Sure it is probably a one-off but I don’t care… MY BABY SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!!!

For the first time ever, Vivian slept solidly from 9pm to 5:30am and then nursed quick and went back to sleep until 9am! I couldn’t believe it :) She just went to bed (at 11:30pm) after being out all night so who knows what tonight will bring, but I am finally feeling like I am catching up on my sleep.

On another note for celebration, today is my brother’s Birthday and tomorrow is my grandma’s birthday too! Happy birthday!

Vivian has been rolling for about two weeks now but now that she is a rolling fiend I captured it on video!

Vivian is really starting to laugh up a storm! She also is quite the roller… She now rolls from tummy to back and back to tummy. Each time I lay her down for bed the first thing she does if she is remotely awake is flip to her belly. I will get a video to share soon but until then, here’s my funny girl! Clearly we are enjoying our trip to Michigan.

I am in the process of making a few updates to my blog on the back-end side of things. Our home computer is becoming less and less stable as a server so I am changing over to use Tumblr’s back-end. Doing this is a long process because I want my blog to stay the same since I worked so dang hard on all my customized graphics and layout. So now I am working equally hard to conform to Tumblr without ASP.NET… tricky or rather, time consuming. To add to that, they don’t allow blog imports so all of my (near 500) posts are manually being entered by yours truly. It has been kind of fun taking a walk down memory lane but now I am to my most emotional state - the week before we lost Zachary.

Most of my posts I am just entering without reminiscing, but I had to stop and read a few. One of which was my dream right before we found out Zachary had Hydrops. It is eerie how telling it is on what would happen. Even though I did leave out the part about his big head.

Lots of emotions are flying through me right now.

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Crazy Vivid Dreams originally posted 11/1/11.

They have officially begun!  And apparently I am not the only one having them… Tyler told me he was dreaming about the baby the other day too.  I guess all the excitement has to be released subconsciously.

So last night, I got to meet our son (note that the gender is not even confirmed yet but will be in less than a week!!!)  In my dream I gave birth to our son three months early but he was a healthy 8 pound boy with a full head of brown hair.  It was soooo strange and there were so many things odd about the dream. Let me tell you.

First, the dream took place at my parents house during the summer but the baby was born on Thanksgiving day which was supposed to only be 3 months early, which it is not going by my true due date of 3/22/12.  Second, I was supposed to go to school that day - holiday or not, I am clearly not still in school - but decided not to because I had a feeling I was going to give birth.  Just moments after making the decision to stay home, I started getting slight cramps.  Next thing I knew I was calling my mom and was having the baby.

The baby simply popped out - easiest labor and delivery on record I’m sure - and then after the baby was born, I delivered four puppies! WTF?!?! My subconscious must have known that puppies were the only things born in my parent’s house and they usually came in litters of four so why the heck not.  Nonetheless, they popped out no problem too. I remember thinking that giving birth was so easy for me and that I was lucky that I didn’t have a long, painful delivery.

After the birth, my dream skipped ahead and I don’t know what the heck happened to the puppies but our baby never left the picture.  My parents were having a Thanksgiving party which was more like a summer BBQ because it was outside in the warm sun.  No one knew I had the baby yet so I was going to get to tell them all there. Instead of just coming out with the baby, I called my cousin over - Jen (if you read this) you’ve been making cameos in my dreams lately and I have no idea why, but feel lucky because you are usually my confidant - and I showed her our baby and told her I was going to be telling everyone and making his debut.

Before going out to the masses though, we were sitting with my parents and somehow we decided that the baby had my dad’s ears.  Of all things. So after a conversation with my parents, I started calling long distance family before I woke up to my alarm.  So I never did get around to introducing our baby to the masses.

Strange, no? Let’s hope labor and delivery is as easy and painless as my dream (ha!) and that the baby does not come three months early because I doubt the outcome would be as happy. And finally, no Tyler, I did not cheat on you with a dog… hahahaha!

I was passed along this “Liebster Award.” I had no idea what this was and had never heard of it before so naturally I turn to Bing (that’s right, Bing, not Google) and search the great and powerful internet to see what it means.

Apparently liebster is a German word meaning sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing, and welcome (Nora, if you happen to read my blog, can you confirm this my dear German friend?). Apparently the Liebster Award is granted to up and coming bloggers with not too many followers who deserve some recognition and support to keep on blogging. I’m not really trying to grow my readership since I write for myself, my family, my friends and to give some hope to others who have walked down the same path as I, but heck, if people want to follow, I will try and lead!

So according to the rules of the Liebster Award, I am to state 11 facts about me, answer 11 questions posed at the giver’s website (my friend Angie at Letters to Leia), choose 11 people to whom I will pass on this honor, and then make up 11 more questions which the new recipients must answer. However, I don’t follow 11 small scale blogs so I will pass it on to those that I do follow in case they want to participate but with the caveat that I know life is busy and this is totally an optional and fun post if you so choose to participate.

So here it goes…

11 facts about me:

• I like stars - hence my desire to use my star bullet points instead of numbers… you can count, I did 11 facts even though it was like pulling teeth and I had to get Tyler involved ;)
• I have a star tattoo on the left side of my neck but often forget it is there until someone says “Oh I didn’t know you have a tattoo” and then I look around and realize that yes, yes indeed, they are talking to me. Turns out I barely know I have a tattoo myself!
• I used to show dogs - totally like the Best in Show movie. Back in the day you could Google search my full maiden name and come up with a picture of my show dog, Poet, who was the best dog ever (sorry Glory). 
• 2008 was the best year of my life because I graduated college, got married and moved cross country all in three consecutive months (May, June, July) that was until my daughter was born in December 2012.
• The worst day of my life was when my son was stillborn at 20 weeks gestation on 11/10/11.
• I used to be a cheerleader in high school but only because I was dared to try out after mocking them so much my freshman year. I ended up making the team and since only a small handful of the very many who tried out go on, I felt obligated to “tough it out”… I ended up making some really good friends and it suited me because I am extremely loud although not extremely coordinated.
• I am partially deaf in my right ear and apparently have been since birth. I cannot hear whispering and soft noises thus I always try to position myself to the right of others so I can hear them without saying “what?” a million times.
• I used to figure skate but secretly wanted to play hockey like my little brother.
• I am probably the only person still watching Grey’s Anatomy and still actually enjoy it.
• My favorite books are by Janet Evanovich… they are so easy to read and are fun and quirky. Although I haven’t read any of her new books since probably 2008.
• My all-time favorite meal is octopus in red wine sauce from Uptown Parthenon in West Bloomfield, MI. Mmmmmm

The Questions:

1. Do you have any regrets in your life right now? I think there are always regrets, whether they are big or small is the question and can you move past them. Right now however I only regret that there aren’t more hours in the day to spend with my lovely little family… or maybe I also regret that I don’t go to bed when my baby does because I miss out on precious, precious sleep.
2. If you won the lotto what would you REALLY do with it? I would pay off my house, save the rest and continue living life as though I didn’t win the lotto.
3. Have you ever committed a crime? The closest to a crime would be that I got suspended in high school for “assaulting” my cheerleading coach. The big assault was throwing gum in her hair because she was super vain. She tried to get me to pay for her haircut and color and I flat out said no. I mean who brushes their hair when they feel a small piece of gum on the very ends? She made it worse than it was.
4. What is your favorite TV show? I have a lot that I like right now - in chronological order - Once Upon a Time, Game of Thrones, Castle, New Girl, Modern Family, Grey’s Anatomy, Bones.
5. Do you have any guilty pleasures? Sure,
6. Have you ever been out of the country? Yep! I went on a study abroad and lived in Spain for three months then traveled to Italy, Switzerland, France and England. I’ve also been to Canada, Mexico, and Belize.
7. Would you go on a reality TV show? Depends on what it was for. Not for being a drunken slut, that’s for sure!
8. Which one and why? Oh, I have to pick one that’s out right now… hmmm… Animal Cops as a cameo for saving animals ;)
9. What is your go to supper? Frozen food… or takeout, but I’m trying to get better at meal planning again. When I come back from my Michigan trip I promise to do better - I need to in order to stay healthy.
10. Do you drink? Yep and we are members of the Château Ste. Michelle Vintage Reserve Wine Club. Aren’t we classy and grown up haha!
11. What do you want to be when you grow up? Hahaha based on my last answer I think I’m clearly still growing up, or at least it feels like it. I definitely still feel like a fifth grader and wonder how I got here. But then I blink and realize that I am grown up and am so very happy with where I’m at in life and want to be exactly this: a wife, mom and career woman (although that is definitely last on the priority list, however it still remains on the priority list). 

