More firsts!

Piper is growing and changing so quickly that I need to be sure to be documenting her firsts! She's had three more (at least) in the last week and a half that I wanted to be sure to note. Last Sunday (October 18), she went on her first hike - Prospect Mountain in Lake George. The last time we did that hike was last November with Katie and Sara and I guess you could say Piper was there too (I was pregnant), but this time she was a lot more alert. And by a lot, I mean A LOT. When we walk around the neighborhood, she stays awake in the Baby Bjorn for a max of 10 minutes, but when we were hiking, she stayed awake pretty much the entire time (almost two hours!). Reid carried her, which was great because my balance seems to still be a bit questionable at times, and she seemed to love it. Here are a couple of pics from the hike ...

Then fast forward to Friday (October 23) ... Piper and I took a field trip to Toys R Us and bought her an exersaucer. She has great head control and is definitely into exploring everything so we thought an exersaucer would be a fun toy for her to learn and grow on. I will say that this thing is enormous and we've lost more of our living room to baby gear now, but she loves it! There's really only one area that she seems to be really into now - it's a globe that makes music and then a crocodile that says words too - and just like with other things that she's into, the drool starts FLOWING when she gets into her exersaucer. It's so fun to watch her learn ... really this is one of the best parts of being a parent. It's just amazing!

So then last night, we broke out the rice cereal for the first time ... she's not quite four months, which is what the official recommendations are, but again, she's rock solid with her head and lately, she's seemed extra hungry. She was sleeping through the night, for about a week and a half, and then last Friday night, she started waking up in the middle of the night again. And it wasn't just that, she was also chowing like an animal in the late afternoon/evening in addition to that extra night feeding. Never going two hours in between feedings ... she just seemed hungry, like she wasn't getting enough milk. So after three nights of her waking up earlier and earlier after her bottle feeding (Sunday was 1:15am - she hasn't done that in weeks), we decided to break out the rice cereal to try to get a few more calories in her. My mom had warned me that it was going to be a messy process, and it definitely was, but she loves baths anyway and it was bath night so we just threw her in the tub afterwards.

So after we fed Piper the cereal and gave her a bath, she had her nightly bottle. Now I don't know if it was the fuller tummy to start with, the nice warm bath water, or what, but she passed out part way through the bottle. And by pass out, I mean rock solid sleeping. So we picked her up, put her down in her crib and said goodnight. Well that was great for a half hour, and then she woke up and was CRANKY. So cranky and fussy that Reid and I were actually worried that she maybe had a stomachache or something. After 20 minutes or so of screaming, I noticed something interesting, though. The screaming only happened in her nursery ... hmmm ... was it possible that she was playing us and didn't want to go to bed? Our conclusion was absolutely because she was perfectly content anywhere else in the house. Nice try little peanut! So we put her back down and let her fuss for a bit and she passed out again. This time until 3:20. Now 3:20 is definitely not through the night, but it's better than the night before and we'll see what happens tonight :-)

And I don't know if the pictures are doing her justice, but she is huge! So long. She's growing out of her 6 month clothes that snap because they're getting to be too short. Such a big girl now! And also an awake girl. I hear her up from a short nap so I'm out ...

Unintentional spying

Reid was reading Where the Wild Things Are to Piper upstairs in the nursery and I could hear them through the monitor that was left on downstairs. It was absolutely adorable to hear him add commentary and different voices to the story. I don't think I tell him enough - as I'm usually handing her off to make dinner/fold laundry/take a little breather and not saying what I should be saying - but he is a great dad and I'm excited to see their relationship grow over the many years to come. I think sometimes we get so focused on Piper and making sure that she's happy/dry/fed that we forget to focus on each other enough too. Or I know I'm guilty of that at least, and I'm clearly feeling guilty about it, which is why I'm blogging!

Piper slept through the night again last night and this time we actually enjoyed it. I hope this is a new trend that's here to stay! As far as the napping goes, I've also given in a bit and just let her nap in her swing. I've stopped pushing the crib during the day. It works for now and we'll try the crib again in a little while :-)

I didn't get a chance to upload pics today. I made phone calls that needed to be made, ordered some music CDs for Piper and took a short nap while Piper slept. I ran out of time, but hopefully tomorrow!

A BIG milestone!

PIPER SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT.

It happened on Sunday night and it consisted of 9.5 hours of solid sleep - for her mind you.

Maybe she knew somehow that Sunday night was going to be a rough night for her parents. And by rough night, I mean the most sick I have ever been in my entire life. I was up for most of the night with what I thought was food poisoning, but what a trip to the doctor's in the morning confirmed was a stomach virus. THANK GOD she hasn't gotten it, and knock on wood we've cleared the danger zone at this point, but it was the worst night I've ever had. And Reid was up for a lot of that time taking care of me so the little peanut was an absolute angel sleeping through the night and giving us a night to deal with ourselves. I'm not going to lie, I would have loved to savor a full night's sleep as it has been over 3 months without one, but if she had to choose the night to sleep through the night, that was definitely the most helpful one to do it! She hasn't done it again yet, but she is still sleeping well, and I'm just happy she hasn't gotten sick.

