The Happiest Time of the Year...?

A tree in the living room covered with sparkling lights, mommy and daddy singing happy songs, there's a certain something in the air... it's the baby. Screaming at the top of her lungs. The poor girl is teething. On the advice of the pediatrician, we gave in and gave her a little bit of Baby Orajel. Many giving advice recommend against it because if it numbs their mouth too much, it can stiffle the gag reflex and they can choke. But, the doctor said so, so we tried it. I think we had a little success with it. But, we didn't want to send her to bed with it, for fear of the gag problem, so we let it wear off before we sent her to bed. But, we mixed in a little Baby Tylenol with her rice cereal, so hopefully that will take the edge off. She did not sleep well (so, natch, neither did we) last night and was fussy much of the day. At the moment, she is sleeping peacefully in her crib. On her side, of course -- her new favorite position for sleeping. Guess she gets that from her dad.

My Christmas present came early this year.

Laughing Girl

Letting Sleeping Babies Lie

I'm home with the baby today. Her daycare is closed all week and part of the agreement to get time off when I have none to take (including one last week) was that I'd get at least eight hours in between the two days at home today and that I'd work the day after Thanksgiving. Imagine my dismay when they said that on that day we'd start at 6 am. The only consolation I have is that there are two others who will also be there that day at 6 am. Anyhow, this about the baby. I have a whole separate blog where I can whine about stuff like that if I choose.

Fortunately, Lori's obsession with organization and detail has left me with a chart of every diaper change, every amount of food she's eaten, many of the naps she's taken since the day she was born. It has been helpful today to look back and see how much she should be eating and things like that. The daycare has taught me to check the diaper every hour, unless she's asleep, and that it is possible to get her to nap.

We visited J last night to take her and Y and little M some dinner. J is on bed rest after a fall that resulted in early contractions on baby #2. She was telling us how little M would wake up in the middle of the night just like Rachel is now doing. She agreed that much of it probably was teething, but also related how M would go to sleep with a pacifier, but then spit it out while sleeping. Then as the night wore on, she would stir, realize the pacifier was gone and wake up completely upset. They started putting her to bed without a pacifier. For a month, she cried a lot when going to bed, but wasn't waking up in the middle of the night. Eventually the crying stopped at bedtime.

This morning I thought she ought to have a nap so I could get some work done. I put her in her crib without a pacifier, but with the aquarium and mommy bear both on. She probably cried for less than 15 minutes and then.. silence. Just a few minutes ago I was feeding her and instant messaging on the laptop with Lori. I would alternate between holding the bottle and letting Rachel hold it all on her own. In one of the periods where I was holding it, I looked down to see little Rachel fast asleep. She hasn't really stirred since then.

By the time she fell asleep, I had watched nearly everything on the TiVo and had turned it back to a music station, but I do worry... are we making it impossible for Rachel to sleep without background noise? They say not to tiptoe around babies (like my parents did) because then any little noise will wake them up. But can the opposite be true, can a baby be trained not to be able to sleep when it's too quiet (like Lori)?

As I typed that last paragraph, I turned down the music. As I type this paragraph, the little baby is looking up at me, blinking, smiling and looking pretty tired. Maybe I need to transition her to her cradle for a little longer nap, though I fear that will result in more heart-breaking crying...

Heaven

You don't need no friends
get back your faith again
you have the power to believe
another dissident
take back your evidence
it has no power to deceive

I'll believe it when I see it, for myself

I don't need no one to tell me about heaven
I look at my daughter, and I believe.
I don't need no proof when it comes to God and truth
I can see the sunset and I perceive

I sit with them all night
everything they say is right
but in the morning they were wrong
I'll be right by your side
come hell or water high
down any road you choose to roam

I'll believe it when I see it for myself

I don't need no one to tell me about heaven
I look at my daughter, and I believe.
I don't need no proof when it comes to God and truth
I can see the sunset and I perceive, yeah

darling, I believe, Oh Lord
sometimes it's hard to breathe, Lord
at the bottom of the sea, yeah yeah

I'll believe it when I see it for myself

I don't need no one to tell me about heaven
I look at my daughter, and I believe.
I don't need no proof when it comes to God and truth
I can see the sunset and I perceive

I don't need no one to tell me about heaven
I look at my daughter, and I believe.
I don't need no proof when it comes to God and truth
I can see the sunset
I can see the sunset
I can see the sunset
I don't need no one
Ohhhh
I don't need no one
I don't need no one
I don't need no one
To tell me about heaven
I believe

-- Birds of Prey

I'm surprised I never posted these lyrics. I actually paid my 99 cents to buy the WMA file right after we got back from the hospital. Then I found I couldn't use it Microsoft's Photo Story or Movie Maker. *sigh*

Is it 4:45 am already?

