Updating

It has been a while since I updated. During this time not much has changed. Lauren still takes great naps. I just wish I could space them out a bit more. She has a great morning nap about 2 hours after she wakes up. Then she seems to want to have another nap 2-2 1/2 hours after that. It doesn't seem to be enough time for me to get stuff done outside the home though. It also doesn't seem to make a difference in her night time sleep. Sometimes she wakes once or twice a night sometimes it is every 2 hours. I have stopped going to her every time to see if she will settle on her own. When i say that it is every 2 hours that is every 2 hours that i actually have to get up with her cause she isn't settling. This weekend was awful. She was awake almost all night and screaming. We couldn't find a reason though. She isn't teething that we know of. She wasn't gassy or to hot or cold. Tony actually had her come to our bed where she still was screaming. He finally took her out to the living room to play with her. She didn't want to play but eventually fell asleep out there and slept for over an hour with him rubbing her back as she slept on the floor. then after a weekend of no sleep for either of us she had a 3 hour morning nap on Sunday and a hour afternoon one. Sunday night she slept till 2:30 Monday and then slept till 8. She did this again last night. We will see what happens this weekend. We have an appointment at the bank on Saturday at 11 which will be right when she is going to want to nap so it should be interesting.

She still isn't sitting at all and doesn't seem to want to. We have all these exercises to do with her but they don't seem to work well. She gets onto her tummy though and gets her knees up as if she is going to crawl. The only problem is her arms aren't strong enough so they just push her backwards and then she gets mad cause she is getting farther and farther from the toy she was trying to get.

As I said before we are going to the bank on Saturday. We have to figure out if we are going to move or build onto here. I am not looking forward to either one but we need a bigger place. This one just won't cut it for us anymore. I am just not looking forward to extending the mortgage. It is hard enough being on mat leave right now and playing bills i really don't want to do this. If we have another baby it will be the same where i only make about 40% of my wage and it hurts us. We only have 13 years left on the mortgage and i don't want to extend that too much right now either so I am having issues. I know that we have to do something though cause I can't stay living here with this tiny house either.

Its better

Well I have definitely got better lately and it all has to do with sleep. Lauren now takes 2 naps a day. About 1 1/2 hours in the morning and 1 1/2-2 in the afternoon. She always did take 2 naps they just were never long enough and no matter what I did she wouldn't stay asleep. I can lay her down for both of them awake and just turn on her mobile and she goes to sleep. She still sometimes falls asleep when I feed her but that is okay. I am not about to wake her up to say "wake up it is time for your nap" I have also stopped going to her as much at night. During the week I would go in sooner so that Tony wouldn't wake up. I understand he has to go to work but i need my sleep too. Now she usually wakes up around 11 or so and I leave her. The longest she fusses is about 3 minutes and she isn't crying just fussing. Last night was the best yet, she fussed at 11 for about 1 minute then didn't wake again till 3:20. I went in and fed her then. I almost don't think she needed to be fed though. When I went to her she had stopped making noise and was just chewing on her cabbage patch dolls foot. I think I got up without thinking and just went to get her. She also didn't eat with as much gusto as she usually does so tonight I will try and wait a bit longer. She then slept in till 9. She never sleeps this long. Of course my parents came just before 9 to see her but at least I got to visit with them before she woke up and she woke up so happy.
Sometimes I nap with her now but not all the time. I feel more energised now with more sleep.
I also now have my own vehicle. For the longest time I just had the truck if I wanted to go out. The truck isn't the most reliable and wouldn't start more than half the time. Also her big car seat doesn't fit in the truck. I then can't see out the passenger side. I can't drive without the mirrors in the truck cause with the canopy you can't see out the back. Now the blazer is finally on the road and I have my car back. I can now go out and do things like a real person. It is great. I knew life would get better I just kept waiting. I am hoping this is it now and not just a nice couple of weeks.

