7 months

Dearest baby Leo,

You are 7 months now... You are growing so fast, learning so many new things.  I love to see it all but I also miss the tiny little thing you once were, even your Daddy gets it now.  Once when you were almost 3 months I was getting teary-eyed over how big you were getting and your daddy laughed at me, but now... NOW he understands and sees how bittersweet it is to watch your child grow up.  I'm sure neither of us fully grasp how hard it will be when you go to school for the first time, your first time away from home, and whenever you move out.  It is hard to be a parent in more ways then one...

 

You are getting ready to crawl and are pulling up on whatever you can get your hands on.  You are still rather clumsy about pulling up but you are getting better and better.  Crawling seems to be just around the corner as you are constantly getting up on your hands and knees and rocking back and forth.  Plus you try to move forward with your legs but you're still trying to figure out how to move your arms.  You can be very serious and contemplative but you also love to smile and your laugh is just pure joy bubbling up from your soul.  I love you in all your moods; although some are more trying then others. ;) 

I think you understand a few words now... You definitely know your name and you react every time I ask if you are hungry.  I haven't pinpointed any other specific words or phrases but I feel more and more that you KNOW what is being said and what is going on.  You are no longer a mere observer in this world...

What does this next month hold for us my dear, dear baby?
Gator season has started!







Certainly many visitors... Mimi just got here and Nana and Pap are coming soon!
Our friends Julia and Darren are coming here too but right when you turn 8 months and when your mama turns 30!  Of course your Dada will have been 30 for AWHILE...3 whole days! ;)
Learning how to sleep is still going on... you are pretty good about going to sleep on your own now BUT we have had some hiccups so we haven't been able to be as consistent as I would like. Between diarrhea and colds, we have to check on you ALOT and pick you up and continue to feed you.  We have weaned you off of one of your five night-time feeds (the 9:30 pm) one.  The next one to tackle is your 1:30 am feed then I might try the 4:00 am feed which would theoretically put me between five and 6 hours of solid sleep per night with the option to sleep before the 11:30 feed.   
So far you have had some solids but we slowed down on the new introductions so that I can reintroduce dairy into my diet and see how that goes... your menu so far consists of (from first introduced to the last)
watermelon
cantaloupe
brown rice cereal
pears
sweet potatoes
unsweetened applesauce
bananas
toast
Carrots and the dairy are the next items... after that probably avocado and mango. Then when you hit 8 months we can step it up some... eggs, beans, lean meats, maybe even some peanut butter!  Yum!  Our Dr. said some exposure to allergenic foods may help keep an allergy from developing later on... of course we will be extra careful and watchful about those foods.
I love you Leo and love seeing you grow day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute... I treasure these times I get to spend with you. :) Hard to believe how quickly time flys...

Love Always,

Mamamamama

Thoughts on this Mom thing... Written a few months ago

I have always wanted to be a mom.  I used to pretend I had kids all the time.  My love for children grew into lots of baby-sitting jobs and I guess once I had to manage real children I just figured parenthood would be like an extended baby-sitting job. HA!  I forgot that the parents used to tell me how their child needed to be cared for, when things happened, what to feed them... I was so not prepared for the major decisions you have to make for your little one right from the start.  I guess I got lost in my pregnancy and birth that I forgot there was a whole extra scenario afterwards.  I mean I obviously thought about it some but in the fun rainbows and butterflies way not the breastfeeding hardships, reflux/allergy issues, bouncing on a yoga ball constantly, trying to figure out when naps needed to happen... etc.

Motherhood is not as easy as I would have appreciated ;-) but I still love being a mom.  Getting smiles and giggles are the best and when he snuggles up next to me I can (most of the time) forget how tired (or hungry or dirty) I am and just enjoy the moment.  Nobody ever said it was going to be easy but I guess I didn't hear that part... selective hearing. 

Counting Sheep

So here we are with a 6 month old that doesn't sleep enough. If you don't believe me check out his average schedule below.  I will also include his sometimes schedule...

