No naps

I was able to get Edie to sleep all of 1.5hrs during the day. I was going a little mad.

Well, we got no naps, but some fun photos.

Just gotta make the best of each day, right?

Song Bird

Two weeks ago, Edith started talking to herself in the crib. She only did that for two days and then it was back to her regular cooing. When she's in talk mode, day sleep is horribly interrupted. Normally, she's pretty good about putting herself to sleep when it's nap time, but on such days she'd just talk herself out until she was super tired and then mad cranky.

Yesterday Edie found her voice again.

Before Kelvin left for work today, I was starting to feel stressed. I was so tired from trying to get Edie to nap all of yesterday. Kelvin said he'd pray for us. So Kelvin, half asleep, and me, fully anxious, prayed for the day.

I guess if I have great faith, I wouldn't be surprised by what happened, but well, I don't and I am.

I put the little song bird in her crib and sure enough she kept talking and talking, maybe a good 20 minutes and it didn't sound like she was slowing down. But then, silence. I tip-toed to her room and suddenly she just stopped and started sucking her fingers. She fell asleep shortly after that. For her second nap I didn't even see her yawn (sometimes she doesn't yawn even though she's tired), but after a walk around the block, I popped her into the crib, expecting a bout of protest or singing, but instead, she started sucking her fingers right away and slept. Her naps were short and she was cranky throughout the day, but compared to yesterday, today was a breeze. I don't think it's how well/poorly she slept today, but I felt God was telling me not to try so hard to control everything, especially not a growing little person.

I kept thinking about verse 1 of Jesus Paid It All:

I hear the saviour say
Thy strength indeed is small
Child of God, watch and pray
Find in me, thine all in all

Edie gives these long speeches only when she's alone in the crib, but Kelvin caught a little clip just before nap time. Make sure you listen to the last 15 seconds. Can you hear what she's doing?

Edith's Birth Story

Edie was born on February 5th, 2012 at 1:30 in the afternoon. Here’s my side of her birth story.

At 40 weeks plus 4 days, I was getting anxious as to when baby was coming. I was annoyed at the physical discomforts and not enjoying the waiting game one bit. At this point of the pregnancy I was still sleeping but in chunks. Sleeping on my side, the pressure/pain on my hipbone would wake me up every 2-3 hours. During the day I had little energy and moved about awkwardly. There was a lot of pressure in my groin and my Braxton Hicks contractions were sometimes 20 minutes long. The doctor always commented on how low the baby was, so I was expecting her to be early, or at least on time (My sis and I both arrived on our due date).

Pretty grumpy towards the end.

"Alone" in Toronto

It was two weeks before Kelvin's board exam, which just so happened to coincide with Edith's peak sleeplessness. We decided it would be best if I stayed with my sister in Toronto if any studying was to be done. So Edie and I packed up and left to see our families. I cried so many times before we left. I couldn't even remember when the last time I was apart from Kelvin, let alone apart with a cranky baby.

The first couple of days were rough; I was literally losing my mind. Little precious princess decided she did not want to eat or sleep. The no sleep I was expecting, but the refusal to nurse or drink from the bottle was crazy stressful. The first day back, my sister took us out to get some supplies, but all we got was the parking lot, with Edie screaming and crying, my face drenched in tears the size of Niagara Falls, and my sister on the phone with Tele-Health next to the chaos.

Growing Patience

I cried and laughed when I read this.  For me, this is too true, but I ask Edie if she'd want me to throw her into the sewer. I haven't asked her lately, but I did a lot when we first met.

From Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott:

"He's so fine all day, so alert and beautiful and good, and then the colic kicks in. I'm okay for the first hour, more or less, not happy about things but basically okay, and then I start to lose it as the colic continues.  I end up incredibly frustrated and sad and angry.  I have had some terrible visions lately, like of holding him by the ankle and whacking him against the wall, the way you "cure" an octopus on the dock.  I have gone so far as to ask him if he wants me to go get the stick with the nails, which is what my friend Kerry says to her dogs when they are being especially bad.  I have never hurt him and don't believe I will, but I have had to leave the room he was in, go somewhere else, and just breathe for a while, or cry, clenching and unclenching my fists.  I have four friends who had babies right around the time I did, all very eccentric and powerful women, and I do not believe that any of them are having these awful thoughts.  Of course, I know they're not all being Donna Reed either, but one of the wort things about being a parent, for me, is the self-discovery, the being face to face with one's secret insanity and brokenness and rage.  Someone without children, who thinks of me as being deeply spiritual, said the other day that mother hood gave me the opportunity to dance with my feelings of inadequacy and anger, and my automatic response was to think, Oh, go fuck yourself, you New-Age Cosmica Rama dingdong head - go dance with that one".

