Parenthood

A few months ago, before I had Caroline, my sister told me about a blog that is written by a guy that she works with.  He is a chaplain supervisor around town and is the parent of a little girl.  I LOVE this blog and wanted to share it with all of my friends that have kids and are on the verge of having kids.  These are the types of things he writes that makes me so excited when I see that he has posted something new.

 

'Being a parent means being completely responsible and completely powerless at the same time.  It's like juggling eggs while playing dodgeball.  I can't reasonably protect her from everything in the world, right?  But I still have to try.  It's exhausting and, frankly, scary as hell.'

 

This sentence sums up parenthood to me in such a real way.  You have things that you think about daily that are both rational and irrational.  Rationally you think, 'I need to get her away from that table that has a sharp corner on it.'  Irrationally you think, 'What if she is in there taking a nap and someone crawls through her window and takes her and I don't know.'  Then I get up and go check on her and she is drooling and dreaming away.

 

Through talking to people that have been parents for a long time and through reading this blog, I have figured out that when you love some thing and someone as much as you love your child, you are going to have a fear of losing them that is equal to that love (as hard as you try not to).  You hear too many scary stories about people losing children and as a parent, nothing could be scarier or more painful.  I work very hard at not being consumed with this fear.  I try to keep myself as rational as possible and focus on the love part of having a child and not so much of the fear part.

 

When I think about how much I love my child, it helps me to understand just a little bit better when I hear that God loves me and all of us like a child.  It's crazy how something so little can change your perspective so much!

 

 

9 Month Update

*She weighs 18 lbs 13 oz (45th) and is 29 in (85th) long.

*She is still in size 2 diapers, but needs a 3 at night and it won’t be long before we make the switch.

*We just made the switch to 9 month clothes.  She all of a sudden got really tall for her 6 month pants, which I think was an indication of shooting up to the 85th percentile on length.  She is in 12 month sleepers with plenty of room to fill them out!

*Sleeping is still the same.  At home she takes two good 2 – 3 hour naps, but at school she takes about an hour to an hour and a half nap after lunch and then she is put back down for at least another hour when we get home at 5.  Still not my favorite thing to do, but she needs her sleep.  At night she goes down between 7 – 7:30 and we get her up at 7 in the morning on school days.

*She has her first ear infection.  She has had a pretty nasty cold now for a while and when I took her in last time they couldn’t find any infection and told me that the virus just needed to run its course.  There is nothing worse than a sick baby that you can’t do anything for.  We have a humidifier and we’re using saline and a bulb, but other than that, we can’t do much for her.  She went in for her 9 month check up and I mentioned that she hadn’t really gotten any better and they checked and she had bilateral ear infections.  I don’t know what it is with the Collins family and their sneaky ear infections.  Both Anna and Jack have had multiple ear infections over the past few months and there was never a symptom of any of them. 

*Homegirl has 8 teeth.  She has four on top and four on the bottom.  I felt like she got her first two a good few months ago and then BAM! – 6 more teeth.  Other than gnawing on everything, she hasn’t really been too fussy.  Since she’s been sick its hard to tell what is teeth fussing and what is general ‘I don’t feel good’ fussing, but she certainly has been a trooper.

*She is COMPLETELY mobile.  She can crawl like a maniac now and she is pulling up.  She can get where she wants to go and get there pretty quickly.  This has been so fun because I can sit down on the ground and she will crawl up into my lap.  I feel so loved when I know she wants to come to me.

*Along with crawling comes getting into things she isn’t supposed to.  We decided that we would tell her no and if she did it anyway, we would just squeeze her hand.  The only thing she has really gotten in trouble for is picking up and putting the dog bones in her mouth.  She we would tell her no and squeeze her hand.  She would cry and get a pouty lip and then move on to something else.  After a few days of that, she’ll now crawl up to it, stop and sit on her butt looking at it, and then crawl right past it.  Or we’ll just say her name and she’ll turn and look at us and start smiling and crawling towards us.  She is a mess.

*She really reaches out now and can let you know pretty quickly if she wants to go to someone or not.  It makes me so happy when someone has her and she leans out to me, but I try not to get my feelings hurt when I hold my hands up and she turns away.  At least we have a little girl that knows what she wants in life!

*She is almost completely through with baby food.  We are going to finish them out because we have them, but we are almost fully onto table food.  She loves bananas, mandarin oranges, sweet potatoes, and she’ll eat green beans and peas.

*Apparently at school they do a lot of singing and dancing.  Just within the past week or so, she’ll start rocking herself on her butt when you sing and it looks like she is dancing with everything she’s got!  She gets a huge smile on her face when I sing ‘Kuckaburra’.  Not sure why she loves that one, but it’s a fave!

