Thoughts on the First Year

Greetings from the epicenter of snowacalypse 2014!  We have received quite the dump of snow here in Charlotte today and I have no idea when I'll be leaving my house again.  Good thing I have 8 years worth of food in my pantry for occasions like this.  It kind of worked out good for me to be home today, because I got to spend the last day of my baby's first year with her.  I pretty much savored all her smiles, cuddles, and snuggles today.

No need to change out of pajamas!  SNOW DAY!
And yes, she's wearing boys pajamas because they have planes on them!

Allie will be a YEAR OLD tomorrow!  Unbelievable...  I've done little but catalog the first year of my baby's life on the blog for almost the last year.  It makes sense since she's basically become my whole world and almost nothing in my life is the same as it used to be before she arrived.  Still, this used to be a blog about me, so I thought I should maybe catch up on some of what's gone on for me this year.  The lack of posts are pretty pathetic and I've thought more than once about stopping blogging altogether.  I still read other blogs a lot (pretty much all I do when pumping), but when I try to wrap my head around writing a post, editing pictures, and using precious time to blog, something else usually wins out.  Still, I like having the outlet here if and when I want it.

My first year as a mother has been so crazy.  I have never loved another human being like I love Allie.  It reminds me of the symbiotic relationship between E.T. and Elliot.  I feel like I hurt when she hurts.  If she is happy, I am happy.  Her smile makes me instantly smile.  As probably any mother will attest to, it's hard to describe this love.  It's actually scary, because it's the kind of love you really fear losing and you know that you would suffer extreme pain if anything were to happen to this creature you are completely absorbed with.  It makes me feel like I can't breathe to even think about it.

Changing your identity to a mother means it's not about you anymore.  I always knew that and I thought I was prepared for it, but it has still been a huge change.  Before I had Allie, I had so much free time to watch trashy TV, to go to trendy restaurants, to tie up my running shoes and hit the pavement, to clean my house, to snuggle my dog, to go to Target without a second thought, to blog...  Now all of those things are difficult to do, and require thought and planning.  They are all "big events" to me now and after thirty some odd years of doing whatever I want whenever I feel like it, it's been weird to give up all that freedom.  Still, I know my life has so much more meaning now and part of me thrives on life being so busy.

At some point I did get the hang of planning better around Allie's sleep, which helps me to feel like I have a better handle on everything else in my life (except the blog- ha!).  I guess when she became slightly more predictable sleeping at night and during naps I was able to snap out of it and tackle my long long list of things to do, which includes stuff like reading and watching TV, but also a lot of cleaning, laundry, and washing bottles.  It's really taken me all year to get a good balance though and I still wouldn't say I've completely figured it out.  In an ideal world I would have a lot more time to run, blog, watch Parenthood, organize my closet, and go out more.  I do some of these things sometimes, but most of them I do with no regularity at all.   I haven't run since Thanksgiving, which is ridiculous, I know.  It's just THAT hard for me to find the time to do it and it's so much less of a priority now.  I fit things in when I have an hour to spare, if it happens to be what I feel like doing in the hour that I have, or they fall by the wayside and I use the hour to fold Allie's laundry and shower (more often than not).  It's just reality.

