1st road trip

Lincoln and I are setting out tomorrow on his first road trip! We are going to St. Louis so Lincoln can meet my Grandma Mac, Aunt Judy, and hopefully some cousins. George has to work Saturday, so he is unable to go. I know, I know: a 3-hour car ride is not even close to a 4-hour (?) plane ride & airport navigation alone with baby! (Angela, you are amazing!!)

Plus, I won't technically be alone. Luckily we're going at the same time as Mom, Dad and Zack, and Mom is going to ride up with Linc and me--it's his first time in the car for longer than an hour, and I'm hoping for the best, but there's really no telling what he'll be like. We'll have to stop at least once so I can nurse him, so a little time out of the car seat should help. To be honest, I wouldn't want to be strapped into the car seat for very long, either!

We are staying with my Aunt Judy, and I'm hoping Lincoln has two good nights, especially since George won't be there to help me! The last two nights (and days, for that matter) haven't been great for our baby--I think it's a combination of teething and general growing pains--but I'm hoping he'll get back to being himself!

Wish us luck!

Lincoln is 5 months old!

Today is Lincoln's 5-month birthday!

(for the record, he starts out fully on the mat, but squirmas almost off)

Not a happy face, but look at me push up on my chunka arms!

Now there's a funny monkey face!

5 month stats:

Weight: 17 lbs, 10 oz (80th percentile or so)
Length: 27.5 inches (95th percentile!!)
Head circumference: ginormous

Linc is in 6-9 month onesies & rompers (many are almost too short already) & has been in 6 month sleepers for weeks (almost time for 9 month).

Do not get me started about the misleading sizing of baby clothes!!


He hasn't slept completely through the night again, but has been
doing great nonetheless: usually barely wakes up once and then falls right back asleep quickly.

Favorites:

Grabbing/eating his own feet
Cooing, giggling, laughing
Smacking faces
Kicking legs & flailing arms
Rainforest playmat
Books: reading & smacking at pictures
Rolling over (usually back to front)
Bearing weight on legs while holding onto our hands
Sleeping with one arm out of swaddle (a big deal for him!!)
Being on a strict schedule--it works wonders for him

Not a fan of:

Teething (neither is Mommy)
Getting overly tired/broken schedule
Being in the car seat--but honestly, who would be?!

Lincoln is usually super smiley & fun. Mostly just a happy baby!


Lincoln will now bid you adieu. Good night!

Our little monkey

Lincoln is hysterical. Exhibit A:

He starts out on his back, parallel to the playmat, and facing away from the raised, sunshiney part. In quick succession, he rips off the velcro butterflies and squirmas to this:


Next comes the side roll to grab the butterflies he just flung:

And then the pull up:

Followed by the crunch:

And then the complete sit-up!

This child is going to have rock-hard abs!!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow...

Praise Him all creatures here below:

Lincoln SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT LAST NIGHT!

As in, 8:20 pm-7:20 am. 11 hours!!

Why? How? Only God knows.

You see, last week, Linc had a couple of really good nights, once sleeping from 9-ish pm to 7:30, with only one reswaddling around 3 am, during which he didn't really wake up. I also dream fed him around 10:30. So we counted that as sleeping through the night, even though it involved some work during the night. And he'd had a couple of pretty good nights the week before.

But in between good nights, we had some of the most hellish nights since the end of February, when he was a month old: he was up every 45 minutes to 2 hours, all night long!! Why? Not a clue. He didn't need to eat, didn't need anything. He just started screaming. This was after he was acclimated to his new, 4-hour schedule and dream feed, and he was taking pretty good naps during the day and eating well, too. We could not figure out why he was regressing! And we were not happy.

Last night, he made up for everything. 11 hours, without ANY work on our part in the middle of the night! Here's what happened.

Linc usually takes an evening nap between 4:30 & 5 for an hour or a little more. Last night, I went out with some girlfriends around 5:15 pm. Linc had gone down for a nap around 4:45. George said that Linc woke up about 5 minutes after I left, and he never got him to go back to sleep. He finally let him just stay up and fed him around 7, the usual time.

Linc's bedtime is supposed to be between 7:30 and 8. Well, I got home a bit after 7, and he wasn't even acting tired, in spite of his really short nap. I finally put him down around 8:30 or so when he was yawning. He didn't go right to sleep, and got a bit fussy 10 minutes later, so I went in, stuck the paci back in his mouth and sshhd him for a minute or two--and he was out.

I had been considering ending the dream feed this week (figured he can make it an extra 3 hours without eating), but thought I'd give him a few more days to get used to being swaddled with 1 arm out, and then end the dream feed next week. Well, when I went in to dream feed him at 10:30, he was sleeping SO peacefully, and had not been up at all since I stuck the paci back in his mouth. And I just had this feeling not to mess with him: something was telling me to leave him alone and see what happened. (could only be God!!)

So I pumped instead and went right to bed, which was wonderful. 10:30 is early for me!

