Snowmen fall from heaven unassembled...

I saw that saying at Hallmark and thought it was cute...

Paige is getting better at standing for longer periods of time while holding onto something. She stood like this for about a minute.

Her sleeps have been a bit better too (although last night was not so good..). She could even be classified as "sleeping through the night" a few more times (waking up about 7 hours after going to sleep).

Because she is sleeping better at night, she has been sleeping less during the day. Whereas she used to have a short nap in the morning and dinnertime, and one large nap in the afternoon, she now has 4 small naps. It makes it harder to get anything done. It was confusing too, because she started doing this suddenly, and I would keep trying to put her back to sleep when she would wake up, only to find her smiling back at me from her crib, wide awake. I feel that she can't be bothered to sleep when she is so interested in rolling over and grabbing at everything! She loves grabbing the phone, the remote, and the computer...I guess she sees us using these things a lot. She doesn't seem at all interested in sitting up yet. I would have thought she would already been sitting since she has been rolling for 4 weeks already. When I make her sit up, she swings her legs around so she can crash onto her tummy.

Stomach sleeper.

I knew something was up! When she had those few days of crap sleep I would often find her crying on her stomach and I would flip her over. Maybe she was just getting used to sleeping on her stomach, because I found her on her stomach this morning when she first woke up! Just to make sure, I felt her back and it was regular temperature, but her tummy was all warm and kind of sweaty from lying on it for a long time (not to mention that the wetness in her diaper was concentrated in the front..hah). She puts her arms up by her head, and turns her head to the side. I took that photo just as I went in her room this morning when she started making her new little happy screaming noises she does; they are little shrill AHH AHH AHH noises. OH--the past 2 nights she has only woken up once...our little girl is back!!

Recent Photos...

She "slept" through the night??

Last night we tried a different approach. I noticed that the Christmas wreaths we have on our front doors make really loud banging noises in the wind. Hopefully enough that they were causing her to wake up?

At any rate, last night she cried at 11:00 something, 1:30, and 2:30. Mike dealt with her at 11:00, so not sure what that was all about. But when I saw her, she had the strange angry cry again, and then calmed right down and fell asleep once I gave her her soother. Not sure why she suddenly needs her soother so badly in the night that she has to cry out with such anger! It is the type of cry you would expect if someone had popped it out of her mouth on purpose, trying to make her mad.

After 2:30 she didn't wake up again till 7:30. So I never had to feed her in the night. So she almost made it through the night...maybe the wreaths were part of the problem?

Oh! 2 Sundays ago, she slept from 9:30pm till 8:00am!! That was crazy, but she was really sick and we had given her cold medicine, so it doesn't really count.

We are going CRAZY!

For the past 3 nights, Paige has woken up at least once an hour. Very strange. Mike was away last week and she was sleeping fine for the most part. She was waking up at 12:00-12:30ish every night consistently, but then not again until she ate around 2-3:00, and then not again till the morning. The past 3 nights now that he has been home, coincidentally, she has been waking up all the time. Usually when she has "cried" in the night in the past, it is really more like fussing, or talking noises. Sometimes now, she is actually crying with her eyes closed. As soon as we give her a soother though, she falls back asleep.

Is this teething?? What is going on? Can't take much more of this!! Should I give her tylenol before bed? She doesn't seem to be in pain during the day....

Mom Jeans

Hehehe. She loves sitting straight up now, so she holds onto the tray on her swing. She has also been smiling like crazy, usually with her "moon eyes" as I call them. She loooves to get people's attention at Second Cup by fake coughing and then giving them the moon eyes.

She has been rolling over non-stop now, which has been making diaper changes increasingly difficult. She also doesn't understand that rolling over after eating makes her throw up.

I now understand mom jeans. As I have dropped an incredible 40 pounds since July 9th, I have gone through a couple of jean sizes. The problem is that I got a new pair 2 weeks ago, but have since lost some weight. I still need this larger size though because of the baby tummy I still have, so the top is a little mom-jean-esque. Ok, it's not that bad..

Here is an inspirational video:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/55414/mom_jeans/

Today I made Vinegar Coffee

This morning when I made my morning coffee, and leaned over it to give it a stir, I burned my eyes! Apparently Mike had soaked the kettle in vinegar overnight. I thought it was his water from the morning, and I was trying not to be wasteful, so I just reheated the water. The boiling vinegar scent in the kitchen afterwards was not pleasant, and it seriously burned my eyes. I made the coffee in my "New Mom" mug. How oddly ironic.

This was the scene that I witnessed both in the middle of the night and this morning. Actually, as she was trying to fall asleep, she flipped herself over like this as well. Except she was too close to the side of the crib, so as she flipped, her little arm slotted itself in between the crib bars and was dangling down the side. She woke up at 4:00am too, and was looking around on her tummy. When she woke in the morning I figured she would be on her tummy again and I was right. It is getting easier for her to flip herself over.

She is still sick! Sometimes she seems better, but once that little nose is stuffed up, she looks so sick! Not sure how long we can keep giving her medicine!

