4th Wedding Anniversary

Four years ago today, on the Carnival Fascination with just our immediate family as guests, Dave and I said "I do". In so many ways, the last four years have flown by in the blink of an eye. It also feels like he's been in my life for so much longer though, if that makes any sense! We had a bit of a whirlwind romance, and married relatively quickly by today's standards. There have certainly been some relationship growing pains along the way, but I can honestly say that being married to Dave makes me a better person. He makes me want to be the very best version of myself. Growing up, I didn't have a traditional family life, so I wasn't able to witness what a successful and happy marriage should look like. Dave was really my first (and only!) very serious relationship, so when we began dating I had a lot to learn about what it takes to be in a true partnership. Over the years we have gotten ourselves out of debt, bought a house, went through fertility treatments to conceive, changed jobs, and had our beautiful daughter. Through it all, Dave has been such an amazing husband. He supports me, stands by me, respects me, and loves me. He makes me laugh every single day. Sometimes it's really the little things that say the most about a person, not the grand gestures. He makes fresh coffee for me in the mornings even if he leaves before having any. He lets me have the big tv to watch my trashy reality shows. He tolerates my OCD and keeps the house much cleaner than I know he would if he lived alone! He's an amazing father to our daughter. He works hard to support our family so that I can stay home with Abby, which was always my dream. I wake up every morning feeling so incredibly lucky to have him and Abby in my life! I can only hope that we have many, many more happy years together!

Coming up soon, a different kind of anniversary...

Three Months Old!

How on earth is our sweet girl three months old already!?!  I really can't believe it.  Plus, it's been nearly four months since I left my job...crazy!  Abby is getting so big!  It's no secret that for the first six weeks or so I had a bit of a rough time adjusting to things.  Blame it on hormones or postpartum depression or whatever, but it definitely took me a while to really get the hang of things.  Fast forward to now, though, and I'm loving being a mommy so much!  Abby is SUCH a good baby.  That definitely affects my feelings towards motherhood and being a SAHM.  She is honestly my greatest joy.  She's just the sweetest little girl.  Dave and I have even started talking about when we'll be ready to try for baby #2!  Right after Abby was born, I didn't think I wanted to try for another baby until she was at least two or so...but now, I really think I would be ok with having one much sooner!  I want to nurse Abby for a full year, plus my body needs time to fully recover from the c-section, so we definitely won't be having Irish twins or anything like that.  Getting pregnant again is definitely on the radar though!  

Lately Abby has settled into a pretty predictable pattern, which makes planning our day much easier.  She goes to bed at 7pm and will usually wake up around 5am or so to eat, then go back to bed until about 8am.  Some nights she wakes earlier than 5am, and a few nights ago she woke up at 8:30pm but then went back to bed and slept straight through until 8am!  I'll be thrilled when she starts sleeping a solid 11-12 hours every night, but for now I have absolutely NO complaints.  She also usually takes one hour long morning nap, a three to four hour afternoon nap, and then another 45 minute or so evening nap.  She's such a good little sleeper!  (Ok, edited to add that she's a good sleeper most days - as I'm writing this post she is refusing to nap!)  She's started giving us tons and tons of big smiles, and she babbles and coos quite a bit.  She can bat at toys on her play mat now and can grasp things, although I don't think she really knows yet that her hands are attached to her body!  Abby can also roll from her tummy to her back in both directions.  She loves being read and sung to, and she's started to show a real interest in the tv whenever it's on!  I haven't put any kid shows on yet and probably won't for some time, but it's pretty funny to see her try to turn her body and crane her neck toward the television...even when boring soccer is on!  She doesn't cry much at all these days, except when she is uncomfortable or REALLY tired.  In fact, when she really gets going we know that we need to get her to bed ASAP.  She still loves bath time too.  I ended up getting her a different baby tub the other day because the one that we had just wasn't working very well for her anymore.  Now her body is more submerged and she kicks her feet like crazy.  It's so cute!  She decided that she loved her new tub so much that she pooped in it TWICE the first time we used it!  Yuck.  It was pretty hilarious though!  I think she just wanted three baths that night :)  Here are some recent pictures of our little cutie pie:

