3 months old....almost a month ago!

Maleah turned three months old at the start of this month....just before we were leaving on our first family vacation as a family of four! And we were flying = momma was VERY stressed out with worry about all the what ifs that could happen along the way. (I know, something I am working on...) Maleah (and Reese) was a WONDERFUL traveler! Short naps, but still happy and only cried for 3 minutes on one of our plane rides (the nose dive into OC....not fun for anyone!) She slept pretty well at night even though she was working her way through her first cold.

Maleah has become so much more interactive this month! She is practicing the a sound over and over and LOVES it when you copy her. She has learned to play in her exersaucer and can move the objects in there plus move around the circle. Maleah is sucking on her hands more and more. This really helps her to calm herself! Sadly, since our trip, she is no longer sleeping through the night. I kinda figured this would happen but so sad to miss those hours of sleep.

But we hope sleep will return again soon! As of today, Maleah is in sleep training. She is napping on her own in her bassinet....I hope this will help night time sleep be better too.

She is such a happy baby, loves to watch Reese play, and smiles at just about anyone!

Grow up! Now slow down!

My sister hit the nail on the head! I need a change of mindset! Training my mind is the toughest thing for me to train, but what I really need to work on to be the wife, mommy, sister, friend that God desires.

When anyone asks me how it is going I reply "Well Maleah is not one yet! I am so not a baby momma!" Which is true, but I need to enjoy what I can in this stage. I will enjoy the next phase more but I can find the light now too.

When asked how Reese is doing "Great! But she is growing up to fast and I feel like I am missing it!" True, she is growing a ton and true I spend less time fully focused on her, but I can still enjoy her growing now, even more so as I really treasure the moments that I do get to focus only on her.

Yes, Maleah needs to keep growing and fast! Yes Reese needs to slow down now. Yes Mommy needs to lift her head up to realize that I have two sweet, healthy, wonderful girls and a Daddy that adores them and me.

CIO

Well, Maleah is still napping in the front pack each day for all her naps! She is such a routine baby. I will start to get the pack ready and she starts to fuss at me. Mind you, this is where she likes to sleep! Once inside and binkie in her mouth, she usually falls right to sleep. Now at about 45 minutes, we hold our breathe. Sometimes she can turn that corner and sleep peacefully the rest of her nap and other times she just can not turn that corner.

Regardless, I can't keep napping her this way. Not good for her or for my back or for Reese. Like on Tuesday we were playing outside (in the wonderful sunshine) and Reese tripped and hurt herself. She started crying of course and ran the other way, away from me, because she didn't want to wake Maleah up! So sad!!

So I have a plan here soon, to start putting Maleah down to sleep in her crib. I know she will cry, the question is how long and if she will be able to find sleep at all herself. She can not at this point put herself to sleep without help. BUT she can do it all night long. She goes down about 9ish and can sleep till 4 or 5am. So I know she can do it, but she just has not been able to do it during the daytime sleep.

I plan to stay home for 2 weeks, getting some friends to take Reese out from time to time. No fair to have to listen to her cry all day!

Okay so I will feed Maleah, keep her up as long as she wants, currently anywhere between 60 and 80 minutes, then swaddle her and put her down. I plan to get her after an hour and feed her on a three hour cycle or as close to it as is doable.

Any sleep/nap tricks/suggestions are welcome! I am not looking forward to this but know that it is defiantly needed for ALL of us! :)

Food wars

We have had trouble getting Reese to try new foods. Surprised? Not really but it is something we really wanted her to improve on. There were some steps to this process. First Reese is very sensitive to smells. There was a time in her development that she was throwing up about 3 times a day due to the different smells from food. Next, she has a sensitive gag reflex. When trying new baby foods, she would gag at the new taste and then throw up everything from that day. So those things made us hesitant to have her try new foods.

Through a parenting class we are doing we recently gained new perspective on the food battle. First, trying new foods is a skill, it is not a moral issue. This means we don't punish for not trying new foods. Instead we are trying a goal chart. We now have a sticker chart posted in the dinning room. Each night we offer her a small sample of what we are eating for dinner. If she eats it, and keeps it down, then she gets a sticker for the chart. Once she completes a row, she gets to take one of us out to dinner, to show off her new skills!

Another thing we are learning is portion size. I have never been good at this myself! We have a food pyramid for toddlers posted on the fridge and it reminds us of serving sizes for younger kids. Hopefully smaller serving sizes and this goal chart will lead to better eating without a battle! :)

Pottery barn

Pretty sure Reese enjoys looking at the pottery barn catalogue just as much as I do!

Pink and blue make.....

Purple! Reese was having a lot of fun painting as she discovered this fact. Mixing her favorite color with my favorite color, making a new color was just the best thing ever to her. And then she applied it to a sunset...."Look mom! God is using pink and blue to make purple just like I did!"

If ______ isn't happy then no one is happy!

The family unit....each person's attitude affects it greatly. During our sick week it was a drag....we were all very whining. "Reesently", Reese has decided that she wants to be very helpful and she does her helpfulness with complete joy. This greatly affects our family! Her joy is contagious and she reminds us that it is from Jesus so we can continually give thanks to Him. The other night Maleah was having some rough naps and Matt and I were passing her off back and forth, trying to calm her down. Finally I gave up and brought her down stairs. She was greeted with "Maleah! My little sister! I just love you!" Then I set her down on her play mat and she played happily for a while under big sisters watch. This was a wonderful break for mom and dad. I am so grateful God gave us such an enthusiastic little girl!