*She LOVES reading.  She loves ‘Brown Bear’ right now and a cheesy little $1 book we got from somewhere called ‘Goodnight, Sleepyhead’.  Ja and I both have this memorized because she wants to read this one every night.  If you try to read something else she will stare at that book in the pile until you lean her over and then she’ll go right for it.

*We have our night time routine going pretty well.  We get her into her PJs, give her her last bottle, brush her teeth, read ‘Sleepyhead’ and then it is sleep sack, bobo, and her paci.  Out like a light.

*She has so much hair now that we had to get a brush and comb set.  After a bath we have to comb her hair down and it will be all over the place!

*I have always moaned in my sleep and Caroline has inherited that from me.  You can hear her in her room just moaning away and you check on her and her eyes are closed and she is still fast asleep.  This is why we haven’t used a monitor in months because she doesn’t sleep very quietly!

*We had to drop her crib because we went in there one time and she was sitting up and then the next time we went in there and she was beginning to pull up on the rails.  So we dropped it all the down to the lowest setting.  It was crazy to be taking that crib apart because the last time we had messed with it was just about a year before when we were putting it together and I was only 5 months pregnant.  It is crazy how quickly things change!

*Caroline is the smiling-est, happiest, best baby we could have ever asked for.  People ask us all the time if she is always that happy and that content just sitting and playing and I always tell them that she is.  She can even be pushed past what I think she can handle and she hangs right in there.  We are so lucky and so blessed to be able to be her mommy and daddy!

Pulling up and showing off her skills – and that cute butt!

We have been so lucky.  The boys have been SO good with her and they love to do drive-bys and lick her really quickly before they get in trouble.  They let her pat them and pull on them and they don’t move. 

Jack and Caroline LOVE each other.  It is so awesome that they are so close in age and get to grow up together.

Jack has been quite a brute when it comes to Caroline, but she is learning how to hold her own.  She is getting steamrolled here, but don’t let that fool you!

The girl does love a book – and being a girl, she can sit still long enough to have one read to her.  This was a fleeting moment when Mom was here where Jack was sitting down and reading the book, too.

She loves turning the pages.  She used to just peak around the page to look at what was back there and then she figured out that she can turn the page and see it all!

We still don’t have a high chair and I think this is how things will be.  This booster seat has been perfect and is easy to clean.  It’s doubly fun when Jack comes over to hang out.

This is the reason her crib got dropped!  She is quite proud of herself when we walk in and she is standing up in her crib.

When she was a baby she was never very fond of the bath when we would lay her down.  Now that she can sit up on her own and actually play, she LOVES bath time.  We stick her in the shower with one of us when we need to do a quick clean, but she loves getting in the tub and playing. 

Getting her crawl on.  She is a pretty quick little sucker!

We don’t let her watch TV a lot, but when we put on Baby Einstein or the Bubble Guppies or anything else made for her age, she is mesmerized.  We had this bean bag chair in her room just as decoration and Ja put her in it just to see what she would do.  She laid there for about 15 minutes and just watched TV and kicked her feet.  She was maxin’ and relaxin’!

Tell me that is not the cutest face!  I love when she smiles and scrunches her nose up.  She already has such a little personality and I’m so excited to watch her grow into it even more.  I keep thinking that every stage is so much fun and it just keeps getting better!  We love you, Sweet Caroline!

Target - Why Must Your Website Be SO Bad!

Dear Target,

I love you.  I'm sorry to be so blunt, but with the direction this note is going to head I wanted to lead with that.

And by I love you, I mean, I seriously love you.  Some people need to go to high end stores to feel the high of shopping and getting great things, but I, on the other hand, just need to walk through those big red doors of yours.  I always walk the same direction that so that I can cover the store and not miss anything.  I love your throw pillows.  I love your clothes.  I love your shoes.  I love your baby clothes.  I love your towels.  I love your $0.99 cards.  I love your $2.99 milk.  I love your up + up stuff.  I just love you and it makes so happy to shop in your stores.

With all of that love I have for you, I have the equal amount of hatred for your website.  How in the world can something so good be SO SO bad?!  The website takes FOREVER to load and with every click it is a brand new eternity that you must wait to get to where you want to get.  There is not another page on the entire world wide web that I would wait an eternity for - so that is saying something.  But that is about to end.  All I'm trying to do is find out what I can get my friend for her baby shower.  All of that is not worth waiting for 10 - 15 minutes to wait. 

PLEASE FIX YOUR WEBSITE.  You are better than that.

Your Concerned Patron

(P.S. If you are reading this and do not like Target, I don't need to know that.  Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I appreciate yours, but I just don't need anyone to talk me out of my love for this place.  We don't have a lot of money to throw around these days, so Target is where I go to feel like I am doing some for me.)

