5 Months

Well, Lily is 5 months old today. And while she hasn't really been doing anything new since my last couple posts (including sleeping better), I thought I would share some reflections on the past 5 months.
- I never would have thought that a shower was a luxury and not a given. Lily is no longer content in her bouncy seat while I grab a quick shower, so that means I get a quick shower if I am lucky enough to get her down for a nap. I love weekends when I can enjoy a nice long shower.
- I never would have thought that I would use cloth diapers, but I absolutely love, LOVE, love them! When I was pregnant and reading those pregnancy books and they talked about deciding what kind of diapers you would use, I always thought "who in their right mind would chose cloth over the convenience of disposables?" While I cannot guarantee that I am ever in my right mind, cloth totally work for us and I love them and proudly tell whoever will listen that I use cloth diapers. I think some people get annoyed?!?!
- Some days I feel like a total slacker because I no longer have a "real job" (i.e. one that brings in an income). I don't have to get dressed or even shower to go to work. Then I realize that I work 24/7. Even if we decide Matt is going to get up with Lily in the middle of the night on a weekend night, I still wake up. While I might get an occasional couple hours off, I am always on call.
- I am totally not at all fazed by the fact that I carry on babbling, goo-goo gaa-gaa conversations with my daughter in front of curious onlookers at the grocery store. Or that I ask, perhaps more loudly than necessary, if someone has stinky pants. Mostly I don't give a crap. Chances are they are looking at me remembering when they did the same thing with their kids. Or they are horrified and hope that never happens to them.
- Cooking dinner, while at times a little difficult since it is "fussy time" and enjoying dinner with my little family is one of my favorite things. I still like to go out once in a while, but since dinner time is also fussy time, it is usually more of a PITA (pain in the a...)
- To a five month old, I am the most hilarious person in the world. Mostly my sister Jackie is considered the funny one, but in the eyes of Lily, I have her beat.
- Babies, at least my baby, like to watch people type. I don't know if it is just because I am doing it, and as previously mentioned I am hilarious, or if it is the little clicking noise, but it has Lily in hysterics (well, giggling anyway!)
- I can totally just be my big, dorky self at home with Lily. She doesn't care if I have a big zit or my shirt has spit up on it. She doesn't care if I am not cool. I could learn a lot from her in that respect...
- Motherhood is totally awesome, and scary, and nothing like I thought it would be, and a million times better than I ever hoped it would be. It has also made me more confident than I have ever been in my life. Who knew?
- But I still want some sleep!

Sitting Pretty!

And just for Daddy, rockin' her Metallica onesie!

And Now I've Seen It!

As mentioned in my previous post, Lily has been rolling, but we haven't actually witnessed it. We have just found her on her belly when we know we put her on her back. This afternoon while watching Gilmore Girls (yes, the re-runs I have seen a million times) I had her play mat in front of the TV. I actually witnessed Lily roll from her back to her tummy and then continue on to her back again! Yippee! Another milestone!

Still Not Sleeping

The sleep situation seems to be deteriorating. The sleeping through the night/disposable diapers thing seems to have been a fluke. It only lasted three nights. Now Lily doesn't like to go to bed, while she used to go down so easily. And now she is wide awake when she wakes up during the night. At 3am all she wants to do is play and yell and kick her feet against the crib, which is against the wall that adjoins to our room. So even if I attempt to ignore the babbling and such coming from her room, it is hard to ignore the constant thump. I have moved the crib away from the wall a couple inches, so that seems to help. She also moves all over the crib now, so we took the bumpers out. She now has a much better view of her room and tons more to look at instead of going to sleep. And if not sleeping at night weren't enough, she pretty much refuses to nap, and if she does, it is for about 30 minutes, tops. She is still a pretty happy little girl, but she is starting to be a little more cranky. I am reading a book, which I hope will help, but until I get through it...I don't have much time to read since my child won't sleep...I guess we will continue on as before. The poor thing needs her sleep! She will fall asleep while I am nursing her at bedtime, and sometimes nap time, but as soon as I put her in her crib, she is awake and screaming. And I have tried letting her just cry, but the kid is relentless. As I type this, I have been trying to get her down for a nap and she has been screaming for a good 40 minutes. I know this will pass, but I want her to be a good sleeper!
On the positive side, she is rolling...although I have never seen her do it. A couple times she has been playing on her play mat while I am on the computer and I will look down and she will be on her belly. I have also found her in her crib on her belly. She has come really close while I have been watching, but has never made it over. And she can sit sometimes if I sit her up on the floor. We were at some friends the other night and she sat up for almost two minutes before she started slumping forward. She isn't steady or consistent, but man is she getting strong. She is starting to love her exersaucer. She bounces in it. She is always bouncing or kicking her legs. If she is on the floor or in her bouncy seat, she justs kicks and kicks. And if I am holding her while watching TV she just bounces up and down.
And Lily is a little lion. She roars...seriously, she roars. It started a couple days ago when she was starting to get a little agitated and started kinda screaming. I made a noise back at her and she got this really confused look on her face and then roared at me. I roared back and she was giggling and smiling. So it is a new game. She will roar at me, I do it back. I never in a million years would have thought I would be standing in the check out lane at the grocery store having a roaring contest with my almost 5 month old daughter while people looked on. Oh well, and least it keeps her smiling!