I need to upload more photos so the next post will be more colorful to look at, but in honor of this being her digital baby book, I wanted to be sure to make some other quick notes. One, she laughed out loud! I think it was Friday (October 9), and it was when Reid was changing her. I was sitting on the couch, finishing up a hat for the next day's baby shower we were going to, and all of a sudden she let out a LOUD laugh. It was adorable! And then yesterday she definitely giggled loudly at her Nana, who was over helping to take care of her while I was trying to recoup (and Mimi was over the day before, thank God!). At the end of last week, she also put her pacifier in her mouth when Reid gave it to her. Now, it took several tries and a lot of patience on both of their parts, but she did it eventually and it was very cool to see. She's getting so big so fast! But this age is super fun. I feel like we see a little more of her personality come out every day and it simply is incredible. She's so alert, getting to be very interactive, and is just our sweet little peanut :-) She's also getting into her books a lot more and loves to just look around and take everything in. She was an angel at the baby shower on Saturday because when she was awake, she just wanted to look around at everyone and everything. You can almost see the wheels a turning up in her head ... she's going to be a sponge for years to come, and I can't get over how cool it is to watch her learn.

While she's still sleeping, I'm going to be a lump on the couch for a bit longer as I'm still not 100 percent. But getting there. And again, THANK YOU Piper for being so good to your parents just when they needed it!

Last day as a newborn

Tomorrow Piper turns 3 months, which means that she officially transitions from a newborn to an infant. In some ways, I feel like she made this transition a while ago ... she doesn't look or sound like a newborn anymore and it feels like she's been in our lives for a long time. In other ways, she's still so new and this transition makes me realize how quickly time is going by!

Whenever we meet someone new, there are a few standard questions we get asked: 1. how old? 2. name? 3. and my least favorite - is she sleeping through the night yet? The answer to that one is N-O. I wish, but no. She's been consistently going 5 or so hours in between her bottle at night and the middle of the night feeding, but that's not even close to sleeping through the night. Every night, I go to bed and wish and hope and pray that tonight will be the night ... hopefully soon! I don't want to jinx it, but I think we may be headed in the right direction. For the last two nights, she's gone 8 hours from that last feeding of the day. Two nights ago, it was uninterrupted and felt heavenly. Last night, she woke up at 1 am (it had been just over 4 hours) and wanted some attention. Reid changed her because she was soaking wet, and burped her, and put her back down. He's a lifesaver for doing this because if I go in during the middle of the night, even if she's not hungry, she smells me and is suddenly starving. Yeah, no thanks. So after he put her back down, she started crying. As much as it sucks to listen to her unhappy, we let her cry, and after 10-15 minutes, she sounded like she was getting sleepy. Reid went in, plugged in the pacifier, and she slept until 4:45. Woo hoo! Hopefully she'll start learning that it's not that fun to wake up in the middle of the night if she's not starving and we'll have a baby that sleeps through the night soon. I'll go to bed tonight and hope tonight will be the night!

The napping during the day is another sleep issue, and is why it's so hard to blog (among other activities). Unless we run errands or go somewhere in the car, she won't take a nap longer than 30 minutes or so during the day at home. She'll take a bunch of these cat naps, but the long nap is a beautiful thing, and something that I do believe babies are supposed to do :-) I've even heard they're supposed to take two naps! One in the morning and one in the afternoon, but I'm not greedy - I'll take one. I'm not sure if it's the lack of movement in her crib or pack and play or what, but napping at home could definitely be improved upon. Every once in a while, we'll get a 2-3 hour nap in the swing (again, it's moving), but that's rare too. Maybe it's her lack of routine ... sometimes we go for walks in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon. Sometimes we run errands, sometimes we'll go to play dates and sometimes we'll go visit people. I definitely want a flexible baby, and one that can travel and not be on a strict schedule and be good to go with whatever, but maybe that's biting us in the butt a bit too. This week, we had today at home, with errands this afternoon. Tomorrow and Wednesday we're going to Middlebury to see her Nana and Papa since Reid's traveling. Thursday we want to go to her cousin Sarah's soccer game in the afternoon. Friday and Saturday we have play dates - at different times. Hmmm ... I really like getting out and being social, but maybe we do a little too much? I'm going to keep it up for a bit and see what happens. I definitely don't want to be a hermit! I'm open to suggestions too ... anyone else have this 'no naps of any real length at home' issue?