February was a good month in terms of sleep and relative cheerfulness. She seemed as pleased with her new abilities as we were watching her discover them. Though sleep has been hit or miss (mostly miss, who am I kidding?) from the beginning, the shortest month brought the gift of three hour stretches and then "dream feeding" where she'd never fully wake up, making it easy to put her back in her crib for another two hours of shut-eye.
February also brought the return of the midday nap - hallelujah, hallelujah - for 2-3 hours at a stretch. This was vital. If Mama didn't also get her nap, she would have lost her damn mind. I took full advantage and dozed for an hour or so and then brought ,y laptop into bed with me to do school work.
My afternoons still look a lot like this:
Too bad the crib isn't currently nap material. I'd get a heck of a lot more accomplished. But, hey, we'll get there someday...maybe. I admit that it's been rough, not having the dedicated time to concentrate on some dense-ass theoretical reading this quarter. Heck, I've still got finals, a group project, a freaking 15 page paper and another project due in the next two weeks. Come hell or high water, it will all get done. Somehow. I try not to let it bug me but there is an overriding sense of anxiety since I'm so close to the end of school and I don't want to blow my GPA in the homestretch. Honestly, though, there are days where I do the bare minimum of what's required and I just can't sweat it. My priorities lie elsewhere these days. Overachieving is a thing of my pre-Tempest past.
*
So here we are; a fresh month full of new possibilities! March roared in like a snow leopard and with two weeks to go till someone turns six months, we've had to make some big adjustments in baby gear and child-proofing.
1. No more swinging when mama's in the shower. It no longer calms her down. She refuses to close her eyes and then it turns into a 10 minute game of peek-a-book which can be quite awkward when you're shaving your legs in a hurry, listening to your infant yell at you for daring to clean yourself up. (Really, who doesn't want to smell like milk and spit-up all day?) If I don't pop my head out every 30 seconds and sing absurd showtunes the entire time, I've got one very loud, very unhappy child. But darn if she doesn't laugh her head off, happy as can be, when I unbuckle her. Silly baby.
2. The bassinet portion has been removed from the pack-n-play. I made the executive decision to retire it the minute Tess could consistently get up on her hands and knees, since it's not very deep and she could accidentally eject herself. Don't need no baby-launching out of cribs yet. I'm just praying she never learns to do what I did - what my own grandmother taught me to do! - which was to hoist my leg over the rail of my crib and lower myself, ninja-like, down to the ground. I must have been close to a year old but still...NOPE. I think I'd have a heart attack if Tess starts that up.
3. The infant insert has been removed from the car seat carrier and though I was hopeful that it would buy us another month or two sans extra padding, this long lady is almost at the height limit. She's about 29 inches, measured today, and the limit is 30. Chicco recommends upgrading once their feet are within two inches of the bottom but I want to give her a few more weeks since she doesn't have much heft. The next car seat, while convertible from infant to grade-school booster, does not come with a stroller base so until she can sit up in her umbrella stroller, we're kind of SOL. I guess it's fine to be without wheels temporarily as she's not the biggest stroller fan, anyway. It's just one more transition to consider in a never-ending parade that starts now.
As a closing thought, do they make foam helmets for babies learning to crawl? I'd love to fabricate one. She's not running into furniture or walls or anything because I'm watching her but sometimes she suddenly falls ass-over-tin-cups if she gets a leg stuck or tries to change direction. It happens so quickly that I think it startles her more than it actually hurts but still, talk about Tumblin' Tess! She'll lie there with this shocked look on her face like, "holy crap, did I do that?" and the she starts wailing to be picked up. Poor thing. She'll need a little more practice time before joining to U.S. Olympic team.
No comments:
Post a Comment