Grace's First Summer

A huge perk of being a teacher is the fact that I get summers off.  A lot of people (my husband included), think this means 3 months off every year.  For me this year, it's exactly 7 weeks (not 3 months) from my last day of school to my first full day of work.  That's okay, 7 weeks is still way more vacation than most people get.

And the summer I've had so far has been truly amazing because it's been with Grace.

Grace's summer kicked off with her first flight for our family trip to the coast of North Carolina.  Grace truly made the trip special for everyone.  She's the first baby to be born in 18 years in my extended family!  Grace got to splash her legs in the ocean, she got to feel sand in her toes, and swim in both the outdoor and indoor pool.  Her favorite part of the trip had to be dinner time. Every evening the whole family meets in Grandpa's condo for dinner. And Grace had everyone's full attention and she loved it.  It was during this trip, at 6.5 months old that Grace's army crawling really took off.

Another special part about this trip was how much time she got to spend with her Uncle Brian.  Grace is my brother's only niece, and he is such a sweet uncle to her.  I just know he's going to be a wonderful father (hopefully someday soon).  But until then, Grace just loved the attention she got from him.

The plane rides with Grace were okay/not so good. I planned to nurse her during take off and landing, but she had other plans.  Our flight down to NC went okay.  Our flight back to DTW was just awful.  It's an hour and a half flight. Grace slept for a half hour, and screamed/cried for an hour.  My mom and I tried everything we could to help.  And to add to it, she screamed the car ride from the airport to the house as well.   I think a few factors were causing the screams for the second flight and not the first.  I believe that timing had to do with it.  Next year, I will try to plan for morning flights if possible.  Our return flight was in the early evening.  Grace's fussiness level increases throughout the day.  She starts out in the morning as a happy baby.  By 5pm, she is much harder to please.  Another tactic I plan to try next year will be screen time.  Grace doesn't really have chances to see screens much (besides my phone as I take pictures of her with it all day long haha).  So, hopefully saving screen time up to be a secret weapon will help next year as well.

Also this summer, we have gone to the pool a ton!  And my parents got a mini backyard pool just for Grace, and she loves it.  She sits and crawls and splashes and plays with her toys and it's just adorable.  This summer has had many 90+ degree days, and luckily, Grace is a water baby.

  

Brian has been working a lot this summer, but we try to squeeze in family time every chance we get.  We've taken Grace to some Ann Arbor favorites like Zingerman's and Afternoon Delight (even though she didn't get to eat any food at either place)!  It's really nice to be able to sit for a meal and just enjoy being together.  Grace and I even brought him a picnic lunch at work one day from Panera.  She absolutely adores him and her face lights up when she sees him every time.

This summer we put Grace in a park swing for the very first time, and she loved it!  We also learned that many babies love this swing, and there can sometimes be an awkward wait for the baby swing.

We had a really nice visit from Brian's parents.  They noticed our long wait for the baby swing, and went out and bought Grace her very own swing for our backyard!  It's a big hit so far!

(They also installed black-out blinds in Grace's room which are amazing!  She goes to bed at 7:30 pm no matter how bright it is outside).

Grace got to meet her cousin Aedan, who is 7.5 months younger than Grace. Sheena is already a wonderful mom to Aedan, and I know Grace is going to love having a younger cousin to play with.

Grace met William Claiborne Hancock IV!  He is my friend Jessica's son and we had a fun little swim date when they were in town.



Most recently, Grace had a visit to her Great-Grandpa LaMoreaux.  He has all kinds of fun toys to show her, including a talking parrot.  I plan for Grace and I to visit him a few more times before summer is up.

And, Grace has pulled herself to somewhat standing!!  This is a scary development, but exciting!

This summer with Grace has truly been the best summer of my life.  Granted, I wish we saw Brian more.  I wish I could get more consolidated sleep somehow.  I wish it was easier to keep our house clean.  But, I will never wish away this time with our baby.  She is my everything and I wouldn't change it for the world.

7 Months Old Baby - Army Crawler

Grace technically turns 8 months old tomorrow.  So, this post will be about how she has grown for the past two months.

I cannot believe how much she has changed this summer. She has become more vocal, even more full of personality, and she is now mobile! She went from supported sitting to unsupported sitting to army crawling within a matter of days.

She is such an active baby. She is constantly on the move, sliding and inching and climbing anywhere she wants to go. It is simultaneously wonderful and terrifying all at once. Its terrifying because she is nonstop wanting to explore and try new things. When she stood up in her crib at 7 months, I was petrified she was going to launch herself out! So she slept in the Pack n Play until Brian could lower the crib for her. But all her curiosity and activity is also wonderful because I know she is strong and healthy and sturdy.

