Warm Thoughts

I wish this title was: Warm thoughts for a cold day. However, as the expected high today is 73, I'll just have to give up on being witty and share the thoughts that are warming my heart this morning:

-There is nothing better than hearing my husband say, "I have to say, I'm really excited about dinner tonight. You make the best omelets!" This would be wonderful to hear regardless, but you have to understand A.) I make things a lot more time consuming than omelets that don't receive this kind of compliment and B.) My omelets may taste good, but they are UGLY. Fortunately, men don't seem to care about aesthetics when it comes to food!

-If toe wrangling (aka clipping baby's nails) was an Olympic sport, I think I could compete. Getting all 10 of those tootsies clipped at one sitting always makes me feel like supermom.

-The livingroom is clean. I have to be sure to type this in the morning because by the afternoon it won't be true.

-Caleb is pushing himself into crawl position and using his upper body strength to move in a semi circle. I'm not sure if this is heart warming or terrifying...

And perhaps most importantly...

-This morning I realized I can't do it all. Which was what I told David when I asked if we could take time to pray over and write a family mission statement. I said, "We have limited time and almost infinite opportunities for how to spend it. I want to pray for God's direction on where our family should focus our energy." And while those may have been the words coming out of my mouth. My heart was saying, "And maybe, just maybe, we will discover the secret to actually doing it all instead!"

So as I was cooking my messy, but "delicious" omelet this morning from the left over ingredients, looking at my cluttered counter tops and wishing the kitchen looked as nice as the living room. I felt God reminding me that there truly isn't time to "do it all". We will need His wisdom about where to direct our time and energy. And, if He isn't our first love, all the other good things we could fill our time with will become idols to try and fill that void.

My prayer for the new year is that God would show me the good things I love too much, and that he would become my first desire.

Holiday Recap

Caleb is 26 weeks old now (where is the time going?) He turned 6 months old on Christmas day and is definitely getting that "older baby" look to him. Especially when he pushes himself into crawl position (so far he is only moving backward, much to his frustration). Here are the highlights from the last month:

It's hard to believe how much Caleb has changed between Thanksgiving and now. At Thanksgiving he had just begun to sit up with out support, getting interested in watching us eat and had just begun sleeping. Now he can sit up as long as he wants with little fear of falling over (unless he gets really mad and flails, the backwards he goes!), he's eating rice cereal (sort of) and sleeps like a champ (comparatively). He's also had his very first boo boo's now and survived (mommy survived too, barely ; )

We've also done a lot of traveling as a family in the last few weeks. We visited Cape coral the 2nd weekend in December to see the play The Gospel According to Scrooge and David's old church. He was part of this play for many years and it was wonderful to see the show I'd heard so much about. The next weekend we headed up to Tallahassee to visit friends and Grandaddy. We really enjoyed getting to see the Lehman's and Boatrights again, though of course there is never enough time when it comes to seeing dear friends who now live far away. Caleb's first meeting with Grandaddy was love at first sight on both sides. My sweet, fussy baby, who never likes to be held by a new person, laid sweetly in Grandaddys arms, touched his face and smiled. It was amazing. We enjoyed getting to spend time together and share a meal. We even got an unexpected surprise when an old co-worker of Grandaddy's came over to the table to say hello. It was so neat to meet someone from his days as an engineer.


Finally, we spend the last week of 2010 at Granny Robin and Grandpa Joe's. He loved all the extra attention. He also chose this time to go through his 6 month growth spurt. Between losing some extra sleep and David having the flu, I was happy to have my parents to lean on for entertaining Caleb. He, of course, enjoyed Christmas morning. The wrapping paper crinkling was his favorite part. He also really enjoyed his Christmas in the Manger story book. He already loves to turn pages. Future bookworm?



We rang in the New Year at "home" in Tampa. David and I sat on the couch and toasted the New Year at 7:45pm with sparkling cider in coffee cups, while reminiscing about 2010. Afterward we played about an hour of Mario and went to bed. Caleb let us sleep in the next morning until 8am, it really was an awesome New Year. We also found a great park with a boardwalk just 10 minutes from our apartment so we enjoyed two hikes over the 3 day weekend.

As if all that weren't awesome enough, yesterday we were able to see the Tews (minus Eric, who was out shooting with a friend). It was so wonderful to be able to spend time together and see the kids. Who are getting way, way, way too big!

It's been a whirlwind of travel, but I'm so thankful God has allowed us this time with family and dear friends. I hope you are all having a wonderful 2011 thus far!

Caleb: 23/24 Weeks

Can I just say, my little boy is growing up to fast? He is now a champion at sitting up. Yes, he still falls backwards at time, but he needs his hands to steady him less and less and can easily play with toys, reach for things, etc. from this new position. It really is amazing. He's also learning how to scoot around. Through a combination of inch-worming and rolling he has figured out he can get places!

I've started reading up on solids for "the big introduction" after Christmas. This more than anything else has made me realize how quickly these baby days are going. While I look forward to all the fun crafts, stories and learning that awaits us, I truly treasure this simple time. Of course, I still have a passing thought here or there when I think, "I've lost all my freedom as an adult to a 15lb tyrant" but those moments are few and far between.

I felt terribly guilty for moments like those for a long time, when my wise husband helped me by saying this, "It's very similar to just after we got married. We had to learn to put our selfishness aside and put the other person first. It was hard sometimes, but it NEVER meant we regretted getting married. Now, you have to be even more selfless, and yes it's hard sometimes, but it doesn't mean you're a bad mom or that you wish we didn't have Caleb."

And he is so right. I've learned more about how to be selfless from Caleb that from anything else God could have possibly brought into my life and I love the new person I see in the mirror (even the stretch marks, but that's a different topic...). And of course I LOVE LOVE LOVE our son. He makes every day an adventure!

Caleb: 22 Weeks

What an awesome week of time with family. We spent this Thanksgiving with the Gainey side of the family. It was such a joy to get to see Caleb interacting with all his grandparents, but I must admit, my favorite part was getting to spend "adult time" after he went to bed.

Thanksgiving day was wonderful and relaxed. Everyone contributed their holiday specialties and Brian and Amy (David's brother and sister in law) once again did an amazing job hosting such a huge crowd (17 this year, I believe!). I feel so blessed to be a part of this loving family.

Headline News:
-Each day Caleb gets more and more steady sitting upright. He still falls backwards a lot though so mommy stays right behind him!
-Caleb begins showing lots of interest in cups, so I give him a few sips of water. We'll be starting solids after Christmas.
-Caleb has become an expert at pulling the cord on his cow toy (which makes it vibrate). We think he may be a lefty...
-David teaches Caleb a very important life skill: How to eat his toes.

Of course the 'Nole win was the icing on the cake!

Caleb: 21 weeks

It's been an awesome week, and not just because everyone is finally sleeping : )

Sleep training seems to have helped Caleb in so many ways. Not only is he happier now, but his attention span is longer and his frustration is lower so we've seen some really cool new behaviors. He now rolls to play on both his back and stomach. It's so cute to see him scooting all around his play mat. If he gets too much better at scooting we are going to have to get the Pack-and-Play out! He also decided now that he can roll, he likes sleeping on his tummy, thank you very much! He is starting to really like bath time. He has figured out to splash, but gets upset if the water gets into his face : ) He also likes to watch and try anything we do. He loves watching me cook dinner especially. In the tub, we have to have two rags because if I don't give him his own, he steals mine! Of course, we still have to encourage him not to try and suck the water out of his rag!

In other news, it was a great weekend. I found a big kids consignment sale they have 3x's/year at a church down the road from us. For about $50 I got bags of clothes, books and shoes. My favorite finds were a set of Alphabet books from Baby Einstein for $3 and a pair of OshKosh flannel lined overalls with a flannel Carters shirt for $5 (too bad we aren't in PA to use that outfit, but it does occasionally get cold here too hehe). Then David's mom and brother, Isaac, came to visit us for the weekend. We had a great time with them and they even babysat for us while David and I had our first baby-free date since Caleb was born. We went to Starbucks armed with coupons and got a tall coffee, tall latte, and danish for $2.60. If you can't tell, we love finding good deals : )

Headline News:

-Caleb continues to think he feet are the coolest toy ever made
-With just a little help on the side-to-side sway, Caleb is able to sit up, using his hands in front of him like a tripod
-Although still crying before most daytime naps, when Caleb eats at night he goes back to sleep with NO crying : )
-We have officially moved up to 6-9 month sleepers (oh my!)
-Caleb says "mama" when he's not angry for the first time (He's been saying "mama" when he cries for a few weeks now

Special Report: Our Sleep Training Journey

So many things change once you become a parent. Before Caleb was born, I never thought I’d have a problem letting him cry some. I’d babysat plenty of kids and knew bedtime and a few tears tend to go together. Once he was in my arms though, I realized this was a whole new rodeo : )

From the beginning, Caleb was colicy, crying almost constantly for the first 8 weeks of life. I say this because I learned later that research shows colicy kids tend to have sleep problems that linger long past when colic has ended. In Caleb’s earliest days, we just didn’t sleep. Later, around 7 weeks, we began cosleeping, which worked wonderfully. When he woke to nurse, I was able to barely awaken and we both drifted off to sleep much faster. At around 10 weeks Caleb was sleeping 5-7 hour stretches most nights so we moved him into the crib for the big stretch of sleep and continued cosleeping after that.

Then around 3 months, Caleb’s sleep started deteriorating. He no longer woke just to nurse, he woke many times throughout the night, each time needing our help to return to sleep. So back to cosleeping we went. Except, this didn’t stop the night wakings. They continued to increase until Caleb was literally waking every hour. Sometimes nursing would even fail to put him back to sleep and I needed to get out of bed and rock him. We kept this difficult routine up for a month because I just couldn’t bear the idea of sleep training him so young. Because his sleep was so fragmented he became increasingly fussier during the day, and by the time we were rocking him to sleep he was scratching us and himself, pinching us and screaming at the top of his lungs. We tried earlier bed times, soothing him sooner, routines, but each night he ended up in our bed, waking every 45-90 minutes.

