Stats...

Height 27in Off the charts... so we'll round down to 100th percentile
Weight 15.4lbs 90th percentile
Head... not sure but I think still 75th percentile.

SJ

Happy Four Month Birth-Day to SJ!
We go tomorrow to get her stats and I will update you all then.

Not much has changed since her three month birthday but she has just continued to progress in the same things. She is learning to bear weight on her legs better and is able to sit up straight with minimal help, which she loves. She is also learning to kick her feet up and over and is really close to being able to roll from her back to her stomach... the problem is, she has no desire to be on her stomach, so why try?! Stella showed us over a month ago that she is capable from rolling from her stomach to her back but since then has become completely bored with the trick and will not do it and will resist help in doing it. She would much rather plant her mouth on those hands and suck away.

This month has been tough for SJ because she caught her first cold, which lingered for quite a while and her reflux has flared back up again and thus her meds have changed. All of this has made her very disinterested in long naps or feeding. She will only nurse for a few minutes and then would rather have a conversation with me and/or suck on her hands.
When she is awake (as in, supposed to be awake) she is very happy and content. She loves her bouncy seat and watching mom or dad do the dishes, clean floors and cook. She also has a very close relationship with the ceiling fan. SJ is talking more and more and can often be heard from across the house talking to various objects that interest her.
SJ has become quite the mommy's girl and I am trying to soak it up for all it's worth b/c I know that it will be short lived. She is so much so, she refuses to take a bottle or be put to bed by any one else.
She has been waking up at 4am and we have been slowly but surely trying to move that time to 6 or 7 and with the help from our friend, the paci, she is making progress.
Our current dilemma is that we swaddle SJ up before every nap and she has gotten too big for the small swaddle but is too skinny for the next size up. So she wiggles her hands up and out of the swaddle with in a matter of minutes. However, if she gets her hands out, she won't sleep b/c they wake her and bother her. So we have been giving her the paci to distract her from trying to get her hands out and thus now she is used to a paci before bed. ugh. This wouldn't be too big of a worry except that we want to stop swaddling her and can't b/c if her hands are free she will knock the paci out and then keep herself awake with her hands. Oh the dilemma. So now I have a love/hate relationship with the swaddle. Comments and advice are welcome.
I can't wait until Spring when we will be able to go outside and enjoy the sun and nice weather. There is a whole world that SJ hasn't met yet! The spring will also bring the introduction of solid foods for SJ, a slew of weddings and hopefully a garden!

Baby Faces

I think she has a little bit of her mommy in there somewhere! Almost 4 months old!

Things I "love" on Valentine's Day

I'll start with the obvious...Drew, Stella, our families and our community

Now to the lesser loves...
All things pink (but not pastel)
Apples
Brownies
Cinnamon
Fun Shoes
Purses
Warm Socks
Working out
Pizza
Hamburgers
Lost
Heroes
Reading
Jeans
Singing
Dr. Pepper
Country Drives
NPR
Classical Music
Breakfast
Baking
Eating Out
Sleeping/naps
Movies

What do you love? (yes, I realize that we don't really LOVE these things but we'll use lower case love since it's Vday)
Any one notice that most of mine revolve around food? hmmm

No Naps

Stella is hitting some sort of bump in her schedule these days. For a few days she was really wiggly when trying to eat and then in the middle of her naps she would wake up screaming. It wasn't a hungry or bored cry like usual but an all out scream that sent my mind and heart back two months when this scream was my constant companion through out the day. It is enough to bring tears to your eyes. We had already thought that maybe SJs meds were starting not to work and maybe need a switch and this painful cry was just enough to send us over the edge and call the doctor.
We switched her to Prevacid and hoped this would cure the issue. That was yesterday... and we haven't had a full nap since! She was fussier than usual and had a huge poop that afternoon, which we thought would make it better. She barely ate at all during the day and then woke up once during the night... which she never does! She woke up just as early as usual and barely ate again and then didn't go back to sleep for her first nap, which is usually her 2-3 hour nap. I finally went up to see what she was talking to and this is what I found.... (see video)
She still isn't eating or napping well but I guess we'll give it a few more days before we bug the doctor again.
If you've got the cure, we're all ears!

