Happy Lynsey = Happy Parents!

Well, in the last ten days or so since my last post, Lynsey has been gradually getting better at sitting, as well as starting to move more when she's on her tummy. She also tried watermelon and really liked it - I wasn't sure how she would handle the texture but she was just chewing away and then opening her mouth for more! I also started feeding her a bottle of formula at night instead of a breast-feeding, and I think it's helping her sleep a bit longer at night. She has slept in until 8am three or four days in the last week which is great:). She likes the bottle and I really like giving it to her - I feel like we can bond just as much when I'm bottle-feeding her. I'm still breast-feeding her during the day for now, but I think I'm slowly going to be weaning her over the next month or so. She is naturally weaning, I think. Overall, she the most content that she's been since she was born so I am really enjoying her! We went to the mall on Saturday and she was so good - just sat in the stroller and hung out. So nice! She is pretty much on a schedule that sort of happened naturally as well - I never scheduled her when she was a newborn, but we've kind of fallen into a routine that really seems to be working for her. Still no teeth so we'll see what teething does to her schedule!

The carpet went in in the basement on Thursday and I was frantically cleaning the house on Friday to get ready for our guests this weekend! It is so nice to live in a clean house again - and to have that space in the basement is awesome. We still have a lot of organizing to do down there, but I'm sort of looking forward to that part. The finisher is coming this week to take a look and give us an estimate, and it sounded like he could come and do it next week maybe. We had 4 adults and one baby over for the weekend - they were down for the Calgary Hoop-it-up tournament. Unfortunately, the weather was really terrible so they only played on Sunday and it was still really rainy and cold. It was a fun weekend, though - Lynsey enjoyed checking out little Lucy:).

Not a lot to talk about this week

So there's not much new this week. Lynsey is becoming more and more curious all the time - reaching for things, grabbing things. It's like she's awakening to the big, colourful world around her. She also starting making the "B" sound last week - very cute:). She didn't really like swimming this week, but I think I've figured out why - she loved the hot tub so I think she must be cold in the pool! I'm going to buy her a swimming shirt to put over her swimsuit - hopefully that will help.

The basement is ALMOST done! The drywall has been mudded and sanded, ceiling has been textured, so now the ball is in our court. We are painting this week and carpet will be going in on Thursday. So close!

Finally a Mom on Mother's Day

I got my first Mother's Day present "from Lynsey" this morning - very cute:). Weird that I'm a mom now! This week has been a bit hectic - the push to get the basement done has been a bit of a drain, especially on Brian, who has been doing the majority of the work. We were both up until 3:30am on Tuesday night getting ready for drywall - didn't realize how long the "odds and ends" would take! We got it done and the drywallers were in on Wednesday - tapers in on Monday. It's so exciting to think that in just a few weeks we're going to have a finished basement!

New with Lynsey this week is that I took her swimming! She LOVED it! We went on Monday morning for the first time and it took her about 10 minutes to warm up to the idea (as it does in the bathtub sometimes) but once she did, her legs didn't stop for an hour. I've never seen her so excited! It was very cute. One day soon when Brian comes along we will get some pics and video and post them - she really is so cute in the water. We started swimming lessons on Thursday, too - she liked them at the start, but then the instructor helped her down the slide and then the fun was over:(. I think she's a bit of a scaredy-cat - have NO idea where she could have got that from! I'm going to take her a few times a week from now on because it's cheap on Mom and Tot days, and she wears herself out so much she sleeps great in the afternoon:). Oh and of course because she just loves it!

Six months old!

Lynsey turned 6 months old yesterday! We didn't have any kind of formal celebration. Our day was pretty normal actually, but it's exciting to know that she reached this "landmark":). She almost rolled from her stomach to her back, so I think she realizes that she's old enough now that she really should be doing that - ALL her friends have been doing it for ages! She also started screeching a lot more yesterday, too, so I wonder if she thinks 6 month olds need to have more of a voice. Hmmm.

So last Saturday night we let her cry at night, and it was an awful night. The bright side of this is that she has been getting progressively better over this week:). I definitely know better than to say that she is "sleeping through the night", but I got 8 hours of sleep last night for the first time in probably 8 months so things are looking bright to me right now! I no longer wake up anticipating her to wake up, so now when she sleeps through, I can sleep through, too which is wonderful. Ahh the journey of having a baby. I have come to the conclusion that I have to stop expecting anything to become "normal" because I can only be let down when things change. I could say now that she is officially napping really well, but what if it is a phase she is going through?? Nope, I am just taking advantage of good phases like this and hoping they last, but not expecting it.

Basement update - Brian is finishing up framing and electrical odds and ends today (hopefully!) and tomorrow the plumber is coming and the inspector (hopefully he finds nothing wrong fingers crossed) and then drywall on Tuesday. I am so excited for it to be done! Our house is a bit of a mess right now with all the basement junk upstairs, but soon I will have that space downstairs so I can organize - can't wait.