Bedtime- 7:15 pm
Wake- 10:30 pm (feed)
Wake- 12:00 am (feed and join us in bed)
Wake- 2 or 3 times to feed before 6:00 am (so lets just say every 1 1/2-2 hrs)
Wake- 6am -diaper change & feed- (occasionally a little playtime if he slept well)
Wake-7 am
Wake- 8 am (feed) up for the day-unless he was up all night then he goes back to sleep
Nap- 9:30 am 
Wake- 10:30 am
Nap- 12:30 pm
Wake- 1:30 pm
Nap- 4:00 pm
Wake- 5:00 pm
Bedtime-7:15 pm

So first thing...I am being very generous in my estimation of his naps here.  They are usually closer to an hour each with an occasional 2 hr nap sometime during the day.  Leo's napping has gotten much MUCH better since we moved and we have blackout curtains and the rocking chair in his room.  Thank goodness!  The 45 mins of bouncing (while breastfeeding) on a yoga ball to get just 20 mins of a nap out of him was exhausting and ridiculous and often fruitless.
Second, most nights I am able to only wake long enough to turn over so he can eat in the midnight-6am portion but then there are the OTHER nights (usually on weeknights when I am the only parent on duty) when Leo decides that he just isn't happy eating and going back to sleep he wants to be rocked/bounced/walked until he falls back asleep.   I usually get an hour and a half of sleep to an hour of holding baby :-/  Those are the nights when I just want to cry.  It is also those nights (and the incredible frequency of those nights) that have led me to my decision to teach Leo how to sleep...

I am currently using Sleepeasy Solutions for Exhausted Parents as a guideline but it basically sounds like a combination of other cry-it out methods.  Yes...it is a cry-it-out method : /  Not the direction I want to take with him but he needs to sleep better and so do I... if I am going to be the parent I want to be.  I like the idea that Leo will be learning how to put himself to sleep and finding ways to self-soothe, I don't like listening to him cry and I don't like that I am not supposed to let him fall asleep while eating or while being held.  Pretty soon my little boy is going to be moving all over the place and he isn't going to want to be held during the day and I will be giving up nights as well.  It makes me want to cry just thinking about it.  So I think I will be having the greatest difficulty with this process or at least I hope so.

I hope Leo surprises me and figures self-soothing out quickly, with minimal crying but I doubt it. This is going to be hard regardless.  Our plan was to start this weekend but now will have to wait another week till Leo is better (he has a cold right now).  Keep us in your prayers as we try to learn (as parents) how to step back and let our child struggle with one of his first great hurdles.  I'm pretty sure it will break my heart...

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I wrote the above last week... we decided to start sleep training this week and set the date for Thursday Aug. 9, 2013, which was last night.  We borrowed my sister Emily's awesome video monitor and prepared for the worst.

So here is our results for the first night and day (naps)

Bedtime 7:00
Cried when put down
1st check in- 7:05
2nd check in- 7:10
Asleep at 7:17 pm!

Wow... were we surprised and definitely hesitant to say anything about it for fear of jinxing it.  Even now I hope that not saying it aloud (just writing it) will be okay.  I am weaning him off of night feeds so I am doing something called a dream feed and cutting the time feeding him by 2 mins each night.  Basically, it means I go in there before he wakes up for his usual feeding, and I feed him without him ever really waking up.

Dream feed- 9:00 pm (8 mins)
Dream feed- 11:00 pm (8 mins)
Wake- 1:57 am
1st check in- Didn't happen! He got quiet before the 5 min check in and was asleep at 7 mins.
Dream feed- 3:04 am
Wake- 5:45 am
1st check in- 5:50 am
2nd check in- 6:00 am
At which point he fell into a restless sleep so I watched him for a bit then fell back to sleep myself.
Wake- 7:07 am
Since it had been over 12 hours (had to be at least 11 hours) I went and got him and realized he had pooped and it had leaked all over his shirt.  Poor thing had been laying in it for an hour : (  I felt horrible.
It took awhile to clean everything up (almost an hour) than I started playing with Leo so that we could make it to the 2 hour time span the book recommended between wake up and the first nap but while I was playing with him the poor little guy started falling asleep on the floor.  I decided to "throw the book out the window" on this part and put him down to sleep early.  He cried for 10 mins that was at 8:46.
Wake- 10:00 am
Nap- 12:30 pm
1st check in- 12:35 pm
2nd check in- 12:45 pm
3rd check in- 12:55 pm
(This was a very hard nap and broke my heart to see and hear him crying so much)
Asleep 1:10 pm
Wake 1:40 pm
Nap- 4:25 pm (fell asleep)
Wake- 5:00 pm

End of night and day 1! Whew!

Tonight Leo went down at 7:40 pm (He had two poopy diapers while I was trying to feed him so we were late.) and only cried for about 2 seconds!  I hope (fingers crossed) that this will be the worst of it but I somehow can't fully believe that.  Dream feeds are continuing tonight at 6 minutes a piece and hopefully tomorrow morning will go well.  Naps (I am sure) will continue to be difficult but I have hope that they will get better.  