The baby's been pretty consistent recently with waking up at 4:45 am. It's brutal when the alarm is set for 5 am. So I end up re-setting it for 5:15 or 5:20 hoping to go back to sleep. Sadly, that doesn't always happen. She's been getting hungry. She's also rolling over much more now and we'd often find her with her face up against the side padding. So, we've removed that. So, now she's mastering the art of spitting her pacifier out so that it bounces across the mattress and falls on the floor. And then she cries and we have to get up and wash it off. I told Lori we need to put a row of them across the dresser near her bed. We've been trying to be more consistent with getting her to bed earlier, but last night we had small group and we always get started late and one of the questions in the book was about how we could make the group better and someone said they always feel rushed. So, sometimes it's not quite possible to get her to bed as early as we'd like.

Let Them Be Little

I can remember when you fit in the palm of my hand
Felt so good in it, no bigger than a minute
How it amazes me, you're changing with every blink
Faster than a flower blooms they grow up all too soon

So let them be little 'cause they're only that way for a while
Give them hope, give them praise, give them love every day
Let them cry, let them giggle, let them sleep in the middle
Oh just let them be little

I've never felt so much in one little tender touch
I live for those kisses, prayers and your wishes
Now that you're teaching me things only a child can see
Every night while we're on our knees all I ask is please

Let them be little 'cause they're only that way for a while
Give them hope, give them praise, give them love every day
Let them cry, let them giggle, let them sleep in the middle
Oh just let them be little

So innocent, a precious soul, you turn around
It's time to let them go

So let them be little 'cause they're only that way for a while
Give them hope, give them praise, give them love every day
Let them cry, let them giggle, let them sleep in the middle
Oh just let them be little

Let them be little

Singer: Dean, Billy (singer)
Writers: Dean, Billy and McDonald, Ritchie
Copyright: Haneli Publishing / Sony/ATV Tree Publishing

To Sleep, Perchance To Dream

"People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one." ~Leo J. Burke

And I would say "Amen to that!" We had people over at our house last night and as a result, Rachel went to bed a little later than what we're trying for now. She then decided it would be great idea to wake up, oh, half a dozen times throughout the night. We kept soothing her back to sleep, but she woke up at around 3:45 and would have none of that. I fed her (which took half an hour) and tried to put her back in her cradle after she'd fallen asleep at the end of the feeding. Perhaps I should have just left her in bed with us, but I figured she'd get better sleep if I put her back in the cradle and she didn't wake up when we got up.

I needn't have worried about that, because she didn't end up falling back asleep until about 5:30, after a changing and several tries on our part to get her to fall asleep again. James finally put her in the crib in the nursery. She quieted down for a few minutes, then roused and did some more hollering. After laying there in frustration and nearly in tears thinking "Why won't she let me sleep?!", I finally got up shortly after 5:00 and just started to get ready for the day. It's so much easier to face the fussiness if you're not laying there trying to get some sleep.

You'd think I would be used to the sleep deprivation by now. You would be wrong.

That Can't Be Good

When comparing notes with other new parents, it would seem that we must be bad parents. Because our child watches TV and looks at the computer. Well, the only TV we specifically let her watch are the Baby Einstein videos and Bear in the Big Blue House. She especially loves when bear presses his nose right up into the screen and sniffs as if he's sniffing the baby. She giggles when he does that.

Well, anyhow, before the show, they have little things talking about exploring and thinking and stuff like that. But one of the interludes shows a child on his hands and knees dressed up like Sherlock Holmes, with a magnifying glass. And he's examining a trail of ants.

A boy with a magnifying glass looking at ants.

Ummm... let me say that again. A boy with a magnifying glass looking at ants. Was no one at Disney actually thinking when they put that together?

Sweetest Face Ever

It's amazing to me how quickly Rachel changes and learns new things. On the one hand, it's somewhat a gradual process. On the other hand, it seems like last week when she was a tiny baby who didn't do much but eat, sleep and dirty her diaper, and now she's playing the keyboard and "chatting" with us regularly.

It's also amazing to me how seeing my daughter can lift my spirits in a way nothing else can. There's just something about seeing this little person who's a part of you, grinning at you with their innocent, sweet little face looking at you. Yesterday at work was just a sucky day. I tried to get out of my crappy mindset before picking up James. Didn't happen. So I was crabby the whole way to pick up Rachel at school. But we walked into her classroom, and she looked at us and started to smile, and my crabbiness just disappeared.

Rachel did something new yesterday, too. It was a subtle thing, but pretty neat nonetheless. Usually when I pick her up and hold her against me, chest to chest, she kind of looks around and sees what's going on. When I picked her up last night at school, I looked down at her and she was looking right back at me. She did that several times last night, and it's like she has a new awareness of interacting when she's that close. She's becoming more and more aware of what's happening all around her. It's awesome to watch.