Marjorie and Me

When I was taking Marjorie's 8 month pictures, my mom was helping and took over the camera for a few minutes. She got these pictures of my girl and me. I don't always like how I look, but I try to remember that I love looking back at pictures of my mom with me and I want Marjorie to have that too.

I hope she sees how much I love her. There is no way to know how much your mom loves you until you become a mom and know what it's like to be wiping up the smelliest poo you've ever smelled,  giving your body to your child every day for months... years, getting up to comfort a screaming baby multiple times a night, crying with frustration because you don't know how to make her feel better... My mom was 21 when she had me. I can't imagine doing all this at 21 years old. But she did and she loves me still and I'm so grateful for her. Even more so now. Someday I hope Marjorie will have a baby and realize the same thing. Because I want her to realize fully how much I love her.

Marjorie at 8 Months

We ended this month at my parents in California for Christmas so this is definitely delayed and starting to blur a bit. We'll see how this goes.

Marjorie:
-sleep: meh, pretty regularly at waking up once a night for a feed and waking up for the day between 6 and 6:30. She is still taking about 3 naps a day. Sometimes they're good naps, and sometimes they're not. I think I'm getting a little more relaxed about them (not getting frustrated as much when they're short) so I'm not paying as much attention to them other than they are still 3 times a day which is annoying.
-rolling all around and still mad she's not crawling. The day after we arrived in CA, she pulled herself up on her knees without face planting for the first time. She's been doing that for the couple of weeks we've been here and rocking back and forth but no crawling yet!
-sitting up great! We got to CA 5 days before she turned 8 months, and all of these skills just exploded. She's been getting better and better at sitting up on her own. She's able to catch herself more and is more stable. That makes playing more fun because she can play a little differently and interact with her toys more.
-happy little girl...until she's not. She's generally happy unless: 1. I leave the room when she wasn't expecting that, 2. she's tired, or 3. she's hungry. That's mostly when she fusses, and she lets you know it's a problem. She doesn't always cry when I leave the room, it's more if I just plop her down and don't get her fully engaged with something/someone else before I walk away
-still teething, but no teeth. Dan apparently got teeth really late so it's looking like that might be the case with our girl
-food: I try to feed her solids 3 times a day. Puree for breakfast and lunch and then finger foods for dinner. Since coming out to CA we've been so busy that it's hard to get it all in. She's a bit meh when it comes to eating solids. Sometimes she loves them and sometimes not at all. I started her on puffs and those are like crack for her. She'll eat them not stop if she can. She's still nursing after she wakes up in the morning, after every nap, before bed and once or twice in the middle of the night.... so a lot.
-toys: she's loved her sofie and always the baby einstein take along tunes.

Mom:
-traveling alone with a baby sucked so very badly. It is a good thing I love my family because that was the worst kind of torture.
-generally feeling good about things and more relaxed. Every once in a while I get unsure or nervous about things, but I feel like the further out I get, the more I let go and realize I'm not going to know everything and she's not going to die or get hurt from my lack of knowledge. That doesn't mean I don't try and read up on things and figure it out, but I don't have to worry as much as I have.

I look at these and I can't help but think she's the most beautiful baby. I hope every mom looks at her baby and thinks that. She is a part of me. I created this beautiful person. I just love her.

The Perfect Fall Day

A month ago, Dan, Marjorie and I went down to Central Park to walk around and enjoy the leaves. It was the perfect fall day. It was cool enough that it felt like fall, but warm enough that you didn't need a coat, the leaves were at about their peak, the sun was shining....ah it was beautiful! We just couldn't leave and wandered around all afternoon. I think perfect fall days like that happen once a year and you just have to hope you've planned your "enjoy the leaves" day right.

 

Marjorie at 7 Months

Normally I start writing this at some point during the month so I can remember what's been going on, but this time it has flown by and here I am the day after her 7 month mark trying to remember all the ups and downs that happened in the last 30 days.

Marjorie:
-sleep... hmmm it's manageable for the most part? She still wakes up when we come to bed and I feed her (around 10/10:30), she usually wakes up between 2 and 4 (feed her), and then she's up for the day between 6 and 6:30 (feed her) and hangs out with Dan while he gets ready in the front room while I try to get a little more sleep. These are the ideal nights, other nights it's up and down and all around but definitely not as horrible as it was at 4/5 months.
-for one week she was taking three 1.5 hour naps a day and only waking up once in the night. It was glorious!! She is a much better napper, generally taking at least one 1.5 hour nap in the day if not two and then taking another 40-60 min nap. So still three naps which drives me crazy but is better than it was. Usually.
-she's starting to teeth. Right after her glorious week of sleep, she started gumming on everything,  became the drooly queen, and was generally irritable. She'll just be grumpy but in a really pathetic kind of way. I keep checking her bottom gum every morning for a little tooth, but nothing so far. I try to give her cold teething rings but then she screams after a few minutes because they of course make her hands cold. It's a lose lose situation really.
-Slowly but surely with solids. I try to make sure she gets one meal a day, but it's hard to remember and incorporate it into our schedule. I usually try to do a puree mid-morning and then when we eat dinner I give her something to "eat" aka play with like avocado or banana. She seems to enjoy that more than the purees but it's so dang messy we just put her straight into the bath when we do that. With the purees she was fine with most of them at first, but after I laughed at the yucky face she made with prunes, she does that a lot instead of eating. Dan says she eats really well for him if I'm not around. She usually fights with me about eating.
-Rolling all around. I put a blanket on the carpet in the front room and put her on that and then put her play gym next to it to hopefully entice her to stay on the carpet and not roll off onto the wood, but that only lasts for a little bit. She just rolls every where she can now. Nothing like a rolling baby to show you how dirty your floors are!
-She lays on her tummy now and wiggles her body all around but can't quite get the idea of tucking her knees up to crawl. She gets really frustrated at not being able to move forwards and backwards, only side to side.
-She's able to sit up without assistance for about 10-20 seconds. I usually put her between my knees or sit her up in the boppy so if she does tilt that catches her. She got her first good head bonk a couple weeks ago when I turned and took my hand off her for a few seconds and she leaned forward and fell on her face. I can't wait until she understands the idea of putting out her hands to help herself.
-loves her baby einstein take along tunes (but I think it overstimulates her sometimes and does this thing where she's super angry with it but screams when I take it away), likes chewing on anything that's not a teething ring, suddenly enjoys pacifiers? I think it's because of teething, and LOVES her thumb. She just started putting her thumb in properly and it's pretty adorable. She'll even stick her thumb into the opening of her pacifier = heart explosion. 