Here are some updates with Grace:

Teeth!
After what seemed like months of teething, Grace finally got her first two teeth. (Bottom center). They poked through in June and seemed to reach maximum height in mid July.
I'm now mentally preparing for the next round of teething, and not looking forward to it.

Eating:
Grace eats solid foods now!
I waited forever to start, but finally at the end of June I introduced solid foods one at a time. Now she eats all kind of purées: butternut squash, carrots, corn, broccoli, apples, turkey, beef, chicken. She also eats some cut up pieces of food that she can pick up and put into her mouth herself: watermelon, blueberries, bananas, avocado.

She is still nursing for her primary source of calories as the current guidelines are "food before 1 is just for fun".
I've been home all summer with her, so she's gotten used to breastfeeding on demand again. Which means she is now refusing a bottle again. So, it looks like we'll be back to bottle boot camp again before starting fall daycare.

Sleep:
Grace is excellent at putting herself to sleep for naps and at bedtime. But, unfortunately she is still waking up throughout the night to nurse. Some nights she only wakes up twice, some nights more. Every single night I tell myself that I'm going to let her cry and she'll learn to sleep longer. And every single night I hear her cries and it breaks my heart and I go to her and nurse her back to sleep.

I know that 7 (almost 8) months old is too old for this. But she is my sweet sweet babe, and I know this period of life is short and this is our normal for now.

Size:
Grace is 17 pounds now. She wears size 9 month and some 12 month clothes. She is still in size 3 diapers and probably will be for awhile.

Hair/Eyes:
Grace still has solid blue eyes. Her hair has lightened up considerably, and now is somewhat of a sandy caramel-blonde. She is just the most beautiful little thing I've ever seen.

Milestones:
Grace is army crawling all over the place. She can easily pull to kneeling position, and has just started pulling from kneeling to a supported stand. She's reaching these too fast, and although it's exciting, it breaks my heart each time.
She's really good at maneuvering now, and can get herself from her back to her tummy to sitting to kneeling and back down again.
She makes all kinds of sounds, lots of "dadada", some "loddle doddle loddle", and lots of various noises with her tongue. The one sounds she has not made once is the "mm" sound, so "mama" seems to be losing the race for her first real word. My favorite is her fake-cough that she will do if she hears someone near her coughing. It is not a coincidence, she truly makes this sound intentionally right after she hears someone else cough.

Likes/Dislikes

Grace loves seeing children/other babies. She loves pools and baths and water in general. She loves swinging, as she is now big enough for the baby park swing. Grace loves animals. She saw a cat in my parents' yard and was mesmerized and wanted to crawl out of her mini pool to go after it. When she meets a dog, she kicks her legs in happiness and doesn't even mind getting licked!

As far as dislikes, she doesn't like being put down to sleep. She doesn't like when a toy is taken away. She definitely doesn't like when I leave the room.  She sometimes doesn't like the jumperoo or the exersaucer.  But those are valuable tools and the only way I can safely contain her while I eat/shower, so she goes in one at least once daily.

This is the first time in Grace's life I can solidly say that Grace now has "wants" and not just "needs". When she was littler, if she cried, I knew she needed something! But now, half of her cries are "wanting" something (or not wanting something). She will fuss/cry because wants my attention, or she wants a toy that she dropped, or if I walk out of the room she's in. She will fuss because she doesn't want to go in her car seat, and because she doesn't want to go down for her nap.
Grace having "wants" is very confusing, because it means that she now can fuss even if she's not tired/hungry/in pain, she just wants something. Thankfully, her wants are pretty simple at this point in life and I am more than happy to fulfill her every want. It is the sweetest thing to see her face light up when I come back in the room, or when I open the back door to the car to get her out of her car seat.

It's easy to forget how special and fleeting this time of life is.  It truly is bittersweet to see her grow. I am once again excited as she reaches milestones and heartbroken as my tiny baby grows and grows. And life moves on.

6 Month Old Sweetheart

Do I say this every month? 6 months has got to be the cutest, most fun age there could be.

I am so absolutely in love with this baby and fall more in love every single day.

I know that every parent thinks their baby is the sweetest. But I truly cannot imagine a sweeter baby in this whole world. I love everything about her.

Here are some latest updates with Grace:

- Milestones:
She's sitting up! I still hover near by, in case she tips over, but she's pretty much got it now!
She's rolling all the time day, but still mostly from her back to stomach.
She's sleeping on her stomach and side! For the first almost 6 months of her life she slept on her back, so switching to stomach/side sleeping was a big deal for us.

