8 Month Sleep Regression

On the downside, Isabella can't seem to stay away from a good sleep regression.  On the upside, she at least waits until I'm on breaks from school for the really bad ones and let me tell you this 8 month one has been a doozy!

It started the night after my final assignment for the semester was submitted.  She woke up crying.  I let her cry for awhile but it wasn't stopping so I went in.  Thus begins our journey through nighttime wakeups, falling asleep if held and only staying asleep if held (her crib is clearly filled with burning lava that only she can see and therefore cannot enter safely), early wakeups (I am ok with wakeups after 5, so that tells you how ridiculously early these early wakeups are), and the occasional napping revolt.

It appears we have a hybrid leap, compounded by some good old -fashioned separation anxiety.  Since she was experiencing separation anxiety during the day, I didn't want to make things worse by doing CIO at night.  This led to some crappy and uncomfortable nights for me either sleeping in the glider or (once I got smarter) sleeping with her in the bed in the office (so J.T. could sleep for work the next day).  She does not believe in personal space so when we sleep in the bed it is with me holding her in the crook of my arm...tots comfortable;).

The separation anxiety seems to be easing up some, so we may revert back to CIO in the coming days.  All I know is that I resume classes on the 8th so we need to have this thing figured out.  Until then I remain jacked up on caffeine, have resumed my 7-8pm bedtime, and on occasion walk though life in a fog. 

Mothers who work outside of the home, you are my heroes.  I can function taking care of tiny people in my home with this amount of sleep, I could not function with the professional world effectively on this level of sleep.  God bless you!

Operation Organization

My attempt at doing a better job of "keeping house" has gone less than swimmingly.  I think one reason for this is the amount of STUFF we have around this place.  Usually each summer I do a major deep cleaning and purging session.  This summer it did NOT happen.  In fact, thinking back to last summer with all we had going on on the IVF front I think I only half a$$ed it last year too.  That means that in addition to a whole new person and a new home "business" and all of the stuff that comes with it, we also had two years of clutter that had been just kinda tidied and shuffled around to various nooks and corners of the house.

There are several what I will call bottlenecks which then slow down the whole getting the house straightened up process.  There are also some what FlyLady would call "hot spots".  The two biggest offenders on these fronts are the desk we moved from the office into the bedroom when we made the nursery and the garage.

Took care of the desk by once and for all cleaning it up and then getting rid of it.  I never worked at it, rather it was a place for me to pile stuff.  If it's not there I can't pile stuff on it!  Posted it and the chair on my neighborhood Facebook page and they both disappeared quickly.

Reinforcements had to be called in for the garage and I had talked to my dad about helping me.  He ended up doing the whole thing almost all by himself.  It looks awesome.  I wish I had taken a before picture because the after is just incredible.  Before we could pull both our cars in the garage AND could get in and out of them, but that was about it.  Now you can move around the whole garage and it feels so much better!

I also took a load to Goodwill and the recycling center and have another load ready to go sitting on the sunporch.

I also have uncovered a love for things that fold up and can be put away and things that serve more than one purpose.  Some of my favorites include:

Dog crate for travel that can be folded flat.

Laundry baskets that can be folded flat and stored under our armoire.

An ottoman that stores toys AND can be folded flat if needed!

A Very Merry Christmas

 

                                  

Panic Mode

This is like my 8th year of college and for the first time was presented the unique opportunity of not holding a steady job (or two!) outside of my home.  For the first time ever I can focus on my schoolwork without other distractions...ha, ha, yeah right!  By about October though I did manage to find a groove where I could read and write while the babies played and got used to being interrupted whenevs and learned to jump back in when I could. 

Often times things looked like this:

Here I was watching a stats tutorial while the kids played.  

Yesterday, however, was a different story.  

Yesterday, my classmate dropped her daughter off and commented that she was so glad that our Globalization class was over and that her paper was finished.  I told her I envied her because I was going to get mine in under the wire at midnight tonight.  It was then that she informed me it was due at noon, not midnight.  Dam* you am/pm!!!!  

It was currently 9am and I only had 8 pages of this 15 page (minimum) monstrosity in ROUGH draft form.  I also had 4 kids who would need naps, diaper changes, and food during these next 3 hours.  Cue a panic I hadn't felt this semester and thank god wouldn't feel again since this was my final assignment.

The kids, unfortunately channeled my stress and the "big" kids squabbled over toys for literally the first time ever and the babies suddenly turned into needy little critters.  I didn't hit the noon deadline, but somehow managed to get the whole thing done and submitted by 2.  

I texted JT and he asked "Does this prof accept late work?".  Heck if I knew so I went back and re-read the syllabus and surely he very clearly stated he does not:(.

Fortunately, this man is my advisor and I have been a solid student all semester so when I sent an apology email requesting an exception it was accepted.  Phew!    

Thank goodness it is winer break!

8 Months

Standing Proud

This is a picture I took of Isabella before I turned around to wash bottles at the sink:

This is the picture I got to take when I turned back around:

We have been practicing having her stand since she was 3/4 months old and over the last few weeks began putting her up to things like the couch and the activity table to practice standing.  This is the first time she did it all by herself.  #dontblink

Meeting Santa

I had originally said that I wasn't in favor of taking Isabella to see Santa this year.  This was primarily because she has no clue as to what is going on and also because there was a 50/50 chance the experience would make her cry for no good reason.  However, I changed my mind when my mother-in-law and J.T.s aunt were coming in for the weekend and we needed to find something to entertain them with.  As a side note, his other aunt and cousin also came along which my MIL didn't mention in advance, but they weren't staying with us so I guess it doesn't matter.

As luck would have it, my MIL brought along a super cute Christmas outfit that appropriately enough said "Santa Baby".  So we changed her into her outfit and headed out.  "Fortunately" it was super cold and the santa we were going to see was at an outside shopping center (though Santa himself was inside a cute little "house").   The line was super short and very quick.

Isabella didn't smile, but fortunately she didn't cry either.

Afterwards we went out for dinner.  With one exception her whole life, Isabella has done a good job in restaurants.  She likes the people and as long as I am prepared with a steady stream of toys to chuck at her and some food if she's hungry, she is all set.

While Isabella is not much of a smiler in pictures these days (she is too busy with the things she wants to do I guess), she has become a fan of the selfie.  She is such a little ham!

  

There They Are!

Isabella started drooling and chewing on everything in sight at 3 months.  We assumed she would start teething early...we were wrong.  She was pretty fussy off and on for a couple of days and it seemed like she was brewing a second cold.  I randomly put my finger in her mouth and could feel two teeth starting to skim the surface of her lower gums.  It took a few weeks for them to come in fully and the little stinker won't let me get a good shot, but they are definitely there. 

Once they popped through the fussiness cleared.  Though now that we have officially started teething it has dawned on me all of the very many things that people blame on teething.  Fussiness, fevers, runny noses, biting, the list goes on.  If only babies could talk and tell us what is really going on...