Two months have past since Paige came into our lives. It doesn't seem like that much time has happened, but that's what the calendar says. She's growing up so well. I feel like I'm bragging when I talk about her, but she really is a great baby. We have a steady pattern that she keeps to most of the time, though every now and then she'll mix it up on me for an hour or two, but then we're back to normal. It's nothing I can set my watch to, but enough that I know why she's crying, or how long I'll have until she starts crying for something. It is a huge blessing.
And yes, she really does sleep through the night 90% of the time. I'm sometimes surprised when she only sleeps for 6 hours in a row. Lately, it's been about 8 hours or so. She then cycles through her eat-play-sleep every two to three hours until bedtime. We then do an eat-bathe-eat-sleep cycle to get her physically and mentally ready for her long sleep. Because she has two-hour cycles, we choose which one to make bedtime, which is helping all of us get to bed earlier. Normally, it's sometime between 9:30 and 11:00. Since we've added the bath to the nighttime routine, she goes down pretty easily, eliminating the need for the "first watch" that Stephen and I use to do to help one of us get some sleep. Now, we can all go to bed at the same time. Huge blessing again. I like falling asleep next to my husband at the same time. I hadn't realized how much that meant to me. Having different bedtimes was hard, especially when nothing was predictable, but with the extra effort of a bath each night, we all have a better night.
Her two-month checkup is on Wednesday, so I'm not sure what her stats will be, but I do know she's growing up well. She still has some baby acne, but it's gotten a lot better. She eats and fills her diapers regularly enough that I know she's healthy. She's grown out of her first outfit, so that's a milestone. It was one of the outfits she wore on her first day, (honestly, I don't remember which outfit we put her in first--it might have been this one) and even thought it's a newborn-size, it's lasted this long. I'm surprisingly more ok with her growing up than I thought I would be. I've promised myself to appreciate every stage and not have any regrets about it.
Besides being a mom, I've also been spending my time doing family history work. I find it pretty easy for me to do while Paige is sleeping in the wrap. Since I'm not able to be away from Paige long enough to attend the temple, connecting families and finding missing members and making names available for the temple is my next best option. It depends on a lot of different circumstances for how many names I can get, but in a few good hours, I can add about a dozen names. I like to think that's pretty good. A lot of it is thanks to my Grandpa Jack's genealogy books, so I have that extra help. I like to think at how impressed my Grandpa Jack would have been with the Church's family history system. Since he's not alive to appreciate it, I'll transfer his work online for him.
In the past few weeks, I've been obsessed with Divergent. I know I kind of missed that train a while ago, but the movie plays on TV a few times a week, and I try to watch it when I can. In fact, I've been watching it while blogging now. I've also read the book now and have the second one on hold from the library. It's been too long since I've read for fun. I read a lot of articles online and church material, but I haven't gotten into a novel for a while, so that was fun for me.
Besides the regular routine of life, Stephen, Paige, and I went to Boise this past weekend for Michael's (Stephen's brother) baptism. We debated a long time if we should go or not. Traveling with a newborn was daunting to me, but we really wanted to be supportive. We finally committed to going. We left Thursday after work and took Stephen's brother Mathew up with us. We had to stop three times on the drive up to take care of Paige, but she did a lot better than I feared she might. We stayed with my sister-in-law and brother-in-law, Heidi and Scott, in their new townhouse, though we spent most of the time at Stephen's parent's house.
It was a challenge to take care of Paige and keep her routine going while wanting to spend as much time as possible with the family. Stephen was a great help, and Paige did really well. She spent a lot of time in the baby wrap so I could participate and do things like help with Michael's birthday party, play games, and eat. His baptism went really well too, and I'm glad we were there for it. I had to sacrifice staying up late talking to get enough sleep, or being with people in order to sit in the other room for a few minutes to feed Paige, but parenthood takes sacrifices sometimes. And it really wasn't too bad. We had to do some extra planning, but overall, we had a lot of fun.
Easter and Conference. General Conference was great. I'm looking forward to rereading the talks, since I spent a lot of the time taking care of Paige. But what I did catch was uplifting. For Easter, Deborah and Tom, my brother and sister, came over. We had a big breakfast and played cards. I tried putting Paige in an Easter dress, but it was way too big for her, so we gave up pretty quick. Stephen and I dyed eggs while Paige napped an then had our traditional egg roll. For the record, I won.
One more note. We stared a garden a few weeks ago. I am notorious for killing plants, but I want to get better. We bought some lettuce, a tomato plant, and zucchini seeds and planted them in containers. In two days, the tomato plant was dead, but a few days ago, I saw the zucchini starting to bud, so we're having mixed reviews. Still, it's fun to water the plants each day with Paige, and I hope my efforts actually pay off. If not, we'll try again next year. It'll be a fun family project regardless.
Well, life goes on. Not everything is perfect, but most of it is. I feel a little guilty for talking about how great things are, but we are really blessed. Heavenly Father is taking care of us.
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