PS - She finally stopped crying and fell asleep! Let's hope for at least an hour!

I Can't Believe...

As I was cleaning out my email inbox, I started reading some correspondence from when Lily was first born. It seems that more than half the emails I wrote started with "I can't believe..." Like in I can't believe she is already 2 weeks old and I can't believe how big she is getting. On that note, I thought I would share some of the other things that I can't believe from the past 4 months.
- I can't believe that I am a mother. I have a daughter. My husband and I created a perfect little person. I don't think I always or ever will truly comprehend exactly what that means.
- I can't believe it has been over four months since I have worked. I stopped working a week before Lily was born. Therefore, it has been a long time since I have had adult conversations on a regular basis with anyone besides Matt. It seems like another lifetime. I am now doing the best job I will ever have.
- I can't believe how fast babies grow. Everyone always says they grow so fast, but it really is astonishing.
- I can't believe how much and quickly babies learn. Lily is learning new things everyday, and it is amazing to sit and watch her try to figure things out and practice what she has learned.
- I can't believe how patient I can be. I have never considered myself a patient person, and those who really know me know this to be true. However, Lily can be screaming her head off, and I feel calm and collected. I am her mother and I can help her calm down. It is an amazing zen feeling. Most of the time...when I am severely sleep deprived after a rough night, I am not so patient.
- I can't believe I ever had a life before Lily was born. It is hard to remember how things were before she was born. I know I enjoyed my life before, but it is so much fuller and more meaningful now.
- I can't believe how much I love my little girl. I didn't know it was possible to love so much and everyday I love her more and more.
- And finally, I can't believe it is 11:30 at night, I have a killer sinus headache, and I am sitting here blogging instead of getting some much needed sleep!

Sleeping and Disposable Diapers

I hesitate to write this, because I am afraid it will change. Lily has slept like a champ the past three nights. The difference...she was in disposable diapers! It all started on Sunday night. We were spending the night at my parents house because we were going to the Wisconsin State Fair the next day and we leave really early, so it is just easier to spend the night at their house. I had already decided that I was going to just use some of the disposable diapers I had left while at the fair because they take up less room in an already overpacked diaper bag. I think they are also a little cooler since they are less bulky, and it was supposed to be 90 degrees. Anyway, I didn't bring any cloth to my parents, so she was obviously in a disposable overnight. She went to bed at 7:45, fussed a little when we went to bed a couple hours later, and didn't wake up to eat until 3:45. I actually woke up before her and was a little surprised what time it was. Granted I ended up being up for the day at 3:30, but whatever. So we decided that maybe we would try a disposable again on Monday night. Again, she went down around 8:45 (there were bad storms so we didn't want to put her down until they passed because we weren't sure if we needed to head for the bathtub) and fussed a little when we went to bed and then slept until after 2 and then until 6:30. I then thought that maybe she was just exhausted from the fair because I certainly was. So I thought I would see what happened one more night with a disposable. I put her to bed on Tuesday night around 7:45 and she fussed for the first hour or so, and then didn't make a peep until almost 4 am! Not even when we went to bed. She is in her own room now, but our house is so small, she is right next door, so I think sometimes she hears us going to bed.
I am going to put her in disposables at night for the rest of the week and see what happens. I figure that karmically speaking, Mother Nature can forgive me one disposable a night if I am a better person all around because I am well rested. And I have a bunch of disposables left, so I might as well use them. So keep your fingers crossed that this is the answer! There are a couple reasons I think the diaper may be making a difference. First, when we switched to cloth, she didn't go back down after a feeding as well. She seemed a little uncomfortable, and if I did change her, she would just be more awake. Second, when I change her in the morning in a cloth diaper, no matter how many inserts I have, they are saturated and there are literally pools of liquid in the diaper. She obviously wets a lot overnight, and disposables are just more absorbent. If this is the answer, I am definitely going to use disposables overnight. Mommy needs her sleep!

