hello? helllloooooo???

Is anyone there? I thought I heard crickets. I did! Well, I suppose that must be my fault for not posting anything in the last two weeks! Seriously, how has it been that long already?!? Yikes. Here's a quick rundown of what's been happening recently:

* I went to Osmo Vanska's farewell concert with the musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra. It was heartbreakingly beautiful. I hate not going to classical musical concerts throughout the year! I am firmly on the side of the musicians and wish the Board would (a) end the lockout and (b) adhere to the recommendations from Senator Mitchell!!

* Rose was sick again last Friday with a fever of 104! It was scary...and also scary that I'm getting a bit desensitized to such high fevers. We didn't go to the ER (on the recommendation of the on-call nurse) and the fever broke around 20 hours after it started. Whew!

* Speaking of ER's, we've started getting EOBs and bills related to Rose's last ER visits (for fever and then for burns). Man, modern medicine is expensive!

* Last weekend Rose had her first sleepaway without her parents around! Mike and I were at a wedding in Duluth, so Rose spent the weekend with Grammy and Grandpa Jack. We all had a great time!

* This is MEA weekend, so Rose got to spend all day with Grammy and Grandma Roles today, and tomorrow she gets to spend all day with her Daddy. What a lucky girl! (Thanks, grandmothers!!!)

* Rose's new favorite words are "uh oh" and "no." She especially loves saying NO to Mac - poor cat! She also refused her bath last night, which turned into a disaster of epic proportions. She tried to refuse it again tonight, but we insisted and her bedtime routine went as usual, so hopefully her sleep will be as usual tonight too.

I haven't taken a lot of photos recently, but here are a few to tide you over until her "official" 18-month shots next week! (Can you believe she is 18 months old already?!)

Rose has been super interested in ears recently. Sometimes it hurts when she pulls on them or inserts her finger.

When Rose is feverish, she just lays lethargically on me.

When she feels good, she LOVES to help me bake :)

Mike and I had a great time at the wedding!

Have a great Friday, everyone!

long time overdue updates

Two full weeks since my last post?! Yikes! Here's what we've been up to in the past couple weeks:

* Rose's burns are almost completely healed! Yay!!!!

* I was in Washington (state, not DC) for work for almost a  week. I planned to get caught up on sleep, but ended up coming home even more sleep deprived than ever. (Stupid time difference vs. circadian rhythms!) But at least I came home (mostly) emotionally healed. I can now almost talk about how Rose got burned without crying. Almost.

* I took the WA jurisprudence exam - on my birthday. Blech! Let's just hope I passed.

*  We went apple picking at Mike's stepbrother's new house!

* Rose is pretty much fully transitioned to the toddler room at "school" now. According to Mike (who does daycare dropoff every day), she is now reaching for her teaching rather than clinging to him and crying each morning.

* Mike starts student teaching tomorrow!

* The change in schedule means that I have to do both dropoff and pickup. Gulp! Wish me luck with that...

* I played mahjong with friends, sewed a few more quilt squares for Mike's belated anniversary present, and had lunch with another friend. As you can see, I'm working hard to fit in time for self-care.

* I've also been trying to exercise again, but every time I start running, I end up getting sick! It happened again last week (and maybe being sleep deprived, stressed from taking an exam in WA, and getting the flu shot had something to do with it, but apparently I'm just going to blame the running). I think running is just a lot of stress on my body and I'm also making too many changes all at once (eat better! see friends! do hobbies! and RUN!). I've started looking into yoga classes and gym memberships so I can try to get exercise in a more gentle way, since I'm sick of being bed-ridden for a day or two within 2-3 weeks of each running attempt. Sigh.

* And Rose turned 17 months old!



Here are some photos from the last few weeks, in completely random order:

Remember when I was pregnant and said I'd never dress my daughter in all pink? Well, apparently the saying is true that you're a far better parent before you become one yourself! :)

Teaching the art of the "selfie."

She is so excited to finally be able to reach the sink faucet!

Her burns were mostly healed when I returned on 9/14 (above), and the scar is barely even visible now.
I am SOOOO thankful she was not hurt worse.

She's turning into such a little person nowadays. She LOVES seeing dogs and was pointing to one here.

Cousins Claire and Ella, as we hiked through their forest.

My two favorite explorers!

Claire asked me to take a picture of her under this tree.

After the woods, we hiked through a field.

Rose has learned to flirt for the camera!

She decided that she loves fettucine alfredo!
(I love her big, expressive eyes!)

My friend Marcy brought over some DELICIOUS cupcakes for my birthday. Her son Noah was so wonderful with Rose! He read her books, practiced animal sounds with her, and taught her to be silly by putting the tupperware lid on her head. She loves him!


Rose's two new favorite "games" are:

...picking up a tomato from the pile in the kitchen, making a bite mark, then hiding the tomato in our living room. So far I've found about seven of them. I hope I find any others soon.

...or giving "gifts" to the cats. It sure is sweet to watch, even if the cats are completely uninterested.

She also loves crawling through the tunnel my parents gave her.

And she is learning to enjoy helping me bake! (Finally!! I can bake again!!!)

And, last but not least, here's her official 17-month-old photo! Mike and I both think she looks SO similar in this one to a photo of me (at about her age) that we've seen, but neither of us knows which exact one. Maybe my parents will know so we can do a side-by-side comparison.

So for the very long (and very belated!) post! Have a great week, everyone!

47 weeks

We got a message from the doctor Rose saw on Friday, and she reiterated that Rose does, in fact, have a urinary tract infection, and her blood tests also suggest that it had turned into a kidney infection. Apparently this can sometimes just happen for kids, but for some kids it can signal a problem with "urinary reflux" which can permanently scar the kidneys. Sigh. The "good" news (if there is such a thing) is that it turns out that the doctor Rose usually sees (and I use "usually" in a loose sense, because we've only seen her for about two 'well visits 'to date, whereas we've cycled through pretty much every other physician in the practice through all the 'sick visits' she's had) has a special interest in pediatric nephrology, so she's the provider they would recommend following up with anyway in order to get an ultrasound of her kidneys. So for now we'll just continue the antibiotic, we'll have a follow-up with our regular pediatrician in a week or two, and we'll talk at that time about scheduling a kidney ultrasound. I'm praying she doesn't have urinary reflux because "Dr. Google" suggests that the treatment is then 6 months to 2 years of preventative antibiotics! So please send some positive vibes our way because I would really, really like to avoid that!

Anyway, because Rose has gotten sick so often, so has missed a ton of school in the past few months, including four days last week. But we got a lovely card in the mail yesterday from all her friends!

 

Wasn't that thoughtful? I love our daycare.

In other news, we're also back to sleep training again. Apparently we (as in I) got in the very bad habit of letting Rose fall almost completely asleep while nursing and rocking before transferring to the crib each night. Now that she definitely has object permanence AND separation anxiety, this translates into frantic screaming when she wakes up and panics when she realizes a parent isn't holding her . . . and in her mind this means we must have abandoned her because we had been with her when she fell asleep! Now we need to re-train her to fall asleep on her own, so when she wakes up in the middle of the night she'll no longer be surprised that we're not in the room. In order to help with this, we're now going to do our last nursing before bathtime, and Mike is going to read her a story then put her in her crib drowsy yet awake. "Cry it out" was incredibly difficult yet worked incredibly well when we needed to wean her from her 4am feeding a few months ago, so hopefully we (as in I) can get through doing it again.

As a result of Rose having been sick and thus having terrible sleep, my sleep has also suffered. I believe I have complained to you before about how much I hate being sleep deprived, so I'll spare you my litany of woes. But I thought I would give you two examples of just how tired I was yesterday:
1. I made a *huge* pan of wild rice casserole for us to eat over the next several days. And when I woke up this morning, it was tight where I had left it yesterday, still in the oven. Ugh.
2. I have a pair of black boots that I've been wanted to get more use out of, so I've been on the look out for the past several months for a cute black dress or skirt that's winter-worthy. Yesterday after we went to the play area at Eden Prairie Center we walked through Sears on the way back to our car and I spotted a beautiful dress on the Land's End clearance rack. On a whim, I tried it on - usually fitted dresses look terrible on me since I'm so short-waisted, but I decided to give it a shot anyway. It was perfect - and only $22 (originally $98)! Woo-hoo! Except that when I put it away today, I noticed that it is very clearly "sable." As in not black at all. Ugh. (So how bad would it clash to wear a brown dress with black boots???)

But enough of my babbling! Let's get to the thing that you've all come to this blog for: photos of Little Miss! This week she has been all about books! She loves all of her books, including:

Goodnight Moon

Pat the Bunny

I am a Bunny Rabbit

Where is Baby's Belly Button?

Unlike her love of books, she's not so sure what she thinks of her daddy's new hat:

And now she's getting so fast that Mike started putting up barriers so slow her down between the living room and entry way!

She's getting tenacious, and also turning into Daddy's little girl!

Have a great week, everyone!

46 weeks!

Rose is really loving her walking toy from Great Aunt Dolly and Great Uncle Peter! This week it's been the thing she crawls over to the second she gets home from school each day. As you can see, she's gotten quite proficient at walking with it! (Mom and Dad, go to the blog to see the video!)

