Contemplations over Coffee.: thankful.

thankful for thanksgiving...

We really enjoyed our time for Thanksgiving. It was great to see our other side of the family. We spent Thanksgiving day at Ryan's grandparents, Larry and Donna's. It was wonderful! Norah was a doll the whole day...very little fussiness, and overall in a great mood. She was rolling around on the floor like crazy, and even told us a 20min long story. It seemed like she finally found her voice. It was extra nice for me because Grandma cooked everything that I could eat, and that isn't an easy task these days, I even had pie with chocolate for dessert (and some yummy peanut butter/chocolate balls- Randy loves these. ;)) I was also so thankful that Norah allowed everyone to hold her. She spent a lot of time in Grandma's arms, and also spent time with G Daddy, Aunt Janae, and Uncle Brady. We were also especially thankful that Grandma and Grandpa Gruwell had Brady over for Thanksgiving, because he was in Denver and was unable to make the quick trip over the mountains to go home! Oh, one more thing. For those of you that know I'm not a huge cat fan....you would be happy to know that I allowed Norah to pet the Gruwell's cats numerous times, and she really liked them. And I did too....just not at my house.

Some Thanksgiving pics....

to be fussy or not to be...

Well, while Norah seemed to do fairly well in Denver, she has been a bit fussy again the past couple of days, mainly in the evenings. I thought the specific time of the day fussiness was supposed to end at 3 months! She is now on the prevacid medicine instead of the ranitidine. She takes 1/2 of a 15mg pill/day. I think it's helping a bit...... It is so stinkin' hard to give to her though. We are supposed to dissolve it and put it in water and give it to her that way. But, it doesn't dissolve entirely, it just forms these tiny little balls. It then gets stuck in the syringe, so I can't use that. I have been trying to give it to her with a medicine spoon, but often it sticks to the sides of that or runs out down her face. So, I'm not sure the medicine is making a huge difference overall, but honestly, I'm not sure how much of it she's even getting. I plan on calling Dr P and going over this with him later this week or early next week.

sleep....

There really isn't anything to write here, because we don't sleep. ha ha, just kidding. Norah slept pretty bad in Denver, but honestly it's not much better at home. She has been the queen of cat naps. 3 to 4 20-40minute naps per day is it. However, she did take a fabulous 2 hour nap in her car seat at my parents house on Sunday. The past 2 days I have been setting her down as the sleep books recommend and call it "drowsy but awake" for her morning naps. This nap is the easiest already, so I figured it was a good place to start. The afternoon naps are going to have to wait. As far as doing this at night goes, I think I'm going to start tonight as long as she gets a good day (relatively speaking) of sleep today.

Yesterday when I sat her down, she cried for a bit, I put my hands on her and rocked her gently and sang to her, with her binky (got to work on getting rid of that for sleep too!). She fussed for about 5 minutes, but then went to sleep after about 15 minutes. (Nap lasted a whopping 30 minutes, but better than nothing!)
Today when I sat her down, she really started wailing. So, I picked her up and snuggled her for about 15-20 seconds, and the moment her eyes started to look sleepy again, I sat her back down. She fussed a bit, but didn't cry near as bad as at first. So I put my hands on her, gave her the binky, and sang 2 songs. 10 minutes, she was asleep. She is napping now, we will see how long it lasts!
Last Night: She was super fussy for the 1.5 hrs prior to bedtime. I think her teeth were hurting her so right before bed I gave her some tylenol. Here is what the night looked like:
7:00pm - asleep
7:30pm - wake up, Ryan just shh'd and put his hands on her and got her back to sleep.
10:30 - heard her cry, went to her room, by the time I was there she was back asleep. I fell asleep on the floor in her room thinking I'd be woken right back up.
1:30 - woke up, nursed. 2:10 back in crib.
4:30 - woke up - was mad that I wouldn't nurse her. Rocked her, snuggled her, put her down, picked her up, put her down, picked her up, she was crying but I was going to refuse to nurse. Eventually she got really mad, by 5:30 I was done. I didn't want her to think her crying got her food, so I pulled a trick from the sleep books, and left the room for 1 minute (she screamed hysterically the whole time) then I walked in flipped on the lights, and said "Good Morning, time to get up!" all cheerily. (I am a good actress.) I nursed her in the lights like it was morning, she fell asleep within 10 minutes of eating. ugh. I layed her back down and turned the lights off, and left to drink some much needed coffee and spend some also much needed time in my devotional.
6:30am, back awake for the day.
Tonight: I CAN DO IT!!! Goals: I will lay her down "drowsy but awake". I will NOT put her in my bed with me. I will only nurse her once in the night.

the dairy and soy diaries...

Like I said earlier, Grandma made my Thanksgiving yummy too. I had:

Turkey, Sweet Potatoes, Baked Potato, Green Beans, Asparagus, Coconut Muffins, Black Bottom Pie, PB and Choc. Balls, Fruit/Avacado Salad, Homemade hummus with chips and nut crackers...and on and on. As you can see, don't pity me, I ate just fine for Thanksgiving!

thankful...

I am thankful for so many things, the obvious ones are my wonderful husband, beautiful daughter; my heavenly father and His grace;my mom and dad, who are wonderful parents and I appreciate so much more now that I have dipped my foot in the parenting waters. I'm thankful for my brother...I love him so much. I'm thankful for my husbands family that has so naturally become my own family. I'm thankful for all of my family, from Grandma to my aunts and uncles, I really do have a close and wonderful family. I know I could call any of them right now and they would do ANYTHING for me, anything. I'm also thankful for my wonderful friends, the one's I've had since basketball back in the day, to my highschool pals, and my college tennis teammates, to my newly acquired or refound friends. I'm so thankful to have all of them.

It's easy to get wrapped up in life, and forget how lucky we are to have simple things too. I'm thankful for my running water and that it is hot, I'm thankful for our heater to keep my little baby girl warm at night, I'm thankful for our beautiful home, I'm thankful for health, I'm thankful for a car to get around in, I'm thankful for so much. When you think about all we have to be thankful for, it's humbling and amazing.