So I am going basically "by the book" in our scheduling and methods except in two things 1) I am not always putting him down completely awake because 2) I am letting him fall asleep on the breast.  The book wants you to rouse the baby every time you see them falling asleep while feeding well I am just not cool with that.  I feel like that would be very annoying (from Leo's perspective) and I don't want him to associate being rudely awakened with feeding... another mother from my mom's group said she had been doing that and the sleep learning had still been going smoothly.  SO glad I talked to her as it doesn't seem to be making Leo's time more difficult.

On another note...

The last weekend in July there was an air show at the Hillsboro Airport which is 5 mins from our apartment.  We had some pretty good views of the happenings from our apartment and on Sunday we laid out a blanket in the patch of grass by our porch and played with Leo (who was ready to watch the planes) but we got out there after the show was over. : /  Here are some pictures from our time outside...

 Well, I'm off!  Hope you learned something new and/or enjoyed the post and pictures : )

 
   

6 months and a New Home

Today, July 21, 2013, we finished our move into our new apartment in the same apartment complex.  Leo was a sport most of the time... since Evan and I were on a deadline to get everything out and cleaned before 5:00 (when we had to turn in our keys) Leo spent a lot of time by himself on the floor.  It was our third day of moving too so I think Leo was feeling a little attention deprived.  In between his naps I'll have to find some fun stuff for us to do this week to make up for it.  We had a lot of help this weekend from my sister Emily, my brother-in-law Steve, and our friends Toby & Joe, and Doris & Greg.  Saturday was the big moving day and in addition to those mentioned above we had Leo, Melody (Doris and Greg's baby), and my nieces Sara and Rebecca.  For the most part Evan, Steve, Joe, Greg, and Toby were moving stuff from the 3rd story apt to the trailer then bringing the stuff to our porch.  From there, Emily, Doris, and I were trying to find moments to bring stuff into the house but that was very hard in between dealing with diapers, fussiness, feedings, and naps.  At one point, we had Rebecca sleeping on our bed, Leo sleeping in his room. and Melody sleeping in a bouncer in the living room!  I was impressed that they were all asleep at once...  I know the other group had a much rougher job of hauling, packing, and ALL those stairs so I am grateful that I didn't have to do much of that but we kept busy too.  At times it felt like we had more than 4 kids in the house!  So with the efforts of many fine people we are moved in and now on the first floor!  YAY!  

I have been very ready to move out of our apartment as one bedroom and such a small space was becoming more and more difficult to live in, (see picture for proof!)

Leo amidst the chaos.

but just the same...  I felt pangs of sadness at leaving the place that I experienced my first pregnancy and that was Leo's first home.  It was the home I became a mother in and while I know I am taking with me everything that made that home special, I also know apt. 209 will always hold a special place in my heart.

Update... For anybody who read the bird nest/ power washing scare of last summer... they are back!  They have built their nest in the exact same spot and the dad (I think) stands guard on the porch light.  I am planning on walking back by there to take a picture soon, hopefully of  the new babies! :)

The past month we have stayed busy packing, going to Mom's group (We have to graduate soon!), and going to playgroups with some of the other moms and babies from Mom's group.  We have lots of fun and although I always forget to take pictures when everybody is there at the beginning I got a few cute ones at the end. Enjoy!

Liam is about 2 weeks older than Leo and is starting to crawl (or hop depending on how you look at it) and Leo was quite disturbed by all his moving : /  

I love how serious Leo looks...

Just a couple of guys hanging out :)

Carver, Liam, and Leo

Leo turned six months today...
Here are some pictures from the past month and a few from this week

I love books...to eat!

Fun with the cat :-)

Go Gators!

Just like Daddy!

Don't be jealous of my shirt....

We even made it to the pool!

Someone wants food...

It's hot!

Dearest Leo,

              Your half-birthday is here... almost gone really.  You are asleep in your new room, but only for another hour.  You'll end up with me and your dad in our bed by midnight most likely.  We have to work on that...

Cleaning is exhausting work... Good-bye Apt. 209!

               We have had a busy weekend... so many changes that you won't remember.  I am sad to leave behind my nest that I made especially for you but I haven't left the memories behind.  I will never forget the joy I felt when I found out I was pregnant or telling your dad about you as he stood in the kitchen on his break.  I will most certainly remember walking up those stairs while pregnant (not fun!) and bringing you home for the first time.  I can still feel the feather like weight of your body on my chest during those long days and even longer nights in the blue chair.  You've grown so much but you still have a lot of growing to do.  *sigh* I know that this change will be good for all of us.  We've made many memories in that apartment and we'll make even more in this one.  You will very likely take your first steps here, say your first words here, celebrate your first birthday here, and so many more firsts...     Can we slow this down just a bit?
                I best be off to bed to get in a couple of winks before you wake.  I love you my little big 6 month old!
                   Love,

                                Mamamama