Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Tuesday List

There is too much going on to focus my post on one topic. Sometimes I feel like I should just be able to download the blog posts that I think of during the day directly from my head. That might make these things more coherent. :-)

1 - I think I've mentioned before that I've been watching "Gilmore Girls" in syndication on ABC Family. We are nearing the end of Season 6, and according to the DVR they are looping back to the pilot next week. :-( I just checked on amazon.com and season 7 isn't going to be released on DVD until November 13th. :-( I guess in the best case, I will be able to find Season 7 at Blockbuster and there will only be a week or so of suspense until I get to see how it all ends.

2 - With that meme last week I was delighted to see how many of my friends watch Battlestar Galactica! I almost feel like we should have a party when the next season starts.

3 - Heather's sleeping habits. The good news is that on Friday, she went to sleep at 9pm and slept for over 11 hours straight. And her sleeping the rest of the weekend was generally good. One overnight wake-up and decent bedtimes. But now the confusing part. Last night she fell asleep nursing around 6:30. Then she woke up and nursed again at 8:30. And we couldn't get her to sleep again until 11:30. :-( My first theory was that she had crappy naps yesterday. But no, she had a good one and an okay one. Tonight, she fell asleep on her daddy's lap at 7:20 and she had two good naps today. I don't know if she's taking annoying evening naps that disrupt her bedtime or if she's working on an earlier bedtime. Assuming that she is going to wake up again this evening, I plan to try to nurse her and put her right back to sleep. I was almost able to do it last night but I wasn't trying hard enough.
...So...she woke up about 8 and slept/nursed in my arms for half an hour and went back to sleep. Cross your fingers.

4 - I'm not sure what I'm going to do on the bus tomorrow. I finished my socks on the bus today. I started another baby sweater over the weekend, but the gauge is off and I don't know if I can find the needles I need quickly. I may have to start another pair of socks or use the leftovers from my socks to make a pair for Heather.

I'm pretty sure there is more, but I am fading and I need to get a few other things done before crashing in bed as soon as possible.

Friday, October 26, 2007

Let's talk about sleep for a minute... (long vent)

I posted the following to a message board this morning and thought I would post it here, too. I'm happy to get some insight from any of my readers, but I also wanted it to be easy to find in the future when I want to look back and remember past parenting challenges. :-)

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So, I think I know where I stand on this, but I'm going to write down what I'm thinking and maybe somebody out there will have some brilliant advice for me or can give me a good reason to read one of those sleep books or try a specific technique.

Heather has always fought sleep. Even as a newborn, she would rarely just relax and fall asleep in your arms, it was always a process of paci/rocking/holding tight/swaddling etc. How long she has slept has varied, but she usually seems to wake because she's hungry or because something interrupted her sleep when she was sleeping lightly.

Over time, she gradually started sleeping longer stretches, and at 10 weeks she started sleeping 10 straight hours at night. (2 weeks before mommy went back to work - good girl!)

At 4 months, we hit the first sleep regression and things went to hell. She was waking multiple times a night, but some rocking and the paci put her back to sleep and 1-3 times a night she'd need to nurse.

By 6 months, we came back to a nice sleeping place. She was generally sleeping 10 hours a night, with one wake-up in the middle to nurse. She went right back to sleep after nursing and seemed to be getting easier to put to sleep at night. Less fussing and I could put her down when she was almost asleep instead of dead asleep.

Between 7.5 and 8 months her sleep was disrupted by her first tooth, a stomach bug and then her second tooth. And now, she's at 37 weeks, which is supposed to be the onset of the second big sleep regression.

So my biggest quandry is how to react to her night wakings. I can live with nursing her once a night, but I don't really want to nurse multiple times and set up a 'bad habit'. But if she follows her previous patterns, she will drop the extra wakings when she gets passed her current milestones. We try the paci/rocking when she wakes. Sometimes it works and sometimes she screams for 20 minutes until I nurse her. So if I just went ahead and nursed her DH and I would both get more sleep...but is taking the easy way out going to set us up for more difficult transitions in the future?