Another thing I haven't talked about, but I do want to share for the sake of others that might be experiencing it, is that having a baby has been hard on my marriage.  A lot of people talk about how seeing their husband become a father makes their heart explode with love for him, and I do agree, it's an awesome thing and pretty overwhelming to feel your love grow when you add a person the two of you made.  Still, after that initial swell of pride and fuzzy feelings of love, came a lot of stress for us.  I've always said that any person you choose to marry has flaws and you are deciding whether you can live with those flaws or not.  I successfully lived with my husband's flaws for eleven years before we had Allie.  We went through furlough, miscarriages, and many other stressful events, and I thought having a baby would be the least of our troubles, more like a dream come true, but babies bring a lot of stress.  You lack sleep, your life is totally different, you are responsible for another human being, and you feel like there are so many decisions to be made.  We were not always on the same page, and maybe my husband being a pilot exacerbated that because we weren't able to commiserate daily on how to handle things, a lot of it gets differed to me, which makes things weird when he is home and is trying to jump in and be involved.  His aforementioned flaws that used to be cute and quirky (I married the slowest person alive), became serious annoyances when things were stressful.  It's not just him either, I'm no picnic either.  I have a short temper, and when I'm stressed out, I'm basically just cranky.  We are kind of polar opposites and while I like to think we usually complement each other, it can be hard when taking care of a baby and things need to be agreed upon.  I like things scheduled and he likes to fly by the seat of his pants and throw schedules out the window.  That drives me nuts when it comes to Allie because I feel like babies NEED to keep on a schedule, but Greg doesn't, and doesn't get why I'm so rigid about naps, feedings, and bedtime.  I was also really consumed by motherhood and still am.  At times I really have to force myself to think about being a wife and put effort into cultivating that relationship.  It's been a huge adjustment.  Around six months in, we decided to do some marriage counseling and I don't know if it was the counseling or just both of us committing to working on things, but things did improve and I think we both have a better handle on it now.  Still, this has easily been the hardest year for our marriage.  I love my husband and our little family though.  I think we're going to survive being parents, but it's taken a lot of getting used to!

What else?  Well I'm definitely a helicopter mom.  It's funny because with a lot of things in life I am a fairly laid back person, but with my fragile baby, I am like a roll of bubble wrap, constantly hovering around her scared she will fall.  And she does fall, a lot, which sort of negates the whole mission of being a helicopter mom!  As I said before, I also found out that I like things very scheduled when it comes to Allie.  As soon as I pick her up from daycare I read her full report on when she napped, ate, pooped, etc...  I want to know it all.  I'm quite the control freak!

If you had to ask me what one of my favorite things about the first year has been, I would say breastfeeding.  We've made it to year and I have LOVED it.  The thought of stopping makes me cry, and honestly, I thought when we got to a year, I'd be well on my way to weaning, but I can't even bring myself to stop pumping this week because I also just like knowing she's having my milk when she is away from me.  I feel like it connects us.  I just can't even describe the overwhelming love I feel for my daughter when I am feeding her and she is snuggled up against me.  I love sniffing her hair, stroking her cheek, and squeezing her foot.  It's beyond special to me and I am not sure when I will wean her, but basically I have no plan to just yet, which isn't something I would have expected.  I know I am very, very lucky to have had such a good experience, but just so you know, breastfeeding hasn't always been easy for me.  I have had many days and weeks when I thought my supply was dipping and I was sweating over whether I could pump enough to keep up with demand.  It's hard when you have a certain number of ounces you have to have for daycare and you realize you might come up short.  I ate lactation cookies, took fenugreek, drank mother's milk tea, doubled my water intake, have eaten too many bowls of oatmeal to count, and ate like a pig to keep up with the demand.  I had nights when I couldn't get my boobs to let down and had to feed Allie a bottle of pumped milk.  I've dipped into my freezer stash so much that many times I was down to only 2-3 bags of frozen milk and I thought that would be it.  I've also declined to do things that I knew would be too difficult because of breastfeeding or pumping.  If I had to do it over, I think I would, but part of me wonders if I should have introduced formula at some point and had it there as an option.  It would probably have been a lot less stressful.  After a while, I had gone so long without introducing formula, that it seemed like it would be more stressful to try to get her to take it than to just keep on feeding her breast milk, whatever I had to do to keep making it. Also, when we found out Allie had the milk allergy that confirmed it for me that I would breastfeed as long as I could since she could only have certain formula without milk proteins anyway.  I am glad for that reason we didn't give her formula, because she would have been allergic to most kinds.  Anyway, we've gotten through it and it's been totally worth it.  That's just been my experience, I totally respect a mother's choice and ability to do what they have to do to feed her child.