8 Month Update

*She is 18 lbs 4 ounces and    in long.  (I didn’t fill this in for 7 months and I hope I remember to fill it in for 8 months.  If not, we go to the doctor next month for her check up, so I’ll definitely fill it in then!)
*She is still in size 2 diapers.
*She is still in size 6 month clothes and 9 month sleepers.  (Side note: I bought my first box of diapers this week – and that was because they were on clearance and not because I needed them.  Between our WONDERFUL parents and being blessed during our showers, we have been pretty well stocked.)
*At school she has dropped her morning nap.  They would put her down and she would roll around and fuss and cry for about 15 or 20 minutes and then they would just go and get her.  That is when they are doing their songs and lessons and she is too nosy to miss out on all of that.  Then her afternoon nap wasn’t quite as long as I would like.  So I told them to keep her up for the morning and then see what happened to her afternoon nap.  They said that she never rubbed her eyes or acted tired in the morning and then her afternoon nap became anywhere from 1 1/2 hours to 2 hours.  At least she is getting one really good nap.  Then she comes home and I put her down for another hour to 1 1/2 hours.
*She is still eating stage 2 foods and more and more real food.  Sometimes I’ll give her a veggie for dinner and then cut up a pear and let her chomp away at that.  It also helps when I am trying to get dinner ready for Ja and me because it keeps her busy.
*She is the cutest thing when she is feeding herself.  She learned to pick up her food in her palm and then she uses her thumb to shimmy that thing on up there so she can get it in her mouth.  Precious.
*She has two more teeth that have come through – the right front tooth and the one to the right of it (looking at her).  There two were much harder on her than the first two.  She was a lot fussier and lot more uncomfortable seeming.
*Her bottle schedule is still the same.  She feeds herself four times a day!
*We now have a mobile child.  It is crazy how quickly this has come about.  I feel like she has been doing a pushup for a long while now and that she has been really close to crawling, but it only took about a week between figuring out to move her hands one at a time and taking off.  Now she can do about 8 or 9 crawls in a row and then she’ll lunge herself or army crawl the rest of the way.  There is very little that she wants but does not get to!
*She LOVES walking now.  She will reach up and show us that she wants our fingers and then she’ll pull up and take off.  She gets so proud of herself.
*She loves it when you clap and say ‘Yay!’  She gets a huge smile and puts her hands together like she is embarrassed.  Precious.
*We are still working on the sign language and we can see her hand moving a little bit, especially with milk, but nothing concrete yet.
*She loves to play Pee Pie, but she does not like it when you leave her in a room by herself.  I like to think it is just because we have worked all day and she misses us, but I know it is just because she is starting to realize that no one else is there.
*Changing clothes, changing diapers, or anything else that requires her to lay down has become a full on wrestling match.  She has figured out how to sit herself up on the changing table by pulling up on the sides, and now she HATES laying down.
*She is fighting her 2nd really bad cold.  She is pretty pitiful with that bright red nose. 
We love you our sweet, crazy girl! 

My UNCW girls came up for a weekend.  Katie gave Caroline this tutu at one of my baby showers, so we just had to put it on her and show it off!

Ja took Caroline down to his parents for the weekend that my girls were here.  He took Caroline to Wilmington to surprise my mom at work in this outfit.  If she is not ridiculous.

PPPPPPPPPPEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSS!!

Is it just me, or is that a glimpse at the future handful we are going to have with this one.  Just look at that expression!

Uh oh, we’ve figured out how to give food to the dogs.  Good thing their heads are massive and just the right height to eat off of the tray of the booster seat.

Now that looks like a good time to me!

Give. Me. The. Pickle.

She tore that thing up.  I know it had to feel good on those teeth.

We had a duck in our house on Halloween night!  She wasn’t feeling good and had missed a nap, so she was this lasted about 10 minutes before bedtime!

Look at that duck butt!

That is one proud papa!

Ja had to stay home with Caroline because she was miserable from a cold and those teeth.  This is how we knew she really felt bad.  She never sits still nowadays and she laid like this for about 15 minutes.

Happy 8 Months sweet girl – red nose and all!  (That is the same pig that her pictures are taken with, but instead of just sitting there in the picture, it is now the distraction and gets thrown around a bit!)

My standing up girl!

And she’s off…

Let the games and destruction begin!

Side note:  I love these pjs.  Even though these are a much bigger size, it is the same print that we brought her home in 8 short months ago!

7 Month Update

I cannot believe that my sweet girl is already 7 months old!  Where is the pause button?!?!

*She is   lbs. and    inches long (I’ll fill this in when I get a chance to get it!)

*She is in size 2 diapers.  They are still a bit big on her, so I think she’ll be in them for a while!

*She is wearing 6 month clothes and 9 month sleepers.  I washed the 6 month sleepers and put the first one on her and her toes were already about to bust out.  We got about 2 or 3 weeks out of them, but they then we had to make the switch to the 9 month.  They are a little big on her, so I think we’ll be in those for a while.  The 6 month clothes fit her really well right now.

