"monthly" update?

I know, it's been forever since I blogged anything, and really I should have been, because Judith's going through a really fun phase right now where she's learning all kinds of things, and becoming more and more mobile as well. But, truthfully, I just haven't felt like blogging, perhaps because I've been so exhausted, and perhaps because I don't want this to become a blog full of angst or complaining.

Sleeping
The main "update" is that Judith still is not sleeping well. In the past few weeks her pattern has either been to be up every hour all night long or to be up for several hours in the middle of the night. The first time she was up for a long period, we tried to let her cry-it-out, but we discovered that she couldn't get down from the standing at the side of the crib. (Now we know she can get down, and last night we tried again...she cried pretty much for an hour straight, then slept for 1/2 an hour, woke up and cried for a while, then slept for another 1/2 hour - I fed her that time, and she slept for about 4 1/2 hours before waking again.) We've been trying all kinds of different "methods" to see if anything helps, but so far we haven't hit on a "magic formula" (not that I think there is one, of course). We know that she's teething, which is probably a contributing factor to the sleeplessness, and with our schedule lately we haven't been able to settle into a routine, which probably isn't helping either. Our newest "trial" is going to be a later routine (we've tried an earlier routine already) since it seems like we're constantly out past her bedtime. We'll see. Honestly it feels like I've failed as a mother because she doesn't sleep anymore...she used to sleep so well!

Mobility
Mobility wise, she's making giant steps. She's completely confident in her crawling, and would explore the entire house if we'd let her...we've started keeping all the doors closed down the hallway, so that she can only crawl up and down the hall instead of exploring the bedrooms. She's also pulling herself up on the sofa (and anything else that's even remotely stable) and beginning to cruise with confidence. In fact, she sometimes has a little too much confidence, because she'll try to move to places (or let go of things) when she's really not able to balance. She's taken quite a few tumbles in the last couple days, and her forehead is a little black-and-blue. She's also able to get down from pulling herself up on things - whether it's because Lance spent patient time teaching her to bend her knees and drop or because she figured it out on her own, we'll never know :-).

Eating
We've phased out cereal except for breakfast, and we've added whole milk yogurt. I've been making her baby food, for the most part, and freezing it in cubes. There's not a whole lot of variety right now in the organic produce that's available, so it may be a little monotonous for her, but she doesn't seem to mind. We've also gotten her to take a sippy cup, and least occasionally, with a tiny bit of juice mixed with water. We started out giving her that mixture in a bottle, but since she leaked it all over that way, we moved to the sippy. Mostly she chews on the "nipple" (can you say teething?!) but she'll also suck on it as well. I've also been trying, occasionally, to give her bigger "chunks" of food to get her used to eating it on her own (that's avocado in the pictre). So far my success in that endeavor has been mixed. Mostly she plays with the food instead of eating it.

Other "skills"

• She's now mastered the pincer grip - at least with her left hand. With her right hand she mostly still "rakes."
• She claps, sometimes randomly, and sometimes in response to one of us clapping.
• She waves on rare occasions, although she now turns her hand toward herself instead of toward the other person.
• She scrunches up her nose and sniffs in and out to make a funny face...it's adorable!
• She's recently started making noise while she inhales, as though she's gasping...it really scared me the first time I heard it, but she's just exploring vocally. It's the sound she makes most when she's happy right now.

I'm sure there are a lot more things that she does, but these are the ones that come to mind right now. She continues to be an absolute joy, even though it's all currently colored by exhaustion.

trial run

Last night (Sunday) we did a trial run for leaving Judith home with Grandma Sjoerdsma while Lance and I go away overnight for our 10th anniversary (scheduled for Thursday, April 2). Unfortunately, it did not go well at all. Judith woke up to nurse just before we left, so she was still a little groggy, and got pretty upset when we left. And then she cried for pretty much the whole time we were gone. Grandma was able to calm her down/distract her at intervals, but once she started the bedtime routine, Judith got really upset. She ate all her cereal, but refused the bottle, and was crying pretty heavily. When Lance and I got home, Grandma was walking Judith around the house in the stroller.