Way to go, Rose!


In other news, here are some updates from our world.

Work: I'm finally starting to settle in to my new role! I'm having fun learning new things, meeting new people. being exposed to the business side of the company, and thinking about things in new ways. There were even a couple days last week that it was hard to tear myself away from work because I was enjoying my projects so much! Good thing Mike and Rose are so wonderful to come home to. :) Now I just need to make sure I pace myself and don't get burnt out (and sick again!) from eustress rather than distress!

Sleep: I'd been getting frustrated with the chaos of Rose's daytime sleep schedule. She usually takes two naps a day (although sometimes only one), but these naps can range from 20 minutes each to 2.5 hours each. And there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to whether her first nap is at 8:30am or 11:30am. Ugh. We have had so much success with nighttime sleep ever since we implemented our strict evening routine - I crave that consistency in our daytime routine on the weekends! After a disastrous attempt at regulating naptime yesterday (don't ask), we decided to stick with our "crutches" of the stroller and the magic sleep machine (i.e., the car). There is so much chaos in the infant room at her school that it's been impossible for them to implement a standard nap time for Rose, and since she's there 5 out of 7 days each week, we just don't see her enough to overcome that chaos. So we're choosing "radical acceptance" of our crutches... at least until she's in the toddler room this fall, where everyone naps at the same time!

Nursing: Back when I was pregnant, I had no idea how long a year is in nursing months. It's like dog years or something - one month of regular time feels like seven years in nursing time! After I went back to work last July, I started pumping in the mornings as well as twice work, then breastfed Rose as soon as I picked her up in the afternoon and also before bed. I don't remember exactly when I made the changes, but I remember pushing myself to tears before weaning off the afternoon pumping at work (October?), off work pumping altogether (Thanksgiving), and off the afternoon feed at home (January?). Which left me with my morning pumping and bedtime feeding. For several weeks now I've been struggling with low mood and no energy - part of this can't be helped due to the cold weather and the minimal sunlight we've had, but part of this is because I haven't found a way to consistently get in any exercise this winter. Back when Rose took a catnap on the way home from school it was easy to walk the long way home for exercise. But now she gets SUPER grumpy if she's allowed to fall asleep after 4pm, so I need to race home as quickly as I can before she falls asleep in her stroller. So earlier this week I decided to soon start skipping the morning pumping session in order to exercise in the morning, and I proudly came to this decision without reaching my breaking-down-crying-sobbing point. And now that I've announced it publicly I'm going to have to stick with this routine and not hit the snooze bar in the morning! I did not feel the slightest hint of sadness when I put Bertha away Friday morning, and I only felt a hint of guilt when Rose had her last morning nursing session today. Ah, it's pretty nice to make decisions that are in my own best interest, as hard as that sometimes can be to do.

Finally, here are Rose's portraits from this week:

"Here I come!"

"This is so much fun!"

"And away I go, in my wide-legged, lock-kneed stance!"

"This is the best day ever!"

Have a great week, everyone!

Sad Valentine's Day

I hope you all had a better Valentine's Day than we had!
1. Rose had to get eye drops every 4 hours, which she hates.
2. She got sent home early from school due to fever.
3. Usually Mike is on "sick duty" for Rose right now (because he has a far more flexible schedule for the time being), but yesterday I had the car and Mike was almost an hour away by bus, so I had to leave early to pick her up.
4. Mike is leaving for a weekend of ice fishing this morning, so I also had to frantically find coverage for today. (I cancelled my morning clients, and I am SOOOOO appreciative of Marsha and my parents for covering the late morning and afternoon!!!)
5. Rose was so tired that she slipped in the bath which scared her (and me!) and I had to cut her bath short to comfort her (and me!).
6. Then I had to give her eye drops and medicine again, which promptly riled her up once more.
7. As she was drinking her evening milk and finally starting to calm down, she started coughing and there was a toot sound. So I had to wake her up in order to change her diaper, but it turned out there wasn't a toot after all so it was all for nothing.
8. Then she went back to drinking milk. She finished one side, and just as we were switching to the other side she started coughing again. She coughed so much that she vomited all over! (And I do mean all over!)
9. In order to finish feeding her I had to make the difficult choice between stewing in her vomit vs. shivering in the nude. Not an an easy call to make.
10. After she finally got to sleep, I had a million work-related things to catch up on, so I was up until at least 10pm working. This may not seem late to you, but I am usually in bed reading by 8:30 and asleep at 9 (my alarm goes off at 5:15 on work days), so this was definitely late for me!
11. I've been so used to Rose waking up between 1 and 4 every night for the past month or so that I've now been wide awake since 4:30. (Yes, on the one work day that I actually didn't have to set my alarm, I still woke up well before it would have gone off!) I stayed in bed until 6 hoping that I would fall back asleep, but I had no such luck. (Yes, that means I'm running on 6.5 hours of sleep, which is WAY less than the 8-8.5 hours that I need to function optimally.)
But the good news from #11 is that Rose actually slept through the night!!!! So maybe the "Ides of February" will be the turning point for health in our household. Fingers crossed!

