Share it with Joy

I can’t believe it!  Janna has now been sleeping for over two hours!  We have been struggling with one-hour naps (or 45-minutes) for as long as I can remember.  Yesterday was tough – babies are supposed to sleep more than three hours in a day!  So this morning is a surprise.

Nights have been off and on as well.  We had an entire week where she slept through the night.  Then we’ve had a couple of weeks when she wakes up one-three times, with a couple of nights of solid sleep sporadically thrown in.  I haven’t been able to figure out why she does that, but since her waking times are irregular, it tells me that she needs to wake up (ie. she’s hungry).  I keep reminding myself that this is such a short time, and I delight in caring for my beautiful daughter.

I am hoping to get some of my Christmas baking done today.  I especially want to do those caramel rolls so Greg can take them to work with him tomorrow morning.  I want to do some cookies too, but we’ll see.

I still have to do a little bit of shopping too, but I don’t even know what I want to purchase for those people.

I don’t suppose I should have counted on it lasting.  Janna slept 10 hours straight at night for nearly a week.  However, the last four nights, she has been up every night to eat once.  I guess once is pretty good still, but I would like her to sleep continuously.  Her naps are still a struggle.  When I think back to several weeks ago, I really can’t complain about that either.  She is falling asleep much faster, but wakes up when you lay her down.  There have been a couple of times I have laid her down awake, and she has fallen asleep on her own.  Sometimes I use a pacifier to get her to calm down, but try to remove it right before she really falls asleep.  A couple of times, I left it in her mouth, it fell out when she was sleeping, and she woke up crying because she didn’t have it in her mouth anymore.  I said enough with that!  I really don’t want to start the necessity of a pacifier, so we will use it as a tool for now.  Nothing more.

I did some Christmas shopping last Friday evening.  All of it was online.  Actually, it was only two orders.  I’m most excited about Psalty, though.  I bought the “Kitchen Sink Deal” for Janna.  I figured if I would like to buy it all eventually, now was the time.  We won’t give it all to her this year…  We were listening to Christmas music the other day, and she was getting fussy.  So I decided to give Psalty a try.  She loved it.  Maybe it was just because I was interacting more with her as I was singing with Psalty, but it calmed her down.  It’s funny how it seems like children’s voices seem to grasp her attention.

We had Tirzah and Jonathan over last night for a Christmas dinner (I hope to make that an annual event).  It was wonderful to have them, and it gave me a great excuse to use my Christmas china!  And I found a pretty tablecloth and napkins to use with it (at Meijer).

Place setting

Christmas china and new tablecloth!

Menu
Veggies and pita chips with Hommus (provided by Tirzah and Jonathan)
Punch (Welch’s White Grape Pomegranate, Orange Juice, and club soda)
Water
Cran-Apple Salad
Pesto Mushroom Chicken
Steamed Broccoli
Red-Skinned Potatoes
Crescent rolls
Cranberry Caramel Crisp

It was fun.  I felt bad, though, because Janna was very fussy.  I don’t know if she didn’t feel good or if she was just tired.  We had a busy weekend!  Today I decided that it was a Janna day.  I got up and made the bed, went to Curves, and have been tending to Janna since then.  I gave her a bath.  Usually her second nap (around noon) lasts about an hour, but she wakes up so tired and crying.  So today, I picked her up when she started crying and rocked her back to sleep.  I tried to put her down, but she didn’t like that.  I figured that this time, sleep was more important that her sleeping in her bed.

Funny that when she woke up from that two-hour nap, she ate, and about an hour later she was already tired and  fussy.  So I put on my Moby, and we went for a walk.  Good think it’s about 40F and not windy today – warm enough to take her out.  She has now been sleeping for about two hours again.  That is more like what she should be sleeping!

I still haven’t done the dishes from last night.  That was my project for today, but Janna is more important.  I suppose I will still get them done this evening because I hate having dirty dishes in my kitchen!

