What else? Sleep.

So sleep training stinks. Like a lot. And I really didn't think we would do it because I feel really strongly that babies just need to have their needs met and form a trusting relationship with the world that they will be taken care of.

This is good in theory. Then you have a baby.

Then your baby starts waking up 10+ times a night and won't stop till you rock her back to sleep. It was no fun, I was even more a zombie that I have been the past few months but in the spirit of taking care of my baby girl it seemed like a small price to pay. Then it wasn't just me that was sleep deprived- she started getting bags under her eyes and was really unhappy and cranky all day. Waking every hour was rough on her too. That was when we decided we had to do something. Luckily we had an appointment with our pediatrician coming up. He said it was appropriate at four months to start letting her cry. I was still hesitant.

So we came up with a game plan. No more pacifier. No more sound machine. No more swaddle. We were scared. I felt bad about doing such drastic changes all at one but thought we would just rip the band-aid off all at once instead of delaying the inevitable. Plus she had started rolling over and freaking out because she was facedown in bed and couldn't move because her arms were swaddled up.

I couldn't do the hard-core cry it out thing. I can see how that might be more effective but I just kept thinking "is it learning to self soothe or just learned helplessness?". I just imagined Ruby lying in bed thinking "why doesn't my mom love me anymore?" Dramatic and crazy? Yes. So, needless to say I made many, many trips into her room to soother her, but never picking her up, just patting her on the back and talking to her. We had rough week or so but then something magical happened.

We woke up one morning and it was 8am. SHE SLEPT 11 HOURS! After nearly a month of not sleeping for more than 3-4 hours max we were shocked. Shocked and deliriously happy! That was a couple of weeks ago and she has slept at least 10 hours a night since then. We are also rocking out nap time. She usually sleeps 11am-1:30pm, 4:30-6pm, then goes to bed around 8:30pm and sleeps till 6am when I feed her and then she goes back to bed till 8am or so. YES! (That was for me, I'm just so happy!)

So here's the thing. This was the first parenting we have done that required us looking at the bigger picture and doing what's best for her not what just feels right to us. Up until this point parenting has been pretty straightforward- she needs something- we give it to her. I am so proud of Andy and I for going through this past month or so together- it's been a crazy one but we survived!

A beautiful sight

Rice Rice Baby

She ate solid food! I mean she didn't eat a bacon cheeseburger or anything, but she ate some rice cereal. (We are waiting at least a few more weeks before she gets her first greasy hamburger because we are just good parents like that ;) ) Anyways, at her last pediatrician appointment he said she is ready when we are. Like I mentioned in my last blog post for some reason I wasn't 100% ready to give it to her but decided I was just being crazy and she had been pretty obsessed with us eating for a few weeks now and we might as well give it a shot. I was expecting it to be very anti-climactic. I thought we'd give her a few bites, she'd spit it out and then I could go on my merry little way and not approach the solid food issue for at least another month or two.

Well, Ruby girl once again showed me what was up. She woofed down the rice cereal. We were shocked. I mean she leaned forward, opened her mouth for the food, swallowed most it. It was impressive. We finally found something she takes after me- little baby girl is an EATER! I can see us now having long and involved talked involving the best toppings for pizza, or just simply being giddy for weeks in anticipation of birthday cake. I love Andy, but he eats as a way to keep living, don't believe he's ever used the word "life changing" to describe food the way I do quite often. Now maybe this is a big leap considering she's only had rice cereal once but leave me alone, I need this. I was weirdly emotional about the whole experience and just how fast she is growing up. I am so very excited to show her the big world we live in and just how good all the food God gave is but it is also a tony bit bittersweet my snuggly baby is changing so very quickly. Blech, enough of that lame hormonal mom stuff, let's get to the messy face pictures. I will spare you all and not post the 15 minute video of the event, but will say I've already watched it three times (My name is Ashley and I'm addicted to my baby).

A little unsure at first


Still unsure but warming up to it


The verdicts in- she likes it!

I ate trash cookies

Earlier this week I woke up and said to myself "Self, today we are going to be healthy, no eating peanut butter out of the jar for lunch, no sitting on the couch watching my work out video (again), no justifying thin mint after thin meat till you realize the whole sleeve is gone" I felt good. Despite the fact I had had this same pep talk nearly every day for the past month I still believed that maybe today would be different. I even threw away 1/2 a package of cookies! I knew if they sat on the counter all day, well they wouldn't be sitting there very long. So I threw them away.

