19 Weeks

I sleep through eating but not through the night...whwhwahhahahahaa!


We had a busy weekend! Lily got to try some new foods, went to Grandpa's 60th birthday party, and then to the State Fair. She also gave Mommy daycare germs! YAY!

On Friday I woke up feeling awful! I was achy and my head hurt. Lily had been up half the night which had become ritual over the past two weeks. I had stuff at work I had to get done or I would have just stayed home. I had a low grade fever and a sore throat. Blah. Luckily I had a half day because we went to a work friend's wedding. So at lunch I left and got Lily from daycare. We proceeded to take a nap together when we got home and I felt better with a little Tylenol. It sucks because I cannot take a lot of medicines while I am nursing. It's like still being pregnant! But I think because I haven't been taking hardly anything for over a year the Tylenol actually worked and I felt better (not great) before the wedding. For the wedding we took Lily to see Teagan and Flynn. She was an angel as usual. We were home and had her in bed by 9:30 so we could get up early to go to Gastonia the next morning.

And by early I mean we left at 1:00pm. Life with a baby takes three times as long as life without one. I wanted to be out of the house by 11:00am. I failed miserably. But we got there well before the party started. It was fun to see everyone. Even though Uncle Larry did not remember Lily's name! I see where we fall on the totem poll. We got some cute pictures of the girls with their Grandpa. He was very excited to have us all there to celebrate him. The best part was that they had baby pictures of him when he was about six months old and it is completely apparent she gets her looks from the Eads side of the family. She is a spitting image of him! She definitely has the Eads eyes. They seem to be a very dominant feature.
The Happy Grandpa with Morgan and Lily

We came back early on Sunday after visiting Lily's Great Grandma. We relaxed and fed Lily and then headed off the NC State Fair with Lily, Aunt Linda and Glen. We wanted to go early evening because we thought Lily would love the lights once it got dark. She did! She was so well behaved and was just in awe of all the people. Now I will say this....it was COLD! Probably low 40s...maybe even 30s. We had her in Fleece PJs and a fleece blanket plus a little hoodie. This trip made us realize we need to buy her a coat ASAP. Besides her little red cheeks and her complete stubbornness of not keep her hands in the blanket she seemed comfortable. She only cried when her toboggan fell over her eyes and she couldn't see. We took her on the carousel which she loved! Although it was a little fast, and I started getting a little sick. Best part about the fair? The pig races. Be prepared for major cuteness. The pig racing guy also does Goat and Duck races in his routine. During the races he picks "callers" in the audience to cheer the animal on to victory. Well for the Duck Races Lily got picked to be "Ducky Gordon's" caller. And guess what? Her Duck won! She got a little ribbon and everything. It was a fabulous memory of our first family fair trip.
All bundled up

Aunt Linda and Lily
Mommy and Lily Carousel fun!
It was a little fast...most pictures were blurry but we got this one.
Disclaimer: the carousel had stopped
Glen and Lily

We are still struggling with sleeping. It is so frustrating to have a child who consistently slept through the night for months to regress and start waking up two or three times a night! Even when she woke up when she was a few weeks old it was only once! So I sat and thought about what could be causing this. Michael wants to start bottle feeding her, I want to start giving her cereal at night, is she sick, is she cold, nightmares? I decided it is my fault. For months I was the schedule nazi. Then I went back to work and she started daycare. Our schedule faltered. First she wanted to fall asleep earlier because she was tired from daycare. Then I was struggling to get dinner and stuff cooked because I was so busy with her. Then she started eating solids which adds chores to the daily routine. Finally her nap schedule was so unpredictable we couldn't depend on anything day to day. Some days she comes home and sleeps from 5-9 other she is up and wants to go down at 8. Last night I decided NO MORe! I want her on a solid food schedule (she has a pretty good milk schedule) and a set routine. New proposed schedule-varying as necessary to a certain extent.

5:30 Wake up, get dressed, nurse
7:00 drop off at day care
9:00 bottle and cereal
noon: bottle and vegetable
3:00 bottle
4:30 Picked up from daycare
6:00 nurse and vegetable
8:30 bath, get ready for bed
8:45 cereal
9:00 nurse, story, and bed
9:00-5:30 SLEEP!

Notice I have no nap times. I will let her control that..but from now on we do this! The schedule nazi is returning to reclaim her beauty rest. BTW did this yesterday and guess what? She slept all night! I am convinced kids need routine. Going back to work had killed that for us. But I am going to fight to get it back.

On a Mommy note I got my new Mommy do yesterday. I cut off all my hair. Michael has not said a nice thing about it so I know he doesn't like it but I love it. In his defense he hasn't said anything mean either, but saying nothing is sometimes worse. It means you have nothing nice to say. It is very Katie Holmes new hairstyle. With my big sunglasses like we could be total twins. Except for the hundred pounds more that I weigh and the 6 inches she has on my height. It took me like five minutes to blow dry it. AWESOME! And the best part? She cut all my color out. I have my natural hair color for the first time in 10 years! wow! Its actually really nice. Pregnancy gave me one good thing, well other than the whole baby thing. A nicer hair color. I will try and get a picture up this week. But I will say that getting my haircut has shown me a small glimmer of the person I was prebaby. I am starting to feel back to my old self. I have a few pair of pants I can now squeeze into that are not maternity, my hair looks nice again and not like a mother who has a newborn and is only getting three hours of sleep a night so she rolled out of bed and threw it in a ponytail. It is amazing what a haircut can do! I feel great. I said earlier that I started a weight loss group at work (down three pounds-pre fair food!) so hopefully the other pants will fit soon. Who knows..maybe the new hair can merge the old Stephaine with the new Mom Stephaine and form a super woman that can have the best of both worlds.