Happy Four Month Birthday, Abby!

Four months ago today. Unbelievable! Sure doesn't feel that way, although I honestly can't tell you if it feels like it's been longer or shorter. :) She had her four month appointment today--15 pounds (80th percentile) and 25.5 inches long (90th percentile). She also got her first shot today, and she did pretty well. Screamed like she's never screamed before when she got poked, but she calmed down fairly quickly after I started nursing her.

We got her a bouncer--one of those stand-up things that lets her jump. Boy, does she love that! Goes absolutely nuts. She's also getting better on her stomach, which is a relief--and a surprise, given we hardly ever put her on her stomach. And it's so cool to see her moving her feet now like she's trying to walk; we stand her up on the counter in the bathroom so she can look at herself in the mirror, and she marches in place. So cute!

The one bummer about all this growing up is that she's nearly grown out of her infant carseat (according to the manufacturer's size restrictions, anyway). That thing is sooo handy! It snaps in and out of the base, so that you don't have to keep screwing around with seat belts and such. But the next size up doesn't do that--it's not meant to come out of the car, which means you have to take the baby out of the seat to get them out of the car. Really sucks when they're asleep--right now we just bring the whole seat up to her room and put it in the crib. Not anymore. :( I think we'll keep the infant carrier in the trunk, though, until she really just doesn't fit at ALL, because it fits so nicely in the stroller and gives her a place to sit in restaurants and stuff. (She's still not quite big enough for a high chair.)

And speaking of growing, she completely fits her six month pajamas; no more room to grow in them. How is this possible?!

Hoppy Easter!

Ah, the fun that can be had with fuzzy bunny ears.

Updates!

Yikes, it's been awhile since I posted. Sorry about that. Here are the current stats on Bugsy, a.k.a Abigail Joy:

~ While she still does the bobble-head thing occasionally, her neck is really strong, and she will hold her head up steadily for quite a while.

~ She has spotted her feet, but seems a bit wary of them still--hasn't tried chewing on them yet, although that would require her removing her fist from her mouth first, and heaven knows that doesn't happen often.

~ Standing is her new favorite thing to do. No, not on her own--although she's so strong and steady we've actually let go once or twice for a second and she's held herself up--but she'll really get mad if you try to make her sit and she's not done standing yet. None of that stand-collapse-stand-collapse stuff, either; she'll only fold once every couple minutes.

~ Baby crunches! She's trying so hard to sit up, and she's almost halfway there. She'll get her head and shoulders up off the floor and hold them up for 15 seconds or so before laying back down.

~ Tummy time has been basically nonexistent since she screamed bloody murder whenever we tried it, but on Friday Aunt Kelli tried a new technique to help keep her chest elevated and she seemed to enjoy it. She even did a couple baby push-ups in that position, too, so I suspect a couple more weeks of this and we'll see some rolling action.

~ Talking, talking, talking! And wow, is she loud. While (finally!) assembling her crib the other night, she was making so much noise I couldn't concentrate on the (incredibly convoluted) instructions. Her new bouncy seat has a mirror over her head, and she'll stare up at herself and carry on conversations for ages. Dan and I just sit and laugh; it's so cute!

~ Tiny bald spot on the back of her head, but other than that she's maintained it all, and the back is getting so long! You can make a very tiny ponytail with the hair that falls over her neck.

Pictures to come soon--this afternoon, I hope!

-Alison

So cute.

"Baby, baby, open your mouf!" Tha's our nephew Simon being our little helper and doing binky patrol. He'd sit next to Abby and just wait for her to spit it out so he could put it back in. Too cute!

Handsy Morrow

Well, she's found her hands! Her left specifically, which has become her new fvorite chew toy and eye rubber. She crams that fist in her mouth and gnaws like mad, and the few times she's managed to get just her thumb in there (usually it's clamped tightly in her fist) she hasn't been too impressed. Given the fact that her pacifiers all have nipples much bigger than her thumb, I guess that's not surprising. And she rubs her eye with such vehemence I'm afraid she's going to shove her cornea right off. I wonder if she'll be left-handed like me, since that seems to be the one she favors right now. My mom is left-handed, too, maybe Abby will keep up the trend.

