Sleepy kid

I finally figured out how to get pictures off my cell phone and onto the computer. Stay tuned for more "on the go" action shots of every day life from such exciting locations as The Store, The Car, and The Restaurant, where I don't normally have my real camera. Here's a picture from today of Anja sleeping in the cart at Meijer. So far, riding in the cart seems to have the same effect on her as riding in the car. I can't believe she can sleep like this.


I tried putting Anja in the cart for the first time the other day, and she's just barely big enough/ready enough. But wow does that make shopping easier. The seatbelt pretty much holds her in place, otherwise she would slide all over because she's so little. And I do have to keep repositioning her as she still does slide a little bit anyway. But she seems to really like it (see above picture). Up until now I was bringing her into the store in the sling, but it's just too difficult now with all the extra winter gear we're wearing these days. And I think she's been frustrated with the sling lately because she can't see out of it very well.

For some reason today was a big sleep day for Anja. She slept pretty well last night (slept 8 hours, fed, then slept another 2.5), but she still needed a lot of sleep during the day. After shopping we stopped to visit Jay where he was working (at a local coffee shop). She fell asleep in the two minute drive over, and remained sleeping when I picked her up and walked through heavy snow and noisy traffic to the second floor of the coffee shop. I gave her to Jay where she continued to sleep for at least half an hour more, still not waking at all. I often wonder what it must be like to fall asleep at home and wake up in a completely different location miles away in someone else's arms.


Anja's personality is really becoming more apparent recently. It is so fun to see her develop into a real little person. For the last few days she has been more "huggy", which is great, and I hope a permanent trend. She even fell asleep on my shoulder yesterday, which she hasn't done since she was about a month old. She also raises her hands to be picked up now. She responds more to words now, and definitely prefers some toys and activities to others depending on her mood.


One interesting development lately is that she has begun to find some noises scary that weren't scary before. Suddenly now she is terrified of the food processor (which I use to puree her baby food). And the noise made by pulling clear packing tape off the roll. She is so scared of these two things that I can't use either one when she is around. Both sounds invoke an instant, wide-eyed cry with frantic arms in the air to be picked up.


But perhaps the funniest thing that has happened in a while was our visit to the coffee shop today. We were sitting in an open booth and Jay was holding Anja so she was facing over his shoulder to the next booth. Anja would put her head up to see over his shoulder so the ladies in the next booth would see her. Then when they smiled and talked to her she would smile back and hide her head in Jay's shoulder, like she was suddenly shy. Then she would do it again. She did this quite a few times, getting the same response from them each time. One time when they didn't look back right away she started hitting the back of the seat as if to say, "Pay attention to me!" I hadn't seen her interact with other people in quite that way before. Very cute.

Toast

People always want to know how Blue has responded to having a baby around. Lately she's been pretty excited about it.

Mirror

Anja likes playing a game called, "Who's that baby in the mirror?" It's not a very complex game, but it's still fun every time.


Cute.


Serious.

It works for naps too!!!

After having another successful sleep last night (only fed Anja once, at 4:00), I decided to try something new today - putting Anja down for a nap when she's awake. She generally takes a nap around noon of an hour or so and then around 4:00 gets really cranky. I've always waited until she fell asleep before putting her in bed for naps, but she won't fall asleep in the afternoon. She then remains awake and cranky until bedtime at 8:00, leaving me exhausted after 4 hours of squirmy, complainy baby who does NOT want to play with toys, be held, or read a book. So today I put her down at 5:30, checking on her every 3 minutes until she stopped crying. In 20 minutes she was sound asleep!

I realize that I am not the first mom to ever put her baby down for a nap successfully. But this concept of giving her a nap when she needs it will change everything for us!

In baby-unrelated news, we have decided to put our house up for sale. Since we live in Michigan, and Lansing in particular, it may take a while to sell our house. It will be harder to do if we get jobs and have to move to another state right away. On the unlikely chance that the house sells quickly and then we get good jobs in Lansing, we can certainly pick up another house easily, or rent temporarily. I sure will miss our cute little house so close to downtown, work, parks, etc. And what a great garden we had in the backyard.

Sleep!

This picture is pretty typical these days. She likes to feel her bottom teeth with her fingers.


Last night was pretty good again. Jay spent about 30 minutes alternating comforting Anja and leaving her for 3 minutes, then comforting her again, until she fell asleep. Then I got up to feed her at 4:00 when she cried. When I put her back down she cried, but I waited for 3 minutes before going to her. Before 3 minutes came we were both asleep again! Jay said last night was the most sleep he's gotten in a long time.

Sleep training

So far we've had two nights of "sleep training". The first night was pretty busy, although not too bad (Jay may have a different view of this, since he had the first shift and there was more crying involved). But last night (the second night) I put her to bed at 7:30 and she slept for 9 hours straight! Then I fed her at 4:30 and she went right back to sleep and slept for another 3 hours! It's funny to think of "only getting up at 4:30am" as a luxury, but it really is. I'm hoping tonight is similar. If we can successfully eliminate all but one night feeding, we will start to make that feeding later and later until it is also gone.

Did I mention Anja is fascinated with Blue?


Blue has decided that Anja should be able to throw her toys just like everyone else:


But she could do without the petting.

We have tooths!

Anja's second tooth has come through, and you can see the first one pretty well now. It's sharp!


We're starting "sleep training" this week. She is nearly 7 months old and is still up multiple times a night to eat and Mom and Dad are tired. So we are going to limit her to one nighttime feeding, and we won't pick her up the other times she cries. What we will do is comfort her when she cries, while leaving her in the crib. Hopefully over time this will teach her to go back to sleep on her own, instead of needing to be picked up and fed every time she wakes up.


We have been very busy around here lately. I've been applying for jobs everywhere and completing training for substitute teaching here in town. Jay has to turn in his written dissertation material in about a week. His oral defense will be Dec 1st, so he will have two weeks to prepare for that. He's pretty much working 'round the clock these days. I'm almost always asleep before he comes home, often around 1:00. Not getting much sleep at night doesn't make this any easier for him. He has a much harder time falling asleep after Anja wakes him. Sometimes he just stays up and works. Once last week he left the house at 5am to go to work because he couldn't sleep anyway (I of course was completely unaware). I'm suffering from sleep deprivation too, but I can usually fall asleep eventually after getting up to feed her. As hard as this is, it is still not as hard for me as the last month of pregnancy was, when I couldn't sleep at all because of the heartburn and reflux. Broken sleep is still better than no sleep, although 7 months of broken sleep is no picnic. At least Jay will be done soon, and we will laugh about how hard these few months were. But we aren't laughing yet!



We have two leads on jobs right now. I had a phone interview last week for a job in northern Virginia (outside DC) working for a land trust group; they are calling people back this week to schedule in-person interviews. Jay is a finalist for a job in Petaluma, CA working for a Bird Observatory. I'm really interested in the Virginia job, but I'm not keen on the area (super expensive and big city lifestyle). Jay's job lead is in a really interesting area, and I'm pretty sure I could find something out there as well, so I'm pulling for the California job, but we're not ruling anything out yet. We should know more in a few weeks. Meanwhile I have two temporary jobs lined up here that can start in a few weeks.