wanted: sleep II

Ha, I typed in the title "wanted: sleep" and apparently I had already used that one in a previous post. Too funny.
It's been a couple weeks since Thea moved to her crib and she sure isn't getting the hang of it yet. She wakes every couple hours at the least, more at the most. I went for a well-baby check last week and told the practicioner everything I had tried: cutting out certain foods, gripe water, colic tablets, even gave some meds a whirl to see if it was acid reflux, raised the head of the bed, baths before bed, waking her during daytime naps after a couple hours.... nothing helps.
What she wants to do is nurse .... all night long. I think that's what she was doing when she was cosleeping. Today, we took a nap on the couch, and she nursed for two hours in her sleep. It is maddening. So why not just cosleep? Because my level of sleep was crummy. As odd as it sounds, four hours good sleep (not consecutive, mind you) is better than 8 hours broken, nutty sleep with periods of wakefulness interspersed. I was waking up with this huge kink in my neck that took hours to unwind itself. Not good.

But this morning, when I got up (woke up would be silly to say, really), I felt cruddy for the first time, really, since this craziness had started. I was priding myself on keeping it together through all this, but I think that is starting to crumble a bit. I'm working again now, so that has to be scrunched into every moment of sleep during the day. And the house is starting to show signs of neglect.
I think something I am eating is bothering her belly. She gets really worked up when she farts. Consequently, I am cutting out dairy in earnest - reading labels, etc. The nurse said she had a child with a dairy aversion and she had to cut it out of her system for three weeks before he got better. So here goes. At the least, I will lose a few more pounds in the process. But tonight I found myself staring at a block of cheese. It's so funny that you crave what you can't have. I don't even really dig cheese, but even just writing about it, my mouth is watering.
I promise I'll post some new pics soon - I'm just a bit behind in everything right now.

four wakes

I can do four wakes in the night and be pretty cheerful in the morning, I discovered today. My nights have become a numbers game - how long has she slept? What time is it? How grouchy am I going to be tomorrow as a result? Last night's numbers were not too bad. I put her to bed at 8:30 - she woke again at 10, but I was just going to bed then, so that was OK. She then woke again at 10:30, which was a bummer, because I was just falling asleep, but then there wasn't another alarm until 2, which was great, (I found I can sleep very well sitting up nursing a 15-pound squiggling mass - I think I even kept rocking in my sleep.) She woke again at 3:30, which was annoying (1.5 hours???? Kmon, I know you can do better than that, Thea. The next wake-up call was at 5, when Matt brought her to me in bed. 5 is the earliest I will give in and let her come to the bed for a snuggle. You gotta have boundaries, right? Then she wanted to get up at 6:30ish. And believe it or not, that was OK.

I am starting to get a little worried about this working business, though. The other day I got a call from my boss last fall and indeed she is fine with me working from home this summer doing PR stuff for the borough and state on preventing wildfire damage to your home. Which is great, except now I have to fit 20-25 hours a week of work to my days (I'll make about $400 more than I do on unemployment, mind you.) On top of that, I am trying to get this WordWorks business off the ground, and then there's the freelance writing I do. So the past two days, I spent every free minute working. The house spiralled out of control and Liam looked like he wanted to disown me.

And of course, there was Thea, who hasn't been in a very good mood for several days. Are they connected? Can she tell my mind is elsewhere? Is this what she will be on the couch about later in life? Nah, it'll probably be about this crazy blog her mother wrote all about how she was a screaming peradactyl.

