State of the Family Address

I was thinking about what I typically post in my blog and the majority of it lately has been about not sleeping. While this is a very worthy topic for a new mother, I feel that there are other things I should report about. Especially because this blog is something that my baby can go back and read when she's a mother...given that she even wants to. Maybe I'm kidding myself. At any rate, I can read these old posts when I'm feeling nostalgic about my grown children.

So my first topic is sleeping. Okay maybe I lied. After multiple visits to Ikea, we managed to get Charlotte's crib assembled in the Living Room. She's been sleeping in it the last 3 nights or so.

This would be fine except that the monitor broke and I had to send it to the manufacturer to be replaced so I have to sleep with my door open. This has me waking up more frequently because I "think" I hear something. I thought perhaps she would sleep for longer periods of time at least. I was wrong. So now instead of getting up four or five times a night and walking across my room, I have to walk across the house and sit up with her until she finishes eating before I can go back to sleep. I'd try to let her fuss a bit first to see if she'll go back to sleep on her own, but then she wakes everyone up and my mom gets up with her and I feel bad when she has to get up at 4 to go to work in the morning.

This is another issue. The living room isn't exactly a quiet secluded place in the house. So starting at 4am and going until about 8am, there are people up and around the house getting ready to go their various directions. It really doesn't matter how quiet they are since Charlotte is a light sleeper and its not really fair to ask them not to grind coffee or watch the morning news.

Another obstacle is that everyone's been fighting colds in my house lately, myself included. I've been trying to kick cold ass with a continuous supply of umcka, emergen-c, and sinusalia. They seem to be working, I felt much better today. But back to sleeping. Charlotte has a bit of a cold, but she doesn't seem too sick, she just has a faucet of a runny nose. She won't sleep without the binkie, but she can't breathe through her nose, so she's super tired when I put her down, but keeps waking up because she can't breathe. To remedy this I use the snot sucker which makes her hysterical. She practically heaves she's crying so hard, but then she goes right to sleep once her nose is cleared up. I kind of wonder if she wouldn't sleep longer in her crib at night if she wasn't sick. I suppose we shall have to see.

It's nice to have it for daytime naps at least. Before I was basically having to hold her if I wanted her to nap. I couldn't put her in her regular bed because Paul sleeps in our room during the day and she wakes him up - kind of like how she wakes me up all night. So at least I can put her down for a nap now. Lord knows I need it!

Okay, now on to other things! 7 months has brought all sorts of milestones. Charlotte started crawling a bit around 5 1/2 months but she's got it all figured out now. She's got it figured out enough that she follows me or comes to find me if I leave the room. Before I could leave her in the family room and find her sitting in a pile of computer cords. Now if I leave the room too long it starts to be a scavenger hunt to find her and what she's gotten in to. She tends to like little bits of paper and dog food.

For about a month and a half she's been standing with something to grab on to. This is pretty easy for her now and she's been trying more and more to stand on her own. I'm really hoping she'll hold off on the walking stuff for now. Crawling is enough of a challenge to keep up with!

Since she's gotten crawling and pulling herself up to standing down pretty well now, of course she finds her way to me when she's hungry. My baby is a fraud! She'll pull herself up and stand at my legs looking up at me and chattering away like she wants to give me kisses and cuddle. But as soon as I pick her up it turns into a frantic search for Milkbags McGee. She cons me every time.

Speaking of Milkbags McGee, I'm starting to feel kind of over breastfeeding. I've never felt like I produce enough milk to keep her satisfied, I don't enjoy sitting with her and feeding her and I can't pump anything. It feels like I have to try so hard to just to do something I dread. But it's awfully cheap and awfully convenient. Theres the rub. She still wants to all the time though so I'll keep doing it as long as she wants to. I feel kind of guilty that I've never enjoyed it. I've really tried to though. I try to think about how I'll miss the quiet time with my baby who needs me. And then she bites my nipple and I'm pretty much over it again.

This Saturday will be our third swimming class with her. Honestly I could probably do without the "class" but since we paid for it we make it a priority to go, and that's what matters. Most of the babies tend to have a "what the hell is going on here?!" expression on their faces during the class. It's rather amusing actually. Charlotte seems to be comfortable kicking in the water and getting her face wet, but she hasn't started really having fun with it yet. Part of the problem is that she's so skinny and the pool is kind of cold. We had to pull her out before the class was over last week because her lips were turning blue and she was shivering really hard. I ordered her a baby wet suit that we should be able to try out this week. Hopefully being less cold will make the class more fun for her.

We have multiple things to look forward to on the horizon. Friday is my NATS competition (National Association of Teachers of Singing). Hopefully I will be well enough to sing! As soon as we get our W2's in the mail we can file taxes and start our downpayment fund which means we can start to look for houses. My hope is that we are moved by May. Our goals after we find a house are to find Paul another job that pays enough for us to make our house payment and doesn't make him work 50+ hours a week on the graveyard shift. Ideally this job will allow him to continue his nursing degree track and will afford me some time to have a part-time job during the summer. In this magical happy land I'll find a part time job teaching voice lessons at a community college and Paul's classes will be at a discount!

I want to finish my post with the thing that makes it all worth it. I really love it when Charlotte's tired and I pick her up and she rests her head on my shoulder and stares off into space. I love stroking her hair and feeling her dead weight. That's what keeps me going!