There Can be Miracles: March 2013

The last time I checked, I'm still breathing. Whew. I really thought I wouldn't make it to see the other side of these last few weeks... this bumpy road is far from over but at least I'm moving forward. And there does seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel, but I'm not completely certain that it's not a train.

And it's not Emma causing all of this madness. No, no. That kid has been great lately (and THERE we go! Jinxed it. YES.) up until today, when she turned into a grump again. She's been sleeping through the night (11-12.5 hours straight) for a few weeks now. Jinxed that too. And she's fallen into a pretty decent routine during the day of naps and feeding, even at the in-laws' house.

The madness is from work and moving. UGH, God. Why in the world did I decide to move while I have an eight-month-old goober and a recent promotion? The good news is that eventually I'll be all unpacked and settled into this house and I'll have more than one worker on my team, so I can get rid of my ever-growing caseload and be a real supervisor. Eventually.

One year ago, I was pregnant, living in H-town, and working in B-ville as an adoptions case manager. Now, I'm a mommy, living in the S-to-the-H-town, and an adoptions supervisor in the West Pizzle. Crazy how things change so quickly...

I did realize that we had close to 2300 square feet worth of crap in a 1350ish square foot house. When we were in the process of moving, I envisioned this new house being really empty and bare and that we'd have lots of unused space and room to fill the house with more crap. Nope. Wrong. The new house is surprisingly full-ish and I can't figure out how we fit everything in the old house. The difference is that now, I can do cartwheels in my living room (and my closet too!) without destroying things and breaking bones. And Emma will have plenty of room to run around and cause a ruckus, when the time comes for her to run.

Ok, ok. Emma stuff:

TEMPER TANTRUMS. Omg, it has begun- this kid can go from happy to super angry in a flash if we walk away from her, put her down, or take away something she wants. Hooray. Yippee. The fun part of parenting... sometimes it's kind of cute, but you can't reason with an eight-month-old so it's mostly frustrating. What the heck do you do? I calmly tell her no and then smile to reassure her that everything is ok, but she doesn't understand and just continues to grump at me. Because she doesn't understand. Sometimes I just pick her up, but that's a bad habit I don't want to start. Ah, delicate balances. The other day, I tried to give her the sippy cup after her nap instead of her bottle, but she chewed on it a few times and decided that it was no bueno and began swatting it away with her hands and throwing a fit. I replaced the sippy spout with a bottle nipple and tried giving it to her again, but she was convinced it was a trick and that it was a sippy cup in disguise, because she swatted it away again, all the while grumping, yelling, crying, kicking, and flailing. It was really extreme. I finally managed to get the darned thing in her mouth and once she realized it was a nipple, everything in her little world turned to sunshine and rainbows and she happily took the bottle. Silly baby.

She can feed herself now :( That makes me sad because I enjoy sitting down and holding her while she makes those sweet little noises as she eats. But it's also great for the mornings when I'm trying to get ready to fly out the door (I'm becoming chronically late in the morning, more on that in a moment) because she can feed herself in her bouncy seat while I load up the car and attempt to guzzle some coffee so I don't crash my car on the way to work.

There are definitely some Murphy's Laws of parenting. Like, if I need to be somewhere to meet with my mom so she can watch the baby, or I need to be at a meeting/court/etc., the baby will poop just as I'm about to leave the house. And I can't leave her in a poopy diaper in the car, especially now that my drive to the in-laws' house is about 30 minutes and the drive to meet my mom is about 45, because the poor kid shouldn't be sitting in poo in a car seat for that long. Oh, and I also don't want my car to smell like a dumpster the whole way, either. But regardless, something will happen that will make me rush out the door at the last minute. And that something is usually some kind of bodily function (from the baby, of course).