I guess my point is, that I really think that Heather has good sleeping patterns in her and her waking is just a reaction to developmental changes, and this is the crux of why I can't bring myself to sleep train or CIO or ferberize. But if anyone thinks that there is a book out there that could give us some insight to make these developmental sleep setbacks easier, I would be happy to give them a read.

(And thanks if you've managed to read my whole tirade here.)

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Filler

I'm too tired for a real post. I still haven't recovered from last week's teething and lack of sleep. I have spent all of Heather's recent naps and trips with Daddy cleaning the house and doing dishes.

I've been tagged by Amanda. So here is a post requiring no creative writing skills.

Jobs I've Had
1. Babysitting
2. Blockbuster Music
3. Annual Giving at CMU (calling alumni and asking for $$)
4. Office of Admissions at CMU (giving tours, filing applications and overseeing other student workers)
5. Summer Internship at an architecture firm in Buffalo
6. Intern Architect turned Project Architect at an architecture firm in Pittsburgh

Places I've Lived
1. Dayton, Ohio
2. Buffalo, NY (Amherst)
3. Valencia, Spain (6 months)
4. Pittsburgh, PA

Foods I Love
1. Chocolate
2. Sushi
3. Pasta
4. Fruit

Places I Would Rather Be
1. With Heather and R
2. Home
3. Valencia, Spain
4. St. Lucia

TV Shows I Watch
(Too many...although #12-14 are between seasons right now)
1. Gilmore Girls (I'm almost caught up on the reruns and can stop watching soon.)
2. How I Met Your Mother
3. The Big Bang Theory
4. Two and a Half Men
5. The Office
6. Bionic Woman
7. Pushing Daisies
8. CSI
9. Ugly Betty
10. 30 Rock
11. Scrubs
12. LOST
13. Battlestar Gallactica
14. Doctor Who
15. Torchwood
16. Numb3rs

Books I Love
1. Yarn Harlot: The Secret Life of a Knitter
2. Harry Potter, especially #4 through #7
3. Little Women
4. Sense and Sensibility
5. The various Ramona Quimby books
(I think these qualify as books that I love since I've read them all at least twice.)

I tag Katie and Nadine. :-)

Monday, October 15, 2007

Still around here somewhere...

My mood seems to swing between totally overwhelmed and totally under control on a regular basis these days. On one hand, I'm in much better shape than I was two weeks ago. I'm still behind at work, but not as much since this week's trip was cancelled. And I was finally able to start cleaning up the house this weekend. But on the other, the house is still a big mess and I'm still behind at work. We're also running low on Heather's food and I really need to start getting in the habit of making a regular dinner so we can start eating as a family.

On the food front, Heather seemed to have a surprising intolerance to apples. But she has accepted avocado the past two nights when I mixed it with her oatmeal. I don't know if the texture or the flavor was the issue, but oatmeal fixed it. We've been offering her a sippy cup of water, which she seems pretty unimpressed with, and Gerber puffs for "dessert", which she has learned to feed herself! Since she has learned to move the puffs to her gums and munch on them, I don't think it's going to be too long until we start offering her some small chunks of real food and see how she does. Both exciting and scary!

I'm working on a pair of socks (my first regia sock yarn because it was the first Regia colorway I ever liked enough to buy) and I still have two baby sweaters to sew up and at least one more to make before the end of the year. But I don't expect a lot of at home knitting time until the house is clean enough for Heather to crawl around without getting her hands covered in cat hair. ;-)

More soon...

Sunday, October 07, 2007

Not going to whine

I might not be posting much for a bit. I'm still behind at work and the house is still a mess, and I really don't feel like getting on here just to whine and complain.

The good news is that we all seem to be healthy again (R and I both got the daycare bug to varying degrees) and I had a lovely time at Amanda's shower yesterday. When I have time to post pictures, that is at least one baby sweater that I can show you.