I still am happy with my choice to go back to work, most days.  I miss Allie all the time, but I like having work in my life as well.  I feel like Allie is doing well at daycare.  I like that she has that social interaction and that they keep her on a schedule, and I feel like she enjoys it.  I don't know if any mother is ever 100% sure of the decision to work or stay home, but I feel pretty good about where we are.  It is definitely a lot to work and be a mom though.

Us outside earlier today.

I've enjoyed watching Allie grow and it's amazing how far she's come in a year, from the tiny baby that could barely move on her own, to one that is almost walking on her own now (10 steps is probably her record!).  I can't wait to see how this next year goes!  Hopefully I'll be posting more of a formal one year update on Allie next!

Baby Things We Love At (Almost) 10 Months

I've been meaning to do one of these posts forever.  There are so many baby things we like and use all the time.  Allie will be 10 months in about a week.  Here are some things we love and have used a lot in the past few months:

Nuk sippy cup

We've had the most success with this sippy cup.  We have about 4 different kinds and Allie does best with a soft spout on these Nuk ones.  I feel like these a good transition from her bottles in terms of shape and size too (we use Dr. Browns).

Halo Sleep Sacks

Ever since we transitioned Allie out of the Merlin's Magic Sleep Suit (which we loved from 3-6 months), we've been using these over a sleeper to keep Allie warm at night.  

B. Zany Zoo Wooden Activity Cube

We got Allie this cube at Target on a whim a couple months ago.  I had been thinking about getting her one, but was originally thinking I'd look for one on consignment.  I actually don't mind that we paid full price though, because this thing is really good quality and Allie plays with it all the time.  As soon as she could pull up to standing, it became one of her go to items to pull up on and play with the beads and critters on top.  She also likes all the different sides- opening and closing the doors, spinning the letters, etc.  I feel like we're still going to get a lot of use out of this when we start teaching her words and letters, etc...  It's a great cube.

Wubbanub

We thought our time with the Wubbanub had to come to a close once Allie got into her Advent pacifiers, but after a bunch of bad nights of sleep in which we realized Allie was losing her pacifier in the crib at night and having a hard time finding it so we kept having to go into the nursery to give them to her, I got the idea to put her Wubbanubs in the crib with her so that she could easily find the pacifier attached and it worked great.  She was able to find them so much easier than her regular pacifier, and once she got the Wubbanub in her mouth she'd fall back asleep without us having to go in and find a paci for her.  Win!

Puffs/Mum Mums or Cheerios

We're finally at a place where we're fairly comfortable taking Allie with us out to lunch again (for a while she was pretty fussy and unpredictable so it was tough).  She's getting good at sitting in a high chair, and these are great for keeping her entertained while we wait for food or eat our food.  I also occasionally use them at home if I need a couple minutes to prep food for Allie and she's freaking out waiting for something to get on her tray.

High chair cover

Like I said, Allie is getting pretty good at sitting in a high chair, however, a lot of high chairs are missing straps or seem too big for her, and using this cover helps a lot in keeping her secured.  We've also used it in a shopping cart a bunch of times.

Sweet Dreams Lullaby book.

My friend Lindsay recommended this book and it's by far my favorite to read to Allie at bedtime.  It's not too long or too short, it rhymes, and I feel like the rhythm of the words is perfect for bedtime.  Allie also likes reaching out and touching the bunny on each page.  It's hard for a book to hold her attention at bedtime but she can usually make it through this one.

Zutano booties

I absolutely LOVE these booties.  Allie isn't officially walking yet (she's getting close though!), so it's a little soon for normal harder soled baby shoes, but now that it's colder she can't go barefoot all the time either and socks don't stay on that well.  These are great.  We have two pairs in gray and pink and they stay on well and go with almost everything.  She wears them to daycare a lot and out and about.  They are also super cute and everyone comments on how cute they are.

