Our little growler

Louise is 5 1/2 months.  This month has brought a few new challenges.  At 4 months I could see that she was starting to put herself on a bit of a schedule, whereas before it had always been really scattered and all over, so I decided to take it and run with it.  Bad idea.  As soon as I started putting her down for her naps at a regular time each day she stopped sleeping through the night (I figure it wasn't really putting her on a schedule that threw her off, it just happened to coincide with another development, for instance, she started teething).  After about a week of this I tried stopping putting her down at a regular time, but she still didn't sleep through the night.  We're getting better at it, though.  She goes down for 3 naps around the same time each day, most of them an hour and a half or longer (before she'd only take a couple of little 20 minute naps at random times).  I put her down for the night at 7 and she wakes up around midnight to eat, then USUALLY sleeps until 7 am.  Sometimes she wakes up a few times during the night, but I've been using the Sleep Lady method to get her back to sleep, which USUALLY works well (thanks, Rachel).  I also used to struggle with finding a routine since I don't bathe her at night, but we've got our own now.  I put her in pajamas, maybe do a little infant massage, feed her, read On the Night You Were Born (such a sweet book, thanks Margaret!), sing You Are My Sunshine and rock (Justin gave me a glider for my birthday), then put her in her crib while humming.  We also have a bedtime classical playlist playing during this to relax her.

Louise is making all sorts of developments.  She rolls over all the time now (another thing making bedtime more difficult), reaches and leans toward everything, and is really experimenting with her voice.  Last month she was squealing and screeching up a storm, but this month she's all about the growl.  It's so fun.  Tonight I was over at my grandma's around bedtime, and Louise let me know in her own little way that she was ready for bed.  She would rub her eyes, grab my face with both hands and growl, then yawn.  It was pretty adorable.  When she is on her stomach she can...push (?) herself around pretty well.  It's nowhere near a crawl, but she somehow manages to be in one spot, then another when we look away and back.  Her spitting up has lessened considerably.  We're down to one outfit per day, although it gets pretty soggy at times.  She loves giving kisses, and we love it, too!  She grabs either side of your face or your hair and ear, and rubs her open mouth around on your face.  Whenever I'm holding her she has a firm grip on the back of my hair - it's her little handle.

 My MIL Margaret made her this precious outfit.  

 Kevin Nugent, author of Your Baby Is Speaking To You.

 T. Berry Brazelton, author of Touchpoints.

 She got her toys on her arm all by herself.

 "Parents everywhere are going to freak." -- Justin

Cousin Scott, 7 months older

We have so thoroughly enjoyed every stage, but this one is very exciting.  She's always learning something new.  We are loving parenthood!

I guess I should give a quick update on how Justin and I are doing...um...I'm sure something is going on...  ;)  Justin's motorcycle is finally maybe going to work!  He's been doing a ton of work on it, taking it apart, making a mess and getting all dirty, then putting it back together again (it may have been a bit more technical than that...), and he finally finished and took it to the motorcycle guy to give it a physical before Justin jumps on to see if it works.  We're so excited.  Justin, because he gets his motorcycle back and actually working, me, because I've never gotten to ride on it.  Every time Justin was going to give me a ride it would break.
Justin is somehow managing to juggle work, school, church, and family, while spending most of his time with us and still excelling in the other aspects.  He's just amazing like that.  I'm so grateful for him and how wonderful and helpful he is.  Louise is getting the best daddy ever (next to mine, of course).  We found out he did not get accepted to the U of U (stupid heads).  So now we wait to hear from the University of Washington, then plan the rest of our lives from there. :)
Justin commented recently on how every mormon woman has a mommy blog, so he decided to start a daddy blog to have an output for all of the valuable parenting information he is learning in the Napa program.  Check it out to read about a special moment we had as parents.
I've become creative!  Ok, not really.  I've just discovered iScrapbook and it's made making cards and stuff really easy.  I recently threw a bridal shower for my friend Whitney, and thoroughly loved it, although it was a lot of work.  I somehow always choose the hard way to do things.

Our last Napa trip deserves a post all on its own.  I'm too tired tonight to post any more, goodnight. :)    

4 months!

We can't believe Louise is 4 months already! She is so much fun. She's gotten really good at smiling, vocalizing, playing with her hands, making everyone love her, and a bunch of other things. She's got gigantic navy blue eyes that just make Justin and I melt. She's 24 inches and 12 lbs 13 oz. She giggled for the first time yesterday! It was the cutest thing ever.

