G'n'R Out West

Today Adelle had her 4 month vaccinations.  We got seen by the health nurse and they weighed and measured her.  She did really well.  Last time she had a meltdown over taking off her diaper in public.  This time I was able to distract her through the ordeal.   The shots themselves warranted some mild whimpering, but it was quickly curred when I stood up and gave her a few good jiggles.  Ahh, the jiggles, what would I do without them, they are the angry Adelle cure-all.

She weighed in at 16 lbs 1oz, measured 64 cm and has a 43 cm head circumference.  If I remember the stats correctly, that puts her in the 75th percentile for weight, 60th percentile for height and 85th percentile for noggin size.  Basically the nurse told me she was perfect.  I tend to agree with her assessment.

Tomorrow is a big day.  We have playgroup in the morning (for which I have to bring the snack), then the yoga mamas are coming to our house for lunch, and Friday night we are having some friends over to play games.  Busy times.  Tomorrow will be so social…and so so fun.

Check out our little barefoot beauty

Yesterday Adelle was what I’d call a textbook high needs baby.  I put her down successfully (read without instantaneous screaming) once.  The one time I did put her down was into her Jolly Jumper and in there she required that I not be more than 2 feet away at all times.  I tried, unsuccessfully, to put her down for a nap 2 times.  Both times she appeared completely and totally sound asleep, and both times she freaked out the second her body parted from mine.

Needless to say, by the time Greg got home I was really ready for a break.  She was the same with him.  Content, as long as the amount of energy going into their time together was at a maximum.

Well, what do you know, last night she slept through the night for the first time in weeks.  About 20 minutes after I put her to bed she stirred and then started to scream.  I went into her room and picked her up.  As only babies can do, she went from rigid and angry to limp and fast asleep the moment her head hit my chest.  I gave her a little loving rock while mentally preparing myself for a LONG night.

Well, the last I saw her was at 11:30 last night.  It is now 8 am.  Who’d have thought?

Once again, Greg and I found ourselves talking about setting trends and working with her to gain her independence, and did we ’spoil’ her yesterday holding her so much?  Once again, this morning we were reminded that when Adelle wants something she lets us know.  We are not setting any bad precedence by holding her or bringing her into our bed.  She wants what she wants, when she wants it.  And when she doens’t, she lets us know that too!  I need to just relax and follow my intuition…but I know that will never happen…I am a worrier by nature.

As a funny side note, Adelle tried her Jolly Jumper for the first time yesterday.  It was really funny.  She found it very interesting.  She hasn’t quite figured out the jumping part of it….but she really enjoys the independent standing and turning around that she can do in it.  It was really neat to see.

Yesterday Adelle and I went swimming with our friendKerri and her 7 month old daughter Corra.  Corra thinks swimming is the best thing going.  Adelle, normally paralyzed by the experience of being in the water, was brought out of her shell a bit by Corra. 

When Corra first got in the water Adelle wanted to touch her.  After a while she just watched her and her mom goof around in the pool.  I let Adelle float in front of me…and she didn’t freak out.  I bounced her up and down in front of me…and she didn’t freak out.  At no point was there any smiles or anything else acknowledging what we were doing….but she didn’t cry.  It was interesting.  Hopefully we’ll have friends to go swimming with again and Adelle will continue to gain comfort in the water.  I was so proud of my trusting adventurous daughter.

Adelle is already 5 months old.  Where has the time gone?  We are having such a fun time together.  It is going to be so hard to go back to work.  Speaking of work, this month Greg put in his notice to take parental leave.  His last day of work will be May 25th, and he’ll be off for 3 months.  I have also put in my notice to return to work.  I have asked to start as soon as Greg stops and I’ve asked for 3 days a week.  It will likely still be a few more months until we find out what I’ll be doing and what my exact shcedule will look like.  The whole idea of going back to work just freaks me out. 

One interesting thing that I have noticed about Adelle is that she is incredibly unflexible.  I always thought all kids were very flexible.  In this department Adelle must take after her dad (who can’t even touch his knees, let alone his toes!).  I find it rather amusing to watch her reach so hard for her feet.  A far cry from her big cousin Noam who folds in half easily and regularily when feeling defeated by insurmountable obstacles in life.