Emily and I have been saying for months that we need to get together again for lunch.  Then Janna came and my life has been a tizzy.  So today we finally made the time.  We had a great chat, mostly about babies, labor, and caring for children.  It was nice to get out of the house.

I think Janna likes different environments – they keep her interested.  I find that if we stay in the same room for too long, she gets a little fussy.  Many times if we go to a different room, she is content for a little bit longer.  So that is what makes it worth making the effort to get out.  The thing I don’t like about going places is that it messes up our schedule.  I know a schedule is supposed to be flexible, but I feel like we are still establishing a schedule.  Especially since she is on night number 4 of sleeping all the way through (hopefully!!).  That changes things during the day.  And we are still working on getting her to fall asleep on her own.

I worked on decorating for Christmas tonight.  I realized that I don’t really enjoy it because I am not confident in our decorations.  I don’t really have the right “accessories” for the tree (garland, tree topper) and my wreath isn’t much to speak of either.  My cheap garland for the banister just does not cut it.  Although, I love the lights that can go on it…  I don’t know.  Sometimes I feel like I just won’t put any out and then I won’t risk being embarrassed by our humble Christmas decorations.  I think I do that with a lot of things in life – I think that avoiding saves me embarrassment.  Maybe, maybe not.

Happy baby.  For the last two nights, Janna has slept 10 hours straight.  It is wonderful.  I have gotten a full 8 hours of sleep, only waking at 2am each night to make sure she is still breathing.  Today, she got a morning nap of an hour and a half and then another hour and a half nap around 11am.  She is happily playing and talking in her chair while I ate lunch and am now typing.

She found the string on the bear toy on her chair today, and has been “struggling” with that – to keep it in her hands.  I started with a bright-colored book over Thanksgiving weekend, and since then, we have been introducing rattles.  Mostly she just looks at them and we try to place them in her hand so she grips them.  It’s gradual, but exciting to see her interest grow.

She has a growing interest in looking at the Christmas tree lights as well.  Not for a long time, but it does capture her attention for a bit.  We’ve been working on tummy time too.  :)

Tummy Time

I love it when she is happy and learning!

After two rough days (Friday and Saturday) for naps, yesterday was pretty nice.  She was held to go to sleep, and she didn’t sleep for long, but she was pleasant and smiley.  Today, she has fallen asleep very easily in my arms at naptime.  When I lay her down, she has woken up, but only fussed a little, and has gone back to sleep.  I pray she is learning what it is to fall asleep on her own.

On a different note, today was our first snow!  We had a light dusting at Thanksgiving, but this snow has stayed more than a couple of hours.  It covered the streets this morning and I even made tracks in it when I went to Curves.  I love snow, especially this time of year.  It really puts me in the mood to listen to Christmas music, decorate, bake, and create!  Too bad I feel like I haven’t gotten much done today…  I worked on moving some more stuff down to our office from upstairs.  I have too much stuff!  Actually, I think half of it is unfinished projects.  So I need to get cracking on finishing projects again.  But right now, I need to place my order for cloth diapering stuff.

In the first place, I hate moving.  The problem is, we only have one bedroom on the main floor.  That is where Greg and my room has been since we were married.  I didn’t realize how much I liked that room until tonight.  I was not about to move our baby to her own room when it would be on an entirely different floor as ours.  I don’t want her upstairs alone.  We moved our room to the former guest room, the guest room to where our office was, and our office to the master bedroom.  Janna won’t be in her own room for another couple of months, but I guess we are being proactive.

I know it is silly, but I really don’t want to be upstairs.  I am so attached to our room down here and all the benefits and comforts of having it here.  I don’t have another solution to the issue that brought us to this point, though.  My wonderful husband told me, though, that if we don’t like it after a month, we can move all the furniture back.  That gives me a little comfort.  I don’t understand why I am so attached and am having such a difficult time getting used to the idea of being upstairs.

On a side note, Greg told me that during our month-long trial, maybe I would come up with another solution.  I jokingly suggested “another house?”  He wasn’t so amused with that one.  ;)