Wearing Your Baby-Wisely

For those of you not up to date in the parenting world... this title is a play on parenting styles that my husband so niftily thought up.
One of the hardships in motherhood is finding the right parenting style that fits your marriage, emotional, physical, spiritual and time needs. We know many many AMAZING families who follow a book called Baby Wise. This might be even more controversial than Harry Potter in a Christian school! The book is all about babies fitting in to their parent's life style and not the other way around. The author promotes a feed/wake/sleep schedule every 2.5/3hrs and letting children cry it out for naps. His main platforms are getting your child a full feeding and a long nap and sleeping through the night. I really don't understand why this book is so controversial. People claim that some babies fail to thrive on this system and I guess that's when their parents don't use common sense and feed their babies when they are hungry before 2.5hrs. The author repeatedly states that if you think your baby is crying from pain or hunger, get them and tend to their needs first.
The other camp are the people who believe that you should carry your baby in a sling all day long and sleep with them at night and offer them the breast every time they cry. I didn't know any one in this camp until recently and every one I had previously met was super extreme and had their three year olds sleeping in bed with them and their babies never slept through the night etc etc... However, now some of the most beautiful mothers I know and honestly envy fall into this style of mothering.
So where am I? I am a failure to both camps and I think that is really hard for me because, like most women, I want to fit in. I want to be accepted and think that I am part of this special and maybe even elite group. I am also a rule follower and have felt that if I followed all of the rules of one of these camps that my baby would be perfect: expert nurser, nap champion and sleeping through the night and of course she would never, NEVER cry.
I read babywise and I thought it was a pretty good outline for a plan. So after about two weeks I started to try and regulate feeding and napping. However, SJ was already a really great self regulated baby. She went 3-4 hours between feedings on her own. However, I was told this was WAY TO LONG for her to go and so I would spend hours trying to wake her to eat. I was a nervous wreck that I was ruining my baby or starving her or not loving her right. Week three hit us like a ton of bricks because that's when the screaming began. Our doctor thought she had reflux before this but seeing as she was happy and sleeping, we dismissed it. Then the signs got worse and worse and the screaming got louder and longer. We finally put her on medication (read here: something only inadequate moms do to their babies) and threw babywise out the door. I didn't care if SJ slept on my head, in my arms, in a swing or in the car... I just needed her to sleep... she needed to sleep... we all needed sleep! So, I started trying to soothe her any time she cried in whatever way I could in order to help her to sleep. Thankfully for me, she never wanted to nurse other than the 3-4 hour scheduled feeding but she did want to be held, rocked, sushed, rocked, held, patted, rocked etc etc.... so I did. I watched many a movie and listened to many a sermon with that little newborn SJ. So in my mind, I was a babywise failure because my baby wouldn't sleep and I couldn't stand to let her cry it out (though I tried many hours worth of it).
Well, since I was holding my babe all the time and letting her boss me around... I thought maybe I'd float over to the other camp. I already counted myself as a failure in this camp because of my natural child birth gone wrong but I got a sling and was prepping my cloth diapers (bought before she was born) and was enjoying a very successful nursing experience. However, when the colic crazies started the last thing I could think about was cloth diapering and all the special instructions that came with them. I literally started getting an anxiety attack while reading the 17page hand out on how to care for these diapers. So I put them off for a while, to weather the storm and use all the free diapers we had been given. Then came the nursing strike. My over abundant milk supply dwindled to almost nothing as my little SJ decided nursing was rather odious to her for over a week. So obviously, I failed out of this camp as well.
So where does this leave me?
This leaves me first of all, boasting about my weakness. I can honesty say that it is my weakness that keeps me out of these camps. I am not super mom and I don't always know how to handle the bumps of parenting with style and ease. It is only in Christ's strength that I can feed, change and care for my little one every day with out either of us having a melt down.
Second of all, this leaves me with changed expectations. I am really trying to catch my expectations before I fail another misplaced standard. For instance.. I do not want to feed SJ solid food until 6 months b/c that's what all the cool kids say is best. However, SJ is still not eating great since her strike and thus might need to have a supplement sooner than that.. and I need to be okay with that. I want to exclusively nurse my baby for as long as possible but I cannot make my child eat more than she is willing to eat and I need to do what is best for her to continue to grow healthy and strong. I also want to be up to date on all the best foods and vitamins to give my chid so she can have the right start to a healthy and happy life. However, at some point I have to trust the Lord to be the one to grow her into a healthy woman as I do my best with our budget and priorities to provide for her well.
Lastly this has taught me not to judge. Oh how easy it is for us to compare ourselves to others... people we might not even know and judge the way they discipline their children or give formula or even how they dress etc. When we find people that do not meet our standards we then feel better about ourselves and have a little less doubt about our capabilities. In the same sense, we can judge wrongly by thinking every one else has it together and then condemning ourselves as a failure. My husband tells me again and again and again to stop comparing myself. Every person is different and every baby is different and thus no mother/baby combo will ever be cookie cutter. What works for other moms, might not work for me. Other people may not get sad after having a baby, some people might get even more sad than I was. Some moms will be up and cooking meals for other people right away and others might take longer to adjust. Some people have husbands who are home often to help... other moms might be parenting completely solo. SJ has taught me again and again to let go of my preconceived notions and standards and to give grace and more grace... to myself and others.
(she is taking the point all the way home by crying as I type when she needs at least another hour for a nap... oh those expectations again...)
Please don't feel like you need to tell me I am not a failure. I know.
I am learning and growing into the mommy the the Lord wants me to be and trying to stop focusing on the mommy I wanted to be or the mommy he wants other people to be.
I am falling right into the middle of both camps and while it doesn't make me cool or exclusive, maybe it will help me be a comfort to all those other moms who are destined to join me there.
So this once black or white girl is becoming a little gray.