*We are doing the same thing for naps.  At ‘school’ she takes a little one in the morning (30 – 45 minutes) because that is when they are doing activities with the big kids.  She gets a little power nap in and then she wants to be a part of what is going on!  In the afternoon she is consistently taking a good 1 – 1 1/2 hour nap.  Then when we get home she takes an 1 1/2 – 2 hour nap.  I still don’t like that she has to be asleep when she gets home, but if she needs her sleep I’m going to let her have it.

*On the weekends she sleeps in until about 8:30 and then takes two big naps (2 – 3 hours).  It is perfect.  It gives us time to get stuff done, but then we get a lot of time to spend with her.  It is funny how she does one thing when she is at ‘school’ and then immediately transitions into her weekend routine.

*She still has her two little pearls that she flashes all the time.  We have added brushing her teeth to her nighttime routine and she loves doing it by herself (aka holding the toothbrush and gnawing on it)!

*She is still on stage 2 foods and has pretty much the same eating schedule as she has had for a while.  She gets cereal (oatmeal or rice) and 1/2 a fruit with a 6 ounce bottle for breakfast.  She is now getting a veggie at lunch at ‘school’ with an 8 ounce bottle.  She gets an 8 ounce bottle at 3 and then she gets a dinner or a veggie and the leftover fruit for dinner with a 6 ounce bottle right before bed.  She also gets a sippy cup with water at all of her meals and she is getting the hang of what she is supposed to be doing with it.

*She can now hold her bottle and feed herself.  She started a little while back just playing with the bottle while we held it and now she can take it and hold it the whole time she eats.

*We are now completely formula and have been for a while.  She never even blinked. 

*Along with her meals of baby food, we have been trying to let her have just about anything we have.  She started to become very interested in what we were eating, so we started giving her little bitty pieces of just about everything.  It is making me make better choices with what I eat because I know I’ll be giving her some.  We also still give her bigger chunks of stuff in her net thing and now that she can hold it by herself, she loves it!  She also is getting better and better at feeding herself.  We still put her in her booster seat with puffs and she is entertained for quite a while!

*She is now completely a sitter and can now get herself from sitting up to laying on her belly.  She also, finally, today rolled over from her front to her back (she did it a few months ago and then just stopped doing it).  She can do a girl pushup and she is starting to get her knees under her and rock.  She doesn’t do it for long, but she at least has the idea of how things are supposed to go.  She is starting to push herself backwards, so I think she’ll figure it out soon.

*If you reach your hands out she knows to grab a hold of them and pull herself up.  Other than that she shows very little interest in walking.  Even when you lean her forward to see if she’ll take a step she just lets you lay her down.  I think it will be a while on the walking – which is FINE WITH ME!!

*I feel like within the past few days she has gotten exponentially more expressive.  She has started to get a little bit fussier when she isn’t getting what she wants.  She is letting you know when she wants more food and when she doesn’t want to be by herself.  She smiles pretty easily and laughs if you get her in the right mood or tickle her or do the ALWAYS funny raspberry at her.  It is really cool to see.

*We have been doing sign language with her since about 4 months.  We are just doing more, milk, all done, and please.  You can tell she is watching what we are doing, so one of these days we’ll see it from her.

*She is getting more and more developed with her language.  She has added a few more sounds (she has said mama a couple of times, but not with enough consistency to get excited about) and she is always messing around with the volume and pitch of what sounds she is making.

*I know it is obvious on this blog how much we love our child, but I feel like every day I love her more.  I don’t know how that is possible, but I am so lucky that God picked me to be her Mama!

I can’t even tell you how long I’ve waited to get those jeans on her.  They are ridiculous!  Look at my big girl sitting up, too!

Mimi and Papa came up for one of Jason’s football games and Caroline entertained them the whole time!

Caroline and Jack playing with her new music table – thanks, Mimi!

Check out the video of them playing here!

She could sit and try to eat puffs for hours.  Here she is one morning while I’m getting breakfast ready for her.  It’s almost in there, big girl!

If she is not her Daddy’s daughter!

Grammie and Grandpa came up to see her, too!

Happy 7 months, Sweet Caroline!

 

Here are a couple more videos of her – here and here!

The first one is of her saying her famous da-da and the second is of her saying I love you!

Reasons Today Is Awesome!

1.  It is Friday - do I really need any more reasons?!

2.  It is payday - thank the Lord!!

3.  I have every single paper graded and I'm going home empty handed.

4.  I just found out the second good friend of mine got engaged this week!  I so love this time of life that involves weddings and babies.

5.  My cousin is getting married tomorrow!  I'm sad we can't be there, but we'll get to see the newlyweds next weekend!  Yay!

