camera

Yesterday I was working on a project, and I wanted a picture of Judith crying. So I put her in her chair near me, and figured that eventually she'd start fussing (no, I wasn't going to pinch her to make her cry!). And she did start fussing....but as soon as I'd turn to take a picture, she'd smile and coo! It was a good 15 minutes before I actually got a crying picture - and it's only a partial cry. I guess she really just wanted my attention.

A chilly walk

Today there was a chilly wind (ok, chilly for Sacramento in October) when we went for our morning walk, and so I put on this hat (crocheted by my Lance's coworker Adrianne) on Judith. She turned her head from side to side trying to get it off, but otherwise she really didn't complain about it.

We walked through a more affluent neighborhood near here. It's an older neighborhood, and there are lots of trees overhanging the road and shading the houses. I would imagine that the people actually know their neighbors, and have kids that play together! We even saw two flocks of wild turkeys wandering around! It seemed almost a different state.

Also, what you can't see in the picture is that for the first time Judith has a red ring around her mouth from her pacifier. She fell asleep halfway through the walk, and apparently sucked on it hard enough in her sleep to leave the mark. How she can do that in a moving vehicle, but lose her pacifier every five minutes in her crib is beyond me! :-)

deep conversations

As I write this, Judith is lying in her crib happily chatting with the mobile. I had gone back to bed for a little nap this morning, and she woke me with her noises - but then I realized that they were happy noises, and so I'm leaving her in there until that changes. It is so amazing to listen to her!

In other updates: yesterday we drove up to Auburn to surprise Grandma Sandy at her store. Judith did just fine during the car ride (35-40 mins each way) even though she didn't sleep on the way up. I could hear her periodically sucking on her fingers. She was a little tired at the store, and perhaps a little overstimulated by all the noise/lights/colors/smells/people. But she slept on the way home and was fine the rest of the day.

Music

This is one of those time (more frequent recently!) that I wish I had a video camera. What these pictures don't show is that Judith is crowing and squealing (quite musically, of course) while Lance plays to her. It was so fun to listen to! I'm not sure whether or not he's played to her before, but this is the first time that I remember her responding so enthusiastically.

I also sing to her all the time (she doesn't mind if I'm out of tune!). I sing a wide variety of things, and I have fun making up new words to old songs. Some of our favorites:
With apologies to CCR: "I put a bib on you - 'cause you're mine. I put a bib on you - I ain't lyin. I won't take none of your spitting around."
With apologies to the Beatles: "Hey Judith, it's time to eat. Mama's milk is really yummy. Remember to let it under your skin; then you begin to fill your tummy."
With apologies to Abba: "and like a super pooper nights are gonna find me, smiling back at you, feelin' like a number two."

In good Sjoerdsma family tradition, she also enjoys "The Wreck of the Old 97," "Good morning to you", and Carole King's "Child of Mine".

hair!

As you can see in the picture (I hope), Judith has hair growing in. She still has patches of the long hair that she was born with, but especially on the top of her head she has all new hair. It's quite a bit blonder than what she was born with, but not quite as blond as I expected given the toddler pictures of Lance and me. I have fun rubbing her head now - it's fuzzy!

Update

I've been going longer between blogs lately, partly because I've been a little busier, but mostly because I feel like I have less to write about. I'm thinking about just chronicling what we do each day (some days will be quite boring!) instead of trying to find something momentous to blog about.

Judith continues to grow. She is now almost completely out of the 3 month clothes, although I keep trying to squeeze her into some of my favorites. I've gone through and cleaned out all the 0-3 and 3 month outfits, washed the 3-6 month stuff, and moved them into the top drawer. 3-6 is a little big, but not much!

In the past week I've started to really use all the bibs we got. Judith is spitting quite a bit, but it's more like constant leak than big spits. It means that if she doesn't wear a bib she soaks through her outfits within an hour. So now she just gets a new bib frequently! Fortunately we have LOTS.

She also finds her fingers almost whenever she wants them now, even if it means contorting herself to reach them. It's fun to watch her strain for them, and then examine them closely and pull them in and out of her mouth. It's a game that can last half an hour sometimes! Whether or not she gets them seems to correspond to her level of tiredness...which means that the pacifier is still her preference at bedtime or naptime.

Her sleep patterns have been a little wacky again. She's back to 10-6 (praise God!) but nap time is a little confused. Last weekend she seemed to be sleeping about 45 minutes and then waking up. On Monday she slept about 1.5 hours out of every 3 (that's about normal). On Tuesday she slept about 3 hours the entire day! And today she slept about 2 hours out of every three. I'm sincerely hoping that she will be back to "normal" tomorrow, and not repeating Tuesday. I'm thinking that she might be trying to move from lots of little naps to just a couple longer ones. We'll see.

Birthday

Today is my 33rd birthday. Lance "helped" Judith to make me a card! He said he put the pen in her hand (like all infants, she has a phenomenal grip) and held the paper up. It was while she was trying like mad to get her thumb in her mouth, so she moved her hand all over and made quite the picture...although Lance did have to sign her initials for her. Beautiful!

If you had asked me a year ago, on my 32nd birthday, if I thought I'd have a child by my next birthday, I'd have said not only was it extremely unlikely, it was also quite cruel of you to bring up such a painful subject (and on my birthday no less!). And now, a year later, God's faithfulness and grace, and my husband's courageous faith have given me more than I could ever have dreamed of. Happy Birthday to me!

sleeping

After her growth spurt, Judith's sleep patterns have been all messed up. She still goes 8 hours between feedings, but she's now almost impossible to wake at 10:00 p.m. for the last feeding, so, instead, she sleeps 8-4 or 9-5. Given that she usually goes right back to sleep for three hours after her first feeding of the morning, that's not so bad - except that I don't go to sleep at 8 or 9, and my body had finally adjusted to her old schedule...and now everything's 1-2 hours off from that. It's extremely frustrating for someone who really likes to stick to a schedule! But yes, I know, babies are unpredictable, and God's teaching me to loosen up. I just pray for naps.

