3 months

So this is a bit late, since she's actually now 3 months and 1.5 weeks, but the Gabster has made it to 3 months!  That's a personal best for Brian and me!

3 months old on a plane!

Warning:  this is a block of text.  The pictures are at the end of the blog, and if you want to there, I won't blame you!

She's picked up some new skills in the past month.  She has definitely discovered her hands, and can entertain herself for 15 minutes just studying them, turning them over and clutching and unclutching them.  She loves to grab onto her knees and other objects and looking at how her hands appear when they're holding onto things.  She now regularly grabs onto her Wubbanub (a stuffed animal attached to her pacifier) and tosses it around (which makes her mad, since she rips it out of her mouth to toss it!).  She's so close to grabbing onto other objects, but still doesn't quite have the skills to grab at what she aims for.  She swings her hands towards objects, but mostly she ends up grabbing my hands.  She is starting to be more interested in toys (even if she can't grab them), and will study them while I hold them in front of her.  She still loves the TV, and has now carried that love to the remote control.  She spends a good amount of time studying the buttons and trying to grab it.  She's so funny when she's really intent on something--she really wants to get her mouth on it, but hasn't figured out that she can use her hands to get it there, so she just opens her mouth really wide and hopes I put the toy in.  It's like watching a baby bird!  She's certainly very good at getting her hands into her mouth, and when she starts grabbing objects, I'm sure they'll follow.

She's also a drooling machine now, and we just keep a bib on her at all times so we can at least keep her onesie from getting soaked.  I keep looking at her gums to make sure she's not cutting a tooth, especially since our friend's little girl cut her first one at 2 months!  So far no teeth!  I can see where they're going to come in though, which is scary enough for now!

I've also finally gotten her on a schedule.  For the first 2 months, I was basically letting her run the show.  Then I found a blog online (Bloggin' About Babies) that gave some loose guidelines for nap times.  It basically says that children Gabby's age can really only stay awake for 1.5 hours at a stretch before needing a nap.  I started to pay more attention to her crankiness, and realized that Gabby was following that pattern almost exactly.  Anywhere from 1 hour 20 min and 1.5 hours, she would start fussing a lot, and nothing I did would get her to calm down.  So now, when she starts fussing, I swaddle her, put in a paci, and rock and bounce her for a few minutes before putting her in her Pack N Play for a nap.  She's so much happier now, and so am I!  It's easier to plan my day when I know about when she's going to go down for a nap.  So just for my future reference when I'm reading this when she graduates high school (hi me!) here's her schedule:

7:00ish wake up, eats and plays
8:30ish back down for a half an hour nap.  Sometimes this happens in the stroller while mommy walks
9:00ish up again, eats and plays
10:30ish morning nap, this time 45 minutes-1.5 hours
1:00ish up again, eats and plays
2:30ish afternoon nap, again 45 minutes-1.5 hours
3:30ish up again, eats and plays
4:30ish sometimes does down for another nap.  She may not if she's slept a lot on the first stretches.
6:30ish witching hour.  Poor Brian; he only gets happy Gabby on the weekends.
7:30ish bedtime
*Note:  This only works when we're at home.  If we're staying somewhere else, it all breaks down!

This will all get adjusted as she gets older and stays up for longer periods of time (and hopefully drops those first and last naps).  I also will say that I have to keep an eye on her at the 40-50 minute mark of her nap.  If I don't put her paci back in around that time, she wakes up for good.  Basically, that's about the length of her sleep cycle, and she's still having some problems transitioning from one cycle to another during the day.  At night, she's all good.

