Baby J: 4 Months

Here I am again on the eve of my daughter's 5th month birthday and I haven't yet published her 4th month update. I do manage to feed and clothe her, I promise! I really don't know how life can fly by like this but I am already counting down the days when I have to leave her and go back to work... 7 more months and then my baby girl will be spending more of her days with someone else. 
I could really do with a lottery win right about now. Or I need to invent the next iPod. 

SLEEP: Not much new happening here but it's a routine (I use that term loosely) I can live with because Turtle sleeps through the night. Thank you baby, momma is soooo grateful!

SKILLS AND DEVELOPMENT: We continue to see Turtle learning new things all the time and her little face concentrates so hard, it's adorable. She is working on grasping objects and if she drops something, oh boy look out - baby gets so mad! But I think the best sound I have heard so far is her laugh - a deep belly laugh ending in a squeal - and so far we have only heard it when she is in mid-air. So my baby is a daredevil... pretty sure she gets that from her adrenaline junkie uncle and I hope it's a sign of things to come because I want my daughter to be fearless. I'm a wimp and I don't want that for her.

FAVOURITES: Can I just say that the jolly jumper is God's gift to moms?? I can get a solid 20-25 minutes of happy baby which is enough time to empty the dishwasher, load the dishwasher, change laundry loads AND make my hubby's lunches for the next two days. I LOVE IT!!! 

NOT SO FAVOURITES: 

• carseat = screaming
• tummy time = screaming
• putting lotion on after bathtime = screaming

At least I know when to know earplugs?

MY THOUGHTS: I literally love her more every single day. I am constantly in a mental battle where I want her to stop growing and stay small enough for me cuddle whenever I want, but then she reaches out to try and hold her bottle herself and I can't wait to see what she will learn next. 

Baby J: 3 Months

Turtle is going to be 4 months old tomorrow. This means, 1) I am the worst mom in the world because I can't even manage to post a couple paragraphs for a month, and 2) someone figured out how to speed up time. The logical part of me says to skip 3 months and just start fresh with 4 but the mom inside me feels way too guilty and I don't want my daughter to need therapy because I couldn't be bothered to talk about her spit bubbles (which she blows constantly btw). So here goes, let's give this memory a workout.

SLEEP: I really can't complain here because our little Turtle is sometimes sleeping through the night. The nights that she wakes up she has a bottle and goes right back down. We are working on her bedtime routine and start anywhere between 7 and 8pm, then it's bottle and bedtime. Just after she turned 3 (months) she really started to fight the swaddle so I got brave and tried a sleepsack. Some babies have a tough time transitioning but I'm not sure Turtle even realized the difference. So we're full on in a sleep sack now. I am also really digging our morning routine: daddy is a morning person so he is usually awake and gets baby, changes her diaper, feeds her and then plays with her until he has to get up and go. This means a bit more sleep for mommy and that means we all win.

Naps are a completely different story. Turtle still won't really nap and I think I need to give up the dream that she ever will. 

SKILLS AND DEVELOPMENT: My little baby is becoming a person! We have really started to see Turtle come into her personality and watching her discover everything is so amazing. I never thought I would be so excited to see someone grasp a toy in their hand. And she has found her voice! My mom got a motorized mobile for her crib and Turtle absolutely loves it, she lays underneath and 'talks' to the bugs as they 'fly' by. 

FAVORITES: Turtle completely flipped and now enjoys the mamaroo, plus I found the swing our friends have and she likes it too. She doesn't last a long time but she will actually chill for a good 15-20 minutes and we switch her between the two throughout the day. I do have to say though that her favourite is to be held facing out while you're standing. It's exhausting. She also loves the songs from our Mother Goose music class, specifically one called 'Roly Poly'. I sing it over and over with her in my lap and do the hand gestures and she is in heaven.

Daddy might be the biggest favorite. As soon as Turtle sees his face she breaks into a huge grin and gets so excited. They play and have conversations with each other and it's the most wonderful thing to see. She already has him wrapped tightly around finger.

NOT SO FAVORITES: Her car seat (an infant seat), entertaining herself (this just doesn't happen) and naps. 

