WAS WRONG.

Lucy is going through separation anxiety plus trying to figure out all her emotions and learning how she can get what she wants without having a vocabulary.  It is kicking my butt.  What happened to my happy smiley baby? Sure she’s still happy and smiley alot of the time but she’s starting to throw tantrums and cry and not sleep.  It’s hard.  It’s really hard.  I guess I deserve it.  I had such an easy go of it and now it’s not so easy.  She’s also getting to be more fun-it’s weird.  Her little personality is emerging and we can play with her and know what makes her giggle and get her sense of humor but at the same time if we do something she doesn’t like (like take away the remote or my watch or the keyboard) she throws a tizzy fit.  We don’t give in but then there’s the sleep issue.  Sometimes she just doesn’t want to go to sleep and she’s screams and cries.  What do we do then?  I have never been a fan of the “cry it out” method but I was desperate the other night and tried it.  I let her cry for 5 minutes and then went in there to soothe her.  They tell you to not pick them up but to rather rub their backs and speak gently to them.  When she realized that I wasn’t going to pick her up she got PISSED and started wailing and then choking/gagging.  Of course I picked her up.  Oh and she doesn’t want Daddy through all of this.  If he tries to soothe her and rock her she flails her body, tries to hit him, and screams like someone is hurting her.  It’s exhausting. It took us 2 hours to get her down that night.

Last night she went down without a fight at 7:30 but then woke up at 9:30.  I nursed her and tried to put her back down but she did not want to go to sleep and started screaming.  I tried to soothe her for about 20 minutes but every time I would make a move to put her in the crib she’d start screaming.  Well, I was running on 3 hours of sleep and was tired so I brought her into bed with me and she slept on my chest (after screaming while laying on my chest for 15 minutes) until about midnight (I think?) At that point I put her in her crib.  She woke up at 5 to nurse and started fighting the crib again so I brought her into bed with me again.  Thus giving her exactly what she wanted BUT Mommy needs to sleep!

I know that this is a stage and that it will pass but it is just really hard.  Really, really hard.  I hope it passes quickly.

I have lots of exciting things to talk about!  But first I have to complain about ME.  Lucy woke up last night at 1:30 to eat (I think she must be growing because she ate A LOT yesterday) after I got her back down, I never went back to sleep. WTF?!?!?  That means I got maybe maybe 3 hours of sleep last night.  ARGH.  Oh well.

First I wanted to answer Monica’s question-I know I could have done it in the comments of my post that she commented  on but I’m too lazy so I’ll answer it here-I only keep track of how much milk I pump in my spreadsheet.  She only gets a bottle at daycare.  When we’re home she’s a boob feeder-thank GAWD!  I’ve only ever fed her a bottle once and it was because she was having trouble breathing and was biting me.  She much prefers the boob.

Next-fun stuff!

I planted my garden yesterday:

Tomatoes:

Cucumbers and Bell Peppers:

I should have veggies and tomatoes (aren’t they technically a fruit?) in about 60 days. WHIPPEE!!!

Second-We.Are.Going.To.Hawaii!!!!! WHIPPEE x2! My husband gave me a very good piece of advice about 2 years ago. When I wanted a baby BAD, I bugged and bugged and bugged him about it. He told me “If you stop talking about it, I’ll want a baby faster.” I didn’t say a word from that point on and what do you know? A month later he was ready for a baby. So I pulled the same tactic here and have not mentioned Hawaii for a week or so. Well last night he showed me a picture of a bike with a bike trailer for a kid (we’ve been looking into renting these locally) and he said “Doesn’t that look neat?” and I said “Yeah…we’ve been looking at those for a few days…” and he said “Yes, but this one is in Kauai!” I’m so excited-we’re going in September.

Third-Since we’re going to Hawaii in September we have to look at dates and Lucy’s birthday is in September (on the 22nd to be exact). I don’t want to be in Hawaii for her actual birthday since I’d like her to have a cupcake on her birthday and she’s allergic to both dairy and soy. Which means I’ll need to make her birthday cupcake for her and even though we’ll have a kitchen at the condo where we’re staying, making cupcakes would be difficult. I know a silly reason but a very valid one to me. Additionally, I want Lucy’s birthday party to be close to her birthday and if we went to Hawaii over her birthday that would cancel out the 2 weekends closest to her birthday. Which brings me to my point. You still with me? I’m an super planner person and so I’ve been thinking about Lucy’s first birthday party for quite some time. I’m not alone though because Shaun said to me 2 weeks ago, “wouldn’t the park be a perfect place for Lucy’s birthday party.” My thoughts exactly sir! Her party is going to be Very Hungry Caterpillar themed and then that theme will no longer be an option because I don’t want Lucy or myself to OD on it. I also want to do cupcakes for the party and thought that I would make them in the shape of the caterpillar. Well a foodie friend of mine (who has not heard my plans) just sent me a blogpost to show me this picture:

Other very cute cakes can be seen here.