Crib Training

The weekend that Abby turned ten weeks old, we decided that it was time to transition her from sleeping in her Rock 'N Play to her crib. She was starting to get a little flat spot on her head (although it wasn't concerning to her pediatrician at her two month check up) and there are a lot of reviews online for the Rock 'N Play about babies getting flat spots after using the sleeper for an extended amount of time. Abby also just didn't seem particularly comfortable sleeping in it any more. We still swaddle her in the miracle blanket, and when I would go in to feed her in the middle of the night, she was often really scrunched up and had somehow managed to wiggle herself really far down into the Rock 'N Play. Prior to transitioning her to her crib, I had tried getting Abby to take a few naps in there. The longest she would sleep in her crib was an hour or so, which made me pretty nervous for the big move! In the RNP, she was giving us a solid 5-6 hour stretch of sleep every night, and I was hoping that moving her to the crib wouldn't change that. We started on a Friday night, so that if she was up a lot more than usual Dave could help me out and not be a total zombie for work the next day. Here is how things went for the first few nights in her crib...

Night One
7:30pm: Bedtime
7:30pm - 9pm: Fussed and cried off and on. Dave and I both don't agree with CIO (cry it out) at such a young age, so we never let her cry more than a minute before going in to soothe her, put her binky back in, rock her, etc.
9pm: Finally asleep
9pm - 3am: 6 hour stretch of sleep, yay!
3am: Up to eat
3:30am - 6:30am: Up fussing/crying every thirty minutes. Ugh.
6:30am - 8am: Sleep

Overall, not a terrible night, but certainly a regression from how well she had been sleeping in the RNP. Saturday we all ended up taking a three hour nap together in our bed since Abby wouldn't nap in her crib for more than 45 minutes (one infant sleep cycle). I seriously considered letting her sleep in her RNP that night, but Dave said we should try the crib again and just be consistent.

Night Two
8pm: Asleep in crib (we usually aim for 7:30pm but she went down a little later that night)
8pm - 4am: 8 hour stretch of sleep!!! Her longest stretch ever.
4am: Up to eat
4:30am - 7:30am: Sleep

Much better! Things were looking up! That Sunday was Easter and she napped in the car on the way to and from Dave's parents house, plus took a two and a half hour nap in her RNP at their house. She was tired!

Night Three
8pm: Asleep in crib (again, we aim for earlier but we were at Dave's parents house and got on the road later than anticipated)
8pm - 5am: 9 hour stretch of sleep! Wahoo!
5am: Up to eat
5:30am - 8am: Sleep

An amazing night! This past week Abby has been sleeping incredibly well. She had one night where she was up a bit earlier in the middle of the night to eat, so then she woke up one more time to eat that same night. Otherwise she has been consistently sleeping between 7-9 hours, waking to eat, and then going back down for 3-5 more hours! I have to say that I LOVED the Rock 'N Play while she was a newborn. I honestly think it helped her to become the great sleeper that she is right now. From three weeks on she pretty much consistently slept 5-6 hours straight unless she was going through a growth spurt. I'm also SO pleased with how easily she transitioned to the crib! She seems to love it now. We barely rock her before putting her down, and we always put her in her crib while she is drowsy but still awake. She falls asleep on her own, which is incredibly important. This entire week she has also been napping really well in her crib. Almost every afternoon she has taken a 3 - 4 hour nap! Amazing! Last night she also had her longest stretch of sleep yet - she went to bed at 7:30pm without a peep and didn't wake up to eat until 5am. Abby really is such a good baby! Plus, with how well rested she has been lately, she's in such a good mood (most of the time!) while she is awake. We took her to lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings yesterday and she was quite content to sit and look around until she finally got tired and fell asleep. She's such a cutie and is chunking up nicely! She got pinkeye this week so we had to take her to the doctor, and we found out that she is 10lbs 11oz, so she is still gaining weight really well! Here are some more recent pictures of Lil Miss :)

Recent Happenings

It's still hard to believe that Abby is almost ten weeks old!  Things have been going really well lately and I feel like I've finally really adjusted (and so have my crazy hormones!) to being a stay at home mom with a baby.  Abby still doesn't have a set routine during the day, but she is definitely more predictable lately.  Knowing what to expect has made things MUCH easier for both of us.  Of course, now that I feel like I've got her figured out, I'm sure something is bound to change!  That's just part of being a parent though :)

