L – Page 5 – Jocelyn Rau

March 25, 2013March 22, 2013

An update. And pictures!

I’ve been meaning to write this post for awhile, but just haven’t found the time to actually sit down and do it. Imagine that with a toddler and infant in the house. Odd.

But fortunately things are feeling much better than they did a few months ago, when I wrote this post. The fog of not feeling like myself has finally lifted, and thankfully I think I’ve regained my parenting mojo. I no longer feel like having 2 kids is going to suffocate me; rather I feel like each day gets better than the last with these 2 little ones.

What has happened to changed my outlook? Well, for one, I got a job. It’s not a new career by any means, more just something to get me and the girls out of the house and interacting in society again. I work part-time at the front desk of the Wisconsin Athletic Club, a gym to which I belonged for years and at which I continued to work out with my trainer until she left just a few weeks ago.

I work anywhere from 2-4 days per week, 3-4 hours at a time. The girls and I get free memberships out of the deal too, but the best part, by far, is that they get to come with me while I work and stay in the kids care room for free. Free daycare?! That cannot be passed up. Now it isn’t an actual licensed daycare center, more just glorified babysitting, but still. Della gets to play with all the kids, they do story time and gym time, she takes her favorite “new lunchbox” every day; and Lana gets fed her bottles, diapers changed, tummy time, etc., so it’s absolutely perfect.

It gives me a nice little break from the parenting responsibilities a couple times a week and the girls get taken care of well, so it’s working out very smoothly right now. And I finally don’t feel like I’m about to lose my head trying to rush us out the door each time we go, so that helps too. Those first couple weeks I seriously felt like a complete whirling dervish every time I had to get the 3 of us ready to go in the mornings. Practice makes perfect, I guess. Or at least better.

Having a paycheck again is nice too, but the pay is definitely not why I’m there. A little is better than zero though, eh?

What else? I guess Lana getting out of the newborn stage has helped as well. I don’t feel completely tethered to a screaming baby anymore, which I think would make anyone happy. She has certainly mellowed in the past couple months, and I don’t have a tiny screaming head in my face so much anymore. She’ll give a good wail here and there still, but nothing like the early days when I almost went deaf a few times.

She’s getting easier, I think Della enjoys being around kids more often again, and the combination of those just makes my days all around better. I don’t feel trapped, I don’t feel anxious, I don’t feel like a terrible mom, I don’t feel like a terrible wife, I don’t feel like not me. I feel good again, and that feels great.

I do still need to work on the exercise part, as I haven’t been able to get in a good routine with timing workouts with my shifts at the gym, but hopefully I’ll get something going soon. I usually work from 9-noon or 9-1, which doesn’t leave enough time for me to get in as long a workout as I want before having to get Della home for her nap, and the kids room doesn’t open until 8, which doesn’t give me enough time before work either. So we’ll see what I can finagle there.

Also, it’s Spring. Even though the temperature belies the season right now, I am happy that the sun is at least shining. I started taking vitamin D in liquid drop form this winter to actually help slow my postpartum hair shedding, but I think it helped me feel better overall instead. It didn’t necessarily give me more energy, but I didn’t feel so run-down and tired all the time. I don’t think it did anything to help my hair stop falling out so much, though. That will just take time to get rid of all the built up pregnancy locks.

So there you have it. And for being such good listeners and readers, here are some recent pictures of the most adorable children ever created. What? I’m biased.

March 21, 2013March 21, 2013

5 month stats

Lana turned 5 months old today. That’s almost half a year!

We don’t have another well check until 6 months, so no official stats this time. But here is what I can tell you…

Sleeping. Well let’s see. I’d still call it hit or miss. She has now slept through as many as 5 nights in a row, but it’s not enough to call it a nightly occurrence. I have stopped changing her diaper if she wakes to eat, though, so that helps cut down the awake time in the middle of the night for both of us.

I think she did go through a bit of 4 month sleep regression, which was a nasty spell. For weeks she’d wake up crying within an hour of being put to bed not really needing anything but being lulled back to sleep, then wake again once or twice during the night to fuss and/or eat. The worst night of it all was the first night Ryan was out of town last week, and that was awful. Fortunately after that she started her 5 night sleep stretch, so hopefully she was getting the last of it out of her system. (KNOCK ON WOOD!!!)

I guess not sleeping consistently through the night at 5 months isn’t the end of the world, but I can’t help comparing it to Della, who slept through by 3 months and never looked back. Ah well. Lana is definitely her own person, that’s for sure.

Her napping is pretty good. She still usually gets 3 naps in a day, morning, afternoon, and evening. Sometimes if we’re at work she’s too busy to take a morning nap, so then she tends to take a longer one once we get home and I feed her, essentially combining her morning and afternoon ones. That works fine for me.