Sleep:
What was that again?  For a very long time now she has been sleeping through the night.  Since Christmas, night time stuff has been pretty hit and miss.  Sometimes she has made it through the night and sometimes she hasn’t.  We are not sure what to think of it.  What to blame on teething, or what to chalk up to being a baby who just wants to be as comfortable as possible at all times.    Anyway, no clue what is going on here or how best to make it better.  We are working on it now.  I’m just enjoying the nights I do get a good sleep and preparing myself as best as I can for the other ones!

Napping….whatever….our girl just doens’t like to sleep independently for more than 1/2 an hour.  That is just the way she is wired. 

Eating:
Going great, I am excited to see what happens when we finally start solids in another month.  She occasionally enjoys drinking her milk from a cup, but I still wouldn’t leave her with anybody but Greg to attempt such a feat.  Our baby can be a real bear when she wants to be, and feeding can be a tricky thing.  Sometimes drinking from a cup is the most fun game ever, sometimes it is stupid and she wants nothing to do with it.   We have not even attempted the bottle for a month., I think that dream (or should I say nightmare) is dead. 

Hair:
Her little mohawk has reached new heights.  We now put a clip in her hair as the mohawk hair is so long that it hangs in her eyes.  She has long hair on a strip across the top of her head, and about 4 long pieces on the left side by her ear.  That long stuff is all original.  Her new hair is still pretty short and quite light.  I should probably think about giving her a little hair cut.  But I am just not emotionally ready for such a big step in a little girl’s life.         

In the last few days she has started playing with her hair and scratching her head.  She does this especially when she eats.  It is pretty cute.

Eyes:
Still a greyish-blue.

Personality:
She is still a ball of emotion.  Things escalate so quickly with her and calm down equally fast when we know what she needs.   On the plus side, being so emotional also means she loves to laugh.  She has really started to love physical stuff, like being thrown in the air or moved really quickly or being hung upside down.  All these things can get a good laugh.  She also likes loud and silly noises.  She is sort of into peakabo….but doesn’t quite know what exactly is going on.

She still has tons to say.  More often than not it is a-da-da-da a-da-da-da

The biggest change I have seen in her is that she started liking other kids.  She used to be overwhelmed by their little faces invading her personal space.  Now I think she wishes she could run around and get right into thier business herself.  She will still often play strange if somebody wants to hold her, but apparently there is no such thing as too close for another kid. 

The car is going much better.  She actually falls asleep  in it on occasion.  Which is a nice little break for us.  The more she gets into her toys, the easier she is to handle in the car.  Sometimes she is so busy back there she doesn’t even realize she is stuck in the boring car.  

She is gaining more independence with each and every passing day.  She loves to look in the mirror and check herself out.  She also finds lying down on a mirror really interesting.  

Last month she was into being read to.  This month she has her own ideas for book usage.  Yesterday she all but demolished a boardbook in about 10 minutes.  Her saliva can dissolve the pages within moments.  It is pretty amazing.  They are her books…who am I to tell her she has to read them…vs eat them?

Stuff that happened this month:
- she started hanging out in her high chair
- she started sitting unassisted
- playing with her hair
- she had her first christmas
- she drank from a cup…and loved it
- she started touching people’s faces – Greg is the most intresting so far
- she started loving other kids

Sitting up and proud of it

She gets the craziest hair

We packed up the car,took the plunge and drove to Cold Lake on Thursday night.  Greg and I were strangely confident heading out for the 600km drive.  Adelle has been doing much better in the car these days so we knew there was hope that the drive would be tolerable.  Well, our confidence must have been infectious because Adelle was amazing in the car.  We only had to stop once on the drive, and even then she hardly wanted to eat.  I think she was too excited about being in the car and not in her car seat to concentrate.  She slept for about 4 hours of the drive, and played quietly on her own for another 2.  It was awesome. 