I’m asking the questions now!

1. If you could spend a day with one person (living or dead), who would that be?
2. How much time do you spend on Facebook, really?
3. If you have a pet and animals could talk, what do you think yours would say about you?
4. What did you want to be when you were in fifth grade?
5. If you could vacation anywhere (cost is not an issue), where would it be?
6. What is your favorite meal to prepare? (Please include a recipe… Clearly I will want it to add to my meal planning.)
7. What is your favorite Internet pastime?
8. Ok, assuming you get off the computer ever once in a while, what’s your favorite pastime in general?
9. What age do you view yourself - you know, you stop and think you are still that chubby fifth grader and haven’t changed much since then (my own example)?
10. Does your life feel complete?
11. Ending on a simple note, what’s your favorite color?

The blogs I chose are the following:

• Ocean Size Love
• Keeping up with the Allens
• Valerie in South Korea
• Braisen Woman
• Chop. Stir. Eat.
• It All Started in 6th Grade
• River Gilbert
• Steph Loves Yu

Anyone else have a blog that I don’t know about that I should be reading?!?!

Vivian has finally gotten into somewhat of a routine lately even though it is very flexible since we are on the go a lot. In fact, it will probably end up changing quite a bit since Vivian and I will be traveling to Michigan tomorrow to visit family and friends - many of which will be meeting Viv for the first time… We can hardly wait!

Anyway, before we leave and everything changes again I wanted to capture what a day in the life of Vivian at four months old while mostly at home for the day.

Yesterday happened to be Tyler’s birthday and for his special day he requested we stay home and do nothing but relax. So that is exactly what we did until the evening celebration and here’s how it went starting with bed the night before:

• 9:10pm - Bedtime begins! Vivian nursed around 7pm when initially attempting to put her down but she fought even though she was beyond exhausted! I ended up rocking her until she fell asleep.
• 12:30am - Awake and hungry. Put down without a fight but she ended up quietly rubbing the mesh on the pack ‘n play until she passed out at 1:05am.
• 1:15am - I have to adjust Viv’s position in the pack ‘n play because she has scooted under the changing part and I can hear her hands scratching it (she woke up). I flip her around and now she is happily chatting to herself quite loudly while rubbing the mesh and chewing her blanket. I decide to turn on her Twilight Turtle so she can stare at the stars. Viv ends up falling asleep around 1:45am.
• 1:50am - Only five minutes later Viv wakes herself up trying to get comfy. She is grunting and wiggling like crazy trying to roll to her belly. Finally at 2:10am she starts getting upset so I nurse her and she (and I) finally gets to sleep at 2:35am!
• 4:25am - Viv is crying and I assume she is hungry again and Vivian never turns down a meal so I nurse her.
• 6:45am - Hungry again. At this point I am usually too exhausted to try and put her back to her pack ‘n play but now that she is out of her swaddle, she gets comfortable easier so I put her back down and she falls asleep fine.
• 9:35am - Awake for the day and starting to grunt, wiggle, rub the mesh and chatter. I get up and take care of myself before she requests to get out of her pack ‘n play. I climb back into bed to relax until then.

Morning playtime.

• 10am - Once Viv starts squealing (she’s just so happy) I finally decide to get up and start the day with Vivi so she doesn’t wake Tyler up (it is his birthday after all). Viv has the biggest smiles when I go to get her! She nurses then gets a diaper change, vitamin D drop, hair brushed, face lotion and a fresh onesie. Since we are just lounging around all day I just put on the babylegs leg warmers. We head out to the living room to kick around and grab toys on the playmat.
• 11am - Naptime! Diaper change because Viv is a very heavy morning wetter and if I don’t change it now, the diaper will likely leak during nap. Viv nurses for two seconds and then gets super cranky because she wasn’t hungry - she just ate an hour ago but wanted to suck - then goes down easily with her pacifier and very sleepy eyes.
• 11:55am - Awake from nap. Fresh diaper before heading off to play. Then we have a family birthday brunch for Tyler. Vivian sits in her bumbo seat at the table with us and beams at her daddy until he takes a big gulp of soda and says “Ahhhhh” which terrifies her and she turns into a crying disaster from fear.

