Catfish

In other Earnest family news, Catfish's eye is doing better. He got an eye infection as a result of a normally occurring virus that got out of control due to stress (likely because of all the changes with the new baby). The infection got bad enough that his eye became ulcerated - he had 3 ulcers on it. The vet said he was not quite at the tipping point to losing his eye but if we didn't act he would soon be there. So, for almost a month now we've been giving him 3 different eye drops 10 minutes apart 4 times a day. Two weeks ago we had a check up and the ulcers are much better, but I have to say that his eye still looks awful. At that time we got a fourth eye drop to give him twice a day. I also put some powder stuff on his food in the morning and at night. He has another check up on Thursday, so I hope it will be significantly better. He's such a good kitty though. He never minds having to have eye drops. He's the coolest cat I've ever met, and the vet's all think so too. :)

Today's Musical Selection...

...was Creedence Clearwater Revival. Two minutes into "Susie Q" and she was out like a light.

Shots

Penny got her shots today at her two month checkup. It was SO awful. She cried and cried like I have never seen her cry before. I wanted to do anything to make her feel better. It was just awful.

However, the rest of the visit went great. She now weighs 10 lbs 3 oz and the doctor says we can now put to rest any concern about her being too small. She's growing like a weed. And, she laughed and smiled at the nurses and the doctor while he was examining her (that was before the shots of course). In fact, that made the shots even harder on me because she had seemed so happy before. Oh, I had my heart broken today. But, she probably doesn't even remember it now. I sure do though.

Bluegrass Rules!

After reading about my nephew Owen's 80's Dance Party the other night I felt compelled to report on P's own musical preferences. When she as about 5 weeks old I was listening to my IPod at night to help me stay awake during the middle of the night feedings and I noticed that it seemed like she could hear the music coming out of my ear buds. I started bouncing her along to the beat of the music (after she was done eating of course) - whatever I happened to be listening to at the time - and I noticed that she seemed to like some things better than others. She liked anything with a good dance beat to it, Outkast, Maroon 5, etc., but not so much James Blunt or Lauren Hill. But I noticed that she especially liked this Ricky Skaggs CD "Ancient Tones", and more particularly the faster bluegrass songs on it. So, now I play the CD on the dvd player in the living room if she gets fussy and "dance" with her. If she's fussing because she's tired, she stops crying within 20 seconds and usually goes to sleep in under 5 minutes. It's hilarious. I think it is really funny too that they market all this really slow quiet classical and new age music for babies, but Penny doesn't really appreciate any of that. It has to be loud and fast to have any effect. Kids these days. :)

Sleeping Through the Night!

Penelope has now slept through the night every night since Tuesday, Sept. 16. She goes to bed at midnight and sleeps until 730. It's like clockwork. She almost always wakes up sometime around 4 am, but only stirs around and grunts a bit. I ignore her and she puts herself back to sleep. I'm very glad she is able to do that - and incredibly grateful that she sleeps through the night now. And now that she gets up at roughly the same time every morning, her daytime is starting to work itself into a schedule too. Well, her feedings are roughly the same time everyday, but she still doesn't nap with any regularity.

Also, Penny turned 2 months old yesterday, and 9 weeks today. So, happy birthday baby!

Growing

As I mentioned before I'm trying to use only cloth diapers and get away from the disposables. I wanted to do that from the beginning, but with all the other stresses that arose in the first weeks I found disposables to be easier. It was a cop out because cloth diapers are very easy too but I was too stressed and sleep deprived to give it much of a try. Now things are going well but I still find myself using disposables at night. I am going to try to move away from doing that too. I was worried there wouldn't be enough absorbency during a 6 hours stretch of sleep, but I've noticed that she doesn't really go to the bathroom overnight, so I think there shouldn't be a problem.

Anyway, the newborn size disposable diapers were getting too small. They still fit, but I thought they were getting tighter and tighter. So, we moved up to size 1s last night. Only they are HUGE. I have to pull the tabs in on top of each other just to remotely make them fit. It'd be nice if there was some kind of transition size between the newborn and size 1s. Luckily the cloth ones fit great so I guess that's further motivation to get into using them exclusively.

Another Good Night's Sleep

Yesterday Penny took two fifteen minute naps - the one I mentioned about 4 o'clock and then again about 730. Otherwise she was pretty much awake from the time she woke up in the morning until almost midnight. I didn't really realize babies could go so long without sleeping, but apparently some babies sleep more or less than others.