Sleeping was really great in Cold Lake as well.  She woke once or twice during the nights, but she was really easy during those wakings.  She is such a dream baby.

We had a fabulous trip.  We got to see all our old Cold Lake buddies.  Our trip was too short and it was really hard to leave.  We do love the people and miss so many things about the town.  I was lucky enough to get out skiing twice while we were there.  Greg got to go ice fishing, but unfortunately the fish didn’t co-operate.

We got to see Andrew and Lisa and their wonderful baby Blake.  Lisa and I have almost always lived in the same city since we met in University.  It is hard to be so far away from her when we are both going through this totally new stage in our lives.  Lucky for me she keeps a website as well so get a little insight into baby Blake, even if we don’t get to hang out with him.  We hadn’t actually seen Blake since we left Cold Lake.  He seems so grown up now, it is incredible.  I got some cute little pictures of Blake that you can check out on our Flickr site.

We also got to meet Sarah and Theo’s baby Alex who was born just a week before Adelle.  Sarah and I were pregnant together in Cold Lake and it was really sad to have our babies in different cities after going through our pregancies together.   I forgot to take pictures of Alex.  But let it be known he is a pretty cute little dude. 

One of the funnier Adelle stories from the weekend is that she has recently learned something new and apparently very exciting about her hands.  When she first noticed her hands a long time ago she spent lots of time looking at them.  But it has been weeks since we’ve seen her checking out her hands.  Well, they must have done something pretty incredible when we were in Cold Lake becuase on at least 3 occasions we caught her checking out those little beauties.  She was mesmerized by them all over again.  I wish I could get into her little brain to find out what mind boggling thing her hands did!

The ride home from Cold Lake wasn’t quite as spectacular as the drive there, but we still managed to complete it in 7 hours.  Thank you Adelle….your dad and I totally owe you one.

Although, Blake has many wonderful qualities his hands were of particular interest to Adelle

I just had to post this one of Blake, because it shows off his great smile

Taking a break from driving to investigate the front seat

Adelle was particularly drooly on Monday night and soaked her shirt as well as had a wet neck all night…it was pretty funny

I don’t know if she is back to her old self or if it is baby’s intuition or what.  All I know is that I really couldn’t deal with another sleepless night…and I didn’t have to.  She slept without a peep from 10:30  until 5:30.  I feel fantastic this morning.  Nothing like a sleepless night to make me really appreciate how lucky I am to have the kind of baby that will sleep through the night.

Yesterday she was a bit off all day.  In the morning she was REALLY tired.  But Greg and I were getting worried that part of the reason she was having trouble sleeping on her own is because she often naps on us during the day and so was starting to expect the same treatment at night.  So I rocked her to sleep and held her until she was right out.  Then I put her down and lay down next to her.  The second her little head touched the bed she started screaming.  I was determined to not pick her back up.  She screamed for 23 minutes while I rubbed her angry little belly and sung to her as best I could (it was hard to sing because I was crying too!).  It was hard to just lie there and not help her.  I knew if I just picked her back up she would relax instantly.  But after 23 minutes she fell asleep.  I continued to cry for the better part of her 1/2 hour nap (I hate to see her cry like that, plus her entire sleep was filled with cry breaths and sniffles…cry breaths and sniffles are like little knives that chop up my heart). 

Anyway, who knows what will happen tonight.  All I know is I feel like my restart button has been pushed and I can handle anything today has to offer.  Yesterday I was not feeling quite so optimistic. 

Our wonderful little sleeper has somehow gotten her sleeping and crying functions confused.  The last few nights have been pretty wakeful.  Last night was the worst,  I was up most of the night with her…the little sleep I did get was when Greg took over.    Usually even when she has bad nights she has a great little morning sleep.   She wasn’t interseted in sleeping this morning.  I asked her to play quietly in my bed while I got a little sleep and she had a pretty strong reaction to that request, so we promptly got up.  It is now 7:30 am and she still thinks being awake is a pretty good idea.  I tried to explain to her how tired I feel, but I get the impression she doesn’t really understand. 

