I Thought Parenting Was Supposed to be Easy...

WARNING - if you want to see cute pictures and videos of Mira, skip ahead to the end and ignore the wordy crap. If you feel like getting inside my head, keep reading. :)

This post is going to be more reflective than picture overload or Mira updates but what the hey, maybe someone will be interested in what I'm saying. If anything I can look back on this in a couple of years and snicker at myself for thinking I'm having a hard time now.

So I've been really struggling with what to do about Mira's night waking and how hard it is for me to get her to take a nap during the day. I talk to friends who talk about how quickly they got their babies on a schedule and how important it is to get the baby in a routine and they never let their babies do this and so on and so on and I just worry and worry that if I don't do the same thing now, Mira will be really difficult to handle in the near future. I worry that I'll do something to scar her for life (more than a parent usually scars their child for life, that is), and I've been so stressed about how to approach this that I've lost sleep and shed some tears over it. I've worried that when she wakes up at night and I bring her to bed with me that she'll learn only to sleep in bed with me and I've imagined the worst sorts of screaming temper tantrums when she's finally banned from our room. I've felt like an incompetent, useless, worthless excuse for a mother, I've felt so overwhelmed, I've felt angry at myself for my indecisiveness, and I've wished someone would just tell me what I'm supposed to do that will be guaranteed to work. I've read and heard all sorts of advice on what to do, from giving her increasing amounts of time by herself to help her self soothe, all the way to just letting her cry it out. I've been exhausted and tired, not just from the night waking but from my stress level. For awhile I've felt like I was handling this by myself, because when Mark and I are both home I was still the only one to get Mira when she woke up. That's changed since Mark became aware that I need to not be the only one doing this - that's helped tremendously.

So after weeks of agonizing and stressing and worrying and feeling angry and resentful that my perfect baby who used to sleep through the night has regressed and I can't seem to fix it, I had a couple of "eureka" moments. The first one came a few nights ago when I was rocking Mira back to sleep and I was thinking about how fast she's growing up and I had this sudden thought: "When she's bigger and I don't need to rock her to sleep anymore, I'm really going to miss this." Well, that's all it took. My emotional outlook has done a complete 180 since I realized that. I had this epiphany that life is short, Mira will only be a baby for a year of her entire life (and half of that year is already over) and before I know it, she'll be too "big and grown up" to get hugs from Mommy anymore. I realized that I absolutely have to savor every second of this baby time, even if it means I'm more sleep deprived, because once it's gone, it really will be gone, and I would just hate it if I looked back on this time of her life and felt regret that I didn't spend more time cuddling her when she was little. After all, it's not like hugging or cuddling or rocking your baby will do anything detrimental to them.

So that part got cleared up. The next thing I did - and I'm kind of surprised I didn't think of this sooner - I asked my parents what they did with us when they encountered this problem. Funny how your parents suddenly become geniuses when you become a parent yourself. I figured that whatever they said they did with us I should probably try myself, since I would say my sisters and I are about as normal and well-adjusted as you can get and we have great relationships with both parents.

I asked my dad what they would do when we woke up in the middle of the night - namely, did they ever let us cry it out or did they come into our room? "Oh, we never let you girls cry it out," he said. Somehow I knew that would be the answer. If we needed our parents, they always came to us. I've always had this innate sense that no matter what my parents will always be there for me and that may be part of it.

Next I asked my mom what she suggested that I do. Her opinion was that she doesn't understand why there's this push to get kids independent so soon. When we were babies, if we woke up crying she would take us into bed with her - which is pretty much exactly what I've been doing. She said that it's completely normal for a baby to need emotional and physical comforting from its parents and it doesn't make sense to her to deprive a baby of comforting when it's needed, just to make sure that the baby becomes more "independent." That will come with time. In fact, she said, she thinks that the more physical bonding time the baby gets when it's little will probably make them more prepared sooner to be on their own that way. The more you push away to encourage independence, the more likely the child will be clingy for longer and the more likely s/he will feel some sort of void. To me, this made a lot of sense. Kinda like how if you push a kid to be potty trained before they're ready it just makes things worse and accomplishes nothing. When they're ready, it'll happen. And my mothering instincts tell me that if my baby needs me, I should go to her instead of listening to her cry. And I have to say that I feel that whatever my parents did with me, worked, so their methods deserve serious consideration.

So the bottom line, according to my mom, is that "Having a baby is definitely inconvenient for you. But it's only a phase. And the more time you put into it now, the more she gets out of it."

