On the Verge...

I just had to document that our very easy going baby girl has been having a very rough 8 th week of life. All of a sudden she is having quite the time falling asleep for naps, especially. It's like if I miss her tiny little ready for sleep but not yet overtired window, it's all over for the rest of the day. One short nap because she is overtired and won't fall asleep without some serious effort on our part (or won't stay asleep), means a whole afternoon and evening of short little naps and a very tough bedtime. We have tried every tactic we know to try. And not just for short period of time. Like we've really given all of these things a fair shot: -Swaddling -Swaddling with one arm out -Pacie (sometimes she wants it, sometimes she literally gags on it) -Nursing -Bottle -Rocking -Swinging -Bouncing -Sitting still -Singing -Sushing -Patting -On back -On side -On tummy (big no like) -Crying it out for up to 20 minutes -Be

Unless I change the title of this blog, Selah's "month" pictures will always be taken the day before she is actually that old.  Oh well.  What's one day, right? So tomorrow is Selah Christine's 2 month birthday!  Parents of newborns can probably attest to the fact that time seems to drag and fly at the same time.  It feels like you've had this child forever when you are vigorously rocking them in a dark bathroom with the fan running at 2 am when their eyes are wide open.  And it seems like you just brought them home from the hospital when they are all of a sudden not fitting in those cute newborn clothes anymore.  I think I'm going to have a survey format for these birthday posts, complete with lots of pictures.  That way they are easy to compare when I go back through these most and lament how she will never be a baby again... Date: June 21, 2012 Weight : Well check is tomorrow (I'm guessing a little less than 10lbs) Clothing

I've been convicted recently of my need to better understand the Gospel.  Not just to understand it with my head, but  more importantly  with my heart.  So I returned to the basics.  I went to the verse we memorize in our childhood and don't really think about as adults because we feel that it's almost juvenile.  Oh, how far from the truth. " For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life."    John 3:16 My grandma bought me a My Little Pony for memorizing that verse when I was five.  So I've "understood" it for 24 years, and yet I can't say that I've ever really felt the weight of what it says about God until now. I think one of the reasons God created the process of birth and the concept of children and family (whether biological or adopted) is so that we might better understand this verse and what it says about Him.  There are some feelings t

Abram has been an unknowing little dress up doll for me these last few days. Yesterday, I dressed him in a pair of Guatemalan overalls that I bought for him when we visited for a friend's wedding a year ago.  At the time, they were too big for him. So I put them at the back of the closet, thinking that it would be a long time before he could wear them.  Yesterday, I realized that I year was a pretty long time and I pulled them out, only to discover that a year had been a little too long. They look like lederhosen.  I think this will be the last time he wears them.  Unless I somehow find the time to make them into a pair of shorts or something.  But that probably won't happen.  They also turned the onesie pink, so they have to be specially washed.  Definitely not ever day wear. Then, tonight, I was finishing going through his closet and I found this outfit that Quinn's mom sent us from when Quinn was a kid.   Pretty adorable, right?   He's never

It was "bath day" yesterday - which seems to happen only about once a week around here.  That sounds really bad.  Abram does get baths more often than that, usually a quick one at night right before bed.  But if he's going to have a longer, more fun bath, that has to happen during the day.  I've discovered that it is actually better to do their baths consecutively.  Hers usually kinda knocks her out and then she is sleeping while Abram gets his.  So I'll show you my tactics for getting this precarious scenario to work for us:    1. Trap toddler in his room using baby's pack n play.   This enables us to see each other (read: me see him, as he is the one that can't be trusted behind closed doors). 2. Move baby's changing table pad to bathroom and run bath. This was only one small moment of unhappiness.  Her changing table pad (which is a wipable one from Ikea with a cover) is one of the only places that she is happy almost all of the time.

It's been awhile, I know.  I can honestly say that I have been using every spare second that I have during the day to get something done: dishes, laundry, cooking, organizing, cleaning, sorting, paperwork, rocking children, feeding children (this takes up, by far, the most amount of my time between the two of them).  So, no real time to blog.  I was actually headed to bed awhile ago, got to our room and our previously fast asleep little darling was wide awake.  So I started to feed her, made it a little while, and then she started to freak out.  She did that last night, too.  But last night was a lot worse.  We both had a bit of a melt down.  Pretty much the only place that she wasn't crying was in her diaper on her changing table.  Weird.  Even us holding her made her upset.  This lasted about an hour.  It was strange and out of character for her, so I was really trying to figure out what was wrong.  Ultimately, I think she was tired and mild gas was feeling much worse in an o