This is the Girl Who Wouldn't Sleep At Night

Not to be a tattle-tale, but you know the night she didn't sleep from 3-5AM? Well she slept A LOT the next day - here she is, barely able to keep her eyes open. She sure played us!

We're In For It

As new parents, Ian and I are always trying to figure things out, like Ruthie's schedule, what her cries mean, what she may want, when the best time is for us to eat that would make it most likely we could both eat at the same time and so on. We worry that she's sleeping too much or not enough. And each day, at some point or the other, we inevitably say, "Tonight, we might be in for it."

The truth is, Ruthie is really good at night. She nurses and goes right back to sleep and we don't do any bouncing, pacing, rocking or anything at night. Of course, we know this is not how it is for everyone and so we feel really lucky. So lucky, in fact, that we're sure that any night now, we're really going to have a hard go. So each day, we think that night might be the one. For example, if she has a really fussy day, we'll look at each other and say, "Well, we might be in for it tonight." But then the next day, she'll sleep a lot. And of course, we worry that she slept so much during the day that we'll be "in for it" that night.

But each night of her previous 5 1/2 weeks, she has been a perfect angel. Nursing and then going right back to bed.

Until last night.

She did great at her 10PM feeding - nursed and went right to sleep. Then, she slept until 3AM, which was great. When she cried at 3, I got up and nursed her and while I was nursing her, I noticed she seemed a little more alert than usual. But I carried on, finished nursing her and put her into bed. She went to sleep, so I thought we were once again off the hook for the you-know-what hitting the fan.

I crawled back into bed around 3:20, as Ian rolled over and said, "Did you nurse her already?" I made a joking comment about "Where have you been?" and tried to fall back asleep. About 10 minutes later, she cried out. We are trying this new thing where we let her cry a little before we go get her (novel, I know). Ian mumbles out a very profound, "Did you already nurse her?" to which I don't respond, since he's clearly not following the night's events. Anyway, she cried for about two minutes and then fell back asleep. Saved again!

But then ten minutes later, she did the same thing. For the next hour, she cried every ten minutes for about 2 minutes. Finally, I got up and went into her room. She had spit up all over her bed and nightgown (at which point I'm of course feeling like a terrible mother for letting her lay cold and wet in spit up for an hour). So of course, I change her bed and change her. Now, she is wide awake from all the activity. So I set to rocking her. And then I nurse her. And then I sing to her. And then I rock her some more.

At 5, she is still wide awake. I finally give her the pacifier and put her in bed, wide awake. I slump back to our room, get back in bed (to a sleepy Ian who thoughtfully offers to "take the next shift" even though he has to get up for work in an hour) and promptly fall asleep myself. Thankfully, she didn't stir.

At 6:30AM, I hear her call out again. I say to Ian (who is up for work now), "Is that her?" Though I'm exhausted and she hasn't been asleep that long, it's been three and a half hours since her last good nursing, so I swing back the covers and I'm half way out the bedroom door when Ian's words finally get my attention - "That wasn't her. She didn't cry." Slightly distressed at the fact that I'm now imagining crying but mostly just thankful I can go back to bed, I quickly get under the covers. Ian makes me promise I will take a nap today, kisses me goodbye and I go back to sleep. And hurray! She sleeps until 8:30 (and so do I).

Was that the worst it could possible be? Certainly not. But it was the hardest night we've had with her in a long time. We'll see what today holds. Maybe tonight we'll be in for it.

I leave you with this photo, since a post about Ruthie with no Ruthie photos is terrible.

I Can See Why My Dad Chose the Dishes

Not too long ago, my mom told me a story from my childhood. A harrowing story, really, as you'll see soon.

She said that when I was born, she told my dad, "Now that there are five, I'm going to need your help. You can either do bath time, help with bedtime or do the dishes." That means, that for all the years previously, she was cooking the dinner, cleaning it up, doing bath time for four kids and putting four kids to bed. Now, I love my dad and he is a great father, but seriously, men back then just did not pull the weight fathers today do! I cannot believe my mother did all of that!

Anyway, back to the story. So what did he choose?

The dishes.

I'll admit, when I first heard that, I was a little put out, thinking, "Why didn't he choose to spend time with us?"

Then yesterday, Ruthie basically screamed from 5:30 until 6:30, when Ian got home. And that was WITH the pacifier AND me holding her. So after dinner, even though I had cooked it and usually Ian does the clean up, I happily did the dishes while he carried her around and tried to sooth her for another hour or so.

