantly with lots of little girl clothes, we have lots of delicious food in the fridge from our church and school friends, and I have enjoyed incredible support from my mom and mother-in-law.  I am definitely counting my blessings!

Here’s a sweet pic of Abby, for those of you who aren’t on Facebook, by my talented photographer friend Abbey:

 

Head in the Sand

Here is installment one in a series of short snippets from the past weeks:

As you’ve noticed if you have tried to call, e-mail, or Facebook message me lately, I’ve allowed myself to “go dark” for the past few weeks.  For a natural introvert such as myself, all of those polite social behaviors reqire energy…and I’ve been avoiding all non-essential energy output since we’ve been home with Abby.  I’ve figured that this is the one time in my life people will forgive me for antisocial behavior.  But, I’m starting to regain my footing, both physically and emotionally, so I’m hoping to re-establish human contact over the next week or so.  See you around!

 

Time’s Up for Turniphead

Yesterday I came home from my doctor’s appointment discouraged by my lack of progress.  We had scheduled the induction date, but I had hoped it wouldn’t come to that.  Too unmotivated to nest, I put on my pajamas and flopped on the couch in front of one of my favorite movies.

When Stephen came home and found me, very un-O-lan-like, sleeping in front of a blue TV screen, he  kicked into action.  We talked for a bit about the doctor’s visit, and then he went to pick up some Chinese take-out for dinner.  We ate in front of the TV, watching three episodes of Alias in a row to finish off our disc.  I went to bed early to enjoy my last night of sleep in my own bed.  Just what I needed!

After getting home from work today, I finished my final round of chores, thinking “this is my last…” for every one.

1.  Drop off Alias to Blockbuster.
2.  Gas up car, splurge on car wash so baby gets a clean ride home
3.  Eat lunch– finish as many leftovers out of fridge as possible
4.  Toss remaining leftovers
5.  Empty trash
6.  Run dishwasher, put away clean dishes
7.  Fold clean towels in dryer
8.  Take a nap!!
9.  Pack final items in bag
10.  Last shower- wash hair and shave legs
11.  Send last-minute instructions to sub, who starts my job tomorrow.  (Now let it go!)

Things are about to get crazy around here!