Yawn

In the immortal words of The Barenaked Ladies:

"Who needs sleep?
Well, you're never gonna get it.
Who needs sleep?
Tell me, who's that for?!"

Remember how Abby had that great eight hour stretch of sleep last week? Well, apparently she used up all her sleepiness then, because she's been back to eating every 2.5 hours (sometimes just 2) in the middle of the night for the last 4 nights. I know I really have nothing to complain about, because this is just what babies do and in everything else she's so incredibly easy, but still, this isn't what I'm used to--she was so good with those 5 and 6 hour stretches! Where did they go?! And if she was totally chowing down every time, that would be fine, but she goes for five minutes if I'm lucky and then falls back asleep. I think she's using me more as a pacifier than a food source. I've read about something called the Miracle Blanket on babycenter.com, and I think I'm goig to look into getting one--everyone who posts about it on my birth club board there absolutely loves it and says their baby started sleeping through the night the first time they used it. It's a special swaddling blanket that holds them really securely, and since she wiggles out of regular blanket swaddles now, I think we need something like that. Because, when you wake up not knowing why you're lying down because you were so sure you were still nursing, you know you need more sleep. :)

Go Abby go!

Today was Abby's two month check-up. Now I know why it's so hard to hold her to feed her without using the Boppy or My Brest Friend: she's 12 and 3/4 pounds and 24 inches!! Sheesh! Growing that long that fast, you'd think you'd actually be able to see her stretching.

Eight hours!

She did it! Abby slept for eight straight hours yesterday. I even tried to wake her up after about 5 hours to get her to eat, and she sucked for about 45 seconds before falling so deep asleep I couldn't rouse her again. 'Course, the only thing that sucks about it is that she fell asleep at 5:15 in the evening and thus woke up at 1:15. But hey, it's a big accomplishment--we can work on the timing later. :)

This morning she woke up at 6:45 to eat, and while she was able to fall back asleep in my arms, I was hopelessly awake, which is a bummer since I went to bed late last night. (I wonder when 11:00 PM will stop being 'late'?) Now she's wide awake and in her bouncy seat, giving the animals that hang off the canopy an earful of baby babble, which she's getting quite proficient at. I'm starting sign language with her, not that I expect her to be able to produce it this early, but the way she stares at you when you talk at her I figure she must be taking things in pretty well, so why not start now and make it a habit for both of us? We're just working with the signs for Mommy, Daddy, Abby (which we just do by shaking the "a" sign) and I love you. I can tell she's watching my hand, so it'll be interesting to see how old she is by the time she starts actually mimicking them. When do kids get ahold of their fine motor control, anyone know?

The Most Beautiful Girl In The World

I FINALLY downloaded all the photos (161 of them!) from our camera. Here are some gems...

Doesn't it look like she's about to make a wisecrack?

Victory is mine!

Animals! Woohoo!

Should get stock in Gerber

Abby has a pacifier preference: she'll only take the ones with the shield that cups away from her face or is flat. The ones from the hospital--big green rubber ones--are flat, and Gerber makes some that curve away. 'Course I have about five packs of regular ones that she refuses, and the five packs of the ones she likes have completely disappeared. How is it we can own ten pacifiers and I can only find one?? Are they hanging out with lost socks and pens? Or do they have their own black hole somewhere in the house? We tried to assign one or two to each room of the house where she hangs out, and left one in her diaper bag and one in her carseat, thinking that this would help us to hang onto them. But no. I'm not sure where the system broke down, but it most certainly did. Anyone have any suggestions for hanging onto them?

Giving new meaning to "sleepyhead"...

In the last 36 hours, Abby has been awake for a total of 9 hours and 45 minutes. Yes, that was AWAKE time. I didn't know that a human being who lays around all day doing nothing could sleep that much! She must be going through a MAJOR growth spurt or something--or just finishing one. Unbelievable. We kept checking to make sure she was still breathing because she'd be so deep asleep her breaths were really shallow; half the time you could barely even see her chest move. The longest stretch she had was 7 hours, which, of course, did NOT happen to fall over the bulk of nighttime; she was up at 3:30 AM to eat. But I still managed to sleep for most of that stretch so I can't complain too much. She slept right through 6 car rides, a visit to Hallmark, a 40 minute walk around the lake, a church service, and two restaurant dinners. Well done, my girl!