6.  My aunt just found out she has Stage 1B lung cancer (which is very not awesome), but she is in good spirits and she and her doctors seem to have a good plan and it sounds like she has a lot of support!

7.  We have a packed month ahead of us.  We are either going somewhere or have company every weekend in October.  I am really looking forward to this weekend to relax with Ja, Caroline, and the boys and be able to slow down for a minute.  Then let the games begin!

8.  It is starting to get cool outside!  Since Ja has a home game tonight, I'm excited about bundling up (hopefully) and it really feeling like football!

Hope everyone has a great Friday and a great weekend!

‘School’

Well we are almost a month into me going back to work and Caroline going to ‘school’.  For the most part, it has been a great transition.  She did very little sleeping to begin with, which stressed me out quite a bit since she has always been a good sleeper, but she has adjusted well and does some pretty decent sleeping while she is there.  She is such an observer and so nosy and busy that she would just rather be singing, playing, talking, or laughing than doing such a silly thing as sleeping.  I’m sure, though, going from a quiet room at home to a busy ‘school’ room was enough to get adjusted to.  But she did it, like she has done everything, like a champ.  When I drop her off Mrs. Val and Mrs. Nita are so happy to see her and she just gives them a big toothy grin and I know she will be just fine.  All of her friends say hey to her and then I kiss her, tell her I love her, and head for the door.  It is all I can do to get to 4, but once I do I’m in my car and at her ‘school’ as soon as I can get there.  I’m greeted at the door with one of her teachers and (most of the time) that big ol’ grin I’ve been waiting for all day long.  If she hasn’t slept well, she is usually so tired she can’t even hold her head up.  If she looks like that, she’ll be asleep before we even reach the road!  Every day I get a report card to let me know about her pooping and peeing, how much she ate of her bottles and when, and how she did with her naps.  Mondays are usually pretty light on the sleeping since she is getting back into the busy routine at ‘school’, but by Friday we have had a couple 1 1/2 to 2 hour naps – which makes this momma very happy!!

Even though I know that she is doing great and doing great things, the bottom line is that it sucks.  It sucks to know that I have to go 8 or 9 hours without seeing her.  It sucks that out of the 3 hours that I have her at home before she goes to bed, she is asleep for half of it.  It sucks to know there is someone else watching her that may not do things like I do.  It sucks that she may not be getting as much sleep as she needs.  It sucks that I miss her and that there is a small ache in my heart all day until I can get to her again.

That is the down side.  I try not to roll around in that too much, because this is the way that life is now and it is not going to change any time soon.  So let’s focus on the positive.  She is making friends.  She is at a great place where I know the people there are taking great care of her.  She is building up her immune system.  She is learning and building brain cells every day.  She is learning how to adapt to life without having to have her mommy and daddy around her all the time.  She is experiencing things that she may not have experienced if she was home with me all the time.  4 o’clock has always been a good time of the day, but now it is just 1,000 times better.  I used to not be a morning person at all, but now when my alarm goes off I usually hop right into the shower, because the faster I get ready, the faster I get to see my sweet girl.

After all of that, the moral of the story is that we are all going to be just fine.  We are going to adapt to this and I will get to see my sweet girl grow more and more every day.  While all of that is happening, I’ll be praying for Thanksgiving Break, Christmas Break, Spring Break, and Summer Break to hurry up so I can spend time with my baby!!

6 Month Update

* She is a growing girl!  She weighs 16 lbs. 14 oz. (61st percentile) and is 26 1/2 inches long (69th percentile)!

* She is wearing size 1 diapers at 'school', but we have moved onto 1-2s at home and will soon be in the full swing of size 2s. We are SOOOOO blessed that we got so hooked up at showers and have not had to pay for diapers yet - other than preemies because no one had any idea she'd be that small!!

* She is in clothes anywhere from 0-3 months to 6 months. Her sleepers are 6 months, but most 6 month clothes are still a little big. We are migrating the small stuff out and the bigger stuff in to make sure she can wear all of her warm weather stuff before it gets cold. (Sidenote: Jason and I both have a baby clothes addiction and we need to seek treatment for it - right after we run to Target!)

* She is still sleeping three naps a day and I'm thinking that she will be for a while. She takes a morning nap and an afternoon nap at 'school' (about an hour to an hour and a half on good days!) and then takes another nap when we get home. It stinks that we don't get to spend that much time together after being a part all day, but I'd rather her get as much sleep as she needs.

* She has two teeth! The second tooth came in a couple of weeks after the first one. She was fussier with the second one, but it was over in no time and there it was!

* During her first week of 'school' she got a nasty virus and she had these tiny red bumps from her face to the bottoms of her feet! The doctor said it could be any of a number of viruses, but that it was a pretty severe case. Here goes the building up of that little immune system!

