Hoping for more, but still happy

We just returned from the doc with a cranky little Chub Muffin who is now sleeping soundly in her crib after a very busy and chaotic day.

As you might have read earlier, today has been really off. She was cranky before we even got to the appointment, so you can only imagine how things turned out after she got her immunizations. She was fussing really hard even before they stuck her with the needle. It was not a good scenario.

I was really excited to see how much she weighed. I was thinking she would be over 10 lbs. since last time she weighed in at 8 lbs. 13oz (however, that was with her clothes on including a baby sweatshirt and pants + onesie & diaper). This time she was totally nakey. Since she was about 4 oz behind what she usually eats by this time of day, that didn't help either. Her weight was 9 lbs. 4.5oz. I was bummed. She probably gained a pound since the last weigh-in a month ago since her clothes probably were several ounces of extra weight, and had she eaten normally today she would've weighed in at 9 lbs. 8.5oz, but still the number bummed me out. She is now 21 1/2 inches long which is around what I expected. Don't get me wrong, I love having a tiny little baby that people still think is "brand new" (despite the fact she tracks everything she sees, giggles and smiles and is super interactive). I guess it's hard not to put the blame on myself for her not growing as fast as I think she should be. The doctor keeps telling us she'll catch up and find her own growth curve, however, she has yet to do that. She's still >3% for height and weight (but her head is 5%... I had to laugh at that one).

But on to the positive. She's looking great, very healthy and she scored above average on all aspects (especially social and fine motor skills). Her gross motor skills are only slightly behind which include having better head control and being able to push herself up for longer than 5 seconds without letting her head crash to the floor. I attribute this to her loathing for tummy time. I think once she starts liking that more, she'll make more progress. Right now all she can think about is how she can get out of it (rolling over would be a great solution but she's just not there yet). I talked to our pediatrician about swaddling as well, and he says it's fine to still swaddle until she's done with it and that it won't delay her development. That made me feel so much better! He also gave us the green light to introduce solids. I'm not sure we'll be jumping on that right away, but probably within the next month. We have some trips coming up and dealing with solids would just throw one extra thing in the mix to remember to bring and deal with while we are there.

So that's about it. I'm praying she'll take a good nap and not wake up howling like she did last time. Not fun, not fun at all.

One of those days ...

Every once in a while Senorita Chub Chubs has a very "off" day. Today is one of those days. It's pretty bad timing considering we have her 4 month check up this afternoon which includes her immunizations. Big bummer.

The Chubs is very schedule oriented, and I think this all began at Children's hospital when they had me on a strict 3 hour feeding routine. The Little Muffin got used to eating every 3 hours which naturally put her in schedule mode and made it easy for us to create a consistent routine. This has been great in some ways, but hard in others. Keeping her on a schedule has made her a very happy baby that is well rested and has a very predictable internal clock... most of the time. It's nice to know when she'll be eating, napping, going to bed and waking up etc, but it is also very limiting especially since she can't stay up more than an hour and 15 minutes before she turns into a pumpkin.

There are however, days (such as this one) where the schedule is just thrown out the window and for one reason or another The Chubs is in a funk. This morning she woke early (about an hour before her ideal wake up time), but then didn't eat nearly as much as she usually does. She seemed overly distracted with her surroundings. There were many head jerks in the direction of the ceiling fan, then more side glances and head turns toward the quilt on the rocker. Add in a dozen smiles and intense thought-provoking stares and you have a recipe for a bad eater.

I put her down for her nap as usual since she was getting fussy and was clearly tired. She whined for a couple minutes (like she usually does) and then passed out (like she usually does). 15 minutes later... not even the usual 45 minute sleep transition disruption, but 15 flippin' minutes later she's wide awake again and then proceeds to fuss for 45 minutes. I let her go this long because she almost always falls back asleep again, but this time she didn't. So I went up to feed her, and it turns out her fussing was more of a social call. She smiled at me brightly as I entered the room. I picked her up (more big smiles) and then tried to feed her again thinking that because of her poor eating this morning, she would be hungry again. NOPE! She continued to smile, look around, suck half-heartedly and shoot a load in her diaper (a pretty large one, I might add).

We're about to head to the doctor in 30 minutes with a tired baby that is just too interested in the world around her to get some shut-eye or eat a decent meal.

Over-tired child + Poor Eater + Immunizations (will surely) = A very long day for mom.