Last Wednesday Anna said good-bye to her Uncle Danny, Aunt Bridget, and Nancy who headed back to New York City. On Thursday Anna said good-by to her Grandma Jane and Aunt Diane who headed back to Binghamton. On Sunday Anna had to say good-by to her Daddy who headed back to Virginia to go to work for the week and Anna & I decided to stay the week and hang out with Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma and Grandpa's house, which was 11 people full a week ago, seems very quiet now, but Anna's been having a great time getting extra time with Grandma and Grandpa. On Monday Anna went for an evening swim. On Tuesday we went out for ice cream and yesterday was Grandpa's 60th Birthday! Today it's pouring so we're planning on hitting the indoor pool, which Grandma and I can't believe we didn't think of before, given that Anna's not a big fan of the sun anyway. She's probably thrilled that it's finally raining so she can do what she wants!
So last night we celebrated Grandpa's birthday with a little party with his friends from the neighborhood. Anna seemed to experience something new: a little fear of strangers. About 5 minutes after the guests arrived and we were all hanging out in the family room, Anna let out a huge scream - not really a hungry scream or a tired scream, but just a loud scream like she might have been scared. After she didn't calm down I took her outside. We walked around and she calmed down. About 10 minutes after we came back inside we started getting some sweet lip-outs followed by more what seemed like "scared" crying. So I took her upstairs, fed her a little to calm her down (although she really didn't seem hungry). Then I just played with her a little while upstairs and she really seemed to be quite happy - relaxed and smiley. So we went back downstairs and she did seem to be better. After we were sitting around for a little while one of the neighbors held her and almost immediately after she left my arms she started with the little lip outs which went into crying. This is the same neighbor who just held Anna two days ago and Anna gave her lots of sweet smiles- crazy!
Maybe her crying could just have something to do with the evening in general, which tends to be Anna's most fussy time, but this crying just seemed different. I was also thinking maybe she was nervous about the house being loud, but she just spent 5 days with the house full of 11 people. According to a babycenter article separation anxiety is not supposed to start until 6 to 7 months at the earliest. But this didn't really seem like she was upset that she wasn't with me, but more scared at something new. It was just odd given that Anna will often give strangers she meets in the grocery story a big gummy smile. Who knows, but I will be curious to see if this starts to happen more regularly.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Back to the beach
Yesterday we headed back to the beach with Anna. Our plan was to stick around for a while instead of fitting the trip between naps (by the time we drive there and drive home that really only leaves us 1 1/2 hours on the beach), which doesn't leave us much time to hang out. We also decided to try to hang out with Anna on the actual beach instead of hanging out on the covered deck a little ways from the ocean. We had a great beach umbrella to keep her out of the sun, but the hardest part of this plan was keeping the sand out of her hands. Once the sand is in her hands it is inevitably going...you guessed it, in her mouth! So while she was awake we had a continual battle with this. Ultimately, I think she only ate a few sand grains. How bad can that be, right?
Anna had a great time hanging out under the beach umbrella with Grandpa, Grandma, Uncle Pete, Dad, & Mom. She took a another stroll down to the waves (or "whooshes" as Matt called them on his first beach trip (age 16 months). She was definitely interested, but maybe a little scared. We thought we might have to head out early when the beach nap was initially not working out, but she did ultimately fall asleep under the umbrella in her car seat for about 2 hours.
checking out the "whooshes"
Some other cute pictures from the past few days:
getting growls whispered in her ear from Grandma
got milk?
Anna had a great time hanging out under the beach umbrella with Grandpa, Grandma, Uncle Pete, Dad, & Mom. She took a another stroll down to the waves (or "whooshes" as Matt called them on his first beach trip (age 16 months). She was definitely interested, but maybe a little scared. We thought we might have to head out early when the beach nap was initially not working out, but she did ultimately fall asleep under the umbrella in her car seat for about 2 hours.
hanging under the umbrella with Grandpa
checking out the "whooshes"
Some other cute pictures from the past few days:
getting growls whispered in her ear from Grandma
got milk?Thursday, August 7, 2008
Anna loves getting attention!