* She is on to Gerber Stage 2 foods now. She ate two good boxes of Stage 1 foods from Sam's (thanks, Mom!) and then it was time to move on to more exciting mixes! She has LOVED all of the fruits, especially banana mixes, but is not as much a fan of the peas, green beans, veggie beef, or the chicken noodle. She likes carrots and garden and mixed veggies, so it looks like I'm going to be sneaking peas and green beans into things!

* She has the same eating schedule as she did at 5 months. She eats cereal and half a fruit at 7 and then finishes the rest of her 6 oz bottle. She gets an 8 oz bottle at 11 and 3 and then gets a veggie/meat or veggie combo dinner at 7 and then a 6 oz bottle before bed. Once I get a little more comfortable with her school, I'll start sending some food for her to have at lunch with her 11am bottle. That way she can get adjusted to a normal breakfast, lunch, dinner schedule.

* She is almost up to completely formula bottles. My goal was to have enough milk stored up to make it to six months - she was six months yesterday and I have 5 bags left! So she is now getting 4 out of the 6 oz and 6 out of the 8 oz of formula and the rest breast milk. Once those 5 bags are gone, it'll be all formula.

* We have been putting puffs on her Bumbo tray. (We don't have a high chair and I don't know that we will. For right now we have the Bumbo on the island in the kitchen and then we have the booster seat that attaches to a chair.) She could entertain herself for hours. She is starting to figure out that they need to get into her mouth, but it is awesome watching her learn from each grab she makes.

* We have also had a sippy cup at both breakfast and dinner. I figured out the cups we were trying to use were too advanced for what she is capable of right now, so after we got her a stage 1 cup, she is drinking like a champ!

* She is siting up pretty well and still standing up when you hold her up or if she is holding onto something for just a few seconds.

* She is doing better about being on her tummy and can now hold herself completely up on her arms. She'll actually play when she rolls over now instead of crying after just a few seconds.

* You can tell that she is starting to notice that there are things away from her that she wants and she will get on her tummy and push herself up and those feet just start going crazy. Once she figures out how to dig those toes in - she'll be gone!

* She loves playing in her exersaucer, but she never has jumped in it. Even when we put her in Leslie's Johnny Jump Up she just rocks back and forth. She can get some pretty fierce rocking going on, but not a big fan of the jumping.

* She has also figured out how to squeal and make her voice do all different kinds of pitches and volumes. She has been saying 'Hey!' for a while now and she has recently said 'Da da' and 'Bla bla' and all sorts of other sounds that end in aaa. Jason has done a really good job of not rubbing in that she said da da first. He has been trying to get her to do it since she was born, so I guess his work paid off!

* She is laughing fairly easily now. If we catch her in the right mood we can start to tickle her and she will just cackle. I wish I could bottle up that sound and keep it with me all the time! It is one of my favorite sounds in the entire world!

* She is starting to notice when she is around people other than us. Sometimes she will just stare and study and not give them anything (sorry, Leslie!) and other times she will just smile and grin at whomever it is that is looking at her! I have a feeling she is going to be quiet the outgoing child. She smiles at Mrs. Val and Mrs. Nita every morning when we get to school and when people stop to say her to her when we are out, she often flashes that toothy grin!

* I cannot believe my sweet girl is 6 months old, but it has been, by far, the best 6 months of my life! I had no idea that such a little thing could make my heart grow and grow like she has!

Tell me that is not the cutest smile you have ever seen!

I LOVE when she laughs and scrunches up her nose.  She has grown into such a little person!

She gets so excited when we read her a story right before bedtime.

She has all sorts of tricks now!  She will tear up some fruit in her net thing.

That’s my girl!

 

I took this so we could have an aerial view of the chunk of thigh she has hanging out from her diaper!  Love it!

She is OBSESSED with cell phones (or anything with a screen) and the remote.  We are doing our best to not let her have them, but I think it is only a matter of time!

She worked for the first six months of her life to hold her head up.  She has just recently realized that can lay her head down now.  It is absolutely precious.

Me and my sweet girl on my 27th birthday and her 6 month birthday!

Daddy and Caroline on Daddy’s 31st birthday!

Happy 6 months to my sweet, happy, smiling, ridiculous, growing, loving girl!

Amusement Park of Life

I have been thinking about how crazy life is lately.  You've got lots of ups and lots of downs - just like all those crazy rollercoasters that I was ALWAYS talked into riding.