- Feeding: she is still exclusively breastfeeding when she is with me in evenings and weekends. At daycare and with my mom she is receiving mostly pumped milk, but also some bottles of formula when I can't pump enough. We will start solids in the next month! I still want to do a little more reading/research on it first though.

- Sleep: sleep is fairly inconsistent right now. We will get some amazing nights where she only wakes up once, and then we get some really long nights where she is up every couple of hours. Overall though, her sleep at 6 months is far better than it ever was at 4 months.
We stopped using the Magic Sleepsuit once she was rolling in it.  So, she now sleeps in a sleep sack called "The Nested Bean" (not pictured here).  It seems to be working, so I'll stick with it for now.

- Sizes: weighs 17 pounds, size 3 diapers, size 6-9 and 6-12 month clothes. All her 3-6 month sleepers have been getting too tight for a few weeks now. Will my heart break every single time I pack away clothes she's grown out of? I'm constantly torn between loving this baby full of personality that she's becoming, and aching for the tiny little creature she once was.

Likes: Grace loves her jumperoo, borrowed from her cousins Dylan and Max. She loves kicking her legs. She loves walks in the stroller with Grandma, and walks in the Ergo baby carrier with me. She likes to suck on anything, including her feet, the wash cloth and toys in the bath, and my arm or leg when she can get her mouth close enough.
She loves toys. I've learned the hard way that there are two things that must go with her everywhere now: a cloth to wipe up her drool and or spit up, and toys to keep her entertained. Preferably multiple toys that you can rotate through. In case of emergency (no toys), she will make do with other items we procure, such as my cousin's Altoid container.
She still loves the bath! We will continue the kitchen sink baths as long as possible, and she loves it.

Dislikes: She doesn't like being put down for naps, and she doesn't usually nap for very long for me (around 25 minutes).
She voices her unhappiness now by spitting/blowing raspberries. It is the funniest thing, and I don't know how she learned to spit like that when she's mad.
Other than that there isn't much she doesn't like. She can get fussy if she isn't being stimulated enough, or if she's overstimulated, but really, she's mostly just a happy little baby.

Also, very recently, she's started showing signs of stranger anxiety.  I've learned that she needs to warm up to some people a little bit before I pass her around to others to hold.  

Other news in our lives:

- I'm officially switching schools next year. I will miss STEAM, but I am beyond excited for an hour later start time, a 1 mile commute to work, and to be teaching at Eberwhite, where I went to school as a kid.


- The HandleBar is doing really well. Tours are booking up every weekend, and filling up into the summer. This unfortunately means that our time with Brian is getting few and far between. But, even though he gets home very late, he almost always will wake up at 6:30 am to spend some time with Grace before we leave for the day.

Overall, things are going pretty well in our tiny little world. I've waited my whole life to be a mom, and being her mom is better than anything I could have imagined.  Now, I'm just counting down the days until I have a whole summer to spend with her.

Fortunate to be her Mom

It's 5:30 am on a Sunday, and Grace is wide awake, smiling up at me, ready to start our day.. I may be tired, but all I can think to myself is: "How did I get so lucky to be her mom?" 

Grace is 5 months and one week old, and every day we are seeing her sweet (sometimes spicy) personality shine through more and more.

This week, as she took her nightly bath in the little infant tub that she has pretty much outgrown, Brian and I just marveled at how fun she is. She has so much fun in that bathtub now. She kicks, splashes, and smiles a huge smile the whole time. She doesn't mind when the water has turned lukewarm and she has splashed most of the water out of the tub.  She is just a happy baby, and we are so lucky.

Bedtime has finally become something I no longer dread. I used to dread bedtime because I knew I could either nurse her to sleep, or deal with many tears if I put her down awake.

This is no longer the case. We now do our bath and cuddle, I put her down wide awake, she sucks her thumb, and is usually asleep within 10 minutes. It is amazing.

On Friday after work, a coworker was having all the teachers over to her house for happy hour. Normally, I wouldn't even consider it. But, I decided to risk it, and bring Grace, knowing that she'd be exhausted after daycare and cranky since it was close to her bedtime.

She was perfect! She let anyone hold her, she smiled lots of sweet smiles, and didn't fuss the whole time. She fell asleep minutes after getting in the car to go home, but she had been an angel baby the whole visit despite being so tired out.

