Madelyn - three months

Aah, our beautiful baby girl is three months old already! She is such a sweetie. These three months haven't been without their frustrations, but there has been so much lov and joy too as we get to know our Maddie!

Maddie is growing like crazy. I did the home-weigh this morning and she was almost 13.5lbs! When I went for her first immunizations earlier this month, she was 11lbs 14oz so she's likely somewhere in between those numbers. She is short and light for her age but height to weight ratio is at 97%! That means she is short and chunky. I love it! And it's normal for exclusively breast-fed babies to be chunky so nothing to worry about. She's wearing 3-6 month clothes and the newborn and 0-3 month clothes are officially packed away.

Madelyn is happy and full of smiles (and even giggles already - tickling and fart noises (thanks Daddy) seem to work best!) most of the time. I'd say that she's a pretty happy baby, even though she cries more than our other two and other people probably see her cry more than laugh. But if she's awake and fed and at home, she's usually happy. She does seem to like being at home rather than other places though. She has screamed inconsolably at places like Superstore, friends' houses, and church when there's nothing obviously wrong except that we're in a strange place. She also might be making strange already. Seems early but all babies are different! Maddie doesn't like loud noises; they usually make her cry. Poor reno baby. The house has been worked on her entire life and it's not done yet! Only floors to go though!!!

Maddie's hair is coming in nicely. She went bald on top in the fist few weeks of her life but now you can't even tell. She has dark hair that is a bit thinner on the back of her head and longer at the nape of her neck. Her eyes are not completely brown but are quite dark and look like they may be headed in that direction. Her skin is so clear, just one "milk blister" by her right eye that has been there since birth or shortly after. Kayden had one in the middle of her forehead right up by her hairline when she was a baby and it eventually just went away so I expect Maddie's will too.

Sleep has been a hot topic this month. While Madelyn gives us decent stretches of sleep once she's asleep, it often takes a fair stretch of time to get her to nod off. She starts acting tired after about an hour of awake time but it's not uncommon to spend 20-60 minutes getting her down for naps and 45-90 minutes for night. She just fights sleep tooth and nail. Most of this month has felt like a big, long sleep battle. That said, she has dropped her 2am feed this month and often is only up at 5am for a feed before waking for the day around 8-9am. She even slept right through the night once this month, waking for the day at 7:30! I was pleasantly surprised! She goes to bed at night anywhere between 7:30-9:30pm, depending on the length of battle on that particular night. The sleep fight has gotten quite a bit better for naps lately as I've learned that putting a blanket over her face speeds up the process immensely. As long as she can see what's going on, she will force her eyes to say open but when she can't see anything, she will give in to sleep much more quickly. She also likes to rub her face in a blanket as she's falling asleep which makes her hard to hold cause it's almost like she's trying to wriggle out of your arms! At night, none of the regular tricks work and it just takes a long time to get her settled. I sure hope I have a different story for you next month! She still sleeps swaddled and on her side. She's become much more sensitive to noise while she sleeps so I've told the kids that whoever wakes her is the one who has to put her back to sleep. She usually naps 3-4 times a day and one of the naps is usually longer than the others (one hour is a short nap, 3-4 hours is a long nap but even 2 hours counts as the long nap of the day).

Stupid fly kept landing on her. Get off my baby!

Levi was my trusty helper, shooing the fly away from his sister during her photo shoot.

Maddie loves her big brother and sister. She smiles for them a lot and whenever they are looking at her, she just stares right back. Levi loves to climb up on the change table when I'm changing her and getting her dressed and talk to her and get her to smile or laugh. Kayden will often be found leaning on the front of Maddie's bouncy seat just talking to her sister. It melts my heart how much they love her. They argue about who gets to hold her first, especially in the morning. And they both like to burp her, though Levi says that she's getting too heavy. I guess she is almost half his weight!

