Thursday, January 05, 2006
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Just for Lucy
Today I returned to work after being off since December 22 for the holidays. After my morning pumping session, my friend/co-worker, Lucy, gave me a hard time about not doing a better job of updating my blog. So, since I'm back at work, I guess I have no excuse. I promise to do a better job of updating.
Now, where were we? Yes - we left for Christmas in Mississippi on Friday, December 23. We drove (~7.5 hours) and I must say that Jayla did a good job in the car. I wasn't really too worried about it because I knew there was no way that the trip could be any worse than our attempts to escape Houston and Hurricane Rita back in September. We stopped to change Jayla's diaper and let her look around at different scenery twice. When we got to my parents house, we saw Jayla's first gift. My mom bought Jayla a swing and repainted the ancient (circa 1950's) bars in her yard and hung it on there. My mom was raised in that house and the swing has always been there. But, the bars had been empty since my parents moved there back in 1998. I loved seeing a new swing there - brought back so many memories of when we used to go to Mississippi when I was growing up (we lived in North Carolina then and would just go to MS on holidays). We would hang all over the bars and the existing swing and now Jayla's going to get to do the same thing!...eventually...
Jayla had a huge Christmas. Gifts galore.
She also finally rolled over on Christmas day. We put her on her tummy (which, by the way, she does not scream bloody murder anymore when we do it) and she just rolled over as if she had been doing it all of her life. She also discovered her thumb while we were at my parents house. It has not yet replaced the pacifier but, it did help her go to sleep on her own at least 3 times over the holidays.
The day after Christmas, we headed to Hot Springs, Arkansas for the rest of the week. It was another long car ride for Jayla but, she handled it well again. Hot Springs really is a cute little place.
We generally just hung out. But, my mom and I did go get a bath on Wednesday morning. It was an awesome experience. We headed back to MS on Friday and then back to TX on Saturday. That was the limit to Jayla's patience in the car. I think she would have gone crazy had there been another road trip in her future.
We brought in the New Year with a bunch of friends from our Sunday School class. Jayla was a doll at the party.
Around 11:00pm, we shut her in a room by herself and kept listening for her to scream - she never did. After staring around at the strange room for about 45 minutes, she put herself to sleep with no fuss. That was a welcome event as Jayla had some difficulty sleeping while we were in Arkansas last week. I'm pretty sure it was just because she was in a strange place - oh, and had her grandparents spoiling her 24 hours a day. So, everytime she woke up, she screamed for someone to pick her up instead of trying to put herself back to sleep.
Okay, I think that brings us to the present. I have made several goals for this year. But, I don't think I'll post them here yet. This post is already long enough!
Now, where were we? Yes - we left for Christmas in Mississippi on Friday, December 23. We drove (~7.5 hours) and I must say that Jayla did a good job in the car. I wasn't really too worried about it because I knew there was no way that the trip could be any worse than our attempts to escape Houston and Hurricane Rita back in September. We stopped to change Jayla's diaper and let her look around at different scenery twice. When we got to my parents house, we saw Jayla's first gift. My mom bought Jayla a swing and repainted the ancient (circa 1950's) bars in her yard and hung it on there. My mom was raised in that house and the swing has always been there. But, the bars had been empty since my parents moved there back in 1998. I loved seeing a new swing there - brought back so many memories of when we used to go to Mississippi when I was growing up (we lived in North Carolina then and would just go to MS on holidays). We would hang all over the bars and the existing swing and now Jayla's going to get to do the same thing!...eventually...
Jayla had a huge Christmas. Gifts galore.
She also finally rolled over on Christmas day. We put her on her tummy (which, by the way, she does not scream bloody murder anymore when we do it) and she just rolled over as if she had been doing it all of her life. She also discovered her thumb while we were at my parents house. It has not yet replaced the pacifier but, it did help her go to sleep on her own at least 3 times over the holidays.
The day after Christmas, we headed to Hot Springs, Arkansas for the rest of the week. It was another long car ride for Jayla but, she handled it well again. Hot Springs really is a cute little place.
