Once again, it's been a while.

The past few months have been a blur. My daughter is now over 8 months old. No freaking way!

She's pulling herself up onto furniture to stand, and walking around with her hands on things. She stands on her own every once in a while, until she realizes she's doing so, then falls down onto her bum. She's eating finger foods (she loooooves teething biscuits). Still no teeth, though I think we may have a couple getting ready to break through (I've been thinking this for months now.. but I really think it's real this time because her gums are awfully swollen.)

Ugh. I feel like I make no sense right now. I returned to work last month and I've found a new meaning to the word 'exhausted'. This little booger keeps me SO busy now that she's mobile, and with work thrown into the mix I am usually ready for bed most nights at 8:30, and asleep by 10. She's also waking up much earlier now that I've returned for work. Neil and I are sharing a car so she gets up with us around 6 while I get ready and doesn't usually go back to sleep.

Speaking of exhaustion. Good night.

Tune in later this week for "Lessons learned- Mistakes I have made as a new mom that I will NOT be repeating with baby #2."

Stop breathing, it might wake up the baby!

Let me tell you.. sick babies are no fun. :(

It's been an exhausting couple of days. Camille woke up on saturday with a stuffed up nose- miserable. She's already been a bit fussy from teething, but this past 5 days really takes the cake. She HATES the bulb that sucks the boogies out.. but I HAVE to use it sometimes. Yesterday was actually pretty good, but she had me on my toes all day today. She constantly wanted to be held, but also wanted to play so I was literally holding on to her whilst accommodating her desire to switch positions every .05 seconds almost all day. She would sit on her blanket or in her exersaucer for 5 minutes at a time and cry to be picked up again.

She didn't want to nap either, so by the time bed time came around she was cranky and overtired. It took almost an hour to get her to go to sleep. Usually I'll pick up on her 'ready for bed cues', change her diaper, lay down to nurse her and she's out in 5-10 minutes. Tonight however, my overtired little sicky princess popped off the breast every 30 seconds or so to look at daddy, or the TV, or the dog, or the door- if it made a noise-  she looked at it.. for a second... then it was back to crying and rubbing her eyes. I'm fairly certain that the stuffy nose is the root cause of nursing/napping being such a chore today. I just feel so bad that there is nothing else I can do for her for this stupid cold.

She's finally sleeping soundly. I was able to sit up without waking her, and I gave Neil permission to slowly start turning the volume on his game back up. I hope tomorrow is not as exhausting as today was.

Nothing is cuter than a sleeping baby.

Daddy's girl.

Neil was worried that his daughter would not recognize him because he works so much. Every time she cried when being held by him he would get discouraged and think that she hated him, or thought she saw him as a stranger. I always told him he was crazy, but now I have proof!

When he gets home from work and I'm still up we always talk. When he starts talking she'll go from fast asleep to wide awake in the blink of an eye, and her head will snap right to him wherever he is. Then she smiles at him, and sometimes falls right back to sleep. When she doesn't fall back to sleep right away she'll usually reach for him and snuggle for a minute before starting to fuss and rub her eyes again, but usually she'll look at him with sleepy eyes and try to fight sleep for a minute before passing out again.

I love my baby girl, and she loves her Daddy. <3

I finally have the internet back!

It's been over 2 months since I've posted, so I have a tonage of stuff to update on. Please forgive me if this turns into a very lengthy post.

First bit of major news- We have re-located back to Bowdoinham. Neil had a vacation and it was WONDERFUL. I was frustrated all week because we were stripping wallpaper and painting until thursday night and I had to keep Camille away from the paint fumes, so I didn't really see Neil as much as I wanted to but in retrospect.. it was still a LOT more than I see him during a normal work week.

Now for the juicy baby details... sheis freaking huge! A little over 14lbs and 25.5 inches. Yikes! She's fitting into 6 mos and 6-9 mos clothes, and is sprouting her first tooth! She's been coughing from all the access drool all day and you can just start to see it poking through her gums.. when she lets you look anyway. Also, last week she just started sitting up by herself!

We have tried solid food a few times, but she isn't eating them on a regular basis just yet. Another 2.5 more weeks and we will celebrate her half birthday with the formal intro of solids into her every day diet. I can already tell you that she will be like her mommy and LOVE carrots.

She found her feet around 4 months, loves to play with her daddy's whiskers, and adores anything the color red or things that make noise, sing songs, and light up. She loves sing alongs, and recently started being more interested in chewing on the pages of her books than letting me read them to her.

So... much.. drool.. might.. drown... **glub glub glub** No but really.. everyone kept telling me that bibs would be my best friend.. and I kept thinking.. Why? I understood that I would need them when it came time to feed solids,  but I honestly didn't understand why everyone who got me anything for me also bought me 5 bibs. Well- I understand now. I get it. Bibs save me from needing to change Camille's drool soaked clothes 6x a day... and when I was only able to do laundry once a week.. that was kind of a big deal. A big thanks to everyone who contributed to my huge bib collection.

We had some portraits taken when she was around 3 months old.Walmart has yet to give us a disc that works properly, but I promise to share the photos once they come in.