New things Madelyn does as of this month...she can sit in the bumbo fairly well, though she gets tired quickly. She holds her head up with no problem whatsoever. In fact, if you lean her back against something, she will be pulling her head up trying to sit up straight so she can see what's going on. I think it won't be long before she's sitting on her own. Maddie drools a LOT. I don't know that it's teething, but her shirt is always soaked. I've started putting bibs on her cause those are much easier than a shirt to change multiple times a day! Maddie is getting more distracted while I'm nursing her. I'm not too worried about a nursing strike as she doesn't have any other way to eat, but if she took a bottle, I might be a bit nervous that one day she would just prefer the bottle because then she could see what's going on around her a bit better! Maddie holds onto blankets or any fabric that touches her hands. She was starting to do that at the end of last month but I forgot to write about it. :) It's pretty heartwarming when you're changing her diaper and she grabs your arm or sleeve and won't let go!

There's that fly again...arg!

I don't know that Maddie has had many firsts this month. She was in the nursery at church for the first time this month...but I don't know if that counts because I was up there with her! I had my first birthday with 3 kids this month - the big 3-0!

I just LOVE the baby stage and I'm sad to see it going so quickly. At the same time, it is exhausting and I will enjoy being in a bit more of a routine with her naps and night time sleep as she gets older. I love that eating isn't an issue yet. She can't really be picky when there's only ever one thing on the menu! And her smiles are so freely given at this age...it can be much harder to get a smile out of a toddler or preschooler!

This and That

Random fact: We have a story in one of our kids books called "This and That." (blog post title, in case you have no idea what I'm talking about...and you might still have no idea but that's alright) It's about a mother cat on a farm who goes to all the animals and asks if she can use things like straw and feathers and such. And when the animals ask her why she needs the stuff, she always answers, "Oh, this and that." And the last page shows her with her two new kittens named This and That.

Anyhoo...

Potty training. Wow. It has been a process with our girl. I did one day last week where we packed away the diapers and I spent the entire day watching her closely and reminding her to "tell me when you need to pee." She did really well that day and I felt like we were going to have this pants-wetting thing nipped in the bud. BUT...nope. The next day I made salsa. And the day after that I made more salsa. And then it was Sunday and we were pooped (not literally...oh wait. maybe literally...). Monday came and I was helping Nathan with the ceiling a bit and doing stuff around the house. Tuesday I was busy around the house doing who knows what. And that was a lot of days when I wasn't watching her closely. Many accidents. Many, many loads of laundry. And a girl who doesn't seem to feel it coming, doesn't seem to mind being wet, and will NOT tell us when she needs to go or even when she's had an accident. It's quite frustrating to say the least.

me - "Kayden, tell me when you need to pee!"

K - "Alright."

me - "Kayden, doesn't it feel yucky to have wet pants?"

K - "Nopers!"

Alrighty then. I guess I'll just change your pants whenever I notice that telltale dark spot on the back. Ugh.

I'm thinking I'll need to change my approach. Perhaps tomorrow I will start setting a timer and she will be required to try to pee on the potty every hour or so. If she succeeds, maybe I'll give her two hours before she has to try again. Prizes haven't worked. She just says she doesn't want whatever it is that I'm trying to bribe her with. Potty celebration dances don't work. Huge amounts of praise don't work. Doing it because it just feels better to have dry pants doesn't work. (she loves all those things but will still choose to wet her pants if she doesn't feel like going on the potty) So I'm hoping that if I can get her used to the feeling of dry pants for a few days in a row, maybe she will start to notice that being wet feels icky and be more motivated to work at it. She's such a mystery, that girl.

Speaking of mysteries, Maddie. Sleep. Her sleep is a mystery to me. Why won't she close her eyes and sleep?? It seems like the only time she will close her eyes and fall asleep is when she is so tired that she physically cannot keep her eyes open any longer. I see her eyelids drooping and then I see her little forehead wrinkle and eyebrows go up in an effort to hold her eyes open just a few.seconds.longer... JUST CLOSE YOUR EYES AND SLEEP! You can lead a horse to water. You can even shove their face in it. But it looks like I've got a horse that doesn't drink, even when her throat is dry as a desert.