Here she is, after I've feed her. Mind you, by this point she's been up for about 4 hours without a nap, which for a newborn, is a very long time!
Now this doesn't look like the face of a girl who is just about to fall asleep, does it? Nope. It looks like the face of a girl saying, "Suckers!" to her parents.
Ah, well, what can you do? Thank goodness I have Ian to help me. Because truth be told, some days, you're happy to do the dishes.

It's Come to This

Ian came home from work the other day to this:

He looked at the zip lock bag, drying on our paper towel holder, and said to me, "It's come to this, huh?"

Yes, my love, it's come to this. I have taken a vow of frugality and it has infiltrated every area of our lives.* I have stooped to drying zip lock bags so we can reuse them. Bless my poor husband's soul, he didn't do more than shrug his shoulders. He seems to be accepting my new frugal trend as best as can be expected.

When I start air drying the paper towels and reusing those, then I think some intervention is necessary. Until then, I am actually enjoying finding lots of little ways to save money and live within our one salary means.

Any advice out there for me in other ways to save?

*Well, maybe not every area. I was talking the other day about how I need some new brown boots. No, truly, I need them. I think my feet stretched a tiny bit in pregnancy because my current brown boots are uncomfortable now. See? I'm justified. =)

Life With Ruthie

For all the posts I write about Ruthie, of which I'm sure there will be many, I've decided to call them "Life with Ruthie." So here is our first official "Life With Ruthie" post.

Last Saturday, Ruth Nellie went to her first birthday party. Sarah and Eric's second son, Noah, celebrated his 7th birthday with pancakes, sports at the park, presents and ice cream. It was the first time since Ruthie's birth that the whole family was together (sans my parents, who were traveling around the tip of South America on a two week cruise). Naturally, we got a picture of all the grandkids together. Here they are, all 13! What riches. I think I've mentioned before that Mary and Mike are expecting number 3, so we won't be 13 for long. Number 14 should be joining us in late March or early April.
We have been weighing Ruthie each week - yesterday she topped off at 10 pounds. 1o pounds! Isn't that amazing? She's doing so great, and is clearly gaining lots of weight. (Hey, that rhymes.) Here she is on her changing table, showing how big she is.

On Tuesday, Ian went back to work. Ruthie and I actually had a really good week on our own. I was afraid there would be lots of tears Tuesday morning, but we managed quite well. However, we were very excited for Daddy to come home on Tuesday (and each day since). So before he was due home, I changed her into an outfit befitting the occasion and took some photos. They all turned out so cute, but this one below is her best old man impersonation.

And here she is, getting some kisses from Daddy. Ian misses her a lot when he's at work, but he has made up for it this weekend, holding her, bathing her, changing her, reading to her and singing to her. What a good Daddy! And she loves her pokey kisses. Both of Ian's girls do. =)

Today in church as I was worshipping next to Ian (who was holding Ruthie in the Moby), I felt a wave of gratitude sweep over me. What a good gift Ruthie is and we are so thankful for her. Please, Lord, let me never forget what an answer to prayer she is and what a demonstration of your abundant goodness she is in our lives.

Three Year Anniversary

The big 0-3. On January 10th, Ian and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary. And considering we had a three week old, we had a very special time!

I had a Downtown Gift Card from work, a rather generous one my boss gave me before I left for all the interviewing and work I did on hiring my replacement (thought that was part of my job, so I was pretty excited about the gift card!), so Ian and I decided to blow the whole thing on our anniversary. We got a night at the Hotel Maya, a waterfront hotel next to the Queen Mary in Downtown Long Beach. I used one of my work contacts to get a really good deal on the room, so we had plenty left on the card to go out for appetizers in the afternoon, dinner that night and room service for breakfast!

We arrived at 3 - of course, since that's when check in was. We sat out on the patio overlooking the water and had appetizers and cocktails (well, Ian had a cocktail, I had a coke). It was great.

Then later that night, Mary came down to our hotel room so Ian and I could go to dinner at the restaurant at the hotel. It was GLORIOUS to have an hour and a half to ourselves, to not worry about the noise she might be making or if she was about to wake up. And Ruthie did great with Aunt Mary!

Here we are at dinner. Yes, I had a little wine. We save a cork from each of our anniversaries as part of our tradition. Some day, we'll have a whole huge vase full of corks, each labeled with a year.
When we got back to the room, Mary took a photo of us on the balcony. You can sort of see Downtown in the background. We so appreciated her willingness to come to our hotel so we could go out.