So we've changed the plan for Thursday. Lance and I will take Judith with us on our overnight, and then Grandma will babysit on Friday (our actual anniversary) so we can go out for dinner. This makes everything a LOT less stressful, because Judith hasn't really gotten much better at taking the bottle, and now we know how well she does with someone else trying to put her to bed. I no longer have to worry about pumping and pumping trying to get enough milk for her to take a bottle, and the three of us (Grandma, Judith, and me) will all have a much less traumatic Thursday.

We're glad that we did the trial run on Sunday night instead of just "assuming" that Thursday would be ok!

In other updates: Judith is crawling like crazy...nothing is safe, and she's pulling herself up on whatever she can. Foodwise, we're going to be starting to introduce yogurt, oat and barley cereal, and possibly even some meats in the near future.

crawling update

The house is no longer safe. I can't just put Judith down in one place and expect her to stay there anymore! Yes, she's officially crawling everywhere - and can get to places I thought were pretty well blocked off. It's amazing to see her move so fast, but a little scary too, because she often gets to things before I can :-).

I've been asked if she's pulling herself up on things, to which my standard reply is that we don't really have anything for her to pull herself up on. I'll have to change that answer now - today she started pulling herself on anything she could: the box I've used to block her into the living room, the bench, the chair, her pack-n-play wall...she's ready to stand up!

Sleeping isn't going too well though - Thursday night she was up every two hours; last night it was every three. And she's "too smart" (or maybe just too strong-willed) to take the pacifier when she wants to nurse. So I'm really wrestling with the best way to get her to go back to sleep!

Crawling!

At approximately 4:00 p.m., Judith crawled across the living room for the first time - by "crawl" I mean the classic crawling position of hands and knees. She lifts her knees up quite high, but I think that's probably because it's so difficult to get a purchase on the slippery laminate floor. She was pretty pleased with herself. And I'm going to be carefully evaluating what things need to be moved in the next day or so!

Five ounces!!

This afternoon Judith drank five ounces of milk (slightly watered down so there'd be more) from the bottle - from Lance. This is a huge breakthrough. Earlier this week she had a complete meltdown when I tried to give her the bottle at all. Then, out of the blue, yesterday she took a bottle from me at 3:00 and another at 6:00. I've been watering down the milk because I can't really express enough in a day to be able to feed her each day. So I'm hopeful that our overnight away will go ok (eating wise).

Sleeping-wise she's still waking up at least twice a night (usually around 2:00 and around 6:00), and she's only sleeping for 11 hours (instead of the 12 I've been told she needs). I'm feeding her at both times, mostly because every other night or so she wakes up earlier than 2:00, takes 20-30 minutes to go back to sleep, and then wakes up in another hour anyway. I'm afraid if I don't feed her, she'll be up every hour!

She's definitely crawling forward now - it's not quite the "classic crawl" motion (on hands and knees) but it's pretty close to that. She certainly gets around as much as she wants to.

tooth #3!

Today, as Judith and I were playing together, I noticed a white spot on her upper gum. On closer inspection, I discovered that it's tooth #3, making its appearance quite soon after tooth #2 (yay, less teething time!). This one is upper left front.

In other news: my "plan" to get Judith sleeping through the night was rudely interrupted by a near-fire (lots of smoke) and a night at a friend's house. I'm trying to get back on track tonight.

And today she drank 3 ounces from the bottle! That's the most she's had from the bottle since October. It was all breast milk...I'm working up to half-breast milk, half formula.

Another Update

I have, rightly, been chastised by a friend of mine for not updating my blog (how did three weeks pass without my noticing?!?). My excuse is that the last three weeks have been rather overwhelming, between Judith teething, not sleeping through the night, and learning how to take a bottle.