Canary in the Coalmine

Rose's sleep is turning out to be an amazingly accurate predictor of illness. Of course she has nights where she's fussy or she wakes a couple times, but the nights that she's had seemingly endless crying have all turned out to be due to bona fide illness:  the double ear infection at Thanksgiving, her influenza AND ear infection in early January, and the viral stomach flu AND upper respiratory infection in later January. For the past two nights Rose hasn't slept well at all (ugh!) and today she got sent home from daycare for suspected illness. Mike took her in to the doctor this afternoon and we found out that she has pickeye in both eyes! Poor girl.

Here is how painful her eyes looked this afternoon when I got home from work:

(it never fails to elicit a smile in our little narcissa when she can look at photos of herself!)

But in happier news, Rose mastered a new skill today! Check out this video!   :)

I am so incredibly thankful that Mike has a little bit of flexibility to his schedule so he can stay home with Rose tomorrow. (She's barred from daycare until Thursday.) My job has been SO busy as I'm trying to settle into my new role, so I'm VERY appreciative of Mike's ability and willingness to take care of Rose at home when she's sick. Thank you, Mike!

P.S. Mike and I have been obsessively washing our hands ever since Rose's diagnosis. Fingers crossed that no one else in our house comes down with pinkeye!

42 weeks

Rose is feeling MUCH better now than she was last weekend -  no more vomiting and she finally got her appetite back on Friday. Unfortunately she started running a low-grade fever again today, but I'm hopeful that it's just another cold and it won't morph into anything more serious. (This has been a terrible winter of one sickness after another!)

The only fiend that's still be hanging around for the past few weeks, despite Rose's generally improved health, is a return of poor sleep! We figured it was pretty normal that she had poor sleep when she simultaneously had the flu and ear infection, but then we must have segued right into the nine-month sleep regression. Ugh! Luckily she's now back to "only" waking about once per night, but Mike and I are both looking forward to having uninterrupted sleep again one day. It's been a long time.

In addition to a return of poor sleep, we've also been dealing with some MAJOR separation anxiety.  Rose is so attached to me at this point that she will scream bloody murder if I leave the room, even if she had been happily playing with her Daddy only moments earlier. Furthermore, she would prefer to be held by Mommy at all times, and if that's not possible she I had better be within arm's reach of me. This morning I made the mistake of setting her down for TWO SECONDS in order to take her weekly picture.

I know this is just a phase that she's going through, but it's been pretty tough . Of course there's part of me that's reveling in the proof that she actually does love me (yes, I still do feel insecure about that sometimes), but a larger part of me is exhausted from either carrying a 20-pound weight with me wherever I go, or carrying the equivalent poundage of guilt.

Surprisingly, I didn't actually feel that guilty when we hired a babysitter last night! One of the teachers at Rose's school had offered a few months ago to babysit, and we figured we should test it out. We tried to hire her back in early January, but we all got sick so we had to cancel at the last minute. Finally we got to try it out for real yesterday. Rose had only had family or friends watch her before, so this was a big deal for all of us. And we all had a great time! Rose and Miss Sammy played and had lots of fun, while Mike and I (and Trula Anne) went to Carleton's annual alumni trivia contest! At $10/hr we definitely will be thinking hard before we ever hire a babysitter again (most expensive Buffalo Wild Wings night EVER!), but it's good to know that Miss Sammy is a great option if we ever need her.

"I'm in  my carseat!"

The other news of the house is that Rose suddenly morphed into a tummy sleeper! Every morning for the past week or so she's been on her tummy when we go in to to get her. It's pretty funny since she hated tummy time for so long, but now she seems to love sleeping this way. I think it's because she can get into crawling position so much more easily this way, and she is loving to crawl!

Finally, we got some more snow today. We don't have a sled so we pulled her around in a laundry basket instead. She was a little weirded out by it, but I got a few smiles out of her.

Little Miss, however, was not impressed by the snowman I tried to build for her.

"Get me outta here!"

With that, I'm off to bed. Have a great week, everyone!

