new friends!

Today Anna Elizabeth Swafford was born--a girl who is sure to be one of Cadence's new buddies at Webb.  We are very happy for the Swaffords to finally meet their baby girl, and we can't wait to meet her ourselves!

The past few days Cadence has been hitting her 6 week growth spurt, which means eating a lot, then sleeping a lot, then sleeping very little in order to eat a lot!  She's slept through the night three times so far--and hopefully we can make it 4 tonight--although she's slept a lot during the day today, so we may not be so lucky...

Today she took her first out of state trip to Alabama as we ventured to Unclaimed Baggage.  She was SO good the whole time we were there, and even during the three hours she was in the car.

6 weeks old!

Cadence hit the 6 week mark yesterday, and thus it was time for my post-partum check-up.  The PA checked me over and took care of doing my annual exam then, too, which was nice because I'm switching to a type of non-insurance that doesn't cover preventive care--so I won't have to pay to have that visit done in a few months again!

We continue to try to figure out Cadence's sleep patterns at night.  It's definitely gotten easier the past couple nights, but I can't say that I feel like she's really hit a rhythm yet.  For example, last night she went down at 10:30, and I just put her down at 11:05, but now I hear that she's awake again!  For me the hardest part is just not knowing when she's finally going to fall asleep for the night--I hate the back and forth!  We did watch the Happiest Baby on the Block DVD, which gave us some good strategies for calming her down--I can't say that they work 100% of the time, but I feel like they've helped us, especially James, have more tools in our arsenal for combating her fussy periods.

Tonight we went on our first family run to the park--although we didn't actually run very much, it was nice to be a little more active.

adventures in sleeping.

We've officially made the transition to Cadence sleeping in her crib, and although the first night was rough, the second night went much more smoothly.  It seems like once a week she has one night when she just can't seem to fall/stay asleep, and this night was one of the worst yet.  There was a large storm that came through, so the dogs were on edge and whining, Cadence was overtired and restless, and James and I were just plain exhausted.  She did finally fall asleep around 2am, but by that time had gone almost 8 hours without some quality sleeping time.

Given that difficult night, I decided to crack open a book given to me by another campus mom about babies and sleep, and some of the things I read really helped us out the next night.  I usually only put her down if she's completely out, but this book said to try to put her down when she's drowsy yet awake so that she learns to soothe herself to sleep.  We've also recently introduced the pacifier, and that has helped soothe her without me needing to nurse her.  Last night she fell asleep around 11, woke up at 4, and then was up until 7:30 and fell asleep again until 10:30.  I was completely exhausted around 7, so I was thrilled that she got another long sleeping stretch in this morning.  Today has seemed more normal, as she is eating only every 2 hours or so and taking more frequent naps.

where does the time go?

Yesterday Cadence was officially 4 weeks old, and I can't believe that she's been alive for that long already!  It's probably because the days never seem to have a beginning or an end--it's just one long vicious cycle of not enough sleep and trying to get things organized in our new house.

My family came into town last weekend, and with their help we were able to get a lot of things done around the new house--paint Cadence's room and dresser, install our new locks, get our internet set-up, install our printer, and Mike even took my laptop home with him to try and get it up and working.  Things are slowly coming together, but everything is moving at a snail's pace as we are completely at the mercy of our little lady!  Our main problem right now is that our washer is broken, so we are slowly being inundated with dirty laundry, and given that we're using cloth diapers, laundry facilities are kind of necessary!  We are hopeful that it will be fixed by Monday...fingers crossed!

Cadence has been sleeping well, usually 5-6 hours every night, although inevitably there is one night a week where she just gets completely thrown off and doesn't ever get a really long stretch in--which makes for a rough day for mom the following day!  A few days ago she started smiling for real when she hears my or James's voice, and it's amazing how one beautiful smile can make you forget all the frustrations. 

Tonight we have a double baby shower to attend for Monica and Sarah, and Cadence will be coming along with me so that Jessie Rich and Megan Stimpson can see her for the first time. 

Busy, busy, busy!

The past week has been such a flurry of activity, I can hardly remember what happened when!  I suppose that's what happens when you're sleep deprived and going off a baby's schedule!

James's mom, dad, and grandmother came into town last Friday and will be leaving tomorrow, and while it's been nice to have some help once in awhile so that I can get things done and they've taken over preparing meals and doing dishes since they've been here, having house guests for almost a week can be a draining experience, especially when it's 100+ degrees outside and there's a newborn involved in the mix.  It's stressful because sometimes little Cadence just needs/wants to cry, but when you have guests and she's crying all that happens is people keep commenting on her crying and speculating why she's upset/what one can do to make her stop.  I think the visit has stressed out Cadence as well, as she got pretty far off the schedule she had established and has been grumpier a lot more.

The other big news is that we started moving into our new house on Sunday.  We should be able to finish up tomorrow, and then on Thursday Shannon is coming down to help me unpack and paint Cadence's room.  I absolutely love our new place, and I hope that we're able to figure out how to best utilize all the space we have!