We're in Marquette for a long weekend. Anja did pretty well on the car ride. She took a few short naps in the car. Jay says they were 45 minutes, but they seemed shorter to me. This time we brought along a few new little toys from the "used baby store" so we could pull them out at fussy times. One toy that was pretty useful was an arch-shaped attachment that connects to the car seat, from which you can hang other toys. It kept toys where she could reach them instead of allowing her to throw her toys away.
For the last hour or two she was really not happy being in the car anymore (the trip is about 7 hours of driving, without a baby). So sometimes we just had to let her cry while we drove. It was more of a low-grade whine/cry, since she was just tired.
We had a funny experience at a welcome center/gift shop along the way. I was letting her walk around on the floor of the gift shop so she could stretch her legs. The woman at the gift shop was enamored with her. Before we left she had me fill out a card with Anja's name on it; then she handed us a big teddy bear and said, "Here, she won this." That's the first time she has won something for being cute!
It seems we are back on a normal schedule now, and even Jay is mostly better. Anja was only up once each night for the past two nights, which is normal.
Laura's baby weighs as much as four naval oranges this week. Wish me luck for next week when her baby weighs as much as a Jicama. Not sure if they sell those in Marquette.
When I dropped Anja off at daycare today, the little girl who loves her, Zoe (she's two), showed me her own baby doll that she calls "Baby Anja". She puts diapers on Baby Anja and puts Baby Anja down for naps. This is the same Zoe who used to say hi by poking her in the eye :-) She is SO excited when we show up every morning.
All three of us have been sick since the last post. Jay has had the worst of it. I was sick first and am feeling fine now. Jay was just getting sick when he ran a 1/2 marathon last week, and that caused him to get sicker than I did (in the period right after any race, your immune system is really low for several days). And Anja was sick for several days, and now seems to be feeling much better, but has lingering congestion and a runny nose. It hasn't been pleasant for any of us.
The sleep issue was REALLY bad early in the week. Laura sent me some good vibes on her blog (http://everyseasonbutwinter.blogspot.com/), possibly building up some karma for when she's dealing with this in a few months :-) Looking back, Anja probably wasn't feeling well when we were having sleep problems, but we didn't know that yet. She wouldn't go to sleep easily, and once she was asleep we would rarely get a full two hours before she was up again. One night after feeding her I tried for 1.5 hours to get her back to sleep in her crib, but she would wake instantly as soon as she touched the sheets. Most of the time I just gave up and brought her to bed. We started dividing the night again like we did when we first brought her home: one of us takes the first 4 hour shift, and one takes the second. Even so, we both lose sleep, because we both wake up when she cries.
You'd never know from the pictures how much trouble she gives us at night :-)
There are some simple techniques you can use to help your baby to establish better nighttime routines. Well, simple in theory. You are not supposed to try them, though, if she is sick or if your routine will be disrupted, and we are going away for a few days this next week, so now is not the time to try it. But if we are still having issues in a couple of weeks we will try something. Mainly what you are supposed to do is establish a regular routine (ie bath, food, book) each night before bed, and we haven't been very good at that. And then if she wakes up before we know she should be hungry (for example, after only two hours), then we comfort her in bed without picking her up and feeding her, until she falls asleep. Eventually she learns to comfort herself back to sleep. Again, in theory.
Anja has finally started crawling by moving both hands and feet to go forward. She was doing it for a while yesterday, but then she went back to the army crawl. I think that when we dress her in slippery clothes (like fleece) she finds that it's easier to just drag herself around on her belly, especially when she's on the wood floor.
Yesterday she sat up without using her hands several times. The first time she went over backward (again) and bumped her head on the floor. But that didn't stop her from doing it again right away. She held it for a little while, it was pretty neat. And she has been pulling herself up on anything she can grab. There isn't any good video of it yet because I need my hands free to catch her if she falls.
Now that she is getting stronger, she doesn't want to sit in her reclining bouncy seat anymore. This seat has been so useful for putting her in while we make dinner, or take a shower, or do anything that requires two hands. But she leans forward so far in it now that she can pick up toys on the floor in front of her.
We rarely buy new things for Anja, both because we don't need to and can't afford it. But I broke down and bought this at Target today: Her friend Toby has this set and she was playing with it when we visited this weekend. I couldn't help it! It's a "musical set", complete with plastic drum and centipede drumsticks, ant jingle bells, bee maraca, caterpillar tambourine, and ladybug xylophone. It's made by Parents brand, they make some pretty cool interactive stuff for kids.
I also broke down and bought a "tag blanket". Anja absolutely loves playing with the tags on things. She likes to feel them and suck on them. Apparently this is common, which is why you can buy a fuzzy blanket covered in tags. She loves it.
Speaking of things she loves that we didn't buy for her, look at her reaction to a sheepskin rug. Kim and Scott pulled it out for us when we were over yesterday. When we put her on it she started laughing and burying her face in it. She couldn't get enough of it. Here's a video I stole from Kim's website:
We tried our second solid food yesterday, peas. Anja really liked them. I pureed them a few weeks ago and froze them in an ice cube tray. But she ate 4 cubes yesterday, so maybe I need to freeze it in larger containers. It wasn't "too" messy, although I did find that sitting outside of her reach doesn't mean you are safe from food attack - she is pretty good at spitting and flinging bits of food. However, I do really like feeding her in the chair instead of the bouncy seat... at least this way she can't get her foot into her mouth while she's eating. She looks so much older to me when she's sitting in her chair. Hard to believe how much she's developed in just 5 months.