I've started putting her to bed around 8 (she is seriously the easiest baby ever), then I get her up and feed her while she's still mostly asleep when we go to bed around midnight. Then she sleeps until around 8:30. She's so amazing.

As far as her spitting up goes, she's a ton better! She still does it a lot, but not nearly as much as she used to. She only goes through about 2 outfits a day now! We've been giving her Zantac. Hopefully she'll grow out of it soon.

We could start introducing other foods, but I want to wait until at least 6 months. I want to breastfeed for as long as possible, and I'm afraid once she figures out there's other things out there she'll lose interest.

She sure loves her Daddy.

She's got a really strong core. Daddy helps.

Cutie patootie!

Trying on Daddy's glasses.

You can see where she gets her good looks! ;)

Fresh out of the shower.

Grandpa's smelly old hat.

Louise in her blessing gown. Don't be fooled. This picture was taken 2 months after she was actually blessed, but we never got any pictures of her in her gown because right after the blessing she promptly doused the dress in spit up. I figured we'd better get a picture before she grew out of it.

Alex, AKA BUMBO-MAN!!!

She doesn't quite love the Johnny Jump-Up yet, but it's growing on her.

I love him!

Kids these days

I had the opportunity to judge an elementary talent show yesterday with my friend, Sammy Iverson, and was a little disheartened by the apparent state of kids these days. Out of 81 contestants, I would wager that over 85% of them either sang or danced to Adele, Rihana, Taylor Swift, or The Band Perry. Keep in mind that these kids are 10 and younger, 11 at the most. Shouldn't kids that age be listening to and emulating Disney princesses or superhero's? The subject matter of the songs they were singing were a little mature, even for me, an adult. Don't get me wrong, I really love Adele and Rihana, but it's a little saddening to me to hear little tiny girls, who have to have every word memorized, singing about breakups, cheating boyfriends, dying young, or "rockin' on the dance floor, actin' naughty" (Rihana, Please Don't Stop the Music). One 3rd grade girl even wrote her own depressing song about a break up and feeling unloved and lonely. Maybe worse yet is the little girls (and boys) grunge dancing to these same songs doing dance moves that were the reason I never went to the after-game high school dances.

So many kids these days aren't getting to enjoy their childhood, and I'm not sure why. Is it the parents? Is it the kids they go to school with? Is it their older siblings? Is it because they're just propped in front of the TV for hours on end while their parents watch TV shows and that's all they're exposed to? Regardless of the reasons, we've already decided to not have cable or satellite television, and I've decided to TRY to listen to my soundtracks, Disney music, classical music , or even classic rock whenever I'm in the car with my kids as much as possible when they get old enough to pay attention and understand the lyrics (I'm already having withdrawals just thinking about it, so we'll see how I do with this...). We also want to read the classics together as a family, such as the Narnia series, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, The Hobbit, Harry Potter (they count as classics), the Fudge books and Ramona and Beezuz by Judy Blume, The Wizard of Oz...any others?

(Stepping off my soapbox)

What are your opinions on this subject? And are there any other things we can do to protect their childhood? Am I making a big deal out of nothing?

Pictures from Napa, so far

I actually took pictures this time. If this is what it looks like in February, I can't wait to come back in the spring and summer!

Would you like to hear about our day?

Someday I think we'll laugh about this. "But it is not this day!" (LOTR reference...)

Today is day 1 in Napa. It started out ok. We were planning on leaving Toquerville at 4 am this morning, but we decided to leave yesterday night instead and stay with Zach and Shella in Henderson, which was a brilliant move. 10 hours is a TON shorter than 13. We left their house at approx. 6 am Vegas time, and Louise slept for about the first 3 hours. Justin and I took 2 hour driving/playing with Louise shifts, so we were good for about another 6 1/2 hours (add that up and it equals 9 1/2).