Being a working mom hasn't been easy so far, but there's one thing I know for sure: I absolutely cherish our evenings and weekends together.  Because we spend our weekdays apart, it makes my time with her so precious.

Every single day she looks bigger to me. She has outgrown most of her size 3-6 month clothes, we're solidly in her 6-month and 6-9 month clothes now.

Last night, as I bathed her at 7pm on a Saturday evening, I heard giggling outside. I looked up and saw a group of teenage girls walking past our house on their way to the high school for some event. It made me think that one day she will be the teenage girl heading out with her friends on a Saturday night. And I'll only have the memories of this chubby little baby in our kitchen sink bathtub on a Saturday night, smiling up at me, loving life and loving me.

These years when I am her whole world and her perfect Saturday (or any) night is spent with me are so fleeting.  I'm going to soak in every cuddle and every moment with her. This Mother's Day, there's one thing I know for certain: I wouldn't trade this life as her mom for anything in the world.

Five Months Old - Spit Up Queen

Today Grace is a 5-month-old baby. The past month has not been an easy one for me, but she is still the sweetest little thing ever. She is truly a happy baby, smiling all the time at both people she knows and at strangers. Also, she's laughing now! I am not a very "silly" person, but I will make any silly face/sound I can think of just so I can hear her sweet little giggle!

Skills:
-Grace can easily roll from back to front now. She has somehow forgotten the skill of rolling from tummy to back though, so she is frequently finding herself stuck on her belly.

-She can reach and grasp toys with great consistency now.

- She knows her name and will turn to face you when she hears it.

- She can grab her feet. She is just now getting to see her feet because for the first time in her life, she's wearing something other than footie zip ups.

Feeding:
She breast feeds at night, and takes the bottle all day at daycare and with Grandma.  She's receiving mostly breast milk with sporadic bottles of formula when I'm unable to pump enough. She has no trouble with the bottle now either, and even will reach for it when she sees it.
(Bottle refusal was really stressful for awhile, especially when she went an entire day refusing to drink even one single ounce from the bottle. But for everyone who told me she'd be just fine, they were right. She re-learned the bottle, eventually).

She is spitting up a lot lately, and bigger quantities than ever before. She embarrassed Brian by spitting up 4 times during swimming lessons last week (large amounts too)!
She spits up equally from breast milk or from formula, and it seems to be large amounts. It doesn't seem to cause her any stress, and she's still gaining weight fine, so I'm not too concerned about it right now.

Loves:
- she still loves kicking her legs! She kicks them all the time, especially when she's happy, but also when she's mad as well.

-Grace loves the bath! She's always enjoyed sitting calmly while we wash her, but now she really shows us how much she likes it by kicking, splashing, and getting water everywhere.

- she loves toys and objects! She'll reach for, look at, and suck on any toys placed in her vicinity.

- she loves "talking"! She coos and squeals and grunts, and we just love her sweet little voice.

- swimming lessons! It's hard to tell how much she is gaining from these lessons. But as far as I can tell, she's getting used to being in water, shes getting a little bit of activity to tire her out, she's having bonding time with her daddy, and I think she's having fun! Last week they put they babies fully underwater for the first time! She was surprised, but didn't cry or fuss at all and actually smiled at Brian when he pulled her up. She loves kicking and splashing in the pool, and even squealed a few happy noises at swim lessons this week.

Sleep:
Ahh, the ever elusive "sleep". This past month has been extremely challenging for me in terms of her sleep. We had many nights with wake ups every 1.5 hours, which made for exhausting days at work for me. The "4-month sleep regression" was a very real thing for us, and was very poorly timed to coincide with my return to work.

This past week, she's stretched her sleep out to 3 and even 4 hours at a time. I'm hoping this is an upward trend and that it continues.

I've started doing no nap after 4pm and also no naps longer than 2 hours. In addition, we are still doing a bath/bedtime routine and are now putting her down as early as 7pm.


I've found that "looking forward to the weekend" takes on a whole new meaning as a working mom. All week I look forward to just being with her.

Right now as I type this, she is sitting sweetly in my arms nursing for her dinner. And in this moment, there is truly nothing more in this world I could possibly ever want.

A New Working Mom

I don't mind sleep-deprivation for
this sweet little face

I have been back at work for one full month. And I want to write this post so that I remember what it feels like right now, as a working mom of a 4.5 month old baby.

It's really, really hard.

My sweet little 4.5 month old baby doesn't sleep well at night. On our best nights, she'll wake up every 3 hours. On our worst nights, she wakes up every hour. And she is in no rush to fall back asleep when she's up, either. 