Since Abby was born, I've loved baby wearing.  I have a Baby K'tan wrap carrier and also an Infantino carrier.  I still adore the K'tan for close snuggles, but it's not a great wrap for walking distances or wearing long periods of time.  The Infantino carrier is this one:

It's not terrible, but my back really starts bothering me (especially because I am still experiencing pain at my epidural sight) after a bit and Abby honestly never seemed all that comfortable in it.  The buckles are located in a weird spot and touch her face a lot if she moves her head back and forth.  Anyway, after doing a ton of research and spending a lot of time on eBay, I finally decided to splurge on this beauty:

It's a Boba 3g.  First of all, how cute, right?  I love the kangaroo pattern.  But even more importantly, it is SO comfortable.  Abby loves it.  I've only had it a few days and we've used it every day, once to walk around Meijer, plus a few outside and inside walks.  

She's so cozy in it and usually ends up falling asleep after looking around for a while.  One of the great things about this carrier is that it fits children from 7-45 pounds without an infant insert.  The bottom of the carrier snaps up into itself to shorten the torso for babies under 15 pounds.  Abby fits perfectly.  Then once she's older, the seat deepens and widens to provide an ergonomically correct sitting position for her.  I am so excited to use this for years to come with her and any other children we end up having.  I'm excited to back carry too once she gets big enough, but that won't be for quite some time yet!

Abby had a few rough days last week where she wasn't napping or sleeping at night as well as she usually does.  Thankfully (knock on wood!!), that seems to have passed and she is back to taking a few naps during the day, with one longer one in the early afternoon, plus sleeping well at night.  She goes to bed at 7:30pm and usually gets up to eat sometime between 2-3am.  Then she goes back down until around 6:30-7am.  Sometimes after that early morning feeding I can get her to go back down for another hour, but sometimes she's up!  I don't mind having an early riser since we're all up early in this house anyway.  Dave is usually up around 5am!  One night very recently Abby actually slept 8 straight hours!!  I'm hoping that her good sleeping habits continue and that eventually by 4-5 months we can try cutting out the middle of the night feeding.  We shall see how things go!  We're also going to try to transition her from the rock 'n play to her crib this weekend.  She naps in there occasionally, but has never slept in her crib longer than an hour.  Part of me is scared to crib train her and lose the 7-8 hour stretch, but maybe it will go smoothly and she'll sleep in her crib at night just as well as she does in the rock 'n play.  I'll be back with an update next week!  Until then , here are a few more recent pictures:

Two Months Old!

Abby is two months old! How is that possible?! She's changing every day and showing so much more of her personality lately. She is such a little snuggler and loves to cuddle up on the couch with her binky. I can definitely see her getting attached to a blanky or lovey when she's a bit older because she loves to hang on to either my shirt or her own whenever she gets the chance. We still haven't gotten a real laugh from her yet, but she smiles all the time and is cooing so much these days. The other day I was singing nursery rhymes to her and it really seemed like she was trying to sing along! She especially loves it when I sing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", "Mary Had a Little Lamb", and the alphabet song. Abby is still a great sleeper and lately she goes to bed around 7:30pm and wakes up at about 2:30am and 6am to eat. She gets up for the day between 7:30am and 8am most days. Naps are still all over the place right now, but we're trying to get her on a more consistent schedule. I have a feeling that will happen once she gets closer to three months, and for now I'm quite happy with how well she sleeps at night! So far she has taken one short nap in her crib, but otherwise sleeps in her rock n' play. We'll probably work on more crib napping but let her sleep in her rock n' play for at least another month or so. I'm not ready to give up the seven hour stretch yet! :)

At two months old, Abby weighs 9lbs 15oz and is 21.25 inches long. She's officially outgrown all of her newborn clothes and is wearing all 0-3 month stuff at this point, although some of it is still a bit big. We're even going to move her up to size 2 diapers as soon as we use up the last of the size 1's in the house! Thanks to amazing friends and family (mostly the Schroeders and Grandma and Grandpa Main) we haven't bought a single diaper yet and probably won't have to for at least a few more weeks yet! It's been wonderful!

This month Abby likes nursing as often as she can, taking baths, her vibrating bouncy chair that we got from the Roemkes, "talking" to the animals on her swing mobile and her play mat, her crib soother, her binky, and snuggling as much as she can. She's still not a fan of tummy time, poopy diaper changes, shirts that go over her head, and spending time in her car seat. She really is such a good baby, and although she has her fussy times in the evenings before bed, she's having a lot more happy time lately which has been so fun! Here are some recent pictures of our little snuggle bug!

A Typical Day - 7 Weeks

I saw this on another blog I follow regularly (Daily Garnish) and thought it might be fun to do my own "day in the life of" post. I'd like to try to do these every few weeks or so since I think it will be neat to look back and see how much life changes based on Abby's age. Obviously our day varies based on whatever we have planned, but here's a snapshot of a pretty typical day with a 7 week old.

5:30am - Abby wakes up for her early morning feeding. We nurse, do a diaper change, and then I reswaddle and rock her for a bit before putting her back down to sleep for *hopefully* another hour and a half or so. I go lay in bed for a few minutes and check email and Facebook while I wait for Dave to finish up in the shower. We only have one full bathroom and even though showering really could wait, if I don't take one early in the morning before Abby gets up then who knows when my next chance will be! Once he's out, I take the monitor with me and hop in the shower, then it's time to make coffee, have some breakfast, and catch a little news. I unload the dishwasher now too if it needs to be done.

7:30am - Abigail is up for the day! I nurse her and then give her some play time in her crib for a little bit while I pick out an outfit for her. If she's happy in her crib, I'll get laundry together at this point and run down to the basement to get a load started. Then it's back upstairs to change her and get her dressed for the day. We spend a little time snuggling on the couch early in the mornings.

8:30am - Nurse Abby again. She eats frequently in the morning to compensate for sleeping during the night.

9am - Abby is getting fussy and ready to take a little cat nap. Usually this happens either in my arms on the couch, in her swing (although lately she hasn't really liked that!) or in the boppy pillow on a fluffy blanket (supervised, of course). If I can get her to nap out of my arms, I take this time to run upstairs and do my hair, put a little makeup on, and get dressed. If we're not in a hurry to go out anywhere, then once she wakes up (usually after 30-45 minutes), I will drag her bouncy seat up to the bathroom and she watches me get ready. Abby nurses again after waking up.

10am - Sometimes we go out to run an errand at this time. Today we ran to the mall so I could look for jeans (mission: FAIL). Other times we just play at home. I read books to Abby, sing her songs, she lays on her play mat and "talks" to her friends Mr. Owl and Mr. Lamb, does tummy time, etc. If she's fussy, this is also the time when I wear her in one of the carriers I have. Today while we were out and about, she took a little nap in the stroller. At home, she'll nap either in the carrier, or sometimes, depending on her level of crankiness, I'll put her down up in her nursery for about an hour nap after play time.

11:00am - Nurse again. I *try* to follow an eat-play-sleep schedule. Note that I said try! Abby eats pretty much every 1.5-2 hours throughout the day, with the exception of a longer afternoon nap. Hopefully as she gets older she will be able to go a bit longer! Today, this meant that I nursed her in a dressing room at JC Penny!

12:30pm - Abby is showing signs of extreme tiredness and is ready for a solid nap. We nurse, and then she gets swaddled and goes down for her afternoon nap. If she took a morning nap up in her nursery, then her afternoon nap would be pushed back to later in the day. Since she only snoozed here and there at the mall this morning, she was fading fast and in desperate need of a solid nap!

1pm - Abby goes down for a nap. I spend this time doing more laundry, prepping dinner for tonight and also for tomorrow's crockpot meal, and sweeping the floors. Then I'm able to sit with my iPad and catch up on my favorite blogs, write this post(!), have another cup of coffee, etc. My goal is to eventually be able to workout during this time, but right now we don't really have a set schedule and Abby isn't a consistent napper yet. Once she is I know I should be able to get a workout in along with the other things I want to get done around the house!

Sometime between 2-4pm - Some days Abby takes a great nap, and other days it's much shorter. It really depends on what the morning looked like. There are also days where she won't go down for her afternoon nap until 3 or 4 instead...I'm trying to work on getting a schedule down but it's so hard! Someday though! After Abby gets up, I nurse and change her, and then we have more play time or snuggle time. We're working on getting Abby to take a bottle, so I may give her a bottle instead of nurse her when she wakes up, and then I pump once Dave gets home from work. Often he gives her the bottle while I'm pumping too, it just depends.

