3 Months

Ellie's third month was a big one, for all of us a family. Lots of changes and big girl things happening around here.

For starters, Ellie gained a lot of neck control this month. I'm not sure how, as I just can't stand tummy time. Meaning, I can't stand when she screams her way through it. Therefore I'm just not that good at implementing it. Thankfully, she appears to have gained excellent neck strength by the power of her own will. She is now lifting that head up like a little superwoman, as she pretends to soar on the couch. I remember this change with Adly as well. There is something about seeing your little one pop their head up when laying down to get a new view of the world that is so exciting!

This month Ellie also gained her lungs. For the first two months, she slept a great deal and was always cool as a cucumber. For the life of us, we could not figure out where she got her personality from. But man, were we ever enjoying it. However, she recently appears to have found her inner voice and boy does she love sharing it. When she is mad...she is MAD. When she is tired....she is TIRED. Adly was always, and I mean always, calmed by the boob. The girl loved to eat. Not Ellie. Nothing works to calm her down when she gets herself into a rage. Oh...look what I did there without even thinking about it....a rage. Yep, she's my daughter. This has been a teensy bit scary and frustrating for us as parents, mainly because there's nothing that can be done at that point besides to let her scream. This has largely come to light in the last week as she's been working on figuring out her sleep patterns, so I hope all of it is interrelated. 

As far as sleep goes, this past week I reached my breaking point as a tired mama. I swear I just can't wrap my head around how mommies everywhere do nighttime feeds for months and months. I commend all of you! We had gotten Ellie down to one feeding a night for the most part at around 3:30am, which isn't terrible. The problem for me has been I've definitely suffered from some postpartum anxiety this go-round. So while Ellie would wake up and feed and so wonderfully fall right back asleep, I would stay up the rest of the night stressing myself into a panic over anything and everything and never falling back asleep. Weeks and weeks of not sleeping makes people crazy, and I was just about to that point. In the last week, her sleep patterns became worse, waking starting around 12am, multiple times throughout the night. This meant mama got no sleep whatsoever. And that meant mama was falling off the rails. 

Out of desperation, I called my pediatrician for advice on Saturday. New moms, if there's any one piece of advice you listen to from anyone, it's find a good pediatrician and follow only their advice! I love ours and she has counseled me through many a crazy time over the last few years. Anyways, she suggested first of all getting Ellie out of our room. And also suggested that most likely, she wasn't getting enough rest during the day, so it was interrupting her night time sleep. Sorry, one more piece of advice (or a mantra really): sleep begets sleep! The more they sleep, the better they sleep. It's so simple, yet can seem so ass backwards when you're exhausted. 

Anyways, the second I hung up with the doctor, I took apart Ellie's bed and kicked her out. Adly was kicked out of our room by 8 weeks because she was NOISY. She still is, she talks and sings in her sleep. But Ellie hardly ever made a peep. That and, the big reason was, her room is downstairs from us. Going back to the anxiety I've been dealing with, I was convinced that having her down there I'd still wake up and stress about something happening to her on another floor...so what was the point of moving her out?

Let me tell you, that at 11 weeks, 4 days, Eleanor Farrell slept through the night for the first time. Straight through. From 7pm until 6am. And when she awoke at 6am to eat, she promptly fell back asleep until 8:30am with her big sister chomping at the bit to get in and wake her up. This was also her first night in her own room. One can not explain the gloriousness that is a full night of sleep until you've been deprived of it for months on end. Of course, I didn't sleep the whole night. But I did sleep until almost 5am which was a hell of a lot better than what had been happening. And then the next night she slept even longer. Please, please let this trend continue! I honestly think she was actually having a hard time sleeping with us, as she appears to be a pretty light sleeper.

The pediatrician had also said to stop swaddling at this point. Her basic reason was in a month, Ellie will be starting to roll over and we'll have to unswaddle at that point, starting over this whole process of figuring out how to sleep. I had thought that swaddling was our savior with Ellie. But I think it was another thing that was hurting her sleep cycles. She's a wannabe thumbsucker at this point, and all the swaddling did was keep her from being able to suck her fist and self soothe at night. So it appears both things together were all she needed to finally get a full night of sleep.

Passed out in her new room while mama impatiently waits for her to wake up. 

My thumbsucking girlies.  

While Ellie has made some big leaps and bounds this past month, I cannot leave out the big accomplishments from her older sister. Adly has become a "big girl" this month by learning how to go potty on the big girl potty. This was a big accomplishment for not only herself but for me as well. I've thought for a while she might be "ready" but man is it a big undertaking to get your child to relieve themselves on a toilet. For many reasons, I was dreading it. But when other littles around us started jumping the diaper ship, I knew it was time to at least give it a grand ole try. Thanks to the constant on-demand advice of many other very wise mommies, we trudged through a few days at home buckled down asking the question that still comes out of my mouth consistently and probably will for the next few years "do you have to go potty!?" 

Adly has done amazingly well with the training. I am so unbelievably proud of her. My good friend (and personal life coach) Laura had passed on the wisdom from her own daughter's big girl events: that she felt it clicked for her when she could actually be proud of herself. And I think that's so true. Adly is truly proud of herself. Not only that, she gets how proud all of us are for her. And that in itself has provided so much intrinsic motivation throughout this process.

SO proud of herself at papa's house! 
(Girl moms: this jammie dress was a life saver for quick trips to the potty in the early days!)

But lets be honest. Adly is one smart cookie. The girl cannot only be motivated by confidence boosting applause and praise. No. She wants the goods. So, I will admit, for almost a week she lived off nothing but suckers and skittles and she received some presents as well. Whatever works, I have no shame. And two weeks in, we are still getting the occasional "I'm going to go pee-pee so I can get a sucker." (I mean, she had fully figured out she could pee a little, get a sucker and then when the sucker was gone, go back and pee some more to get another one.) However, as time goes on, I can see she is starting to understand the process of how going potty works and that you don't get a sucker every time you go. And while we've had complete success with number 1 on the potty, number 2 is still a major work in progress. I honestly think that before 3 years old, it just takes a good amount of time for everything to fully click for them when it comes to potty time.

Another big girl moment for the month was me going away for a girls weekend, leaving dad in charge for two whole days! This is something that was long overdue for all of us. I hadn't actually gone away on my own once since Adly came into the picture. Meaning, it had been almost 3 years. Far too long! My job has allowed me to cultivate some of the best friendships a girl could ask for, and for that I am forever grateful. Together, we enjoyed a quiet weekend away in Lake Geneva with a whole lot of lounging around, wine, and good girl conversation. I can't begin to explain how awesome it was, and how amazing it was to have Adam take the reigns and really let me relax. I can assure you it will not be three more years before I do that again.

So there we have it. Month three as a family of four had one little girl figuring out the gloriousness that is sleep, another little girl taking her biggest leap into the world of "big girls" and a mommy getting to also be just Kelly for a few days. And with that, I'm going to go hide in the corner and shed a few more tears for my sweet baby girls who are growing up too fast.

Ok, one more bit of celebration for myself this month. My second kid somewhat looks like me! I found baby pictures while I was home and immediately saw Ellie. It's about time I got a little something back for all that hard work called pregnancy and labor. However, I am happy that Ellie still carried on her father's plentiful locks and eyes, as I was bald until almost two.