29 weeks

Saturday:
Remember how excited I was in my last post on Thursday? Well, that excitement was quickly felled by the stomach virus that hit our entire family on Friday morning. Rose had been crabby and not eating well all week, but we just attributed it to the time change. So we still sent her to school on Friday morning while Mike and I each called in sick to work. He took over the bed in Rose's room and I laid claim to our bed (don't I have a great husband?!). Our day consisted of long naps alternating with hurried trips to the bathroom. Blech. In addition to our GI symptoms, I also had a fever and was getting chills and hot flashes all day. It was miserable! By the time 3:30 rolled around and it was time to pick up Rose at school, we both felt like we had been hit by trains. Mike picked up Rose (doesn't she have a great dad?!) and found out that a stomach virus had hit the school hard. In fact, there were only five toddlers in attendance because the rest of them had called in sick with the exact same symptoms we were experiencing! Rose continued to be crabby all evening, even with her Grandma who had stopped by after work to help us out (don't we have great family?!), but we still didn't think she had the same illness we had... until it was time to put her to bed. As I was sitting in her quiet room nursing her, suddenly I heard her stomach gurgling and she vomited all over me! Now, this girl knows how to spit up, but this was no "spit up." This was projectile vomiting of massive proportions. Poor girl!! We got her all changed into fresh pajamas and cleaned up the mess, and then she immediately fell asleep. Given how little she'd eaten all day, I totally caved when she woke up crying at 1am. But now I'm praying that she sleeps through the night tonight (since all she did was eat and sleep all day - I think she's still recovering) because I don't want to have to go through the trauma (for me) of sleep training again! Fingers crossed...

Sunday: 
No luck. Rose woke up crying for over an hour, despite Mike's "longer and longer" reassurances (i.e., "We love you, Rose. But it's night time. Time for sleep. See you in the morning!") Poor sleep coupled with lingering GI symptoms made for a pretty miserable day. After we took Rose's 29-week portraits, we hung out at Mike's mom and stepdad's house all day, watching TV, playing with Rose, and eating very small amounts of Mary's delicious food.

"Look at me! I'm almost 7 months old!"

At one point Rose was so tired that she even took a nap on the floor mattress and not in my arms!

(Let's not talk about all the sleep dangers in this picture, okay?)

Monday:
Once again we had a night-time waker. Mike was already sleeping on the couch due to his horrible GI symptoms and he took the monitor with him, but I could hear Little Miss's cries for about an hour straight. She had done nothing but eat all day on Sunday so I was pretty convinced that she wasn't actually hungry. I was glad Mike was giving his "longer and longer" reassurances, because otherwise I was sure that Rose would think we had abandoned her and hated her. Mike and I both woke up exhausted and with continued GI distress. I'm scraping the bottom of the PTO bank, so I decided to try to go in to work anyway. Let's just say it was a rough day.

Tuesday:
Another hour of over-night crying. I seriously am starting to feel like the worst mother ever! It also didn't help that Mike and I had apparently not communicated well about the nuances of our sleep training plan and ended up arguing about it at 2am - that was supposed to be the point of having a plan, so we wouldn't have to have any discussions about it in the middle of the night! Oh well. We figured it out after we woke up this morning, so now we're prepared for tonight. On the up side, Mike says he's feeling much better and I'm feeling somewhat better (mostly just exhausted). Let's hope this is the end of the sickness for all three of us!

sleep training: final update?

It's been awhile since I've posted much other than pictures, so here goes!

1. Sleep training was one of the best parenting decisions we have ever made. (Whew!) Rose is generally sleeping through the night now, and I'm finally letting myself fall into a deep sleep. It's so amazing to feel rested! I still haven't fully caught up on my ridiculous sleep debt, but I'm enjoying having a few hours to myself each evening and to having uninterrupted sleep most nights. I wish I could convey to you all how much I love becoming more rested again!

2. Speaking of parenting decisions, I've been down to pumping only twice per day (once when I get up at 5:15 am and once at work, usually around 10 or 11 am) for the past two weeks. I've still been able to keep up with Rose's bottle needs, plus have a little surplus. (How I still I have a surplus, I don't know! We have milk frozen since back in July!) I set the goal of ending pumping at work on January 1, which I am oh-so-eagerly counting down to. It's been so nice to only pump once per workday, I can't even imagine how liberating it will feel to have an entire day of work that is uninterrupted by Bertha The Breast Pump. I think I'm going to try to continue nursing in the morning and the evening come January, which means I would have to continue pumping on weekday mornings; I'm a little torn about that decision, so we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. But at least I can stop hauling Bertha to work with me every day!