Well, the last half hour Louise decided she was totally done. Done, done, done. Screaming bloody murder to the point that she could barely breathe. On the way, we had taken her out of her car seat when there was little or no traffic, but the last half hour was in the city, so we couldn't take her out. It was pure torture. Poor Justin was sitting back with her at the time, so he now understands the feeling of when she looks at you with a slightly crazed look in her eye because she's trying to communicate (none too subtly) that she's had it, and you're not doing anything about it. No one will help her. Her parents, whom she trust more than anyone else to help her, won't help her. It's the worst feeling ever, and I'm sure all of you parents can relate. So anyway, while this is going on, we're trying to navigate the last of the drive and sing to her and try to distract her. When we were finally almost there, I took a wrong turn, then another wrong turn, adding another few minutes to her torture. After we finally found the place, we were all completely frazzled. I went to check in and Justin stayed with Louise to make amends.

After we got our stuff in our hotel room (which is kind of gloomy compared to our last one, with those pillows that make your head feel like it's on the floor above) we remembered some things that we forgot to bring, but there was no way we were going to put Louise back in her car seat, so we asked the front desk man how far it was to walk to Target. He said it would take about 20 minutes. That was do-able, I figured. We walked more than that around town at home and we could use a little walking around after being in the car all day. So we set out (at sunset, mind you) with the little umbrella stroller, a blanket, Justin's little camel pack, and a very large knife (which I wasn't aware of...). The beginning of the walk was fairly pleasant. It was fun to look around and see the more neighborhood-y part of Napa. Except then the sidewalk ended and we were on a busy street. So Justin was carrying the stroller that doesn't latch shut and I was carrying a sleeping baby in a huge, slippery blanket as we trekked across people's yards.

We FINALLY got to Target (way more than 20 minutes, by the way) and had a hard time finding anything we needed. Also, we realized we looked homeless: neither of us had showered because we left so early, we both had hats, Justin had a backpack on, and a stroller. After walking around forever and getting partials of what we needed, we left. It was completely dark by now, and apparently they don't believe in street lights in Napa. So there we were, me pushing a stroller with a no longer sleeping baby and Justin carrying a bag of milk and apples with his camel pack bulging (I really didn't think this thing through), exhausted from little sleep a very long walk and a very trying day, stumbling around in a pitch black foreign neighborhood with no sidewalks, and we come upon a strange man wearing all black with a hood pulled over his head and carrying something and walking really slow. I was totally freaked out. We passed him quickly and tried to joke about a traffic jam or something (no reply from him) and came to an intersection. There were cars on both sides that couldn't decide whether to wait for us to cross or not, and by then the old man was right behind me again. So we quickly started to walk across, only the blanket fell off the front of the stroller and got caught in the wheels, so it couldn't move. Of course it happened in the middle of the busy intersection with cars on both ends itching to go with a creepy old man on our heels. I panicked and called out for Justin and scooped Louise (who was starting to cry now) up in my arms and Justin grabbed the stroller and we practically ran for a couple of blocks (I'll admit I was fighting tears). Then we took a wrong turn (which ended up being better because there was a sidewalk). Now we were exhausted, cold, lost, petrified, and holding a whimpering baby, worried that the neighbors would hear and think we kidnapped her, trying to not show how scared or nervous we were so the other wouldn't be scared or nervous either.

Well, we eventually got back to the hotel, but not before deciding to never, ever do that again. Justin told me that after we passed the man the first time he had made his plan of attack involving the stroller and knife, which he carried in his hand and sleeve the rest of the way home. Have I done an adequate job of relaying our terror?

Time flies

I can't figure out how to move pictures. Does anyone know the secret? Also, why does it keep underlining and making it blue?

I can't believe Louise is already 3 and a half months old! Here's a quick catch up of the last couple months.

Louise sleeps like a dream (no pun intended...or maybe it was). From about a week and a half she has slept through the night. She loves to sleep on her tummy (don't worry, I'm super careful). Lately I've been trying to put her to bed a little earlier, like 9:30 or 10, and she goes down fine, wakes up at 6 to eat, and goes back to sleep until 9:30 or 10. If I put her down when we go to sleep around 11:30 she doesn't wake up in the night, but I like to have a few hours to get things done before bed. She's so good at sleeping at night, I feel like we cheated.

She's not very in to napping, though. She only naps for 10 to 20 minutes at a time. She'll fall asleep while I'm holding her, but as soon as I try to put her down she'll wake up. Aren't babies supposed to sleep for a few hours at a time?

I've been putting together a baby book for Louise. It's so fun. I hate scrapbooking, so I was quite excited to find one at Deseret Book that all you have to do is fill in the blanks and put the picture that it suggests on the space. I love it, and I think it'll be really easy to keep up and continue with our other children.