But as frustrating as Maddie's going to sleep habits are, I must say that she's a pretty good sleeper once she finally gives in to it. I don't know that either of our other kids gave us a 9 hour stretch by 10 weeks old. I'm pretty sure neither of them gave us a 9 hour stretch before they were 12 months old! (Who am I kidding..."us"? Nathan sleeps just fine. It's me who is up with the little lady multiple times a night! Forget sleeping like a baby, I want to sleep like a husband! - yes, I stole that from a shirt. But it's SO true)

So this is what my life is these days. Sleep, pee, kindergarten (but I know how shy Levi is and he probably wouldn't want me to post about him and kindergarten much so I won't...Maddie and Kayden...for some reason I just don't think they mind quite as much. Maybe by the time they're 5, they'll mind too and I'll pull back my recounting of their lives via blog). Sometimes I wonder if I should be a working mom. There are moments when I wonder if what I do is really profitable. Valuable. Maybe I'm wasting these years of my life by staying at home and not pushing myself more to get out of the house and use my brain in a different way at least a couple days a week. But you know...then I stop and think about it some more. Some people would feel like they're wasting away if they spent every day doing what I do. But who's to say that working a job or using your mind for something other than homemaking is more valuable? What's important here? Should I take my kids to daycare while I work a job I hate (or enjoy, but that's beside the point) just because I feel like I'm more valued in society if I do that? I think, when it comes right down to it, it's about what God has led each of us to do and what makes us feel fulfilled. What is life-giving to you? Is it to work a job? Then do it with everything you've got! Is it to work part time and stay home with the kids part time? Awesome! Or is what's most life-giving to you to be free to throw yourself into your home and family every hour of the day? Then do it and take great joy in it! No guilt. No inferiority. Just huge amounts of blessing in whatever you do if you're doing it for the right reasons!

I was wondering the other day about whether I was getting "dumb" because I stay at home. I loved maths and sciences in school. Math especially. Calculus was my favourite. It gave me headaches. It stretched my mind. And I loved it. Physics too. And chemistry. Equations. Formulas. Aah...the subjects where there is a clear right and wrong answer. Black and white. Everything can be neat and tidy when there are right and wrong answers. None of this grey business (though I recognize that there is a ton of grey in life and I embrace that there is - it would be wrong to insist otherwise...just wouldn't it be easier if everything could be put in a clean and organized pile? mmm...piles...) Anyway, off topic. I don't do any of that anymore (maths/sciences). But I realized that I AM still using my mind. I'm not using it in an academic way (who says academia is the only important place in the world?) but I am using it. I do problem solving every.single.day. I spend hours wondering why my baby isn't sleeping....still.isn't.sleeping...why isn't she sleeping yet? I analyze her schedule and her sleep cues and tweak this and that until it works. I pore over details of my two year old's personality, trying to figure out why she doesn't care to use the potty and what might motivate her to choose porcelain over fabric for her elimination needs. I wonder why my 5 year old is so shy and why he won't speak or let people see who he is and wonder how I can help him grow to be confident. (oh wait, he's just like me...) I search my mental database on a regular basis for the perfect stain treatment to get out various stains from my children's (and husband's) clothes. I am constantly learning new things about the best way to clean something or cook something or make something. I am no gourmet cook, but I have learned many things about cooking since I got married and rarely use recipes anymore - unless I'm baking. There's something about baking that just doesn't turn out quite right if you don't have the right amount of baking soda or flour or whatever...and I just haven't mastered the "feel" of baking without a recipe yet. Gardening...I'm still in the beginning stages of learning what works and what doesn't and all that is involved in getting a good crop year after year. How are these things any less valuable than things you learn in a classroom? I submit that they are not. I don't care that some people don't value home-making as a full time job. I am going to rock home-making out of this world!

So there.

