kim through
   the looking glass

is miserable. We’re thinking now that the runny nose and crankiness is teething related instead of being a cold! She is just have the roughest time getting those teeth in! She’s working on both bottom front teeth at the same time - poor thing. I just want them to cut through so she’ll feel better.

But, on a good note, she’s rockin’ the transition to sleeping in her crib! I had wanted to just transition her to beginning the night there, but we’ve tried two nights running to bring her into bed with us in the wee hours, and it’s either too stimulating to walk down the hall and get all situated, or she’s decided the crib’s cooler. I don’t know which - all I know is she’s spending all night in the crib.

Tonight my goal is to *not* have an awake baby for an extended period of time in the middle of the night. The first night was 2 hours awake, and last night was 1 hour. But it’s whenever we bring her to bed - the 10:30/11:00 feed she goes right back to sleep, as she did this morning at 6:30, so I’m thinking tonight I’ll just be going in to feed her and put her right back down.

It’s still bittersweet. I miss waking up to my sweet baby in the morning. Maybe when she feels better she’ll want to hang out with us after her last feed?

Well, I put Gwen down in her crib last night around 8. She didn’t wake at all until 10:30! I fed her and put her back down and she slept until 3:30. In her crib. It was incredible! I brought her to bed to feed her thinking she’d fall right back asleep in bed with us, but then she was up until 5:30 - which was a bit rough!  When she finally fell asleep again, I put her back in the crib - I didn’t want to disturb Brad by bringing her back to bed in case she woke up while I was putting her down) and she slept until 7.

Brad and I went to bed at 11:30 after decorating the tree and it was bittersweet to be all alone in our bed. Wonderful, and I slept like a log …. but bittersweet all the same.

She’s still sick, but she appears to be on the mend

Well, Gwen officially has her first cold.

Pout.

Last night was miserable. I tried to sleep propped up with her on my chest so she could breathe, but she still woke at LEAST every hour. She only nursed once because she couldn’t breathe, poor thing! We couldn’t even put her down to bed last night, she’d wake up and SCREAM as soon as her little head hit the matress. She seemed a bit better today, especially after her 3 loooooong naps (I held her while she napped so she could actually rest). She went down around 8:00 with a little wimper, but she’s definitely doing much better than last night!

I just hope I get some sleep tonight.

We’re beginning to transition her to the crib for the first part of the night, since the last few nights (excluding last, of course) she has been trying to flip herself onto her tummy while swaddled. We figured we’d be the worst parents ever putting her down on her tummy on our adult bed and leaving her to sleep like that alone, so we’re trying to put her in the crib. When she wakes up for her first feed (normally around 10:30 or 11), I’ll either bring her to bed with me for the night, or nurse her and put her back down in the crib so Brad and I can start the night out alone.

It sounds great in principal, but I haven’t slept without my baby in over a year! (Yes, I’m counting the time she was in my tummy!) I think it’s going to be harder on me than on her …

Not only am a blog-slacker, I’m also a Christmas decorating slacker!!

To be honest, I have a lot of questions about Christmas-y-ness that always gets me confused around the holidays. How do we hype up Christmas but keep it as a celebration of Jesus’ birth? Can we keep the focus on Jesus and still give gifts?

They’re some big questions, and I know that I won’t figure out their answers any time soon. I do know, though, that in order for a holiday (the short form of ‘Holy Day’) to be special, you do need to do things differently than every other day of the year. When I look at the way the Jewish people celebrate their Holy Days, it gives me some ideas on how Jesus (a Jew) would have celebrated a day like Christmas.

There would definitely have been preparations, there would be decorations, there would be celebrations with church and family - food, music, wine, togetherness! That’s the kind of Christmas I can get excited about.

Today, Brad and I are going to buy our first Christmas tree as a couple. Now that we have a house (with high, high ceilings!) it feels right. I’m excited to discover and create traditions that will have Gwen excited about Christmas in the coming years. I just hope (and pray) that we can make traditions that keep the focus on Jesus.

The embedded vimeo seems to take a ridiculous amount of time to load in the post, so I figured I’d just send ya’ll to the source. Click HERE to go to a video of Gwen eating

We’ve been putting Gwen in the high chair at dinner time for a few days to get her used to sitting with us for meals. I put her in today for lunch and she had a great time! (See the drool on that bib? We went through 3 bibs today. So. Much. Drool. And I’m pretty sure I feel a tooth coming in!)

We signed up for a CSA for this winter through Plan B Organic Farms. We got our first delivery last Tuesday and it is wonderful to be getting fresh, organic veggies dropped off at our house again. Included in the drop-off was some pears, which we didn’t get to. They were getting quite soft (I’m a firm-fruit person … mushy fruit is not my thing!) so I decided to cook them up and make some baby food! I boiled them in a touch of water and then put them through my KidCo Food Mill (thanks, Jen!). I dropped teaspoonfuls (?? is that a word?? or is it teaspoonsful?) onto parchment paper on a cookie sheet and popped it in the freezer. A few hours later, I popped the pucks in a labeled bag. Read the rest of this entry »