Mom:
-it just gets better. It ebbs and flows and some days are better than others, but in general it gets better. I'm not a big fan of the newborn stage, other than the so new thing and being so squishy cuddly. And then 3-6 months just felt hard and like I had no clue what was going on or how to help her feel better. I don't know if her tummy just got mature enough to handle things or what but we haven't had any more crazy eating things, although she still is a very gassy baby I think. Or is it normal for my 7 month old to still have man sized farts every day? Dan calls her Lady Manfarts.
-I feel like we've got a pretty good routine going. It's a fairly boring routine, but it works for now. I'm hoping in another month or so (right when it's freezing out, awesome!) she'll be down to 2 naps and will be able to go out and about and stay awake longer without me having to worry about her skipping a nap or having a super abbreviated nap because we're out. 
-Needs to make more mom friends. Now I know why everyone always scheduled things for 7:30 or 8pm. The kids are in bed and husband is home so you can go do stuff. When I was working, 7:30 was prime time for putting on pj's and relaxing on the couch after being out all day. Now that I'm home all day, I'd love to go out and do something.

Whew that was a lot... Impressive if you actually read all that. And now the adorableness.

 

            

          

Marjorie at 6 Months

This month flew and crawled by.

Marjorie:
-at her check up she was 14.2 lbs (10th percentile) and 26 in long (50th percentile), tall and skinny.
-is slowly sleeping longer stretches again. I read a billion and one books on sleep trying to figure out how to get us all more than 2 hours of sleep at a time at night. We tried one way one week and that seemed to completely backfire. Then we finally figured out we shouldn't let her fall asleep during her night feed if she wakes up and needs to eat. If we put her back down a little awake, it's let her learn how to fall asleep on her own which has made night time and nap time muuuch better.
-because of figuring out night sleep a little bit more, she is slowly taking longer naps. She still frequently wakes up and fusses around 30-40 minutes into her naps but if I wait about 5 minutes she'll usually fall back asleep. YAY!
-she's rolling back and forth now. In the last week, she's started doing it more often but still not really using it to "get around"
-because she can roll back and forth, she doesn't hate tummy time any more, but still prefers to play on her back
-more comfortable sitting in the infant chair. She doesn't automatically lean over and squish herself. She can kind of handle the high chair for a few minutes if I put her in when she's super happy.
-started eating solids. We started them when she was about 5 months and three weeks in the middle of the sleep deprivation. Probably not the best reason to start food, but we were hoping that part of the reason why she was waking up was because she was hungry and solids would help her stay fuller longer. She ate brown rice cereal mixed with mommy milk the first time and then we've just been trying out all kinds of fruit and veggies. She's getting very good at eating and swallowing and loves everything except green beans so far.
-current favorite toys: Monkey (made by Uncle Connor), taggie blanket (the purple squiggle is the favorite tag to chew on), Sophie the giraffe, links, and butterfly teether. She actually gets super excited when she sees the monkey and rolls towards it and then chews on it's nose and hands and feet. They're still about the same size which is entertaining.

Momma:
-is so very happy to be at 6 months. It just gets better and better. I have been looking forward to 6 months since she was born. I am very pleased to say that I have kept a helpless baby alive for 6 months. I think that's a good accomplishment
-Trying to get out of the mommy cave more, but it's hard when she's finally napping for solid 1.5 hour naps and I don't want to do anything to mess that up. She's only up for about 2 hrs between naps which is just not a long enough time to do anything outside of our neighborhood. Activities we can do in that time frame: go grocery shopping, go to the post office, walk up to Fort Tryon, take the dog on a walk...but none of those things combined and definitely no taking the subway and going out and about in NYC. I always thought I'd be a "let's go out and explore" kind of mom, but right now after 6 months of sleep deprivation, I want to do anything I can to preserve what sleep we get and promote good long naps. I am very tired of 30 minute napping. We do go out sometimes, but I just have to mentally prepare myself for a hard day of crying on the subway ride home and most likely Marjorie not having good naps once we're home again.

 

 always grabbin those feet!

Apple Picking 2013

A few weeks ago, we went apple picking with our friends. It's one of my favorite parts about living in the northeast for the fall. Of course lots of pictures were taken. We propped Marjoire up against some pumpkins to get a few cute shots...

 

But then she toppled over. Diana got this picture of me running to rescue Marjorie

 

Love all those apples! It's so nice to have a billion apples at home for a few weeks and I always make an apple crisp which is definitely a favorite. 

 

Dan and Marjorie picking some apples

 

The family

 

She's totally blurry in this picture, but I love it still. I always try to make sure Dan takes at least a few pictures of me with her. I love looking at pictures of mom and I when I was little. 

It was a great day!