Sadie-7 months old

Sadie is 7 months old!!

New Skills
*Sitting up!
She's sitting really well unassisted now!  She still falls over if she leans too far but it's becoming rare.  She's having so much fun playing with different toys and reaching for everything in sight!

*Squealing!  A lot less "da da"  and "ga ga" this month and a lot more squealing and squawking in delight.   Still cute, albeit LOUD sometimes!

*Eating!  A LOT.  We tried to start off with eating once a day but she had a CRAZY 6 month growth spurt and wanted to eat a ton.  So, she's pretty much been eating 3 meals a day (plus still nursing 4x a day) since we started food a month ago.  She's gained almost 2 lbs in less than a month!  She's up to 17lbs from 15 at her 6 month appt!  Her growth spurt lasted about 7-10 days but she's still hungry enough to eat 3 meals a day of cereal mixed with veggies.

So far she's tried green beans, peas, squash, avocado, sweet potatoes, carrots, apples, and bananas.  She does not seem to like the apples or bananas but everything else she gobbles right up.

I've tried to give her some puffs but she doesn't seem quite interested in them and spits them out.  She's gnawed on a pizza crust though and liked that :-) We also discovered baby Mum-mums a rice cracker type thing that she gnaws on quite happily.

*Clapping!
 I noticed her "clapping" a week ago or so and Chris practiced a little with her and now she smiles every time you say "clap clap clap!" and occasionally will actually do it.  She's sort of starting to try and wave too.  And we swear she says "Ella" and "hi" but it's not at all a reliable skill (or one she's even doing on purpose necessarily) :-)

Otherwise, Sadie is still a pretty content baby and smiles a ton.  Ella, Chris, and I are all totally enamored with her and love getting to be the one to get her first smiles in the morning or squeals of delight when you walk into a room.  She's SO precious to us!  Even Ella can't stop saying "Sadie is the cutest baby in the world!" So thankful for this joy-bringing little girl.

Baby Sadie is 12 weeks old!

Sadie is such a sweetheart!  I knew I LOVED babies but this is overwhelming!  I LOVE BABIES!  I would seriously be happy for her to stay 2 or 3 months old for a long, long time.  She is sweet and smiley and started sleeping through the night at 8 weeks-what more can you ask for???  She relapsed a little with sleeping for a few days here and there (when Chris was out of town-Murphy's law? and while she had a little cold).  But, she seems to be back on track for the routine we've gotten into.  She eats every 2-3 hours during the day and then nurses at 8pm, goes to sleep in her bed, then Chris does a "dream feed" bottle (she doesn't wake up for this) around 11pm and she sleeps til 7 or 8am!  Don't hate me. This is a much prayed for blessing from the Lord and I hope it lasts!

At this point Sadie is a bit over 11lbs which puts her between the 25th and 50th percentiles for weight.  She had a rough start with weight so I'm thrilled to see her thriving and nursing well.  She outgrew newborn diapers around 10 weeks old and is officially too big to get into her newborn clothes as of this week.  Bring on the 0-3 month clothes-we have so many cute outfits to get through before she outgrows them!

For the most part she's a pretty content baby-more so than Ella was I think.  She doesn't mind baths, the dog licking her, Ella singing loudly in her face, or even getting boogers sucked out of her nose with the bulb syringe.  She loves her swing (it's magical, she is almost always content in it), nursing, falling asleep in the car, laying on her back and kicking around, and riding face-out in the Baby Bjorn carrier.  She does not like when the car is not in motion, waiting to eat, and overstimulation. Like Ella, she's a pacifier fan but she doesn't use it to fall asleep at night but she will take it if she wakes up to soothe herself.  Unlike Ella, Sadie doesn't love swaddling.  She tolerates it but doesn't seem to need it to fall asleep like Ella did. 

Of course, at this point, Sadie can do no wrong and I really have found myself in tears many times as deep joy and gratitude bubble up from inside me.  I am so thankful for this child. I want to wake her up to just hold her or see her smile at night sometimes-I'm just that in love.  I see plaques and picture frames in stores all the time that say "For this child we have prayed." Boy is that true of this little girl.  I love you with my whole self Sadie Grace and will be forever grateful that God gave us you.

Update...

So, my life is insane right now so blog posts might be rare for a while. I have about 85 client contact hours to accumulate over the next few months in order to finish my 2nd (and final!) year of clinical work as a therapist. 85 hours is A LOT considering how many people with mental health issues don't show up or cancel appointments (not shocking, they are in crisis after all). So, in order to get all these hours I've had to add a 2nd clinical site, a 3rd day of work, and extend my hours at my original site. Add in 2 20 page papers and 2 2hour presentations over the next 6 weeks and I'm a tad overwhelmed. I'm trying to spend every other waking moment with Ella and Chris. So, if I seem MIA, that's why. Still here, just busier than normal.

God's been teaching me a lot that is really sustaining me through this time. For instance, He's been using the analogy of labor pains a lot to assure me that this challenging process is simply the "labor" before something amazing and new is "born" in me. There are things I'm learning and ways I'm growing and skills I'm acquiring through this process that could not be birthed in any other way. So the pain is worth it, as it always is with a baby.

Another thing God's been saying is through a verse Chris shared with me. It's in 2 Samuel 24:24 where David is talking to a guy named Araunah. Araunah offers to give King David some animals to sacrifice. But David insists that he "will not offer to the Lord something that cost [him] nothing." This really struck me. Do I want to offer God things that cost me nothing? Absolutely not. He is worthy of the best I can give. Counseling is a calling I feel He has clearly put on my life ("to preach good news to the poor...to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release the prisoners from darkness..." Isaiah 61:1). So as I offer this calling back to God as a ministry to hurting people, how much is that offering worth if it costs me nothing? If it was easy? If I could get it "cheap"? So, the sacrifices I'm making now are worth it if I'm able to offer God something with value in the end. When the cost feels great this verse reminds me that I would not want to offer anything less.