3. I'm growing out my hair. We'll see how long this decision lasts, but at this point I'm shooting for shoulder length. I haven't had long hair in ages! I'm looking forward to wearing a ponytail again, and a bun, and french braids.  We're going to Appleton for Thanksgiving, and I'm hoping to find a picture of the last time I had long hair back in 5th grade. I'll keep you posted, loyal blog readers.

4. Remember back when I said that I realized that I could have hobbies if Rose went to bed regularly? I think I've been so deprived of "Steph time" for so long that I might have gone a little overboard with this. (Oops.)  In the two weeks since we started sleep training, I've taken on two pretty major tasks: first is making all of our family Christmas presents, and second is repainting our bathroom.

The bathroom is something that I've been meaning to do literally for years, but never took on first because I might have been pregnant and then because I actually was pregnant. So now I finally have the health clearance to expose myself to paint fumes in a small, enclosed space! I spent a few nights looking at paint chips, then another afternoon I bought all the supplies, and tonight I painted the ceiling.

Tonight I learned that: my arms are probably going to be really sore tomorrow, the ugly edging will make me want to start on the walls tomorrow night  (can't wait for the new color!), and I'm renewing my vow to never paint another ceiling ever again! (I said that after I painted the kitchen ceiling two years ago, and you can see how long that vow lasted! Ceilings are miserable! At least we have small rooms in our house.)

As for the Christmas presents, I spent several days scouring Pinterest for ideas, then ordered some supplies so I could do a trial run of my chosen project. It seemed to work, so now I'm waiting for the rest of the supplies to come in and for Mike to clean out a work area in the basement for me. I'm excited to get going on this, but also a little nervous about whether I'll actually be able to get it all done before Christmas. And a little nervous hoping that our parents will actually like the gifts once they're finished...

5. Only two more weeks to go until I can start listening to Christmas music again! I'm so excited to sing holiday songs to Rose!!!

6. I'm pretty sure there was something else I was going to post, but I can't remember and I *really* need to get to bed.  Hope you've all been happy, productive, and well rested!

sleep training: night 3

Success!

I was really nervous about it since we had messed with our evening routine by going to Grandma and Grandpa's for dinner. Rose was grumpy from being tired and she fell asleep in the car (at 6:30) and slept until we got home at about 7:15. Normally she's in her bath at 6:45, in pajamas at 7, and asleep ay 7:15 (give or take). So we woke her for a super quick bath and then put her to bed around 7:30. I fully expected this change in routine to destroy her sleep, but I was happily mistaken! As far as I know, she didn't make a peep until 6:10 this morning. Yay, Rose!

P.S. Of course, I was so anxious about her not sleeping well that I keep waking up to look at the clock. But hopefully this will be a new routine that I will gratefully adjust to. The prospect of uninterrupted sleep is so, so amazing to consider!

sleep training: night 2

Ugh. Well, they said it would get worse before it gets better, and they were right.

Last night Rose started crying around 10:30. (Seriously?!?) I had already been asleep, but her crying was loud enough to wake me up despite the two closed doors between us and despite the white noise machine in our bedroom. Mike waited 10 minutes, then 15, then she was asleep before the 20-minute check. Whew.

Mike came to bed around midnight, and then Rose started crying again some time after that (but I didn't look at the clock, so I don't know when it was).

"Is she okay? Do we need to check on her?" I asked him. 

"She's fine," he replied.

It felt like the crying went on for hours and hours, so I asked Mike again, and again he reassured me that she was fine. I figured he was taking care of the nighttime checks so I eventually fell back asleep myself, assuming that my sense of time at night just must be grossly off, and hoping that I was just dreaming about crying and that it wasn't actually happening. 

Well, this morning I asked Mike when she woke up an how long she cried and he had no idea what I was talking about! Not only did he sleep through her crying (with the monitor on his side of the bed), but he also slept through our conversations! Poor Rose.

We'll see how it goes with sleep tonight.

sleep training: night 1

Well, we survived. Not sure why Rose slept through the night for three nights during the week but then decided last night to wake up at 4am. But we had already decided that we were officially going to "sleep train" starting on Friday night, so that's what we did. Let me give you a little background before I tell you more about how "night 1" went for us.

So there are 3 basic methods for sleep training:

1. The first is to turn off the monitor and just let her cry until she falls back asleep (aka "cry it out"). Tempting in theory, but there's no way I could actually do that in practice! We've worked so hard to help Rose trust that we love her and are there to meet her needs, and that approach just seemed antithetical to our parenting style. Besides, what if her arm was caught in the crib again, or she had lost her lovey, or she needed reassurance after a bad dream? Besides, most doctors don't recommend this approach simply because it's so hard for the parents to administer consistently, and consistency is key with sleep training.

