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.