So I guess I'll be downloading some good books onto my iPhone to read in the middle of the night while I'm rocking Mira back to sleep, but if I can just remember why I'm doing this, I think I can handle it.

Okay, enough introspective crap. Time for some good stuff! The other night I gave Mira a bubble bath for the first time. I took a handful of bubbles and blew on them - and this is what she thought.

I can hold my feet AND clap them together!

Playing in the front yard.

She is sooooooo close to sitting on her own! Okay I guess she can sit on her own for a little while but you still have to watch her because sometimes she forgets that she can't just throw herself backwards anymore. She's almost got it though! She keeps trying to scoot forward - luckily she hasn't figured that out quite yet. She gets really mad though because she scoots backwards and can't figure out why. She can pass objects from one hand to another and her version of clapping her hands is flapping her arms up and down. It's so funny and cute. I'm trying to introduce a sippy cup and sometimes she gets the hang of it and sometimes she just wants to use it as a teething toy.

I just love how happy she is! People have already been suggesting (not very subtly) that we should have another baby just because of how cute Mira is. My response is that having one cute well-behaved baby is no guarantee that any subsequent baby will be either. In fact, having kids is sort of like gambling in Vegas - you should stop while you're ahead! Well and another reason is that if I were to have another kid, I would want to wait awhile - like 4-ish years - so that I could spend plenty of time with the new child without as much competition from a needy 2 or 3 year old. And I know Mark would never go for that. So I figure this way I can focus all my time and resources on my one child, and the research says only children are just as well-adjusted socially than kids with siblings - the bonus being there won't be siblings for her to get into fights with.

Here's a video of her clapping her feet together. The crickets are from a mobile on the side of her crib.

And some more pics...

Most beautiful baby ever

Hmm, my legs appear to be crooked...

Yup, I still love to smile and grab my feet!

I guess the bottom line is that everyone has a different way of parenting and whatever works for you, works for you. As long as the child grows up to be happy and well-adjusted, the rest doesn't really matter.

6 Months Old!

Last Friday Mira turned 6 months old. AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH HOW DID THAT HAPPEN????? Half a year old - damn that really happened fast. Unbelievably fast. Everyone would say to me, "It goes by so fast!" I would always think, "Okay, so it goes by really fast." Uh, yeah, it REALLY does go by way too fast. I think I have whiplash from watching everything fly by so fast. I look back on pictures from even just a couple months ago and it's amazing to see the amount of change that Mira has gone through in such a short amount of time.

Eating is so fun!

Insert food here

Six months of course means another well-baby checkup, which she had yesterday. Mira now weighs 16 lbs 0 oz (49th percentile), length 26 inches (58th percentile), head circumference 16.1 inches (11th percentile). You'd never guess that she was SGA (small for gestational age) when she was born - she's catching up really well! But then all you have to do is look at her awesome fat thighs to realize she's been gaining weight like a champ. :) And of course a well-baby checkup also means vaccinations. There's always a part of me that feels like I'm torturing my child by getting her vaccinated, and then I think about how much worse it would be for her to actually get sick with one of these diseases and I figure it's definitely worth it. Plus she's always done really well with getting her shots. I've always given her Tylenol an hour before we go in, and then she screams as she gets the shots and as soon as I pick her up she's fine and that's the end of it. The nurse at the doctor's office can never believe how good Mira is and reminds me every time that I'm really lucky.

We're adding on more solids and she's still enjoying eating. She really loves peaches - duh. She's a little unsure about green beans and makes these really funny faces when she tastes them but she keeps opening her mouth for more so I think she'll decide she likes them. Although I don't really blame her for making faces - those green beans look pretty icky. I'll probably start introducing meats pretty soon. Those look really gross too but hopefully they taste better than they look.

And now - ohboyohboyohboyohboy - more professional pictures! I'm so impressed and excited with how well these came out! Sorry for the picture overload but I just couldn't decide which ones I liked best so I put all my faves on here. Ashley Schoenfeld is amazing and so worth the money!

And that's still not even half of them! I'm so glad we did these.