2. On the other end of the spectrum is the "Pick-up / Put-down" (aka "no cry," aka "camping out") approach. Here the parent camps out next to the bed and picks up the baby when she cries, then sets her down. Then picks her up if she continues to fuss, then puts her down. Pick up, put down. Over and over and over.  Definitely tempting to have a "no cry" solution, but the drawback is that it can take hours and weeks for this system to work, and it runs counter to the approach we've already been doing (and that has been so effective at bedtime) of letting her cry/talk/fuss for 10 minutes before we go to her.

3. So that brings us to our preferred method: the "modified cry it out" (aka "controlled comforting") approach. It's explained in more detail here and here, but basically it involves giving baby a brief reassurance at progressively longer intervals, in the hopes that she will learn we are still there but that crying at night will not "earn" anything more than a brief check-in. Kind of like we had been doing with bedtime from the very beginning.

The specifics of our plan were as follows: we would wait 10 minutes before going to her room, then Mike (not me, since she associates me with food at night, and thus I could just upset her more) would go in to check on her, give her a lovey, and tell her "I love you, Rose, but it's nighttime. It's time for sleep. We'll see you in the morning" and then leave. Then we'd wait 15 minutes before the same reassurance, then 20 minutes, the 25, then 30, etc.  Whew. We had a plan.

Last night Rose woke at 4:20am. Mike and I shared a brief "seriously?!?" moment, then settled in with the clock. The first thing I learned was that I think I'm waiting 10 minutes before going to her at night (I know I definitely do that in the evening, and just assumed I was in the middle of the night too), but since I don't usually watch the clock I definitely wasn't actually waiting that long. Sigh. Her cries got more frantic, then...silence. After 9 minutes she stopped crying. Hallelujah!

Mike and I both drifted off to sleep, relieved that our first night of sleep training had been relatively painless for all.

And then the screams started. I looked at the clock and it was now 4:35. Ugh. So now what? Should we start over again at 10 minutes? Should we wait 15? Should we consider this the same "episode" and just check on her immediately? We made a split-second decision to wait 5 minutes before proceeding.

It was torture! At 4:40 Mike went in to check on her (arms in the crib? check!), give her the lovey (check!), and tell her the short message we had previously decided on. She quieted a bit, then started howling again after he left the room and it was clear that he wasn't going to feed her.

Fifteen minutes later (4:55), he did it again. It was torture. Torture, I say! At that point we turned down the monitor until we could barely hear her.

And then, at 5:05, we heard blessed silence. 

I laid awake for quite some time, worried that we had scarred Rose for life (despite my knowledge of recent research in this area) and berating myself for being a cold, heartless mother. But eventually my snoring joined Mike's, and it lasted until Rose woke up at about 7am, as per usual. I bolted up and into her bedroom, and she was usual chipper self. Whew! Yay, Rose! What a relief that she didn't seem to be bearing any immediate grudges.

So we're one night closer to having effectively sleep trained. Consistency is key, especially since crying can be worse on the 2nd or 3rd days (i.e., an "extinction burst"), so please send good sleep vibes to the three of us! I'll keep you posted about the next few nights...

Dinner time!

Time for a few updates!

First off, Rose loves food! That's our girl. :)

She loves smoothies (any flavor) and purees (other than green beans) and chunks of food (other than avocado). It has been so much fun to introduce her to pretty much everything we like to eat! She ate tacos on Sunday, played with spaghetti on Monday, tasted omelets on Tuesday, and tried hummus on Wednesday. Let's see if she continues to be an adventurous eater, but for now she'll forgo bottles if it means she can eat "real" food. It's such a hoot!

In addition to food, Rose also likes trying to crawl! Forget rolling. Now that she's mastered sitting, she's on to even bigger and better things. Right now when she has tummy time she'll kick her legs, then lift her chest, then kick her legs, then left her chest and butt, then kick her legs again. Then she'll get frustrated because she can't figure out why she's not getting anywhere! It's pretty cute. I took a really terrible video of this on Thursday morning, but by the time I got my phone set to video she was  already getting tired. Oh well, at least you get a glimpse.

In other news, Mike and I had a date night on Thursday! I think this was only our third one so far. (We went to an orchestra concert in May, out to dinner for our anniversary in August, and now this. Am I forgetting anything?) It was so much fun! We went to a wine tasting hosted by Surdyk's and Terry Thiese, and it was all the delicious wines that I love (sweet and fruity) since it was mostly Rieslings. Yum! The night was made possible for Rose's wonderful Grammy who not only watches Rose every Thursday when Mike and I both work late, but also often brings us delicious dinners when she comes over! Thanks, Marsha, for letting Mike and I have a late night on the town!!!

