It's a Beautiful Day

The good news is we found a new nanny who starts Tuesday. Crisis averted. Today we went to the park with our friends Monique, Gregg and Hudson. Luckily the weather was great because yesterday it was raining. Tonight we're having some friends over for dinner, a laid back NYE.

Thank you Lola for the super cute overall outfit!!

A Visit from Sami

Last night, we received a visit from Trish and Sami (Sami is my little half sister)... it was so fun to see them! Sami was very entertaining, she danced for us and was very animated. Here are a few pictures from the night:














Also, I got some crap news last night. Our nanny has to have wrist surgery on MONDAY (yes, this coming Monday) and won't be able to work for 1-2 months. Delightful. I love the one week notice... during a HOLIDAY week. So we're scrambling to figure something out. So bummed because I turned down a great daycare like two weeks ago. Although I'm still not convinced I want daycare right now - I think I'd prefer to have the little one at home for now. So right now I'm all about finding a solution. Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh.

Rice Cereal

During our last appointment, our pediatrician mentioned that some babies may start eating noticeably more milk, which means they are ready for solids. She told me to start the little one on rice cereal in her milk if I notice this.

I was talking to my mom on the phone and I told her about this. Then I said - so what is the deal with rice cereal? Do you just put Rice Krispies in the milk or what? How does that work? My mom was laughing at me.

Apparently, rice cereal is an infant mix that is like formula and available in the baby food section. Well you learn something new every day! I have to say that the infant mix thing makes a bit more sense to me than dumping Rice Krispies into a bottle. Pretty funny though. So now I'll just be on the lookout to see if the little one is ready for solids before 6 months. But I hope not, I'm not looking forward to the extra stinky poops!

Goodbye Bucket Tub!

All good things must come to an end. We decided it's time to stop using the wash pod tub for the little one. She's getting kind of big for it.

Here she is when we first started washing her in it:





And here she is on Christmas Eve:







My, doesn't time fly? She is getting so big already! I did really like the wash pod, but we're moving on. Tonight we gave her a bath in the Euro bath tub thing, inside my big bath tub. We'll have to get some pictures of that because I love bath pictures!!

Also, her little nudie butt is so cute. DH won't let me post the full-on nudie butt picture we took of her but he's okay with this one:



So squeezable!

And here she is enjoying her exersaucer...



I really need to update the products I'm digging page to put the exersaucer on it. She loves it more every day. Today she's been really standing in it and grabbing at all the toys. She even turns herself around in it.

Today I cleaned out her dresser and rearranged things. She's growing so fast that if I don't keep tabs on the clothes, I'll find something that she grew out of before she even got a chance to wear it. Plus she got some cute new things for Christmas so I wanted to wash those and put them away. Also today I took down all the ornaments and we threw out the tree. Getting ready for 2010 to come, wow. The little one got so many ornaments this year that DH said for Christmas next year we should get her her own little tree. That would be really fun. Maybe we'll do it. We'll see. I love ornaments and really enjoy taking them all out and seeing them each year, the old and the new.

Tomorrow we're thinking of going on an outing. The little one has been having weird naps - her whole schedule changed again. Instead of the one long nap and then one short nap, she's now doing 3-4 short naps. And sometimes she's very fussy and will only nap if I trick her into it. Today she was fussy and I had to put her in the Ergo carrier - I put it on the side and wore her on my hip while I took down on the ornaments. Extra workout! Well anyway, my whole point was since her naps are weird and she doesn't mind sleeping in the carrier, we can just go out and if she gets tired I'll just wear her. We're thinking maybe the Getty or something, we'll see.

Oh, and not only did we change up her tub, we switched out the stroller. She is no longer using the bassinet part of the stroller - we have her in the big girl part of the stroller. She likes it because she can see more things. Wow how she is growing! Well I hope everyone had a great Christmas. :)

Merry Christmas!

We enjoyed the little one's first Christmas very much. Lola and Lolo hosted a wonderful brunch and the little one got lots of fun gifts. But what was most fun was being together as a family and enjoying the holiday.