Eating. Still exclusively breastfed, eating every 2-3 awake hours during the day. I did try giving her her first taste of rice cereal a few weeks ago because she’s now so interested in watching us eat, but she didn’t really enjoy it. She was more enticed by the prospect of chewing on the spoon rather than actually trying to eat. No biggie. We didn’t start Della on solids regularly until around 6 months I think. It’s also just easier right now not having to worry about both nursing and actual feeding. I’m lazy, remember?

Physicality. This girl is constantly moving and wiggling! I call her my little squirm, because that’s what she always does. She can roll front to back no problem, and she is so close to rolling back to front as well. When on her back she’ll pull her legs up into a little bowling ball shape and tip all the way onto one side, but she can’t quite get her arms underneath her correctly to complete the roll.

I swear she’s ready to take off crawling, too. She can practically get onto her hands and knees when she’s on her stomach, and I’ve seen her do a pretty good downward dog imitation too. I looked over at her one day and she was in baby tripod mode with her feet planted on the blanket, pushing her tiny butt up into the air. Any time now, I tell ya. I keep forgetting I can’t leave her on the changing dresser anymore.

She’s pretty good at sitting with assistance, but when I try to have her sit by herself she still readily tips over. Last night I had her sitting in the boppy pillow on the couch, with the boppy around her stomach to kind of barricade her in. She liked it for a little while, but then she toppled over again so I just put her back on her play mat.

She also has the strongest abs ever. She can almost pull herself up to a sitting position from lying down as you start to pick her up. A budding athlete maybe?

Personality. Big. And loud. Lana chatters and shouts nonstop. And I mean shouts. She’ll be playing on her play mat, yanking at all the toys dangling from the arches above her, and I’ll hear all these high-pitched squeals and yells coming from her. Della and I always say she’s talking to her guys. I swear she’s commanding them, “Get down here and get in my mouth!!”

She makes the most adorable faces with the hugest smiles, too. Her tongue is her new favorite accessory, and watching her stick it out in all different directions is hysterical. She has learned to blow real raspberries too, which I love. Something must always be in her mouth, much more so than I ever remember with Della, and I mean always. She will literally lunge at whatever passes in front of her face to try and grab it with her gums.

And she’s a thumb sucker. I actually don’t mind this at all, because it’s much easier to deal with than having to replace the damn pacifier eighty billion times a day/night. I keep one arm out of her swaddle at night so she can get her thumb to calm her when she rustles around. Works like a charm. I sucked my thumb for years and my teeth are just fine.

I took the throw pillow out from under the jumperoo a few weeks ago, and she can now fully bounce herself with her little toes touching the floor. She was in there last night jumping and squealing with delight. So incredibly cute.

I think those are the main points for now. This one just keeps getting better and better, my little bugaboo. My sweet baby girl.

i swear, all of these really are the same child…

March 7, 2013

I’m a pretty damn good mom after all

That’s basically all I wanted to say, but it feels good to actually “say” it out loud. It feels like it’s taken a long time to get here. (even though i haven’t really been a mom all that long, but whatever)

Sure I have bad days, but I know I’m not alone in that. And lately the good days have begun to far, far outnumber the bad ones. I’m getting into the swing of my new job and loading the girls up to go with me there, and that new routine is finally starting to feel more natural.

Oh yeah, I got a job. I’m planning a bigger “update” post wherein I explain all that, but in a nutshell I started working part-time at the front desk at the gym to which I’ve belonged for years. So far it’s going great. But like I said, more on that later.

This post is about me feeling good in my motherhood again. Being home with 2 is definitely harder than not being home with 1, since I worked full-time for the first 2 years of Della’s life. And as I’ve admitted before, it was a lot harder than I expected and allowed myself to believe at first. But honestly I do feel like I’m better getting the hang of it all.

Della and Lana are my little buddies now instead of simply my charges. Della gets excited to go to “Mama’s new work”, especially when we pack up her lunchbox. One of the girls in the kids care room where D & L go while I work told me this morning that Della was having a blast showing off her “new lunchbox” to everyone. I love how she refers to it as that, since we’ve had it in the cupboard for years. New to her though, I guess.

And Lana is definitely mellowing and becoming more fun to be around. Her crying jags are much fewer and far between, and dare I say on their way out? Now when she cries I know she’s obviously hungry or sleepy, depending on the time of day (or night still, unfortunately). Her smiles and huge blue eyes are the most beautiful things ever, and the chatter she squawks out is hysterical.