But the big news of the week is that Rose has had three consecutive nights where she has really and truly slept through the night (i.e., from about 7/7:30pm until 6/7am). It has been amazing. Amazing!!! I'm hoping this is the start of a new and glorious return to restful and restorative sleep for me. I'm not sure what turned the corner for her, since as recently as Monday night she was still waking to eat somewhere between 3 and 4am. I think it had to do with the fact that Mike and I both sat her down on Tuesday night and told her that we were planning to begin sleep training on Friday night (tonight) so she might want to try sleeping through the night on her own to get used to it. Mike thinks it had to do with the fact that we started giving her a lovey (with her pediatrician's approval) in her crib at night. Either way, it's been amazing and I hope it keeps up!

Speaking of, I don't want to get ahead of myself, but if Rose continues to sleep through the night, I might have the energy to have hobbies again! I've already watched 3 episodes of Downton Abbey (season 2) this week (thanks for the birthday gift, Mom and Dad!). Now I could start quilting again! I could bake cookies! I could read books! I could paint the bathroom (like I've been thinking about for the past 2 years)! I could make Christmas presents!

I am unbelievably excited about the prospect of being "me" again.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Stay the f**k asleep!

Have you all seen this book?

It's become the story of my life this week, except I've renamed it Stay the F**k Asleep since Rose hasn't been having problems falling asleep, she's been having trouble staying asleep. I am so tired!!!! I know it's such a cliche for new parents to complain about sleep, but this is getting a bit ridiculous. I complained earlier this week about Rose basically not sleeping at all on Sunday night. Monday and Tuesday nights were better, but the last 2 nights have been awful again. Wednesday night / Thursday morning she was awake from 3:30am until about 5am...and my alarm clock goes off at 5:20 so I can spend time with my stupid pump.  Last night she was awake from 11pm until about 2am - we tried everything to soothe her: rocking, cuddling, diaper changes, a steam bath (she's a little congested), feeding, etc. Finally, at 2am we decided to just turn off the monitor and let her cry because there was absolutely nothing left that we could try! It was one of the most terrible, agonizing parenting decisions that we've had to make. How do you just let your child cry??? I felt like the worst parent ever even coming to the "cry it out" conclusion. But, of course, in the middle of this discussion she stopped crying and didn't start up again. After about 10 minutes we turned off the monitor just in case, but we didn't hear another peep out of her. I guess it's a good thing, but I have no idea what we're going to do tonight if the same thing happens again. The only thing I do know is that I am unbelievably tired and completely unable to be productive at work this week, which means I'm falling behind again. Thankfully my parents are coming to town this weekend (since Mike will be at a conference all next week - great, a change to Rose's routine. Ugh.) so at least I'll be able to take some naps and work late if I need to next week. Double ugh.

In other news, Rose is finally able to sit in the high chair that my friend Helene gave us. Here she is eating squash last night:

please allow me to vent

I am so tired!!!! Rose woke up every 60-90 minutes last night. Twice Mike got up to rock her, and once I got up to feed her - the other times she got herself back to sleep after about 10 minutes of 1/2 talking and 1/2 crying. Then she woke up around 5:15 (right before my alarm went off) and I knew I wouldn't have time before work to feed her and then to pump, so I had to feed her while simultaneously pumping. It was miserable and exhausting. I don't know what's going on with her. My google searches suggest that she is either (a) teething (yep), (b) going through a growth spurt (wouldn't surprise me), (c) frustrated that she can't practice a new skill all the time (sitting up?), (d) not wanting to miss out on any fun time with her parents (ha! we were no fun in the middle of the night!), or (e) about to reach a developmental milestone (finally rolling over?). I'm just praying that this ends soon. I am reminded anew that when I am sleep deprived I get grumpy and have hugely impaired attention/concentration. My processing speed is also slowed, so I perpetually feel like I have "the stupids" in that my brain is just not clicking like it should. I'm miserable!

And to top that all off, we still don't know how much it will cost to repair my car window. And I need to come up with my 2013 work template, but I'm having a hard time because three major meetings haven't been pinned down yet and I don't know if I'm still going to be breastfeeding and thus having to fit in pumping breaks! I am just paralyzed by indecision and avoidance right now. I'm pretty sure this would all be easier if I could just take a quick nap, just as Rose is probably (hopefully?) doing right now. I think this is the first time I've ever (half) seriously wished that I were a SAHM.  Sigh.

But to end on a happy note, here is a picture of Rose in a grocery cart for the first time, in case anyone missed it on facebook this weekend.