Mira still loves to roll all over the place and she tries to scoot forward but just ends up looking like an inchworm (and traveling about that far). She'll be figuring out crawling before we know it. She can't quite sit on her own yet but she's so close. Her favorite toys are teddy bears and toys like rattles that make noise. She loves the cats and gets so excited whenever she sees them and tries to grab them, which would explain why they've learned to run away whenever they see her. Our challenge right now is still sleep. She did sleep through the night last night but I'm wondering if it's because she got her vaccinations during the day. A couple nights ago she was up every hour and a half again. Ugh, so frustrating! We're also working on getting her used to sleeping in her crib during the day for naptime - which is hard because the window in her room is south-facing so it's so bright during the day. She can be asleep and the second I walk into her room to put her down she pops awake and she's ready to play. But if I lay her down on our bed she stays asleep - I'm guessing because we have the window completely covered in our room so it's really dark all the time. So maybe if we get some dark curtains in he room she'll nap better. I'm still not sure what to do about her night waking, especially since she seems to be waking up because she's hungry. I wish there was a manual that came with parenthood, I hate the guesswork and second-guessing and wondering if I'm doing the right thing or if I'm scarring her for life!

Getting So Big!

Okay so remember the last post where I said she still hasn't gotten the hang of rolling over yet? Guess what she figured out a few days ago! I was visiting my mom and Mira was lying on her back on a blanket on the floor, I turned away for a second and when I turned back she was on her tummy! And then she turned from her tummy onto her back! Now that she's figured it out that's all she tries to do as soon as you lay her down. She's also trying to scoot when she's on her tummy now. Usually she just pushes herself backwards and gets frustrated but there have been a couple of times she's been able to inch herself forward and a couple of times she's almost pushed up on her hands and knees. It's exciting to see her learn so fast but ... I was really hoping she wouldn't learn to be mobile for awhile. I really don't want to baby-proof the house!

She is starting to figure out how to move around in her walker too. She basically just will lean one direction and the walker will incidentally move a little bit in that direction as well so she isn't traveling very far in it but she will definitely figure that out before too long as well.

Here are some pictures of her in her new crib. I keep looking at her and thinking, "Wow, what a fat baby she is," until I see a baby that truly is fat, so I guess Mira really isn't "fat" as far as babies go. It's just a matter of perspective I guess, since she was so teeny when she was born and was in newborn size clothes for 9 weeks. And is almost 6 months old and still wearing 3 month clothes.

Love the fat rolls!

She loves teddy bears!

Check out this video - this was a few weeks ago when my family was babysitting her for a few hours. We've discovered that this is a great game to play with her. It's SO funny!!

Other games that make her laugh like crazy include bouncing her on your lap while humming the theme song to Pirates of the Caribbean (and yes it has to be that particular song), helping her do the Chicken Dance, and Patty Cake. Ah, for life to be so simple again... I'm glad she's such a happy baby though. I've seriously gotten spoiled. Every time I take her out with friends I keep getting told that she's such a happy, content, quiet baby. Or someone will comment that she's really smiley today but that's how she always is. Someone even said to me that they've never met a baby who smiles so much! And when we take her out to dinner at a restaurant the servers will tell us that she's being so good and quiet. See, this is why we shouldn't have any more kids, we used up all our well-behaved genes on the first one so the second one would be a monster. :)

Here's a video of us riding the Merry-Go-Round at the zoo. Yes, I realize she won't remember going to the zoo but it gets us out of the house, and when she sees pictures and videos when she's older she'll have proof that I'm a good mom who makes an effort! And who knows, maybe somewhere in her subconscious she's computing these new memories and experiences...

As far as sleep goes... we're still working on it. One night last week she was up Every. Two. Hours. Ugh! It was like she was a newborn again. Since then she typically wakes up once, maybe twice. I just don't know what's going on but I hope it ends soon. Theories that have been tossed out include a growth spurt or teething. I'm leaning a bit towards growth spurt because usually when she wakes up she's hungry and as soon as she's nursed she goes back to sleep. But that means this "growth spurt" has been going on for weeks now. Whatever it is, I hope it resolves so we can get back to sleeping through the night again. I kinda miss sleep, especially sleep that goes for longer than 4 hours at a stretch. (Although I could just sleep when I'm dead too.)

More Milestones

Mira just keeps hitting those milestones! She cut her second tooth a few days ago so now she has that super cute 2-bottom-teeth-baby-grin. Love it! It was rough again the few days leading up to the tooth coming through. She was short-tempered and oh boy, if she was tired or hungry and you didn't get to her soon enough, she screamed as loudly and as high-pitched as she could! I don't know where she learned how to do this but a few months ago she figured out how to cry with a pitch about the equivalent of a teenage girl on a roller coaster. I hoped she would forget how to do that... ha ha. She reserves that scream for when she's at the end of her rope. Which, when she's teething, takes no time at all.