SITTING. Finally! Hooray baby girl! She mastered rolling from tummy to back about a month ago and now has gone on to bigger and better things. It really didn't take her long to go from needing some support while sitting to needing no support at all. Just a pillow behind her in case she falls (thanks to Sherb, the genius who clearly has more parenting experience than I do. Because I figured she was doing fine sitting on her own and stood up from sitting behind her, only for her to fling herself backward and slam her head on the carpeted floor. Many tears ensued and I felt like a horrible mommy!). Today, she spent some quality time in her pack-n-play with some toys and sat all by herself and played like a big girl.

I realized something. I used to watch videos of people's kids that they posted on Facebook and I used to think that's cute and all, but it's just your kid sitting in a pack-n-play with some toys. Now I get it. Just a few short months ago, she was literally a blob of burping, farting, pooping, eating, crying baby that would stare at the ceiling and go cross-eyed at random times. Now, she's sitting. In a pack-n-play. Playing with toys. In my mind, this kid is Leonardo Da Vinci painting the Mona Lisa. In reality, she's a shreiking, smiling, wobbling little goober chewing on the hand of her Cat in the Hat stuffed animal. I love that little goober. And her big open-mouthed kisses.

Oh, and she can give high-fives. Without even looking. She's still a pro with her hands... so maybe she'll be the next Leonardo Da Vinci. I just hope she doesn't end up with a beard...

By the way I'm living my life right now, you'd think I'm a glutton for punishment or something. Teething baby. Moving. Promotion at work. *sigh*

At least the teething let up for about a week or two. Or maybe it's been longer than that? Time means nothing to me right now... but we have had a reprieve from the angry teething baby until today, when she decided to start grumping again and was chewing on anything she could get her slimy little hands on. And her slimy little mouth, which gave mommy and daddy some slimy little kisses today. I don't even care if she only gives open-mouth, baby-bird, super-drooly kisses... it's the cutest darned thing in the world.

So, all this teething and... not a tooth in sight. Her gums look maybe a little different now than they did a few months ago, but that's really grasping at straws. I seriously think her first tooth won't be making its appearance any time soon. Bah!

I've been reading some of my old blog posts and reminiscing on times past, which has greatly helped to put things in perspective for me this week. She's actually been doing very well lately, despite her ongoing issues with sleeping at her grandma and grandpa's house, which in turn causes a domino effect of bad bedtime, bad sleep, and early wakeup time. But other than that, she does great- she's usually in bed by 7:30 or 8, sound asleep in her crib with hardly a peep. And most nights she sleeps for a good 12 hours straight without waking for a bottle, which is, of course, always subject to change. She doesn't need a nighttime bottle anymore, but sometimes she wakes up and just can't get herself back to sleep without some help.

The few times she has woken up for a middle-of-the-night bottle recently have been because of Pampers Cruisers. Yep. Add that to the list of diapers that Emma can't wear. UGH. My mother-in-law bought a box of them when a local grocery store was going out of business and had everything on sale. They don't sell size 3 Swaddlers in the grocery stores around these parts, so the Cruisers were the next best thing. Well, apparently for my Baby Bird, Cruisers= nighttime pee pants. The Swaddlers can hold the biggest of all of the Emma pees without a problem. Ever. In fact, I don't think Emma has ever had a leak with her Swaddlers that I can recall... even when they've been poorly fastened. The Cruisers have a "three-way fit" and apparently none of those three ways actually fit Emma's little bottom. So she pees out the top back of the diaper in the middle of the night, which is a really exciting discovery (not) at 4:30am when I go to lift her out of her crib and am greeted by soaking wet pajamas and crib sheets. Because what I really want to do more than anything at 4:30am is change the crib sheet and give the baby a baby wipe bath (AKA a Hudson baby bath). Then feed her and beg her to go to sleep, because by that point she was completely wide awake and ready to party. Thank God for her swing. So her Cruisers are used during the day, and her Swaddlers at night because, well, if she wasn't spoiled enough already, she now has her day diapers and her night diapers. Next up, is her weekday Power Wheels and her weekend Power Wheels.