And here is the whole family, enjoying the hotel. Well, sort of. Ruthie is screaming. But Ian and I enjoyed the hotel. We love hotels. =)

As per our traditions, we read our ceremony and vows, answered our anniversary questions, looked through our wedding photos and prayed together. We also exchanged gifts - the traditional gift for year three is leather. I got Ian a belt and he got me a journal. We were pretty proud of ourselves that we actually had gifts wrapped and ready to go.

Of course, I cried all through our re-reading of the ceremony. It is so special - I can totally hear my dad's voice as we read through it, and I'm continually thankful for the man Ian is and the marriage we have.

Anyway, I could go on and on but I'll spare you mushy details. Happy Anniversary to us!

The Great Meltdown of 2012

I suppose it's a little early to declare what happened last night as "The Great Meltdown of 2012" because it's only January - I suppose much worse is probably coming in the 11 months that remain. But let me tell you, there was lots and lots of crying last night.

It all started when I was trying to put Ruthie down. She was fighting sleep and wouldn't be soothed, so I "gave in" and gave her the pacify. I really battle with the pacifier concept On the one hand, it's so nice that it comforts here. But on the other hand, I feel like sometimes we give it to her just to make our lives easier - but then, is that a bad thing? Anyway, back to the point. I was discouraged last night that I couldn't sooth her and that I had to give her a pacifier. In the meantime, I began to sense what felt like my third, count it, THIRD plugged duct in a week and a half. So by the time I got done with Ruthie and walked into our family room, I had worked myself into an emotional frenzy. As soon as I saw Ian, I burst into tears.

And I would say I stayed in those tears for about twenty minutes. Of course, Ian was trying to comfort me and figure out what he could say to make me feel better. After we'd been talking for a while, he asked me to name three things I was worried about, and then two things I was very excited about. Questions like that are always good because they force me to vocalize what I'm feeling and why I'm crying.

I said I was worried about the pacifier and if we were doing the right thing by giving it to Ruthie. Heather, my sister in law, says that one of the hardest things about being a new parent is all the hundreds of decisions you are now making for this new little person. And it's so true. Should we swaddle her? Does she need to be changed? Should I feed her now? Do you think she's cold? Are we giving her the pacifier too much?

Which brings us back to the topic at hand.

So that was the first thing. Then, of course, I said I was worried about losing the weight. It's funny - you go out in public, like to church or Disneyland, and people ask you how old your baby is. Whatever answer you give, they then look you up and down, and you can just feel them assessing whether they think you look good or not for the time frame you gave. And normally, weight stuff doesn't bother me, but in this case, I have such few things that fit and I don't want to wear the same five things for three months. (It's tough to be so vain, I know.) Plus, as I wept to Ian last night, I like to eat and I'm hungry at lot of the time now, so I battle in my mind about wanting to eat and wanting to lose weight.

Okay, enough of that. The third thing I said I was worried about was my plugged ducts. It would seem I'm prone to plugged ducts and they are very painful and consuming. We had planned on going to Disneyland again today (we ended up being blocked out) and I didn't want to give that up to spend all day trying to clear the duct. And I don't want to spend the next year living in terror that one might be coming.

As I moaned all of this out to Ian, I also felt guilty. Sometimes I feel bad complaining because Ruthie is such a good baby, but the truth is, I have bad days too, even with an easy baby. I have so many hormones raging and even though she's good, I'm still under slept and it's still a HUGE transition becoming a parent. I should like I'm justifying, don't I?

But on to the bright side. In response to what I'm looking forward to, I said staying home with Ruthie. I am so excited and feel so blessed that we are able to make it work for me to stay home with this precious girl. I love taking care of her and am so honored that I get to do that with my time now.

I also said I was looking forward to my parents coming home. They've been on a cruise for about three weeks now and I miss them. There is something about becoming a mom myself that has made me want to spend more time with my own mom. I look forward to them coming home in a few days, so I can call her about my plugged duct or how Ruthie's fighting her nap or about the amazingly cute thing she did. My mom is a great audience for things like that - even though she has 13 grandchildren, she thinks each one is the most incredible. So you can see why I want to spend time with her. I hope some day Ruthie feels about me how I feel about my mom.

So that is the conclusion to the great meltdown. I love this blog; it's a good place for me to process and share and be real. And the real truth is, sometimes, I lay on the couch and blubber to my husband. Poor man; he probably thought that was ending with pregnancy. Boy, did he have another thing coming. We'll just have to see what other meltdowns lie ahead. Brace yourselves, people.