My Little Valentine

How appropriate that my favorite little Valentine turns 5 months old today!  She is growing up so fast!  One day she can't do something and the next she's doing it.  It truly amazes me.  Ruby has definitely found her hands and feet and is constantly grabbing at my face and her toes.  And this girl is a talker!  She's always blabbing about something :)

And she's finally got the hang of sleeping in her own crib at night.  Sleeping anywhere from 8-9 hours at night!  Yeah!

Giving her mommy Valentine's Day smoochies!

Getting to be such a big girl!

She loves her big brother Felix!

Loving her Johnny Jumper!

Aren't I cute?!

 And look at what my big girl can do now!  (Excuse the hideous baby voice, LOL)

                                                              Click the play button above.

Lots of catching up to do!

Wow, it's been over a month since my last post.  Lots has happened since the beginning of December, so bear with me in this looong post.

Firstly, I went back to work.  That was really tough on momma at first.  Going from spending all day with Ruby to just a couple hours at night was very difficult.  It's definitely gotten better since then though.  I know it's really good for her to be around other children and spend time away from mom and dad.  I think she really is starting to like it there now.  We've had to start supplementing with formula at daycare because I just couldn't keep up with her demand!  I was pretty stressed out about that at first, but it all worked out.  Now...napping is another story!  She went from being a really good napper during the day to just taking several cat naps at daycare, which I know has affected her sleep at night.  Which leads me to...

I thought that the older babies got, they slept better through the night.  Boy was I wrong!  About the time that I went back to work full-time, Ruby decided that getting up once or twice a night just wasn't enough....so she kicked it up a notch and started waking up every 2-3 hours.  Needless to say, momma is tired.  All. The. Time.  I've done a lot of reading up on this, and apparently "they" have coined a phrase for this stage.  It's called "4 month sleep regression".  And I loathe it.  Sooo, at my wits end, I decided to completely switch up her bedtime routine last night.  Time to move her out of the co-sleeper in our room and into her own bed.  It goes something like this:

• We start the bedtime routine around 6pm, when she starts showing signs of getting sleepy.
• Bath (not every day), lotion, pj's.
• Give her a bottle of formula.  We've upped this to 5 oz. now hoping that this will keep her fuller for longer.
• Read a couple books.
• Put on the noise machine, rock to sleep, put her in her crib.

She's been going down by 7pm pretty easily.  Last night she woke up at 10:15 and 12:15 and I just soothed her back to sleep without taking her out of the crib.  She woke up again at 2am, so I nursed her then.  Woke up again at 5am.  She didn't want to go back to bed then, so I let her cry it out for like 10 minutes, then popped the pacifier back in her mouth and she fell asleep again.  She woke again at 6am, when I nursed her again, then got ready for work.

I just have to keep telling myself that it has to get better.  She will eventually sleep through the night.  Just keep up the routine at night.  And if one more person tells me to put rice cereal in her bottle at night, I may punch them.  The answer is NO.

Ok...enough of the negative stuff that is stressing me out.  On to happy things!

Ruby had a great 1st Christmas!  Grandma and Grandpa T. were able to come down for the weekend to spend it with us and Andy's family, which was great.  Grandma T. was loving soaking up every minute with Ruby.  Unfortunately for her, I think Ruby took a liking more towards Grandpa T.  LOL  We spent Christmas day with Andy's family.  Ruby was definitely the star of the day!  Everyone wanted to hold her and love on her.  And she was so spoiled with all the gifts from everyone!  Here's a few pics:

Grandpa T. and "Honeypots #2"

Grandma T. and Ruby

Our 1st Christmas as a family!

Auntie Kristina and Ruby

Cousin Alexis and Ruby

Nom, Nom!

Proud Grandparents!

Miss Ruby will be 4 months old tomorrow!  Time sure is flying!  She is so expressive now and loves to smile and giggle at you.  The silliest faces and noises you make, the wider her smile gets.  Melts my heart!  She can keep her head up really good now and just loves standing up.  We're still working on sitting up though...she's not quite there yet.  And she is now such a drooler!  Oh man, it's everywhere!  And she loves putting her hands in her mouth.  She's starting to take more interest in toys now and grabbing them.  Here are some pics of Ruby from over the last month:

Bath Time

Felix babysitting Ruby

When do we get to open presents?

My future is so bright, I need shades!

Ok.  Now that I've bored you with the longest blog post ever, I'll end it here!  Hopefully I can blog more than once a month going forward!  Bad mommy!

12 Weeks Old!

Ruby is 12 weeks old today!  Boy did that time fly!  She's now getting to that fun stage, which is great for us.  She's beginning to coo and babble quite a bit and we'll have "conversations" throughout the day.  She's such a strong little girl and is always wanting to stand up.  Her head control is getting much stronger each day and she's getting better at sitting up on her own without falling over.

By far, her most favorite thing she likes to do is walk around the house, face forward, and look at everything.  She loves it even more now that the house is decorated for Christmas with lots of lights for her to look at.  Here's the decorated tree that she loves looking at.  Yes, I know it's slightly crooked.  I blame Andy, haha.  But, look past the crookedness and tell me what a great job I did at decorating it!  Grandma Robbi must be rubbing off on me!

So, Ruby's 12 weeks old, which means my maternity leave is coming to an end sadly.  I officially go back to work on December 15th. :(  I'm just trying to soak up every second with Ruby this last week. Makes me so sad thinking about leaving her.  I wish we could afford for me to go part time, but that just isn't in the cards for us right now.  I'm just racked with guilt for having some stranger watch my daughter for almost 10 hours a day and only getting to spend a few hours with her at night.  I feel like she'll form a stronger bond with the daycare lady than with us. I know millions of moms do it, and I will adjust, but it just makes me really sad.

Making the transition back to work will be a little easier the first week, because Andy will stay home with her for one week, then she will start daycare on the 22nd.  I'm grateful for this, only because Andy really will get to see what it's like spending 24/7 with Ruby, and will hopefully form a stronger bond with her during this week.  On the other hand, I'm a little nervous for him!  But I'm sure he'll do great :)