Today is the last day of 2012 and Jemma is about 3.5 months old. Her 4
month appt is in exactly 2 weeks and I am very much looking forward to it. She
smiles so much now! When I pick her up at daycare at Beckys, she looks at me
and smiles like she is really glad to see me. It’s really nice! She even
giggled once a few weeks ago while watching Kenzie get tossed in the air. We
moved into the new house last Saturday and Jemma is taking everything in
stride. My parents just moved in on Friday although my dad has yet to sleep
there. The house isn’t quite ready for the dogs, especially Gypsy who is not
doing very well. She is having a very hard time walking and doesn’t have very
good bladder control so she pees and poos on the floor almost every day.
She is such a curious baby. She always tries to look at everything and
fights sleep pretty often if she is seeing something interesting. She even
wiggles around and curves her back on her playmat when she wants to see
something.
She is sleeping pretty well through the night now. She goes to bed
around 9:30 and she wakes up pretty consistently between 7-7:30. She is then
awake for about an hour before going back to sleep, sometimes for another few
hours. The rest of her day is hit or miss for sleeping but she does cat nap the
rest of the day. She is still sleeping at night in the co-sleeper but Mike just
set up the crib in the new house the other day, so we might be moving her into
that pretty soon. Especially since she is sleeping through the night so well.
She is a very happy baby and is very easy. Denise calls her the perfect
child. She sleeps good, plays on her own and in general is very content.
She is ALMOST rolling over! It will happen any day now. She just has a
little bit of arm she needs to get under her to roll the rest of the way over.
Then we will be in trouble!
She enjoys her play mat and likes watching the musical thing that
lights up. She grabs at everything now and it goes straight into her mouth. She
also likes kicking the polls on the playmat and watching the entire thing move.
She loves her granddad and is very happy sitting with him on the couch.
She is starting to like to watch TV and loves to watch football! Probably the
strong colors with the green field and uniforms is what interests her the most.
She had a great first Christmas. I got her a few different outfits: a
cute red dress, a first Christmas long sleeved onesie, and a first Christmas
fuzzy sleeper. She also had a santa hat and santa socks. I am really starting
to like getting her dressed up. I had a winter snow suit that is Ravens that I
bought for her a while ago at a yardsale and I thought she might be growing out
of it but there wasn’t an occasion for her to wear it. So yesterday we went to
old Ellicott city and it was the perfect time but it turns out it was HUGE on
her! She will probably grow out of it before the next Ravens season. She will
never get to wear it … oh well.
Cloth diapering is still going well. It was a little stressful during
the move and I probably shouldn’t have done it and just done disposable since I
had to have my mom wash them a few times at her house. But it is good for her
and the environment so its ok. It took a little at first to get the washing
down. Now I do 2 cold water rinses and then a normal warm water wash with the
All free and clear detergent. I try and hang them to dry as well but sometimes
when I am in a rush, I put them in the dryer. She had diaper rash at first but
not lately.
She also loves naked time. We put her on an absorbent waterproof mat
and she goes to town, kicking and punching up a storm. She used to stay pretty
much in one spot and if she peed I would just slide her over but now she is
getting very mobile and we have to watch to make sure she even stays on the
mat.
She is a pacifier addict. She loves them and we keep them everywhere
for her. They are all the Kenzie hand me downs. She doesn’t seem to have a
preference and likes them all. Mikes mom sewed her some pacifier clips that we
use in her car seat and on her clothes for when she spits them out. She lately
is very interested in her hands and spits out the pacifier to suck on her
fingers. I don’t want her to be a thumb sucker so sometimes I pull out her
fingers and replace it with a pacifier. Although Aunt Candice is trying to
teach her to be a thumb sucker like her. Ethan is a major thumb sucker although
he would never take a pacifier.
She spits up a lot these days. And putting her whole fist in her mouth
trying to suck her fingers isn’t helping either. That makes her gag a throw up
a lot too. We got those Aden and Anis bibs like Kenzie has and they are really
nice. She can wear them around her neck like a big bib.
Originally she had a little poop in almost every diaper. We called them
wet farts and they happened all the time with a few big ones. Then they started
to happen less frequently and she would have one semi big one a day. Now she
one poops every couple days. And most times there are multiple big poops in a
row. We have to rush to the changing table to make sure she doesn’t explode out
the side of the diaper.
Mike likes to give her little tastes of people food. The first time was
around Thanksgiving when he got a little cranberry juice on his finger and let
her taste it. She gives the funniest expressions! Im not sure if I like him
doing it but it’s such a small amount, it probably doesn’t matter. And its just
the juice, not actual cranberry sauce. But he has given her a few other little
tastes since.
I am still feeding her exclusively off breastmilk and I probably will
continue that until she is 6 months old. That is the plan for now. Then
introduce solids at that point. I would have to say that I have a very
love-hate relation with breastfeeding. I am over producing a bit right now,
although it’s not as bad as it was. I have probably 40 5-ounce bags in the
freezer right now. They are organized in cardboard soda boxes standing upright.
Jemmas feeding schedule is that she wakes up around 7-7:30 and I feed
her off my left breast (which produces less) until it’s empty. It’s probably
around 4 ounces. I also pump my right breast at the same time with the Medela
manual pump. I pump out until the bottle is full and my breast is mostly empty
(~5 ounces), then I let Jemma finish whatever is left. That makes sure I am
completely empty when my day starts. She then eats every 2-3 hours a 4 ounce
bottle. My production can keep up with that during the day. I usually pump only
1-2 times at work with the first being around noon. It only takes me about 10
minutes to pump, I am very quick. Around noon I get about 6 ounces, 4 out of my
right and 2 out of my left. Then I pump again at around 4pm and get about the
same amount. I am not as empty with pumping as she empties me but it gets out
most of it and it is a law of diminishing returns after a while. I pump
directly into the Medela bottles and then make them into 4 ounces when I pump.
I then bring them home and put them in the fridge and that is what she eats
tomorrow. When I get home, I breastfeed her until bedtime. It works out to be
2-3 feedings at night where I feed her. She likes to overeat and seems to eat
whatever we give her. She doesn’t seem fat though. We feed her whenever she is
hungry.
We try and let her fall asleep on her own but we aren’t very good at it
most times. Typically we rock her to sleep and put her in bed once she is nice
and asleep. We should do better at letting her fall asleep on her own but I am
not good with cry it out so I’m not sure when we will do that.
As for baths, she does not get them as often as she should. And I do
not like giving them although I am perfectly capable of it. She doesn’t seem to
like them or hate them. She doesn’t cry but doesn’t smile either. She almost
seems to have a look of concern or shock. But she doesn’t cry so she must be
ok. I prefer if Mike does it but he says I need to do it too. I don’t see why
though, that can be his responsibility. I also do not enjoy cutting her nails
but I do that also as well.
Jemma is very curious and always has such wide eyes. Her eyes always
look as if they couldn’t open any wider.
She also has a Mohawk and a mullet and is starting to get the trademark
bald spot on the back on her head where all babies rub their hair off. The
majority of her hair grows as a Mohawk down the middle and a mullet along the
back, it’s pretty funny but very cute.
Everyone says she looks exactly like Mike, especially as a baby.
