3 Months!

Lola is 3 months old today! 

Its hard to believe that she's gone from this:

to this:

Well, actually more like this (as the above picture was taken just after she turned 2 months, below closer to 3 months):

This month has been by far the best month. Lola is getting so much more aware of the world around her and interacting with it more and more. Its incredible to watch and be a part of. Her smiles are so connected now. She'll look right at you, babble a bit, and then smile huge smiles, sometimes even with a little shriek or coo too. 

She'll also now smile and babble to toys. Yes! She's become interested in toys! Our friend Arie sent Lola a set of material Lamaze blocks awhile back and nowadays Lola cannot get enough of them. Which brings me to the next great thing that has happened this month: Lola can now amuse herself. Its amazing. If she's in a good mood (usually the period right after eating), she can be left on her own with her blocks for probably a good 20 minutes before she protests. And when I check on her during that time, my God the smiles she gives! I can't tell you how great it feels to be doing something productive with BOTH my hands while hearing happy baby noises coming from the play pen. Best sounds ever.

My favourite time with Lola lately has been the mornings. After her feeding we hang out and talk to each other (incoherently of course) and then I leave Lola with some toys while I make breakfast and let out Charlie and then we watch Kelly and Michael together and chat some more until Lola starts getting fussy and I know its time to walk her around a little bit so she can fall asleep for her morning nap. Our mornings have gone from a confusing, hectic, sleepy time to a lazy, enjoyable, sweet couple of hours :)

Lola is also developing so much every day. I swear she gets bigger by the hour! Besides her social skills expanding, theres also a million new things that she starts doing every day. Her cheeks are red and shes a drool machine - just a couple of the signs that she is teething. And she is starting to grasp and use her hands in increasingly more sophisticated ways. It is SO exciting to watch all of this happen. And I get beyond proud of her every time I notice something new that she's able to do. 

Also, Lola is continuing to sleep well at night, despite her doctor's statement of "that won't last." She goes through periods where its a battle to get her down and we wonder if it was always this way or if it will ever change and then suddenly she'll go back to easily falling asleep as soon as its time to. We've been changing her sleep routine to suit her changing needs and that has helped so hopefully if we continue to follow her lead, we'll be okay. She's also starting to want to go to bed earlier in the evening. For the past few nights I've been baby free before 9pm! One night even as early as 8:30! Its amazing how much I can accomplish when she's asleep that early. 

There's a million more things that I could say about this month, its been so enjoyable, but I better get moving as the monkey is going to wake up any minute now and besides her to contend with today, we have 16 members of our family coming over for Christmas Eve dinner tonight!!

Merry Christmas!!! 

Growth Spurt

Poor Lola, somewhere between me dragging her across the continental US, her being held by a million different family members and friends, and taking her on three different germ-filled plane rides, she caught her first cold. A quick note about this - I first heard a bit of congestion on Saturday night but she didn't yet have a runny nose or cough. We had her two month doctor visit the following Monday where I explained this. The physician's assistant in training said that she did indeed hear some congestion in her nasal passageway but when the doctor checked he said he didn't hear any at all and that she did not have a cold...I suspected he suspected that I was a bit of a hysterical mother. Well, Monday night came along and boy did the runny nose start! And the cough. And the irritability that comes with being stuffy and trying to get some sleep. So all this to say - mommy always knows best. Even if she didn't go to med school.

Anyway, yesterday morning I woke up at 8:30am to discover that for the first time in a very very very long time, I had woken up on my own and not because of a crying baby. Lola was still fast asleep! I hardly knew what to do with myself! I chalked this up to her cold and we went about our day (feeling very well rested).