Anyway, she slept from midnight until about 630 this morning. I let her lay in her bassinet and grunt for a bit so that I didn't actually feed her until about 645. Then she and I went back to sleep at about 8 and slept until 10. We feel luxurious this morning. She's so happy and active. She's been smiling up a storm and playing with all her toys. She's really "talking" up a storm too - making all kinds of sounds. That's what a good night's sleep will do for you.

End of Days?

I don't think the Bible mentions mosquitoes, but I know there was something about frogs. After TS Fay came through, our next door neighbor's backyard had about 3 feet of standing water (all the surrounding yards slope off down into theirs). Last week we had a plague of mosquitoes. They were so bad there were literally black clouds of them. Thirty or forty would get in the house every time we opened the door to just scoot inside. Once inside it was like being in some kind of B-horror movie with swarms of them on the doors and windows. Anyway, the mosquitoes have now been replaced by frogs. There are (no exaggeration) thousands of them in our yard. These little guys scramble frantically from underfoot if you try to walk anywhere. The yard looks like a moving sea of frogs.

P.S. In a follow up to the previous post, Penny did in fact only sleep 15 minutes. Whatever. I'm sure she'll sleep eventually. Of course I have the luxury of saying that now that I've had a good night's sleep. :)

We're All Smiles

Ok. I was hesitant to post this because I thought it might be a fluke, but Penny slept through the night last night and the night before last! The night before last (Wednesday) she slept from midnight until 7 am, and last night she slept from about 1130 until 550. So, so nice. Now, if we could convince her to take naps. After she woke up at 10 til 6 this morning, she hasn't gone back to sleep at all until just now (almost 4). Here's hoping she stays asleep longer than 10 minutes. The girl is amazing at taking power naps. She'll be exhausted and you finally get her to go to sleep for a nap and she sleeps 10 minutes and is good to go for another 5 hours. Wish I could do that. :)

Additionally, cloth diapering is going well. I finally figured out that I hadn't washed the diapers enough to get the cotton residue off so they weren't as absorbent as they should be. Now, I've had more leaks with the disposables than I've had with the cloth ones. I'm glad it is starting to work out.

And in other news, Penny smiled at her daddy this morning. So we are (literally) all smiles around here.

First Smiles

This morning I fed Penny at about 7 am and I let her sit upright for 20 minutes afterwards like usual to keep her reflux from being so bad. Well, this morning I was tired so I fell asleep with her on me. At some point when she started wiggling I laid her down next to me and dozed off again for 5 minutes or so. When I woke up and opened my eyes she was staring at me. And then she smiled! A real, genuine smile. It was the most awesome thing I have ever seen. Suddenly I wasn't so tired any more! :)

Carrier

On another exciting front - Tray and I received two front carriers (Snugli brand) from our friend Kelly. She's having twins and people are giving her all sorts of things. She wound up with four carriers (and I believe already had one from her first daughter), so she was very generous and gave us two of them - one for me and one for Tray. We plan to cook them dinner sometimes after the babies are born to reciprocate.
Anyway, I love my new Snugli. Yesterday I had my six-week postpartum visit (which went great by the way) and tried to carry her in her car seat. I will NEVER, EVER, EVER do that again. My arms were about to fall off. I was literally shaking and almost in tears by the time I made it back to my car after the appointment. Why they make those things so heavy I have no idea. You'd have to be a bodybuilder to carry her, and Penny isn't that heavy!
I have a Hotsling which I have used, but only when she was already asleep. She doesn't much like laying horizontally and she can't really see out of it and it is kind of small, so if she is awake she will protest about being in it (to put it mildly). However, I have used this Snugli yesterday all through her afternoon/evening fussy period to great effect and she is in it now as I type.
Kelly said her Baby Bjorn was probably the single most useful thing she had with her first daughter - even more so than a crib, and I could see that being true. When P is fussy I can just pop her in the Snugli and do my thing. Even if she continues fussing, at least she is fussing hands-free! :)

Sleeping Update

The trend has continued. Last night she went back to only three hour intervals - nothing any longer - but she did still go back to sleep every time. I think maybe it will get a little better as she gets older and works out a daytime rhythm too. I'd like to set a regular bedtime, but right now that last feeding before I put her "to bed" can be any time from 730 until 930 or 10. Sometimes she'll go four hours from that point and sometimes only 2 and 1/2 or 3 and then go four hours from that feeding. So there is still some irregularity, but I really enjoy sleeping at night even if only for two or (maybe) three hours at a time.