Seeing little shining moments in the girls’ days are also helping confirm my new found Mama conviction. When I dropped the two of them off in the kids care room at work today, Della walked over to a little boy who was standing near the cabinets by the sink. He must have been about her age, as he was a little shorter than her. She just wanted to see what he was doing, but when she walked up, he put his hand up on her chest in a “go away” motion. Instantly, flashbacks of those little bitches at the family party came back to me and I was heart-broken again. (what, i can call them that, they’re family) She didn’t see me watching this, however, and she went and sat down at one of the little tables in the room by herself.

I told this tale to that same girl who works in the kids care room later in the morning when she was out at the front desk, and she said oh poor Della! Yeah, that’s what I thought too! But she said don’t worry, they started coloring right after that and she was totally fine. Incident long forgotten. Which I assumed, but I was just happy to know that Della didn’t push the kid back or anything like that. She just walked away and did her own thing. I’d like to think I had a hand in forming her sweet, mild nature, but maybe it’s just innate. I’ll keep telling myself I at least helped, though.

So that’s all. I just felt really good about myself and the girls today, and wanted to write that out. Thank you for listening, as always.

i really, really love this little face.

the constant wonder in her eyes is such a marvelous thing.

March 2, 2013March 3, 2013

4 month stats

Lana turned 4 months old about a week and a half ago, but the girls and I were on vacation so I haven’t gotten around to updating ye old blog until now.

Here are the stats from her 4 month checkup:

Height: 25.5″ (50-75%)
Weight: 13 lbs. 8.25 oz. (50-75%)
Head: 50-75%

Her doctor was again surprised that her height wasn’t in a higher percentile, but I’m sure she’ll sprout soon enough. She did say, however, that Lana is a perfect child, so I’ll take that. She thinks the bright blue eyes will stay, too, about which I’m thrilled.

This past month was a big one. We’ve dropped the pacifier (except for emergency public situations), seen her roll over from front to back for the first time and many times since, heard her first real laugh, and went on her first airplane. She’s also starting to string together multiple nights of sleeping all the way through, which makes me very happy.

I said she was getting more vocal in her 3 month stats post, but now she really has a lot to say. She still wakes up with huge smiles and usually just starts from there. Coos, gurgles, squeaks, shouts, na-nas… I love it. I say she’s telling everyone her “stories”. The best is when she gets so animated with her toys trying to get them in her mouth; she honestly shouts at them. Della says she’s talking to her guys when she does it, since that’s what I call the toys that hang from the arches on her playmat.

Her hands are constantly in her mouth, as is anything she can get in her hands. Squeaky balls, rings, chew rattles, you name it. She especially enjoys sucking on your finger. So if you pick up my baby, just wash your hands first, because there’s about a 150% chance she will grab your hand and shove it in her mouth. It’s hilarious, because sometimes she actually lunges at it like a little piranha.

I swear those blue eyes just keep getting bigger, too. She is constantly looking around; loves watching faces and mouths; and makes the cutest “biggie eyes” face you’ve ever seen. These faces are often accompanied by a constant drool stream, which is her new favorite accessory. I can’t see any teeth poking through in there yet, but all this drool might be a sign that they’re getting close. We are now in bib territory.

Her first (and second) airplane ride last week went better than I could have ever expected. On the way out to Tucson she took a bottle before takeoff, sucked on her pacifier (yes, i caved and gave it to her to prevent a screaming fit) for a few minutes after that, then slept on Grandma’s lap for the entire rest of the 4 hour flight. Hallelujah! On our return trip she was equally as pleasant. She was asleep in the carrier on me for takeoff and the first part of the flight, then ate a bottle, played with Grandma again for awhile, took another bottle shortly before landing, and didn’t make a peep the whole time. Whew!

She still can’t reach the floor in the jumperoo, so the throw pillow remains under her feet. She is, however, already growing out of some of her 3 month clothing – a lot of pj’s have returned to the attic storage, and a couple cute little outfits won’t be far behind. She is in the process of switching up to size 2 diapers, too. Growing like a little flower, I tell ya.

She is the cutest thing ever, and I just love how she smells. I can still get her to nap on my shoulder sometimes, which I cherish. Since ditching the pacifier, naps are still a little hit or miss, but she generally takes one during the early-mid part of the day (sometimes morning and afternoon) and almost always an evening one.

Bedtime is still usually anytime between 8-9, then I cross my fingers that she sleeps through the night. On vacation she slept through 5 out of 7 nights, but since we’ve been home she hasn’t had a repeat performance. I think she has had a little bit of a cold though, with some congestion and hoarse cries, so that could be the culprit. But I have cut out the diaper change when she wakes during the night, so if I hear her starting to squeak or cry, I just feed her and get her back to sleep as quickly as possible.