Growing!

I'm pretty sure that Judith's going through a growth spurt:

1. She's eating every two hours today.
2. She's sleeping a LOT today.
3. I put this 3 month size outfit on her this morning, and as you can see in the picture(her hands and feet are blurry because she moves so much!), it's too short for her. It's always been a little tight through the torso (those huge cloth diapers!) but now it's too short in the arms and legs as well. How can she been growing out of 3 month clothes already??? Guess it's time to wash the 3-6 month clothes.
   

Sitting Up

Judith is no longer content to just sit back in her bouncy seat or her car seat, or even on my lap when I hold her facing out. She wants to sit up. (I tried to get a picture of it - but it looks like her head's on that diaper...really it's all air between her head and the chair!) I don't know whether it's that she wants to look around more, or if she's just trying to get closer to her fingers (often she'll sit back again once she gets them in her mouth). Either way, she's definitely growing and building those muscles! She'll be sitting up on her own before I know it.

Thumb!

As this picture clearly shows, this morning Judith managed to get her thumb all by itself into her mouth! So far she's only been chewing on her knuckles. All day she's been avidly sucking on fingers (both hands interchangeably). When she's not trying to sleep, she'll push the pacifier out of her mouth in favor of her fingers; however, at nap time she seems to prefer the pacifier.

A little cold

I mean the title in more ways than one.

First, Judith has had her first sniffle. She was so stuffed up that she could hardly breathe :-(. When she ate, she'd take a big gulp of air and then suck really hard for a few seconds and take another big gulp of air. It was both funny and sad at the same time! The hospital gave us a bulb syringe when she was born, but it's too big to fit in her nose (we were supposed to suck out her spit with it) so Lance went out and bought a smaller bulb syringe as well as some normal saline, and we were able to help her. It was a challenge, though, to get the saline actually in her nose...and then Lance got to have fun sucking out the result.

Second, it's also finally cooled off in Sacramento (well, it's 70 degrees in the house when we get up), and the first time I got Judith up at that temperature, her little hands were icy. So we're making sure to dress her a little more warmly before bed, and we're contemplating putting her in the blanket sleeper (the issue is that it has a hood, and I'm afraid she'll just fill up the hood with spit!). She kicks off any blanket we try to put over her legs.

Zebra!

Here's Judith in her bouncy chair - a gift from our friends Debbie and Merrill. She has always enjoyed sitting in the seat, but the few times that we've attached the animal bar, she hasn't really even noticed them. Yesterday that changed! She sat and talked at the animals - mostly the zebra - for about 10 minutes. Fortunately, I managed to get it on film, because after the 10 minutes, she was DONE with those animals. Lance said she enjoyed looking at them several hours later as well. It's very fun to see her really noticing things now.

She has also, in the last day, begun to notice us (Lance and me). Until now, she hasn't really cared one way or another if we were in her line of vision. She just stared at whatever. Today she actually watched me walk away every time I left her in her chair for a minute, or in her crib for a nap, and as soon as she couldn't see me any more, she let me know. And when she's crying in her crib, she would stop as soon as she saw me and coo - as if to say "see, I'm good if you're here!" We'll see how long it takes before she figures out that spitting the pacifier out makes me come and starts doing deliberately.

Giggles!

Today, for the first time, Judith giggled at me! And I'm pretty sure I wasn't imagining it either. She has, in the last day, begun to smile at me if I smile at her, and today I was laughing as I approached her (she had dropped her pacifier but it was right next to her mouth and she was trying to get it back in) and she giggled three little giggles back at me. Amazing.

Fingers

Although she hasn't quite mastered the art of keeping them there, Judith has begun to find her mouth with her fingers - or rather, her fist. She will get her fist to her mouth suck (quite loudly) for a few seconds, and then her arm will move, and she'll lose the fist...and this is repeated frequently. With both fists.

She actually prefers her fingers to her pacifier, and will knock the pacifier out of her mouth because she's trying to get her knuckle in there instead. Unfortunately, since (as previously mentioned) she can't keep her fist, she'll get desperate for the pacifier, which we'll give her--and the whole process will start all over. I am anxiously awaiting the day when her fingers stay in her mouth!

less rough

So, it's been a couple days, because Judith's been having a rough time. Yesterday, after her 9:00 a.m. feeding she didn't sleep for longer than 30 minutes at a time until we put her down for the night at 10:00 p.m. I'm really hoping that that's just a side-effect of the vaccinations still, and that she'll be a little less discombobulated today. Because she wasn't "happy to be up" when she wasn't sleeping - she was fussy for most of the day, and obviously so tired and yet not able to sleep. Something kept startling her awake and instead of going back to sleep, as she normally does, she'd want to be up and held instead. So yes, I'm sincerely hoping that today is different...I don't mind her being awake more, if she's willing to sit in her seat occasionally, but if she's going to cry for most of the day again...

She has still be sleeping for 8 hours at night - followed by a 10 minute feeding and at least 2.5 more hours. But on Tuesday night, her 8 hours started at 7:30 p.m., and Wednesday night started at 8:30. That meant a middle-of-the night feeding for me for both those nights, and since I didn't go to bed at 7:30, it was a pretty short night. By God's grace, last night she was finally "back on schedule" and I slept pretty well. So I shouldn't be quite as desperate for her to sleep today.