4:30pm - Dave's home! Yay! He either feeds Abby her bottle if it's time or plays with her while I grab the last of the laundry and/or get dinner started. We eat pretty early around here!

5:30pm - Dinner is ready and Abby is ready for another little catnap. Hopefully we can get her down in her swing for about 45 minutes so we can eat dinner. We usually watch a show while eating too. Someday, once Abby is older and eating with us, we'll cut out the "tv during dinner" habit, but for now it's a good way for both of us to decompress a little!

5:30pm - 7:30pm - Abby can get really fussy during this time. After we've eaten dinner we both take turns holding her and keeping her happy, and I let her nurse as often as she wants during this time. She'll usually eat two or three times during the two hours before she goes to bed. I believe the cluster feeding is what helps her sleep for longer stretches at night.

7:30pm - Bath time! Dave takes Abby to get undressed while I run a bath for her. She loves bath time and is so peaceful and happy laying in the warm water. Bath time is only about ten minutes (sometimes less), but it's a great way for her to end the day! After her bath, Abby gets a new diaper and a quick lotion massage, then it's into jammies. She nurses and then gets swaddled and goes to sleep in her rock n' play with white noise in the background. She usually goes down very easily and only needs soothed once or maybe twice if her binky falls out! We always put Abby in her bed while she's still awake to try to encourage good sleeping habits. So far it's worked very well!

8pm - 10pm - Adult time! Dave and I will either watch some more shows together, or go off and do our own thing. Last night I worked out while he took baby monitor duty and spent some time on his computer. It's really nice to have a few hours to ourselves at the end of the day.

10pm - Dave and I head to bed.

2am - Sometime usually between 2am and 3am Abby wakes up for her first nighttime feeding. She's very quick about things and after nursing and changing her she is usually back in bed asleep within a half hour. I try to get back to sleep as quickly as possible too but some nights it takes me a while!

5:30am - Abby wakes up again and we start the whole process over again!


So, that's what a day looks like, more or less! Right now at 7 weeks old Abby can't really stay awake longer than an hour to two at a time, so she takes a lot of naps here and there during the day. My plan is to get her napping in her crib soon so that she can get used to it...wish me luck! It will be interesting to see how a typical day changes from month to month as Abby is able to stay awake for longer periods and her sleep patterns become more consistent. Right now I'm just learning to try to go with the flow! I think the most important thing that I'm still learning is to watch for tired cues and encourage her to sleep before she gets overtired. When she is overtired she is super fussy and hard to calm down. When she's well rested she's a very happy baby! She's smiling at us more and more and I'm hoping that first little laugh is just around the corner!

Lately

Abby is a little over 7 weeks now, and things have been going pretty well lately!! In fact, she's even going to spend her first night away from home and sleep over at Granny and Grandad's house this weekend so that Dave and I can have a night of baby-free fun together. Hopefully I can get a little extra sleep too, even though I will have to get up to pump a few times! I'm nervous to leave Abby but also excited for a night out! She hasn't been great about taking a bottle lately, but I have to think that if she's hungry enough she will take it, plus my mom fed her a bottle a few weeks ago and she drank it really quickly without a tear!

Abby is growing so much lately! I already can't believe how different she looks from when she was brand new. I weighed her on our regular scale last night and she weighs 9 pounds 6 ounces. Next week she has her two month check up...I wonder if she'll be ten pounds by then! These days Abby is much less fussy and is having more alert awake time. She likes laying in her crib and looking at her soother, spending time on her play mat talking to her "friends", being held and walking around the house looking at pictures on the walls, and making faces and "talking" to people. She's so cute when she coos! I can't get enough of her happy little sounds. She has also just recently started making this "wah" sound that comes before she actually cries. Her whole mouth turns down into a big pout and she says, "Wah!" It's like she's warning me that unless I make her happy she'll start to cry. It's downright adorable and whenever she does it I just want to mimic her! Plus I love that she's communicating more these days and crying less! I need to take some video of her to post here soon.

Abby's Aunt Melissa flew in last weekend from Denver for a quick visit. It was so wonderful to see her! I was terrible about taking pictures - bad mommy!! Thankfully my in-laws took some! Here are a few pictures from Melissa's visit and also some recent pictures of miss Abigail: