Picture Updates

Since I haven't been blogging much, here is a little picture update of the little monkey.

Michaela refuses to let me feed her anymore, she is all about being an independent eater! Here she is eating some banana coated in Cheerios (makes it easier for her to grab). She is on the road to walking! She can cruise along furniture, and uses her little car to zip around the house.

She discovered the joys of balloons at a friends birthday party last week. I wrapped the balloon around her waist and she had a blast grabbing at it and playing with it.

She starting to show tendencies toward OCD. She always lines up her bath toys neatly like this, and is starting to seperate them into categories (ducks, turtles, crocodiles, and letter toys).

I finally attempted using my MobyWrap as a back carrier. I was terrified I would drop her, but I found an easy way to get her on there that feels much safer than the other ways I had tried.

She has started pulling up in her crib, and I'm terrified she's going to fall out! I can't put the gate up because it makes soooo much noise and always wakes her up. I can't just leave the gate up because I'm too short to put her down. I think it is time to buy a new crib, any suggestions?

Her first birthday is coming up! Since she is my little monkey, the party will be monkey themed. Aren't the invitations I made cute?

That's all folks!

Sleep, glorious sleep...

I have not fallen off the face of the planet. We were in San Antonio last week visiting my husbands family and although I had my computer with me, I was lazy and didn't bother to post anything or really keep up with my google reader. I think I've pretty much given up on doing too much more to my page, but I will try to keep updating my blogroll, it takes forever to add blogs via html!

In other news, Michaela started sleeping in her very own crib in her very own room this week. She has been sleeping in my bed pretty much since the day she came home from the hospital. I tried reading The No-Cry Sleep Solution, and while it did have alot of great ideas, none of them seemed to work very well on Michaela. I know alot of parents let their children sleep in their beds for years, but it was not working well for our family any more. Philip is such a light sleeper that he tosses and turns, and would wake the baby up, so he has been sleeping on the couch for a long time now. For the health of my marriage, Michaela needed to go into her own room!

It hasn't been too too bad so far. I've started doing a better bedtime routine with her, and now I nurse her until she is drowsy, then put her in her crib. The first two nights daddy rubbed her tummy and her head until she fell asleep, and then would do the same whenever she woke up in the middle of the night. I would wake up to feed her after she had slept for 5 or 6 hours and then put her back in her crib. Last night daddy did not go to her when she woke up, we let her try to get back to sleep on her own. I would be lying if I said that this has been a smooth, cry-less situation, but there has definitely been less tears than I expected.

The first night I had a really hard time sleeping without Michaela tucked into my arms. Last night I slept like a rock. So although I will miss Michaelas little night noises, and the feeling I get when her little hand brushes against my arm as she turns over, I know this is the right thing to do right now. Daddy is happy to have his bed back and I am happy to have him back as well. :)

Because I'm the mom, that's why!

I love my dad very much. We have a great relationship, and he is a great grandpa. But when he starts to criticise how I'm raising Michaela I can't help but turn into a very angry, very defensive Mama Bear. Last night my dad and Judy stopped by to visit and in the midst of our talking, he decided to ask whether or not Michaela is sleeping through the night.

Let me back up a second here and tell those of you who don't already know that this is the ultimate end-all question here in Mommy Land. This is usually one of the first questions that anybody who encounters a new mom asks. The answer to this simple question tells the person asking everything that they need to know about the mom's parenting capabilities. If the baby is sleeping through the night, that means that all is well, no more questions will be asked, and the parents will be clapped on the back and told what a great a job they are doing.

If the baby is not sleeping through the night, however, that means that something is terribly wrong. In this case, Michaela is not sleeping through the night and it is all because I am a terrible mom. According to my dad (and others I've encountered), these are the problems:

I'm letting Michaela sleep in my bed, which spoils her and makes her too attached to me.
I pick Michaela up when she cries, which spoils her and makes her too attached to me.
I haven't started Michaela on solids yet, which would make her sleep longer.
I'm spoling Michaela and letting her become too attached to me.

OK, I get that grandparents think that it is their duty to tell you what to do with your kids. I can't count the number of times Philip's mom told me something and I had to smile and thank her for the advice, even when I was totally against it. I shouldn't let this bother me, but for some reason it does.

It might be because it seems like the general consensus is that sleeping with my baby is something abnormal and not quite right. Even Philip is not 100% behind the Family Bed idea. Why is it so weird?!? Michaela is still small, she weighs less at 5 months than many newborns. She still needs to eat and recharge in the middle of the night. She still needs to physically feel me close to her when she sleeps. When my baby cries, I am there for her. I don't consider it spoiling her, I consider it being attuned to her needs.

The bottom line is, every child is different and every mom parents in a different way. There is no "right" way to raise a child, every mom knows what works best for her own. So please, don't criticize or second guess how good of a job I am doing with Michaela. Why? Because I'm her mom, that's why!

Would baby prefer Permanent Press or Gentle?.....

We had another rough night last night. I don't know what exactly has happened, but all of a sudden in the past week Michaela has decided that waking up and playing for a couple of hours in the middle of the night is fun. I'm afraid that if I don't get a good nights sleep soon, I'm going to accidentally stuff her in the washing machine! So, to play devil's advocate to yesterday's warm fuzzy post, here are the bottom 5 things in mommy land.

*Waking up to the feel of Michaela's little fists beating against me, and opening my eyes to her huge smile..........at 2am.

*The yucky baby smell that lasts for hours after Michaela has spit up on my outfit (which I refuse to change because I know it will just happen again as soon as I do).

*The way I feel when she is upset and no matter how hard I try to fix it, there's nothing I can do.

*Not having the confidence that the way that I am raising her is "right."

*The sound of her sobs.

On a happier side note, I found the best ice cream in the world yesterday. It's called Blueberry Pomegranate Dark Chocolate Chunk, and it is definitely not helping me lose the baby weight!

No Opium For Baby....

Last night as the evening wound to a close, everything in Mommy Land seemed to be ok. Michaela took her usual evening nap and we took a short little walk around the neighborhood to wind down the day. We got ready for bed as usual, but when I laid down to nurse her to sleep, it was quite apparent that all was not right. My little one decided that she was wide awake and not the least bit interested in sleep.

Playing with her did not appease her, nor did it expend her energy. Daddy and I both tried to walk her to sleep and while Philip managed to get her to sleep, the minute he put her down, she was wide awake again. I even tried o feed her again, now almost two hours later. It was already 11 o'clock, and as those of you who know that I do not function after 9pm can imagine, I was at my wits end!

OK, time to pull out the big guns. I grabbed the bottle of gripe water, an herbal supplement that I used when Michaela was reallly colicky, and gave her some in the hopes it woul put her to sleep. It worked! Twenty minutes later I carefully climbed into bed with her, taking care not to wake her again. While I'm glad it worked and I know it was just herbs that have no harmful effect on baby, I couldn't help but feel a little guilty, like one of those 18th century moms that gave their babies laudanum to get them to sleep. C'est la vie, until next time......