I woke up around 2:30 am because the toilet was making odd noises (I should have been a plumber) and checked on Lincoln: he was still out like a light.

I woke up again when my alarm went off at 7--and I had not heard Lincoln make a peep all night long! Naturally, I freaked out, imagining all sorts of horrible things, usually ending in suffocation (he got loose from the swaddle and suffocated! He rolled on his tummy and suffocated! He just...stopped breathing! and/or suffocated!) and ran to check on him. And had to laugh: he was on his belly, perpendicular in the crib. The perpendicular thing is quite normal (I swear this child is a born gymnast), but the belly thing is new.

And he was still breathing! He hadn't suffocated!

He usually eats at 7, but since he'd slept 11 HOURS, I thought I'd wait and see what happened, so went back to bed. He woke up around 7:20 and was perfectly fine. In fact, he ate on both sides for his 7:30 feeding, which he never does, so he was more than fine. Must have been skipping the dream feed that did it.

SO. It's too late to make a long story short, but we are hopeful that last night was the start of a new, wonderful and restful chapter in Linc's--and our--life. I'm not quite naive enough to think that he will sleep through the night, every night, for the rest of his life, but I'm cautiously hopeful that good nights will now outnumber bad ones.

Or maybe it was just a fluke, and we'll be back to 2-hour snippets of sleep. God forbid!

But it's 10:33 pm, and he hasn't made a peep since I put him down at 8:30 (again, with a very short evening nap). Maybe I'll get some lengthy, uninterrupted sleep tonight for the first time since the second trimester, when I had to start getting up 2-3 times a night to pee.

In order to find out, I actually have to go to bed. Good night!

Who needs a frozen wash cloth...

when there's a cold glass around??! Feels good on my toofers that are trying to break through. Tasty!

Yum yum!

Hey, there's my foot!

Ha ha! Got it.

YUMMY!

Changes

Slowly, and almost imperceptibly, my life has started to "return to normalcy" (that's a history nerd reference to Warren G. Harding's 1920 presidential campaign slogan after the horrors of World War I).

We have gone from 2-hours feedings to 3-hour feedings to, about 2.5 weeks ago, feeding Lincoln every 4 hours (and not at all during the night). Around the same time, I put Lincoln on a more set eat-sleep-nap routine. Since I feed him at the same time every day, life is much smoother, more predictable and easier to plan.

I realized the almost "normalcy" one evening as I was prepping for the night. For several months, this has meant:

*making sure the pump is ready (since George would take a night feeding with what I had previously pumped, pumping before feeding Linc the next time was a necessity to prevent him from drowning)
*bringing the nursing pillow upstairs to Linc's room
*filling two 8-ounce glasses and a mug with water to have on hand during night feedings
*filling two more glasses with water for my bedside table and downstairs
*and making sure that the chapstick, handkerchief & glasses cleaning cloth that live in Linc's room hadn't wandered off in the course of the day

But several evenings ago, I realized that I only needed the mug filled up for Linc's room, since I stopped night feedings a couple of weeks ago after the pediatrician said that Linc doesn't really need them (75th percentile in weight & height!). After Linc goes to bed between 7:30 and 8, I do a "dream feed" around 10:30, and then he doesn't eat again until 7 AM. That doesn't mean that he SLEEPS this entire time (that's another post altogether), but it's amazing that he doesn't eat for 9 hours! I think he can go longer without eating, but before I drop the dream feed, I want him sleeping through the night consistently. Of course, that may not happen until he's 21, so I may drop it soon anyway. :)

My point is, feeding a sleeping baby once a night for 10 minutes is MUCH different than feeding a partially- or fully-awake baby 4-5 times a night for 15-30 minutes. The prep needed is so much less, it's amazing--and like I said, this didn't really dawn on me until last week sometime, the change was so imperceptible. Now my nighttime prep is making sure the pump is ready (dream feed is only on one side), bringing the nursing pillow upstairs, and filling up one glass with water. That's it!

Now, if Lincoln would only SLEEP the entire night! (post coming soon...)

Virus

Desktop has a nasty computer virus.
Laptop is slower than heck and obnoxious to type on.
So hopefully, at some point, I will further update this blog!
We have a ton of new photos I can't wait to share, including
Lincoln with foot firmly in mouth. Rockin'!

We are having a blast this summer!

First Mother's Day

My first Mother's Day with Lincoln was such fun! I got two cards from Linc, complete with handprint, footprint and signed name (George actually put the pen in his hand and helped write it), plus flowers to plant in the front landscaping once it is weed-free.

We spent some time at my folks' house; we always have such a good time!

Photos are better late than never, right?

Lincoln & Mommy

Mama loves her little Lincoln!


Naked baby boy

Doesn't he look like he's thinking "WTF?"?

That was our Mother's Day. Hope yours was equally wonderful!

Lincoln speaks!

Playing with Grandma Welch

Fun times with Grandma Welch!