It was fun, but glad its over

Christmas 2007 has come and gone. It was so much fun getting ready for it, buying gifts, decorating the house, wrapping all the presents, visiting with friends and family, but I am glad its over with. Christmas is always a stressful time for me. This year we had so much fun buying presents for Alex. She opened all her gifts all by herself. She is getting so big and so independent. It amazes me how much she already knows. We are working on counting to three. She can almost say each word clearly. She even knows what number comes after the other. She opened her cabbage patch doll and immediately started feeding the baby a bottle. I about cried. She picks up on everything so quickly and is growing up so quickly.

Christmas Eve day Doug and I exchanged presents. He bought me an absolutely beautiful chocolate diamond necklace, Victorias Secret PJs, Heavenly perfume and other wonderful gifts. I gave him a new pair of LUGZ boots, Usher Cologne, boxers, and other stuff. We celebrated Christmas with Grandma Thayer on Christmas eve. We had a very yummy dinner and opened some more wonderful gifts. Later that night Doug and I let Alex open her presents from us. Christmas morning we went to Plainfield to have the traditional Christmas Breakfast with the Thayers. Alex enjoyed all the fun toys, books and clothes from her great grandparents, grandparents, cousins and Great Aunt. We later went home and put Alex down for a nap that she really needed. Then Lance, Kari and Rick came over with more gifts. We played with the kids for a while. Later that evening my mom and brother came over for Christmas dinner. We had a very very yummy honey glazed ham, homemade fudges, all all the fixens.

I am enjoying this week off work. Alex is at the daycare while I tidy up around the house, getting rid of bags and bags of gift wrap and boxes. We have so much food left over. I have hit a few stores for some of the after christmas sales, bought myself a few new sweaters/shirts/jeans. Bought some more x-mas decorations. Im sure Doug will remind me we have enough Christmas decorations already. But I loovvee to decorate for this season. Now Im just debating when I am going to take all this stuff down and put it away. Thats the only thing I dont look forward to.

Finally Walking!

She finally is walking more than crawling. She has been taking about 5 steps at a time for a while now. After about 5 steps she falls to the ground. But last Tuesday I caught her taking about 10 steps from the table to the middle of the room. When she noticed me watching her she starting laughing and fell. So that night Doug and I played the walking game with her and let her walk back and forth to us for about an hour. She thought it was a game and was laughing the whole time. Now she has been walking more often and has it down really well. She got to walk to Grandma Thayer lastnight and showed off for Grandma Scheible today. Now she has been trying to lean over and pick things up which is a lil tricky being top heavy. But its cute when she falls because she always giggles.

Alexandra has been sleeping through the night again. For the last few nights she hasnt woke up screaming crying. We switched her back to formula and are slowly weaning her to whole milk. Also she isnt drooling as much, so I believe her tooth has finally broke through. So either it was her tooth or tummy hurting. We arent sure, but are sooo happy that she is back to normal. If it was because of teething, this has been the first worst episode. If it were because her tummy cant handle all the whole milk at once, we are working to prevent anymore tummy aches by weaning her.

Lack of sleep

Lately Alex has been waking up at around 3 am everyday crying, hard. It started Sunday morning. At first we thought it was because of teething. She has her 9th tooth coming in. But then she has done this everyday so far. And its the same time each day with the same reaction, her crying so hard and so loud. We have never ever had to deal with a crying screaming baby in the middle of the night, so this is really hard. The second morning Doug got up with her, brought her in the room (which I didnt agree with) and tried to get her to sleep with us. After an hour and a half of tossing a turning, not one moment of sleep, he took her into the living room where she played until about 5 in the morning. Then the following night she did it again. this time Doug got up with her again and took her into the living room. She finally fell asleep after playing and eating at about 6ish. This morning she did it again. This time I got up, gave her paci and beary, turned on her music and closed the door. She screamed, literally, for about 15-20 minutes until she finally fell asleep. The whole time I was awake listening through the monitor. Since Sunday, we have had only about 3-5 hours of sleep a night.
About a week ago we switched her to whole milk. So the doctor advised to try switching her back to formula and then slowly weaning her off of it onto milk. We have started that and the girls at the daycare are helping as well. We are also wondering if she is having nightmares that wake her. But its weird that she wakes up at exactly 3 every day. We have given her motrin for any pain, gas medicine, water, milk, but still nothing. What is even more weird is that she has perfect days at the daycare, never cries, plays well with all the kids, eats great, sleeps at least 2 hours and has normal dirty diapers. The girls cannot believe the stories we tell them.
So now is another night I am dreading, hoping she goes to sleep. I never had to deal with a screaming baby. She has always been so good at laying down and going to sleep.