After talking to his pediatrician and explaining how…persistent…Caleb can be, she recommended we try using the “fading” approach. The first night we would do his routine (bath, diaper, PJs, nurse, song/rocking), put him down drowsy but awake and stand right over him offering any comfort other than picking up and pacifiers. Each night we’d move further away until we were out of the room. I felt ok with this, at least he would know we were still there. However, I continued to put actually doing it off. How can you choose the night to let your baby cry? I knew he needed to learn to sleep, but I was just hoping it would happen “on it’s own”.

Finally, Tuesday night he was beside himself. Screaming, flailing, pinching, scratching for 2 hours (that would be with us rocking him, swaddled, with a pacifier). David and I looked into each other’s eyes and knew the night had come. The next 2 hours were the hardest of my life. We sat next to him as he cried and cried. Amazingly, he rarely screamed the way he had in our arms. In the end, he stopped, put his finger in his mouth for about 2 seconds, stretched, rubbed his eyes and went to sleep.

Lest you think letting your baby cry for 2 hours is horrible, I can assure you…it is. However, until you have heard the piercing scream of a baby who doesn’t understand why he keeps waking up in the middle of the night every 45-90 minutes for a month, bear the bruises and scratches all over your upper body from him fighting the exhaustion, and felt your heart break as you see the same scratches on his legs and face (despite me cutting his nails almost to the quick) then you have not been in the place we were in. I’m sure there are still some hardcore people who would say we had other options, but I can honestly say, I have no regrets.

For the rest of the first night, Caleb continued to wake every 45-90 minutes, which we were told to expect because he is still one overtired baby (overtiredness leads to night waking). Each time however, the amount of crying cut in half, until by his 3am wake up he didn’t cry at all, but merely fussed quietly while he sucked on his hands. It was amazing to see him actually learning how to go back to sleep on his own. By 5:00 that morning he cried for 10 minutes and soothed himself before I could respond! I was so proud of him. Oh and don’t worry, he still got 3 night feedings in the midst of all this.

Throughout the whole next day, he was so tired he napped 1 hour out of every 2. At this point, he was doing so well using his hands to put himself to sleep I let him cry by himself. He never took longer than 25 mins to put himself to sleep, many times as short as 9 minutes. And this crying wasn’t the piercing over tired cry, more of a heavy fuss.

Then evening came, we started his bedtime routine nice and early as the book recommended during this time. We laid him down at 5:30p. He cried lightly until 6:30p and went to sleep. He woke at 8:45p and cried for 15 minutes, as I was getting ready to respond to him (David and I were already in bed trying to catch up on our sleep!), he stopped and fell asleep. The next time I heard him was at 1am. He cried less than a minute and fell back asleep. Then at 3am he cried and I could tell it was for food, I responded promptly and he looked up at me, all smiles. I haven’t seen him so happy and alert in a long time! In fact, after I nursed him, I was scared he wouldn’t go back to sleep, but I sang his song, laid him down and amazingly, he just started talking to himself. I listened to him happily talk to himself on the baby monitor for 5 minutes, and then he fell asleep: NO crying! I couldn’t believe it, he’d never done that before! How different being well rested makes things. The next time he woke up was at 6:25a, all smiles and ready to start the day.

I could not be more proud of our little guy or of us. It was such a hard decision to make, but I know we did what was best for him. All babies and all parents are different, but I have no doubt that we found the right path for our family.

Caleb: 18/19/20 Weeks

Well everyone we have officially arrived in our new home for the next 6 months. We had a great trip. Granny Robin kept Caleb entertained in the back seat. We spent an all-to-brief 2 day visit with the Tews. It was so neat to see the kids meet Caleb for the first time. James nicknamed him "Cocoon Boy" because of his swaddle : )

David is enjoying his new job, the apartment they set us up in is beautiful and close to everything (as long as it isn't rush hour, but hey, that's city life!). We have a small screened balcony that looks out over a pond. I love to watch the egrets and ducks and Caleb is fascinated by the big palm tree- don't have any of those in PA! Of course, our favorite part has been actually getting to spend time with our wonderful family.

Caleb is doing wonderfully. He has changed so much over the past 3 weeks. He has found his toes, rolled from back to tummy and tummy to back, and, the best news ever: His poop is normal! I had to go off my special diet on the trip because I found it almost impossible to follow on the road. Amazingly, during our trip his symptoms resolved. Talking to his pediatrician down here (whom I love as much as the one in PA) he said the bowels are the last system to mature and he probably just needed some extra time. So yay, Caleb is all better and I can drink milk again!

Caleb did wonderfully at his 4 month check up. Again, he barely let out a whimper when they gave him the DTaP. He now measure's a whopping 26 and 1/8 inches, putting him in the 90th percentile yet again. His weight gain has slowed down. He's 14lbs and in between the 25th-50th percentile. As the doctor says, we have a long and lean one : )

Check out our cute lil' Cowboy- thanks Brian and Amy for his 1st Halloween outfit : )