Sleeping Beauties

Caitlin, napping yesterday:
Brigid, napping today:
Now that they've proven they DO know what this whole sleep thing is, if I could just get them to do it at the same time, and preferably at night, we'd be all set...

Pitiful Pearl

A few nights of no sleep for anyone in the family will ALWAYS buy the cause of that no sleep situation an early morning trip to the pediatrician.

Well, it will if the cause is a pitiful looking three-year old with huge circles under her eyes, anyway.
When the cause is a two-month old who will only sleep in weird positions, with her pacifier in her mouth, leading you to spend a majority of the night trying to sleep on the floor of her nursery so you are within arms' length of her and able replace that pacifier in her mouth when she wakes up every five minutes looking for it?

Well, then you're just out of luck.

(Brigid has walking pneumonia. And a prescription for antibiotics that she doesn't want to take. Good times, good tim

*whispers*

Don't look directly at it, don't talk about it out loud, just pretend it never happened.

*Caitlin slept for 9 1/2 hours last night. And now I know she can do it, and now I'm afraid she'll never do it again.*

Seriously. Last night, I went to bed at 10:00, and I didn't wake up again until Brigid came to get in bed with us around 6:15 this morning. That's over eight hours of sleep. I don't think I've had eight straight hours of sleep since about my second month of pregnancy.

And then? After getting Brigid settled in bed with us and checking on Caitlin to make sure she was fine (because who DOESN'T frantically check on her baby when said baby goes from getting up every two to three hours the night before to sleeping four times that long without waking?), I WENT BACK TO SLEEP FOR ANOTHER HOUR!!!

So, you know, if you need me, I'll be over here running a marathon while carrying a car on my back. Because you can totally do that on a full night of sleep...

A Break in the Rain

We had a pretty miserable run of cold and rainy weather last week that kept us from doing much beyond taking Brigid to school. And since Steve and I started to realize that we need to make more of an effort to get Brigid away from the television because she's learned to completely tune us out whenever her shows are on, we took advantage of the nice weather this past weekend to get out of the house for awhile.

I almost wish we hadn't...

Did you know that just this past summer, Brigid's legs were too short to reach the pedals on her tricycle?

They're not too short anymore.

Ok, BRIGID, you can stop with this whole 'growing up' thing you've insisted on doing any time now...

PS: Indignant baby is indignant that she isn't included on the blog as much as her sister is. I keep telling her it's because she doesn't do anything yet, but she's pissed anyway.

(Oh wait, I take that back. According to Brigid, Caitlin doesn't do nothing. 

Caitlin dances. 

Because the other day, Caitlin was lying on Brigid's bed, waving her arms over her head, while Brigid was dancing to Lady Gaga or some such music, and Brigid was pretty excited that they both liked dancing to whatever song it was that was playing at the time. I didn't have the heart to tell her that the waving arms meant her baby sister was gearing up for an epic tantrum. 

I like to think Caitlin was dancing, too...even if she did start wailing not two seconds later.)

So, not a future model then?

Hey, Brigid, that's a really cute outfit. May I take a picture of it?
Do you think that you could maybe face the camera while I do it?
And what about a smile? Or a pose? Or even a look directly at the camera?

No?

Ok, then. Thanks for playing along.

The price I'd pay for sleep...

You know how they say that you can't put a price on happiness? Well, it turns out, I can put a price on happiness when that happiness is caused by the enjoyment that sleep brings me.

And that price just so happens to be right around $200.

Because, after trying more tummy time, and a different kind of formula, and anti-gas drops, and holding Caitlin upright for an hour after each feeding, I had to call our pediatrician back this week to tell her that NOTHING IS WORKING. Caitlin is still waking herself up, choking, after a few hours of sleep each night. And that's after she can't even fall asleep to begin with because she keeps gurgling up her bottle every time I lay her down in her crib, no matter how long it's been since her last feeding or how many times I've managed to burp her. And then there's the back arching. And the acidic smell to her burps. And the constant wet sounds in the back of her throat and nose, even when no milk is coming out.

(And seriously, while I would like to get more than two consecutive hours of sleep, I could probably deal with it, if that was the only issue. But it's so sad to see your poor baby, who is utterly exhausted and trying so hard to fall asleep, wake herself up crying over and over again because she can't keep her dinner down. Even when dinner was an hour before she tried to fall asleep. And she's not even lying on her back, she's still in your arms, propped up. It's like, by the time the reflux symptoms from the last feeding fade away, it's time to eat again. We don't like this cycle.)

None of these things are good for my nerves or baby Caitlin's health, so the pediatrician called in a Prevacid prescription for us. And when I went to pick it up, they told me it would be $217. For 30 pills. Because there is no generic drug. And a new year means a new deductible. And babies are expensive.

Ok, that last part isn't really one of the reasons the prescription was so much money, but holy cats, it's the truth. In Caitlin's short life, we've paid for a heart scan, a cranium x-ray, a round or two of bloodwork, and now a reflux medication prescription. And she's absolutely worth every penny. Of course she is.

But you'd better believe I'm keeping track of all of this so I can hold it over her head someday when she's trying to con me into buying her a pair of $300 jeans or a new car or something.

'Sorry, kid, I can't buy you a designer purse because I spent all of my money protecting your esophagus when you were a month old. You're welcome.'

I am going to get WAY too much enjoyment out of that conversation, aren't I? Maybe the teen years are going to be more fun for me than I think...

Cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame...

My beloved alma mater may have had their rear ends absolutely handed to them last night in the national championship game, but darn it...
...we looked darn cute while watching the carnage unfold.

And, really, isn't that the most important thing in the end?

Better late than never...

This might shock you all, but we, uh, got a little...behind...on our activity calendar in December. Which is how my sister found herself decorating ice cream cone Christmas trees with Brigid when she came to visit the weekend after Christmas.


I mean, we didn't get behind. I TOTALLY PLANNED IT THIS WAY! I didn't want Auntie Jess to be bored on her visit, you know?

We'll just be referring to them as ice cream cone New Year's Eve trees, ok?

At least I THOUGHT about blogging in December...

In December, when I was taking a little bit of an unscheduled blog vacation due to my desire to do nothing but lie on the couch and cuddle my new baby (which was a totally justified feeling, by the way...there is NOTHING better than lying on the couch and cuddling a new baby...), I was still planning to blog everything, so I took a bunch of pictures of Brigid participating in our activity calendar activities. And since I took the pictures, I might as well use the pictures, right?

So, let's pretend we're doing our December activities in January, shall we?

Look! Oreos! On a stick! Dipped in white chocolate and sprinkled with crushed up candy canes!

Thank you, Pinterest...this is a 'baking' activity that even I, with my limited (read: non-existent) kitchen abilities, can master. This would have been an adorable gift for the neighbors or Brigid's teachers if I'd wrapped each cookie pop in cellophane and handed them out to people, instead of just eating them all myself over the course of the month.

Not that I did that, or anything...


Whatever.

Brigid had fun with them, and that was kind of the point of the activities, anyway. So there.