A quarter of a year old!

Hi everyone! Elizabeth here. I am 3 months old today, or as Mommy says with utter disbelief, a quarter of a year old!

The world has becoming SO interesting to me over the last days and weeks. Here are some of my favorite things:
Chomping on my hands. I can get almost my whole fist in my mouth, and sometimes both. This will make a great party trick someday.
Drooling and blowing spit bubbles. Mommy thinks the drool and the hands in my mouth mean teeth are on the way!
Patterns and shapes! I love to stare at: the books on the bookshelf, a spiral-ly snail hanging from my bouncy seat, boxes sitting in the closet, the pine trees in the backyard against the sky.
My favorite toy, in the picture. I can stare at that sun for minutes on end!
Talking to Mommy and Daddy. I think it's pretty hilarious when they imitate me.
Riding in the stroller.
Taking a bath--finally! I don't quite smile and laugh when I'm in the tub, but I'm quiet and content!
Watching people!!! Roz, the lady who takes care at me while Mommy is at work, says I'm nosy! I don't want to miss a thing! So I often am wide awake during the day instead of napping. Daddy says he was like that as a child, too. Mommy really hopes that's one of the only ways I'm like Daddy as a child, based on the stories she's heard!

Things I'm not crazy about:
Sleeping in my crib. I've done it several times but usually I sleep in my swing. Mommy and Daddy are working on this!
Tummy time. I hate it! Mommy and Daddy think it's because I can no longer see the world.

Today I got my 3 month pictures taken, and I only made it through 2 poses before I decided I'd had enough of that!

I've had quite an eventful life so far! I've already been to my first wedding reception. I was an angel, they say! I've made some baby friends already. Mommy and Daddy are lucky that some of their friends had babies within weeks of me. I've even met twins!

Let's see what tricks I have up my sleeve for the next month! Mommy is just praying I keep sleeping 8 hours a night without waking up--tonight is the seventh night running!

And so it begins

Whew...I'm beat!

It's been a whirlwind of a few days. On Friday we made our big, long-anticipated transition to work and daycare. I'm a generally anxious person on a regular basis, so naturally I started worrying about this day when Elizabeth was about two weeks old. The combination of my own long mental preparation and lots of prayer had me totally relaxed about the transition by the time it came around. When Friday morning rolled around, I felt like a kid on the first day of school--sad about the weeks-long experience I was leaving behind me, but excited about opening a new chapter. And I still felt good dropping her off, saying goodbye to her, passing off her cooler full of bottles. I didn't cry. I felt good driving down the damp, early morning spring streets and listening to the radio, and physically I felt the most put-together and attractive than I had since before giving birth!

And the day itself was just fine. I love my job--the utter busyness of handling multiple projects at once, moving with the energy of a school, gathering data to solve problems. I write at the end of Day 3, and I can safely say it feels good to be there. Even schlepping down to the library 4 times a day to provide food for my daughter is going fine (there is a wonderfully private, secret room deep within the library with a picture of a cow on the door--clearly it's been used for my same purpose for many other moms!).

Day care seems to be going really well. I'm not a logical person--emotions usually drive me--but logic is what I'm depending on to get me through the work days: I know Elizabeth is not going to experience lifelong trauma because she's in daycare. I know she is in a safe place I trust where her needs will be attended to. I know I will get a phone call if something is wrong. I know she is young enough to not miss me. I'm pleased with the intimate, family-like atmosphere of the system, run by a woman who has been doing it for 26 years out of her home, and attended by about 7 children. I already love pulling up in the driveway and seeing the older kids playing on the lawn while Roz and Lori watch over Elizabeth and Thomas (they are two days apart) in their infant seats. It feels comfortable and right to me. I pray the next eight weeks go as smoothly as the first three days!