Always changing

Well, I've decided that I am no longer going to get my hopes up about any new "trends". Lynsey is always changing, so this idea that I'm going to get to a point where she is consistent is becoming a bit of a pipe dream. She's getting older, so she gets better with age, but I don't know if I have been able to successfully do anything to help her sleep longer. This last week she has decided that she wants to socialize with me at 4 in the morning. It's sad really, because she doesn't know any better - she just wants to be with her mom and she doesn't know that 4am is not the time for that! So she coos and squeals in her crib until I come to her and as soon as she sees me she just kicks and smiles with excitement, only to be disappointed to find out that I'm there to wrap her back up and give her soother back to her. Last night I put her in a baby sleeping bag so she couldn't kick her covers off, and let her cry when she woke up. It wasn't as bad as I thought - she cried for 20 minutes only. I know I said in a previous post that Brian and I were opposed to the "cry it out" method, but she's gotten a bit older and her crying at night has changed a bit. We'll see how it goes - I want her to make that final step to sleeping through the night.

On a brighter note, she's a great eater! I started feeding her baby food this week and she has quite the appetite:). She didn't immediately like the sweet potatoes, but warmed up to them, and she loved the peas. It's really fun feeding her different foods - I feel like she's growing up so much! I also got her a Baby Bjorn active carrier and she seems to love sucking on the front of it. So convenient - this soft thing right in front of her mouth that never falls away! We went to Home Depot today and she was in there for over an hour and did great. She gets impatient in her stroller sometimes, so it's nice to have a backup on walks and in the mall that doesn't kill my back.

Brian is working away in the basement! We had some drywall estimaters in this week and are waiting for a few quotes to make a decision. We are hoping that he can finish the electrical this week and the drywall can go in at the start of next week. Mudding and taping done two weeks later, and we're at the painting stage! That we are doing ourselves. It will be a lot of work, but I figure it's doable in a week or so. Then the carpet goes in and it's a livable space! We will get the finishing done shortly after, but at least we can start moving some stuff down there and have a decent spare room space again.

On the move!

Well Lynsey made some progress this week. On Thursday night while I was at a movie with friends, she spotted a toy a few feet away. She decided that she wanted that toy and put her legs under her and pushed herself forward until she reached her goal! I'm sorry that I wasn't there to see it, but I'm happy for Brian that he was able to catch it. I will probably see most of her "firsts" because I am with her the most, so I'll give him this one:). She is by no means crawling, but it seems when she is determined to get somewhere she will get there. Very exciting!

So an update on the sleeping thing. Much better! This last week has been great in that area. She still wakes up during the night sometimes, but I haven't sat up with her for 4 or 5 nights. Basically we just pop her soother in, wrap her back up, and even though she's still awake when we leave her, she falls asleep on her own! I can only hope that this is not just a fad but her learning how to sleep! Her naps are also for the most part much better. She now sleeps an uninterrupted hour and 45 minutes in the morning, sometimes even a bit longer. The afternoon isn't too consistent yet, but one step at a time. My conclusion about my sleep experiment a few weeks ago is that it was a success. Still not perfect, but continually getting better. Unfortunately, I think she is teething because she is whining a lot more when she's awake and she just attacks our fingers when we put them in her mouth. Nothing poking through yet, though. Hopefully soon!

Sleep . . . need sleep . . .

Okay, so my glass is a touch emptier than it was last week. The naps are going okay - not a huge improvement, but she is having good days amongst her average ones so I would say it is a bit better. Her nights, on the other hand, leave something to be desired. Some nights, she sleeps from 9 until 7:30, which is great - I would rather she sleep until 9 of course, but you can't have everything. Some nights, she gets up around 3 or 4 and is awake for an hour, hour and a half, for no reason. She is just awake. Some might think this is because she is sleeping more during the day, but I don't actually think that is what's wrong. She started doing this before her naps improved. I think she is awakened by gas and then decides that since she's up anyway she might as well kick and play. This would be fine if she didn't need one of us there to watch her. I think she is learning how to sleep through the night without waking up, it's just a slow process. She used to get up because she needed to eat, so now that she doesn't need to eat anymore, it's like something is missing from her life. The amount of time she's awake has been getting progressively shorter so I do have some hope that this is a transitional phase she will get through. I am more tired now than I was when she was a newborn, so I really hope she does get through it!

Onto more interesting things! She is starting to have some really funny expressions. You can definitely see her personality developing. She doesn't sit yet without support, although she can for short periods of time if she decides to. I can see it when she does sit on her own that she is strong enough and even has pretty good balance, but she just leans forward right away and topples over. Once she decides that this is an advantageous position she will be more determined, I think. She is definitely interested in crawling as well. Yesterday I lifted her stomach off the ground and she actually put her knees under her and her hands in front and pushed forward (doing a faceplant of course). She definitely hasn't coordinated the motion of crawling, but she is very interested in the prospect of moving. Good for her, bad for me:(.

For those of you who haven't already figured this out, one of my reasons for keeping this blog is so I can keep track of Lynsey's development until I can get caught up in her scrapbook/baby book. I hope I haven't bored too many of you with my journal-like entries.