So here are the updates:
Teething
Judith's second tooth (lower right) broke through yesterday morning (exactly three weeks after the first one). She was pretty miserable for most of that time. MUCH crabbier than normal, and not sleeping well at all. According to what I've heard, she should get the next two teeth (upper middle teeth) "relatively" soon. I'm hoping (though not optimistic) that they'll come in sooner than three weeks each.

Sleeping:
We're pretty sure that Judith's been waking up because her teeth hurt. And they wake her up enough that she recognizes that she hasn't eaten in a while, so she's not willing to just take the pacifier. (In fact, she'll clamp her lips together so that she can't take the pacifier.) Just before this latest tooth came in, she would be up three-four times a night--not enough sleep for her, and not enough sleep for me! To compound the problem, I've been taking the easy way out and feeding her because that way she'll go right back to sleep and I only have to be up for 10-15 minutes. Trying to get her to go to sleep without eating would mean being up for 1/2 an hour. Starting tonight, we're going to try to let her cry for a little while to see if she'll go back to sleep on her own. I'm really not looking forward to it, but I know it'll be worth it if it works. (She also
continues to only nap for 45 minutes at time.)

Bottle Feeding:
Grandma and Grandpa Sjoerdsma are coming at the end of March to visit, and Grandma will be staying through the beginning of April. Lance and I will get to go away for our 10th anniversary (April 3), and Grandma will have Judith overnight for us. Unfortunately, Judith hasn't tried a bottle since November (and hasn't taken one successfully since the middle of October). So we've been doing everything we can think of to get her to take one now. To complicate the issue, I've been getting very little when I pump, so we decided to start trying with formula. Not a good idea - she hated it. Then we tried a sippy cup and differently bottle nipples, without success. Over the last 10 days, I've slowly pumped enough to put a couple ounces in a bottle (it helps that my sister sent me her electric pump instead of my little hand one). We are now to the point where Judith will drink about 1 1/2 oz of my milk from the bottle, if I give it to her - so far she hasn't taken anything when Lance tries. I'm trying to see this a positive step, because at least it means she's associating the bottle with food. We've got three weeks to get her to take more and take it from another person.

Eating:
Judith has progressed through a number of vegetables (beans, peas, carrots, and sweet potato) as well as some fruits (apple, banana, pear). I've now started pureeing my own stuff, which she seems to like pretty well. I try to mix some rice cereal in with whatever veggies or fruits she has, so that it's a little more substantial. So far she likes what she's tried (she didn't like the peas the first time around, but ate them just fine when I tried them later).

Moving:
Judith has progressed from rolling around the room to a combination of rolling, backwards scooting and army crawling. She'll also get up on her hands and knees and rock and rock and rock. Right now she's constantly getting stuck under the futon with just her head stuck out because she's scooted backwards underneath it. Army crawling forward only happens when she has sufficient motivation (like Lance using some toy as a "carrot" for her), probably because it takes so much more work than rolling or scooting backwards. It's no longer a good idea to leave her on the blanket in the middle of the floor, because she'll end up in some other corner of the room chewing on something.

She'll also sit for long periods of time (up to 1/2 an hour if she's engrossed in a toy) before eventually falling over to one side.

Shopping:
Normally, when I shop with Judith I just take the BOB stroller into the store, and put what I need in the bag I carry. That works fine unless I have a lot of stuff to buy, in which case I've generally put the carseat in the back of the cart. For Christmas "judith" asked for one of those cart-seat covers so that I don't have to put her in a yucky seat. This past Friday was the first time we used it, and she didn't seem to love it or hate it. She did tend to slide to one side or another trying to reach things, because it only straps around her waist, which isn't quite enough to hold her upright. But I was happy with how it worked, and we'll use it plenty in the future.

So there - the last three weeks summarized in this blog (with lots of pictures). I'll do my best to not go so long between updates next time!