Around 8:00pm Lola seemed ready for bed (aka she was wailing inconsolably) so up we went to get her settled. I did everything I normally do but when it came time to put Lola in her bassinet, she was NOT having it. And every time I picked her up again, she acted as if she was starving. I was getting frustrated, to me it seemed that she was irritable from her cold and just trying to use me to soothe herself. I'm all for cuddling my baby girl and soothing her with some rocking and soft talking but I really do not like to be used as a human pacifier. Maybe thats not very motherly of me to say, but its how I feel. I'd probably feel differently if Lola wasn't so great at pacifying herself - she is skilled at using her hands to calm herself down - something we've worked on with her since day one when we noticed her natural inclination to do so. Since she has successful alternate strategies, I'd like to keep my boobs to nourishment only. Especially because (with the exception of her first few weeks of life when she was often too exhausted to stay awake for any long period of time, regardless of what activity she was engaged in) Lola is not one to fall asleep feeding and continue sleeping. If she falls asleep feeding you can bet your bottom dollar that she will be waking up within minutes and she will be pissed that you tricked her into finishing a meal early. All of the combined (mostly that last point) made me highly resistant to wanting to try feeding her again to soothe what I thought was her cold-related discomfort.

But Lola was insistent and so I gave in. And then it happened again. And then again. It was around 9:30pm when Sean came up to see what was going on and found me STILL feeding. I told him my concerns about feeding to soothe and he understood but pointed out that right that second, she seemed to actually be eating, not just comfort feeding. He was right. Lola had changed from suckling to guzzling. It was probably another half hour before she was satisfied enough to go to sleep.

Sean wondered aloud if possibly this was a growth spurt. I doubted it but thought maybe I had remembered something about that happening at 10 weeks so I did something I usually advise myself - and any other new mother - not to do... I googled it. Normally googling things leads to nasty discussion boards where mothers take out all of their ugly mommy frustrations in the worst way (i.e. by being incredibly judgmental and mean to other similarly tired, frustrated, vulnerable mommies). But, this time was very different.

This time, we got confirmation that what we were experiencing was indeed a growth spurt. One mother  wrote "my son slept like a log the night before" - I literally had said those exact words that morning! Another mother wrote "she suddenly looked so much bigger" - not one hour earlier both Sean and I gasped at how large Lola suddenly looked on her change table. Another: "your baby may act like she can't possibly get enough to eat even though she just had a full feeding." In almost every article or discussion board we read, it was nearly word-for-word what we were going through. This was the second time this happened to us - just the day before others wrote online about their experiences with their babies after they got their immunizations. One mother wrote "my baby would be sleeping and then suddenly start screaming" and another wrote about how even when she was feeding her baby, it would suddenly pull away and start crying like she had never heard before. Every word was spot-on.

I think that's kind of amazing - the universality of the experience of parenthood.

I'm sure we would have figured it out eventually on our own but it was so nice to have an explanation and confirmation right in the moment. It allowed me to relax and just go with the flow. I didn't second guess whether what I was doing was right or if it would screw up all the work Lola had done in sleeping through the night. Instead, it made me commit to the work needed. I fed her until she was completely and utterly satisfied and I prepared my bedside table for a sleepless night. And instead of feeling frustrated about being a human cafeteria for 2 hours straight followed by similar feedings in the very early morning, I got to just enjoy the fact that my little girl was growing into a bigger girl.

This morning she again slept like a log until 9:00am then fed like a ravaged feral animal. I thought about three months ago when we still had yet to meet Lola and we worried about her lack of growth. I thought about all of the ultrasounds where I watched the technician consult growth charts with worried expressions. I thought about hearing that she had dropped from the 25th percentile to the 10th percentile in weight. I thought about having to be induced because she wasn't getting big enough in my belly. Then Lola finished feeding and smiled so big, with her whole face. My arm felt sore from supporting the weight of her body for an extended feeding, her 3-month outfit was fitting tightly, and her cheeks were round and full.

It was wonderful.

2 Months

On November 24, Lola turned 2 months old. I started this post then and forgot about it soooo, a few weeks later, here it is:

Two months doesn't seem right, I can't imagine nor remember life without Lola in it - it feels like she's been around for ages! I guess thats what happens when everyday is so different from the one before. 

Motherhood has been so different than what I thought it would be. I thought I would feel tired and irritable all the time and that as a result, I'd get easily frustrated (i.e. what happens to me when I don't get enough sleep). I worried that I'd be impatient with Lola and maybe not enjoy my time with her at first. I guess that's me expecting the worst again. But, I'm happy to say none of that has been true. Every day is such a joy and I find myself often thinking (or telling Sean), "I love being Lola's mom."

 I love it so much. 