To be honest, I am mostly sad for her.  She keeps waking up and sometimes she wants to eat and sometimes she doesn’t.  Sometimes she has just been screaming out.  We are currently experimenting trying to help her get a better sleep, but even in our bed she seems still quite irritable.  Sometimes I think it might be teething, but other times I’m not really convinced.  It is so confusing.

Luckily for us, despite the night time stuff, she is still the cutest little baby I’ve ever seen.  Here are some recent pictures to proove my point to you.

Our new mealtime strategy.  Now that she grabs so well it isn’t a great idea to eat with her on our lap.  She often doesn’t want to sit too long in her swing or exersaucer.  We thought if she could see us she might be more content to hang out while we ate.  It was fairly successful last night.  We’ll try it again tonight.

Helping her dad cook

The funniest thing about this picture is that just before I took it she started to get mad but she saw the camera come out and she smiled for it.  Funny how they pick some stuff up so quickly.

Paityn did not disapoint.  I am not sure who was more excited.  Paityn is so gentle with Adelle, it is so great.  She didn’t mind Adelle grabbing at her face and Adelle loved all the kisses Paityn had for her.  Adelle  got lots of attention because not only did Paityn have kisses for her, but she took the time to show and name for me all the parts of Adelle’s face.  It was very informative.   

I hardly ever take pain medication for headaches…but last night I was in terrible shape.  So I rummaged around and found  ultra extra strength tylenol…I definitely felt like I needed something special so I went for it.  Anyway, I felt no better and only got about 3 hours of sleep.  Today Greg was asking me which pills I took and I showed him the bottle.  As it turns out the pills I took had caffeine in them.  Who the heck puts caffeine in headache pills….frig.  No wonder I was up half the night.  Frig. 

I remember when Greg bought those pills he read the details on the label after taking one and read about the caffeine and we both thought it was weird there was caffeine in them.  But of course, I totally forgot about that conversation until he reminded me tonight. 

So stupid.

Adelle continues to be VERY interested in others, especially kids.  Yesterday I also learned that she enjoys the company of cats.  It is so neat to watch her reach out and show interest in people.  The downside is that so far all the kids (and cats) she has been interested in are not terribly interested in her.  So when they walk away she starts to cry.  It is really sad to watch….the world is a harsh place! 

Today we are going over to Shan’s house.  Her 1 year old, Paityn, is often quite interested in Adelle.  We haven’t seen Paityn since Adelle started liking people, so I am curious to see how things go if Paityn gives Adelle attention this time.  Paityn calls Adelle ‘Bell’ in this totally adorable little kid voice.  Sigh….kids just melt my heart.

Adelle has also really really started to laugh this past week.  She would give us the occassional laugh before if she was in a great mood and we REALLY REALLY worked for it.  But now they are coming even when there isn’t anything particularly funny occurring.  I do find it interesting the fine line between laughing and crying.  There have been a few times now when I’ve really gotten her going and then the laughing slowly gets more high pitched and then her face gets a bit nervous, but she still laughs, and then finally one last trick from me and I’ve put her over the edge and she is crying.  And sometimes REALLY crying so I have to do some serious work to put her right again.  It is a very bizarre thing.

I have also been attempting to make tummy time more interesting so it will last a bit longer.  I am only very slightly concerned that Adelle will be behind rolling over.  She has rolled from front to back about 4 times now.  But I think it might have just been because I propped her up so high on her tummy.  Every time she has rolled she appears to be completely unaware of what has just happened.  She just gives me this look that says ‘I notice that I am still on the ground’.  And then shortly there after she reminds me vocally that she is still on the ground.   I’m not really that worried, but I think I need to try a bit harder to get her to spend time on her front or back on the ground.

Also in the news this week….Our good friends Jen and John just added to their family of four.  Little Baby Claire joined them and their twins Monday morning.  We are so glad Claire and Jen are healthy.  We can’t wait to hear about all the adventures once Claire and Jen return from the hospital.  Jen, John, Leah and Emma we wish you all the best with your new little addition!