We generally just hung out. But, my mom and I did go get a bath on Wednesday morning. It was an awesome experience. We headed back to MS on Friday and then back to TX on Saturday. That was the limit to Jayla's patience in the car. I think she would have gone crazy had there been another road trip in her future.
We brought in the New Year with a bunch of friends from our Sunday School class. Jayla was a doll at the party.
Around 11:00pm, we shut her in a room by herself and kept listening for her to scream - she never did. After staring around at the strange room for about 45 minutes, she put herself to sleep with no fuss. That was a welcome event as Jayla had some difficulty sleeping while we were in Arkansas last week. I'm pretty sure it was just because she was in a strange place - oh, and had her grandparents spoiling her 24 hours a day. So, everytime she woke up, she screamed for someone to pick her up instead of trying to put herself back to sleep.
Okay, I think that brings us to the present. I have made several goals for this year. But, I don't think I'll post them here yet. This post is already long enough!
Monday, December 19, 2005
Working Mom
Go ahead and label me because I've been doing it for a full week already. I started back to work last Monday. The transition has not been nearly as hard as I imagined it would be. Jayla's ability to basically sleep through the night now has done wonders for making this an easy transition. Plus, her day care is absolutely awesome! I am loving it and she seems to really like it too. Of course, the day care teachers absolutely adore her which leads me to believe that she must be behaving herself nicely throughout the day...which can only mean that they are meeting her needs - who could ask for anything more? On top of all that, I am pumping adequate milk during the day at work and leaving about 45 minutes early to nurse her in the afternoon/evening. It's almost too good to be true.
I noticed a few changes in Jayla during her first week of day care.
1. As I've mentioned before, her sleep habits are great. She had a hard time napping at the day care at the beginning of last week so, she passed out in the evenings. But, I think she's doing a better job of sleeping during the day now even with so much going on around her. At night, she's going down pretty easily between 10 and 11, usually. Then she wakes around 6:00 - 6:15 in the morning. It's not even a biggy if she wakes a little before that. For instance, this morning, she woke up at 5:30, I swaddled her, gave her a pacifier, and we slept together for another hour before I got up to feed her.
2. She's decided that she can sleep just fine without being swaddled, thank you very much! When I dropped her off at the day care last Monday morning, I was worried about her ability to nap without being swaddled and was giving the day care teacher instructions on how she needed to be swaddled. Ummm...maybe not...that night, we decided to try to put her down without swaddling (mainly because she punched out of it as soon as we did it and her daddy was tired of wrestling with her). She slept fine for 4-5 hours and then swaddled to finish out the night. So, we've been putting her down unswaddled for a week and she is doing great. She basically shows major displeasure if we try to swaddle her now (unless it 4:00am - if she happens to wake in the middle of the night, she loves it and drifts immediately back to sleep). We thought we were going to go through some major drama when it came time to stop swadding her. The little girl weaned herself.
3. She basically feels the need to chew and suck on anything in view except for a teether!!! She needs to have something in her mouth...her fist, my finger, the little bumble bees on her carseat straps...anything!! I think this has alot to do with not being swaddled anymore. She seems to want to suck on her hands all the time and she apparently realized that this impossible if she's swaddled. On Thursday night, she finally discovered her thumb. But, just that once - it hasn't made it into her mouth since then. She's sticking to the full fist for now. At the day care on Friday, she spent all day sucking/chewing on a doll's arm. So, Saturday, we went and bought her a lovey. I think we'll give it to her for Christmas and see what she thinks of it.
4. I think Jayla is learning/has learned her name!! She used to not respond to her name EVER. Then on Wednesday night, she responded in three different instances. I guess it's because the day care teachers use it. I usually call her, "mama's baby, pretty girl, girly, etc..." So, a couple of days of hearing her name and she's starting to recognize it, I think.
So, last week was full of developments. I was so worried about how all of this would play out but, it has just been absolutely perfect so far...
Jayla has her 4-month appointment tomorrow. I'm anxious to see how big she has gotten. I guess we'll also be talking about starting to introduce her to solid foods soon. I'm thinking sometime in January as she's approaching 5 months old!!
I noticed a few changes in Jayla during her first week of day care.