I mean, its not hard to feel that way. She has the cutest little face and does the funniest things every single day. She has a great little personality and is still mostly a calm, go with the flow kinda girl. She definitely has a set of lungs on her but for the most part, when she cries loudly and with vigor, its usually for a purpose that we can distinguish (although not always something we can help her with, like when she needs to burp and nothing we've tried has worked). And best of all, she's a great sleeper. I can't stress how much we have appreciated this about her! Even in her early days we could tell Lola liked her sleep which made those nights when we could barely go 2.5hours between her waking much easier to get through. I somehow knew that it would eventually get so much better and I was right. This month Lola started sleeping in 6-7 hour stretches and then for 5 nights she slept through the entire night! Its astounding and incredible and I love her so much for gifting us with that!

Also this month, Lola is smiling more and more each day. Whenever we are having a bit of a stressful or overwhelming day, if Lola smiles at me it totally turns it around. 

I can't get enough of that smile. I often waiver between grabbing my phone to record her adorable silly face and reminding myself to stay in the moment and just enjoy. Honestly, I need to do more of the latter. Yes its nice to have pictures like above but fully being in the moment and enjoying her smile just for what it is - and not using it as an Instagramable moment - is what life is all about. Its funny, it almost feels like if you don't share it with others online, its as if it didn't happen. I'm really going to make an effort to live life with Lola so that I feel less and less like that is true!

I've also learnt a lot about myself these last two months...but as Lola is crying due to not being held so I'll have to save that for another time. Oh yeah, this month we also learned that nothing stops Lola crying like me simply holding her. With both hands of course, none of that lazy one-handed holding will do. I swear this kid of mine hates productivity!

Thankful

This past weekend we celebrated American Thanksgiving. It was a bittersweet one. On the one hand, Lola got to visit Allentown for the first times, she met so many friends and family, it snowed at just the right time making everything feel so festive, and we all laughed a lot and ate a lot.

 But, we were missing a lot of our family this year - Sean had to work, three of our Thanksgiving regulars had to be elsewhere for the first time in years - and it was our first Thanksgiving without Uncle Rich.

Despite all of this, it didn't feel as sad as I thought it would. I mean, it didn't feel the same as years prior but it didn't feel sad, and I was happy for that. Instead, it felt like the last of the hard things to get through and the end of the challenging year we had with so much loss and so much worry. Last year at this time Uncle Rich was so sick, Nonno had just passed away, Oscar the dog was only getting worse, and though we didn't know it at the time, Grandpa was a few weeks away from what would be a four-month touch and go hospital stay. Everything just felt so tinged with sadness and everything felt off.

And Christmas was tough too. With Grandpa in the hospital, mom and dad stayed in Oakville. And even though we all tried our best, Nonno's missing presence was a huge weight on the festivities.

So, to feel positive this Thanksgiving - the start of the holiday season - was a huge relief and I think a great sign of things to come. Having Lola here this year certainly helps too. Its a new time in our families, the start of new traditions, the beginning again.

Lola and I really, really missed Sean and it was so weird not having him around with us. There were certainly no shortage of helping hands though. Whenever I needed a second to myself (or even when I didn't!), Lola always had someone ready and willing to hold her, even if she was crying up a storm! That in and of itself was a vacation for me.

 I felt so relaxed and I got to go about my day in a way quite similar to how I might have had I not had a little baby to contend with. And at the same time I got my special time with Lola when she needed to eat or when I put her to bed. The best of both worlds.

The absolute best moment of our time in Allentown was when four of us (Me, Nanny, Aunt Gail, and Aunt Renee) ALL gave Lola a bath. It was hilarious, four of us crammed into the bathroom with Lola looking at us like what is all this about? At the Bailey's, each room has its own thermostat so we cranked up the heat in the bathroom and it was like a spa in there...well for Lola, the rest of us were sweating as we fussed over the baby and tried to figure out how to best go about this. It was the best.

More to say about the weekend - including some pictures from our time in NJ - but as we are still recovering from our trip, including Lola experiencing the woes of trying to sleep with a cold, we are off to rest our heads.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend (whether you're American or not!)

And special congratulations to Larissa on the birth of her baby girl, Eve, born Thanksgiving morning! xo