2 Year Anniversary

I’m the luckiest girl in the world. Two years ago, Kevin and I got married on a beautiful (and hot) May afternoon with the love and support of our family and friends.

Today, we have an amazing little family. Last night, we celebrated our anniversary by taking ourselves and Nora to dinner at the Hudson House. We sat outside, enjoyed some scrumptious food and reminisced. Nora, the party girl, liked being outside and people watching/ eating her toy/ eating her hand/ squawking. I’m grateful for these guys.

Nora and Ainsley meet. Their Mommies go way back.

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Happy Mother’s Day!

A year ago today, I took that pregnancy test and low and behold, it was positive! I sure am grateful.

Nora and Daddy had a little Mother’s Day photo shoot and here is the final product. They’re the best.

Nora is 4 months old!

Whatever happened to a good night’s sleep?

On the few rare occasions that Nora has slept through the night (say, 10pm to 5am or longer), Kevin and I are reluctant to mention a thing about it for fear that we’ll jinx it; no, “wow, I actually feel rested,” or “maybe she’s turned a corner,” or “that was a good night’s sleep!” However, lately it seems that we’ve been moving in the wrong direction. Last night, for example, we got Nora to sleep around 10pm and she was awake from 1-3am and then 4-5am. She’s been waking up every two to three hours and it takes an army to get her back to sleep. It takes a feeding, a diaper change, swaddling and re-swaddling, and a good bounce on the exercise ball. And then, of course, there’s the tricky transport-her-to-crib-without-waking-her-up move, which is always a gamble.

Last night at 3am (I suppose I should say morning), I was taking a turn bouncing her on the exercise ball. Kevin could not fall asleep. It was dark and quiet save for the distant bark of a dog. The rest of the world was snoring and drooling on their pillows, and there we were bouncing, bouncing, bouncing. Nora had the urge to vocalize her feelings. “Ahhhh. Aaahhh. Aaaaah.” And why not? We were all awake and singing is fun. Kevin and I were left wondering what we’ve been doing wrong.

This seems to be our main dilemma: We still swaddle her with her arms in, in one of those Swaddle Me Sleepsacks. Lately, she seems to want to break out of there. When we put her down in the crib, she starts arching her back and turning her head as if trying to roll over and she struggles to get her arms free. But, when we try to put her down with her arms out, she hits herself in the face, stretches her arms overhead, eats her hands, you name it. Arms in or arms out? What is better?

Have any of you had this problem? Nora is 4 months old. Isn’t it time for her to start sleeping through the night? Advice?????

Unabashed Babe

I really appreciate and respect Nora’s desire to grunt awhile before taking a nap. She sits in her car seat as I rock her, looking off into the distance, letting her chin fall to her chest, no longer trying to hold up the weight of her own head and grunts: Huuuyyyygggghhhh. Mmnnnuuuuyyyyggghhh.

I want to do that before I go to sleep, or, truthfully, whenever I feel like a good grunt.

I love how uninhibited she is. She does a lot of things that I think most adults secretly wish they could do. Here are a few more examples:

She makes stretching and rubbing her eyes look like eating decadent chocolate cake.

She can asleep anywhere, and it’s a deep, peaceful, I’m-on-vacation sort of sleep.

If she’s just a little irritated at you, she’ll just cry in your face. She’s like, “I don’t want you to show me that toy anymore! I know it was hilarious a second ago, but I am no longer amused!”

(Related to the last one), she gives in to her mood swings. She will smile at you through tears or cry at you after a laugh.

She is not afraid of a little eye contact. Most people have trouble looking someone straight in the eye for a good while, but she does not turn away. I love this about her. She has not yet learned to be embarrassed or shy, and it makes her the most earnest person I know.

She finds the most mundane things interesting – like, Mommy drying her hair. Curious.

She’s confident in her body, especially those super awesome thighs.

She doesn’t cover her mouth when she coughs or sneezes.

She lets it out in a lot of other ways too. I think most of us are glad we’ve learned a little bit of restraint in certain areas, though.

Still, you’ve got to respect the babe.

🙂

May day blarg

It’s my birthday. Yup. 33 years old.

We’re all a little under the weather this week. The common cold: sore throat, runny nose, sneezing and coughing. It breaks your heart to hear a little baby cough. This is her first cold. And you can’t explain it to her – you feel yucky because you have a virus and your immune system is fighting it off. She seems to be on the other side of the thing — at least, I sure hope so.

Okay, I’m about to have a pity party for myself. A small one. It’ll be over soon, I promise.

Feel free to skip this paragraph entirely, or get out your tiny violins. I feel blarg (which is my word for tired, achy, hot and cold at the same time, runny, sore-of-nose, etc, etc, etc.) I did something weird to my back so that it hurts every time I cough and it’s kind of hard to pick Nora up. Oh, and it’s raining. Oh, and I wrote one whole draft of this post but somehow, it got erased when I hit “Save Draft” and I had to start over.

Whew. Glad that’s over.

Here’s the upside. If I take a good look at my life on this birthday, I have so much to be grateful for. I’m a mom now, and Nora is the cutest, silliest, sweetest little person I know. I’m married to a wonderful man and we have kickass family and friends. We live in a down to earth, beautiful place with great restaurants, mountains and the Hudson all around.

This morning, I ran the shower and Nora and I steamed ourselves in the bathroom to clear our sinuses.  She squeaked and grunted at me on the changing table. We’re taking it easy, watching a little TV, taking lots of naps. So, even though Nora and I feel blargy, I certainly have a lot to celebrate on this rainy birthday.

Namaste. (It felt appropriate to say this. I don’t know why, but I don’t question these things.) 🙂