We're trying not to be too pushy about food, we plan to introduce new foods gradually, as she finds it interesting. There is really no rush. Right now she seems more interested in the texture than anything:
We measured Anja at her 5 month birthday and she is exactly 15lbs and 26". That puts her at the 56th percentile for weight and the 90th percentile for height. Still long and thin. She eats all the time (see previous post about not sleeping through the night!) so she's growing well, she's just outgrowing clothes quickly because she's so long. I just bought a bunch of footie pj's a month ago so she would have some warm stuff for the winter. She's already outgrown some and the rest just barely fit now. Look at the cute outfit she was wearing Aug 27th - it's too small now! She's wearing the 6-9 month clothing right now, but won't be for much longer.
I am so so grateful for the great consignment shop we have in town for baby stuff. Everything I need is there. The one I like has fairly high quality stuff at really low prices. An expensive outfit might cost $3, but most are under $2. A few are under $1! We have a pretty large supply of baby stuff at the Volunteers of America store here, but they aren't organized so you are left to sift through literally thousands of clothes on racks of all sizes. We also have a high end "baby boutique" resale store here, but their stuff is pretty expensive.
It's hard to tell from pictures, but her hair is starting to grow. It looks really blond in all the pictures, but it's actually coming in as a really light brown.
I think it's funny that sometimes babies just laugh for no reason at all:
It's been interesting to see which baby items have been indispensable to us, and which we haven't really needed. One of the most important items for us has been our jogging stroller, the Baby Jogger brand. Last weekend we walked to a tailgate party on campus - 4 miles each way, and she was great in the stroller. It's a really cushy ride with big wheels and shocks and lots of padding inside. The sun shade is huge, and can be moved all the way down to her legs in front, so you can completely block her from the sun. Here she is after we got home (the picture is a little blurry but I didn't want to wake her up with the camera flash):
It's sometimes hard to take her places where she has to sit still, but I'm so glad that we can just take her for an 8 mile walk without worrying about how she'll do. Jay regularly takes her for runs in the stroller, too. I haven't been running with her, simply because running is hard enough for me right now without also pushing a stroller, but I think I'll be there soon.
I've really been trying to get a lot done in the few hours Anja isn't here so I haven't been posting much. No news in jobs, though. I have applied for quite a few jobs now. A few won't close for a few more weeks, but I hope to hear back on some others soon. It has now been a full month since I first started applying.
Anja has been making steady progress with crawling. It's not really full-out crawling with all four limbs taking steps, but she really gets around so I'm calling it crawling now.
Last Friday we went to a Mom/baby group for the first time. It was pretty fun. It was a "pre-crawlers" group at the birth center where we had planned to have Anja before the preeclampsia. There were about 10 of us there. The babies ranged in age from about 2 months to about 8 months. We mostly compared notes about what the babies were doing, shared our concerns about all topics in parenting, and gave advice to each other regarding what has worked for us. It was very nice and I plan to go again. Although I don't know how much longer I can consider her a pre-crawler.
Sleep has not been good lately. She was doing really well for a while, occasionally sleeping all the way through the night, but usually up only once. Now she is up repeatedly, demanding food each time, and having trouble falling asleep afterward. Here is Jay's account of last night:
"I went to sleep at midnight, and just as I was falling asleep Anja woke up. So I tried to calm her down, but she demanded food. She ate 5oz, then played in her crib for 1hr. I sat next to her in the chair with my eyes closed. She finally fell asleep at two. I went to bed, fell asleep at three, then got up with her at 6:30 and fed her again. 3.5hrs total for me, 4hrs + 4.5 = 8.5 hours for her. Having trouble concentrating today, very scatterbrained."
Each week I think to myself, "Something's gotta give, we can't keep doing this," and then another week passes and we're still doing it, and we get by. It sure is hard to feel like a real person, though, when you never sleep through the night yourself. The night before last we made sure she had a really big feeding before bed, including some rice cereal, which is supposed to keep babies full overnight, and she was still up a bunch of times. We've decided not to try the "cry it out" method for a number of reason, so every time she's up, we're up. Besides, she is genuinely hungry each time, so she needs to be fed. I'm so jealous of the parents whose newborns sleep through the night without any coaxing at all. And she rarely takes more than a couple of 20 minute naps throughout the day.
We picked up a used infant booster seat last week for a few dollars (I love the baby consignment store we have in town) in anticipation of needing something better than a bouncy seat for feeding soon. When she's in it, all she wants to do is frantically bang her toys around and hit the tray. It's almost like she doesn't know what to do with her hands, now that she isn't using them for balance!
A few days ago she sat up unsupported for the first time. She moved from hands-on-the-floor sitting to a straight up sitting position with her arms in the air. She was so surprised and held it for several seconds. I was so surprised that I didn't dive for her fast enough before she went over backward. So I'm not sure when she'll want to try it again.
My friend Kim came over last week with her son Toby, who is about 9 months old. They are a little young to play together yet, mostly Anja just plowed headfirst into Toby while he wondered what she was doing. But look how cute they are together!
Anja is really interested in toys these days. She loves this wooden toy with stackable rings, she crawls straight for it. I don't know if she likes the colors, or the height, or the fact that she can knock it over. She also really likes tupperware and empty powerade bottles. And as you saw last week, full heads of cabbage.
And she loves these waterproof bath books, which is great, because they're washable:
