I should've known better

By now you would think changing diapers would be a pretty simple endeavour. However this evening a diaper change gone awry caused me to make two postings in one day so you know it's good. Abe went upstairs to get her bath ready while I was downstairs holding her. I carried her upstairs after a few minutes to take off her clothes and diaper and pass her to Abe to give her a bath. The thought crossed my head that maybe I shouldn't take her diaper off until the very last seconde before I passed her over but I thought I could get away with taking it off, throwing it away and then passing her off. I was wrong. I turn to throw the diaper in the diaper genie, turn back around to see her laying on her changing table peeing all over herself. Being the fabulous mommy that I am, I just start laughing. I know I should immediately spring in to action but I had to laugh.
Then daddy comes over, gives her a bath while I clean up the mess (lucky me!) After she's all clean and her changing tables all clean (approx. 5 minutes after the original mishap) I lay her hooded towel on her changing table, set her on top to dry her off and put her PJ's on. About 10 seconds in I see it happen again. This time she pees all over herself, her clean towel, and the changing table...... Back in the bath she goes. The following picture was taken after all was said and done and she'd been cleaned and dressed for bed. She was making all sorts of cute noises. I guess she was trying to be super cute to make up for a wild night of peeing all over. She's cute and she knows it!

writers block

Considering I was a Comparative Literature Major in college you would think I would have something eloquent to say... or that this blog would at least be somewhat witty. Alas, it is not. The time I spend uploading pictures and writing about what's new in our lives is usually crammed in between feedings and diaper changes when Farrah decides she's in a good enough mood to stay in her swing or bouncer for longer than 30 seconds which isn't too often. So, for now, I will have to accept the fact that my blog, however straightforward and uninteresting it may be, gets across the point I'm trying to make... my daughter is cute and I love her.
Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:


Exhibit C:



Exhibit D:

I'm off to entertain a bored baby.

mommy brain

So I now believe that mommy brain is a true condition. I've never been so absentminded in my life. A couple posts back I had mentioned that I had my follow up dr.'s appt. that tuesday. I woke up that morning and thought "wait is it today, or is it next tuesday?" Thank God I looked it up because it was indeed the following tuesday. I would have showed up and looked pretty dumb. I guess that's why I didn't receive my reminder call like I usually do.
Thank you notes have been another issue. I really need to write these things down. "Did I write them a thank you note? Yes, I did. Oh wait... or was that a birth announcement I sent to them?"
I have mommy brain so much so that I was going to mention another mommy brain moment.... but I forgot!!! I'm not kidding!
Now I remember.... I ordered these stickers online that you can put on onesies to take pictures of Farrah in that say "1 month, 2 months, etc." but for some reason I just ordered the first one I saw on her website and realized when they came in that they're meant for boys. All boyish colors. And I'm too cheap to order the girl ones that I should have ordered in the first place and spend twice the amount for my dumb mistake so Farrah's going to have to wear bows or something in each picture so it's apparent that yes, she is a girl despite her boy clothes!
Enough of my ranting... I almost forgot I have a kid in a baby swing that needs to be attended too. ;)

Fun Farrah facts

Now that Farrah is 7 1/2 weeks old I thought I'd make a post with some fun Farrah facts. I'm getting to know her more each day and it's so great to learn all about her. Some of the things she does now makes me curious about what her personality will be like. I wonder if the things she does now are part of her personality or if she'll be totally different. Anyhoo here are some fun little diddys for ya:

Farrah's favorite thing is her diaper changing time. You would think she would cry like most babies but she smiles and makes all kinds of funny noises while she's getting her diaper changed and we're changing her clothes.

So far she is not a fan of being in her Baby Bjorn. Not so great for mommy when I'm trying to get some household chores done and need my hands to be free. At least it's an excuse for not doing the dishes and the laundry.

She can sleep for a really long time (the most in one night has been just shy of 10 hrs!), and yet she has the hardest time falling asleep. It takes us anywhere from 2-4 hours to get her to fall asleep for the night.

Her mohawk totally suits her and I don't think any other hairdo would work for her as evidenced by the pictures below after her bath. At first I tried to brush it down to see what it would look like. She looks so funny... definitely not her look. The next one was taken right after when I quickly brushed it back up to the way it should be... much more fitting.

Although most people haven't seen this side of her, when she's uncomfortable, she can go from zero to sixty realy fast and scream like nobody's business. I think she's trying to be polite when people other than mommy or daddy are around because nobody else has witnessed it... I swear she does cry!

At this point, I'm thinking she has her daddy's hands and feet. Hopefully on a smaller scale though. We don't need her having her daddy's size 14 shoes!

That's all for now... if I think of any others I'll make another post. Pictures for this week include Farrah right after her first bath in the bath tub, a pic with Papa Ken, and one of my favorite pics of her with her daddy. She is very loved!

6 weeks have come and gone

... since Farrah was born and I can't believe how fast the time goes. She's getting so big and part of me is excited to see her getting bigger and part of me wants her to slow down. We're still working on the bedtime routine. She cries so much and I can tell she's tired but she just can't put herself to sleep and I try everything to help her. The hardest part is that I can't do anything she has to do it herself. It's not like if she's hungry I can feed her. Or if she has a dirty diaper I can change her. When she's tired I can try to comfort her but she has to do it on her own. Even with the changes in our bedtime routine and putting her down much earlier, it seems like 1am is her standard time where she finally falls asleep. I guess we'll just keep at it and hope it gets better. I never thought I would consider 5-6 hours of sleep a lot. I'm a girl who loves her sleep!

I've been working out again and it feels so good... better than before I had her. I think I took it for granted before. Now that my entire days are taken up taking care of her and, with the little down time I get, doing household things, it's nice to have a quick 20-30 minute workout. It's one of the few things I have now that is totally for me. She usually falls asleep for about an hour after her first morning feeding so I quickly do a 20-30 minute workout from the free on-demand work outs on comcast and take a quick shower. If she's still sleeping, I get to get some dishes and laundry done. I won't complain though because I love her so much! When she's napping, I keep walking by and looking at her because I miss her and want her to wake up so I can play with her.

She's found her hands and she's been bringing them up to her mouth and trying to figure out how to suck on them. It's her way of trying to soothe herself so hopefully she figures out soon and it will help her fall asleep at night. It's still pretty early so I'm hoping to have a solid bedtime routine and a sleeping through the night baby very soon! Mommy and Daddy could use a little extra sleep Farrah ;)

What happened to my fabulous sleeper?

From about 1 week out, Farrah was sleeping at least 5 hours straight at night and then we'd have a feeding and then she'd go back to sleep for another 3 hours. I wasn't surprised she was such a good sleeper... I mean... come on look at her mom! I'm known for sleeping anytime anywhere! But the past couple of weeks she's had a hard time. Once she falls asleep, she's great. She'll sleep for up to 7 hrs. and then wake up for a feeding and then fall back asleep for another 2-3 hours. But the problem is, we can't get her to fall asleep at a decent hour. We start her last feeding at about 8pm and then try putting her down around 10pm. Even if she's already asleep when we put her in her basinet, as soon as we lay her down in there, she starts crying. We try to let her cry for a little bit in case she's just self soothing and will go to sleep on her own but it never happens, we'll get up rock her for a little bit, then try again but she starts crying again. We do this pattern multiple times and it seems like every night she finally falls asleep around 1pm. That's not good for her, or for us.
So last night we decided to try something new. We were going to start her in her crib in her own room anyways, so we decided to try the crib. She usually takes a nap around 5pm so we thought instead we'd try to keep her awake until about 7pm then put her down in her crib. I knew she'd probably only sleep a couple hours then wake up, then we'd feed her and put her down again for the rest of the night. But she had a different plan. She fell asleep as planned around 7:30pm (not quite on time but it worked.) She slept for about 2 hrs. She woke up and we gave her one last feeding and went to put her back down for the rest of the night. I could tell she was tired but she reverted back to the crying as soon as we put her in her crib. It was a "I'm so tired but I can't sleep" cry. I tried putting the pacifier in, but she usually ends up dropping it and then cries so I put it back in and she drops it again and this goes on and on. I tried everything possible to get her to go to sleep but nothing worked. Finally around 12:45 I woke up Abe and he said he'd try for a while and I fell asleep. Poor guy had to be at work by 6:45am the next morning but he tried for a bit unsuccessfully. Finally around 2:30 he brought her in and set her in her basinet. She finally fell asleep around 2:45. I think at this point she was so exhausted that she fell asleep... I don't think it had anything to do with her "love" for the basinet.
I know it will take time to get her on this routine so we're trying it again tonight. She's in her crib now and fell asleep for her first leg of sleep. Hopefully things will go smoothly the rest of the night. We're supposed to be over these sleep issues by now!
In other news, I have my follow up appt. tomorrow with my midwife. She'll finally get to meet Farrah (she did my pre-natal appts. but she didn't deliver her.) She'll also check me out and make sure I healed ok especially the stitches. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all.
Pray for us that we get this little girl on a good sleep schedule!

1 month already!

January 3rd marked exactly one month since our little angel came into this world. It sounds cliche but it's hard to remember what it was like without her here. She's getting so big as I'm sure you can see by the pictures. This lucky lady has had many visitors including her Grandma, Grandpa, 2 uncles and an aunt from her dad's side who have all traveled very far to meet her. She did not dissapoint and greeted almost all of them by pooping on them while they were holding her. That's my girl! She's pretty much sleeping through the night... anywhere from 5-7 hours straight. The only hard part is getting her to bed. She could be totally asleep in our arms and we'll lay her down in her bassinet ever so gently but as soon as she's down she wakes up and starts crying. Hopefully we'll figure out how to overcome that one and not create bad habits. That's something I worry about. Being first time parents, we don't know what is "ok" to do and I don't want to create a bad habit that will be hard to break later on. As my mother-in-love ;) says, just go with your instinct, you know what's best for you baby.

I can't believe it's 2010. Where did the past 10 years go? It makes me realize how quickly this little girl is going to grow up. I laid her down in her pack n' play yesterday and we usually lay her the short way, not the long way and I noticed her head was a little close to the end so I tried to scoot her down but I quickly realized her feet were practically touching the other end. She's grown so much that we're going to have to start laying her the long way. It's one of those things that only a parent would think about or care about but both Abe and I couldn't believe it.

Abe goes back to work starting tomorrow. He'll be subbing at his old job and also substitute teaching until he hopefully can land a long term sub position, or if not, he can work at his old job and apply for teaching positions for next fall. Considering how much work the feedings have been, I thought I would be nervous to be on my own with her all day 5 days a week, but I'm surprisingly feeling calm about it... maybe even excited to have mommy-daughter days. However, ask me that tomorrow at 5:30 when he gets home and I'm practically throwing her at him and running upstairs to take a hot bath and things might be a little different ;) Happy New Year everyone!

PS sorry for the massive amount of pics but it was hard enough to narrow it down to just these so bear with me. And in the one where Uncle Vartan's laughing... she had just majorly pooped on him as you can probably tell by her facial expression.