Baby on Parade!

VALEMTIMES

I guess I haven't written since the day of luurve. Every valentine's day, we order a pizza and watch a dumb romantic comedy since the Tatou Incident of 2009. That year, Adam convinced me to watch an Audrey Tatou (Amelie) movie called "I love you, I love you not" which I THOUGHT WAS GOING TO BE A CUTE ROMANTIC COMEDY BUT WAS ACTUALLY  A VERY DISTURBING THRILLER.  For his punishment, he had to watch Spice World, which I thought would be good revenge, except that it turned out to be actually a funny, campy movie with complete self-awareness of its ludicrousness. sooooo the punishment turned into an eternal one. I get to pick a romantic comedy, dumb-as-all-get-out, to watch every Valentine's day.

Somehow, this time, we ended up watching tv instead (oh wait, now I remember, Adam got up and left to go work on his computer halfway through the movie). Lame. At least there was pizza.

SWADDLE-ME-NOT...?

We said goodbye to the swaddle as I said in my last post... and tried to "wean" Baby Girl from it. The Gods of Google suggested to leave one arm out at at time or only swaddle her trunk for a while to wean her. That didn't work. From my point of view, I could tell from her writhing around that this would not be easy. From her point of view, she was probably like, "how can I sleep when I'm not encased in velcro?". 

I tried cold turkey as well...for about 8 minutes. I am just not a "Cold Turkey" type of person. I KNOW that there is a better way than just suddenly quitting  (especially with Baby Girl since she is so intense and stubborn), and I like finding out what that way is. Its the "green" personality type in me (I'm half blue half green- inquisitive and creative but avoiding as much confrontation and upheaval as possible at the same time!). 

Some people sell these "transitional" swaddles online that give the baby a sense of security but also greater range of movement- basically a scam, people. They want you to pay 50 bucks for a sleep suit that you will use for a few weeks or months of your child's life.  But they did give me an idea. I just took Baby Girl's wearable blanket and tied off the arms so her hands would be contained. To my surprise, it actually worked. She was a little unsettled, but rather quickly got over it. 

Just in time, too, because she has started rolling onto her tummy in her sleep. 

We still swaddle her once and a while if she hasn't had a good nap, and the infrequency of it seems to make her forget how much she hated being swaddled and sleep really well. 

In other baby news....

Baby Girl can now scoot herself around (sideways and backwards but not forwards) on the ground. 

She also eats solids.. but not very much because I don't want to accidentally wean her.  She started refusing to nurse in the day last week because I fed her too much, yet she woke up wanting full feeds all night. The Gods of Google told me that before 6 months, solids replace calories in a bad way instead of just adding to the diet. I'm sure that's not true for every baby but it seemed true for Baby Girl. 

We are still battling the nap monster but it seems to be getting better. and then gets worse. but then it gets better again.

She only wakes up 3 times a night to eat instead of 4 or 5 times (hallelujah). I could write a whole other page about her nighttime habits and what we've tried and not tried in order to change them. I think i'll just spare you...

Babies make us fools of us young parents. Yes they do.

MY NEXT CHILD WILL NOT BE THIS DIFFICULT

This is what I tell myself...

BABY ON PARADE

for Adam's spring break, we went to Tucson for a few days. We visited a lot of people and had a BLAST. If you are reading this and are sad because we didn't visit YOU then just know that we are sorry. We couldn't see everyone we wanted to see and still have a manageable child. 

Highlights from our trip include:

Seeing CJ and his family, hot dogs from El Guero, an awesome afternoon/night with my girlie pals and Baby Girl's future boyfriends, a day of french cuisine that started at Ghini's and ended with Ratatouille, seeing my cousin and her kids, finding a dead gecko in our juice, and visiting my awesome friends at the schools I worked at last year.  

IN CASE YOU CARE
I still have sciatica but its more annoying now than painful. Thank. Goodness.