11 weeks

As I promised in my last post (and you can see above), I bought her a better-fitting hat, and she looks so cute in it!  She doesn't seem to mind wearing a hat, and actually likes that it keeps the sun out of her eyes when we're outside.  I also bought her some sunglasses, but they are a wee bit too big still.

My baby is way cooler than I am.

I've noticed over the past 2 weeks a really big increase in her motor skills.  First and foremost (and what is affecting us the most right now) is the fact that she is rolling from her back to her stomach in her crib while swaddled.  I noticed on Monday morning this past week that she was on her stomach when she woke up in the morning.  The same thing happened on Tuesday morning.

I put her on her back, and she was like this when I came in to check on her.

The rule for babies, of course, is that they sleep on their backs for as long as possible.  Well, Gabby has decided that 10.5 weeks was long enough!  Those nights, by the way, she slept from 10:00-7:00 straight through.  It was amazing.  But I walked in on Tuesday to this:

Nobody puts baby in a corner; she gets there all by herself!

We tried for a couple more nights to just put her on her back, but she would flip in the 5 minutes between putting her down and checking on her.  We finally just gave up and put her on her stomach to sleep.  I really blame the naptimes--she'll only sleep off of me if she's on her belly in the Pack N Play.  I figured naps are no big deal, since she sleeps in the family room with me (and the TV blaring to get her used to noise during the day) and I keep a pretty close eye on her.  We didn't really want her on her belly so soon at night, but she's definitely got a mind of her own!

All of this would be no big deal--she sleeps on her belly, so what?--however, the second part of the baby-on-her-back rule is that once they start flipping over, you really can't swaddle them anymore, due to the fact that they need to have their arms free to push themselves up in case they get into trouble.  This is a huge problem, since swaddling is what keeps her arms out of her face and allows her to stay asleep longer.  It's not that her arms wake her up, but more once she is awake (which happens at the end of her sleep cycles as it does for everyone) her arms are so distracting that she can't go back to sleep.  We tried to swaddle her with her arms out, and that lasted all of an hour.  We've moved to swaddling her very loosely, allowing her to have her arms if she wants them.  This works as long as she is calm at night and doesn't manage to get her arms out (she'll give me from 8:00-2:00, then wake up at 6:00 and finally be up for the day at 9:00), but if she gets her hands by her face (like last night) she's up at midnight, 3:30, 6:00, and for the day at 7:30. I really don't know what to do--I don't want her to suffocate, but this lack of sleep is killing me!  I can't ask Brian to help during the week, since he has to get up and work all day, but I'm so wasted during the day that I'm completely useless (and very short-tempered)!  Napping during the day is impossible, since she only sleeps for half hour stretches at a time once I get her off my chest.  I know eventually she'll get more control over her arms and they'll stop being such huge distractions, but I'm not positive I'll survive the sleep deprivation until that happens!

On the more positive growth/development side, Gabby's really starting to interact with her world.  She's moving her arms in more purposeful ways, and tries to grab onto things (and completely misses, but she's trying)!  She did manage to grab onto her paci earlier today, but it may have been a fluke.  She loves to sit and stand, and when she's in her carseat or bouncer, tries to sit herself up straighter.  She has definitely discovered her hands, feet and legs, and studies them very intently, as well as my hands and clothes.  Nursing is a bit of a challenge sometimes, since she gets distracted by the way her hands look against my clothes and skin.  I often remind her to focus and eat!  She also never needs help holding her head upright, but I do have to keep 2 hands on her while carrying her because she's started to launch herself to one side or the other to get a better look at things.  Makes carrying anything in addition to her a challenge.  She's also finally showing interest in her mobile on the swing, and spent a ton of time a few days ago in the swing just staring at it and talking to the animals.

The zebra is her favorite, but the others will due when it's out of sight

She's also talking quite a bit more now, making a wide variety of noises at different volumes.  When she's on Daddy's lap at night (and when he's changing her to go to bed) she just talks and talks to him.  She doesn't talk as much to me, but if I sing to her, she'll make a lot of noise to accompany me.  Or maybe she's trying to drown me out!  It's also getting harder to entertain her.  She seems to get bored very easily, and I'm hard-pressed to come up with things to keep her busy during the day.  She's been a bit more independent as far as entertaining herself, which basically means she'll sit in a bouncer or lie on her playmat for 10 whole minutes before insisting I pick her up.  According to the book I bought on the recommendation of my friend (The Wonder Weeks), she's going to be entering a new mental development stage soon, which means she'll be back to irritability.  There's a chance that the sleeping problems she's having now are related to this spurt.  It also may explain the every 2 hour nursing we have going on during the day again.

As far as how I'm doing, not so hot.  I received a group e-mail from Solano Community College which said that the Fall 2012 schedule was online.  I went to see what class I'd been assigned, and I wasn't on there!  That's right, instead of telling me directly that I didn't have a class, I had to learn via the class schedule.  I e-mailed the dean, and she told me that while they really like me, they just couldn't get me a class.  She said I'd be amongst the first scheduled if extra classes come around.  In spring.  OK, I thought, that's a set back, but I still have ARC.  I even e-mailed them with my new e-mail address since my ARC one was deactivated.  Initially, there was an organic chemistry lab available that would have been perfect--Tues/Thurs from 2-5.  Labs are great, since there's virtually no prep work, and minimal grading.  However, a week after dangling this class in front of me, I got an e-mail saying that a full time faculty had decided to take the class!  I was afraid this would happen--I'd take a semester off of teaching, the colleges would find a replacement, and I wouldn't be asked back to teach.  It's not like the unions can be helpful here either--they are very anti-adjunct.  There is an off chance that I could get a call from another college to teach a class, but the odds of that become less likely as time goes on.  I'm actually really depressed about this--I am not cut out to be a stay at home mom, and I was really hoping to have a definite end point of the "maternity" leave I'm on.  I know I should just be grateful that we are able financially to let me stay home, and enjoy getting to see all of the milestones of Gabby's development in person rather than hearing about them from a daycare provider, but it's hard to see that when I have absolutely no adult interaction besides Brian.  I do have my University of Phoenix class, but an online class is very much different from interacting with students in person.  I have signed up for my local mom's club, but my natural shyness is preventing me from going to any of the events.  It's just really hard for me to overcome my nature and put myself out there!

On a more positive note, the tempranillo wine we're making is coming along quite well.  I took it off the oak this past weekend while Brian's parents were here to watch Gabby, and it's tasting young, but much better than before the oak.  I am pretty excited to see how it's going to turn out.

To end, here are some more pictures of my sweet little girl:

Blowing some bubbles at her bouncer

Modeling her new hat with Daddy

I hope the next post isn't so much of a downer, and that I have more pictures!  Until then, goodbye!