Here are some highlights:

















For the whole album, click here.

Hmmmm. Could I Be Getting the Hang of This?

I don't know what it is lately but things have started to settle a bit. That nervous all the time feeling has faded away and I'm actually able to enjoy myself! I'll admit it's still hard at times and definitely all-consuming, but I think it's getting easier. I so look forward to the end of the day when I get to go home and spend time with the little one. She's so cute. I definitely miss her all day when I'm working. Last night after I put her to bed I was thinking how I don't even mind when she wakes up at night because then I get to see her again. Of course, I don't want her waking up at night forever, but for now it's fine. We had a good night last night - a brief wake up for 2 ounces of milk around 10:30 and then a longer feeding at 3:30 am. Not too shabby.

Anyway, I can't believe I actually let this fly out of my mouth - must have been the wine - but I told DH I'm actually getting to a place where I can imagine having another kid. Oh my gosh. Who is this person, right? Why would I sign up for that? I'm not thinking of it right NOW, but perhaps in a few years. Just the fact that I could ponder it is pretty amazing. I feel like it's more work in the beginning but it pays off when they can play with each other. I know I spent all sorts of time bossing er, I mean, playing with my sister. Well anyway, it's just one thought of the many that flutter through my brain every day but it's a new one.

DH gets back from New York tonight so that will be nice. It was a short trip for him, I guess he really wanted to see some snow for Christmas or something, right? I am taking the 24th off from work, DH is too, and we're going out for a nice lunch together. Lunch is SO the new dinner.

I hope everyone is getting ready for a nice holiday with friends & family. :)

Who Doesn't Love Baby Pictures?

Loving her exersaucer:



Just woke up from napping on mom:



At Library Ale House:



What you looking at?



Yeah, I said you. I got a mohawk, what of it?

Help a Mother Out

In this season of giving, I thought I would give to some in need - we are so fortunate to be able to provide so much for our little one, not everyone is in the same situation. This morning I received an email from Daily Candy Kids about a charity called Help a Mother Out. They give diapers and wipes to mothers in need. The email said that diapers are not covered by public assistance programs, which means needy babies can spend a day or more in soiled diapers. This just breaks my heart.

It's so easy to donate to them... there is a virtual diaper drive where you can select the local charity you want to send diapers to. Then you just use their amazon.com wishlist. Free super saver shipping on items over $25. Click and done.

If anyone else has a favorite charity - please post in the comments so we can all get other ideas. Last year I donated online to the LA Food Bank, another very worthy cause. Ah, just going to their website to get the link made me sad so I donated again this year.

This recession has been really hard on people, so if you are in the position to give anything at all, please try. I don't want to be preachy or anything - most of you probably already do give to your own favorite charities. Anyway, just mentioning two easy ways to help people out.

Happy Christmas Week!

Ferber, Weissbluth...Arrggghhh!!!

OK, I am getting really fed up with the sleep books. I really go back and forth on how I feel about them. For the longest time this was my bible:



But I've been really paranoid about it lately because Dr. Weissbluth is strict about the no more than two hours of wakefulness. The little one has a really great morning nap but then she goes like four hours until a short afternoon nap and then 3-4 hours until bed time. She doesn't cry and isn't a fussy baby so it seems like for now this schedule is working for her. I know it's not usual for a baby her age to have only two naps! Also the staying up for 4 hours thing - not what we're supposed to be doing.

So I decided to read Dr. Ferber's book....





















Well, I'm not so sure what to think. Dr. Ferber says that after 3 months, no baby needs to eat during the night. Dr. Weissbluth though, says they can be hungry and may need to eat in the night up to 9 months. Who do you trust? Dr. Ferber also says that babies need less sleep at night and less sleep in total than Dr. Weissbluth's book. Oh, gobbledygook!!!

I had a talk about it with DH and here is what we're going to do. First, we're going to use the sleep log to document her sleeping pattern, just so we know what we're dealing with. As long as she's only waking up twice each night to eat, we're going to keep feeding her. If the situation deteriorates, we'll make a new plan from there. I did, however, fill two bottles for tonight with only 3 ounces each. We'll see how that goes. That way we can wean her to 2 ounces each if we want, then 1, then none. But for now we're going with the 3 ounces.

