3 AM is a fast friend

Tummy time at 5 AM? Absolutely.

You never fully understand how amazing it is to sleep for more than 3 hours at night until you have a kid. The little naps that you get throughout the day are absolutely nothing in compared to even a halfway decent stretch during normal sleeping hours. That being said, our little... angel decided for a few days last week that not only is she nocturnal, but she doesn't really like sleeping at all. Ever. Period. The schedule I last mentioned went completely out the door that same night; she went to sleep at 5 AM that night, 3 AM the night after, and the next night she didn't sleep for an extended period at all. In fact, in the that last 24 hours I would say that she maybe has slept 6 hours, all of that being broken up in to very short naps. Thankfully, a few days after this little fiasco, she resumed a decent schedule for me, falling asleep by one or two and sleeping till noon or so the next day, only squirming awake to eat every 3ish hours. The next thing we're going to work on is the length of time she sleeps...someone that is eating as much as a 6 month old should be sleeping like a 6 month old, as far as I'm concerned.

Little Maggie and JuneBug

June has also had 2 play dates this month! Thankfully, I'm not the only one who has recently had a drink of the obviously tainted Homewood water, so babies and friends abound. Claire brought 6 month old Maggie over last week, and day before yesterday we went over to their place, along with Anna and Layla, Emily and Grayson, and Samantha and James. The ten of us sat around for a couple of hours exchanging horror stories and eating the cookies that were made for the bigger babies. Good times.

All of the pollution in Birmingham
does make for some epically
fantastic sunsets.

As for Cliff and I, we enjoyed a fantastic date night while June stayed at Gram's house. There is nothing quite like Surin and an amazing sunset to make you completely at peace with life. That little bit of peace might be out the window next month though, with school and work both re-entering the picture! Que the ominous music, please.

One month down

One Month means one thing: shots. Thankfully, we have a rockstar for a child, and she was upset for maybe five seconds before she was completely over it. Doctor Hodges also said she was remarkably healthy, coming in at the 95th percentile for height and weight (and brilliance, if it was measurable, I'm sure). Our little chunky monkey weighs 11 lbs 7 oz, and is 22 inches long. Cliff's whole family on his father's side is extremely tall, so I told Doctor Hodges that she would probably be very big too, to which she replied that I wasn't so tiny myself. For my mental health, I'm saying that she meant I was tall. Aside from that, I also ran into a friends younger sister and her daughter in the waiting room, whom I have never met before. I was so surprised to see someone I (kind of) knew, that I introduced myself as her sister's friend, who stalked her daughter on facebook. Couldn't have been any creepier.

June has been putting herself in a schedule recently, which is one that I'm completely in love with. Now that I've said that, I'm sure she'll change it today. She has been waking up for the day around noon or so, staying up until 11ish (with very, very short naps in between) and then sleeping relatively soundly from then on, waking up only to chug the same amount of food that people twice her age eat. Since she's been out like a light at night, we tried to let her sleep in her own room again, and this time I didn't feel like the worst mom ever. In fact, I felt like a mom who had her own bed back! Minus the other person and 4 dogs in it...

In other news, tomorrow is our first playdate! Meg, Claire, and her daughter Maggie are all coming over so we can feel how old and boring we really are.

Photobooth evolution...I'm so bad at this that I can't get them in order.

1Weeks

19 Weeks

13 Weeks

4 Weeks

 9 Weeks

7 Weeks

3 Weeks

6 Weeks

 2 Weeks

 

My own personal "Cops" episode

So, apparently the new parenting no-no is responding to your baby's cry. You're supposed to just let them scream. In fact, there is an iPhone app that will time for you exactly how long you're supposed to let them scream before you go to them so they can learn to comfort themselves. I brushed this off as something totally stupid until tonight when Dad got really serious, looked me dead in the eye, and said that I really should do this. Then he looked at Sav, and all of a sudden all of the memories of Savannah screaming when my dad tried to leave her room at night came rushing back. He would literally have to sleep on her floor so that she, and the rest of us, could sleep. Now it's 1:42, June is freshly changed, fed, swaddled, and in her own crib for the very first time. Her monitor is right beside me and every time she screams, the monitor goes bright red, making the entire room feel like the middle of a cop show, where I'm the bad guy. Hopefully she comforts herself soon.