Yesterday Katharine and I went to the craft show for the entire day without the girls. woohoo! It was fun to be free. Of course we mainly shopped for them, but still soooo nice to get out for the day for the first time. Right after that, Mike and I went to my dad and Maura's house for dinner with my Grandma and Uncle Chris, so I was really out for the entire day! Paige was NOT happy there, she seems to be scared of the basement. hehe.

A few mishaps and an ILLNESS

Oh boy, I started writing this last evening before everything "kicked in". Little Paige was sleeping away and then all of a sudden she started screaming! Her little nose was completely stuffed up. Every little breath was snorkel-y sounding. The problem is that with baby colds they kick in so fast. Once their nose is even slightly stuffed up, it's game over! She first got a cold after Jen's wedding in September after seeing 200 people and being on a plane. That time it caught us completely off guard and we were unprepared. This time we were prepared! There was no sleeping on the floor in Paige's room! We had a nasal aspirator, baby Tylenol cold and sinus, and the humidifier. So, she was able to sleep most of the night, and only woke up a couple of times to be suctioned (which is near impossible with her Chipit sized nostrils) and have a medicine top-up, and then to eat. She's starting to wake up now, so I just went to give her her soother. Her room is like a steam tent, it's fabulous! I know where she got this cold too, because we have hardly been anywhere....at Gymboree!!

This is what I started to write last night:

The last few days have been quiet, except for a few minor mishaps. After explaining to everyone at dinner on Sunday night that I always strap Paige into her bouncy seat if I am not sitting right there with her, I forgot to strap her in once. I went to the bathroom while she was sitting in her seat, and all of a sudden there was an unusual cry. She had fallen out, and was on the floor on her side. She wasn't hurt, just startled. Woops!!

Also, though it isn't technically a mishap, and more like poor judgement, I decided to feed Paige rice cereal. I figured that maybe introducing the cereal would help to stretch out the length of time between bottles, which may help her get through the night. She currently goes about 3 hours between bottles, though she sometimes can go longer. At any rate, the first time I fed her the cereal she sort of sucked if off the spoon. She was able to eat a little bit. Mike tried to feed her that night and she went ballistic. She would have none of that!

So, the next morning I thought I would try again, since she was tired the night before and I hadn't followed the directions on the package perfectly well. Nope. She still hated it. So, we're going to wait a few more weeks. Feeding her bottles and cereal is a lot of work, so I should be happy that I don't need to do both just yet.

Our First Gymboree

This morning we went to Gymboree Level 1: 0-6 months.

"These classes focus on developing your baby’s interest in the world through sensory exploration. Stimulating age-appropriate activities such as tummy time, flashlight play and infant massage help to build trust and security and emotional connections with others. Parent discussion time at the end of each class helps you to connect with other parents and learn more about your child’s development."

Basically for the duration of the class, the instructor and all of the in-the-know moms sing songs in really singsong-y voices incorporating the word "Gymboree" as much as possible. Seeing as I haven't done anything like this since I was a baby, this was a little difficult for me to get into. We held up things like feathers and scarves for the babies to feel. Paige was the most interested in looking at the other moms and babies. She just wanted to grab the objects and put them in her mouth, which wasn't allowed in the class anyway. Like the instructor said though, babies won't necessarily show interest in all of the objects. She HATED the part where all of the babies were on there tummies looking in a mirror and the instructor was blowing bubbles in the air. I think there were just too many babies in a confined space, and it was overstimulating and scary for her. She LOVED Gymbo the puppet that we danced around in front of our babies faces. She was tired and rubbing her eyes, but loved looking at him. The instructor walked around with a massive Gymbo puppet that gave them all a "kiss" on the face while singing the goodbye song to all of the babies. Paige was the only baby that grabbed the puppets face! haha.

Will we go back? Well, I felt slightly silly, and it was a bit difficult to go there when I knew Paige was ready for a nap. Of the 9 moms and babies there, quite a few of the babies fell asleep, 6 moms (I counted) whipped up their tops for a feeding, and a bunch of the babies freaked out at one point or another. It makes me think these moms just go there no matter what time of day it is, nap time or feeding time, just to get out. I like things to be just right...fed, changed, and awake in order to feel like I'm ready to go to an hour long class. BUT, Paige did seem to enjoy it, she stayed awake because she was entertained, and it did get us out of the house on this cold miserable day. So, we'll probably go back...

My little lobster

Paige has been pinching me all day! Sometimes it hurts extremely badly. Also, she has been pulling my hair out! I even saw her feeling her own hair for the first time, and then pulling it too!
Another weird thing..she appeared to scratch an itch on her tummy...it really looked like that is what she was doing, but it may have just appeared that way.

She has also been holding her feet any time she is not in her car seat, or having a bottle. Any time she is on her back in her crib, or in her chair, she is grabbing her feet.

What another huge leap this past week in accomplishments! I am tempted to pull out the highchair to see if she'll sit in it.