The first ride that you jump on is the Childhood Choo Choo.  You have lots of ups - learning how to do cartwheels in the yard with your best friends from down the street, playing outside until you get called in for dinner, family vacations at the beach, and getting your very first puppy.  You also have lots of downs - getting slapped by your Kindergarten teacher for crying a lot and forgetting your ice cream money (true story), falling off your bike and getting some nasty scars, being constantly annoyed by your siblings, and that whole awkward middle school time.  In between you have day to day life, which for me was pretty awesome.  My childhood ride (as far as I remember it), had lots more ups than it did downs - just as a kiddie ride should.  It is not fair, though, that some people have to ride much scarier childhood rides before they hit the height requirement. : (

After the Childhood Choo Choo, you jump onto the Teen Tumbler.   Things are getting a little more dramatic now and your ups are higher and your downs are lower and they happen much more frequently.  You click, click, click, click up to your new boyfriends, your license, your sports teams, and your awesome mission trips with all of your faves from youth group.  You then dive down to disses from your best friend on the forum, being tricked into talking trash about your friend who is silently listening to everything on a three-way call, and break ups with your whack boyfriends.  Most people are pretty fortunate to make it through the Teen Tumbler with all of their spare change still in their pockets.

Next is the Adult Avenger.  Your ups and downs are a little bit less frequent now as things are starting to kind of even themselves out, but the highs and lows can still be pretty extreme.  Your highs consist of four awesome years of college, getting your first big girl/boy job, becoming completely independent, and meeting the love of your life.  The lows on this ride consist of being completely independent (financially), bills, money, (you get the point!), and having to make really big decisions that have real big boy/big girl repercussions.

Part of this ride takes your straight into Wedding World.  On this part of the ride you click, click, click your way up to the wonderment of getting engagement, finding the perfect wedding dress, celebrating with everyone you love in your life, and the ultimate high of saying 'I do' to the one you love most in the world.  The drops on this ride come from having to figure out who to invite and who to not invite, arguments about details (that in the end are not all that important), and stress about getting it all done in time.  The actual wedding day is the highest part of this ride.  You ride this high through the ceremony, the bomb diggity ass reception and after party, and through the honeymoon.  After that you ride one of the biggest drops as you get back to reality and settle out at a pretty happy place with your new spouse.

After you ride that train for a while, you then land in Mommy Land.  This is what got me thinking about all of this craziness.  In Mommy Land you have the clicks that get you up to the positive pregnancy test, the wang-a-lang or wagina on the ultrasound, the amazing birth of your little one that is one of the highest points on this entire ride, and watching the sweet baby sleep and later smile and laugh at you.  The drops (that I have been through so far) are watching your baby get shots and cry a cry you have never heard, hear your baby waking up right as you are finally really falling asleep, and having to go back to work after weeks at home with her.

I have ridden the beginning of this Mommy Land ride and so far I have clicked myself so close to heaven I can almost spread those clouds apart and peak in and see what it is like up there!  I have the sweetest little girl that I am completely in love with and who brings so much joy in my life.  I have had an entire summer to collect every bit of sugar and slobbery kisses that I can - and I have done just that.  Then the part of the ride called Dreaded Daycare interrupted my bliss.  This is what this part of the ride has been like for me:

click, click, click

I have someone great lined up.  I am currently pregnant and have already talked to the lady and reserved my spot and she sounds perfect.  We are all set to go.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

We go to visit her two and a half weeks before school starts.  She tells us she won't do a schedule.  I shrug it off, but call her the next day to ask her about it.  She is quite rude (must have been having a bad day because this was totally different than every time I've talked to her) and lets me know that she is not willing to work with me at all.

 click, click, click

I call Jason, he comes home, and he tells me that we are going to look and find somewhere and we'll be fine.  We find somewhere on line, call and schedule an appointment for the next day, and they have one spot open.  We go to visit them and everything is fine.  They say what we want to hear and we tell them that we will let them know the following Monday.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I cannot sleep.  I go into a mini-depression.  I keep picturing my sweet girl trying to sleep under bright lights with lots of babies around and crying and crying because their aren't enough hands to help her.  I cry and cry the more I picture it and I know I just can't do it.  Not sure what other options we have, but we are going to look.

click, click, click

I find some more places online.  I call a few - 20+ people waiting lists.  Shit.  I call another place - a 5-star ranked center.  They happen to have an open slot.  I go and visit them and my heart is once again in a good place with all of this.  They are so warm and sweet with the kids and they have a very good ratio of kids to adults.  I am at peace with the fact that this is where my little girl will go.  I enjoy the next two weeks of my summer and soak in all I can. 



aaa!!!

I think (hope) this is going to be a little drop and then we'll be up from here.  Tomorrow is D-day.  Tomorrow I will load Caroline and all of her stuff up and I will drop her off with her new caregivers.  I will make sure everything is where it needs to be and that they know everything I want for them to know about her and then I will give her a kiss goodbye and I will head to work, praying that she is in the best hands she can be in that are not mine or her Daddy's. 

click, click, click

I will go to work and not be able to get my mind off of her, but I will see good friends, sit through our opening meeting, start to get my room like I want it, and then I will HAUL ASS to Caroline's 'school' (I know it isn't technically school, but it makes it easier for me to say that she is at school rather than at daycare), pick her up and give her a hundred kisses.  Ninety-nine of those will be because I will be making up for lost time and the last one will be because we made it through our first day.