Also, we're okay with her going to bed at 6:00 pm as long as she's waking up at 6:00 am. But we're going to try to slowly move her bedtime later until we get it to 7:00. What we'd like is for her to sleep from 7 to 7. We're going to be okay with her nap schedule for now. Maybe that's just how she rolls. I don't know.

So that's it. I was kind of going back and forth about whether to train her to sleep through the night but I think that's a decision I'll think about again at 5 months and 6 months. We'll just see. She does a good job going to bed at night and she goes back to sleep after we feed her so we're good with things. No, she's not sleeping through the night - but that's not a priority for us right now.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow - we don't have any plans so it will just be a mellow day. DH is going on another overnight trip Monday - boo!! But, this is my life, I just have to deal.

Oh, the expensive French teething giraffe came in the mail today:



















Can't wait to give it to her tomorrow! I had to convince DH that we don't have to save it for Christmas. I think she needs it now. Our pediatrician thinks she might be an early teether (boo) and she's always trying to eat her hands and things. Our ped says that's a bad habit so we should give her something else to chew on. Hopefully Sophie the giraffe will work!

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend.

Our Big Girl: Pediatrician Appointment Today

Today was the little one's four month pediatrician appointment. She weighed 16 pounds, 10.5 ounces!



I know, it says 11.5 ounces but her diaper weighs 1 ounce. She did well at the appointment and only cried a little after her two shots. She was really tired because she missed a nap to make the appointment so she fell right asleep afterward.

Here she is at her two month appointment for comparison:



And one month:





Here she is getting checked out:



Super Auntie and Juan went with us to the appointment... Juan was so kind as to take pictures:





I downloaded a sleep log from BabyCenter and we're going to start tracking the little one's sleep patterns to see if that will help us. I asked our pediatrician about feeding her water instead of milk but she wasn't that big of a fan. She said we should just decrease the # of ounces of milk that we feed her.

So happily, she's back on the growth chart as far as weight. I knew that she'd thinned out a little since her two month appointment - probably all the rolling she's doing.

OK, well that's it for today! TGIF!!!

Is Sleeping all I Ever Talk About?

So here I am again, another post about the little one's sleep schedule. I feel like it's really consuming right now. DH is even starting to be sleep deprived. (Although tonight the lucky guy gets to sleep a WHOLE NIGHT in a hotel.) I am really looking forward to my girls' weekend in Santa Barbara in February, when I will hopefully get to sleep my first whole night. We'll see.

Anyway, the little one went to bed last night at 7:00 - good. She woke up at 11:30 and at 3:30 - good. The 3:30 was crazy though. I went in there and she had pooped so much it seeped out the top of the diaper in the back, through her footie pajamas, and onto the crib sheet! She was a cold wet mess. This is the third time this has happened in like a week. I have special baby dry diapers but I think I need something else - I don't know what! Poor little thing. I had to change her pj's and she was just crying so much the whole time because she was hungry and miserable. So sad. I fed her and then changed the sheet and put her back to bed.

She was still restless from like 5 - 6 am - not good. I had DH go check on her at 5:30 because I was worried she might have had another poop explosion -she was crying. He fed her a little and she slept until .... wait for it ...

8:45 am!! What? Well, I guess if she needs the sleep I'm not going to try to wake her up in the morning. It was a little weird not playing with her in the morning but much easier to pump and get out the door. Right now I just feel like everything is in the air with her schedule. I know it's good for babies to be on more of a routine but I feel like we're still working on hers. I'm sure things will settle eventually.

I ordered the Ferber book to see what he says about sleeping. I just want more information on everything. I'm not sure what I want to do yet. We'll see.

Also DH and I ordered the little one a few things for Christmas. We got a bumbo chair, a winkel and that silly expensive teething giraffe everyone has. She better like it! $18 for a little giraffe? We'll see how those things work out. I have to get some pictures of her playing in the exersaucer so hopefully I'll do that this weekend.