Baby Walker

I actually don't know if I would recommend this specific walker, but it's the one we have.  I was skeptical that Allie would do well in it and that we would have room for it without her crashing into things, even though we have a fairly good sized kitchen/downstairs.  It's actually exceeded my expectations.  She outgrew the Rock N Play and many other "holding devices" we have for her a couple months ago, and it's a life saver if I just need to pee for a second or need to keep her entertained for a few minutes while I'm cooking or something.  She can go both backwards and forwards in it, so she can back up and move in another direction if she gets into a corner or something.  I also think it's helping her learn to walk. 

Pop Up Toy

This isn't the one we have, I have a Sesame Street version I got at a consignment sale.  Allie really likes it though, and enjoys pushing, turning, and twisting the little knobs to get each guy to come out, then closing the doors.  My two year old niece was just here and enjoyed playing with it too.

If you have a baby Allie's age or older, what's a must have I should think about for the future?  I'm working on ideas for her Christmas and first birthday presents so I'm all ears!

Seven Months

Hey there!  Well, we have reached seven months of Allie awesomeness.

Our kiddo is growing and changing every day.  I probably say this every month, but I'm really loving the age she is right now.  She's all full of smiles and laughter and it's getting easier to get her to do both.  She is also getting to a good place with tolerating being out, so we're starting to worry less about taking her shopping or out to eat, because she's usually pretty good about it as long as we don't leave her strapped in too long.  She's a lot of fun.

Allie has definitely mastered the army crawl now and can get around quite well this way, even though she's not doing a full on regular crawl.  She does get up on her hands and knees, but she doesn't usually get mobile that way, she's usually on her forearms when she crawls.  In any case, she's definitely moving a lot, so close supervision is key now.

Allie is also sitting very well now.  We still keep a close eye on her though because without warning she'll occasionally fall over, but usually she'll sit for a while without a problem, and she likes to go from sitting to army crawling if she sees something she's after.

Allie is eating about two "meals" a day now.  Daycare feeds her oatmeal cereal with water in the mornings on the days she is there, and then we do some kind of puree in the evening at dinner time.  I was open to the idea of Baby Led Weaning, but Allie didn't seem to get it at first.  Recently though, I did give her a spear of cucumber with the skin still on and she did pretty well gumming it and getting all but the skin ingested.  I think she likes the idea of it, but we also need to work on a food she likes the flavor of, because sometimes she seems turned off by cucumber.  We'll have to try some other things.  Allie really likes being fed with a spoon though, so in terms of actual food consumption, we've had pretty good success with spoon feeding and purees.  I've been making more things for her like butternut squash, yellow squash, peaches, etc...

Allie has had apples, peaches, pears, avocado, prunes, sweet potato, banana, acorn squash, butternut squash, peas, zucchini, yellow squash, and cucumber.  She has liked most things, some more than others.  Zucchini was the only big miss so far (she had a funny look on her face, like "WTF"), but I'll try it again.  One thing I'm noticing is that she's not too happy if other people eat in front of her and she's not getting fed, so usually we have to feed her something at a meal time if we're eating.  I think soon we can try some proteins with her, like beans, meat, cheese, and yogurt but I need to do more research on this.  For those of you with babies, when did you introduce those?

Breastfeeding is still going well.  I'm still pumping at work three or four times a day and feed Allie two or three times on weekdays (usually once or twice in the mornings depending on how early she gets up and once at bedtime) and all her milk meals on the weekends (about 6 times a day).  I definitely pay a ton of attention to my water intake and consumption of food to make sure I can produce enough milk for Allie, but overall it's going well.

As for water, Allie also love drinking out of a glass and reaches for mine whenever she sees me drinking.  It's funny.  She gets a lot of water on her shirt in the process, but loves trying.  We've tried some sippy cups and she's got a ways to go with those too.  She does best with one that she has that has a spout in the middle and is most like a bottle.