For the past week we've been in Southport, North Carolina at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Also here visiting Grandma & Grandpa are Great Grandma Jane, Aunt Diane, Uncle Pete, Uncle Dan, Aunt Bridget, and Aunt Bridget's sister, Nancy. Anna has been loving all the attention she's been getting. In fact we actually believe she's started to fuss for a new reason: when she's not getting attention! A couple nights ago she was in the living room with Grandpa looking at her toys. She started to get a little fussy & we couldn't figure out why. It didn't seem like she was hungry or ready for a nap. Grandpa brought her into the kitchen where everyone else was congregated playing scrabble and all of a sudden she was better - giving sweet smiles to everyone. She didn't want to miss out on all the action! The first day back at home with just mom could be rough!
Anna has had lots of adventures. She's been to the beach, out to lunch in downtown Southport by the harbor, and out to dinner at the Player's Club. She's also been busy "riding the animals" with Grandpa, "going on tour" with Uncle Pete (moving around the room to visit each person), getting little growls whispered in her ear from Grandma (this makes her giggle almost every time), and lots of sweet holds from everyone.
Anna has had so many smiles & giggles this week that they are easy to catch on camera. In fact, she smiles so easily that we can almost get her to smile for a picture:
Anna has had lots of adventures. She's been to the beach, out to lunch in downtown Southport by the harbor, and out to dinner at the Player's Club. She's also been busy "riding the animals" with Grandpa, "going on tour" with Uncle Pete (moving around the room to visit each person), getting little growls whispered in her ear from Grandma (this makes her giggle almost every time), and lots of sweet holds from everyone.
Anna has had so many smiles & giggles this week that they are easy to catch on camera. In fact, she smiles so easily that we can almost get her to smile for a picture:
Grandpa is funny!
Oh, Grandma Jane, you're silly!
Oh, Grandma Jane, you're silly!
Aunt Diane makes me smile!
Uncle Pete makes me smile too!
Story time with Grandma Jane
Out to lunch at the harbor
The whole family
Uncle Pete's Birthday - Anna says, "I love birthday cake! When do you think I can get some of that, Mom, around 2 am? If I get up at midnight will it be ready yet?"
Uncle Pete makes me smile too!Of course, there are lots of cute non-smiling pictures too:
Story time with Grandma Jane
Out to lunch at the harbor
The whole family
Uncle Pete's Birthday - Anna says, "I love birthday cake! When do you think I can get some of that, Mom, around 2 am? If I get up at midnight will it be ready yet?"Thursday, July 31, 2008
But Mom, I miss you in the night...
I bet Matt & I have been asked the question, "How does she sleep at night?" or "Does she sleep through the night?" by about 50 different people since Anna was born...relatives, friends, strangers on the metro. But it makes sense because isn't this a major goal of every parent of a new infant: getting the baby to sleep through the night.
First I would just like to consider the phrase, "sleep through the night." I think the phrase is misused when it refers to a single sleep consisting only of the few hours during the night when any "normal" adult would be sleeping. ("Normal" does not include college students or my brother Dan.) For instance, I don't think a sleep from 11:30 to 5 am really counts if the baby is up until 11:30 and wakes up for play time at 5 am. Sure plenty of "normal" people go to bed at 11:30 and plenty of "normal" people get up at 5 am (at least my mother would like to believe this), but no one who is going to bed at 11:30 is waking up at 5 am. Around 6 weeks of age Anna had a period of time where she was going to bed around 10 to 11ish and usually sleeping until 4 to 5ish, but that was the full sleep! At 10:00 she was on the coach with us (well, probably fussing as we rocked and swattled her) and at 5 am we were reading books. Except for her first week of life, I think this was actually the period of time where I got the least amount of sleep. Okay, so I know that given the statement I just made, I should NEVER complain about Anna's sleeping habits. I know there are tons of parents of 12 week olds who are celebrating their first 6 hour stretch of sleep in months. But the point here is not that I'm complaining anyway - just considering the sleeping patterns of sweet Anna and of infants in general.