So, that's the update. Chris is uber-supportive and reminds me this is worth it when I forget :-) Thankfully my time away from Ella has only increased by one afternoon and she's spending that time with her cousins (thanks Amy!!) which she LOVES. This time will pass (by May God-willing!) but until then, trying to stay focused on truth and push through the "labor pains" and see what God has for us on the other side!

Ella at 3

I really need to record what Ella is doing developmentally and what she's like at this age since I'm bound to forget. So, at 3 and 3months...here's the deal...

Physical:
*Ella is now in the 75th percentile for height and weight (first time she's been over 50!) at 34 lbs and 38 inches
*She is jumping and running with no problem but hasn't quite mastered walking up/down stairs alternating feet (possibly because we have no stairs in our house!)
*She has started to hold pens and crayons correctly rather than "fisting" them but still does both
*Ella has been completely day potty trained since about September but still wears a pull-up at night. I'm not really concerned about it. When her pull ups are dry in the morning she can switch to underwear. Or when she's too big for pull ups :-)
*Ella's "schedule" is much less stringent than when she was younger but basically she wakes up at 7:45 am (she almost always woke up about an hour later than that until she went into a big girl bed-weird) and has rest time (in her room with books and toys for an hour) mid afternoon and goes to sleep between 7pm and 8pm depending on the day/other commitments.

Social/Emotional
*Ella does get in skirmishes with kids when playing but it's never constant or serious. She doesn't always stop the first time I tell her to but she's much more likely to disobey me than hit/grab from another kid at this point in life. She tends to be motherly with other kids-hugging them, guiding them on the back as they walk, wanting to hold their hand, especially if they're younger than her.
*Ella easily identifies her emotions when we ask her-sad, mad, happy, or frustrated. When she's angry she tends to growl to herself-it's kind of funny and kind of disturbing.
*She's easily scared by "scary" looking or mean characters in books or on TV so we're very careful about what she sees.
*We can take her to a restaurant with about a 65% chance of it being without incident (this is MUCH better than 6 months or a year ago). She still really struggles to stay in her seat at meal times (because she doesn't care about food) so we're working on that a lot at home so hopefully it'll translate to when we're out.


Food
*Ella is still uber-picky. She will ALWAYS eat any kind of cracker or chip or bread or popcorn. And will ALWAY drink pretty much anything you offer her (especially milk). She usually eats pb&j sandwiches, pb & honey sandwiches, chicken (often in nugget form), green beans, olives, cheese, mandarin oranges, peaches, and peas pretty reliably. She will sometimes eat hot dogs, ground beef (like taco meat), broccoli, tomatoes, bananas. She is resistant to try anything new but we're trying to get her to at least try a bite of new things. She generally eats very small amounts but surprises us every now and then. Usually what she eats probably amounts to about 1 cup of food per meal or less. It's not unusual for her to eat a few bites of a sandwich and 3 green beans and be done. My latest plan has been to not let her snack so she'll eat more at her meals and it seems to help but she just has a very small stomach I guess!

Likes/Dislikes
*Ella is obsessed with pink (clothes, hair accessories, backpacks, shoes, everything) but recently said light blue is also her favorite color and has stuck with it for a couple weeks
*Ella is REALLY into Cinderella (it's the only appropriate Disney movie we own) and all princesses
*Ella loves to paint with watercolors but rarely is interested in drawing or coloring
*She still enjoys playdough and it usually turns into pretend play
*As much as I got excited about her interest in dress up clothes, she rarely plays with them lately :-(
*Ella's favorite possessions are 1)her enormous disney storybooks
2)her pink sparkly shoes
3)her light green "blankey"
4)videos
5)board games

Sleep Update (for my future reference)

So, it's been long enough that I feel confident that Ella's refusing-to-sleep phase is over. I prayed very specifically for God to show me what I should do to help Ella sleep. A friend reminded me that God knows Ella and what she needs better than I do so why not ask Him for a specific answer? That very day I picked up a SuperNanny book Chris bought me when I was pregnant and it described exactly what Ella was doing (whining, screaming, calling us and then waiting for a response and then getting louder and crying more until we give in and come take her out of bed). It confirmed exactly what I'd been feeling-that this is one of the earliest forms of manipulation kids learn-wearing you down until they get what they want. I knew it felt wrong to let her "win" this battle every night and the Super Nanny's advice gave me the confidence to stand my ground. So, we followed the Nanny's "controlled crying" technique.

1.Talk up the going to bed process and all the steps involved during the day
2.Go through her normal bedtime routine
3.Lay her down in her bed and tell her she needs to put her head down on her pillow and close her eyes and go to sleep. Leave the room.
4.Go back in every 10 min, then 15, then 20 but don't pick her up just remind her that you're still here but that she needs to lay down and go to sleep

So, it was rough to hear her cry but waiting for the timer to go off made it easier to handle. Plus we'd pretty much ruled out that she was in pain or anything. The first night it took an hour before she went to sleep but that's less than 1/2 the time it had been taking for almost 2 weeks!! The next day at her nap it took 30 minutes. The next night she cried for 5 minutes and was out! That was over a week ago and now she's going down like the old days with no crying for naps and bedtime. PRAISE the LORD!!!