Newness

I love the way my daughter smells. This morning, she woke up crying at 6:30, but I knew she wasn't ready to be awake so I decided to rock her back to sleep for a while. I really just wanted to bring her in bed with me and let her sleep on my chest (we do this on occasion), but I had to get ready for work. So I'm sitting in the rocking chair with her sleeping soundly while I'm holding her and all I could think was that even after almost six months, she still smells so new. It's the greatest smell in the world and I hope it never goes away.

Top 10 things no one tells you before you have a baby

Everyone tells you that you will never love anything the way you will love your children and that having a baby is so wonderful and will change your life for the better. Mind you, I have found all of these things to be true. But I'm pretty sure no one told me about the hard stuff. Here's my list of top 10 things no one told me.

10. The pets you once loved will begin to annoy the ever-loving shit out of you.

9. The phrase "sleeping like a baby" is somewhat misleading.

8. When the baby does start to sleep better, you still won't.

7. You will want your mother to come live with you for an indefinite amount of time.

6. Your hair will always look like crap.

5. You think you can do it all, but being a full-time working mom will test you beyond belief.

4. Your baby will bring both joy and stress to your marriage.

3. You will miss the way your life was before.

2. You will feel immense guilt for #3.

1. You will become an expert at inspecting another human being's poop.

Poor sick baby

Mia had her first stomach bug last week and I'm hoping it's finally over. She started projectile vomiting last Saturday and continued to do so off and on for a full week. She kept everything down yesterday and seemed guininely hungry all day, even woke twice last night to eat. Yay. I keep telling myself that I won't get that extra snuggle time with her very soon, so to consider myself lucky that she goes right back to sleep after she eats. However, I'm hopeful that she will stop those middle of the night wakings soon, or that she at least goes back to one waking tonight. I think she's too young to wake out of habit and the times she wakes are all over the map. If it were the same time on the dot every single night, then I might be skeptical. Plus, her pediatrician believes that she still needs those feeding(s) if she's waking for them, which makes total sense.

She's really at a fun age right now. She loves to grab for things. I had her sitting up on her changing table the other day and the wipes were open and she was just reaching for them and trying to pull the top one out of the box. She also spent a lot of time on her activity mat this weekend. She was concentrating so hard on getting one of the rings. It was neat to watch. Soon, she'll be sitting up unsupported, then crawling, then walking, then oh my...things will get interesting really soon!

Obsession

It's official. I have become obsessed with my daughter's sleeping. Here's the deal: she's not a bad sleeper at all. She goes down pretty easily and wakes once or twice a night to eat. But she was waking only once until about a week ago when she started waking twice. Cody gets up with her the first time but I simply can not go back to sleep. It doesn't help that I am congested and can't seem to shake it. I'll be breaking out the nettie pot tonight and should have been doing that all along. Anyway, I am constantly researching, reading, and doing whatever I can to try and figure things out. It's ridiculous. Why didn't anyone tell me that the sleeping part was so difficult. I just assumed that when she straightened out her nights and days, sleeping would just get easier.

There are so many things that people don't tell you before you have a child. Really, they just "forget." I find it annoying. I guess you forget because there's always something different happening with your child within a few months. I hope that I will soon be able to forget how sleep deprived I am. I often wonder if it's safe for me to do things, like drive. Seriously.

Krause Legs

Mia turned 4 months old yesterday. We spent her birthday at the pediatrician's office in the morning for her well checkup. She got shots. I hate it when she gets shots. The nurse says that it hurts the parents more than it hurts the babies. Yeah right. Anyway, she's a small baby, almost 13 pounds and only 23.5 inches long. She's in the 25th percentile for weight, which I'm fine with, but only the 10th percentile for heighth! I will not have a short child! I asked Cody if he thought she was going to have short, chunky legs and his response was, "Well, she is a Krause." We'll just have to put her in ballet class to lengthen those puppies.

And one to grow on...

I turned 32 on Saturday. Yay. My birthday used to be such a big deal to me. Now I sometimes forget that it's even coming, or I choose to forget. I probably would have forgotten if not for the fact that my entire family came in town. They said they were coming for my birthday; however, I'm pretty sure they only came to see the baby. She was passed around more in three days....they even argued over who got to hold her. Rotten. Needless to say, I did have a great birthday weekend and I felt pretty special considering the baby got all of the attention, which is fine by me these days. I even got to go to yoga on Saturday morning (a rare treat these days) and the entire class sang Happy Birthday to me.

I have always gotten a little sad when I spend a weekend or week with family and friends and then the time comes to an end. It's been worse since Mia has been born, but this time I didn't full on cry like I have the last few times. My emotions seem to be in check, although they still go haywire every now and then. I miss my family. I miss my friends. I wish my friends could get to know my daughter better. I wish our kids could grow up together and be buddies in school and stuff. I have two good friends who just had babies, too, and I'm sad that they won't grow up together, go to school together, be in each other's weddings, etc. And now I have made myself sad again. *Sigh*

Happy Independence Day???

I spent my Fourth of July attempting to get Mia to nap for more than 30 minutes at a time. Apparently, a baby's sleep cycle is only 30 - 45 minutes. She kept deciding that one cycle was enough for her. I had to put her in the swing to get her to sleep for longer than an hour. Lovely. She's also congested, which sucks. She sounds uncomfortable when she's moving around in her sleep. Yes, I go in several times a night and check on her. I'm neurotic. Anyway, I remember when making plans for the Fourth was such a big deal. This year, I never left the house. My, how my priorities have changed.