my wirey baby.

Have you ever been so tired that when you finally get the chance to sleep, you're so excited that your brain goes into overdrive and you can't sleep?

That's where I'm at.

We have, what my mom likes to call, a "wirey baby." She pretty much wants to be wide-eyed all during the day. Even when I'm holding her while she's asleep, her eyes will randomly pop open and stare at me. I have no idea why. But just as I was writing this earlier, she woke up from her nap in her swing, so I'm continuing this post 3 hours after starting it.

:)

The most common remark we get about Adalyn is, "Wow, she's so alert!" She is constantly looking around and bobbing her head around.. If she isn't asleep, then she looks just like this:

And she likes to stand up too. And not be held like a baby. And she likes to face out and look around. What is up with that!? Where did my baby go, and why does she think she's already 2 years old!? Why! :)

But really, back to the "wirey" business. She is insanely alert and is, what Dr. Sears likes to call, a "high-needs baby." Babies that refuse to be in make-shift mommy gadgets, like swings. She really only wants to be held by me these days, which leads to me never, ever getting a break. Ever. During the day, I can hold her until she is TOTALLY asleep, limp-limbed and everything. Yet, when I place her down (GENTLY!!!!), she still wakes up after 5 minutes of being out of my arms.

If you know how to cure this, let me know. Please? Pretty please, folks. I've tried all of Dr. Sears's techniques too - and they DO work for her, but only at night!

But back to my sweet Adalyn - she's sitting in my lap right now watching the computer screen, learning all about blogging. She stole the hearts of two female tech sergeants yesterday at the deployment briefing. I started to cry when she received her recordable, The Night Before Christmas, and ended up making one of the tech sergeants cry too! Whoops! She had to leave the room to keep from crying in front of everyone! We move home on the 23rd and have our plane ticket booked. I'm not nervous about flying with her at all.. but I am nervous about getting through security with her and carrying everything by myself. Hopefully the lines won't be long, and things will go quickly.

Hopefully.

And for a quick update:
She was sleeping 5 hours, then 3 hours, then 2 hours (in that order) at night. Though last night she did a 3 hour stretch, then a 2 hour, then a 1 hour. Mommy does not approve of that schedule.

She's back to hating bath time. She loved bath time in KY and hates it in VA, and we use the exact same tub. What's the difference?! Who knows.

It takes an insane amount of coaching to get her to take a pacifier. My midwife says that breastfed babies usually reject pacifiers until they're older. She'll take a Nuk if she's desperate. And if she's desperate, we are really desperate!

I suppose we'll be celebrating Christmas on Saturday. Though we only bought presents for Adalyn, it will be fun to give them to her in front of our little Christmas tree. She told me earlier that what she really wants is for Daddy's deployment orders to be canceled.

Mark is due home any minute. Actually, he just arrived. Adios!

this just in:

I'm so tired.

our Christmas card!

I finally got around to making and ordering our first family Christmas card! Here's the one we chose:

Peppermint Bliss Christmas Card

Shop Shutterfly for elegant custom Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

Can't wait to send them out to friends and family!!! I couldn't be happier with it - especially since we got 50 FREE ones (a savings of $104!!!) from Shutterfly! Woo!!

oh gosh.

oh gosh, guys, I'm the world's worst blogger. I might as well go ahead and delete this thing; it's THAT sad! But I won't. Because I know that when Mark is gone, I'll be blogging like crazy for him. But until then, I'll just give some updates.

Yesterday we went to the Holly Dazzle, which is a local holiday festival, and packed Adalyn in the Ergo. It was frigid, but she mysteriously stayed warmer than a fritter all snuggled on me. It turns out that we really love the Ergo, and so does our babe. Now all I need is a Mei Tai, and my collection will be complete!

Ad is 6 weeks old and started loving bath time at 5 weeks. She tracks us so much better with her eyes now and has started really smiling at us. She generally hates the car and cries in her car seat about 85% of the time. She's only content in the car if she is already asleep when we leave. Sigh.

We're officially done with Ad's Christmas present. We've gotten her Melissa & Doug puzzles, a Melissa & Doug picnic set, a special monkey, and two Manhattan Toys. She'll be 8 weeks old when we celebrate Christmas (early), and 8-week old babies aren't too into toys :) But we'll save them for when she's ready!


I just bought our plane ticket home, so it's official: I really am going to move back home for 6 months! I'm not worried at all about our plane ride. Breastmilk cures all of Adalyn's tears. Hopefully they don't decide to pat Ad down in the airport ;]

I officially started Weight Watchers today. For real this time. So far, it's gone smashingly. I even got a great assortment of Yoplait Light yogurts from the commissary and a bunch of oatmeal. I'm pretty excited. I have 6 months to lose 30 pounds and I will make it happen. Somehow.

We went home for a week and a half, but you wouldn't know, since I didn't blog about it at all. Much fun was had, many kisses were shared, and everyone fell in love with our little Reesie Cup. It was fantastic; we just love being home.


You know, it's almost insane how quickly Adalyn falls asleep in the Ergo. 5 seconds after we put her in the Ergo, she's asleep. LITERALLY. It's almost hilarious. I'll have to capture it on video. One second she's screaming her head off.. then 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... she's asleep. This same scenario played out today in Panera Bread, and the woman in front of us turned around and asked Mark how he got her to sleep so quickly! He smiled and said "The Ergo!!" :) Mark actually prefers the Ergo to the Moby, in case any of you to-be mamas were curious. It's dang expensive but sooooo worth it.

It's 4pm, we have a sleeping babe, and I'm going to relax :) Adios!