I can’t believe it has been a month since I rambled on and on about…life. Oh, who am I kidding? I always ramble about life, but not a dedicated post to such ramblings.
I think we officially have a holiday hangover – work, snow, work, sleep,snow, repeat. You guys, the snow was blowing SIDEWAYS yesterday. Brrr!
I signed Shea up for gymnastics on Saturdays at 12pm, starting tomorrow. Unfortunately, this complicates nap time, but the 11am session is full and the early morning session interferes with my tennis lessons. First world problems, I know. But in all seriousness, nap time has been BANANAS. More specifically, nap time has been spent not napping, but rather, Shea has taken to pacing her crib, throwing everything out of her crib, singing, dancing, screaming, crying…disaster. Maybe it was being out of the daycare schedule for the week that it was closed to end the year, because her teachers have reported a nap every day this week. Today? No dice. Please send nap time vibes our way – we need a toddler reprieve on the weekends. Besides, she’s not even 2 1/2 – she needs to nap.
On the topic of sleep, Piper has been consistent in that she is yet to sleep through the night (she’ll be 4 months old on Sunday). I’m not all that surprised by this, but as a mama who hasn’t slept through the night in 4 months, I’m anxiously awaiting the day and hoping it comes sooner rather than later. I am religiously journaling her sleep and a few things have come to light:
- Dream feeds don’t prolong her stretch of sleep
- Putting her down later does not result in her to sleep later
- Piper is easily over-tired at night and will refuse to eat before bed…but that hasn’t seemed to affect the duration of her first stretch of sleep (phew!)
- She consistently goes down between 6:15 and 7pm, usually closer to 6:30/6:40pm and is up around 12am for the first time (usually she’s up again around 3am, but always!)
- Her rise time is between 5 and 6am and is as happy as could be at that time
With Shea, we definitely experienced a sleep regression at 4 months. Maybe, just maybe, we can sail through this regression a bit easier with Piper. The good news is that she’s in the crib vs transitioning to the crib from the Rock-and-Play while also going through a sleep regression.
Nursing has become a challenge — Piper decided to go on a nursing strike at all times other than in the middle of the night or very first thing in the morning. Sigh. As of today, she’s not rejecting me all the time (just once so far today). Hopefully we can “reconnect” and work through this over the weekend – it’s hard not to be emotional about it. In the meantime, I’ve been pumping more to maintain supply and have been patient with her, offering her the breast often. Can I whine just a moment about how much I HATE washing bottles?
Mark has been working 12-16 hour days and so my return to work full-time this week was perfectly aligned with single parenting and eating a Whole30-compliant diet (LOTS of cooking, dicing, and chopping!). #sarcasm Needless to say, workouts have fallen by the wayside and so I took my YMCA membership off hold now that I’m back to work (the Y is right across the street from work) and headed straight there after work yesterday afternoon. It’s hard to carve out that time when I just want to get home and snuggle in this blustery winter mess. But, I’m glad I did.
I’ve been telling Mark since Piper was born that we really ought to start a “date night in” one weekend night a week. We typically go out to eat on Saturday nights (but…that’s on hold with Whole30 
) but we figured Friday night would be the perfect time to do that. Both girls are in bed by 7:45pm and a leisurely meal cooked by the both of us sounds perfect for Friday night. We’re starting tonight…with lobster tails! Mmm! We just need to make it a habit and that should be all the easier while we’re not eating out this month.
Shea is talking up a storm. My personal favorite as of late was, “Mom take pictures food”. Yep, baby. Your mommy takes pictures of dinner. All I can say is that I’m glad this is far more socially acceptable than it was 5 years ago. Thank you, Pinterest and Instagram. She also found it interesting that our snake eats mice. The conversation went something like, “What does Shea eat?” and she reports, “Sausage! Smoothies!” I then ask, “What does Lily (the dog) eat?” and Shea says, “Bones!”. I go on…”What does Piper eat?” and she excitedly reports, “Bottles! Milk!” And then I ask, “What does the snake eat?” and she gives me a puzzled look and says, “Snake eat mouse”. She looked to me for confirmation or correction. Too cute. She also enjoys watching other little kids ride “Sandy” (the mechanical horse at the front of the grocery store) and when the horse stops moving she will YELL, “All done! My turn!” Yes, honey…now all of Meijer is aware, thank you. We’re also entering into the “No, my do it” (she doesn’t yet understand “me” vs “I” vs “my”) so getting out the door can be…time consuming. But, all very fun. 
Piper absolutely loves giggling and is definitely a morning girl. She absolutely loves to giggle and will do so if you just glance at her with a funny face or make funny noises. She is most definitely a thumb sucker and is getting lots of cute rolls on her legs. She rolls from back to belly…but quickly gets upset as she passionately hates tummy time still. On December 5th, she developed a hemangioma (benign blood vessel “tumor”) on her forehead. One night I put her to bed, the next morning it was there. I figured it was a scratch of some kind, but there was no abrasion or raised surface. I watched it for the next day or so and did some research and decided that I thought it was a hemangioma. Her pediatrician agreed and said that it may grow for the next 2 years, but should be gone by age 10. I made an appointment with a plastic surgeon for a second opinion and received the same opinion. The plastic surgeon did encourage me to get an opinion from a hemangioma expert who had the laser equipment necessary to work with such an issue, and so we were scheduled to take her to a children’s hospital in Chicago to see a specialist. In the meantime, I started putting breastmilk on the hemangioma and needless to say, it’s now totally gone. There’s no evidence to support breastmilk helping hemangiomas, but I figured it certainly couldn’t hurt. In the end, I’m just thankful that it’s gone. While it was never anything posing risk to Piper, I don’t think any parent would wish that for their child and since we caught it so early on, I was very aggressive in having her evaluated and treated, if needed.
What else, what else. I’m loving my new FitBit Charge 2 and for anyone wondering, I’m totally an iPhone convert. The camera is dreamy. I’m staying active in my new MOMS group and have really enjoyed getting to know new moms and kiddos. Oh, and the book I’m reading is really good – Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty. Since I read on the treadmill, it’s all the more motivation to get my workouts in!
I think that’s enough rambling for now. Life is settling in the monotony that is winter time and we’re just trying to keep everyone healthy, happy, and active!
Be well,
from Prevention RD http://preventionrd.com/2017/01/family-friday-vol-38-post-holiday-update-and-pipers-hemangioma-story/
via Heart Based Marketing
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