love.

i don't have too much new to report. just the fact that we love her so much. we sit and stare and tell her how perfect she is all day long. she's going to have a huge ego and i'm okay with that. :)

last post was about a rough night we had. luckily since then we've figured things out. that little booger was getting too strong for a regular swaddle and hated the sleep sack, so we've moved to the miracle blanket. it is nothing short of a miracle. ever since then she sleeps 6- 6.5 hrs in a row. every. night. then back down for another 2-3 hrs. so we put her to bed around 10 and she gets up around 4 or 4:30. it's pretty awesome. we've now moved her completely to her crib. insert smiley and frowny face. i loved having her in our room, but it's time and she's ready to be in her crib so she's there now.

the other night though one of my fears came true. it was one of her first nights in her crib all night and i got up to feed her at 4:30 then went back to sleep. i woke up at 7 and thought it was eerily quiet (normally i'd hear her sound machine at least) so i checked the monitor and it was off. the battery died. we plugged it in and when we turned it on she was screaming. i don't know how long she'd been screaming, and i know she's not going to starve to death or lose trust in me that fast, but i still hated it. brandon insists she hadn't been crying that long. he's the rational one and i hope he's right.

needless to say we're in love with her and couldn't have asked for anything more. she coos a lot more now so she's certainly finding her voice. she also thinks she has complete control over her head. i can tell when she's tired b/c she'll just rest it on my shoulder instead of looking around with those big ol' eyes. AND she's starting to smile more and more. now she smiles a lot at her mobile. i  can't get a picture fast enough, but don't worry, there will be tons once we can catch them.

firsts.

we had 2 firsts last night.

1. we cooked, ate (while it was hot) and cleaned up dinner. together. if you've had a newborn you understand this.

2. she decided she'd like to wake us up every 2- 3 hrs. last night went like this.
9:30- down for bed
12:30- eat
3:30- eat
5:30- eat (and try to stay up for the day. ummm...no.)
7:00- wake up for the day


so one was a good thing and the other quite tiring. the sleeping/eating thing may be our my fault. we're trying her in the flat part of the pack n' play and last night i wanted to try the sleep sack instead of swaddling, brandon did not want to but he lets me experiment. i'm sure he was really glad at 12:30 when i woke him up and said, "you win. swaddle her."  she is not a fan of the sleep sack. hoping tonight goes better. that really was the first time we'd had a night like that. but dinner was nice.

dilemma.

finley's taking a nap (thank goodness. yesterday afternoon was kinda rough with her not napping from 12-6), and everytime she takes a nap here is what goes through my head:

should i take a nap? go to the bathroom while i can? eat something? get something productive but not too noisy done? watch a favorite show? blog? paint my nails? take a shower?

needless to say i rarely get anything productive done. and that's ok. plus normally i'll think she's not going to sleep that long to i'll either do this or watch tv and then without a doubt she's out for 2 hrs and i totally could have taken a nap. or vice-versa. anyways, i'm going to try to take a little rest (cue her making noises. no really, i swear she knows when i'm going to lay down). she slept for 2 1/2 hrs earlier today but she was on me so i couldn't exactly do anything. good thing i grabbed the remote control so i could catch up on grey's anatomy and might have watched real housewives too. don't judge, i deserve some mindless tv.

1month.

here is what we know about our perfectly perfect daughter so far. she...

loves to be swaddled (but always gets her left arm out by morning)
wants to be on the move all the time
is stubborn (at least when it comes to naps)
is stunningly beautiful
is relaxed
fits in the crook of our necks
loves the sound machine
loves books
makes us smile
calms down during a walk
is a rockstar sleeper at night (4.5-5.5 hr stretch!)
does not like to get dressed or get a diaper change
likes car rides
loves to keep her hands in fists by her face
is a daddy's girl
loves to snuggle
is strong
does not enjoy tummy time
likes the paci sometimes
calms down immediately if you "shhhhhh" her
loves staring at the fan
is a noisy sleeper
has stolen our hearts
could not be more loved

Happy One Month!!!

"routine."

well fin and i have a bit of a "routine" now, which i like a lot. now it's by no means strict or terribly reliable. and its not realy based on times exactly, but its a routine--for us anyway. here's how the day goes.