1. As I've mentioned before, her sleep habits are great. She had a hard time napping at the day care at the beginning of last week so, she passed out in the evenings. But, I think she's doing a better job of sleeping during the day now even with so much going on around her. At night, she's going down pretty easily between 10 and 11, usually. Then she wakes around 6:00 - 6:15 in the morning. It's not even a biggy if she wakes a little before that. For instance, this morning, she woke up at 5:30, I swaddled her, gave her a pacifier, and we slept together for another hour before I got up to feed her.
2. She's decided that she can sleep just fine without being swaddled, thank you very much! When I dropped her off at the day care last Monday morning, I was worried about her ability to nap without being swaddled and was giving the day care teacher instructions on how she needed to be swaddled. Ummm...maybe not...that night, we decided to try to put her down without swaddling (mainly because she punched out of it as soon as we did it and her daddy was tired of wrestling with her). She slept fine for 4-5 hours and then swaddled to finish out the night. So, we've been putting her down unswaddled for a week and she is doing great. She basically shows major displeasure if we try to swaddle her now (unless it 4:00am - if she happens to wake in the middle of the night, she loves it and drifts immediately back to sleep). We thought we were going to go through some major drama when it came time to stop swadding her. The little girl weaned herself.
3. She basically feels the need to chew and suck on anything in view except for a teether!!! She needs to have something in her mouth...her fist, my finger, the little bumble bees on her carseat straps...anything!! I think this has alot to do with not being swaddled anymore. She seems to want to suck on her hands all the time and she apparently realized that this impossible if she's swaddled. On Thursday night, she finally discovered her thumb. But, just that once - it hasn't made it into her mouth since then. She's sticking to the full fist for now. At the day care on Friday, she spent all day sucking/chewing on a doll's arm. So, Saturday, we went and bought her a lovey. I think we'll give it to her for Christmas and see what she thinks of it.
4. I think Jayla is learning/has learned her name!! She used to not respond to her name EVER. Then on Wednesday night, she responded in three different instances. I guess it's because the day care teachers use it. I usually call her, "mama's baby, pretty girl, girly, etc..." So, a couple of days of hearing her name and she's starting to recognize it, I think.
So, last week was full of developments. I was so worried about how all of this would play out but, it has just been absolutely perfect so far...
Jayla has her 4-month appointment tomorrow. I'm anxious to see how big she has gotten. I guess we'll also be talking about starting to introduce her to solid foods soon. I'm thinking sometime in January as she's approaching 5 months old!!
Friday, December 09, 2005
Perfect Timing
So, last night was a 7.5 hour one. I can deal with that. She went to sleep about 10:30 and promptly woke at 6:00. I fed her and then we played in the bed and watched Daddy get dressed for work. I explained to Jayla that this time on Monday we would need to be getting dressed too. Then, I decided that it was time that we had a weigh-in, which just involved me weighing on my regular scale with and without her (and then exercising my subtraction skills). I weighed 15 pounds MORE with her. So, my husband and I were in awe of her ability to just put on the chub. We played a little bit more on our bed then, I noticed she was getting tired. I decided to change her diaper so she could go back to sleep. But, I first explained to her that I was thinking of buying her size 2 diapers for the day care since it didn't make sense to buy many more size 1's. Then she proved me right...she had the craziest poop EVER!!! Whan I picked her up off my bed, she was perfectly clean. I was thinking I'd just be changing a wet diaper from overnight. By the time we made it to her changing table, there was poop all the way up her chest, on her hands, from my neck to my foot on the left side of my body, and on the carpet between my bed and her changing table. HOW did she do that!!?!?!? Luckily, my husband was still home - he collected all of the nasty clothes (mine and hers) and ran some bath water and we just dunked her. So, ummm...yes, we're going to Target to buy size 2 diapers as soon as she finishes this nap...
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Not Impressed
Jayla only slept for 6 consecutive hours last night - not her best work. We talked about it and she assures me that she is going to jump back into the saddle tonight. In her defense, she woke up after 6 hours of sleep, quickly ate, got re-swaddled, and promptly fell asleep for 3 additional hours...things could be worse...
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