Six weeks!

Well, the magical six weeks is here! 42 days ago Abby was yanked into the world, and now I finally feel safe showing her off to it. Sunday's Super Bowl party was sort of a trial run, and she did quite well. I think we'll head back to church and small group this week.

Yesterday I bought a blank journal at Borders, because I want to start writing little letters to her about...well, that's the thing, I'm not entirely sure what I want to write, I just know that I want to keep some kind of record of something for her to read when she's older. Just observations on her development, parenthood, my hopes for her--that sort of thing, I guess. Anyway, the journal kicks butt--it's got a wooden cover! Beautiful and polished, a deep mahogany color, with gilt-edged pages and some leather on the binder. Very classy. And if the wood gets all scratched it'll look all worn and weathered. And since today marks such a monumental occasion (okay, I know I'm really hyping this six weeks thing a little more than necessary), I'm going to start writing in it today. It always takes a little time for me to put pen to blank journal paper--all that empty space makes me a little nervous about messing it up, and with that fancy wooden cover and all--whoa! Gotta be extra careful not to ruin the whole thing with the first entry. Ahh, see, this is the kind of ridiculous behavior I'm hoping NOT to pass on to my daughter. Maybe that'll be my first entry: Personality Idiosyncracies And Behavioral Quirks I Pray I You Have Not Inherited From Me....

Higher and higher...

Yesterday was Abby's one month check up. She is definitely one healthy girl! She weighed in at 11 pounds and 4 ounces (lighter than we suspected, actually) and 22 inches long. She's in the 95th percentile for her weight and the 80th for her length. The doctor was very impressed with how well she focused her eyes and thinks she'll have her sight intact well before the usual 3 months. She also said she's very strong for her age and will probably be an "early mover." Dan and I both walked at 8 months, so that doesn't surprise me. The doctor said she may start rolling over a lot sooner, too, and to make sure that, even now, we don't leave her on the couch or bed unattended, but I've seen her roll herself to her side plenty of times (she loves sleeping that way), so I don't leave her alone anyway!

Have I mentioned recently how incredibly adorable she is?? and smiling so much these days, too!

My Justification

I've always said I'm lacking that domestic gene, but lately I've felt the pressure to be more...I don't know..."motherly," I guess, for obvious reasons. And by "be motherly" I mean "be more of what I've always thought a mother should be," which is a) neat and tidy, b) a good cook (or at least someone who cooks at all), c) organized. Otherwise saying, I've been feeling like I should be MY mother. :) And that's not a knock in any way on her--I've been blessed with the most absolutely incredible mother on the planet, and she was a tremendous role model for me, but bottom line is I just don't have it in me. And that makes me sad sometimes, because I'm afraid Abby will grow up and have no clue how to take care of a house and it'll be my fault.

But then I found this poem today and it made me not care so much. :)


"Mother oh Mother, come shake out your cloth
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing and butter the bread
Sew on a button and make up a bed.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I've grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(Lullaby, rockabye, lullaby loo)
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo)

The shopping's not done and there's nothing for stew
And out in the hard there's a hullabaloo
But I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo
Look! Aren't her eyes the most wonderful hue?

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow
For children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow
So quiet down, cobwebs; dust, go to sleep
I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep."

Now granted I was like this before I became a mother, but still, at least now I can stop stressing about it so much. :)

A Poem to Abby on My 30th Birthday

If you were not here
today would be a Party Day.
I would
sleep in late
take a long hot shower
put on something sparkly and sexy
and not worry that it might get
peed and pooped and spit up on,
because you would not be here.

I would have a Big Birthday Blowout,
at a restaurant
or club,
where I would
dance
do some karaoke
eat and drink
and not worry that what I eat and drink
might upset your little tummy,
because you would not be here.

