4 Months

4 Months old and our little squish is such a mover. She wants to crawl so badly, she can occasionally get her knees under her but can't actually coordinate them to move. She can really go on her belly though, it's not unusual for us to put her down at one end of her play space and find her on the other a minute later. While we don't see any teeth popping out yet, she's chewing on anything and everything that she can get in her mouth. Her hands, our hands, her toys, her clothes, my boob, my braided pigtails, anything she can gnaw on with those super strong gums. She can allllmost sit up on her own, you can watch her mind trying to work out gravity and the act of balance.

She really found her feet at 15 weeks and since then she hasn't wanted to let them go. She's been trying to get them for awhile but I think she had to wait for her legs to get long enough to reach around her fluffy cloth butt. She has such long legs for a little one, while she can wear a 3-6 month in pants and shirts, we've had to switch out all her jammies with feet for 6-9 months. To our absolute delight, she's started to laugh over the past month, this deep, belly giggle that just melts my heart right into a puddle.

She loves kisses from her mama, watching her kitties, grabbing her daddy's nose.

She raises her eyebrow and smiles with her mouth wide open when she roots in her sleep.

She's curious, tenacious, stubborn, full of joy and wonder.

Towards the end of three months, she started to hit the 4 month sleep regression, which seems improperly named to me since it's a permanent change in how her brain processes sleep. Prior to this, most babies experience only deep sleep, which is one of the reasons they can sleep anywhere. Around 4 months their brains begin to change and they start to experience a more adult sleep pattern - light sleep, deep sleep, light sleep - the natural sleep cycle. This leads to a whole lot of wake ups and some serious cranky babies and parents, but she doesn't seem to be too bad. There were maybe three days where she was waking up at night crying, she really values her sleep and has no more desire to be awake at 3am than we do, but she's been doing fairly well since. We really love co-sleeping with her, it's a true sanity saver for our family and I don't know how we'd get such good sleep without it. Feeling her breathe is the only way I know how to sleep now.

3 Months!

My sweet girl is 3 months old! She's officially out of her newborn diapers *sniff* and is getting so big. She mastered, as in not just a one off, rolling front to back at 9 weeks and rolling back to front at 12 weeks. She can scoot all over her playmat on her tummy and loves the new jumperoo we just bought her. She instinctively knew how to spin the toys and she talks to herself while she plays with them, processing her world. She's such a happy baby. 

As of right now, her likes include being outside, bath time, her fingers, books, boobie, and melting her parent's hearts. Her dislikes include naps, being put down, having to wear clothes and artificial boobies. She looks at me like I'm absolutely crazy when we offer her a bottle or pacifier. Surely, bottles can't actually be for eating, no, they must be for chewing or grabbing or throwing on the floor, but definitely not for eating.

Happy 1 Month to My Sweet Love

Somehow, incredibly, baby A is already a month old. I have no idea how this happened, I still can't believe we were pregnant in the first place, and she's already getting so big. This little girl is the center of our world and we are so in love. After hearing everyone talk I expected motherhood to be more challenging, breast feeding trouble, baby blues, colic and crying, but instead it feels like we are two pieces of the same whole. I'm so happy it seems ridiculous. When she wakes up at night to eat and looks at me with those deep eyes I'm so happy to see her that I don't feel tired. She's a champion nurser, breast feeding is coming so naturally to us, and when the sleepiness hits in the afternoon, we curl up together on the couch and nap where I can feel her breathe and smell the top of her sweet head. She's been in cloth diapers for about two weeks now and those are working out brilliantly, no blow outs and E has been taking care of the laundry which is super simple. Life is good. 

 

At one month old, Baby A...

Likes:
- Left Boobie
- "Other" Boobie
- Sleeping on Boobie
- Being in Mama's arms
- Pulling mama's hair
- Sleeping in
- Napping with mama
- Being swaddled
- Bouncing on the yoga ball with daddy

Dislikes: 
- Gas. This is the devil.
- Being put down
- Mama going pee
- Mama eating with both hands 
- The car seat
- Being out of mama's arms

Basically, this baby is always happy in my arms and since I'm happy with her in my arms and never want to put her down, we'll just go on cuddling and snuggling for the rest of forever.