Speaking of Power Wheels. We're closing on our new home in 9 days... holy mother of God. There's so much left to do... pack, pack, pack, paint, pack, clean, paint, clean, unpack, unpack, unpack, reorganize, clean, unpack, pass out and die. We'll finally have a big garage (our current garage is more like a 1 1/2 car garage because we really wouldn't be able to comfortably fit both cars in it) so we can park both cars in it, PLUS the third garage bay, which is perfect for a little pink Barbie Power Wheels Cadillac. Duh.

As I was sitting here typing up this blog entry, Baby Bird start screaming bloody murder out of a nice, calm sleep. I jumped up and almost dropped my laptop on the ground in the process because this kid rarely cries. And when I say rarely, I mean I-can't-remember-the-last-time-she-really-cried kind of rarely. Actually, no. I do remember the last time she cried- it was when she had her shots at her six-month well-child appointment. She had a booster shot a couple of weeks ago but hubby took her to that appointment, but she obviously cried at that too. But otherwise, she'll grump when she's in pain or overtired, yell and fuss and scream (not cry though) when she's way overtired and doesn't want to sleep, grump/yell when she's hungry, or whine when she doesn't want to be put down or wants out of her crib when she's done napping. But she doesn't truly cry. So, yea. That startled me and I ran into her nursery and picked her up out of her crib. The poor thing looked at me and cried harder as I pulled her head onto my shoulder and calmed her down... sheesh. Usually she sees me and laughs, squeals, and smiles. So something was definitely amiss with my little miss. I'm still not certain what it was... she continued to cry a little and angrily grunt in my arms until she drifted to sleep again. I held her extra long to comfort her (ok, and me) and she tooted a few times. When I put her back in her crib, she woke up a little and started kicking and fussing like she sometimes does, but there were some angry grunts peppered in. And another toot or two. So maybe she has some gas that's bothering her? I know, I know... I don't subscribe to the whole "it's gas!" excuse that everyone uses anytime a baby is less than happy. But this could be the real deal, the elusive true gas pains. Or it could be heartburn. Or teething. Whatever it is, she's definitely in some pain tonight :(

We elected to discontinue her reflux medications at the end of January (oops, didn't tell her doctor. That may have been a good thing to do first...) for a few reasons. A few people had suggested that I have the pharmacy request an increased dosage since she's grown so much since her original script. At 17+ pounds, she was still on the same dose she was on when she was about 8 or 9 pounds. The doctor's office said the only reason to increase the dose would be if she was having more symptoms or getting worse, which she wasn't. In fact, she doesn't spit up like she used to and she's a generally happy baby. So I figured the medication probably wasn't doing anything for her anymore since it was such a low dose. And we were having to give her Colic Calm, Tylenol, or Motrin for her teething pain, so we skipped a few doses because she was really not feeling the whole medicine dropper thing after a while. The discontinuation of her reflux meds was accidental at first, but then we decided to just not give it to her anymore. She seems to be doing just fine.

My chubby little baby is starting to move along with her gross motor skills now. She rolls from tummy to back like she's been doing it all her life and is starting to sit on her own without support for short periods of time. She still face plants quite often, though and grumps afterwards. I can't help but laugh at that. At the rate she's going with her fine motor skills, she'll be a concert violinist at the age of three. The pincer grasp is now her grasp of choice and she loves to grab at tags with her little fingers all day long. She'll grab a stuffed animal and immediately turn it over and around until she finds the tag, and then proceeds to play with it. She usually doesn't even try to put it in her mouth; she just plays with it with her fingers. Put a toy in front of her, and she can reach right for it, grab it with one hand (depending on the toy), and pull it to her to inspect and decide if she wants to play with it. She doesn't even have to try hard anymore, her hands can do whatever she wants them to do without hesitation. Now she just has to work on getting her legs and the rest of her body to cooperate, and we'll be in good shape.

So here's my sad attempt at posting pictures. I'll include the link to my Flickr account that I created just so I could possibly post pictures on this blog. This is the best I could do for now... most of the pictures are from Christmas, but the first one is from her seventh month-day on February 9th. My, how she's grown!