The other annoying thing about teething (you mean there's only a couple annoying things about teething?) is the disruption in her sleep pattern. Once she got to be maybe 2 1/2 or 3 months old she was consistently sleeping through the night but the last week or two she's been waking up at least once or twice at night and it's harder to get her to fall asleep and stay asleep, for naps and bedtime. That's frustrating since we were on such a good schedule before and to regress is rough! She seems to go in phases. The past few days every time I put her down she would immediately jerk awake and cry to be picked up and be wide awake. She only got maybe 30 minutes of nap time the last couple days. (At least she was good-natured.) But then the next day she'll nap for hours - a few days ago I put her down for a nap at 1:30 and I had to wake her up at 5:00! I'm really hoping she'll get back to sleeping through the night soon.

The other thing that might be disruptive for her is we finally got her crib put together and moved her into her own room. That only took 5 months - how's that for procrastinating? It's not like we were in denial or anything. (If you want to hear about denial and procrastination - I didn't pack my overnight bag for the hospital until I was 39 weeks and having hard contractions every 5 minutes.) We've been keeping her in a bassinet by our bed or - someone out there is going to start a lecture on the inappropriateness of this - in bed with me. Made it easier when she decided she needed a snack at 3 AM, you know. I personally would have been fine to keep her with me for awhile longer but Mark had had enough so last weekend he got the crib put together and she graduated to her own room. This is another one of those cases when I want to cry about how fast she's growing up and Mark gets excited that she's growing up but if I'm going to be honest with myself, it is nice to have her in her own room. It just sucks that she's gone back to waking up so often and I have to haul my butt out of bed and down the hall to her room to get her back to sleep. But as I like to say, this too shall pass. Eventually. Hopefully.

Well, on to the fun stuff. Mira is eating like a champ! She still loves rice cereal and her menu has increased to include carrots, sweet potatoes, apples, bananas and pears and she LOVES all of them! She'll inhale an entire jar of food in one sitting and sometimes she'll still be hungry even after all that. I need to start buying larger jars of baby food. Or I could try making my own baby food, since I have a Baby Mill, but since she's only eating a few foods I haven't gone there yet. But I just can't believe how much she loves food. The only thing I've tried giving her that she doesn't like so far is avocado - which surprises me because Mark and I think one of mankind's greatest achievements is the discovery of avocado, but she just doesn't like it. But it can take several (12+) exposures to a food before a baby decides if they like it so we'll keep trying. I didn't expect her to like carrots so much because for me, carrots are just okay, but Mark reminded me that he loves carrots in all forms so now it makes sense that Mira likes them so much.

Here's a video of Mira enjoying food. I didn't realize it would be so entertaining to introduce solids. Entertaining if you don't consider the increased volume of laundry it produces, anyway. :)

Learning to feed herself.

I let Mira have the spoon to "practice" after she's eaten everything.

Of course the cat has to get in on the action.

The best part of eating (besides the food) is the washcloth!

This of course is what a spoon is actually for...

So despite the extra work for me with the laundry and preparing food and 2 or 3 baths in a day, it's been nice to not have to have her attached to me (literally) all the time. We're down to nursing 4 or 5 times a day now, which is SO much better than what we had been at before starting solids (probably at least double). It was so hard to get anything done having to feed her every 2 hours still, and she's a slow eater so it really only gave me an hour in between feedings, and as far as traveling to any location, forget about it. It didn't matter if I'd JUST finished feeding her and then immediately tossed her in the carseat and bolted out the door - she'd get hungry again as soon as we got to wherever we were going. Super frustrating. Now, even just giving her solids twice a day, it holds her over for hours. What's this new thing called "independence?" I kinda like it! :) I'll still pump once or twice a day so I can build up a supply in the freezer but in some ways pumping is faster and easier than nursing. I set a goal for myself to nurse for a minimum of 6 months (which is just a couple more weeks - AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH she's growing up!!!) and to shoot for a year if I can. Of course she might decide to wean herself but I'll still pump if that's the case. Antibodies and passive immunity, that sort of thing.

What a big strong girl!

She's close to being able to sit up on her own. She can "tripod" for a few minutes, and if she's reclining she can get herself to a sitting position, but she's still really wobbly and unstable and it all usually ends in a face plant. Not too much longer though. She's still not doing a whole lot with the rolling over business but I'm not too concerned, as long as she's hitting other milestones I figure it's okay for her to miss the rolling over stuff. She'll get it eventually.

I'm hoping by the time I get around to my next post I'll have more professional photos to share. Yesterday we had another session with Ashley Schoenfeld, who did our newborn pictures. If you're looking for a good professional photographer for fairly cheap, you need to check out her work (www.milesofmemoriesphoto.com). She's amazing and I'm so excited to see how everything turned out!