Speaking of homemaking...our house is a disaster (though I do believe making a HOME and taking care of a HOUSE can be two different things...but I digress). Here's a random story for you...because it's late and I ramble pointlessly when I'm tired. We had someone stop by unannounced this morning (the risk of getting a new phone number and people still having the old number in their phone) and I was SO embarrassed at the state of our house. There was a pile of tomatoes on the kitchen floor because I'd just been sorting out the red tomatoes from the green to make pizza sauce today. There were dirty diapers on the floor because I hadn't taken them downstairs to the diaper pail yet that morning. There were crayons on the floor, papers from kids colouring all over the floor, half-eaten breakfast on the table, a random pair of ear muffs for mowing the lawn on the floor, a pile of random junk on a shelf by the door, some lawn chairs leaning against the wall in our dining room, the table covered with random stuff, socks on the floor by the door, plastic bags laying around, a drill, a broom, random furniture here and there. There was stuff EVERYWHERE. And that's often how our house is these days. I usually try to tidy up if I know someone is coming over but today there was no warning. And it was fine because I'm sure she (wonderful lady, has grown kids of her own) knows we're in the middle of renos (it takes so much more time and energy to clean up when you have to FIND a place for everything rather than just return it to it's designated spot, am I right?!) and have young kids who make messes faster than I can clean them up and am in the middle of dealing with huge amounts of garden produce and have a baby who doesn't sleep which means that my usual tidy-up time in the evening is spent bouncing an overtired baby. BUT...it was hard to let her see that. I always took pride in the way our house looked. I felt like it was a direct representation of how well I was doing my job. It's as if people were thinking "you stay home all day, why WOULDN'T your house be spotless?" To that I say, wouldn't a house be more spotless if nobody was there all day? Just sayin'. ;)

Anyway... Yeah. Messy house. It drives me nuts. I think of it because I'm sitting here typing in the midst of it instead of spending the night tidying up. Haha. Yup. But that's probably enough pointless rambling for one night. If you've read this far, nice work.

One last random thought for you this evening...why did Apple make such sharp edges on the bottom of their laptops? I'm using a MacBook and the skin on the inside of my forearms is raw from the edge of the laptop cutting into my skin. Seriously Apple, you do so many things well but that edge...make it a little rounder, k?

Happenings...

It feels like there has been a lot happening in the past month. It has made life feel a little busy but it has also made August feel quite long so that's a plus! I'm always good with summer feeling as long as possible!

Maddie has been growing and changing. She smiles so much and sometimes it almost sounds like a little giggle coming out of her. Around 7 weeks, she decided to be a bit more challenging in the sleep department and it has continued. She can fight sleep unbelievably well. You know she's tired and yet she manages to keep her eyes (or one eye at least) open so she doesn't quite fall asleep. Bedtime used to be a quick 20 minute change, swaddle, feed, bed routine and now it is often an hour or more before she's actually asleep for the night. She still gives good stretches of sleep at night, though, and I'd rather deal with a baby who has trouble falling asleep than a baby who has trouble staying asleep. She's almost doubled her birth weight at 2 months so she's growing well!

Kayden...we found out she needs glasses this month. They had to be ordered and then they were back ordered so we don't have them yet. I took it pretty hard when we found out she needed them, which I didn't expect. But I have since found out that it's actually quite common for parents to have a hard time adjusting to the fact that their young child needs glasses. Who knew? So she should get them in the next couple weeks and then we can start the fun of seeing if she will wear them. With Kayden we are also looking at potty training. I went through the three day potty training back in January and she caught on decently quickly. So she was doing really well from February to April. But at the end of April we started renos which threw our house and schedule into chaos. It didn't bode well for potty training. Then in June Maddie arrived and Kayden's  accidents just became more and more frequent. By the end of the month, if we didn't take her to the bathroom regularly, she would have an accident because she just wasn't telling us she needed to go anymore. She wouldn't even tell us after it happened. She would just keep playing. Talk about frustrating! So anyway, one day in early August she peed on the couch and didn't tell me and that was it. I put her in a diaper and neither she nor Nathan or I have said much about it. She uses the diaper and that's that. BUT...tomorrow is the day that we try again. My thought is that maybe a couple weeks in diapers will have "reset" her and it will all be fresh tomorrow. Levi will be in school because as much as he wants to help, Kayden just doesn't respond positively to his instruction (surprise surprise!). And Friday is Nathan's day off. I'm hoping that by Sunday we can go to church without diapers. Wish me luck!

Levi has started school! His first day of kindergarten was yesterday. He was excited and then I went to drop him off and he was scared but at the end of his first day he was excited to go back so yay! We have a school boy!