The second thing I would like to consider is the sense of pride or failure that parents may feel based on their babies sleep habits. For the most part, I really think this is an unearned sense of pride or failure. I mean some babies are just born understanding night and day and sleeping well (luckily Anna was in this category) and some babies are just born all turned around, sleeping all day and up all night. Now I know that as babies get older there are definitely things you can do to help your baby sleep better and sleep when you want them to, but you can really only control this to a certain extent. This leads to Anna's recent sleep habits & all the silliness that Matt & I discuss surrounding this sleep. For instance:
Last Thursday night:
7:15: Mom feeds Anna and puts her to sleep
7:45: Anna wakes up
8:30: Mom feeds Anna and puts her to sleep again
9:00: Anna wakes up
9:30: Mom changes Anna, puts desitin on her butt, feeds her & puts her to sleep again - Anna stays asleep
Matt: "Ya know, she didn't get the Desitin on her butt the first two times you tried to put her to sleep. She must associate Desitin with going to bed"
Sarah: "Ya know, you might have a point there."
Okay, so maybe she really does associate Desitin with going to bed, but we're talking about a sample size of 1 and a trial size of 3. I don't think we've really discovered the secret of 3 month old sleep here, but we'll consider anything to fool ourselves into thinking we are in control. (Although I would like to add that on Monday of this past week we noticed Anna had a slight diaper rash so we decided to put Desitin on her at every changing. The first time we did it, she had an uncharacteristically long nap at an odd time - ha, ha, we really do have a discovery! Of course, if she really did have an association with Desitin, we certainly threw that routine out the window when we started using it all the time.)
So now to the original idea that spurred me to think about sleep - while Anna has generally been a great sleeper at night, she's recently has had a bit of a relapse. In the past week, she's only had two good nights of sleep and the other 5 nights has gotten up every 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours to eat (and last night not even just to eat, but to play too - ahh! It's so hard to ignore her sweet little smiles!) Of course the first thing we consider is, "What are we doing different? What have we done to cause this?" We were both relieved when Matt read on the internet that sometimes 3 month olds become so social that they start waking up often again (okay, for Anna this is more of a 1st time phenomenon, so I know, I know, no complaining). Yes - it's not our fault, it's natural? right - natural - She's social now so we didn't cause this (hopefully).
Anyway, I know that just like other trends, this will pass. And just as I do get sad that she never naps on me anymore, someday I will probably tuck her into bed and think back sweetly on our little encounters in the middle of the night and miss them.
Well, I should go. We haven't pushed much of a sleep schedule onto Anna at all (a whole other topic), but the one rule we do have right now is no sleeping past 7 pm - so I'm off to wake the sweet little sleeping Banana!
First I would just like to consider the phrase, "sleep through the night." I think the phrase is misused when it refers to a single sleep consisting only of the few hours during the night when any "normal" adult would be sleeping. ("Normal" does not include college students or my brother Dan.) For instance, I don't think a sleep from 11:30 to 5 am really counts if the baby is up until 11:30 and wakes up for play time at 5 am. Sure plenty of "normal" people go to bed at 11:30 and plenty of "normal" people get up at 5 am (at least my mother would like to believe this), but no one who is going to bed at 11:30 is waking up at 5 am. Around 6 weeks of age Anna had a period of time where she was going to bed around 10 to 11ish and usually sleeping until 4 to 5ish, but that was the full sleep! At 10:00 she was on the coach with us (well, probably fussing as we rocked and swattled her) and at 5 am we were reading books. Except for her first week of life, I think this was actually the period of time where I got the least amount of sleep. Okay, so I know that given the statement I just made, I should NEVER complain about Anna's sleeping habits. I know there are tons of parents of 12 week olds who are celebrating their first 6 hour stretch of sleep in months. But the point here is not that I'm complaining anyway - just considering the sleeping patterns of sweet Anna and of infants in general.
The second thing I would like to consider is the sense of pride or failure that parents may feel based on their babies sleep habits. For the most part, I really think this is an unearned sense of pride or failure. I mean some babies are just born understanding night and day and sleeping well (luckily Anna was in this category) and some babies are just born all turned around, sleeping all day and up all night. Now I know that as babies get older there are definitely things you can do to help your baby sleep better and sleep when you want them to, but you can really only control this to a certain extent. This leads to Anna's recent sleep habits & all the silliness that Matt & I discuss surrounding this sleep. For instance:
Last Thursday night:
7:15: Mom feeds Anna and puts her to sleep
7:45: Anna wakes up
8:30: Mom feeds Anna and puts her to sleep again
9:00: Anna wakes up
9:30: Mom changes Anna, puts desitin on her butt, feeds her & puts her to sleep again - Anna stays asleep
Matt: "Ya know, she didn't get the Desitin on her butt the first two times you tried to put her to sleep. She must associate Desitin with going to bed"
Sarah: "Ya know, you might have a point there."
