tweedle dee

Anika is 7 weeks old today.  Wow.  The time has gone both fast and slow - the days go quickly and the nights go SLOWLY since meltdowns are still between 7 PM and 10 PM.  Here is how we have been dealing with meltdowns: power feed her before 6:30 PM, warm bath + hair drier, lavender lotion on her feet, the "rocket ship" technique (shooting her up into the air and slowly back down - complete with sound effects), feed her an ounce then the pacifier for 30-60 seconds feed her an ounce again then the pacifier and so on, tick tock her until anything comes out - burp or regurgitated milk, and our new favorite - let her lay on the changing table and smile and coo and chat with her birds.  Please see the video below.

I cannot believe how much she loves those damn birds.  But we have a plan to use that love for our advantage - I am working on a bird mobile for her crib.  She could stay on the changing table for 20 minutes or more because she loves those birds - she flirts with them, she smiles at them, she talks to them. She has laughed twice in her sleep and I bet those dreams were about Tweedle Dum (the bird with sparkly eyes) and not about me or her dad. 

My mom comes to help out a few days a week, and my time is usually spent running errands or cleaning the house.  Finally yesterday I skipped cleaning and sewed up the new birdies.  I ordered some sparkly vintage buttons for eyes and Kevin is going to create a hanging apparatus to dangle the birds off the side of the crib.  The things we do for sanity.  I hope she will loves these new birdies as much as the Tweedle brothers and she will be happy by herself in the crib! 

6 weeks old

 

 

getting her groove on

Today we are experimenting with a few new things - sleeping in the crib and using g-diapers.  Anika is too big and too strong for the bassinet.  Oh yes.  At night, she kicks her legs and pushes against the bottom of the bassinet and shoots herself to the other end of the bassinet.  Then she gets pissed that her arms cannot move around - since her head is touching the bassinet and there is nowhere for her arms to go.  She is holding her head up for longer and longer periods of time and we have to keep a tight grip on her or she kicks and maneuvers her way out of our arms (usually when it is burping time). 

Just when Kevin and I figure out how to tell if a diaper is wet or not, I change the diapers again.  First it was from pampers to huggies (huggies just hug her butt better) and now it is from huggies to g-diapers.  Already her clothes are getting tight, and I change her to a bigger, 1/2 cloth 1/2 disposable diaper.  Soon we will have to dig out some 6 month old onesies -I have already weeded out some of the 3-6 month clothes that no longer fit.  Who sizes these things anyway?

playing with grandma