Suck It HGTV

Last weekend, in lieu of drinking green beer for St. Patrick's Day, I watched a crap ton of HGTV. Shows like "Design on a Dime" inspired me to makes some changes to our living room, in hopes of it looking like an adult's apartment instead of a bunch of hand-me-down furniture thrown together in a room (which it is).

Inspired, we rearranged the furniture last Sunday and made plans to buy a new end table (eventually), get rid of our current end tables (when we buy afore-mentioned new end table), get a rug (purchased Friday) and I decided it would be a great idea to paint a bookshelf and small table black in hopes of presenting a cohesive message.

Oh my god, what a horrible idea that was. I think it will look ok when it's finally done. From far away. Please don't look too closely. Problem is, it's taking forever.

Friday night, we took the bookshelf and table apart, thinking we'll get a head start and make this go as seamlessly as possible. Saturday morning, Fredo sanded everything and then I primed everything. Sunday, I got a late start due to brunch with family and managed to get one coat of paint on each side. I left everything outside to dry. This morning, I woke up to grey skies. I got Ava fed and went outside to check on the pieces. It had started to rain so I brought everything in. I just got the 2nd coat on one side of the pieces but they are now scattered through out the apartment.

At least I have an excuse for not doing dishes today.

I think it would have been a lot less annoying to have driven the 45 min. to Ikea and just bought new stuff.

Sorry for the big block of text. Blogger is being a punk ass bitch.

Walking on Sunshine

Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous. It was 74 degrees and sunny. It was the kind of day that you just need to be outside as much as possible.

I already had made plans to meet a friend at a park and since it was too nice to be inside, Fredo decided to join us. Since my husband works from home, he has the freedom to unchain himself from his desk every once and awhile. As long as he has his phone and can receive email on it, he can be out and about. I'm really going to miss that in about a year when he has to start going to an office every day again. We got all ready to head to the park and were outside getting Ava in her stroller when the UPS guy pulls up. Guess what came just in time? The baby sunglasses! Perfect timing!

Ava rocking her cool girl shades

We spent a lot of the time just sitting on a bench but it was just nice to be outside. Before we left though, we needed to let Ava swing for the first time.

She didn't seem to hate it too much. Dare I say she even enjoyed it a bit? I loved it though and can't wait to take her to the park again!

In Support of Baby Proofing

I can has baby monitor?

Baby Bargains

I think I can finally say, we're done buying baby gear. We just purchased our high chair, convertible car seat and umbrella stroller. I can't think of any big ticket baby item we'll be needing to get anytime soon.

The Right Start filed chapter 11 recently and I'd been kinda stalking the store/website to see if I could score a deal on any of those baby items. Right around the time I found out Right Start was going under, their website was completely sold out. There was not a single thing in stock. I checked the website again the other night to see if there was any notice as far as in-store discounts and they evidently restocked!

I purchased a Britax car seat for $50 off the normal price and a Maclaren Volo stroller for about $30 off. Everything is on sale so I even got Ava some sunglasses!

I'm sure they will discount even deeper but I didn't want to chance it. If you need baby gear, I would recommend checking out The Right Start.

Night 2

I'm totally sold on "The Sleep Easy Solution". Conan O'Brien, Ben Stiller and Greg Kinnear were right.

Last night we put Ava to bed and she only cried for 3 minutes. It was pretty amazing since my mom and her fiance were over for dinner and we aren't the quietest bunch.

As far as I know, Ava slept through the night. If she did wake up, she put herself back to sleep promptly, which was kind of the point of this whole experiment.

While the book seems to say what many of the other sleep books say, I like that it basically told us just to do it. Yes, there will be some crying but better to have a few nights of crying than to have to listen to bedtime related crying every day. And it should continue to be a good reference as Ava gets older since it does contain information on getting older children to sleep (I think up to 2 or 3) and has tips for transitioning to a bed among other topics.

I will be recommending this book to anyone I know who has a baby, is about to have a baby or is even thinking about having a baby.

Night 1

So we started sleep training following the "Sleep Easy Solution". The book has praise (I'm sure it's called something in the world of publishing but I don't know what) from Conan O'Brien, Ben Stiller and Greg Kinnear so you know it has to be good.

My heart was pounding as I approached bedtime. I was nearly in fits wondering how I would keep Ava awake while nursing. Every time I would see her eyes start to close, I would gently shake her or make funny noises. I was practically spitting at her by the end. I was convinced she was starting to hate me since I knew she wanted to just close her eyes and I wouldn't let her. But she was still awake when I put her in her crib. She cried for about a half hour and drifted off around 6:40 pm.

It was smooth sailing for awhile. I kept peeking in since it was weirdly exciting to watch her sleep unswaddled, probably because I thought we'd be swaddling until she was 12. She woke up at 12:20 (I know because I wrote it down) but must have put herself back to sleep.

Then she woke up at 2:57. And cried. For an entire hour. Take that, downstairs neighbors.

But she went back to sleep on her own around 4 and slept in until 7:30. She's napping now and has been out for about an hour.

All in all, I would consider night 1 a success.

Swaddle Update

Thank you all for your comments on my last post. It was very helpful. And Ava made the unswaddle decision for me. Yesterday morning she was almost out of her miracle blanket, a.k.a the baby straight jacket, but her arms were still down. This morning she got completely out. How she managed to Houdini her way out of that, I have no idea.

Our goal with sleep training is to teach her to soothe herself back to sleep and to improve her day sleep. We have some bad habits to break. I nurse her to sleep every night and put her in her crib asleep, which is apparently a big no-no. I was of the mind set that as long as she was sleeping, we weren't going to fix what wasn't broken. Now that she's seemingly ready to go swaddle-less, we need to make a few minor changes.

So wish me luck. We could potentially have a sleepless weekend ahead of us.

Moms of the Internet

Wait, that title sounds like some cheesy calendar.

Actually, I need some advice. No, not on how to post more than once a week, although that would help. I need some advice on how to stop swaddling my kid without halting all night sleep.

We're getting ready to sleep train this weekend. I just read "The Sleepeasy Solution" which seems doable and realistic. I expect some crying...and I bet Ava will cry too (ba dum dum). We're probably not picking the best weekend to do this, what with turning the clocks ahead but we need to do something. She sleeps well at night but naps are another story. She also won't sleep unswaddled.

My question is, how do we break her of the swaddle habit in the least painful way possible? The book makes it seem like we should just cold turkey it as part of the sleep training but I don't know. I guess I would rather attempt to break her of the swaddle habit prior to starting the sleep training.

Anyone have any tips on weaning from the swaddle?