I doubt I can do the fondant but this was very close to what I was imagining so now I have a blue print!

See? Those were 3 very exciting things!

I think you get the point. I had originally wanted to write here every day if not more than that but my life has just gone nutso. I want to write everyday and write about what’s going on so I’m going to try to post every day now.

It’s 1:50 pm and I’m sitting here in my pajamas. Meetings started at 7 am for me and I have yet another meeting at 2 so real clothes aren’t going to happen until sometime after 3. Why bother with real clothes? I need to go to the grocery store, or else you’d better believe that I’d just wear my pjs all day.

Our long weekend was nice although Lucy is teething and going through some MAJOR separation anxiety which led to a very grumpy/crying baby. What happened to my happy go lucky baby? She’s still super smiley but she’s been crying at the drop of a hat (huge crocodile tears too) and if she can’t see me, she’s basically crying. She’s okay at daycare but at home she wants to be in my presence at all times. It makes for one tired Mommy.

Someone asked us if she was sleeping through the night and Shaun had the best response ever: “She sleeps through the night for just long enough for it to mess with our heads when she doesn’t.” She’ll have weeks where she’ll sleep from 7:30-6:30 with no peep and then she’ll completely regress and I’ll be getting up every few hours. Last night she went down at 7:30 and then was up at 8:30, 12:30, 2:30, 3:30, 5, and then up for the day at 6:15. I let her sleep on my chest last night from 12:30-3:30 and then from 5-6:15. I knew I had an early morning meeting that I had to lead so I couldn’t fight with her and just brought her to bed with me. She wimpered all night long through her sleep so I know she’s in pain from her teeth. I gave her Motrin but it can only do so much. I don’t think that there’s anything else wrong with her. I hope not at least! She’s not pulling her ears, she doesn’t have gas, she’s not constipated. But she is chewing on EVERYTHING and her gums are swollen.

We had a really fun and active weekend. I didn’t think about work once and that was really nice. Here’s some cute pictures:

In Sausalito:

Crying because Mommy put her down for 30 seconds (seriously!):

She also started taking steps this weekend! We got video of it and need to post it to her blog. She’s been standing (with support) since December. In the last few weeks she’s started pulling up on Shaun and me but would just stand there-no foot movement. This weekend she started taking steps while we hold her hands. It’s scary and exciting all at once!

Man, I wish the weekends were three days long!  But I know that if they were I’d be wishing for four days.

Yesterday, while Shaun was mountain biking, Lucy and I went down to Richard and Elaina’s for breakfast and then to watch Elaina’s soccer game.  We had a blast!  Lucy LOVES balls and loved watching soccer!

She sat up the entire 90 minutes we were there!

I was going from 8 am (Shaun let me sleep in!) until 9 pm yesterday.  I literally did not stop all day.  It was an exhausting but good day.

Here’s today’s picture!

My two favorite people 🙂

Things are going really well and I’ve been really happy.  I have to say that the last 7 months have been  happiest of my life, they’ve been hard too but oh so happy.  I really don’t have much else to say right now.  🙂

We’ve had a really chill day and I don’t feel like we got anything done.  We went to breakfast this morning and then to our local toystore to get Lucy a light-up drum, ball, and teether.  She really doesn’t have many toys and Shaun decided she needed an interactive toy for sitting up.  She loves it:

We also did some shopping for us today.  Shaun got some much needed new shoes and I got the make-up that I’ve needed for over a week now.  It’s 6:30 and Lucy needs some dinner and then bed.  I plan to make green beans, peas, prunes, and blueberries tonight.

Here’s her daily picture:

Although this one is pretty cute:

This one too!

Can you tell I like the Eye-Fi?

We got the Eye-Fi installed last night.  It was doubtful for a bit whether it would work or not.  We got the card that has Geo-Tagging capabilities-Shaun really wanted this for his mountain biking pictures-and that card only comes in 4 GB.  Our camera shut down when the 4 GB card got put into it and we thought we were toast.  Then our camera said “Card Reader Error.” Well…dang.  Super techy husband to the rescue!  Shaun was able to find a firmware update for our camera that would allow it to take a 4 GB card.  He just saved the update to one of our other memory cards, stuck it in the camera and there you go-our camera now takes 4 GB cards!  Technology (and my husband) are cool!