Let's fast forward about six hours. I had finally gotten Ruby down for her nap, just finished lunch, had things to do that I didn't want to do- the perfect storm for my junk food relapse. Good thing I didn't have anything sweet to snack on... Then I heard a voice "Ashley! Look! We're down here!" The cookies were talking to me! Okay, maybe they weren't but they might as well of been because it was like there was a spotlight on them, I could see nothing but them peaking out from underneath a pile of carrots peel and two wet tea bags.

So I did it. I dug out the cookies and ate not one, not two, but THREE TRASH COOKIES! And yes, they were delicious. After I came down from my sugar high I had yet another talk with myself. "Self, I'm pretty sure normal people don't eat from the trash. Maybe you have a problem". After a pretty intense argument where I tried to justify eating out the trashcan I finally admitted that my sweet tooth has gotten kind of crazy. So what this long, disgusting story is leading to is this....

I am not eating any sweets this month.

I just shed a little tear when I typed that. It will be hard. It will probably get ugly . I need to proclaim this publicly so I can have a little accountability, my sweet friend Rachel has even agreed to do it with me! It seems like such a stupid thing to have such control over me and I'm sure it may sound a little dramatic but remember- I'm the girl that eats trash cookies...

Grandparent visit!

Ruby is one loved little girl. Andy and I are pretty obsessed with just about everything she does, we have amazing friends that she gets loving from regularly, but the icing on the big cherry on top of the ice cream sundae of love that is her life is her grandparents. Recently my parents took the short little 8 hour drive down to visit us and we had an awesome weekend. We didn't do anything too crazy, mostly just sit around and talk about Ruby's awesomeness.

Lots of Ruby time!




All gussied up for church


We even managed to get a family picture, I think this is the third picture of the three of us together, we've got to get better about family pictures.


Thanks mom and dad for a great weekend! Love you.

4 Months!

Does every single parent wake up and wonder how it is possible that their kid got so grown up like every single day? I sure do. We bought a digital video camera a few weeks ago and I keep telling Andy that is we just set it up and film her overnight I'm pretty sure if we watched it in fast forward we could see little elves come in a stretch her out (that's how kids grow right?). What I'm getting at, in a very weird way, is she is ginormous. Okay, I mean she's still a baby and tiny and cute, but changing so very much.

Alright, here are some 4 month Ruby facts:

Weight: 13lbs 12oz (55th percentile)
Height: 24 1/2 inches (62 percentile)

-She rolls over! Front to back and back to front! This is one of those things that seems pretty lame if you don't have a kid but over the past few weeks Andy and I have spend many a night just sitting on the floor in hopes of seeing the miraculous event that is our baby rolling over.

-Ruby is a stand up kind of girl. Literally. She wants to be "standing up" most of the time. She locks her legs and gets fussy if you try to lay her on her back too much.

-She has found her thumb finally. She's been searching for it for awhile but low and behold that pesky thumb came out of hiding and she is loving it. I'm not too worried about it because well, I got bigger fish to fry. If it helps calm her down then I'm a fan of it. Five years from now I may have a different opinions but for now...ehhh...

-I bit myself in the butt last time bragging about her sleep. We are really struggling with sleeping these days. She just wants to be up and around and playing all the time. Aren't babies suppose to need a lot of sleep? I call it a good day if she sleeps for more that 2 hours total for naps (where as before she was doing at least 2-3 long naps each day). I have read so much about all the different sleep training methods and am really struggling with how to handle it. I think she is still too young for any kind of sleep training but also don't want to form bad habits that are going to be harder to break later on. Right now we are still doing middle of the night feedings but only if it's been 4+hours since she's eaten, if it hasn't then we just pat or rock her back to sleep. She is waking up at least every 2 hours. It's been rough.

Happy little girl


Not many 4 month olds have pony tails...
(this picture kills me- she looks like a freakin toddler!)

Rocking the heck out of her first real pair of jeans. They have a little fly and everything- Sqeeee!

Cloth diapers- they aren't gross

I promise. I mean poop is kinda gross (note that I said kinda- it's true once you become a mom bodily fluids ain't nothin but a thang anymore) but poop is part of the package deal with a baby apparently. I'm going to try to negotiate better with the next kid and see if I can get out of the whole cleaning poop from crevices every day. I'm suppose to be convincing you cloth diapers AREN'T that bad. Crevice cleaning talk isn't a good start...let me start over...

So, we've been doing cloth since Ruby was about 2 1/2 months old, would of done it sooner but the whole being a one handed mom thing messed me up for a few weeks so we just did disposable for a bit.

I was going to do a pros/cons list but I don't really have any cons. Okay I kinda have one but I secretly think it's cute so I'm not going to count it. They are really bulky. They should become less bulky because I have the one size diapers so to make a diaper that fits a newborn to 3 years old it's pretty bulky in the begining. She doesn't seem uncomfortable with it at all, just make some of her snug clothing look funny. My little Fred Murtz (heck yes I just made an I Love Lucy reference!)

(girlfriend knows how to strike a pose that's for sure)


We are also doing resuable wipes with homemade solution. I initially didn't think we would do this but tried it and it really isn't much work so we've stuck with it. Once a week or so I mix together water, olive oil, aloe vera, and castille soap in a squirt bottle and we just squirt it on some flannel wipes I sewed together. I just throw them in with her diapers to be washed. They work really well and she hasn't had any diaper rash ever.

As I mentioned earlier we went with one size diapers, cloth diapers are expensive and I didn't want to buy a bunch of different sizes. After much research and ultimately just choosing what my friend Chez was using, since it was working well for her. I went with the Grovia All in Two diapers. They have an outer shell that has lots of snaps so you can make the waist and leg holes as large or small as you need. Then there is what they call a soaker pad that you change when Ruby does her thang. A lot of the cloth diapers you have to wash the entire diaper each time (called all-in-ones) but with these most of the time you are just changing out the pad and using the same shell. Exception being when she drops a deuce, you definitely want to change the whole thing. I mostly just wrote that last sentence so I could say drop a deuce because it makes me laugh. I'm so not mature enough to be a parent...

I mostly did cloth diapers for the money saving aspects and a little for the environmental concerns about diapers and wipes. I thought it would be a kind of a pain but was willing to do it. I am happy to report that it really isn't much work. I took pictures to prove it!

Step 1) Get yourself one happy baby with some dirty breeches


Step 2) Make sure and give the baby lots of tummy zerberts and soak up that beautiful baby laughter (this step is optional but highly recommended)

Step 3) Take diaper off (is it all babies or just mine that take a delight and somehow have such skill to be able to pee like a racehorse the 3 seconds I have her diaper off, it's amazing really) and replace soaker pad with fresh one

Step 4) Snap that baby back on. Ruby wanted to model how cute she/the diapers are



Step 5) Put soaker pad in wet bag (fancy name for zippered, water proof bag you keep till you have a load for laundry)


Step 6) Throw them in the washer, the only thing I do special is put my washer on a 2nd rinse cycle. I machine dry the pads and hang dry the diaper shell so they last longer.

That's it. Easy peasy. Not hard and not gross. So stop giving me the snarled lip when I say we are cloth diapering...just kidding...kind of...

Searching for words...

I have really struggled with blogging about Ruby. To have these little lame monthly updates and post some cute pictures of her every so often just doesn't seem to do justice to what is happening in our lives. Now I know even with me attempting to capture it here I still won't be able to express what becoming parents has done to Andy and I but I'm going to try.

We are in love. To say we adore her is putting it lightly. When we dreamed about becoming parents we thought about what she would look like and the fun milestones of her first words and all that fun stuff. What I didn't anticipate is that every day would be so special.

Now I knew I would love my child. I knew Andy and I would take care of our babies and we would have lots of fun together and that being a parent would be special. What I didn't know, and don't think I could of until I was a parent, is just how deep and strong that love is. That even after sleepless night after sleepless night,a flash of that gummy little smile at 4am can make me happier than anything in this world can.

Watching Andy become a father has been such a precious blessing as well. Just when I thought I couldn't possibly love him anymore, along comes Ruby and wow. It actually feels like my heart is melting seeing them two of them interact. The first time Ruby laughed it was so special not just for that reason but until the day I die I will remember how Andy's face lit up. He was so just so happy. It has to be one of my favorite memories of us together.

Now let me take a second here to be real. These past three months have been the most physically draining, emotionally challenging, and plain old exhausting months of my life. Both taking care of a newborn and figuring out how to handle the new (and might I say the most important) role in my life has been tough. Trying to find balance while my life revolves around her seems impossible sometimes. It's strange how something can be so incredibly amazing and yet so difficult at the same time.

I know this is a bit of a ramble, I just wanted to declare to the world that being Ruby's mom is a blessing far greater than I deserve and she has changed us in every way for the better. Recently I have become a little (okay, a lot) crazy for my pregnant friends, not just because I'm glad to have more babies (which I SO am!) but for them to get to experience the joy ride that is having a baby. I have tried to express to them (and got a little choked up one Sunday at church talking to a girl I'm not super close with about how amazing being a mom is- pretty sure she thinks I'm crazy now, oh well, better she find out now than later ;) ) what every single parents knows but you just can't explain it. I guess I need to just smile and say "just wait and see" like several of my mom friends did to me cause this kind of love doesn't have words.