Wanted: sleep

It is a week today since I put Thea in her crib, and a week since I've slept more than 2 or 3 hours in a row. Hopefully it's a growth spurt. Hopefully I will someday return to the land of the rested. For now, I have to make do with what I get, which isn't feeling like a whole lot right now. Earllier this week, she was up literally every hour all night. At around 4 a.m. I started banging my head into the pillow in frustration.
Actually, I'm kinda impressed with how well I can do on minimal sleep. Some days, I wake from that insanity and actually feel relatively human. But on the days when Thea has a bad DAY as well as night - like yesterday and last night - my humor is the first to go. Then I forget random stuff. And I don't do well with the 10,000 "hey, Mom's."
Thea's accomplishment of the week has been getting her hand to her mouth. She's very happy about it, but wow, does she drool now. I'm starting to wonder if she is teething a bit (Liam got his first tooth around 4 months). She's also started making tons of cooing noises, and some days she "talks" so much it is sort of like having a parrot in the house. I doubt she's going to turn into the strong, silent type any time soon.

Easter madness

At 12 weeks (last Friday) I put Thea in her crib for the night for the second time in her life. I hadn't been sleeping very well with her next to me, and more often than not, she was spending half the night nursing, which was a tad hard on the neck (mine, not hers.) So in honor of Liam's wellbaby nurse, Betty Eneboe, who helped most of Homer's population make it through their early years, we put her in the crib. At Liam's three-month check-up, Betty told us sternly that it was "time to put that baby in a crib." She was absolutely right. Liam woke only twice that first night, and soon was sleeping through the night.
Thea didn't do too badly the first night or the second, waking two or three times in the night. But last night she woke at 11, 12, 1:30, 3:30 and 5:30. Gaaahhhh. Must have been all those chocolate easter eggs I ate yesterday.
Today, as we ventured out on the town to take Liam to Raspberry Lane, I got that feeling that I should not be driving. My face had been twitching for the past couple days, something I always attribute to being on the edge of some sort of cliff. Today, it was like someone was pinning a vodoo doll of me - my eyes were going off like crazy. At the coffee shop, I kept losing my train of thought half way through a sentence, and it didn't get better as the day went on - not aided by the fact that the dog's anal gland got plugged and not only did she stink after a trip to the vet but I got the honor of applying some medicine to her butt (in, not on) for the next three days while Matt is in Soldotna for more training. It is possible that my nerves were a tad frayed.

So I tried to get a little nap, though Thea was still restless. I settled down for a bit, then heard a rustling sound behind me. The (stinky) dogs were outside, so I realized it had to be Liam. I looked around the corner and saw him with a stool trying to get into his easter basket not 10 feet away from where I was sleeping. BUSTED.
It was not the day to pull something like that with me. I gave him ten minutes on the seat, then told him he couldn't have candy or movies for two days. Then I sat him down and gave him this rambling lecture about trust and lying and a bunch of other stuff that I don't even remember. I'm pretty sure I made no impression whatsoever, until he found a jelly bean and I made him put it in his basket instead of eat it. That made an impression.
But I'm focusing on small victories - I put Thea down in her crib at 9 p.m. and she cried for maybe five minutes before nocking off. Yahoo. That's almost like a schedule sorta thing.
Here's to hoping she doesn't make me pay for that optimistic thought.

Daddy's girl

Thea and Matt are doing much better these days - as you can see from this picture. She tolerates his doting attention quite nicely on occasion. Perhaps these girls know what they are doing from the very beginning - make their dads earn every smile and keep them working at it. Whatever it is, it is lovely to see the two of them getting on so well, and not just because it means some day I might actually be able to escape for a few minutes to myself.
Well, I have survived spring break, which is an oxymoron when you have kids because having them home all day all week is NOT a break. I survived play dates, colds, a dishwasher that tried to quit and serious fits of grouchiness, and I'm happy to say that the house is only partly destroyed. That said, I cannot wait for Monday morning when I drop my dear son off at Raspberry Lane again. It is truly worth every penny to have four hours free of "Hey, Mom, do you know whhhaat?"
I talked to my grandmother today after whom Thea is named. Hopie said she heard I had a colicky baby, and to tell you the truth I didn't know how to reply. Either she's getting easier or I'm getting used to it or both. But if someone had asked me at 5:30 in the morning when she woke for the zillionth time this week, I would have replied differently, I believe. At that time of day she seems very colicky. But the old rule of thumb of a baby being colicky if they cry three hours a day three days a week- she doesn't do that. She just has a really hard time with farts.

