Adventures in Mommyhood: Eat, play, sleep, poop....

Hello again! Its been a while....in baby years its been an eternity! Mia is now 10 weeks and 1 day old. It is amazing the difference a couple weeks can make at this point in the adventure. She is really coming into her own now. She is awake FAR more than she ever has been and during the waking hours, she is not always crying or fussy. Most of the time, she isn't even hungry! this was a very hard concept for both Dan and I to grasp at first, so we mainly just stared at each other wondering what we were supposed to do with her. Now we fill our time with playing....and by playing I mean mommy making funny faces and kissing all over her and daddy clapping his hands, jumping around and just being kind of a goober in general. All of which she seems to be relatively amused by....at least while we're present. I'm sure she's already rolling her eyes when we walk away ;-)

So much has happened since I last posted. I have mentally started this update about 15 times, but there just hasn't seemed to be a good time to sit down and actually put pen to paper (or hands to keyboard, whatever the case may be). We managed to make it through Christmas without a hitch. We spent Christmas eve with my family at my grandmother's and then at my mom's house and then we went to Dan's parent's house on Christmas day. It was definitely a long weekend. I am learning very quickly how much a weekend like that can take longer than a wicked hangover to recover from. I guess without realizing it, Mia had put me on a schedule (and herself of course, she's very bright). So, to be gone from our house for so long all weekend, and off of her routine, we definitely felt the reprocussions. Our normally mild mannered little one had screaming fits at night, which I am assuming were from sheer exhaustion and her bed time got skewed so we are now back to getting up in the middle of the night. I hate to say we're "back to normal" now, for fear of what that might mean later tonight, but that seems to be the case.

I remember from the get go after Mia was born, I would go back and review these baby sleep books and updates I got from 'what to expect' to try and figure out when to try to start putting her on a schedule. Well lucky for us, Mia is her father's daughter and she put herself on one pretty quickly. It seems like over night she went from falling asleep while she ate to making it through a feeding, playing for a while then being perfectly content putting herself to sleep. I was thriled the first couple times I didnt have to rock her until she was completely asleep and then gently place her in the crib and slowly back out without making a noise.....but now I kind of look forward to the nights where she needs a little cuddle with mommy before she turns in for the night :)

Dan is off this week so he has gotten to spend a lot more time with her. I have to fight the urge to tell him what she needs and how she likes things done because I know he needs to figure it out on his own, but I have to admit....its painful sometimes, but also equally amusing. Dan has learned that our daughter is calmed from a scream when he sings (yes, you heard me, SINGS) the chinese food takeout menu to her. For those of you who have been to a greek church before, you know the priest sings the scriptures in a weird sort of talk to music way that doesnt really have a pattern or rythm of any kind.....and Dan has adapted this method in calming our child. He always begins with the "starters" (makes sense) and finishes each section with 'Ameen' (I assume its Amen with a Greek accent....). I'm not sure what on earth made him think to do this, but clearly someone was craving chinese while the kid was screaming at some point ;-) It's hilarious. See, if I had told him that she probably had a dirty diaper, and THAT'S why she was screaming, I may have never been witness to his sure fire method. Sometimes it pays to keep your mouth shut. We'll consider that my lesson for the week ;-) I am also amused when Dan informs me what Mia likes or needs. For instance, the other day, I was told that Mia prefers to go to sleep with the light on. Hmmm...ok? Well apparently when daddy put Mia to bed one day last week, he left the light on and let her fall asleep on her own, so now in a man's world, this method will work until the day she dies. Noted. Thanks, Dad ;-) I think as women we are more adaptable and willing to try new things should situations call for it. For Dan, if this method doesn't work, then Mia is hungry. End of story. These are the situations when smiling and nodding come in handy ;-)

As for how I'm feeling....I feel good. I am getting sleep, I know what to expect during my day, I'm not scared to take my child out for longer than a 2 hour stretch and I have become a MASTER at getting my enourmously oversized stroller in and out of my car. I feel like now I am just working out the kinks. I am trying to figure out how to make Mia's bedtime closer to 11 or midnight so that I can actually sleep completely through the night. As of right now, she goes down about 9ish and wakes up around 3-4. I'm definitely not complaining about a 6-7 hour stretch of sleep, but in order for me to actually get that, I have to be in bed by 9 too....and that is generally not the case (I see all of you who knew me before laughing, as 9 used to be LATE for me).

In other news, we are getting closer to being homeowners! We have a tentative close date of January 24th. We have already had a number of scares on the mortgage front mainly due to idiots who don't know how to do their jobs...and inaccuracies on our credit reports. So far though, all of those things have been remedied fairly easily and things seem to be moving in a positive direction. We started packing earlier this week so we are now living in what seems like a box fort. It's amazing how quickly the walls start to close in when you have the promise of almost 4 times the square footage just over the horizon. We visit the house about once a week to see how things are progressing. It's so cool to see how quickly things are coming together. We now have our coutertops in along with the tile in the bathrooms and laundry room. They have painted and stained the cabinets, and just put in the light fixtures this week. The fence posts are going up and they are getting the lawn ready for sod. Next week they are projecting that the wood floors will go in, and then the appliances not long after that! We are so excited :) I'll take some pics the next time we go out to post on here. Right now the only ones I have are when the only thing that was inside the house was the drywall.

Well I guess that's it for now, I am going to try to update sooner than later as I'm sure there will be a period where things will be pretty chaotic in january, so there will most definitely be some lag time then. Plus, I'm sure there were a million things I forgot that I wanted to say......

Until next time, i've posted some pics from Christmas. Hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and a happy new Year to come!