D-Day Come and Gone

As of last Thursday, our little bean is officially overdue. I always assumed she'd be late so no one is surprised,  especially since I've had no real signs that labor is imminent. No real contractions, no plug lost, no dropping. Our NST this morning showed only 1 painless contraction and a very happy, comfortable baby. The closest I can get to pre-labor symptom spotting is an increase in Braxton Hicks and my breasts starting up the leaking routine again. Thankfully, her delay is giving us much needed time to work on the house. I can't believe I'm saying this at almost 41 weeks but we still have more electrical work to do and we haven't done the little extras like hanging towel bars, toilet paper holders or blinds. If you're standing on the street, you can see straight into the baby's nursery, not exactly a good thing when you want to walk around mostly naked. If baby wanted to give us another week, I would not complain.

Nooo more wires :(

The only really surprising thing about baby being overdue is probably how normal I feel. Yes I'm big, but I don't feel miserable, it doesn't generally hurt to move around and I feel pretty much the same as I felt in the second trimester, except I can no longer reach my feet. I've been making freezer meals, doing last minute shopping, washing and putting away baby clothes and generally trying to cram a whole pregnancy's worth of nesting and unpacking a house into a couple of days. Thus far I've got authentic Bolognese Sauce for 3lbs of pasta, Turkey Chili for 3 dinners with left overs and 2 lunches, Tuscan Chicken Soup for 3 dinners with generous left overs and Stuffed Shells for two dinners in the freezer. I'm planning on making some Baked Macaroni and Cheese with chicken and broccoli, some fresh green bean and mushroom casserole and maybe some meatloaf to add to the stash if I have time. 

My only real source of discomfort that I would love to see go away asap is not really pregnancy related. Our plumbers predictions of trouble with our laundry drain came true when I tried to run a heavy duty cycle and the poor little drain couldn't keep up. We were right in the middle of washing some really gross laundry so we'd used a more mainstream detergent than my typical chemical free variety. Since it started flooding the garage during the discharge cycle and I had to stop it to move all the electrical supplies and start bailing buckets of water, the clothes didn't get entirely rinsed out. I sent them home with my mother to rewash but one wash wasn't enough and there was clearly some soap left behind. When I tried to wear a long sleeved shirt from that load, I broke out into horrible, itchy allergic hives. While the pregnancy hormones are probably making it worse, it's unfortunately pretty standard for my skin so I can't count on it magically resolving after delivery. While the baby is being wonderful about letting me sleep, the hives wake me up at night when I catch myself raking at the rash on my arms and chest, even after taking Benadryl and dousing myself in Benadryl gel and Caladryl lotion. My belly was already itchy from so much stretching but thankfully seems to have been spared the hives thanks to the full panel on my maternity leggings. 

ugh

The rash aside, since 42 weeks is creeping up, the doctors have predictably started to talk induction. My only priority is to get baby here safe and healthy, but if I could pick, I would love to have a natural birth once baby decides she's ready. Her window of opportunity for that scenario is getting a lot smaller though, I'm 41 weeks this week and if she doesn't decide to make her entrance, we're going to have to evict her. I scheduled a second NST for later this week to keep an eye on her since we're officially overdue and if she continues to look happy and healthy, we'll give her until next week to come on her own. She's definitely head down, fluid levels look good and she's finally become so big that she's unable to turn anymore. Even if she wants to be stubborn, her body knows it's time too. Either way, whether it's on her terms or the doctor's, we're going to have this baby in our arms by the end of next week. 

Pregnancy Feet

First, I am super excited to report that baby girl is head down! As predicted, she waited until she felt like it and turned on her own. She was head up when I got up to pee last Monday and somehow turned in the few hours between that and our NST. I went in apologizing to the tech that she was still breech and baby immediately proved me wrong the second the wand touched my belly. She has a mind of her own already, I just hope she's still feeling the head down position when we go in for tomorrow's NST and check up.

On the downside, E and I have spent the last few days moving boxes and unpacking and I have been overdoing it. I didn't want to track plaster dust all over a few days ago so I took my shoes off and walked around barefoot all day while j set stuff up. This of course resulted in some of the fattiest ankles I've ever seen. At every appointment my midwife has looked at my ankles and now that she's leaving for vacation I finally have the swollen ankles she's been looking for. 

Luckily, it seems to just be feet/ankle swelling. I feel fine otherwise so I'm fairly sure my blood pressure is normal. I've been doing the recommended foot exercises to help move some of the fluid and they have improved a little bit over the last couple days. I'm sure that sitting around doing nothing with my feet up would be the fastest way to improve them, but I have too much stuff that needs to be unpacked for that to be feasible. I also have a weird, circular spot on my belly to ask the new midwife about, I had though it was just another stretch mark to add to my collection but it almost looks like baby girl is busting out of my skin. I'm super curious to see what she has to say about that.

Check out those fatty ankles, I don't recognize my own feet!