Sleep.  Well, right at about six months we decided it was time to get Allie out of the sleep suit.  It actually seemed like her sleep was kind of getting worse because of her being restricted in it, and also she was close to being able to roll over in it, which is one reason you basically HAVE to get them out of it.  So finally one night I bit the bullet and put her to sleep in a onesie, sleeper, and a Halo sleep sack, which is the method the sleep suit people suggest you use to transition a baby out of the suit, since they still feel the buffer of the layers of clothing.  We only did the onesie layer for about a week and from then on have just put her in a sleeper and the sleep sack, which we're still doing.  Overall, the transition went well, probably better than I expected.  She immediately was up less than she had been in the suit for the first couple nights.  She even started sleeping close to the whole night consistently.  The only thing was that for a lot of this month she did this thing where'd she would sleep from about 8pm til about 4-5am, and wake up and I usually had to feed her and then SHE would go back to sleep, but it was too close to my wake time (6am) on week days for me to go back to sleep.  This week she had several nights where she made it the whole night through, but she is still kind of hit or miss on wake up time, anywhere from 5am to like 7am, so it's pretty hard to predict.  One note- we did have to go up to size 3 diapers at night because she's going so long without waking up and getting changed and leaked through some size 2 nighttime ones a bunch of times.  The 3s are working well so far.

Allie and I went to Hilton Head for labor day weekend, and she did great in the pool and beach again.

When at the beach we saw tons of little kids that are about a year older than Allie and it made me wonder how she's going to be next summer when we are there.  Mind boggling...

Allie also tried out the swings for the first time recently.  SO CUTE!

Allie has become super interested in Clyde in the past couple weeks.  When she sees him she smiles at him and if you play fetch with Clyde in front of her, she laughs hysterically.  It's hilarious.

Stats:
I think Allie is close to 16 lbs according to my scale, but she could be a little less since it's hard to figure out ounces.  I feel like she's probably going to chunk up a little more now that she's eating solids more.
She's kind of in between size 2 and 3 diapers.  She's still wearing 2s during the day, but 3s at night and I think we're on our last box of 2s because I think we can pretty much put her in 3s all the time now.
Clothes are kind of all over the place.  She can be anywhere from a 3M to a 6-9 month depending on the brand.  She pretty much fits into anything 6M well though.

I am doing pretty good.  Being a working mom is tough, and I struggle with the same stuff I'm sure all working moms struggle with. There are not enough hours in the day and many week days I feel like I do not have nearly enough time to get everything done.  It's hard, but I still think it's the right thing for us.

Allie is doing great at daycare and moves to the next room/age group this week.  I admit, I am a little teary to see her leave her first daycare room.  I really felt comfortable with the teachers in there and never worried about her.  I'm sure the new room will be great too.  It's crazy to see her moving up and growing up so quick.

I'm going to try to do a day in the life of a working mom post soon, and also should do a 7 month favorite things post since it's been a while since I've done one, and we have a lot of favorite baby things to update you guys on.  Both of these have been on my mind for a while, but finding the time to blog about them is... difficult!

I love this kid more than I can put into words...  I'm so lucky to be her mom :)

Six Months!

Life has been very busy around here lately, and I'm almost a week late on my six month update on Allie!  I can't believe it's been half a year since she was born.  Wow.

Allie has become quite the fun baby.  She's really in a phase where you can tell she just wants to learn and explore everything and be stimulated constantly.  She seems to catch on to things more easily now and I'm amazed at the things we're able to show and teach her.  She has learned things like opening her mouth to be fed, using a sippy cup, sitting, pulling on a toy to make it play music...  all kinds of things!

Allie had her six month well visit and we got her new stats:

14 lbs 3 oz
25 inches long
43 inches head

She's still in size 2 diapers, and her clothing is anywhere from 3M to 3-6 to 6M, it just kind of depends on the brand.

She's right on track for her stats curve, even though I hear about other babies that are easily five pounds heavier at her age all the time.  She looks perfect to me :)

Lots of new developments for Allie this month.  At six months here are some things Allie can do:

She can kind of sit, it's getting better every day, even though she's prone to falling over after a while, so you still need to watch her carefully.