I don't just run to her crib as soon as I hear a peep. I listen to her fussing and wait to hear if she'll settle herself. More often, she doesn't settle herself. Her cries escalate until it's very clear she is not falling back to sleep on her own.

It is purely exhausting. Sometimes she'll stay awake from 4-6 am, and then fall sound asleep at 6, right when it's time for me to get up and get ready for work.

Working a full day after such broken sleep is one of the hardest things I've ever done.

I feel as if I'm struggling to keep up. My mind is a fog of breastfeeding, pumping, teething, sleep training, worries. I find it so hard to engage in regular chit chat with anyone.  All I can think about is my sweet baby who I've left for the day and how I just want to get back to her. It's so hard to adjust back to regular working world, when my own little world has just been altered so drastically.

I'm not really in the staff lounge much anymore anyway. Pumping takes the first 20 minutes of my lunch break, so I get about 10 minutes to eat and 5 minutes to make copies or prep for the afternoon. This pumping time is so important to me though, because it's the only time I get to pump, and it's not really enough. I'm not able to pump enough breast milk each day for Grace to drink at daycare the following day, so she's now receiving a supplement of 1-2 bottles of formula every day.  I'm not anti-formula, but it isn't as good as breast milk, and it's not what I had hoped for, so I do feel a little let down about it.

Spring has finally arrived in Michigan!

I pour every ounce of energy I have into teaching, yet I still feel that I'm not keeping up at work. And when I get into my car at the end of the day, I have nothing left to give and just collapse into the seat, and struggle to stay awake on my drive home.

I used to feel a secret sense of pride at being the first car in the parking lot every day at school, and sometimes the last one there in the afternoon. Just the janitor, me, and sometimes my unmarried, childless, male coworker. I'd stay late whenever I needed to, no big deal and didn't affect anyone but me.

Now, the teachers' parking lot is full when I arrive, and it's still full when I leave to head home after school. I feel guilt for leaving work shortly after the bell rings. But I feel guilt for even being at work away from my baby for 9 hours as it is. I feel as if I'm not a good enough teacher or a good enough mother all at the same time.

The elusive, sought-after: sleep

Thankfully, some of the kindest comments I've received are from the moms of my students. They are, after all, moms themselves. They are so supportive and have been there and done that before.

I don't know how to make it better though. I don't know when she'll start sleeping more. All I know is that I'm doing the best I can, and all I can do is take each day as it comes.

Leaving Baby for a Weekend

Last weekend I left our 4 month old baby for 48 hours while I spent the weekend in Chicago.

I had tons of anxiety about it before I left. I mean, who leaves their brand new baby for a whole weekend? Well, I'm here to say that it can be done, and can be done with no problems at all in fact.

My girlfriend Jenna is getting married this summer, and we had planned her bachelorette party weekend while I was still pregnant. As I was yet to give birth, I had no idea how attached I was about to become to this little baby, and how hard it would be to leave her. So we planned for this girls weekend and I assumed leaving the baby would be relatively painless.

I didn't realize that once she was born, I would feel tied to her in a way I've never known before. And that after returning to work, my moments with her became the most valuable moments possible and that I couldn't bear to leave her if it wasn't absolutely necessary.

In addition, we found out Brian would have to work the entire weekend, adding another layer of complication.

It turns out though, that leaving her turned out to be okay, it just required a lot of moving parts.

In order for me to leave, my mother-in-law, Sue, kindly agreed to come spend the weekend with Grace. In order for Sue to come spend the weekend with Grace, my sister-in-law kindly agreed to work at her parents' furniture store to cover for Sue. In order for my sister-in-law to work at her parents' store, she had to have her nieces babysit for her children.

Basically, I have a whole list of people to thank, who rearranged their lives to help us out for this weekend.  But mostly, the thanks goes to Brian's mom, who moved in and just took wonderful care of Grace all weekend long (including late night wake ups).

And the weekend away was a blast. It was so nice to be with my college girlfriends again, some of which are also new moms themselves. It was nice to take long, leisurely showers, and to get more than 3 hours of sleep  in a row at night.

I had worried for months about leaving Grace for that weekend. And I worried while I was gone. But the weekend went as well as I could have hoped. Grace was in the best hands with Brian's mom, who kept me up to date with pictures throughout the weekend.

So, I'm here to tell you, that it is possible to leave your new baby for a whole weekend with no problems at all. When I returned, she was full of smiles for me, and it was as if I had never left.

I'm thankful that my first overnight trip away from Grace went so smoothly and easily. But as easy as that was, I still don't plan to do another one for a very long time!