State Fair Fun

On Monday we went to the Wisconsin State Fair with my family. It was Lily's first state fair, and my millionth! My parents have been taking us to the state fair since we were really young, and I have only missed a handful of years. It is always a blast with tons of great food and lots of things to see. The day started really early for me, when Lily woke up at 3:30. I am not complaining really since she had been in bed since 7:30 and had only woken up to fuss a little when we went to bed around 9:45. We were spending the night at my parents since we leave so early in the morning. Anyway, she was up at 3:30 and then didn't want to go back down. I eventually took her downstairs so she didn't wake everyone else up. She fell back asleep, but by that time, I needed to start getting ready so I was just up for the day. When we left it was storming pretty badly, but the weather at the fair was really nice. A couple of storms, a little humid, but nothing new to us. We have been there in all kinds of weather. One of my goals was to make Lily a leaf shirt in the DNR exhibit. I made one probably at least 10 years ago and still wear it to bed most nights. So Lily needed hers. They weren't doing leaves this year, they were doing fish. So here is Lily's fish onesie. It is 24 months, but the way she is growing, she will be in it in no time.
And here is the shirt I made a long time ago
We had a great time looking at the animals, walking through the exhibition hall, and eating tons and tons of food (especially Billy's Baked Potatoes!!). It was also really nice because they had baby nursing stations around the fair grounds that were air conditioned and had couches and a table for changing the baby. It made it very easy to nurse Lily and not have to cover her with the nursing cover in the 90 degree heat! Lily was a trooper being strapped in the stroller all day. She was able to get in a good nap while we walked around the air-conditioned exhibition hall and I don't think she cried the entire day until we were about half way home. And I don't blame her. She was pretty much either in the car seat or in the stroller the entire day. I can't wait until next year when she will be able to really enjoy everything!

More New Tricks

Lily has a couple more new tricks! I know, that sounds bad, like she is a puppy or something. I think she is really close to rolling from her back to her tummy. If I play on the floor with her and hold a toy to her side, she turns her head and can get over onto her side, but not quite onto her belly. She also attempts to roll over in her crib. She also loves razzing (aka blowing raspberries). This is really cute and she will mimic me if I do it first. The only time it isn't cute is if she is really drooling, in which case I get a nice little shower. And she is a little faker already. She has figured out that I won't necessarily turn to her at every little noise she makes, but if she coughs, I will always look over. So if she really wants attention and I am ignoring her, like if I am making dinner, she will do this little cough. She is a prankster already, but she makes a couple rookie mistakes...like she starts smiling and laughing as soon as I look over!
Lily is also really starting to giggle and laugh now. She moves tons, and I think the beloved bouncy seat is on its way out. She gets herself all scooted to the bottom, to where she is almost falling out. And if we buckle her in, then she really struggles against the straps and I am afraid she is going to hurt herself, not to mention she hates being strapped in and really fusses. She only likes her swing in small doses, and it isn't always practical to put her on her play mat, like when we are watching TV since that floor is not carpeted, so we were looking for options for her so we weren't always holding her. She doesn't always like to be held. Sometimes we sit her on the couch and she will just hang out, looking adorable and watching TV. But still, we needed something else. On Saturday I went and bought her an exersaucer. She can't really use it to its fullest yet, but she does seem to enjoy herself in it for short periods of time. She is taking more and more of an interest in toys. Her all time favorite is her plastic keys. When I bring those out, her eyes just light up!