toes, dreams and smiles

Thea has been on an early morning kick (literally) for the past week, waking around 5 a.m. with gas and kicking and grunting around in bed until one of us gets up with her. Once up, of course, she is all smiles and charm, then crashes after about a half-hour in her beloved swingy chair. So this morning I got up with her in a daze, and went into the laundry room to change her diaper. I promptly walked into the tool box and banged my toe up pretty bad - realized later in the day that my toe nail is cracked about half-way down. Ugg. What a way to wake up.
I was looking at some early days picks of Thea today, and she really has changed so much. She's got so much personality these days. Tonight I went out with a couple friends to try and flesh out our business plan for the WordWorks idea. We went to Fat Olives and had apps and a bottle of wine, and while I managed to forget our postcards at home, the night went very well on Thea's end. She nursed through the meeting, then accompanied Jackie and I to Cups for dessert, where she made goo-goo noises for everyone and doled out big smiles like jelly beans on Easter morning. She didn't even holler once the whole evening - not getting in and out of the car seat or getting carted through the nasty snow. Pretty awesome.
I may soon have to stop complaining about life with a newborn - she's really not any more. Lots of work, for sure, but not really a newborn. Today I had Oskar, Liam's preschool friend, over for the day. We picked him up this morning and walked the beach (Thea napped in the Snugglie), then went to the library for story hour, where Thea blew her diaper in the middle of the art project, and I was very greatful I'm not the mother of twins. Back at home, the boys had a lot of fun and Thea managed to nap at the crucial points - lunch, bathroom situations, etc - and be mellow enough to handle the rest of the time.
All in all, it was a looong day. But I have a lot to be thankful for as the mother of an almost 3-month-old who is gradually moving back into life as most of us know it. I know I'm jinxing myself, but...
Pictures later.
Oh, tonight I fit back into the jeans I bought last April when I went to Anchorage totally unaware that I was preggo and went shopping. By the end of that month, I couldn't get into them. I've been looking at them ever since, wondering if they would ever fit again. Small victories.

sicko

I feel great. You know that feeling after you have been sick when you aren't anymore and you just want to run around doing everything you didn't do while you were sick? It's like you are superwoman. Sorta.
Night before last, I started feeling queasy. Then, I got a splitting headache, which I never get and it moved into my shoulders, too. Then I started getting dizzy when I stood up. Gah. And the next day was the first day of spring break. Translation: both kids home all day.
Thea's had a cold for about a week now, and so she wakes up a lot at night. Monday was no exception, and by 5:30 a.m. I was so tired of nursing nursing and nursing that I asked Matt to take her. Sure, he said, put her right here next to me. Not exactly what I had in mind. He finally woke up and took her downstairs so I could sleep for a bit.
The day was a blur of tv for Liam and the couch for me. The only decent thing I did was plant a coin in the Leprechaun trap we set outside earlier in the week. (that's a shell with a little honey in it, for those who don't know, since Leprechauns love honey.)
What was funny was with all that nothingness, Thea was happy as could be. I guess it was one of the few times she got to work it entirely on her schedule - she napped when she needed to, played when she wanted to, and got all the face time she could possibly imagine. We had some great laughing sessions yesterday, and Liam pulled out a whole bunch of new toys for her, several of which she thinks are pretty cool since she can reach for things now, although not with much accuracy. But she's working on it.
She was truly in heaven. Until about 8 p.m. when the belly bubbles caught up with her and she hollered for about an hour before passing out until 3 a.m.
So I got some decent sleep and don't feel queasy or achey or any of it. Only problem is now there are all the things I didn't get to yesterday waiting for me.
Oh, the other milestone yesterday was that I hit the 150s. I know I shouldn't be concerned with my weight right now, but I'm interested to see how far this will go thanks to nursing madness. So now I am officially below my prepregnancy weight. You wouldn't know it from a glance at the ol' belly, but luckily, I live in a non-belly-baring area.