She can scoot around on her belly, not exactly crawling, but close.  She can definitely move forward, and even moves in circles.  She'll do it if she sees something she wants- like a toy on the other side of her play mat.

She also likes practicing her standing!  

Allie had some really good times in the pool a couple weeks ago in Hilton Head.  I couldn't believe how much she seemed to like it.  Water baby!

She also looks good in her cover up!

Allie is also into grabbing her feet now, which cracks me up.  I've yet to see her do "happy baby" holding both feet at the same time, but often catch her holding one.

Allie starting taking more of an interest in Clyde recently, and now reaches for him and watches him when he's around, which is funny.  I caught her pulling his ear one day, but he didn't seem to mind at all.  Good dog :).

We've also started putting her in her strollers without the car seat finally.  We were kind of waiting til she was good enough at sitting to not be slumped over, and she's finally there now.  We still haven't done shopping cart seats yet, but probably should be able to in the next few weeks.

The biggest new development is probably starting solids this month.  We got the go ahead to start baby oatmeal cereal and first foods, so we've been doing that.  She's had avocado, prunes, pears, banana, applesauce, and peas so far.  She is totally her mama's baby and LOVES to eat.  I actually notice that she gets kind of mad/fussy if you are eating in front of her and not feeding her something now, so I have to make sure I have her stuff ready to go.

Feeding solids has been interesting.  I have always intended, and still intend, to make Allie a lot of her baby food.  The first night though, we went shopping for the oatmeal, and ended up picking up a couple jars of organic baby food, because my husband was excited about them (Mr. Convenience).  So jarred pears ended up being one of the first things we fed her, even though I thought it was kind of stupid because it's something I could easily make her, but we were raring to go and it was convenient.  I did "make" her pureed peas, but so far, that's the only thing I've actually cooked and fed her, which wasn't what I'd planned, but things have been so busy, it's been hard to make much.  I also am interested in doing some of the baby led weaning, but so far the only thing I've tried with is avocado and banana, and she didn't really seem to get it.  She's much more into opening her mouth wide and having me feed her with a spoon at this point, so I'm just kind of rolling with it.  All of us are having fun with it.

Right at the six month mark, Allie got her first cold.  It actually wasn't too terrible.  She had a slight fever and some congestion, but it could have been worse.  Timing wise, it worked out ok because my mom was visiting, and was able to watch her when I had to work, and then Greg came home from a trip and took over, so we could keep her out of daycare.  Of course, Greg made fun of my incessant calling to check on Allie and sent me this picture one day to show me how things were going...  Very funny.

It's an interesting time right now, because Allie is still very much a baby, but she's also exploding with progress so it suddenly feels very different.  She still has baby meltdowns once in a while though.

And she still sleeps on me like she did when she was hours old...

I love this girl to the moon and back, she is my world.  Happy six months baby!  Can't wait to see how the next six go!

Five Months

Allie is now five months old!  Wow.  It's hard to believe she's been with us for five months now.  In some ways it seems like longer than five months and it some ways it seems like it's flown by.  I think all new mom's have that same sense of time going by slow and fast at the same time, it's hard to explain.

It's been a wild five months with this little girl!

Allie is still rolling over like a pro.  I've actually seen her do a complete 360 roll a couple times, rolling from back to front to back again, but usually she rolls from back to front and stays propped up on her arms for a while.  You can tell she wants to crawl and go somewhere, because she often pulls at the blanket or play mat she's laying on, and rapidly kicks her legs and tries to scoot forward.  I think we still have a ways to go, but at the same time, with most of the skills she's mastered, one day she's struggling to figure it out, and the next she's doing it, so you never know.  We bought a fence for the living room to contain her in case she gets ambitious and starts moving.  It is also good for keeping Clyde away from her.  Though he isn't a threat, he does love to lick her and we try to keep that to a minimum.

