Sleeping Like a Baby...Finally!!!

I posted a while back about how awful Alexia's sleeping habits were, and wondering if it was ever gonna get better. Thank you for all of your words of wisdom and well wishing. We finally seem to be in a good pattern now. It's not perfect. I know a lot of babies Lexi's age are sleeping way longer than she is. But, we have an awesome nighttime routine and she goes to bed around 10 every night. And....drumroll please....she wakes up only once. Count it. ONCE. She usually wakes up around 5ish. But, her morning feeding time can vary anywhere from 4:30 or so, until around 6. Totally depends on her. (The two nights she slept until 7:30, I thought I had died and gone to heaven!)

Then, after I feed her, she goes back to sleep for another 2-3 hours. Wakes up happy and all is right with the world! It's so wonderful! We've been praying for SO LONG that she'll get better at night time sleep and stop waking up so much, and it's finally happened! I get a REM cycle most every night now. And I just have to remember to recognize this as a wonderful blessing! She's still not awesome at naps. Some days it's two naps, and she's super ornery by bedtime. Other days it's three tiny naps. I think we're probably in the transition point where her body would really be okay with two longer naps. But, she's so used to taking short 30-40 minute naps, that she still needs three of them... But, I think I've said this before...I'd trade good daytime naps for good nighttime sleep any day of the week! So, I'm liking how things are progressing.

Sorry no pictures in this post. I need to take some more, especially since Alexia is sporting this adorable little pop belly, and I can't get enough of her chubby cheeks. They're the only two spots on her that are chubby. So cute. I'll get some pictures on here soon.

Other Lexi stuff: Jacob has lately been spending time with Lexi on the floor at night, practicing crawling with her. She doesn't get the leg bending thing. But, she'll get it eventually. She doesn't have any teeth yet, but I'm VERY grateful to not have to worry about that yet. She's doing awesome at eating her baby food. She LOVES her fruits, and she's starting to like eating bread pieces, and cheerios. Alexia is also starting to get more vocal these days, and it's so much fun. Such a joy she is!!!

Becca's New Blog

I created my own personal blog just this week. It’s gonna be a soap-box, random-thought-type blog. I figured that our family blog is more for family updates and pictures and such. So, I created another one that’ll just be for my random thoughts about stuff. Check it out at your own risk! I’m still fiddling with it. I’m gonna change the background, I’ll probably change the title several times until I find something I love, and I still don’t have a profile or anything fun on there. But, my first two posts are on there, so if you want to check it out, feel free. It’s at sharpbecca.blogspot.com. (Someone already took beccasharp and rebeccasharp. I know! The nerve!!!)

New Skill

Alexia can now sit all by her onesie! She’s been sitting on the couch by me for a while just fine. She’ll sit in the corner and play with toys while I sit by her. But, on the floor, she hasn’t been sitting at all. Can’t hold herself there. Maybe it's her long torso, and short legs. But, all of a sudden, it happened. She never even did the tri-pod step. (Using her hands out in front of her to balance) She just started sitting up. We had borrowed a Bumbo from a friend about two weeks ago (a nifty little rubber-ish seat that helps babies sit up – useful for baby food feedings even). Lexi sat in it once for about 45 minutes or so, but after that, she didn’t want to have much to do with it. Before that, we've been practicing sitting, where I’ll have her sit on the ground with me sitting behind her, with my legs on either side of her. She'd play there, and have my legs to lean on. But, just in the middle of last week, she started sitting on her own – minimal falls. She can sit for more than 15 minutes at a time, with no falls! Now, she’s a pro!

It used to be that if I needed to leave her on the floor and run downstairs or something, I’d just have to lay her down on her back, and she didn’t like that so much. She likes to be upright. So she’s loving the fact that she can sit on her own now, because she doesn’t need us anymore to be upright and playing. (Of course, she does fall sideways sometimes, and needs us to rescue her. But, even when she falls, she’s rarely cried.)

Her latest favorite thing is for us to put her on the floor in front of her basket of toys. She then proceeds to take every toy out (some she plays with, others she just takes out). When all the toys are out, we put them back in and start over!




She looks way too tiny to be sitting all by herself! Pretty soon she'll be crawling! No. We're not ready for that yet. Not NEARLY ready.




She loves getting her picture taken! Here she is doing her latest intense grunt-smile. Love it!!!

"Whatever you do, keep breathing!"

Alexia is seven months old, and we took some new pictures of her last week. They turned out way cute. I haven't posted pictures in a while though, so these pictures are from the last month or so.

It's a good thing she's cute, cause she's sure been a handful this past week. I think she's teething. For one thing, she has been playing with her tongue a lot lately. Also, she's been slobbering more than usual. She's always slobbered a lot, but lately it's seemed to be more. She's also had a small cold lately - congestion, and snot running everywhere. But most of all, she has been really ornery. Crying when I try to nurse her (very unusual). Crying during her baby food feedings (which she usually loves). Or just crying for no reason.

It was one of these "crying for no reason" sessions, that a big event happened. Since Alexia was born, she's been a breath holder. She'll be crying, and just hold her breath for a few seconds. I found out that Jacob was a breath-holder when he was little as well. And my brothers kids were all breath-holders. So, I figured it was in Alexia's genetics. My sister-in-law, Tessa, taught me a trick to just blow in the direction of Alexia's nose when she holds her breath, and that gets her to breathe. So, it's been working so far.

But, on Friday, Alexia got really frustrated with me when I took something away from her and started cleaning the slobber off her hands and chin. She started screaming really loud, and then she didn't take a breath for a while. I watched as her face turned blue, her lips turned blue, and I tried blowing in her nose, and that didn't help. Then, all of a sudden, her body went completly limp, and her head rolled back. She passed out!!! She immediately came-to, and screamed her guts out. I know that passing out is a risk for breath-holders, but I didn't think it'd start this early! She's only seven months old!!! It scared the heck out of me! Looking back, Alexia was only holding her breath for maybe 15 seconds or so. But, it was sure long enough to shake me up.

Hopefully the entire teething process won't be so dramatic...

Isn't she cute?