The day that we had the photos done my mother brought us an exersaucer and it it Camille's favorite toy! She is enamoured with this little plastic apple on a flexible rod. It has one of those crinkly paper leaves on top and she's constantly bending it down and chewing on it. She is also fond of a little blue remote control thing that plays a few songs, and some little musical notes that are attached to it.

I really cannot believe how quickly the time is going by. My little baby is getting SO big.

One final note for this post... baby toys that sing songs and make animal noises will sound like they are demon possessed when the batteries are dying. If you aren't able to replace them right away and they continue to keep losing juice they will start to sound like they are making farting noises. It's hilarious.

Sew crazy for my baby!

No, I did not make an error!

This weekend, I decided I would stop procrastinating and start working further on my cloth diaper stash. I didn't actually sew any diapers.. but I managed to make 2 fleece soakers, and a third which is not finished yet. I've also sewn 2 pairs of baby legs (leg warmers for when baby needs their legs covered but their fluffy butt is too bulky for pants) and I found two wool sweaters at goodwill to make into soakers as well.

I got sew (ha! get it?!) excited about making the fleece soakers that I didn't bother to check C's measurements before I constructed them. Two of them... using the last bit of the lovely purple fleece I found in my giant mess of fabric. I made them a size small... and ironically enough- they are just that. She was asleep when I finished them last night, so when she woke up I excitedly changed her diaper and went to try on the soaker to find that I couldn't pull it up over her hips. :'( My baby is too big for a size small!!! Also this weekend, I had to adjust the straps in her car seat to the top slot. My baby is growing up!

So, I'm going to have to find someone in the area who has a newborn, or a CD baby who fits into a size small soaker. I'm glad I didn't try this with wool first! I have enough with the two sweaters to make 2 pairs of longies (or shorties.. probably shorties) and 2-3 soakers.

Also, when Neil gets paid I'm definitely heading back to target to buy more socks to make more baby legs with. They're long enough that they'll fit forever and a day and the socks I used to make them were only 1.75 for each pair. Baby legs run for 18 bucks a pop!

Also also.. I put a sleeper on her today that's for 6 months and it actually fits pretty good. Lots of growing room, but it looks much like the 0-3 sized sleepers did when I first brought her home. Where on earth have the last 4 months of my life gone? Somebody hit the pause button for me please!

Am I alone?

I've been posting on this pregnancy/parenting community since I found out I was pregnant. (It's called the bump).. These days I mostly lurk, but I've seen a lot of 'parenting technique/method' questions popping up lately, and it makes me wonder more every day- Am I the only mom just kind of.. wingin' it? Every day it's a new rash of post titles like: "What sleep training method are you using?", "What does your schedule look like?" "What is your little one's bedtime?" "What does your bedtime routine look like?"

Should it really be that complicated? Should I really have read books on different sleep training methods in order to.. teach my child how to.. sleep? Really? Honestly, I've never attempted to set any type of schedule, or get any specific type of routine down and my daughter sleeps very well. She usually goes down for the night between 9-11, sleeps until I move to the bed after Neil gets home (usually we head in there around 3am) at which point I usually change her diaper and put her on the boob until she falls asleep again. She wakes up one more time after the sun comes up to nurse before we're up for the day. During the day she eats when she's hungry, she naps when she's tired, and we play when she isn't eating or sleeping. I'm not sure why anyone would want to try and impose a 'method' of... being.. on that.. but to each his own I guess.

People have been doing this for centuries without Dr. So and so's foolproof methods for getting your child to.. eat and nap during the day and sleep at night, right? I'm not dogging on the people who read these books and use these methods, I guess more or less I'm just feeling like I'm the only mom on the block who's just... wingin' it. My baby is happy, healthy and hitting all of her developmental milestones so I must be doing something right!

I should be sleeping right?

Neil's schedule is so screwy. C usually goes to bed around 11pm, and sleeps until 11am. She usually wakes up to nurse 2-3 times in the early morning (after the sun has come up) and I often wait until after Neil gets home from work to go to bed. It's a struggle to get up in the morning, and I almost never nap with Camille during the day like I always say I'm going to.

I'm exhausted.. but if I go to sleep now, I won't see Neil until tomorrow morning. Then I'll get to be with him for an hour, and he'll be leaving for work.

Cami finally recognizes him though.. she used to cry every time he held her but I think she is getting used to him. He usually 'accidentally' wakes her up when he gets home from work. I can't be upset with him for it because he really doesn't see much of her during the week when he's out busting ass to feed us, and she always goes right back to sleep as soon as I put her on the boob.

While I'm not sleeping, I must gush C's latest accomplishment! I put her on the play mat today for some tummy time while I walked across the living room to hang the cloth diapers over the side of the laundry basket in front of the monitor heater to finish drying. She was facing the TV. I talked to her while I was arranging the dipes, and she made a noise at me so I looked up at her and she had scooted 1/4 around and was facing me with the tv to her left! She then proceeded to kick her legs back as if she were trying to move forward, and quickly became frustrated upon realizing she wasn't going anywhere and started squawking for me to come pick her up. Where have these last 3 months gone!? Is she really trying to crawl already? Go baby go!

She's also very close to rolling from back to front.

Ugh. I'm totally exhausted. It's almost 230 in the morning and I have no idea when Neil will be home.