Monday, March 22, 2010

Rice cereal, how I love you.

I finally tried rice cereal. She HATES it. Hates hates hates it. But I love love love it. While eating she cries and cries and cries. The first night, I did it at 7 PM, and I couldn't get her to take a bottle (surprise, surprise), so it was kind of a failure. Starting Friday night, I did it around 4 - 5 PM, and she would then sleep for a little bit while we got Cam ready for bed and had our own dinner. Then we'd do her bath and give her a bottle, she'd sleep for 4 -5 hours - get another bottle, and then sleep for SEVEN HOURS.

That's right. I said 7 hours.

I feel bad that she cries when I give it to her, but she isn't turning away - it's like she hates having it in her mouth. Each time gets a little better, so I soldier on. 5 minutes of crying is worth it to me if I get 7 hours of sleep.

Have I mentioned that she slept 7 hours in a row?

In other news, I took her to the childcare at the local gym, and she did awesome. I've been working out almost every day this past week and I feel awesome. I'm so excited to be getting my body back (not the SHAPE but at least the control over what I do with it).

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Maggie slept in her crib.

A day I didn't think would come EVER. But desperate times call for desperate measures. Maggie sleeps at most about 3 hours in a row. And wakes up SCREAMING. I've been waiting until she was 4 months to start and try to let her cry it out a bit - but I went to the doc for Hulk's 15 month checkup (who is doing awesome, of course!) and we talked a bit about Maggie and her lack of sleep. She was surprised that she wasn't sleeping 6 hours in a row yet, so suggested we try some rice cereal.

And then I went to mom's group, and we were talking about the rice cereal suggestion... and someone asked where she was sleeping. Which is still in the co-sleeper. Every once in a while I'll push Aaron to move her, and he isn't very receptive to it - so I hadn't pushed it. But if we are going to let her cry it out when she hits 4 months, she needs to do that in her crib (I'm assuming that crying it out in a co-sleeper isn't going to work, lol). We obviously need to have her be in her crib and get used to it before that. Because I'm thinking that throwing her in the crib and leaving her to cry all in the same day isn't a good plan.

Last night Aaron went to soccer, and I got her ready for bed. I just decided on the spot to throw her in the crib. Well, it went AWESOME. She slept from 8:30 - 1:15, had a full bottle at 1:15, was sound asleep by 2, and slept again until 5 AM. I slept great, and Aaron admitted to getting up and checking on her 4 times. We'll get there - but I'm thinking that being in a room with 2 other people and 2 dogs was contributing to her bad sleep. Praying that tonight goes as well!

I didn't do the rice cereal, as I didn't have time to go to the store last night... I'm thinking of waiting a few days on that one until she is more used to the crib.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Phew.

End of the week. Not like it's been a super crazy week, but it's the first week that I haven't had any help in the mornings, and we managed pretty well. Maggie is much more reasonable in the mornings now (no totally inconsolable crying) and Hulk likes to do his thing (which involves going down the stairs all by himself... which is super cute). We went to the baby friendly movie and saw Alice in Wonderland with a friend, went to mom's group, visited my co-workers at my office with Maggie, did some shopping, got my oil changed and even assembled our meals at Dream Dinners. Getting back into the swing of things.

Just like I mentioned that Maggie seems to have grown up so much in the past few weeks - so has Hulk. He now says YES! to everything (which is a hell of a lot better than no). He also says please (pez! while hitting his stomach - his version of the sign for please), dog!, and the old favorites WOW and Uh oh....

Now that the weather is getting nicer, we are spending a lot of time outside. The time is approaching to plant Nora's tree and put her ashes under it. That is going to involve some heavy equipment - so we are also planning on where to put the kids new playset - which is an awesome hand-me-down from a friend. I'm noticing that we are kind of obsessing on the playset, and realized that we are focusing on that and not the fact that the reason we are getting landscapers in the first place is to put in Nora's tree. I guess whatever it takes to get us through, right?

Life is slowly getting back to normal - and I've noticed that now that Nora isn't on my mind 24X7, when I do get pulled back to think of her, it hits me even harder. Which sucks. I thought being further away from the event would cushion things, but it doesn't. I had yet another fight with my insurance company this week (actually TWO - on TWO different issues, fuckers), and it all circles me back to the original issue when Nora first died and they couldn't figured out how to deal with two children born on the same day, one alive and one not. Remember all of Maggie's claims were getting rejected because they thought her insurance was canceled? AUGH. So although I was justified to be angry in the first place (somehow my claim got lost in the mail. Seriously, what are the odds that MY claim gets lost by the USPS. Have you ever gotten mail LOST!?! And the fact that it's MY mail with this god damn insurance company!?!?!? I was LIVID) the history cycles me right back to my loss. It sucks. The rational part of me knows that will happen, but living it sucks.

But - thinking forward to a fun weekend. Tomorrow I've got a day with Hulk's godmother - we are going to take him to the Discovery Museum and then to a play date with neighbors, and then just hang out. There is a chance that Aaron and I may take advantage of her good nature and go out for a little date night too. We will see.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Maggie talking....

Maggie's cuteness is starting to reach epic proportions:

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Home alone

So - Aaron and I decided that Maggie should go to daycare once a week this month, so I can have some downtime. I dropped her off at 8 AM this morning. I'm at a loss for what to do.

That isn't 100% true - I went out for breakfast, went to the doctor and did some grocery shopping.... but it's so weird to be home alone! A little part of me wants to run over and pick her up right now, but the rational part of me says GO TAKE A NAP.

Instead I'm blogging. Sigh.

This past week has been a major turning point for Maggie - she is a smiling, engaging, happy little girl. People had told be that the 3 month mark would bring a real change - but I didn't really believe them... well - they were right. It's like a switch turned on! And poor Hulk had a double ear infection this weekend, so now that Maggie isn't crying all the time - he took over the role for a little bit (although he is thankfully better now).

Ok - off to do laundry.