Thrown right in the middle of the big transition was Elizabeth's baptism, on Sunday April 18. It was such a blessed day. Elizabeth wore the beautiful gown my Aunt Doris made at least 30 years ago, that was worn by me, my sister, my cousins, my Aunt Doris' grandkids...I was beyond thrilled that my daughter carried on the tradition. The baptism itself moved me more deeply than I'd thought it would...I've seen so many during routine Sunday services over the course of my life, but watching my daughter be touched on her forehead with the sign of the cross reminded me of the charge Craig and I have: to teach our daughter about the love of Christ, to fear and obey the Lord. Her spiritual journey begins with us.

It took me a few days to complete this entry. It's now Thursday night and tomorrow we officially wrap up our first week of the new routine. I'm quickly becoming used to the succession of picking up the girl from daycare, playing with her, feeding her, squeezing dinner in there somewhere, making sure the bottles are washed for the next day...and somewhere in there finding time for ME, which unfortunately has become too late at night so that I can have a few minutes of relaxation with TV, blogging, Facebook, etc., once she has gone to bed, no matter how exhausted I am.

We made it through one week. We can do this!

The final countdown

Cue the music...it's the Final Countdown! For my return to work, that is.

I return full-time starting this Friday, putting a few hours in tomorrow to catch up with my sub (which works out well; I'm glad Elizabeth will get a "trial run" at day care before her first full day). To say my feelings are mixed would be an understatement. On the one hand, I'm (guiltily) in a way looking forward to my return. I have grown to love my job and everything it entails, and really miss my co-workers. I function best under structure and routine; while I have become increasingly more efficient with my time as a stay-at-home-mom (I only stayed in my pj's the first week of her life, thank you very much!), I have a feeling that a stricter schedule will help me even more.

And of course, there are the sad feelings. I can't even begin to describe the bond I've established with this little person. The thought of sending her somewhere and spending her day with someone else makes my heart hurt, but I rest easy in the notion that she is going somewhere I trust, and that she is little enough right now that her own transition should be fairly easy.

There are a lot of "unknowns" about returning to the workplace. I'm nervous about finding time to pump regularly throughout the day (and, on the occasional day that I must be at a few different buildings, in the car!). I'm nervous about what I will do if something happens to Elizabeth and I need to go get her. I'm nervous about balancing work with home.

But most of all, I wonder what I will feel like. I will be a totally different person walking into my buildings than the woman who left in mid-January. I was a big-bellied mom-to-be, brimming with anticipation, excitement, and fear for the unknown. I didn't even have a name picked out!

But when I go back in, I will be a mom, a mom to a tiny little 9-pound darling who already has a personality that I KNOW. As I slide back into my routine--sitting in meetings, conducting assessments, observing in classrooms, lunching with colleagues--I will be totally different. I will still be a school psychologist, but I will never be the same school psychologist I was.

So here we go. "Do-do-dooo-do..."

Writing contest!

My first ten weeks with my daughter have slowed me down and helped me think more deliberately and intentionally about my life and how I spend my time. Starting this blog is not the only way I have decided to get back on the writing wagon. A new subscriber to Writer's Disgest, I discovered their "Dear Lucky Agent" contest, a recurring online writing contest with a different theme each installment.

The latest contest calls for adolescent fiction. My intended audience as a writer is this population. I work with elementary and middle schoolers, and my goal is to reach the hopes, dreams, and struggles unique to their age group with my stories.

Check out their link: http://networkedblogs.com/1Th5v.

Elizabeth sleeps...it's exciting to focus my mind on something other than diapers, feeding, and "Who's a pretty baby??" for a while!

The decision-making dance

I am not good at making split-second decisions, and trusting myself to them. This quirk of mine was a hindrance to my first couple years as a school psychologist; in my job I must make decisions at all times, often on the spur of the moment, and be confident in them. Wishy-washiness does not a good school psychologist make. I have had to consciously force myself to trust more in my own decisions on the job.

I am quickly learning that parenting is a series of decisions, all the time. The biggest challenge we have faced so far is Elizabeth's sleeping. She is actually a good sleeper, once she gets there--her first 6+ hour slumber occurred when she was only 5 weeks old. When we first moved her to her crib in her bedroom at 3 weeks old, several blissful days passed of an easy-to-put-down baby: I would nurse her in the rocking chair and she would already be asleep by the time I placed her in the crib. She was just as easy to put back to sleep after a night feeding.

At 6 weeks, Elizabeth's personality exploded in so many ways, as I documented earlier in this blog. All of a sudden she was not a like a sleeping rag doll, but a person discovering the world! I have read that, at around 6 weeks, infants become suddenly more aware of their environment and, as a trade off, often become more difficult to put to sleep because they do not want to miss out on anything! Elizabeth has been a textbook example of this! Her first difficult night, at 6 weeks old, was characterized by fussiness (not to the extreme of colic, I don't think, but pretty testy) that made her difficult to put to sleep. The fussiness often lasted until 10 or 11 PM (previously I was putting her down around 9 with no problems), and Craig and I out of desperation moved her swing into her bedroom and put her down there, allowing the swaying and the attached white noise/music machine to calm her down. At the same time she had her first cold and was congested, so we allowed her several consecutive nights of swing-sleep to keep her elevated and breathe easier.

Cut to 10 weeks old. On more nights than not, Elizabeth becomes fussy around 7 PM and is on/off that way until we try to put her to bed. Nursing always comforts her, but I don't want her to see me as a giant pacifier, so I try to limit it! Long story short, most nights between 6 and 10 weeks old Elizabeth was put to sleep in her swing because we were plain exhausted by 11 PM, and placing her in her crib just wasn't cutting it.

I knew what we were doing was potentially creating a bad habit. The pediatrician told me as much at Elizabeth's 2 month check up. I was also told, at that appointment, that I should let her "cry it out" for 10 to 15 minutes in her crib before going to her, so that she can learn to put herself to sleep. The idea of this made me pretty uncomfortable!

My parents visited last week and maybe that made me a bit more confident. On the two nights of their visit, I put Elizabeth in her crib. As usual, she had fallen asleep nursing in the rocking chair, and the second her little head hit the mattress her eyes opened. I ran out of the room and sure enough, the wailing started. My mom assured me, as I sat in misery in the family room with the baby monitor lighting up behind me, that Elizabeth was fed, changed, and burped, so most likely her cry was simply "Get me--I'm bored!" And just like that, after about 10 minutes, it was like a switch turned off. We were able to accomplish the same thing a few nights later after my parents had gone.

But last night it was a struggle. Elizabeth fell asleep nursing in the rocker and I put her in the crib. She awoke, but I raced out of the room and managed to get most of the laundry put away in my bedroom before the wailing started. I went to her after 10 minutes, rocked her in my arms, and put her down. Repeat. The wails increased. I rocked her again and put her down. The wails returned, becoming screams.

Exhausted, I put her in the trusty swing, hating myself in the meantime. In my job, we stress to students' parents the importance of consistency, in everything from homework routines to getting anxious children to return to school. Children need consistency and a level of predictability in order to thrive. I put myself to bed last night feeling like a failure, for giving in simply because I was too tired to work at it anymore. What other battles would I give in to, in the future?

But tonight, I sit here in a quiet house with my daughter sleeping--in her crib. Somehow, tonight it worked. I'm quickly learning that my love of all things predictable and routine must go out the window with an infant--she is neither, and probably won't be for a while, and never totally so! I'm also learning that parenting is a decision-making dance. It's a dance because it's a constant back and forth guessing game--taking one step forward and five steps back. With this sleeping issue, for example, I have lately been immersing myself in books by a variety of doctors about "how to" teach infants to sleep. The contradictions among these professionals is frustrating. Can't there be "one" way? Couldn't I have given birth to a baby who came with her own instruction manual?

Yes, I hate making decisions because I fear what will happen if I make the "wrong" one. But that's the risk we take when we do anything unfamiliar. Will the several nights Elizabeth slept in her swing turn her into an overly dependent child? Probably not. But it's a balancing act that we must be constantly vigilant about. And for now I will just sit here as my daughter sleeps peacefully in her crib, and learn that I need to trust myself, because the dance of decision-making has barely begun!