*she wakes up (hopefully between 7 and 8) to eat
*she "plays"-- in her bouncer, swing, play mat, in my lap reading, listen to music-- for about 2 hrs
*rock her to sleep-- now depending on her tiredness this first nap can take a while to kick in, or sometimes its nonexistent-- she'll sleep for about 45 min if i'm lucky
*wakes up, put a cute outfit on, and eat
*she "plays" and we go on a walk-- normally the walk will knock her out and she'll sleep in her car seat
*wakes up, eats
*plays
you get the idea. this stays pretty constant till a bit later in the afternoon when her "witching hour" sets in around 5:00. this is when she's pretty fussy for no reason. or at least if there is a reason brandon and i can't figure it out (or haven't yet). at this time we have to pull out all the stops. that means either go for another walk which starts with her screaming bloody murder (no seriously) or putting her in the baby bjorn. both work miracles for now. the great thing about the bjorn is we can actually get stuff done too. we put her to bed around 9 or 10 and let her sleep till she wakes up hungry. i try to go to bed at the same time so i can get as much sleep as possible. i don't really wake brandon up in the middle of the night during the week since he can't feed her. if she needs to be reswaddled i definitely wake him up b/c i just don't do it as well as he does.

so that's basically our day/night in a nutshell. it revolves around a 2.5-3 hr schedule and it works for us. sometimes we'll get lunch with brandon or run an errand. i try to plan those to happen right after she eats. she doesn't mind the car ride and is generally happy as long as she's full and has a clean diaper.

and 2 other awesome things this week! 1. i fit into my favorite pair of sevens!!!!! it's nice to wear pants that have a zipper and a button. i'm back down to 100 lbs. i'm extremely blessed with my metabolism and i will never take that for granted again. i eat worse {and probably more} now than i did when i was pregnant. but i'm "trying" to stay over 100 lbs for insurance reasons.  and 2. finley put herself to sleep in her crib TWICE! when it's time for her nap i give it a try (put her in her crib when she's just nodding off) and if it works great and if not we try the next nap. oh, and 3. she's still doing a great job sleeping at night. wakes only to eat and passes back out. in fact the other night she went to bed at 9:30 and got up for the day at 9:05. it. was. awesome.

so basically i've learned that this whole parenting thing is trial and error. we figure if the night is terrible we just wont do the same thing again. and if it was awesome then we just got lucky. :)

books.

finley is already a lover a books. this makes me very happy. we read at least 2 books a day--normally quite short ones that rhyme. we read books to her while i was pregnant and of course i would read at least one book a day to my kiddos at school, so she's already heard a ton of books. sometimes she really will look at the pictures (how much of it she can see i'm not sure) and sometimes its like she's ignoring me, but she's quiet so i assume she likes it. sometimes she likes them SO much she falls asleep. she was enjoying books so much that i had read the ones i could reach from the chair and the only other thing i had to read was my nook. so i started reading my jen lancaster book "pretty in plaid" to her. which she also thoroughly enjoyed. i feel like i should read her something educational though. i LOVE jen lancaster, she literally makes me laugh out loud, but it's pure nonsense. well actually they're all based on her real life, but they. are. ridiculous. i finished the book so maybe i'll move on to classics. a little "pride and prejudice" oughtta put her sleep nicely. :)

flying.

when people say "it goes by so fast!" they're not kidding. i can't believe it's already been almost 3 weeks. 3 weeks have never gone by faster. everyday flies by. i guess that happens when you spend them feeding, changing, rocking and admiring. and who knew you could fall in love with someone so fast?

things are still going smoothly (knock on wood). she's certainly more alert during the day and really doesn't like to take naps in the morning. i try to not let her stay up for more than 2 hrs at a time, but she doesn't want to miss anything that's going on. i promise her that she's not going to miss anything. that i too am going to close my eyes as soon as she does. i'll take one for the team and not do anything terribly exciting, but apparently she doesn't believe me. right now she's taking her first nap in her crib. i thought maybe i should try to introduce her crib a little at a time. i took advantage of her being exhausted (and full) when we got back from the doctors. she's not too fussy on a daily basis--only if she really needs something. when she gets worked up she really gets worked up. we're talking snorting, screaming bloody murder, who knew her mouth could get that wide.

first nap in her crib!

at night we've been experimenting to see what gets us the most sleep. :) since she's gaining weight we don't have to wake her up in the middle of the night to eat, she can just let us know. so we usually put her to bed bed around 10 or 11. she sleeps for 3-4 hrs, eats, goes back to bed (most of the time very easily), and sleeps another 2-3 hours. i think she's actually a pretty good sleeper at night so far. we have a routine down and she LOVES the sound machine. we have surround sound b/c she has one going near her and we have our own. 

brandon went back to work this week. i would of course much rather him be here with us, but we're so lucky that he could take 2 weeks off. he's been going in at 6:30 like he has for a long time, but now he actually leaves at 4:30 like he "should." fin loves when he gets home. i think she gets tired of just me all day. it's definitely harder by myself. harder meaning when am i supposed to eat? or go to the bathroom?

this is the face she made at the doctors today after she was poked and prodded.

we had her 2 week appt. today and i can't say enough good things about our doctor. she'll just stay in the room with you as long as you want. she's someone you want to get cofee with. love. her.  so anyways, our little oinker is 8 lbs. 2 oz! dr. eddings said she would have been happy with just 7 lb. 3 oz. our little over achiever. :) her head is 14 and she's 20.75 inches long. she came out at 20. dr. said she's still perfect! and they also pricked her heel which she was NOT a fan of.

other things finley's not a fan of:
diaper changes
baths

hm...that might be it right now. time really is flying by.