Thus, I give you Lucy’s daily picture(s)!

Shaun thinks a daily picture is a great idea too so hopefully we can keep this up.

Last night I was walking home and this was parked in front of my house:

Sweet ride, eh?

Did anyone see The Office last night? Oh.My.God. It was ridiculously funny. Shaun and I laughed out loud at least 15 times. Between watching Survivor, The Office, and getting the Eye Fi all set up we didn’t get to bed until 11 last night-that’s late for this Mommy!

I had another nightmare filled night-boo.  If this doesn’t stop I’m going to schedule a visit with my therapist.  We’ll see how tonight goes.  I know that I’m really stressed at work and home life is crazy (just because taking care of Lucy and the house and my husband takes all my time) but I don’t feel like these two things should be causing these major anxiety dreams.

Speaking of home life being crazy, my awesome husband was super helpful this morning. Lucy woke up at 5:10 to eat and didn’t want to go back to sleep after I fed her. I brought her into bed with us to try and get her to fall back asleep and it worked for about 30 minutes but at 6 she wanted to be up.  Shaun got up with her and got her ready for the day.  He let me “sleep in” until 6:45.  He even got her bottles ready to go and put the bag on top of her “Daily Communication” paper that we have to fill out for daycare everyday.  He was then playing with her and had a little finger puppet on and the finger puppet was telling Lucy how she is lucky to have a Mommy that works so hard and does so much for her.  I’m getting all teary writing about it.  Seriously?  How sweet.  I really do have an awesome husband.  He knows just what to do to make me feel appreciated and loved.

The Weekend

It supposed to rain all weekend.  BOO.  I still need to go to Bare Essentials to get my make-up. That’s the one thing from my to do list for last weekend that didn’t get done since Lucy was sick.  Maybe I’ll go to the mall all by myself.  I think this will be a great weekend to finish our baby proofing.  She’s starting to get more and more mobile and inquisitive.  We need to change out the electric outlet covers and brace the furniture to the wall and then we’ll be done.

Yeah….Lucy was sitting in Shaun’s lap and pulled herself to a standing postion last night.  Before we know it, she’ll be doing that on EVERYTHING.

We didn’t get the Eye-Fi set up last night because I was dead tired.  Shaun went mountain biking after work and didn’t get home until 7:50.  That meant that I did the whole bedtime routine by myself which isn’t a big deal it’s just more difficult.  By the time I got dinner done and we had eaten it was 8:45 and I was ready for bed.  We were in bed by 9 and lights were out by 9:15 (get your minds out of the gutter-we were reading).  My little superstar sleeper slept until 6:15 this morning so I got 9 hours of sleep last night.  WOO and HOO!  Of course I had crazy stress dreams all night long but oh well, at least I got to sleep for 9 hours.

Even though the Eye-Fi did not get set up, I still took my first daily picture of Lucy with my phone.  She was so smiley this morning-see?

She’s started giving kisses on command!!! Last night I asked her to give Mommy a kiss and I got a big wet slobbery one. We played a game where I would kiss her and say “Mommy gives Lucy a kiss. Will Lucy give Mommy a kiss?” And then she’d kiss me and I’d say “OH THANK YOU!” and she’d crack up. We did that for about 10 minutes last night. I was covered in Lucy slobber and it was so worth it!

I had the realization last night that since I’ve been back to work (4 months now) I haven’t done anything for myself without Lucy. Breastmilk is such a precious resource that I never leave her with Daddy and a bottle. Plus I miss her so much while I work that I don’t want to leave her alone when I have the chance. But, I think I need to get over this and leave her with Daddy for a few hours one weekend. I do need some “me” time and the train ride to work, work, grocery shopping, and cooking don’t really count. Maybe I’ll take a babystep and go for a run this weekend all.by.myself. I do have an issue in that I don’t know what I’d go do. Sad, huh?

Time to start brainstorming.

Lucy was much better this morning and has been doing great at daycare today. Yay for that!

My Eye-Fi card was at work when I got in today-YIPEE!!! Now it won’t be such a pain to upload pictures.  I’m hoping to take a picture of Lucy everyday before daycare.  Who knows if that will happen.  Some days I’m so short on time that I don’t thing it will but it’s a good goal.

