Smile

Is there anything more amazing than my child's smile? Stress, fatigue, aches, worry--they all disappear when she smiles at me. Okay, maybe it's not intentional yet. That doesn't matter in the least, and I can't help but smile, coo and laugh back at her.

(Also - she has inherited her Daddy's dimples! Hooray!)

sleeping update

well. Judith made it 8 hours last night without eating. As I expected, she was awake at 4:00, but she was perfectly content to take the pacifier and snuggle with me for a few minutes before falling back asleep. (I sat in her room for a little while, praying that I was doing the right thing...and then went to back to bed and stared at the wall and prayed that I was doing the right thing.)

And she woke up at 6:00 and was ready to eat...except that she apparently wasn't as ravenous as she appeared, because she drifted off after only 10 minutes. I changed her diaper and woke her up, but she just wasn't interested in eating more. So we'll see how much she eats at the next feeding.

I'm (obviously) still a little uncertain about this. IS she getting enough food? (Everyone tells me that she'll let me know if she's hungry.) Am I just being selfish about sleep? After all, six hours (10-4) is a pretty great thing. At 6 1/2 weeks, is she too young for this? And the really big question: Is my body ever going to adjust to her eating schedule?

sleeping - take two

ok, so last night didn't "work". It could easily have been my fault. I was pretty restless last night, waking up frequently and in and out of bed. At 4:00 Judith was making noise, and I went in to check on her - which might have woken her up further (or she might have been already awake, I don't know). So, since I was up anyway, I changed her in "dim light" and nursed her for a little while (I'm not exactly sure how long 'cause I couldn't see the clock with the light off!) and put her back down. Then she slept until about 7:00.

Tonight I've tried the cluster feeding again - at 6 and at 8 and (if she will wake up for it) at 10. I'm thinking that tonight, if/when she wakes up at 4:00, I'll give her the pacifier and rock her for a little while instead of feeding her (This is a scenario straight out of The Baby Whisperer.) and see how long she sleeps after that. I have no doubt that the pacifier can put her to sleep - she often goes down for a nap with one, but I don't know if hunger will wake her up earlier than usual - we'll see.

I'm a little torn about the urgency of all this. I want to train her right, and I'd be so grateful if she slept for eight hours, but at the same time, it's pretty uncomfortable for me to go eight hours without feeding her, and I'm sure I'll wake up anyway. I guess I'll just see how tonight goes and take it from there! More updates tomorrow.

sooo big!

This morning, Judith and I discovered that she has outgrown her newborn onesies! It is extremely hard to snap the bottom snaps when we put them on; she's just too long. A little of that has to do with wearing cloth diapers instead of disposable, but not that much. When we first dressed her in them, I thought "wow, these will fit her for a LONG time!" But here it is, just six weeks later, and we're graduating to the 0-3 month or 3 month stuff. Fortunately, we have clothes in all kinds of sizes.

(I am very sad about her growing out of a few special onesies - I'm thinking about finding some onesie extenders just for those. The colors probably won't match, but she could still wear her "I love Daddy" and "I love Mommy" outfits.)

Why Judith Kay?

Judith is named for my mother (Judith) and Lance's mother (Sharon Kay) for several reasons:

1. My mother, for all her faults, is the model of a Christian woman for me. I strive emulate her walk with Christ, and I desire that more than anything for my daughter.
2. Lance's mother passed away when he was very young, and I wanted to honor her as well as my own mother.
   
3. I am named after my grandmothers, and have always thought that was pretty cool.
4. Judith means "woman of Judea" and Kay means "pure". I interpret them together as "a pure woman of God".
5. I think Judith Kay Ford sounds beautiful.

Somehow I convinced Lance that these were reasons enough to name her. I think probably he just "gave in" for love of me. :-)

Judith's Story

For those of you who don't know the story of how Judith came into our family, I'm, writing it here. It is a story of grace, faith, and the power of prayer.

Children - specifically whether or not we should have them - has been the single major issue in our marriage. We did know, when we got married (in 1999) that this was an issue we disagreed on. I'm not sure, however, that either of us realized just how much we disagreed. Basically, I have passionately wanted children, while Lance has been vehemently opposed to the idea. Over the nine years of our marriage, we have had "serious discussions" and even some pregnancy scares, and our basic outlooks have remained the same. Many people have prayed for years for reconciliation for us on this issue.

About two years ago, on Mother's Day 2006, I was struck by the realization that God had worked in my heart to the point where I was "ok" if I never had children. And I shared that with Lance and with other people around me, and went on with life. Then, in the summer of 2007, several key people in my life became pregnant, and I had another pregnancy "scare." It undid me, and I found myself again absolutely longing for a child. When I proved to not be pregnant, I tearfully let Lance know that I wasn't "ok" any more - that I still passionately wanted a child. A few months later, still hurting, I shared with my women's Bible study just how devastated I was. I asked for their prayers that God would either work in my heart, or Lance's - and soon. The very next Sunday (November 4, 2007) when we got home from church, Lance said "maybe we could have a baby." He said that God had finally convinced him to step out in faith, to trust Him with this issue, and see what happened. I went back to my Bible Study and shared the news, asking for prayers for a quick conception - in God's timing of course :-). Less than a month later, with my cycle later than I expected, I took a pregnancy test - it was postive! God had wholeheartedly affirmed Lance's decision to trust. (On a side note, I am amazed at the power of His timing - Lance and I have always used the "rhythm" method of birth control, which has only a 75% success rating. I had come to the conclusion that it was unlikely that I'd even be able to conceive. And yet, Judith was conceived the first week that we decided to "try"!)

Sleeping

Well, here it is. The first of the promised blogs. I can hardly believe that I'm actually following through with this. I'll have to be careful not to wax so enthusiastic that I forget that the public can read this. At the same time, it's probably only going to be interesting to people who are as interested in my daughter as I am!

Today Judith and I had a pretty good day. Sadly, Daddy (Lance) is gone ALL day - he's back to work today, after a week off, and he went straight from work to the airport to pick up his aunt and uncle, and straight from the airport to River Rock's offices for a church leadership meeting. We won't be seeing him until around 9:00 p.m. or so. Quite a test of my ability to cope with Judith on my own!

Since we've been having (relative) trouble getting her to sleep lately, I decided to go back and reread the Sleep chapter in the Baby Whisperer. I discovered that she's old enough now to be sleeping a little less during the day, and possibly even getting to 8 hours at night. So I "let" her stay up (meaning I didn't try everything I could to get her to sleep) after her 8:00 feeding this morning. As a result she took a highly satisfactory 2 1/2 hour nap at 11. I tried the same thing after her 1:30 feeding - with a nap "scheduled" for 5:00-ish. This time it didn't work quite so well; although she did eventually go to sleep, it took awhile, and she'll end up with more like 1 1/2 hours this time around. But hey, we're new at this. I'm also planning to try to cluster feed her tonight (at 7:00 and at 9:00) to see if that'll help her sleep for 8 hours. She normally sleeps about five hours after her last nighttime feeding, so I really shouldn't complain too much about her sleep patterns; but those of you who know me know how affected I am by sleep deprivation. It'd give me a whole new lease on life if Judith slept for 8 hours tonight! Check tomorrow's post to see how it goes.