Early Bird

This kid is an early riser. 

Like 5:00 am.

Sometimes 4:00. 

What's up with that?

We've kind of always had issues with getting him to go back to sleep after his early morning bottle. Last month, he settled into a groove of waking up around 4 (sometimes 2), eating, and going back to sleep. But this week? It's been crazy. He has been waking up in the early morning - usually around 4 or 5 - and just lying there. His typical routine is fussing/grunting/cooing/sighing/general-noise-making but not crying for a minute or two, then quiet for a few minutes then noisy for a few minutes, then quiet... This usually lasts either until he falls asleep a few hours later or until 8:30 when J gets him up for the day. Originally he had been waking up and crying and eating his hands, so we knew he was hungry, but now? Nothing like that. He just kind of plays in his crib. Since he wasn't acting hungry, we didn't feed him. But this morning, I thought maybe giving him a bottle would settle him and make him fall asleep quicker. WRONG. The boy sucked down his bottle and was ready to play. We are really trying to enforce a consistent start time for the day so he can be soothed by having a routine, so I just held him in the glider until around 6:30 when tried putting him back in his crib. He just played until he drifted off around 7. 

What's up mom? Ready to get this day started?

I'm not really complaining because he's such a good baby. He's content to just lie in his crib and look around... sometimes he "talks" but he doesn't cry or make us get up to get him out of the crib or anything like that. It's just kind of rough because I don't sleep well when he's awake in his crib. 

Mostly, I just want to make sure he gets enough sleep.

Two Months

I can't believe R is now two months old. Wasn't he just born like a week ago?


Here's what you've been up to during your second month:

- Graduated into size 1 diapers and outgrew your newborn outfits.

- Have a pretty noticeable flat spot on the right side of the back of his head. You also spend a lot of the time looking to the right, so we've spent the last few weeks focusing on tummy time and getting you to look to the left. (I was actually kind of worried you might have wry neck, but you've been looking to the left more often so I don't worry about it anymore.)

- LOVE bath time. At first, you weren't sure what to think, but now you squeal and splash and smile up a storm. It's exhausting for me, but I (or J) do it every night because you seem so happy in the bath. (We don't use soap every night.) You also love your activity mat and being held superhero/koala/sloth style. You usually calm down when I sing OCMS's Wagon Wheel.

- Hate tummy time. That's pretty much all there is to say about that. Although, for a baby who despises it as much as you do, you have a pretty strong neck.

- Had a play date with Eli, sleepovers at Mimsy & Pops and Grammy & Grandaddy, and took a trip to the pumpkin patch.

- Cry real tears, give social smiles, blow spit bubbles, are getting talkative and working on facial expressions. And every single one of those things is so stinking adorable.

- Keep your hands by your face when you eat (& sometimes knock your bottle out of your mouth), like to bury your face when you sleeps in someone's arms, spit out your paci & get mad about not having it, cry & fight being burped.

- Your doctor informed us that you had sebborheaic dermatitis at about 5 weeks. We started using lotrimin on your face everyday and it's cleared right up!

- Had a little growth spurt around 6.5-8 weeks.

- Started following some semblance of a sleeping schedule. You usually start the day around 8-9, take a morning-ish nap, an early afternoon nap, and an early evening nap. (The times vary, but we try to wake you up from your last nap by 7.) Then we do bedtime around 7:45-8:30. You usually wake up once during the night. Sometimes it's at 2:30 am, sometimes it's at 5:30 am. We just never know. You still want to fall asleep in someone's arms instead of by yourself. (But, somehow you're pretty good at self-soothing during the middle of the night.) We're going to start working on letting you fall asleep on by yourself soon in the next few months. I'm trying to determine the best least traumatic way to do this.

- Bumped up to a 6 ounce bottle. You usually eat every 3-4 hours. You just weren't satisfied after 4 ounces.

- Mommy started working. And it's been harder for me than it's been for you. You love spending time with daddy.



Ryker,
It's amazing to watch you grow and learn right before our eyes. Your daddy and I are constantly amazed by you. And you are certainly changing everything about me! For as long as I can remember I have always been impatient for the future. Always planning for the next part of my life. In school I couldn't wait to be in college. In college I couldn't wait to be married and working. When I was married and working, I couldn't wait to be a mom. For the first time in my life, I am so content living my day-to-day life. And boy, those days are flying by. I am doing my best to soak up every single second of being your mommy. Happy Two Months, Baby Boy! You couldn't be loved more. I thank God for you every single day.

What's Next: The New Year's Post (a few months early)

I have the same New Year's resolutions as every typical American. Every. Single. Year. 1)  Lose Weight; and 2) Get Out of Debt.

And I guess after a season dedicated to excess (Thanksgiving & Christmas) in modern America, it makes sense to use the new year to focus on scaling back.

But after spending the last few weeks in prayer and discussion with Josh, we decided to go ahead and get on that bandwagon early. And because this blog is not only about Baby R (although I love writing about and to him) and I am not only a mother, I'm going to document all aspects of life on Self Lane here. Most of the time, that life will be about my beautiful baby boy, but sometimes it will be about J & I fighting our way out of thousands of dollars of consumer debt and struggling to lose over 100 lbs.

We decided to start early because we thought the transition of my going back to work was really a good spring board. For the last year, we've been using our money to save for maternity leave and really put getting out of debt on hold. But, we didn't plan on having some of our financial surprises during my maternity leave. My car is completely undriveable (even after sinking almost $1,000 into it), we discovered breastfeeding is not an option for us, and there were a few gift card snafus. All of which contributed to my returning to work about a month earlier than we originally planned. Don't get me wrong, we've also been tremendously blessed during this period. I don't want to discount that. I just use this time to illustrate how unprepared we are. Also, personally I struggle with materialism big time. I have always wanted to keep up with the Joneses and worried what others thought. So, by getting a jump start on scaling back, I hope to fight the more/bigger is better urge during this holiday season.

Actually, I am pretty excited about our financial plan. J & I spent the weekend re-reading Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover and plan to use that as a basis for getting out of debt. We've agreed to meet once each month to discuss finances. This is something we've never done before. I cannot express how happy/relieved I am about our monthly meetings. Typically when we start trying to get out of debt (each January) we talk about it at the beginning and then I'm left to put our words into action. Eventually I get frustrated and resentful because I feel like I'm making all the financial decisions and I get tired of always being the bad guy who always has to say "no." And in J's defense, he doesn't really know what's going on in our bank account.  To him, he works a lot so he should be able to treat himself every once in awhile. And then I get angry because he spent bill money although he didn't know it was for that purpose (or I get angry for having to tell him no). So, to combat that we are meeting every month to discuss the following month and we are also starting the envelope system. 

As far as weight loss, we don't exactly have a strict plan in place yet. We are trying to do a few small things each month in the hope that they will build on each other and we will eventually just choose to eat healthy on our own. I am open to ideas, but because of our budget am limited on spending. For november, we chose to eliminate fried foods, sodas, and pre-made pizzas. For December we may focus on drinking more water or making our coffees a little less sugary healthier. 

We both really want to teach R about good nutrition and making wise financial choices especially because we struggle so much in those two specific areas. We also know that good health and being able to give back (financially) are ways to obey and honor the Lord. And that is always our most important goal of all.