Let me remind you again that October 8th, 9th and 10th is when you need to contact agencies about Guatemalan adoptions.

And thanks to those of you who supported my efforts in the Light the Night Walk. It's not to let if you meant to and haven't had a chance.

I'll try to be back soon.

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Adventures in Parenting

So things are still busy and I'm still behind at work. I was beginning to feel like I might have things under control soon, so of course we were thrown a curve ball.

Heather woke up sick at 2:30 and continued to be sick for about an hour. I won't go into detail at the risk of pushing those of you who aren't parents yet into the "never gonna have kids" camp. (Although given what the nurse told me, it could have been much worse and lasted a lot longer - *knock on wood*)

Around 4 she fell asleep in her daddy's lap (awww...) and after putting in a load of laundry and emailing work to tell them I wouldn't be in on Wednesday, I joined them in bed. She woke up around 10am and seemed to be acting like herself. The nurse had told me that she should nurse for about 4-5 minutes every 30-60 minutes, and I was worried about having to cut her off to keep her from eating too much. Not a problem. She stopped after a few minutes. It never ceases to amaze me how smart our bodies are. Although, admittedly, after losing my lunch I'm generally pretty hesitant to start up with the eating again too quickly, so I really shouldn't be that surprised.

We had a quiet day and she had no more problems. (Thank god! It was difficult enough with two parents to take care of her...) We even went for an afternoon walk and she fell asleep in the stroller on the way home.

Sadly, I only got a little work done and so I'm still behind. I'm taking Monday off because daycare is closed and I leave for yet another trip on Tuesday afternoon. Somehow I will get caught up again someday. I just hope that day comes soon!

But beyond all of my recent stress, I just totally adore Heather. She is a beautiful, charming, happy and engaging child who will not rest until she can get anywhere she wants to go whenever she wants to go there. And that smile - irresistible. She is sitting up, crawling, pulling up and even cruising. Her physical development is just staggering, even in just the past couple of weeks. There is no doubt in my mind that she'll be walking before her first birthday and we're already past the point where we can walk into the other room 'for just a second'. I walked from the living room to the kitchen yesterday to grab my shoes and on my way back to the living room she met me halfway! The cats are wary and thankful that they can still move faster than she can. :-)

Monday, October 01, 2007

Two links

I've made a somewhat last minute decision to walk in the Light the Night Walk sponsored by the Leukemia and Lymphoma society in honor of my friend Lisa who passed away on Tuesday. Our team (3 of Lisa's bridesmaids) goal is $500. The walk is on Thursday night. Yes, in 3 days. Although I'm pretty sure you can still donate for the effort after Thursday.

Please consider supporting us.

(The funeral service was very nice and I'm very glad I went. I'm still sad, but I am feeling more at peace. I've been in a very good mood this evening. I think it is partially because I know how lucky I am and partially from the huge smile Heather gave me when I picked her up at daycare.)

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A friend of a friend of a friend sent me this petition to stop Guatemalan President Berger from halting all adoptions, making it impossible for over 5,000 children who currently have no family and no permanent home to be denied that opportunity. Please sign.

http://www.petitiononline.com/foafoa1/petition.html


If you have a blog please post this. If you don't have a blog, please email this to everyone you know!

Cathartic

On my way home last night, the second song on the radio was "The Rainbow Connection" from The Muppet Movie. (Gotta love satellite radio) This is not a song specifically linked to my friend Lisa, but it is one that I strongly connect to my first couple of years at college and my first CMU friends, of whom Lisa was one.

As I drove, I sang along with Kermit and let the tears flow. It was one of 'those moments'.

I'm certain that I will still cry at the funeral this afternoon...but my emotional release in the car seemed to be enough to prevent me from randomly crying for the rest of the evening as I had been doing all afternoon. It was a relief and I'm thankful I found something to help.

(I'm pretty sure that a song from Into the Woods would have had a similar effect...)