Catch up! Months 2-3

Claire is 4 months old and growing like a weed!  Well, okay, not a weed.  Weeds are bad things.  Um... growing like... a bacterial culture?  No, that's worse.  What's something good that grows quickly?  I'm drawing a blank.  If you think of a good simile, let me know.

Where was I... oh yeah!  My sweet little Claire is getting so chubby and beautiful!  She really has a personality all her own.  She's a little shy about smiling at new people so if someone starts talking to her and smiling at her, she'll duck her head and grin into her shoulder.  It's freaking adorable.

If she wants something, boy, you better know what it is that she wants and get it to her pronto.  Otherwise you get the cute little complaining cry that means she expects better service.

The Great Sleep Deprivation has been getting better.  Claire slept through the night twice this week and she's consistently sleeping for two 4-hour periods per night with a snack and sometimes a diaper change in between.  She still loves her swing and we've gotten into a good routine of diaper change, swaddle, bottle, burp, and bedtime.  It's not perfect, but we're surviving.  Claire-bear is about 12.5 pounds now and most people say that's a good time to expect her to start sleeping through the night.  (Gasp!  Could it be?!)

I briefly entertained the idea of trying to sleep train her during my spring break this week, but I don't think I'm ready to let her cry and I don't know if she's ready to give up on the nighttime feeding.  Maybe in another month or so.  Or maybe I'll chicken out again.  Probably the second one.



I know I have a LOT of catching up to do with pictures and everything.  So let's get this party started, shall we?

Claire had her baby blessing blessing on February 16th.  (I know, I KNOW!  I'm a slacker.  Stop judging.  Just kidding.  You would never judge me, would you?)

For those of you who don't know, the baby blessing is a little bit like a Christening, but (without getting too deep into theology here) not essential for salvation.  The child's priesthood-holding relatives give the baby a blessing and officially announce his/her name.

This is Claire's blessing dress.  I bought a dress and then added things to it from my wedding dress.  I scrunched up the sleeves and added a belt and a lace collar.  

When I was getting married, I fell in love with the lace and the fabric of my dress.  It seemed like a waste to wear such a beautiful dress only once, but I didn't want to save it since I assume that Claire will want her own dress someday.  My solution was this:  I'm going to cut up my wedding dress and add bits of it to special clothes for my children.  (blessing outfits, baptism, temple clothes etc.)  I especially like the idea of making each of my kids a handkerchief from my dress when they go through the temple.  That way they can have a piece of their family history and I get to use my beautiful dress for something other than gathering dust in a closet.

I made these shoes for Claire out of the satin from my dress.  I tried to make them as small as I could and they STILL fell off 20 seconds after I put them on.  This child will NOT wear shoes.  :)

She looks so innocent, doesn't she?  Looks can be deceiving!

THIS is how Claire acted for most of her photoshoot.  :)

My trick:  Holding a bottle in her mouth until she fell asleep and then pulling the bottle out of the picture and taking shots until she started crying again.  :)

Scrunchy face! 

I was wearing a BYU sweatshirt and Claire kept staring at the big Y on my chest.

Such a pretty girl!

Claire with Grandpa Wagner!

Mommy, Daddy and Claire getting ready to go to church!

Aunt Katie and Grandpa Wagner.

Some of the friends who came to the luncheon afterwards.

More friends and family

I LOVE this picture of my dad.  Yup.  He's gonna kill me for posting this.

Claire loves her Uncle Kyle!  

Grandpa Denney!

For some strange reason, I didn't get ANY pictures of Claire with her grandmothers on her blessing day.  :/  

I did get pictures of them with her at other times though!

Look at that sweet lil face!  Daawww.

All snuggled up on Grandma's shoulder!  

Okay- time for some updated pictures of Miss Claire.  I think the last ones I posted were her 1 month portraits.  Yikes!   So here's the last 3 months in short:

Claire learned to smile, which made 3 a.m. poopy diapers MUCH more bearable.  It's truly amazing how much stress, frustration, and sleep-deprivation one little smile can pay for.  This picture was one of Claire's first smiles.

A sleeping baby is beautiful in more ways than one.

These pictures were also taken in the wee hours of the morning.  I think Claire must know that it's hard to be a good parent at 2 a.m. because she tries to be extra cute.

I usually think Claire looks a lot like Nick, but in this picture I think she looks like me.

So after Claire learned to smile, she would grin all the time, even when she was crying.  It made for some pretty entertaining photos.  It also made it hard to take her seriously.

You can't tell from this picture, but she actually had tears in her eyes.  That's the kind of awesome mom I am.  I take pictures of my weeping child.  

We tried going to the park on one of my days off of school.  Claire had fallen asleep by the time we got there, so she wasn't very excited, but she WAS very warm thanks to her second cousin (?) Annie.  (cousin once removed?  I have no idea.  Where's Dave Craig when I need him?)

Funny story:  I was doing laundry and Claire did NOT want to be put down.  I needed to carry the clean, warm clothes upstairs, so this was my solution.  Claire thought it was an excellent nap spot.  The clothes eventually had to be put back in the dryer to get the wrinkles out because there was no way I was going to move her.  I also couldn't leave the room because I was worried the basket would tip over if she squirmed.  

One of the best parts of my day is picking this little angel up from Michelle's (her babysitter) and watching her face light up when she sees me.  

Nick is much better at being a daddy than he ever thought possible.  I never doubted him for a second!

Claire finds cameras very interesting, but she will NOT smile for them.  She'll be all cute and smiley and then you pull out the camera and BAM!  You get pictures of the "curious" face instead of the cute face.  Sigh....

My current favorite picture.  I think her eyes are going to be brown like daddy, but all of the strawberry-blonde hair she was born with has fallen out and been replaced with something a little darker.  

We've also caught some cute moments on video:

Claire talking to her blanket at the park: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEvhIg0sZIw

Claire mimicking noises:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXbVjUhI0E4

Claire falling asleep while Nick tries to burp her https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz8R8NrJXxM

Claire telling me a story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1vY4O9JWf0

The Week From Hades

It's been a rough week.   Really rough.   Thank goodness for weekends because I don't think Nick or I would have survived one more day of work.  I was on the verge of slapping some obnoxious little pre-teens.

Now don't get me wrong- that's not a cry for sympathy or a request for advice.  It's also not a surprise.  Nick and I knew very well that this whole "taking care of a helpless human being" thing was going to be hard.  And it is.  And it will continue to be hard.  But when both adults have some aggressive, mutated, African-zombie stomach virus AND the little princess is colicky AND it's Mommy's first week back at work... it's the week from Hades.

I'm not going to go into detail with the stomach flu.  Really, I can't imagine that anyone wants me to.  If you have no idea what it feels like- drink a bottle of Ex-Lax, run around in the snow for an hour wearing only a swimsuit and have a horse kick you in the guts.  That's what it feels like.

The twist is that when you're sick you need MORE sleep, not less, and buddy- four hours per night is NOT going to cut it.  Claire has been getting steadily more colicky each week.  The trend has me worried.  If you talk to my parents about crying babies, my mother will tell you all about how I cried constantly for 9 months.  Nine.  Months.  That's as long as pregnancy.  It's a miracle either of my siblings were born.  It's a miracle I survived.  My parents deserve a freaking medal.

When Claire gets fussy, her favorite place to be is in Mommy and Daddy's arms.  She won't necessarily stop crying, but she'll back off on the intensity.  So Nick and I have a sleeping schedule.  I go to bed at 8 p.m. and sleep until midnight while Nick tries to sleep with Claire in the recliner downstairs.  Then, at midnight, we switch.  Nick goes to bed and I take Claire until it's time for me to get ready for work at 5.  Then Nick takes Claire from 5-6 and I take her from 6-7 so we can both get ready for the day.  The plus side of this schedule is that it guarantees each of us 4-5 hours of sleep, with the possibility of a few more while holding Claire, IF she decides to sleep.  The downside is that this schedule will drive you mad.

Thank goodness for our babysitter!  I thought that going back to work would kill me, and it has been very hard, but having a seasoned pro like Michelle watching Claire has helped us SO much.  She spends time with Claire so she gets to know her little idiosyncrasies and suggests ways to deal with them.  Michelle has given us ideas on bottles to buy, blankets for swaddling, and - best of all - a swing.  Nick's parents gave us a swing, but it died last week and Claire was never really into it for very long.  I figured that she would like it better when she could sit up, but then the poor old thing died.  Sad.  But!  Michelle has this swing that Claire LOVES, so she let us borrow it for the weekend.

It took one night with that sucker to convince Nick to spend money on a new swing.  We have tried every swaddling technique, bassinet, bouncer, wrap, and sleeper option and NOTHING has worked like that beautiful swing.  She'll even sit in it when she's awake!  That may not seem like a big deal to most people, but when you have to cook, eat, brush your teeth, and tie your shoes while holding a baby because apparently setting her down means that the world has come to an end,  it is a big deal.  A VERY BIG DEAL.

Last night I slept for 6 hours.  SIX!  In a row!  It was fantastic!

Since I've been so sick I don't have any updated pictures to post, but here's a link to a great spoken-word poetry piece about teachers.  I've watched this thing like 300 times and it still gets me revved up to be an awesome teacher every time.  Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuBmSbiVXo0

One Month Portraits

The last six weeks have been heaven!  I'm not ready to go back to work on Thursday!  I keep telling myself that this is the best decision for our family, financially, and that we're leaving Claire with a wonderful babysitter, but it's still torture to think of spending most of my day away from her sweet little self.

Look at this face!  There's so much intelligence behind her eyes!  I can't wait to see more of her personality and watch her experience the world.


Now for the professional pictures!  (Let's be honest, mine aren't going to be winning any awards!)

My friend Jessie offered to take some newborn portraits of Claire, but with Christmas and New Years, it wasn't until Claire's one-month birthday (?) that we could settle on a date.  Jessie was so great with Claire!  She had everything set up and the pictures came out beautifully.  I keep thinking how much fun it will be to look at these when Claire is a few years older and remember her cute baby faces.

First of all- this is Claire's "frowny face"  which she usually makes as soon as you stop holding her.  Little princess loves her snuggles!

Tiny baby feet!  Maybe she'll be a dancer like Mommy someday.

Claire Rule #4- Hands must ALWAYS be near the face.  Swaddling?  What's swaddling?

Another example of Rule #4, but this time it looks like she's a little flamenco dancer!  Ole!

My talented friend BreeAnna made this cute diaper cover and flower headband.  

We love the ruffle-bottom!

My sleepy little angel.

Jessie is so talented!  I don't normally love naked-baby pictures, I mean, Claire is adorable, but this set-up looks like it belongs in a calendar or something.  

If you want to see more of Jessie's work, her website is http://www.jessieonealphotography.com/

Picture overload

Claire is a month old! She's almost fits into her newborn clothes now, and she's started sleeping for longer periods of time. That also means that she's awake more often which is fun for mommy and daddy!

Sleep Stories

If there was ever any doubt that Claire has my genes- just try putting her to sleep.  NOPE!  I have always been a night owl- and my darling daughter takes after me!  

Claire, aka "The Napper" will sleep for 45-60 minutes as long as she is being held.  (putting her down = time to wake up)  Then she eats for about 5 minutes, cries for about 10 minutes while you try to burp her, and goes back to sleep for another nap.  This goes on for anywhere from 8-12 hours, usually starting at 10 p.m. and going through the morning. Yikes!

As tired as I am most of the time, I am so grateful to have this tiny miracle baby in my life.  I wouldn't trade one sleepless night or one poopy diaper for a nap.  Not a single one.  

Claire is really growing fast! Her face has filled out a bit and her little arms and legs aren't quite as skinny as they were.  She is fitting better into her newborn outfits, but still hates being dressed/undressed, no matter how gentle I am.  Claire is learning about communication and will give me her cute little muttering, complaining cry after a bath or a diaper change, just so I know that she is unhappy with the level of service being provided.  She loves looking at lights or windows and she's getting better at making eye contact when you talk to her.  Her favorite thing to do lately is cuddle with me or Nick in the rocking chair and coo at us.  

Sometimes I worry I'm teaching Claire that she can't sleep alone, but everyone says you can't spoil a newborn with too much attention, so we will just enjoy this cuddly phase while it lasts and catch up on sleep in eighteen years!