Week in Pictures

Piper has taken to going to bed really well and sleeping until about 4 or 5 in the morning and gets up to eat. I was bringing her to bed but wanted to break that habit so we set up a place in her room next to her crib where I can lay down and after I feed her I try to get her to go to sleep. If it works then I lay down there to be there when she wakes up (it is a very light sleep the last couple hours) to try and keep her asleep. If not, I lay down with her and let her sleep for a few more hours with me there. But she seems to be slowly pushing that wake up time a little later and later which is good. She is also starting to take better naps too. Slowly but surely things are coming together. Here is a few pictures from the week. We have become addicted to our feet: And then now putting the feet in our mouth: Happy Thanksgiving outfit with mama and dada: Wooooo Pig Sooie! Way to beat LSU!: Last but not least...she has found a new voice when she sees the kitties and likes to talk to them:

Thanks

A few things I am thankful for...

• Patient Husband
• Happy Daughter
• Loving Family
• Wonderful Friends
• A job I love
• Being healthy
  
• Fall colors
• Ice Cream
• Starting to run again
• Beautiful weather
• Those that serve or have served for this country
  
• Having spent 30 wonderful years with my mom

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ups and Downs

We have had our shares of ups and downs over the past few days. The in-laws were in town for a visit and had fun hanging out with Piper. She is either seriously teething or has so little bug-possibly an ear infection but with no fever. EZ was sick last week and now I am sick with some sort of cold and last night Piper went to bed and an hour later was screaming her head off, finally I got her back to sleep and she woke up a couple more times and then at 3:30 she was screaming her again. I am not sure how many days we should let her be cranky like she has been before I take her to the doctor to see if she possibly has an ear infection or something.

Another mother told me that everything shall pass, nothing usually lasts longer than a month and everyone can handle whatever it is for a month, right! She has become ridiculously upset and impatient when breastfeeding now too. I can start feeding her and she will only eat usually 5 min tops off one side and then the flow is either too slow or she is waiting for another let down and is to impatient so I have to switch sides and then usually can get her to go for awhile on side number 2. This is however opposite of what they tell you to do...let her drain one side and then go to the other. And she has starting chewing on me at the end...not pleasant. Each and every day I talk about how it is going to be my last day BF and I am going to switch to just pumping, but I find myself still doing it. :) We have started giving her more bottles during the day though.

Anyway, here is a photo of our little daughter eating with grandma-she is learning how to hold her own bottle and does pretty well.




And last night after she was super cranky and we gave her teething drops she was like this: (EZ thought the drops were like baby marijuana):

Bad Habit?

Here are a few updates on miss APZ:

• We were sleeping really well. Then we learned how to roll onto the belly and would wake up doing so. EZ and I put rolled up towels around her which helped for about a week until she would wake up because she was mad that she couldn't roll over onto her belly.
• Now we are to the point where most nights she rolls onto her belly at night and most of the time puts her head down and stays asleep. Other nights we are up every hour or few hours going in to flip her over or calm her down for some reason she wakes up and just can't fall back asleep.
• She still hasn't figured out how to roll back to her back from her belly. She just gets upset and tired of being on her belly and will start crying. She occasionally will roll back during the day but I don't think it is intentional. We try to get really excited and cheer for her when she does, but not sure she understands what that means.
  
• She LOVES to sit up. EZ doesn't want to put her in the bumbo since some studies show that if babies can't really do it on their own then putting them in contraptions like the bumbo seat will have some developmentally issues with their spine. Same goes with the exersaucer before they can really stand and hold themselves up.
  
• She does like to stand too (obviously with us holding her). She gets stronger and stronger every day with her legs.
• She might be teething but we really aren't sure. Seems like she has been gnawing on things (her hands, rings, our hands, ect) for awhile now but nothing has happened yet. It does look like there are two white buds though on her bottom front that might pop out one day but who knows.
• We are getting better and better with our hands and grabbing things. Still working at it, but she is getting the hang of looking for stuff and grabbing at what she wants and then bringing it to her mouth.
  
• There are lots of smiles and giggles all day long which is very fun and refreshing

So here is our possible bad habit...On the nights she keeps waking up but isn't hungry and where we just go into her room and roll her over and try to get her back to sleep, eventually EZ and I are exhausted, so we have taken to bringing her to bed with us once we both can't take it anymore. This usually ends up happening around 4am. Some night it seems like she is hungry then, so I feed her, but other nights it just seems like she can't get comfortable and flails around. But for our sanity we need some rest, so I just curl up with her and try and settle her down and she eventually falls asleep. I hope this phase doesn't last long since I hope we aren't creating bad habits, but at some point you have to do what works right?

Here are a few photos from this past week.

Sitting up with mama:


I love to stand:



Fun Smiles:



Starting to really like the floor gym:

Book Update

It has been awhile since I posted about the books I have read, since the whole baby thing got in the way, so I thought I would comment about a few books I have read lately (as in the past 4 months).

I just finished Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortinson. It is a true story of a humanitarian building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan over the past couple decades. I found the story inspiring but the actual book was rather slow. Still it is quite amazing to see how one person could affect some much change and that is very motivating.

Other recent books:

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chealier was the story of two women in the 1800's in England that were fossil finders in a time when it wasn't appropriate for women to do work of that kind. She did a good job setting the time in the novel and made it believable, but I found that the book was a bit slow too. It didn't really draw me in.

The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum is a nonfiction story of the birth of forensic science in the early 1900's. The story basically goes chronologically through how there was a race for scientists to try and figure out different chemicals used to kill people and how they could prove it with killers using different chemicals once one was proven in science. It was an interesting book and rather horrific in parts (like learning about radon before they knew how deadly it was).

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan was a historical fiction type book of the story of Frank Loyd Wright and his affair with Mamah Cheney. I didn't really care for the book and it seemed like it was extremely slow. It was beautifully written at times when talking about how much they were in love and not knowing that one of the people that worked for them in their house ended up killing her and her children was tragic and I couldn't believe it. FLW was extremely arrogant and that bothered me throughout the novel too.

These were all our book club books for the past 4 months that I got in. Granted I didn't actually read any of these but rather listened to them on tape, but that is what it is now as I don't have too much time to actually sit down and read. Next up is Eat, Pray, Love.

Meechigan

I headed up to MI for most of a week for fall break. Spent a couple days with my dad and then grandparents and then my sister and her family came down and she threw a post baby shower for me that my mom had wanted to throw before she passed away. I made the 12 hour drive up with Piper by myself and we survived. She did very well and only got upset the last 5 min of the trip. EZ flew up and drove home with me and the drive home didn't go nearly as well with screaming child the last 1 1/2 hours. It was wonderful to see everyone. Here are some photos of the week:


I headed to see my mom's gravesite which was difficult but nice at the same time:


Dad and Piper:


Amelia reading Piper a story (Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas Friedman)


Piper laughing with Papa


Family photo: