We have a 3 month old!
{Disclaimer: the formatting and spacing of a lot of this post is out of wack.
If I cared more and had more patience, I'd fix it. Turns out I don't. DEAL WITH IT.}
I don’t think there’s an official cut-off between newborn vs. infant, but she ain’t no newborn anymore. Oh my gosh, I’m watching her right now in her swing and it makes my heart want to explode and confetti would come out everywhere. I’m serious.
Ok. Settle hormones….settle.
Social butterfly: Effy has entered a wonderful stage – social smiling! First, let’s rewind. Since she was just a few days old, she would smile in her sleep at her little baby dreams. Sometimes she would even scowl or frown in her sleep. I couldn’t decide what a newborn could have that many emotions about, but then I figured it out:
Ok. Settle hormones….settle.
Social butterfly: Effy has entered a wonderful stage – social smiling! First, let’s rewind. Since she was just a few days old, she would smile in her sleep at her little baby dreams. Sometimes she would even scowl or frown in her sleep. I couldn’t decide what a newborn could have that many emotions about, but then I figured it out:
But now, it’s a whole new ballgame! We spend most of Effy’s waking hours doing things to try to get her to smile. Her daddy is the champion of this. Mostly he just sits her on his lap and talks to her and she just cheeses at him with the biggest toothless smiles ever. I get lots of wonderful smiles when she wakes up in the morning and we’re getting ready for the day. [I apologize for the poor quality of this video, but I got it off my phone and the quality went down and I don't care enough at this point to fix it...so STOP WHINING.]
She also smiles at certain toys and she loves an antique Christmas bell my mother-in-law gave me as part of Christmas (way to go, Grandma Rena)! All these smiles are an even better feeling than I anticipated. I could sit for hours and make her smile…though she usually gets tired/hungry/poopy before hours can go by. She did have a couple official laughs last weekend when Scott and I were playing with her in bed in the morning. I was touching my nose to hers and making some ridiculous noise only a person trying to make a baby smile makes and she laughed! If I was alone, I don’t know if I would have given myself credit for the laugh because it seemed too good to be true, but Scott quickly reacted and said she definitely laughed. Proud mama. Can’t wait for more of that!
A clean baby: Effy is taking real baths now as opposed to sponge baths while she lays on a towel. She seems to enjoy bath time. She doesn’t smile real big but she also doesn’t cry (until we get her out and she’s cold). She smells SO good when she gets out of the bath because of this wonderful body wash. It smells so much better than Johnson & Johnson and only costs a smidgen more. Santa brought her some of the lotion for her stocking so she can smell extra good!
Sleeping: Starting when Effy was about a month and a half, she slept in our room in this magical chair. The bassinet was just not working and we concluded that she must not like sleeping flat on her back, so “the lamb chair”, as we call it, has been SO helpful. Call us wild and crazy, but we don’t strap her into it at night. She sleeps right next to me totally swaddled up and in order to get buckled in, she’d have to be unswaddled and woken up. She doesn’t move or roll at all right now, so we knew we could safely keep her here for a while. Well, we wanted to cut her off at the pass before she started rolling and decided she needed to roll herself out of the lamb chair and a whole 3 inches down onto the floor, so a week before she turned 3 months, we moved her out of our room and into her nursery. I took everything out of her crib so it was baby-ready and we tried for a week with very little luck in the crib. She’d maybe snooze for 30 minutes or so. One time we got a 3 hour stretch and it was glorious, so this last week we did an interesting sleep mixture of crib, lamb chair, swing, but we all survived. After talking with some friends and reading stuff in our baby Bible, we propped up her mattress with a pillow to put it at a slight incline and WOW! Little lady had a 6 hour stretch, ate and then had a 4 hour stretch. It was exactly what the three of us needed! We think she has a little reflux going on which is why propping her up helped so much.
Meal time: Right now, Effy eats every 2.5 – 4 hours during the day and usually gets a longer stretch in at night (5 – 6 hours). She’s also eaten in many different places: almost every seat in our house, on the floor, on the bed, in the back of the car, in a dressing room, Nordstrom (duh), my grandpa’s dusty office at the camera store, grandparents’ houses, my friend Kelsey’s office, an un-locked classroom at KU, and Buy Buy Baby. Meal time is about to change, however, because she’ll start getting bottles of breast milk during the day…read on…
Ch-ch-changes: Sigh. This very sad mama ends her maternity leave and goes back to work tomorrow. I can’t type much about it right now or I’ll start crying. I cry about it every other day. BUT, it’s a short work week, so my first mini-goal is the weekend! I can do it. Plus, I’m very excited to see my students and get lots of hugs and awkward questions about birth and having a baby. I love them.
A clean baby: Effy is taking real baths now as opposed to sponge baths while she lays on a towel. She seems to enjoy bath time. She doesn’t smile real big but she also doesn’t cry (until we get her out and she’s cold). She smells SO good when she gets out of the bath because of this wonderful body wash. It smells so much better than Johnson & Johnson and only costs a smidgen more. Santa brought her some of the lotion for her stocking so she can smell extra good!
Sleeping: Starting when Effy was about a month and a half, she slept in our room in this magical chair. The bassinet was just not working and we concluded that she must not like sleeping flat on her back, so “the lamb chair”, as we call it, has been SO helpful. Call us wild and crazy, but we don’t strap her into it at night. She sleeps right next to me totally swaddled up and in order to get buckled in, she’d have to be unswaddled and woken up. She doesn’t move or roll at all right now, so we knew we could safely keep her here for a while. Well, we wanted to cut her off at the pass before she started rolling and decided she needed to roll herself out of the lamb chair and a whole 3 inches down onto the floor, so a week before she turned 3 months, we moved her out of our room and into her nursery. I took everything out of her crib so it was baby-ready and we tried for a week with very little luck in the crib. She’d maybe snooze for 30 minutes or so. One time we got a 3 hour stretch and it was glorious, so this last week we did an interesting sleep mixture of crib, lamb chair, swing, but we all survived. After talking with some friends and reading stuff in our baby Bible, we propped up her mattress with a pillow to put it at a slight incline and WOW! Little lady had a 6 hour stretch, ate and then had a 4 hour stretch. It was exactly what the three of us needed! We think she has a little reflux going on which is why propping her up helped so much.
Meal time: Right now, Effy eats every 2.5 – 4 hours during the day and usually gets a longer stretch in at night (5 – 6 hours). She’s also eaten in many different places: almost every seat in our house, on the floor, on the bed, in the back of the car, in a dressing room, Nordstrom (duh), my grandpa’s dusty office at the camera store, grandparents’ houses, my friend Kelsey’s office, an un-locked classroom at KU, and Buy Buy Baby. Meal time is about to change, however, because she’ll start getting bottles of breast milk during the day…read on…
Ch-ch-changes: Sigh. This very sad mama ends her maternity leave and goes back to work tomorrow. I can’t type much about it right now or I’ll start crying. I cry about it every other day. BUT, it’s a short work week, so my first mini-goal is the weekend! I can do it. Plus, I’m very excited to see my students and get lots of hugs and awkward questions about birth and having a baby. I love them.
Outings: The nice December weather allowed Effy and I to get out and about almost everyday, usually to run a quick errand or to meet up with my handsome hubby for lunch while he was at work.
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| Coy Cuteness |
· Effy went to my old work and met many of my wonderful former co-workers. She pooped twice while she was there, so I know she felt very comfortable and relaxed around everyone.
· She traveled to Lawrence for her dad’s graduation. Scott graduated from KU with his Master’s in Engineering Management. His thesis project was titled “Water and Wastewater Treatment Plant Wiring Method Decision Analysis”. Effy proofread it for him so he really has her to thank for all of his academic success.
· She spent many hours at the mall but enjoyed one specific outing with Kasi and Emily where the three of us took turns pushing her around and discussing how fun it was to push a stroller (seriously…I LOVE pushing her in the stroller).
· Effy went and had a play date with Ashley & 21-month-old Ryann. Well, really Effy laid in her car seat and cried about being sleepy, so Ryann sang to her. Seriously? Too freakin' cute. When Effy started to fuss, wise Ryann said, "Baby Effy need bottle? Baby Effy need paci?" I told Ryann she was going to be an excellent baby sitter. I didn't take any pictures of this cute event, but Ashley did.
· Her dad took her to church to watch my handbell concert. They left after about 20 minutes because somebody was getting tired and Scott realized he brought bottles of milk for her but no nipples for them. Luckily our church is about 5 minutes from home, so they watched one of my group’s songs and then headed off for some snuggle time on the couch.
· Effy spent a lot of time in Topeka with Thanksgiving and Christmas but we made one special trip for cookie baking day with Grandma. She also got to meet my friend TJ’s son Isaac who slept like a rock and put Effy to shame. Effy’s feet and hands were much more lady-like and delicate, so she won that battle.
· Her dad took her to church to watch my handbell concert. They left after about 20 minutes because somebody was getting tired and Scott realized he brought bottles of milk for her but no nipples for them. Luckily our church is about 5 minutes from home, so they watched one of my group’s songs and then headed off for some snuggle time on the couch.
· Effy spent a lot of time in Topeka with Thanksgiving and Christmas but we made one special trip for cookie baking day with Grandma. She also got to meet my friend TJ’s son Isaac who slept like a rock and put Effy to shame. Effy’s feet and hands were much more lady-like and delicate, so she won that battle.
· She took her first trip to the Nelson, one of her mom and dad's favorite spots.
· She went out to many restaurants: Ingredient, Panera, Olive Garden, Old Chicago, Nordstrom Cafe (shocker), Larry’s Subs, Jerry’s Café, M&S Grill, Casa, Taco Casa, Succotash, and more I’m sure I’m forgetting.
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| A delightful brunch at Succotash. |
Of course, Effy’s 3rd month of wonderful life-dom brought with it Christmas, which will probably warrant it’s own, shorter post with some pictures. Until then, this mama is signing off and going to continue to mentally prepare for going back to work tomorrow. Sigh.
Sweet Effy, I love you. I want to hold you all the time and watch you smile. I love how much you love me and how much you love your daddy. I love watching you crane your head to see bright lights. I love when you fall asleep in my arms. I love watching your little head and skinny neck wobble as you try your hardest to look at your daddy and smile. I love love love you.