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be back on the blog in the morning, tutorial/informational post in the afternoon.  I have pictures that I need to upload about sterilizing bottles.  As I was taking the pictures I was thinking, “This is dumb-everyone knows how to do this” and then I remembered that I frantically googled how to do it when I had to do it the first time.  So, look for that soon!

Little Lucy is sick 🙁  She has a pretty bad cough and had a fever of 101.4 this morning.  I gave  her Motrin and it’s down to 100-which isn’t considered a fever for a baby (100.3 and higher is considered a fever) but she’s still feeling pretty ooky.

Shaun is out mountain biking with his mountain bike boot camp-he’s an instructor and couldn’t really miss, nor would I want him to.  When he gets home, I’m going to run the errands on my list.

I have my grocery list all ready to go.  For those of you iPhone users, I use Groceries, to make my list.  I LOVE IT! I no longer need a pen and paper when I go to the grocery store.  All I need is my phone and wallet.  You can keep multiple lists for multiple stores on it-I’m going to Whole Foods and Trader Joes today.  And it allows you to add things that aren’t in their database really easily.  My only complaint is that it assumes that you buy the same stuff every week and it’s kind of a pain to clear off the list and start over-well it takes 2 additional steps.

On the menu this week?

-Chicken Tacos

-Stuffed Peppers

-Pork Loin with Leeks and Potatoes

-Bul Kogi-Korean BBQ meat from Traders-one of Shaun’s favorites!

Lucy’s giving me wet sloppy kisses on the cheek right now-it’s the cutest thing ever!  She woke up so I gotta go.  She loved the butternut squash by the way!

I came down with a head cold on Monday and my life has been too crazy for me to sit down and take care of myself which has resulted in me feeling worse and not better.  I’m taking a sick day today to try and recover-it’s time for this Mommy to feel better!

I took Lucy to daycare this morning and it feels really odd to be at home without her.  Shaun thought though that it was a good idea for me to have some time to truly rest and I have to say that I agree.  I’ll be picking Lucy up early today but in the meantime I thought I’d write here and then go take an uninterrupted nap!  Something I haven’t had in a very.long.time.  At least 7 months or so!

Last night was a doozy.  Lucy went down around 7:45 and woke up at 11:45.  She didn’t go back down until 1:45.  Shaun tried to help me (after I yelled at him-sorry honey!) but lately Lucy really wants nothing to do with Daddy at night.  She gets mad when he goes in there and wakes up even more.  As I was rocking her she kept rubbing her eyes.  I knew that I had eaten something that had potential for having milk in it (Lucy is allergic to milk and since I’m nursing her I can’t eat ANYTHING with milk).  I thought she may be having an allergic reaction.  I got the children’s Benadryl out and of course it has no dosings for a baby.  I decided to call my pediatrician’s answering service and ask.  They nurse who called me back?  Was so.annoying.  Basically, some doctors don’t like to give babies Benadryl because it makes them super sleepy and they miss feedings.  So this call center nurse didn’t want to give me the dosing instructions (1/4 tsp for her weight-I looked it up), but kept trying to diagnose her itchy eyes over the phone at 1:15 am.  At this point Lucy was calming down and I just wanted to put her to sleep but I have help cat on the phone telling me to wash her face with a warm wash cloth and that pollen counts are high right now.  I was able to get her down after getting off the phone with him.  I didn’t use the Benadryl and it was probably my lack of sleep, my first time Mom-ness, and my being REALLY sick that made me thing that Benadryl was a good idea in the first place.

So, I get to back to bed at 1:45 and Lucy wakes up at 5.  I feed her, try to put her back down and she’s not having it.  I tried to put her in bed with us, she wants to play.  I finally woke Shaun up and told him that I needed some sleep (in a much nicer way than I did at midnight).  He got up with her and I was able to sleep until 7.

What is it with guys and not hearing babies? I was doped up on Benadryl last night and I still heard Lucy as soon as she woke up at 11:45.  Shaun didn’t even stir.  Same thing at 5 am.  I was sure last night that he was doing it just to spite me and because he really hated me.  Isn’t it nice what sleep deprivation and feeling like poo will do to your mind?  My husband is probably one of the most hands-on fathers I have ever seen and makes it very clear multiple times a day that he loves me very much. Exhausted Chelsea didn’t think so.

Well, I’ve gotta go pump and then I’m taking a nap.  I’ll leave you with one of my favorite pictures of Lucy: