Sleep is just a 5 letter word

We reached our wits' end with Becca waking up every night and sleeping in our bed. They were all sleeping through the night back before Thanksgiving, but Becca's been having a hard time since then. I can't remember the last time I slept through the night. On Tuesday night last week, we finally decided that we were going to let her cry when she woke up. She had been waking up between 10 and 12 every night, and refused to go back to sleep in her bed. Well, on Tuesday, she slept until about 5, and then Greg went and got her and put her in a pack-n-play in the guest room and laid in there with her. And she screamed. For an hour. Greg finally couldn't take it anymore (I don't know if I could have lasted that long), and picked her up. And she screamed for another hour.

At that point, I was worried that there was something wrong with her (because she normally wakes up at 10-12, not 5) and we just let her scream for 2 hours. She slept from ~7-8, and I stayed home with her. When she woke up at 8, she was ... totally fine. After much debating, I took her in to the doctor just to make sure there wasn't something wrong with her, but there wasn't anything obvious. She has some fluid in her ears (which we knew, after the hearing test), is teething, and has some really dry skin that she's been itching at. But the doctor said that, most likely, she's going through separation anxiety and is going to be our clingy baby. She has been a bit clingy lately: sometimes, while she's playing, she'll just want to come over and sit in my lap for a minute, and then go back to playing. She has also been a bit "Julie" lately: the minute she doesn't get what she want, she turns on the tears. So yeah, we took her in to the doctor to find out that she was just really really mad at us for letting her cry.

On Thursday afternoon last week, it started snowing/sleeting in the afternoon. We were all excited, but it ended up turning to rain. Lots and lots of cold rain on Friday. I think we got 2 inches of rain, and it hovered around 34 degrees all day. (This was the storm that dumped 2 feet of snow on the mid-Atlantic.) We would have liked some snow, but I'll have to admit it was nice to be able to run errands this weekend.

Anyhow, Greg and I were getting sick of soup and cereal for dinner, so we took the girls out to McAllister's. We tried some disposable bibs, but Emma ripped hers off less than a minute after I got it on her, and Becca's was torn off before the food came. They seem to have a grand old time, but then get really cranky on the car ride home.

Becca with her bib still on

Julie and her straw

Emma calls this meeting to order

Emma

Silly Bex

Becca's got a tight grip on her daddy.

Mom and Em

Mom and Julie

Bex, straw, and daddy

I often find Julie going over to the window (in the "danger" corner). She loves to look out the window and slap on the window. The sill is only 2 or 3 inches off the floor over there, so she's got a full view of the trash can and the neighbors' house.



Of course, once her sisters figure out that she's having a good time, they want in on it, too.




Becca being sweet on Saturday. I took her out to run a bunch of errands, and I think the fresh air really helped her sleep through the night. (It didn't last. One night is all we get. And actually, Julie was in our bed that night.)





Emma playing "sliding things on the table to make noise." It's very similar to "slapping hands on the table to make noise," if you've ever played that.


Saturday was pizza night! Emma didn't really eat a whole lot, but she smiled. I'll settle for that.


Julie's rosy cheeks should have been our indication that she wasn't feeling well.


They're all doing good with the sippy cups. Becca's a pro and will one-hand it now.


I'm not proud to admit that we still had Christmas/birthday presents around. I was trying to make sure the girls were good and tired before their nap, so I pulled out a couple. Emma, as usual, was all over it. Literally.





Julie helps



Becca looks so old here!


We noticed Julie starting to run a fever on Saturday afternoon. It seemed to be gone by Sunday morning, but she had a few coughing fits on Sunday, and then the fever came back later in the day. By Sunday night, she was having a pretty hard time breathing, and was breathing awfully fast. We had already decided to keep her home on Monday, and take her to the doctor, but luckily Greg had the presence of mind to remember that we still had the nebulizer and meds from Rebecca's bronchiolitis a month ago, so we woke her up and gave her medicine. (Actually, we were going to wake her up, but when Greg went to wake her up, she was already up. I don't think she's been sleeping well.) Sure enough, she's got bronchiolitis and an ear infection. Same as Becca had a month ago. Sigh. At least we know what to do. Greg and I are trading off again all week to keep her home to do the nebulizer treatments.

We were starting to go a little stir crazy over the weekend, and decided to go out for a walk at a new(ish) nature park nearby on Sunday afternoon.



Emma spent pretty much the whole ride like this:


And Becca spent pretty much the whole ride like this:


Baby shoes :)
J


R


E


So curious


Julie


Pine needles, rocks, and dirt, oh my!


Us


So it is now Wednesday night, and Julie is recovering nicely. Still doing the nebulizer every 3 hrs, but sleeping better and not breathing quite so rough. She's still got darkish circles under her eyes, which makes me think she's not quite 100% yet. But at 4:30 this afternoon I got a call... Becca's got pink eye. And Emma may have it, too. Someone's got to go to work, girls, to keep you in pampers... Wish us luck.

Rebecca at One

You.

• Have the cutest little nose scrunch when you smile.
• Get bed head.
• Pull your socks off as soon as we put them on.
• Love the sippy cup and do great with it.
• Wake up most nights.
• Are a great eater and can chew bigger pieces.
• Wave and clap.
• Love to giggle at your sisters.
• Can be very serious.
• Wear a size 12 months.
• Could wear a barette.
• Love bananas and Teddy Grahams.
• Think the cats are hilarious.

Julie at One

You.

• Wake up with a smile.
• Can turn on the tears in a flash.
• Love to dance.
• Love to talk and hear yourself.
• Get upset when anyone leaves the room.
• Are an adventurous eater, always up to try new things.
• Wave and clap
• Are solidly in a size 12 month in clothes.
• Are starting to show some curls in your hair.
• Love Teddy Grahams.
• Stick your fingers in people's eyes, nose, and mouth.

Emma at One

You.

• Are at the top height level on the exersaucer, because we're afraid you'll tip over.
• Would run if you could.
• Have only recently started to tolerate anything other than formula or pureed food.
• Have so much energy and enthusiasm for ev.ery.thing.
• Want whatever someone else has.
• Study everything with a look of skepticism.
• Are our baby bulldozer.
• Stand on your own for a few seconds.
• Wave and clap.
• Are wearing size 12-18 months.
• Eat books.
• Can say cat, "at"
• Love to undo the velcro on your shoes.

Transitions

Becca and Julie have made the jump to the Infant classroom at daycare, joining Emma. It has gone pretty well so far, though Julie still has some rough spots. They're both doing great with the table food, both at daycare and at home. Emma's still not a huge fan, though she did break down and eat some mac-n-cheese over the weekend. When I put food on Emma's tray, I swear she looks at me like she thinks I'm crazy for thinking she'll feed herself.

We are also working on the transition from formula to whole milk. We've started putting whole milk in sippy cups, with a little bit of success. The girls are all starting to do much better with holding the sippy cups up on their own (and Becca can now hold her bottle up while sitting up), but Emma is just not terribly interested in drinking. Becca loves the sippy cups, though. Julie's somewhere in between.

Emma, though, does seem to have a taste for wood and paint. We had to take away the bead roller coaster after I found her grinding her teeth on the wooden beads, to the point where the beads now have wood ground out of them. I'm not talking about little divets - the sides of the square beads are now concave. Over the weekend, when she was supposed to be napping, I found her standing up in her crib, facing Julie and giggling at her. She was grinding her teeth on the edge of the crib. The front and back rails already had a plastic covering over them. After I frantically tried to wipe the paint specs out of her mouth with my shirt, these promptly went up. We've got to get more to do the other cribs, but luckily we already had 2 sets on hand.

They all seem to have a taste for books, too. I know we should be reading to them, but it's impossible. They just want to be eating the books. They pull them out of our hands to eat them. On the plus side, they still have zero interest in tv.

We had been starting to wonder if Becca was hearing ok, so Greg took her in for a hearing test today, and the results were essentially inconclusive. Sigh. We are still figuring out what to do next. We just don't want her speech to be delayed because she isn't hearing, but the recommendation from today was to wait until April and test her again. Two and a half months is a long time to wait, though, if the poor thing can't hear.

Becca is clapping and waving now, too. She has a "queen's wave," with lots of wrist. It's too adorable, especially when she does it when we pick her up from daycare. She has also started scrunching up her nose, and I almost can't stand the cuteness. Becca is not sleeping through the night in her own crib anymore, though. She is up 95% of nights, usually around 11pm. We try to let her cry for a few minutes, but are afraid much more than that will wake up her sisters. She can't be consoled in her crib - - but picking her up immediately stops the screaming. Even when we take her back to our bed and think she has gone back to sleep, as soon as you put her in her crib, she screams. She can be tough to sleep with, too, because she moves a lot. She's got a tendency to turn 90 degrees and then kick you. She also ends up pushing us out of bed. Every time you move an inch, she moves, too.

Emma says "at" now, for cat. Well, she says it for everything pretty much. She definitely knows it means cat, but she calls everything a cat right now. Emma has so much energy and enthusiasm that she can be a handful. I hate when I feel like I have to stifle her energy. She loves to push things (anything) around the living room, and if she didn't have two sisters playing also in the living room, I wouldn't have to constantly stop her. She has become really social lately, too - wanting to give us things. About a week ago, she brought me a tissue and wiped my face with it. She brings us bibs and will wipe our faces. So sweet. We seem to have finally gotten over the going-to-bed hurdle with Emma. We've started trying an earlier bed time, which is working well. And the week or two we spent letting her cry it out mean that she is going to bed with few problems these days. One small victory...

Julie's wave has turned into to an arm extended with an open hand: no actual waving, just a greeting. She is full of smiles these days and just gets so excited to see us. I love going in to get her out of bed in the morning, because she has the biggest smile. She doesn't fuss in the morning - over the weekend, I had Becca and Emma downstairs with their bottles for a while, and Julie was still sleeping. I finally went up to check on her, and sure enough, she was awake and just lying there. She's our sleeping champ and spends 99% of the nights in her own bed. Thank you, Julie!!! She still screams when she sees (or senses!) someone leaving the room, which gets old really fast. When their grandparents were here, they kept one girl home by herself during the week (while the other 2 were at daycare), and they said, "I think she might be sick. She's really clingy." No, that's just Julie.

Not a lot of pictures since last time. Just a few of my gigglebots playing on Sunday while dad and Emma were at the grocery store.

Perhaps my new favorite picture of Julie Cate


Giggly Becca


Silly Julie


Becca was waving at me here, and I accidentally cut her arm off. Such a happy girl.


Two pieces of work


I had my first migraine last week. I've had headaches before where I thought, "is this a migraine?" But this time there was no mistaking it. There is a family history of it. I was telling someone at work about it, and he said, "My mom said she never had migraines until she had me." And my mom said that she didn't have them until after she had kids, too. So I guess having kids brought it out in me, too. Luckily, it wasn't as bad as some that I've read about - no nausea, tingling, sensitivity to light and sound. I just couldn't move my head without extreme agony on the left side of my head. No plans to go to the doctor about it yet. Let's just hope they're few and far between.

We were supposed to have a mythic snow and ice storm over the weekend, but like usual, it was much milder than predicted. We got a little bit of snow with a crust of ice over top. It was really pretty, and luckily we had nowhere to go. I made a big pot of homemade spaghetti sauce on Saturday, and then made some lasagna with it. Everything melted off the trees on Sunday afternoon. I took a big fat nap on Sunday because I was terribly cranky, and by the time I woke up, all of the ice was gone. But we got some pictures!

Saturday: the neighbors' cypress bends pretty far without breaking!




Sunday: the sun came out and everything just glistened