 
Don't just stand there, ma. Pick me up already!

Sleepy Edie Returns

Day 3 back home.

Oh la la Edie is so sleepy. Who IS this baby?

I still can't believe she can soothe herself to sleep in the crib. Sometimes she seems to be begging me to put her in the crib, and literally it's 20min after she just got up. If she wants to sleep, I'm gonna let her!

Today I'm thankful that I made AND ate breakfast on my own. That's a first, as I usually have enough time to shove a piece of bread down my throat before Edie wakes up.

First Day Back

After two weeks in Toronto (Post Update Here), Edith and I arrived back home yesterday afternoon.

We had a rough night today. Tears, oh there were lots of them from her and then me. I even yelled at her and you bet she yelled at me. I am preparing for a long night, so before I forget, I better write down the things I AM thankful for.

Edie napped in her crib and soothed herself to sleep twice today! I totally wasn't expecting that. She didn't put up much of a fight at all and seemed to really look forward to hoping into her crib. With her improved sleep and mood, even Kelvin can't believe this is the same baby. The bean also seems to be genuinely happy to be home. She'd look around and smile, not the delirious-I'm-crazy-tired smiles, but just a normal happy smile as she glances around the room. And of course she's over the moon to play with daddy again. Too sweet to see them reunite.

Edie and I drive each other crazy. Is there any other kind of mother-daughter relationship?

Boba-ing the Babe

Here's what I typed up on my phone yesterday morning:

These days the only way I can get baby Edie to nap is to wear her in the soft carrier. No amount of rocking, bouncing or cuddles can stop her protest and back arching, but as soon as I pop her in the carrier she's helpless to sleep. She falls asleep really fast (5-20min) and I'm surprised how easy it is. When she was smaller I would rock her on my chest and use a scarf or the sides of my sweater to cover her, so perhaps this reminds her of that environment. The tricky part is that you can't do anything once she's asleep. If you keep walking after she's asleep, she wakes. If you try to transfer her, she wakes (when you do it doesn't make a difference).

While we're away from home these two weeks, my morning goes like this: baby wakes up (6am to 8am), walk to Tim Hortons, eat breakfast, read/email and wait for Edie to wake up, then go back to my sister's house. Sometimes Edie wakes up screaming. The Timmies patrons stare and probably wonder why the black lump on my chest is bubbling and screeching away. I repeat the process three to four times during the day, minus the trip to Timmies.

Yeah it sucks Edie's nap requirement is so restricting, but at least there's one sure thing that allows her to sleep. All four grandparents and my sister have "boba-ed" her, giving me a much welcomed break during the day.

Today's update: I shouldn't be surprised since it's happened more than once, but I still can't believe how fast and dramatic Edith changes. As of yesterday, Edie seems to have regained her sleep abilities. Still wearing her to nap but she doesn't wake up as easily. She is also a lot less fussy. Last night I let her sleep with her arms out for the first time in about three weeks. We rarely swaddled her since she was a newborn but had to do it because her arms kept waking her up in the last little while. What do you know, last night she slept from 9pm to 4am, occasionally sucking her fingers to soothe herself back to sleep. She was wide awake and crying loudly at 4am, but it's so encouraging to at least see some change in her sleep behaviour.

I'll try to put her to bed around the same time once we get home. For now I think she deserves to hang out like a koala on me, with all the new stimulus and schedules here.

I'm thankful we bought the carrier.

Edie is still showing no signs of a predictable schedule. It's tiring but I'll TRY to roll with it (really what else is there to do?). She seems healthy and content.