We’re still doing all breastmilk, which I’ll probably continue for a little while. She is very interested in watching you eat now, so I did try a little rice cereal the other night. She was much more interested in chewing on the spoon than actually getting anything to stay in her mouth, so I’ll wait a little bit before trying again. No rush for me on that one.

Her cranky spells are much fewer and far between now, which is a nice change. I say she’s mellowing in her old age. She is very content playing on the floor now, either on her stomach or back, as long as she has plenty of toys on which to chew. She’ll start to fuss and let you know it’s time to pick her up when she’s had enough or when she gets tired still, but it’s fortunately nothing like it used to be.

I think those are the highlights for this month. Here are the monthly comparison pictures so far – I swear she looks like a completely different baby! Her hair looks like it’s getting red in the 4 month shot, but it’s not really. It’s still dark brown, there’s just so much less of it now. I do love this one so, my sweet baby girl.

February 9, 2013

Baby Lana Love

Here are some recent pictures of our beautiful second born. They were taken with my phone camera, so the quality isn’t the greatest, but that’s always what I seem to have handy when a photo-worthy moment strikes…

February 5, 2013

A small miracle occurred last night

I have a feeling it is very early in the process to start talking about this, but yesterday was day 1 of weaning Lana from the pacifier. Cold turkey. Go big or go home, kids.

I didn’t think we’d have to do this until much later, but she had gotten so dependent on it to fall asleep recently that I’d finally had enough. Multiple nights in a row of being up for almost 2 hours with her in the dead of morning, getting in and out of bed, replacing that stupid plug in her mouth to calm her cries, whipping the sheets off my legs harder and harder each time in frustration, were the straws that broke this camel’s back.

I didn’t mind the thing for awhile, since it really did settle her instantly in her fits of wailing. Like magic. I soon realized why so many people use them. We never did with Della, but this kid’s just different. And she only needed it when trying to fall asleep, never if it fell out once she was sleeping or randomly during the day.

Lately, however, it was taking longer and longer for her to get to sleep with the damn thing, since every time it would fall out she’d immediately get frantic searching for it. She would take super long naps with it in her mouth, but I was willing to sacrifice that “free time” for me in order to quash her growing addiction. I had also noticed that she just liked having it in her mouth during the day to be quiet and look around. Nope, not happening, my dear.

Plus it had become a wicked game at night. Bedtime was stretching to a good hour or more until she would go in her crib without waking up, which of course meant I was always up later than I should have been. Then the nightly feeding was all but torture. I would have to play the dreaded find-and-replace game way more than I was willing to in order to get her back to sleep, by which time it was usually almost time to get up for the day anyway. And she had begun throwing in a bonus wake up sometime in the midnight hour, just in search of that obnoxious pink pacifier.

I was quickly reverting back to the walking zombie state. Our new Keurig definitely helped remedy that situation with a horribly convenient caffeine stream, but that’s not the healthiest solution either.

So yesterday I just said f— it. Sorry, baby girl, but I’m done playing this game. You’re losing your suck privileges on that little piece of rubber. And so it began…

Her usually solid 2-3 hour morning nap was diminished to a 5 minute attempt and then a half hour sleep spell a little while later, but both were done with no pacifier. She got another half hour nap in the boppy mid-afternoon, a 45-50 minute nap on her giraffe playmat around 5, then a quick 20ish minute snooze in my arms at 8 before getting ready for bedtime. Overall much less nap time than normal and each sleep except the one on her playmat was induced by being bounced/rocked in my arms, but the pacifier was not used once.

Then came bedtime. And I was fully prepared for an all-out battle and a night of severely abbreviated sleep.

Bedtime actually went much better than I had expected. I changed her, swaddled her, fed her, and started the arm bounce between 8:30-9, and there was very little fuss. Her eyes got heavy sooner than I’d imagined, and it only took a handful of repeat bouncing rounds before she was totally asleep. So I put her in bed between 9:30-10, which is definitely in the scope of a regular bedtime for her. I also left 1 arm out of the swaddle for the first time, in case she needed to get that little hand in her mouth for some suckling.

I then went to bed at 10, heard a couple rustling spells during the night but no all-out cries so paid little attention, then finally sensed her waking and getting ready to squirm and cry. Ok, what time is it going to be – midnight, 1, 1:30?

Dudes – it was 4:30! She had just slept for 7 straight hours, and since I actually took advantage of that I slept for 6.5!! That probably sounds like nothing for a 3 month old, something that occurs regularly, but I cannot tell you the last time she pulled that one off. I’m not kidding when I say I felt as if I’d had a week’s worth of sleep when I got up to feed her at 4:30.