And then I really do believe that the rest of the ride, for the most part, will be ups.  We'll get comfortable, they will learn her, and she will begin to learn lots of new things.  I know we will have a few dips along the way, but we'll roll with them and climb up to the next peak.

Life is crazy and up and down, but I plan on riding this roller coaster as long as I can and I can't wait to see what other crazy things I will click up to and what other drops I will get myself out of!

Babywise – Yes, please!

First, let me say a huge thank you to Leslie for hearing about Babywise and using it on Anna and making me a believer!  I love my sleep – always have – and I was worried about having a baby and getting sleep.  I should not have worried.  Because of Babywise, sleep is not a problem for us!

Secondly, I know there are a TON of different parenting philosophies out there.  I also know that there are some people that are very dedicated to their beliefs.  I, for one, am dedicated to my belief in Babywise.  Here’s why:

The premise behind Babywise is that it teaches your baby to like to sleep using an Eat - Play - Sleep routine. During the first few weeks you do exactly what you and the baby want. You hold and snuggle them and feed them when they want to be fed. After that, you start trying to get them to a 3 hour schedule. So if you feed them at 6am, then you would feed them and then they'd be up for another hour or so until 7am, and then they'd sleep until 9am when they would need to eat again.

Some people don't believe in waking a sleeping baby to eat, but when they are little, if you wake them and get them on that routine then their body and metabolism adjust and soon they are like clockwork. They will begin waking up almost to the minute of when they should be eating and rubbing their eyes right when they should be going to sleep.

Babywise also emphasizes the fact that even though you are following a schedule - you are the parent. If it is 2:30 and your baby is 'supposed' to eat at 3 and he is crying his hungry cry, you make the call as the parent to go ahead and feed him. If it is 5:15 and your baby is 'supposed' to be up and playing until 6, but she is rubbing her eyes, you make the call to go ahead and put her down and adjust the rest of the day accordingly. So the clock is the guiding force in most situations, but you are still the parent and you make the ultimate call.

They also talk about the importance of babies learning how to sooth themselves to go to sleep. Some parents teach their babies to sleep by rocking them, driving them around, walking them around, etc. Once that gets the baby to sleep the baby then begins to rely on that method to go to bed. That also means that the parents have committed themself to driving, walking, rocking, etc. every time the baby needs to sleep - which is very often! After the baby has reached a stage in their development where they can cognitively handle soothing themselves, you let them cry it out. This is not an easy thing to do. Your instinct tells you to go get that baby, but your mind tells you that this is going to be so good for you and for them in the long run. It took Caroline about a week. The first few naps when she 'cried it out', she cried for about 30 minutes and then she was out. Then for a few days, she would fuss for a bit and then be out. There have been a few days since then when she just didn't nap like she was supposed to. She would hit that 45 minute to an hour 'intruder' where she was switching sleep cycles. She would cry and it would be so tempting to go and get her, but if I did, she didn't get near the sleep she needed. So we would let her cry it out to get back to sleep. You learn the cry that she reaches that she was not going to be able to come back from. When that happens, you go get her and just get through the day the best you can and hope for a better day tomorrow. After just a couple of weeks she learned how to get herself back to sleep after that 'intruder' and we don't hear her anymore. Now, at 5 months, you lay her in her crib with her bobo and her paci and you shut the door. Sometimes she is in there talking and just looking for 10 minutes before she sleeps and sometimes she goes right to sleep. Either way, she doesn't need us to get to sleep. She does that totally on her own. Then when she wakes up you hear her talking and she usually wakes up with a big smile on her face. Those naps listening to her cry were tough, but I would do that over and over again to have a sleeper like we have now.

Another thing I love about Babywise is the fact that the first chapter talks about the importance of the husband/wife relationship to the health and happiness of the baby. It introduces the need for constant sleep so that Mom and Dad have time to work on their relationship. It also talks about the need for the baby to become part of the already established family, instead of the current family beginning to completely revolve around the baby.

Because we use Babywise, we have a little girl that has slept through the night (6+ hours) since 6 weeks and who now takes 3 very painless 2 - 3 hour naps a day and sleeps 11 hours at night.

If you are going to be a new parent, or even if you have a little one that doesn’t sleep well, try this out.  You don’t have to start from day 1 for this to work.  I have a friend who did not use Babywise on her first baby.  He NEVER slept well and still to this day is not a good sleeper.  Then I convinced her to try Babywise on the second one and her second is SUCH a good sleeper and so laid back and content all the time because she is fully rested. 

Thank you, Babywise!