We have been working on sitting.  She's still fairly wobbly, but I prop her up against me or with the Boppy pillow around her to get her used to the idea.  She doesn't seem to completely get it yet, but again, hopefully it'll be one of those things she just all the sudden can do.

Allie is less fussy than she was at four months.  Not that she doesn't have the occasional bad day or meltdown, but I feel like we kind of resumed less fussy behavior again, which is a relief.  The other day she was awake in the car for about a half hour and was even smiling and cooing without a pacifier, which is rare. She's definitely awake a lot more when I'm out and about with her these days, and that's something I'm still getting used to.  I feel like it makes planning outings a lot less predictable, so I find myself bracing for possible meltdowns.  Usually she surprises me and does fine while out, even if she's awake.  She doesn't like being confined in the car seat too long, so that's usually the biggest issue if she's awake while out for a longer stretch.  I try to be conscious of her need to be out and give her time to play, so outings are usually short for this reason.

Greg's parents were here for a few days recently, and this was their first visit with her since she was three weeks old, so it was fun to see them with her.  They are enamored with her like everyone else is.  Allie is pretty good about being held by and interacting with others and a few times Greg's dad had her laughing hysterically.  One thing I've noticed though, is that after too much stimulation she definitely gets upset.  Sometimes she'll be laughing and smiling and then a couple minutes later she'll start crying and I can tell she's had enough and just wants some quiet chill time.  I can also tell that I am her go to person for calming her down.  Others try, but usually as soon as they hand her to me, she immediately stops crying and is okay.  It doesn't surprise me since I'm with her far more than anyone else.  I definitely get a certain satisfaction in knowing I am her comfort person.

Daycare is going well, but we have yet to do a full day.  I'm starting work next week, but will only do a bunch of half days at first and will see how it goes.  I have been putting off planning out a schedule, but finally talked to my boss and decided on three partial days next week.  Probably the week after we'll do at least one full work day before I go back full time, just to make sure I have the flow of dropping her off and picking her up down.

As far as the emotional side of daycare?  I'm doing pretty good with it.  Probably better than I expected.  I think it's been good for me to sprinkle in some "me" time here at the end before I get into work and motherhood at the same time.  While we're getting used to some half days of daycare, I make the most of it- cleaning, grocery shopping, working on her baby book, working out, stuff like that.  Still, it's kind of like this quote, "Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body" -Elizabeth Stone.  Now, I can't spend anytime away from Allie without a little bit of ache.  She's always there in my mind.  She's my heart.

It seems that Allie misses me too.  The teachers asked if I could leave a shirt or something to see if it helped her feel more comfortable with bottle feeding, so yesterday I left the fleece jacket I had on.  They said she did a lot better than usual with the bottle with my jacket draped around her, and when I went to pick her up, she was sleeping in a crib clutching my jacket tightly like a lovey.  It totally melted my heart.  She missed me and was comforted by my smell...

When I'm with her, Allie still usually eats every two to three hours.  At daycare I think she's going closer to three hours between feedings, and then eats between 3-4 oz from a bottle.  I did switch her to the level two nipples on her bottles and the ladies at daycare are pleased with those (apparently it was taking them like 45 minutes to feed her a bottle with a level one nipple because the flow is so slow).  I think she eats less at an individual feeding from me, but I feed her more frequently, so we're kind of figuring out the whole daycare bottle feeding thing.  Pumping for bottles seems to be going pretty well, and I haven't felt like I have had any supply issues lately, but I'm also really conscious of drinking tons of water and eating a lot every day to make sure I keep my supply up.  I'm interested to see how pumping goes when I go back to work.