After Holidays

It always seems the first few days after the holidays are kind of sad. I miss the holidays and yet I am glad they are over. I still have my tree up and all the decorations but they will be down on the weekend.

Christmas was good and bad. I loved seeing my cousins that I don't normally see but I won't go to the island for Christmas again. It was way to busy of a day and we didn't enjoy the time as much. We started Christmas eve going to my parents to open gifts as we wouldn't have time Christmas day. This was okay but Lauren was so tired and wouldn't nap cause there was so much going on. Then we went to Tony's parents for dinner. Lauren fell asleep in the car so we drove around till she woke up just so she could get a bit of a nap in. She only slept for 30 minutes but it was better than nothing. All night at his parents she was stimulated no matter what we said to let her relax. Finally Tony's dad took her and she just sat on his lap and that helped. We left very quickly after dinner though. Dinner was late cause his mom was playing with Lauren and that made it right at her bedtime. She was fussy all through dinner and I basically shoveled it in as fast as I could so that I could get her ready for bed. I got her in her jammies and fed her and everything and we were ready to leave and his mom grabbed her causing her to spit up all over everything. That meant more time to change her and stuff. We made it home after she screamed the whole way home. Thank goodness she went right to sleep once she was in her own bed. The next day stared the moment she woke up at 6:30. She had also been up every hour and a half all night so that meant none of us got sleep. We went to his parents again to open gifts and have turkey sandwiches. She actually fell asleep in his moms arms for about 40 minutes so at least she got some sleep. We then rushed to my parents and opened our stockings and then rushed to the ferry. We were hoping she would sleep on the ferry as it was at 1 and that is her nap time. Unfortunately this didn't happen. I didn't let anyone else hold her or anything and just cuddled her the whole time hoping she would sleep. She then decided to fall asleep as soon as she got back in the car. This would have been okay except it is only a 20 minute drive to my cousins place. We tried to lay her down once we got there but she wouldn't do it. She screamed and wouldn't calm down for 3 hours. Finally she just gave up and was happy again. It was like she was fussy through her nap and then was back to her happy self. She got to visit with everyone for about 2 hours and that was a nice 2 hours for us. Finally I noticed she was exhausted and ready for bed. I put her down and she was out. This was sort of nice for us as we could have a nice dinner. Then we had to rush to get the ferry home. Luckily she didn't wake up when we put her in the car. She slept till about 10 minutes till the ferry docked on our side. We just stayed in the car with her and slept. She then screamed the whole way home. Once we got home she didn't want to sleep either. Finally around 2ish she gave in and we could all go to bed. She then decided she was going to get up every hour and then be up for the day at 8. I was so tried and at the end of my rope. It wasn't fair to Tony or to Lauren as I was not nice with no patience for anything. It took me till new years day to finally relax a bit. New years we stayed home and I was in bed by 10. I was up at 12 though feeding Lauren. I don't think she would have woken up but our neighbours decided to light off firecracker for 30 minutes in their front yard and throwing them in our yard right outside her window. It woke us up so it doesn't surprise me that it woke her.

Since then though Lauren seems to have a bad cough. I think she had a cold all over Christmas and was stuffed up but we thought it was a reaction to the perfume his mom wears as Lauren sneezes every time she is around her. I think that the cough is the end of the cold. She wakes up every half hour or so coughing but goes right back to sleep on her own. She is now only getting up once maybe twice a night to eat. I am hoping that this will be her normal and not because she is sick. I am getting more sleep and feeling so much better. I have more patience than I have had in a while and not so awful to be around. I was not nice to live with I am sure. I need my sleep though. I had a 4 hour nap till the day I started kindergarten so I have always liked my sleep. I knew once I had a baby I wouldn't get as much but I really thought it would be more than 4-5 hours a day. I almost can't wait to go back to work cause I will get so much more sleep. When I do nights I will get even more sleep. I don't really want to go back to work but I will enjoy the sleep.