On a side note, I discovered that when our monitor is on channel B, we can listen in on our neighbors.

June also made her first mall debut today, which I'm guessing went well but I couldn't say for sure since Grandma stole her for most of the time. I'm pretty sure that everyone only invites us places to see her, which is fine because I'm all for showing her off.

Cliff has been a tad sick all day, but tomorrow if he doesn't have to work we're tackling his resume so he can start looking for a new job. Hopefully something really good comes our way! Why can't you get paid to be a professional dad?

I was about to end this by saying that there hadn't been any bright red flashes in a while, but June had to prove me wrong, so instead, goodnight.

The first of many...hopefully

Well, its 2:49 AM and everyone is asleep, which made me think that its the perfect time to start a blog. I have an awful fear that, like everyone says, we're going to wake up tomorrow and June is going to be going to college, so I'm going to try to start managing this little blog so that everyone, including me, can keep up.


As a recap...

June Monroe Wilson was born on June 17 at 4:35 in the afternoon, after a relatively short induced labor. Apparently, I wasn't really even supposed to be induced that day, but thankfully I never answer my phone or check my messages, so I had no idea that they had rescheduled our appointment. They felt obligated to admit us since we were already there, so we checked in to our huge birthing room and got ready for an amazing (and amazingly exhausting) day. My water was broken and the pitocin was administered around 8 AM, and then I got my epidural a few hours later after I was finally willing to admit that, yeah, this didn't feel too great. I dilated up to 5 centimeters quickly, but after a length of time with no change it was time to roll over (or be rolled over). Only a few minutes later I started feeling a kind of pressure that made me want to launch an "Adopt for your own good" campaign and as it turned out, that little roll was all June needed to get going. All of a sudden the room was ready, the stirrups were up, and Cliff and Shey, our nurse, were giving me the go-time faces. I realized, as did everyone else, that my epidural wasn't working quite the way it was supposed to when I noticed that "Why yes, I do feel that", and even in my only-clear-enough-to-scream state of mind I knew that everyone was trying to look overly calm as they called in a nurse to bring in lidocaine (NOW!)...But all in all, 30 minutes and one "Just grab her by her hair and pull her out!" comment later, June Monroe Wilson came into the world, sideways and holding her hand by her head at 7 lbs, 13 oz and 20 inches long.

These 24 days  have been a crazy blur, and in one way it feels like all of that was years ago, and in another it feels like yesterday. We have been blessed with having an amazing little girl who has the most beautiful temperament. She is so alert and interested in everything! Nothing seems to phase her, including the puppies who want to constantly check on her with every sound she makes. At her one week appointment she had regained almost all of the weight that she lost in the hospital, putting her at 7 12.5, and at her two weeks she was 8 13. Like mom and dad, June can eat like a champ and is already putting away 3-4 oz every 3 hours. She lost the final bit of her cord at 14 days exactly, and has discovered that baths are about the greatest thing ever, which means that I finally have someone who can appreciate how great showers are with me. Her first trip to the dog park was at 3 days old, which I wish I could say that she loved, but it honestly probably didn't seem any different to her than home. What else...she's incredibly strong. She was picking and holding her head up the day she was born, and is getting progressively better at it every day. She sleeps with her hands up in the air by her head, which Grandma says is a sign of confidence. She already likes sleeping unswaddled, but when she is swaddled she loves it. Cliff actually ties her up like that, which makes her so cozy that she always instantly falls asleep. The other way that she loves to sleep is right on your chest. She could stay there forever, and I wish she would! She makes the best sounds, too...I think there is a possibility that she is part baby doll, and part dinosaur.

Alright...its  4:30, and she just ate and fell back asleep, so I'm going to take advantage of the next three (hopefully!) hours and close my eyes a bit....

                                                    

Photos:

Top Right: JMW- 2 days old

Top Left: JMW staring at daddy, 1 day old

Second Right: JMW a few minutes old

Second Left: JMW 3 days old, getting ready to go home!

Third Right: JMW's Nirvana album shot, somewhere around 5 days old

Third Left: JMW and Papa, 2 days old

Fourth Right: JMW and Papa C, 4 days old. We're always going to make sure she knows what an amazing great-grandpa she had.

Bottom Center: JMW 24 days old, passed out on her daddy's chest.