MY THOUGHTS: I love being Turtle's mom. Yes I get tired and frustrated when she cries for the eighteenth time that day (we still have digestive issues but they are getting better) and look forward to her bedtime but every night I miss her. I sneak into her room and watch her sleep, tell her again how much I love her and marvel at how quickly she has grown in such a short time. She has changed so much recently and I am excited to see what 4 months brings us.

Gettin Quirky With It

I was doing my usual blog tour today and one of my favourites, Erin, had a list of her “quirks” which I thoroughly enjoyed and then I thought, hey do I have quirks too??  Can I actually somewhat relate to this twenty-something hip chick living the life in Manhattan??  Not in a gazillion years Maybe but pretty sure mine are ‘weird’ quirks and not ‘cute’ quirks.  Let’s see shall we?

1. When shopping (for groceries, clothes, magazines, whatever) I never take the item from the front/top, I prefer to take one from at least two places behind/under and I always look for creases, dents, rips, etc.  This drives hubby nuts (he enjoys telling me when he grabbed something from the front when I was in a different aisle) but I totally rubbed off on one of my besties… and then I found out she rubbed off on someone else!  It’s a cycle.


2. I too, like Erin, cannot remember movie or sitcom lines to save my life.  I’m not even that good at remembering plots, especially movies, so I can watch things again a few months later and it’s almost brand new again.  Good for me but hubby quotes Seinfeld like he played Jerry George and I never know what he’s talking about and he gets a tiny bit frustrated.


3. When I am done eating my plate needs to be gone, it cannot be in front of me anymore.   What drives me nuts is when a restaurant insists on clearing plates when everyone is finished – are you kidding me??  It's torture


4. I always sit cross-legged.  Always.  At my desk at work, at the table (in restaurants and at home!!), as a passenger in a car, etc.  For this reason I rarely wear skirts.


5. Whenever I eat sandwiches on bread or toast, I tear the crusts off and eat them first.  For some reason, I think the middle tastes better and I eat it last because I want the best flavour to be the last thing I remember.  This sometimes backfires on me however, when I am too full to finish the middle :(


6. French fries must be eaten in pairs or in three, and the pieces must be approximately the same length.  (I didn’t even really realize this one – hubby pointed it out after a couple months of dating!).

Well that covers round 1!  More to follow...

is everyone ready for Friday?? I am!

Sxxo.

 

Big Family Love

Not only do I think my family is pretty great but I am also extremely lucky to have been blessed with amazing in-laws who accepted me as part of the family from the first time they met me over four years ago.  Hubby’s family is actually quite big… both his parents are remarried and have amazing significant others, he has two brothers that are both married (to lovely women) and each have two kids, plus he has two stepsisters, one of which is married and has two little girls and the other one, K, has become one of my best friends.  I haven't even touched on the grandparents, aunts, uncles and family friends!  And I love them all.

I am having a slight issue, no issue isn’t the right word… I don’t actually know what the right word is so I will just try to explain it… my mother-in-law (MIL) would like me to call her Mom and my father-in-law (FIL) would like me to call him Dad.  I need to clarify up front that I love them both and I actually feel (major cheesy moment coming, sorry!) honoured that WANT me to call them Mom and Dad.  My two sisters-in-law (SILs) both call them Mom and Dad but they have actually been around for about 18-20 years (my BILs both met these amazing women very young, have awesome relationships and I so hope that hubby and I are as lucky as them).  So again, I don’t not want to, I don’t mind it, but it feels kind of weird.

My FIL left me a message a couple days ago and had no problem saying, “Hi it’s Dad, give me call…” and my MIL left a similar message (and reminded me that my outgoing message still has my maiden name!) and I love that they think of me like that.  So why is it weird for me?  Does anyone else have that problem?  It feels awkward when I say it, but I’m not sure if they can tell.

I asked my sister about it because I have only ever heard her call her in-laws by their first names and she said she never would and in fact, couldn’t.

I guess it just takes time… and really, wouldn’t the problem be if they didn’t like me?  Trust me to complain about the opposite!

Like I told hubby yesterday: it’s better to a big family with too much lots of love than to have none at all.

Sxxo.