labor day & sleep

For the three day weekend we didn't do too much to celebrate. We did take Arabelle to her first cookout party; at John's advisor's house. We quickly discovered that going to parties or any kind of adult function is going to be drastically different now that we have a kid. I spent most of the evening carrying her around in the baby bjorn so that she wouldnt fuss in the middle of conversation, and as a result spent most of my time talking with a 5 year old. His name is Milo and he befriended me pretty soon after realizing that I wasn't going to just sit around and talk like the other adults there. So the three of us had fun discovering bugs and plants in the yard until he had to go to bed and until Arabelle got sick of pretending to like the bjorn when it was so hot outside. We left soon after the crying became uncontrollable and the car ride home was exhausting for all of us.

This past weekend we had some good friends bring us dinner on Saturday night. Tasso and John met last year through a ride sharing program at UConn...he is a professor there and Karen is doing post-doc work at Yale. They got married this summer in San Francisco and then honeymooned in Hawaii....so we got to hear all about their adventures while we dined on the dinner they made...which was great...Tasso is greek and they both are great conversationalists so it was nice to have people over who do more than eat and spit up on you.

Speaking of spitting up...Arabelle as of late cannot (or will not) sleep on her back because she wakes herself up from spitting up so much. As a result she is still sleeping in the swing in our room. I was hoping by this point, she is two months old this week, she would at least start the night out in her room. I wasnt really expecting her sleep through the night yet...but she does pretty well....goes to bed between 8 and 9 and sleeps until 3 or so to eat, then back down until 7 usually. But, the biggest obstacle is getting her to sleep in her crib flat on her back. The other issue is that she still has quite the startle reflex so even for naps she has to be swaddled tightly or she wakes herself up soon after leaving my arms. If she dozes off at any point during the day I have to either sit and hold her while she sleeps or swaddle her to ensure that she sleeps a nap's worth...which inevitably wakes her and then getting her back to sleep for a nap is never easy. Things have to be just right in order for her to go to sleep and if we miss the window or if she wakes up fully for whatever reason....swaddling issues, spitting up, loud noises like dogs named Parker barking.......it takes forever to get her settled and sleeping again. I keep telling myself that she is only two months old and that if we need to sleep train her there will be plenty of time for that. I am still hoping any sleep training we do is going to be un-traumatic, but Im starting to have doubts.

Now for some pictures. These two are for your comparison. She is in the same outfit...first on the day she came home from the hospital at 4 days old and then at 8 weeks....crazy that she grew and changed so much!!! This outfit by the way just about doesnt fit...she is too tall for 0-3 month old things so we are starting to wear mostly 3-6 month outfits...she has officially outgrown the newborn stuff...which is sad to thing about...she will never wear some of those cute onsies again!