Almost ready to go to
Michigan for the first time!

• 12:40pm - Viv is ready to nurse again.
• 1:10pm - I set Viv in her crib because she is already acting tired again. She whines and makes her tired noise while playing with her blanket until she finally falls asleep at 1:20pm.
• 2:20pm - Wakes up from nap chattering in her pack ‘n play. Fresh diaper before more playtime.
• 2:40pm - Viv starts screaming like she is starving to death. So of course, I nurse her and she is much happier and no longer panicked that the milk has run dry.
• 4pm - Naptime after a lot of excitement packing for our upcoming Michigan trip!
• 5:30pm - Awake from nap due to purposeful noise and extra lights turned on. Time to nurse before heading over to Katie and Brandon’s house for a going away celebration for the Brodies as well as birthday acknowledgment through delicious cupcakes.
• 7:30pm - Bedtime routine starts at Katie and Brandon’s house. We brought her bassinet and had her in a quite area. She nursed and went down whining and it was short-lived because she wanted to be part of the party. So back up she went. It was a valiant effort.
• 9:30pm - We arrived back home after complete screaming the car ride home. She ended up falling asleep for the last two minutes so naturally when she got home she thought she was refreshed. She got into dry pajamas (she drools a lot) and a clean diaper before nursing and being put down.
• 10pm - After rubbing the mesh of the pack ‘n play (I really am not sure what the appeal is) and rolling over to her belly, Vivian is finally sleeping like an angel.
• 2am - Viv wakes up apparently famished. She efficiently nurses and is back in bed, rolled to her tummy and sleeping by 2:10am.
• 4:15am - There is a lot of rustling around and light whining. Finally after 10 minutes I go to investigate. I pick Vivi up and it turns out that she and the pack ‘n play are soaked with pee. The disposable diaper has leaked out the front from the tummy sleeping. By this point Vivian is screaming because I woke her completely and causes me to have a let down - further soaking the near surroundings. I strip Viv and change her diaper and bring her to bed to nurse. I decide she will be staying in bed from this point on because everything is wet and I’m not changing it now. She will also need a bath when we start the day. We are both nearly sleeping again by 4:40am until Vivian spits up her entire stomach contents and chokes on it the worst I’ve ever heard her. She is sputtering and having a hard time getting it out since she is on her back and it was a large quantity of milk. I spring to action grabbing Viv and flipping her over to pat her back and yell for Ty to turn on some light. He never simply wakes up but this time he does and jumps out of bed like lightening and flips the light. By now she and the bed are again sufficiently soaked but this time with spit up. Vivian is screaming. I sop it up and we lay down a dry burp cloth. Viv is now completely wired from her seemingly near death experience. Once she is back on her belly she becomes calm and she starts chatting away. We fall asleep again around 5:15am.
• 7:15am - Viv is clearly uncomfortable and is making noises. If she weren’t in my bed next to me she’d probably figure it out on her own but I grabbed her and snuggled closer to her and she might have nursed for a minute (I don’t recall) before we both passed back out.
• 8:55am - Time to start the day!

I only wish I had chosen a less adventurous night to document! Every night is totally different and after tonight, I am sure it will change drastically with the travel.

Everyone always complains about parenthood. No matter how good or bad us parents have it, we all will find something to complain about to ourselves and others. My friend Ali shared a very sweet article with me the other day and I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to share my thoughts.

Of course parenting is a challenge - who thought having a baby was going to be easy? You literally have to “labor” to bring the child into the world and that is only the very beginning of the real work. At different stages there are different challenges and right now we are definitely going through a challenge.

Vivian has been a nighttime train wreck - sleeping for a decent 3-4 hour stretch but then waking up nearly every 45 minutes until finally I can drag myself (or convince Tyler) out of bed. It has been hard and anyone who has had a conversation with me lately probably noticed that my cognitive skills are taking a huge hit. Let’s not forget the playdate the other day when I literally stopped mid-sentence because I had to try and explain what I was trying to say… I started stammering about the movie - what was it, maybe Anchorman - and something about the part with “afternoon delight” but I couldn’t remember the phrase… Anyway, I digress. Point to the story is I just cannot speak like an adult right now among a few other things.

So, after Viv’s doctor appointment on Thursday, at bedtime she was off to a crappy start which usually isn’t the problem - she tends to go down to bed just fine. She was up and down three times before midnight but since she went to bed with a small fever reaction to the vaccines, I coddled her and made sure she was cozy and loved. Then she did end up sleeping like a rock from 3am - 10am when Tyler finally wanted to wake her up to snuggle before work!!! I even had to get her up at 5am to nurse (for my relief) while sleeping but she was not really interested it.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get much sleep during her long stretch because it was also the night she decided to learn to roll in her crib….

The first time I thought it was a fluke so I flipped her back over. But after her second roll from back to tummy while swaddled, I decided to unswaddle her and let her have her way. It turns out she is a tummy sleeper and she ended up rolling 2 more times which was terrifying because I couldn’t tell if she could breathe since her head was flat into the crib mattress not to the side. Oi! So I was on high alert all night.

Last night she did pretty good (now unswaddled) despite our disruptions to her sleep - we were out at friend’s house so we brought the bassinet for her to sleep in (which she also managed to roll over in) but obviously had to transfer her into the car seat around midnight when we were heading home. She was a trooper and only woke at 3am, 6am and 9am for good… I’ll gladly take that over the 45 minute intervals! I think she just was more than ready to be unswaddled but we didn’t know it - now we do!

Even though these past two weeks have been pretty tough on the sleep front it doesn’t matter. We truck through it and know that eventually it will change. I can see the light at the end of this tunnel! There is just too much joy in raising a child that outweighs everything and I will gladly (ok maybe not quite gladly)take the sleepless nights right now just to see her refreshed and bubbly face with big grins and so much to talk about in the morning! And guess what, my baby is strong enough to roll! It is such an amazing accomplishment for her, how can we not see the joy in that?!

As long as she is happy and getting what she needs, I am happy, willing and prepared to make a few of my own sacrifices in the name of joy - joy in seeing my child flourish because of the unconditional love and support we are giving her now and as she grows. I can’t even imagine our life without Vivian - I don’t even want to try. We’ve worked too hard to bring her into this world to be annoyed with the things everyone knows come with the role of parenting! I choose to cherish these moments because they are going by way too quickly.

Of course, don’t take my venting to close friends and family as complaint - sometimes ya just need to unload. But rest assured I will not be offloading onto a happy pregnant lady or new mom - they need to just hear about all of the joy!

Every month I say this but really where has time gone?! I have a very smiley, goofy, talkative little girl who wants to sit and stand up (assisted of course) and roll over. Last night she started out in her Woombie but after rolling over from her back to her tummy twice and having to help her out because her head was smashed into the pack ‘n play mattress. I finally took her out and let her sleep with her limbs unrestricted - mainly to aid in the rolling back over and not suffocating herself. She ended up rolling over a total of four times because she gets frustrated when she wakes up and I don’t come to her beck and call right away. 

That said, last night was the first time I let her complain for more than two seconds. Unfortunately it was a rough night. She woke up an hour after nursing (so I knew she wasn’t hungry) and wouldn’t go back to sleep. I was NOT going to nurse again so I let her talk to herself and play around. That lasted for an hour before I believe (who really knows for sure at that hour) I had Tyler bounce her back to sleep. Fast forward another few hours and she was up again. I deemed it legit hunger so I nursed her and she was pretty much out when I set her down but ten minutes later she was up again - this is what happens when she doesn’t wear her Woombie. I let her lay and talk and that lasted another hour of awake time! Finally I asked Ty what we should do and he just said to grab her. So into the bed she came and promptly passed out.

I’m not sure about other mamas out there, but I could not just fall asleep while she is making such a racket so all of her wake time was also my wake time.

Anyway, I am off on a tangent. She is down for her second nap of the day right now and is rustling but I have decided that I am not going to go get her until she really asks. I think I have been shooting myself in the foot with regards to the sleep situation (both night and naps) and my exhaustion has gotten to an all time high so we are trying new things…

Here’s hoping that this works! And if it doesn’t, I’ll be a tad sleep deprived (I knew it would come eventually) but at least I have this little cutie to snuggle which makes it all more than worth it.