But,
you are here.
So I
get up at seven
squeeze a shower in while you nap
put on sweats like I have almost every day
for the last month.
I will not
go out with my friends
eat and drink to my heart's content
dance and sing and stay out till all hours
without worry about someone else.
Instead, I will
sit with you on the couch
like I do every day
and watch reruns of
Cosby
Gilmore Girls
What Not to Wear.
I will
try to remember to eat something
and drink my water
and change your diaper almost every half hour.
I will
let you curl up on my chest
sing you songs you can't yet understand
melt when you stare at me with those big blue eyes
and give me a smile.
And I will cry,
not because of what I'm not doing today
or because of the things I'm missing out on
but because that Party Day would be so empty
that life would be so empty--
because
you
would not be here.

So much STUFF!

Abby took her first roadtrip this weekend--we went to Ventura to visit Dan's parents and his brother's family. We go up there once a month, usually, and we have the packing routine down pretty well; we can decide out of the blue to go there and be out the door in fifteen minutes, tops. At least, that's how it USED to be.

The trunk was PACKED, and that's not an exaggeration. Why is it such small people need so much stuff? Stroller, bouncy seat, Boppy pillow, diaper bag, bag of diapers, box of wipes, co-sleeper...and her clothes took up more space in my suitcase than my own did! And it's not like we did the new parent "take everything just in case" thing--we actually used it all. It took three trips to get it all into the house once we got there, and we were only staying for 48 hours. And looking ahead, I know it's going to get worse before it gets better: Dan's brother has a three year old, and they packed out their van for their 72 hour trip out here from Vegas. When do they stop needing so much stuff???

Beautiful dreamer...

I can't imagine what she could be dreaming about, but Abby apparently is--and unfortunately they seem to be nightmares! How can a baby have nightmares?! What on earth are they about--being poked in utero? That sudden burst of blinding light when she was born? These giant adult faces that rudely thrust themselves mere inches from her eyes and make ridiculous faces and babble in high voices? But I'm pretty sure that's what's going on. Every once in a while, in the middle of one of her many naps, she'll suddenly whimper and then cry--and these aren't little cries, these are WAILS, which she never does otherwise--and then she'll stop and get a worried little look on her face that slowly fades as she heads back, I assume, into a happier mental place. It just breaks my heart! Any of you moms out there experience this with your babies?

And suddenly...she's real.

In the middle of the night, somewhere between hauling Abby out of the co-sleeper to nurse and easing her back in with a prayer that she'd stay asleep, she and the whole concept of motherhood became real. Suddenly the dream-like quality that the last 2.5 weeks have held dissipated, and it became clear to me that this was now my life. That I am a mom. That Abby, that squirming little being who melts my heart when she falls asleep on my chest, is my daughter, and always will be. That I'll be braiding her hair and giving in to her plea for sparkly shoes at Pay-Less and kissing bruises and scrapes in the years to come, and that, somewhere down the line, I'll be meeting The Boy and defending my choice of curfew and offering my sympathy when her firt relationship goes bust. And while I've thought of all this before, this was the first time when it all felt, well, real. I can't think of any other word that suits. It was like waking up, like snapping back to reality after getting lost in a daydream. And I'm glad it finally happened, because now I feel like I can get on with my life instead of just sitting around in a daze.

Now if only my body would find the energy to LET me get on with my life....

Cutie pie!

Thanks to Maaike and Jurgen for the precious outfit! It's one of my favorites--and one of, like, 3 outfits she has that ISN'T pink. :) This is the photo we sent out with our Christmas cards/birth announcements. I really need to get the camera memory cards downloaded to my computer--so many more sweet pictures to share. (I'm on my way to being one of those really annoying bragging moms, aren't I?)

Chunkin' up

Abby had her one week check-up on Thursday. Our doctor is fantastic--she's got a great sense of humor, is really laid-back, and gives you all the time in the world to ask every ridiculous first-time-parents questions you can think of. The highlight of the appointment: having the doctor see Abby's weight and gasp, "You've got some high octane milk there!" Between January 1 and January 5 she'd gained eleven ounces--from 8 lbs 13 oz to 9 lbs 8 oz! Sheesh! The doctor said they want them to gain at least HALF an ounce a day--talk about an overachiever!!