Speaking of nights, she's starting to sleep in some fairly long stretches.  Her first stretch is usually 6-7 hours, and then she gives me either another 6 hour stretch, or two 3 hour stretches.  This weekend, we were in San Francisco overnight for the wedding of 2 of our dear friends (congrats, Robbie and Judy!), and she slept from 9:30-7:30, and only got up then because I thought my boobs were going to explode so I woke her up!  Her Aunt Jennifer and Uncle Joe were watching her while we were at the wedding, and fed her at 7:00 (like I do) and then again at 9:30 (because she woke up hungry), and she stayed asleep all night after that second feeding.  This was what I was trying to accomplish with the "dream feeds" I tried a few weeks ago, but it never really worked out.  Now that she's older, I think I'll try those again!  Brian wondered if maybe she doesn't get enough at the 7:00 feeding (she does usually zonk out on the boob, and my supply is lower at night than in the morning), and the top off fills her up enough to keep her asleep.  I fed her last night before I went to bed at 9:45 (it was a late night Saturday!), and had to get up at 3:30 to give her a paci, but she didn't want to be fed until 5:30.  I really hope this keeps up!

OK, so now the fun part of the post.  We spent the time over Mothers Day weekend visiting my family in St Louis, and we had such a good time!  Gabby was actually pretty good on the 4 (!) planes.  She got cranky around when she was supposed to be sleeping, but we were able to keep her pretty quiet otherwise.  I think the other people on the plane really appreciated how quiet she is--some poor 20-something guy sat next to us on 1 leg, and after we landed he said that she was a really good baby and how lucky we were.  Her crankiest leg we fortunately had a great grandmother next to us who was very understanding.  Frontier was a great airline--the flight attendants were very nice, we got family boarding, and there were changing tables in the bathrooms.  Overall, it was a much better experience flying with her than we thought it would be.

And now for pictures from our trip:

There's a buffalo ranch near my parents' house, and we took a tour while there.  Here are Gabby and I in the mule.  She slept through the entire tour!

The owner actually took us in the pasture with the buffalo.  Fortunately, they didn't seem too bothered by us.  And yes, that's a cow on the left.  She apparently wandered in one day and never left.

The llamas that apparently will kick coyotes if they come in.  Basically, a living security system.

We also got to visit with my college friends Stephanie and Lisa.  Here's Stephanie with Gabby.

This is Lia, Lisa's daughter, who is 17 months.  She's the spitting image of her daddy, Derek.

Stephanie, Lia, Lisa, Gabby and me.

Grandpa Pechenino and Gabby enjoying a moment.

Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Stoehr.  I left out the ones with the dog in them.

4 generations of Dempsey/Stoehr/Pechenino/Romo women!

Second cousins!  Matt and Gabby.

With Great Grandma Pechenino

4 generations on the Pechenino side too (plus Josie).

And without Josie.

We had a great time talking all day.

Gabby heading for a nap on Grandma Pechenino.

"I'm shocked!"

Laughing at Mommy's tongue.

Saying hi to Daddy.

I still have no news on the teaching job front, but have started my University of Phoenix class again, so at least I have something to do!  I've also apparently cleared another hurdle with them, and I am starting 1 class before another one is done.  That'll definitely be a new challenge, but I'm looking forward to it! 

So congratulations to our newly weds Robbie and Judy, thanks to Aunt Jennifer and Uncle Joe for flying up, and to Grandma and Grandpa Romo for watching cousins Audrey and Olivia this weekend so we could have fun at the wedding.  The wedding was beautiful, and we love the bride and groom :)

And tomorrow is our second wedding anniversary :)

Rolling over

I managed to get a video of Gabby rolling over today, and thought I'd just share it now rather than wait for my next blog post:

I watch this and can't believe how big she is getting, and how much more she can do now!  And I know it'll only get more unbelievable as time goes on!

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!

2 months

Wow, where has the time gone?  I can't believe that as of April 10, Gabby is 2 months old.  It seems like not that long ago she was a large bump in my abdomen, and now she's on her way to becoming a functional little baby!  She's picked up quite a few skills in the past month.  She holds her head up like a pro--I rarely even support it at all.  This is especially true when I'm carrying her.  Whenever she is upright, she has no trouble at all keeping her head in place.  She also can support all of her weight on her legs in a standing position.  All I really do is help her balance so she doesn't topple over.  She's a very strong little girl!  We've recently pulled out the Bumbo chair, and she's giving me mixed reviews.  I think overall it's a nice change for her from the bouncer.

This bouncer is boring

The Bumbo is nice, as long as I can still watch TV!

Gabby is very much a visual baby right now.  She loves looking at lights (still--she's been doing that since birth), and finds the ceiling fans absolutely fascinating, but she's added a very strong interest in patterns and shapes.  She loves to stare at the miniblinds on the windows, and really digs the contrast of the dark picture frames with our white walls.  Daddy wears a striped polo shirt pretty much everyday, and she loves to just stare at the stripes.  She also really likes these black and white geometric shapes that I printed out for her (http://baby.zorger.com/baby.zorger.com.newborn.pdf).  I put one next to her changing pad, and she just stares at it while I'm changing her.  It keeps her quiet!

Stop sign-ish one--I change them periodically so she doesn't get bored

Another thing she really loves is the television.  I know, babies shouldn't watch TV; I'm making her stupid; she's going to grow up to be fat and lazy; her brain will ooze out of her ear, etc.  At this point, it's actually just a bunch of moving lights to her--she has no idea what is going on beyond that.  And it sure does keep her quiet during tummy time.  She's even gotten to the point where she finds TVs at other people's houses and watches them there--we visited her friend Phoebe the other day, and she fell asleep while watching The Muppet movie.  I think this is just a manifestation of how visual she is--if it lights up and moves, she will watch it!

Ho Ho--I'm going to be smart despite your TV!

Her interest in what she sees has gotten so strong that she hates to be in her carseat in the stroller because she can't see anything.  Walks have become quite a challenge, since she doesn't want to be in her carseat, but I can't pull her out because of the fear of sunburn.  Plus, carrying her is really not comfortable for me.  I have a carrier that I can wear, but that doesn't really take away the sunburn danger, and she always gets really warm in the carrier, which also makes her mad.  I'm really going to have to figure something out.  It's pretty obvious that she gets bored sitting on the couch for too long now (everything is the same, Mom!), and while she is quiet in the car (I think because she can actually see out the window now), there are only so many places I can drive.  And once we reach the destination, we have the problem with her not being able to see anymore!

How can you be frustrated with me?

Her other senses seem to be not nearly as well developed yet.  She's not really interested in the way things feel, or in music or sounds of any kind, unless they are super loud (I flushed a toilet in a public bathroom stall while she was with me, and it scared her so much she started crying!).  She does still talk and coo at me (as well as give me huge smiles) when she's fed and rested.  She will try to pull my hands to her mouth if she gets a grip on them, but doesn't do the same to toys yet.  She also still hasn't really figured out that her hands belong to her, so we still keep her swaddled at night to prevent her waking herself up, although she is starting to really fight the swaddle and we'll probably have to abandon it pretty soon.  I'm not looking forward to stopping--she falls asleep pretty much right away when she's swaddled.

Nyah nyah; I'll never sleep again when you take away my swaddle!

We had her 2 month well baby appointment on Tuesday, and she's weighing in at 9 lbs 3 oz, 22.5 in long, and her head is 15.25 in in diameter.  She's 10th percentile in weight, but the doctor isn't worried at all, since her weight gain since the last appointment is right on the curve.  She's just a small baby!  With parents like us, how could it be otherwise?  I was given the OK to keep breast feeding, which is great, since it's free!  On a sadder note, Gabby got her first round of vaccines.  She actually only cried for a minute,

Not from the shots, but this is what it looked like

and she seems to be OK now, although the doc said that she could get a fever up to 4 days after administration.  Fingers crossed that she's OK!

Here are some random shots from the month:

Brian and I think that she really looks like her cousins.

I love this squishy face!

Sleeping on Mommy while she teaches online

Watching TV with Daddy

That camera flash is so cool!

And funny!

Your camera isn't as good as Daddy's, Mommy

"Trust the Gorton's fisher-baby!"  I bought her a better fitting hat, don't worry!

Until next time, Gabby and I say good-bye!

Easter

I know I'm a bit late here, but Happy Easter from Gabby!

Big Easter smile!

At the Berrys with her Wubbanub, Tri-tip

With Daddy

With Mommy

And all together!

7 weeks

Apparently I'm posting every 2 weeks!  It seems like a ton has happened developmentally with Gabby since I last posted.  At one month, she was able to hold her head up fairly well while being carried, and was fascinated with bright lights and high contrast objects.

Now, she's not only so much bigger and stronger, she's really started to study faces more, and become more interested in toys.  She will sit on my upright legs after I feed her and "talk" to me for a bit before she gets really tired and needs a nap.  Here's a video I made with some really cool "words" and some hiccups: 

She's also started to smile quite a bit.

The best one I've captured--I think she has my smile.

Grandma and Grandpa Romo were here again this past week, and Grandma got a couple of smiles out of her.  She and Brian were tied in the smile count until Saturday when he took care of her all afternoon while I went to a bridal shower for one of our good friends.  Gabby was very happy to have Daddy to herself, and showed it by giving him tons of smiles and coos.

I managed to get this great shot before I left!

Gabby still doesn't smile all the time--she must be both well fed and well rested--but when she does, it melts my heart.  One of the blogs I read compared the early weeks of child rearing to being constantly waterboarded, but then one day, the baby looks you in the eye and smiles at you.  Then you start to feel like the whole thing may be worth it.  That is absolutely how I felt the very first time she smiled last Monday, March 19.  I'd just fed her, had propped her up and was talking to her, and she just grinned at me.  I got all teary and thanked her for giving me that gift.  I really needed those smiles during the growth spurt that happened last week!

Oh yes, the growth spurt.  Boy, that was fun.  Gabby still slept pretty well at night, but during the day, fought me tooth and nail for every nap.  She also ate every 2 hours, which was awesome for my poor boobs.  When she wasn't eating or (rarely) sleeping, she was whining and complaining.  I don't really blame her--I remember growth spurts from my teenage years, and those bad boys hurt!  Achy joints, sore bones, being hungry and tired all the time, and I knew what was going on!  It's got to be so much worse for Gabby, since she really has no idea why she's hurting, and also no idea why I can't just make it stop for her.  I'm mom, the food giver, I should be able to keep her comfortable all the time!

Seriously

We did survive it, though, and lately my happy Gabby has been back.  I know I'll have several more of these coming up, and I'm not looking forward to it!

As far as sleeping goes, Brian put her to bed between 9:30 and 10:30 (she still chooses), and she'll sleep until 2 or so.  She'll then give me until 5 or 6, eat again, and then go down until 8 or 9.  During the day, she gives me a morning nap of an hour or so, a mid-day nap of another hour, and then an afternoon nap of around 2 or 3 hours.  She'll usually fall asleep again around dinnertime, and then we start all over again.  Nighttime is spend in her crib, which she's really good about, but all naps are still spent on me.  I admit that I'm not really discouraging this--I love sitting with her asleep on my chest.

Yeah, this is awesome during the day

But I'm so glad she sleeps here at night!

I do admit that her sleeping on me makes it very much impossible for me to get any sort of housework done, which means our house is pretty much a disaster.  Brian isn't complaining, so I'm just going to leave it!  One day, she did give me 2 hours in her swing, which let me vacuum our tile, straighten up, and do my University of Phoenix teaching for the day.

This was so nice

 That was actually pretty great, and some days I do wish she didn't insist on sleeping on me so I could get some work done, but then I tell myself that she'll be pulling away from me soon enough, and I should enjoy this while it lasts.  I'll most likely give it another couple of weeks and then transition to putting her in the crib or swing to nap.  Better to do it young than wait!

Yeah, she's not happy about my plan

One last cool thing she did this week:  roll over from her stomach to her back.  I actually didn't get to see it--I was on the couch not paying attention--but Brian did.  She's only done it once, mainly because I'm really bad at doing "tummy time" with her, but I'm really glad Brian got to see it.  I see so many skills of hers for the first time that I'm really happy he has one all for himself!  That being said, I really can't wait for her to do it again so I can see it!

Ha ha!

To end, here are some other great shots of Gabby from the past few weeks

Gabby and Grandma Romo

She wasn't quite done eating.

I'm cute and I know it

From St. Patrick's Day

Big yawns!

Bye my peeps!

Until next time!