Okay, so maybe she really does associate Desitin with going to bed, but we're talking about a sample size of 1 and a trial size of 3. I don't think we've really discovered the secret of 3 month old sleep here, but we'll consider anything to fool ourselves into thinking we are in control. (Although I would like to add that on Monday of this past week we noticed Anna had a slight diaper rash so we decided to put Desitin on her at every changing. The first time we did it, she had an uncharacteristically long nap at an odd time - ha, ha, we really do have a discovery! Of course, if she really did have an association with Desitin, we certainly threw that routine out the window when we started using it all the time.)
So now to the original idea that spurred me to think about sleep - while Anna has generally been a great sleeper at night, she's recently has had a bit of a relapse. In the past week, she's only had two good nights of sleep and the other 5 nights has gotten up every 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours to eat (and last night not even just to eat, but to play too - ahh! It's so hard to ignore her sweet little smiles!) Of course the first thing we consider is, "What are we doing different? What have we done to cause this?" We were both relieved when Matt read on the internet that sometimes 3 month olds become so social that they start waking up often again (okay, for Anna this is more of a 1st time phenomenon, so I know, I know, no complaining). Yes - it's not our fault, it's natural? right - natural - She's social now so we didn't cause this (hopefully).
Anyway, I know that just like other trends, this will pass. And just as I do get sad that she never naps on me anymore, someday I will probably tuck her into bed and think back sweetly on our little encounters in the middle of the night and miss them.
Well, I should go. We haven't pushed much of a sleep schedule onto Anna at all (a whole other topic), but the one rule we do have right now is no sleeping past 7 pm - so I'm off to wake the sweet little sleeping Banana!
Anna's new tricks
Anna has some new tricks from the past few days. First, she figured out that if she kicks her legs in the tub, she can make lots of splashes. The good news: she loves this. The bad news: cleaning up the kitchen after Anna's tubs will take a little longer.
Second, Anna now has enough head control that she can ride facing out in the bjorn. The good news: she loves this. The bad news: Something tells me there will be no more naps in the bjorn.
Third, Anna has just started grabbing onto toys and trying to pull them in. Her goal is to put them straight into her mouth. Watching her it seems like her mouth is how she plans to explore things. I can just see her thinking, "okay, I've got this thing, now if I can just put it in my mouth I would be able to figure out what it is." The good news: She loves this. The bad news: only to a certain extent. After a certain period of time, she gets tired and can't do it as well. Then she gets frustrated. Instead of giving up, she continues to work on it until she is so tired that it makes her crazy. Thank goodness Mommy is there to take the toy away.
I have got you lion friend!
Monday, July 28, 2008
Cute anyway
Anna rolled over twice today! I tried to catch it on camera a third time (since she had just done it twice in a row), but I guess she was a little camera shy:
Happy Birthday Anna!
I meant to write a blog post yesterday on Anna's actual 3 month birthday, but Anna had a pretty busy birthday so I didn't get to it. I had a bridal shower to go to in McLean, VA and we also had friends over to barbecue last night. Anna had a great day hanging out with Dad during the shower & what she saw of our guests she enjoyed - she actually slept through much of their visit. (Apparently hanging out with Dad is tiring!)
On Friday we had lunch in DC with Corinne, Jessie, & Corinne's friend Ellen - another event which Anna slept through, but she did have fun looking at all the people on the metro ride to the city & home. I didn't even realize I had done this until we had left the house, but Anna & I were dressed alike:
Snuggling up after a birthday bath.
Looking good in her birthday dress!
On Friday we had lunch in DC with Corinne, Jessie, & Corinne's friend Ellen - another event which Anna slept through, but she did have fun looking at all the people on the metro ride to the city & home. I didn't even realize I had done this until we had left the house, but Anna & I were dressed alike:
Snuggling up after a birthday bath.
Looking good in her birthday dress!
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