She spits up like crazy. It seems like everything I feed her comes back up over the course of the3 or 4 hours until I feed her again. I HAVE to do laundry every couple of days because every burp cloth, bib, blanket, and outfit (both ours and hers) are completely soaked. We go through 20 burp cloths and 10 bibs every 2 days. She's still gaining weight, so we're not that worried,but she's getting a little behind. At her 2 month checkup she was in the 55% for weight, at her 3 month she was about 45% for weight and 75% for height. The doctor suggested acidophilus, which we tried, but quickly ruled out. She did spit up a lot less, but she was super grumpy (which is highly uncommon for her) and didn't have a bowel movement for the entire 5 days we were giving it to her (which is also highly uncommon). I felt so bad for giving it to her for that long after I finally connected the grumpiness with the acidophilus. As soon as we stopped giving it to her she was her normal delightful self and had a gloriously poopy diaper (wow. I must be a mother). We talked to Andy Nuckles over the weekend and she said that her kids were the same, if not worse, and they gave them Zantac, which was very effective. We'll be trying that this week once we get the OK from Dr. Worwood. Any other suggestions from you moms and dads?

Louise is at such a fun stage. She smiles a lot now and makes the cutest sounds. She totally thinks she's talking to us. We can carry on "conversations" for at least 15 minutes, just talking and cooing at one another. She loves it, and I do too. She's always been extremely alert, and is just becoming more so with age. Justin has her so close to giggling. She loves to talk to her daddy.

A lady who is in the Fellowship in Napa with Justin is practicing infant massage and wants to teach us how to do it on Louise next time we go. We're pretty excited. I've never really heard anything about it, but Justin has and he says it's very beneficial for the child and the parent. Does anyone have any experience with infant massage?

We've figured out that Louise highly prefers showers to baths. Every time I would bathe her she'd start screaming the minute she touched the water. One blessed day we got the idea to try taking her in the shower with us and were elated when she shushed right up and looked like she was on cloud nine. She would smile at us and talk very happily. And now she doesn't even mind baths. Definitely prefers showers, but an occasional bath is OK.

Oh! I got a new haircut, and I love it! I finally got a pixie cut that I like. Every time I would go to the beautician and tell her I wanted a pixie cut, she'd always think she knew best and say "when I had this cut I wished I had left a little hair over my ears," or "when my hair was this short I wished it was a little longer in the back," so they'd always leave it longer in random places. Well, this time I told her that I didn't want it long anywhere, and I kept telling her to go shorter. I LOVE it. All of my curl is gone since having a baby, so it's super easy to do this short. I don't even have to dry it. I just have to be sure to wear makeup and some cute earrings to avoid looking masculine. Justin really likes it too, which is always a bonus.

Well, Napa. Napa, Napa, Napa. Justin and I both LOVED it (for completely different reasons, but loved it, all the same). Justin will have to write about his experience. I won't do it justice. I'm so excited to get to go back once a month for the next 14! If anyone wants to come one of these times, seriously, let us know. While Justin was in his class all day Louise and I cruised around Napa Valley and went exploring. I could very easily live in Napa if the rest of my family would move there, too. Even though it was winter and everything was dead, it was simply beautiful. There was rolling hill after rolling hill of burgundy grape...things (orchards, vineyards, fields?). And the towns are so charming. My favorite was St. Helena (pronounced ha-lee-na). I went to church there and fell in love with the little branch. I went in and within 2 minutes of being there the old lady I was sitting next to was walking Louise in the hall, chatting with her. They both loved it. I can't wait to go back. Unfortunately, I didn't take ANY pictures of Napa, so I'll have to be sure to take some good ones this next time.

Speaking of Justin, I can't believe how fortunate I was was to get him. He is one of the most Christlike people I've ever met. He is so incredibly sweet and loving to me and Louise, and he is the perfect father. I'm so grateful for how tender he is, and that he's not afraid to show his sensitive side, or be sentimental. I love him so much and can't imagine being married to anyone else. My heart is so full of love and gratitude for him.

Shameless Self-Promotion

Hey, everybody.  It's Justin.  I've recently decided that a lot of what I'm learning these days is super helpful, beneficial, and interesting if you have, or ever will have kids.  So, I've started a blog specifically dedicated to just sharing what I'm learning, and my experiences with applying it in my own experience as a parent.  If you're interested, feel free to give it the once over.  Diary of a Domestic Superman