I work from home tomorrow - hopefully it won't be too bad. It's actually my last day working from home because the next two Fridays in December are holidays. So that's the end of that.

Well, it will be interesting to see what happens tonight / tomorrow morning with the little one's sleep schedule. It's always an adventure!

Blog In Progress

Sadly, Template Mama has closed shop. This is where I got all my cool blog templates, or how the blog looked. I am in progress of finding something else I like so I'll be tweaking things a bit for the time being.

Continuously Making Adjustments

I think with babies the hardest thing is the sleep schedule. We're still making adjustments to ours and now we have her going down for the night at 7:00 pm and waking up at 7:00 am. Of course, she doesn't sleep the full 12 hours straight through but she's doing better. A lot of her improvement is her ability to soothe herself back to sleep when she wakes up.

Last night I put her down fully awake and she kind of rolled around and things, making little noises for probably about a half an hour - but then she went to sleep on her own. DH fed her around 11:30 and 1:30 and I fed her at 3:30. The 11:30 and 3:30 feedings are pretty small so I'm going to talk to our pediatrician about substituting water for milk so she'll eventually sleep through those. I know we could just not feed her at those times but if we do feed her she goes back to sleep so easily - if we don't she just gets more and more upset. That's why I'm thinking water or a teeny bit of milk and then water might be a more gradual approach.

I know we could also do the cry it out method now so she would sleep through the whole night without any feedings, she's certainly heavy enough, but I think it's okay for her to have one or two feedings until around 6 months of age and 1 feeding until around 9 months of age. That's my personal choice and I know every parent is different. Also we'll have to evaluate how things are going every month but right now that's what I'm thinking. Again, we'll see what our pediatrician says.

She does wake up during the night other times besides the feedings but she is capable of putting herself back to sleep. This morning she woke up some time around 5, then again around 6 but she wasn't crying so I didn't go in and she put herself back to sleep and stayed asleep until 7:00. We actually woke her up at 7:00 because that's when we want her day to start.

She is getting a lot better at playing on her own and not having to be entertained every second. This is great! Of course we love playing with her but we also want her to be independent and self confident. And of course, she is obsessed with rolling over. Now she's gotten so good at it that she can successfully roll all the way onto her tummy every time she tries. So she spends a lot of time on her tummy looking around. It will be fun when she learns to roll back the other way - who knows what she'll do then.

I also had an achievement last night - I pumped at 9:00 pm before going to bed then held off until 7:00 am. I am now going to try to pump only 4 times every 24 hours... once in the morning, twice at work, and once before going to bed. I will miss the extra milk and burning the extra calories but I won't miss pumping in the middle of the night. Also if the little one sleeps through more of the night feedings I might still be able to store additional milk. But who cares, I have enough milk anyway and I'd rather have the sleep. Hooray for sleep.

Hope everyone has a great day!

Our Huge Freezer

OK I told you this freezer was big! I thought I'd put up some pictures from filling it up tonight...



Just one section of our freezer being emptied into the new big freezer:



The freezer (looks a little smaller because of the wide angle lens):



Milk milk milk:



We have our freezer back! All the parts that are empty (including all the shelves on the door) were stuffed with milk, we just had two shelves for food:

The Baptism

The little one was baptized yesterday at the same church that my mom and I were baptized. My grandma goes to church there almost every day and is close friends with the Monsignor so he did it for us even though we are not members of the Parish. I did have to present my Confirmation certificate though - good thing I had that. My grandma was really thrilled about the whole thing - she is a very faithful Catholic and this was important to her. For me, it was about family and tradition. It's special that the little one is the third generation of our family to be baptized at the same church. As she grows she will have the choice to continue with Catholicism, to choose another faith, or not to choose a specific religion. I was raised with a lot of Catholic tradition - First Communion, CCD classes, Confirmation, Catholic High School... but I don't think I'll be doing all those steps with the little one. DH and I do not attend a church and we're not planning to.

Below are a few pictures from the day, click here to view the whole album.