It was our own little Monday night miracle, my friends.

A baby sleeping the best she has in weeks on the first day of not being allowed to have her beloved pacifier? I’m calling it a miracle.

Maybe it was because she was worn out after not napping as much during the day. Maybe it was because she was more sated after having eaten more often during the day due to said lack of long naps. Maybe she just didn’t really need the pacifier anymore anyway, and we had simply become slaves to it on our own.

Who knows. And I don’t really care why. I just hope it continues! I actually feel rested this morning and have some energy to tackle things around the house. I feel like I won’t just drag through today like I have for the past couple.

Oh, but I still visited my friend Keurig first thing…

January 22, 2013January 22, 2013

3 month stats

Lana turned 3 months old yesterday. She has now spent a whole trimester on the outside! I never thought of it that way before. Hmm, interesting.

We don’t have her next doctor checkup until 4 months, though, so I don’t have any official stats to share this time. But I’ll fill you in on how life with L is progressing and what’s changed since her last update.

Sleep. Well let’s see. She has been consistently down to waking up once a night to eat since around 2 months, but she hasn’t mastered sleeping through the night all the time yet like Della had by 3 months. She has done it 3 times, once for 2 nights in a row on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, but unfortunately that trend did not last.

Her last feeding before bed is usually around 8:30 now, but it still takes awhile for her to actually get to sleep enough to go into her crib without waking back up. So I get her diaper changed, swaddle her up for the night, feed her, then arm bounce her with her pacifier for generally half an hourish until she’s really out. Sometimes it takes longer, sometimes it takes less. And I know you’re not supposed to wait until a baby’s completely asleep to put her down so she can get used to putting herself to sleep, but I call horseshit on that one right now. Lana most definitely needs to be asleep for at least her bedtime or else you’re going to stand there playing dropped it got it with the pacifier for hours. That’s not my favorite game.

Her nightly wake up feedings typically occur around 3-4am still, but she’s gotten fussier about going back down most of the time. I used to be able to just change her, feed her, and she’d be ready to be put back down, but now when I burp her she wakes up and wants to play the staring game. So then I’ll use the pacifier again, which tends to be relatively fast-acting.

What else? Daytimes still have fairly little structure. She’ll take roughly an hour nap within about an hour of waking up and her morning feeding. Then the middle of the day is kind of hit or miss, depending on her mood that day. But then there’s usually another hourish nap in the evening before her bedtime feeding. I have noticed, however, that she tends to take a pretty long nap at some point during the day, it’s just not quite at the same time each day. So I guess that’s about 3 naps a day?

She’s still exclusively breastfed, nursing about 6-7 times a day, including the late night feeding. Some days there might be 1 more in there somewhere. And we’re still doing 1 bottle a day containing her vitamin drops. She has started becoming very distracted and chatty during her feedings, which can get a little annoying because they just take longer. She still eats well overall though, so I guess I can’t complain much.

The cranky spells have decreased since she was first born, but she can still wail with the best of them. The other day she high-pitched screamed in our faces, which always leads Ryan to believe she’s colicky. He actually looked it up again online, and apparently when babies pull their legs up into their chests quickly and seem to be “running” a lot it can be a symptom of colic. Trying to relieve the gas or whatever’s causing pain in there. Lana constantly has legs in motion. And the fact that her screaming fits always start with her going stiff as a board also points to some colic. But thankfully she still has never yelled for hours on end and will calm when you hold her, which I think is a good sign that she doesn’t have full-blown colic.

Her smiles and “stories” she tells are the best. My favorite is in the morning when I unswaddle her and her little arms instantly fly up next to her head in a huge stretch accompanied by a gigantic smile. She sure is a charmer when she’s not shouting at you.

I put her in the jumperoo for the first time today too. She can’t sit on her own or stand yet, but she’s so squirmy and active all the time I thought she might like something a little more stimulating than lying on her playmat. I think she likes it. She can’t touch the floor yet, just like Della when we first put her in it, so I put a big throw pillow under her feet so they touch something. I folded up a little blanket and propped it behind her head too, so she can stay upright better. She’s currently staring at the hanging animal toys with the music playing.

Not a ton has changed since last month, but she is definitely awake and alert more during the day. Certainly learning all about this new big world she’s in.

And since I know how much you fell in love with my comparison shots during my pregnancy with Lana, I’ve started one to keep track of her over the months. 1-2-3!

i forgot to put the pillow behind her yesterday, but she sits propped up well enough now that she doesn’t really need it. and she was tired and getting cranky, so i didn’t change her into a white onesie for the sticker. i’ll try to get back to matching next month.