Sleep is still fairly good.  Not much has changed.  She goes down around 7:30pm and is almost always up once a night to feed (the time varies anywhere from like midnight to 4am), then usually sleeps til 5:30am to 7am.  We have some mornings where she is up before 6am and those are a little rough- seems to be a trend lately.  I probably need to go to bed earlier, but I kind of enjoy my couple hours after she goes to bed, and rarely go to bed much before 10pm, often later.  I really shouldn't complain though, I know this is a lot of sleep for both me and the baby compared to what a lot of people get.  It's going to be interesting to see what it's like once I go back to work and she's at daycare for a full day.  Allie still sleeps in the Merlin's Magic Sleep Suit, but I've been thinking about trying a night without it to see how it goes.  She takes naps without it at daycare in a crib and seems to do okay, and sometimes it seems like the suit is preventing her from sleeping in a position that might be more comfortable and might help her sleep better, so it might be worth it to try it without it.  I just have to work myself up to it, like I did switching her from the bassinet to the crib and all the changes we've made.  My fear is that she'll sleep worse without it or that I will because I'll be watching the monitor all night to make sure she's okay, and I haven't been willing to deal with that yet.  Baby steps!

Watching the baby monitor with a glass of red wine.

Stats:
Weight- 13lbs 8oz (by my scale)
Still size two diapers, and I don't see us moving to size three for a while still.
Mostly 3-6 clothes, depending on the brand.  She can fit in to some 6M stuff, and actually can still wear some of her 3M stuff too though, so there's kind of a wide range right now.

What else?  We aren't starting solids til closer to six months.  Our pediatrician said she doesn't think babies digestive systems are completely ready til then, so we're waiting.  We're also going to skip rice cereal and may do oatmeal, but we're going to discuss at the six month appointment.  Honestly, in my opinion she doesn't seem to be showing much interest in food in the way they describe babies who are ready for it anyway (grabbing for it, etc...).  I feel like she's still all about the boob ;)  Also, she can't sit on her own yet either, so I'm not in a huge rush.  I did buy the Sage Spoonfuls cookbook and containers for when the time comes though.  I think I'll probably do a combo of Baby Led Weaning and purees.  Allie has tried teeny tiny amounts of two foods though- Breyer's vanilla ice cream and applesauce.  Both went over okay.  I think she was confused about it more than anything else.

Allie's likes:
-Repeatedly making the sounds of different letters of the alphabet
-Being talked to in silly voices
-Being tickled
-Being kissed on the cheeks
-Being sung to
-Her Taggie blanket
-Rolling onto her belly
-The Rock N Play (well, better than any other baby holding device)
-Music

Allie's dislikes:
-Not being talked to, played with, or looked at enough
-Being held sideways unless she's tired (she prefers upright on the shoulder).
-Too much stimulation
-Being confined in the car seat

Nicknames:  Sweet Cheeks, Little One, Baby Girl, Allie Girl, Little Allie, Little Peach (We called her this more when she was first born).

I feel like Allie and Greg have bonded a lot more, and that really makes me happy.  I think it helps that she's getting bigger and smiling and laughing more, he sees that she can be fun now and she will give him a big smile if he tries to play and interact with her.  I hope their bond continues to grow.

As for me?  I was thinking the other day about how when you have a baby, it's like you start life over.  You experience life from the beginning again, through a baby.  It's neat.  You think about how life and everything in it must look for someone experiencing it for the first time- flowers, people, places, holidays, everything.  Surreal.  For me, I feel like I left a bunch of stuff behind, and while I do sometimes miss it, I'm completely okay with it at the same time.  I used to be really social and loved going out to dinner, which is something I pretty much never do now.  I'm still in touch with my social side, but it's more in the form of mommy play dates now.  Running was one of my big passions prior to pregnancy, and it's just not right now (although I did get in a two mile run while Allie was at daycare the other day).  It's mainly due to life with a baby, but also partly due to weather (I hate running in the heat), lack of desire, and lack of motivation.  Life has changed.  Priorities have changed.  My ability to do certain things has changed.  I'm happy, but I also look forward to Allie being at an age where we can interact differently- talk more, go more places, do more together.  That will be fun.  At the same time, I love her at the stage she's in.  She's just super cute and cuddly, and it's so easy to love her in this phase.