Gwendolyn, Month Seven

There was a lot of exhaustion this month, probably related to two teeth that were popping through. Hopefully, she'll fall back into her good sleep habits.

 She's eating foods--sweet potato, pears, bananas, avocados, apples, squash, and peas so far. And she's just the cutest little person in the world. She was a lion for Hallowe'en and, oh, my heart stopped about a million times.

Lots of sitting, some scooting, lots of reaching--but no crawling yet. The girl loves to stand (assisted) and walk (assisted), but doesn't seem to want to crawl much.

Laughter is Gwendolyn's favorite. When her daddy plays peek-a-boo or her mom does funny noises or her brother's dances or sings, her laughter just bubbles out. It's delightful.

She started daycare (two times a week) this month, and she's doing good so far. Mommy needs support, but Gwendolyn seems to be good with the change.

 She makes me so very happy!

I'm not really a bad mom

(Most of this was written in the very wee hours of the morning, while rocking/nursing my baby who just won't sleep easily.)

I'm not really a terrible mom, but a few circumstances have coincided and I feel like the ultimate failure.

I should be able to take care of two kids, especially when one goes to daycare most of the day. But the nights have been hard. Little Gwendolyn has a tooth coming through, but she also misses her dad. When she sees him, she snuggles in and goes to sleep fairly easily. When she sees me, she sees MILK and that's exciting, and why on earth would anyone want to go to sleep rather than constantly nursing on mommy.

I started some anti-depressant medication about a week ago. It has started to help me a bit; for a few months, I had been feeling like the world was composed of shadows, gloom, and unceasing sadness. That wasn't such a good feeling.

But the medication also makes me tired. The first few days were bad, but it's getting better. However, I still just feel like my brain is heavy and foggy. I've been trying to press through it, but it's hard. I can't stop the medication because I was going down a very bad PPD pathway, but I don't have the luxury of sleep to help my body adjust.

My husband is out of town, at a conference. He's too important to modify his schedule. His is (mostly) our only income, too so I shouldn't complain. But I do, because I'm tired and beat-down. He didn't even use up all of his paternal leave or all of his vacation days this calendar year. Because he's too busy.

He's excellent at his job. He's excellent with the kids. He has tried hard to help me. I just want more.

My 3-year-old hasn't been too bad. He's gone to sleep without many issues. He has woken up at 3 or 4 am and come into my room, but will go back to sleep without too many issues.

The baby is cutting teeth, and I imagine that it's hard being seven months old. Especially with a terrible mom who tries to feed her and play with her and rock her but is sometimes just too tired to do much more than put the Jurassic Park Theme on the computer and cry while she rolls a ball with her infant and prays that the baby will take a long enough nap that I can grade and write and sleep. The nights have been the worst--awake for hours at a time.

I'm not really a bad mom, but I am struggling.

Gwendolyn, Month Six

My girl has been outside of the womb for half of a year! That's astonishing to me at times and completely unsurprising other times. I remember life before her but I love what she contributes to our family now.

Gwendolyn's 6-month stats...
17 lbs (Most babies have doubled their birth weight by now but, uh, she weighed 9 lbs, 5 oz so it's kinda hard to double that in 6 months. She's healthy and in the upper 50th percentile)
26 inches (in the upper 50th percentile) long
16 inch head (this was a surprise...as she initially had a bigger head than Latham, but it looks like she'll have a smaller head after all like her brother and mommy--'course those measurements could be slightly off too!)

Poor sweetie had a cold this month. Luckily, it didn't go into her chest or ears or even throat, but the snottiness in her nose did cause us to have a few sleep-deprived nights. The Nose Frida helped, as did ibuprofen, and I've been hoping that my breastmilk will deliver some help for her too.

Her babbles have increased in frequency and variety of sounds. It's so much fun whenever she decides to chatter. I can tell that she's not going to be shy about voicing her opinion.

I'm counting this as the month she said her first word. She says "da da da da", but especially when she wants Daddy to be with her. Someone asked me if it hurt my feelings that she didn't say "ma ma." NOPE! Girl loves her daddy and there's nothing wrong with that. Plus, logically, she sees me all the time and we talk about Daddy and Latham. So I know I've said "Daddy" to her lots more times than "Mommy."  :)

She's rolling quite a bit, but still hesitating on crawling. Maybe she'll go straight to walking or scooting. She loves to sit up and attempts to move from a seated position.

Her smile just pours happiness on the recipient. She's calm and happy most of the time. When she gets upset, though, oh, the tears do flow. But, she'll usually get all the tears out pretty quickly and then be right back to my chill babe.

She's so interested in the world around her. Loves watching people and animals and toys. Of course, her brother gives her a show all the time. He loves his "Baby Gwendon" and is thrilled to help in any number of ways. Recently, he's started reading her "Goodnight Moon" at bedtime and both siblings really seem to enjoy their time together.

 Gwendolyn brings love and laughter to my life! Happy six months!!