sleepy baby

gabe is a sleeping machine. well...he is a napping machine. not so sure about bedtime sleeping.

he has been taking naps in weird places lately. the top picture is of daddy and gabe sleeping on the couch while i was at yoga on sunday. the middle picture is of my in-laws neighbors foot. apparently gabe fell asleep on her couch and then started cuddling with her leg while he was sleeping. the bottom picture is from right now. he sleeps pretty good on the floor. once in a while i will have to cuddle with him, but i am usually able to get him to go back to sleep. today was really cute....when i was holding him, when he first fell asleep, he started babbling in his sleep. TOO CUTE! (and just like daddy)

since we are talking about sleep, yesterday was quite an adventure. gabe was asleep when i put him in bed. five minutes later he was awake screaming. jorge soothed him to sleep a few minutes after that. we thought everything was fine until five minutes went by and he started screaming and crying again. ugh. it was starting to get late. so i let him cry. i convinced jorge to fight the urge to go back in his room. ten minutes later it was quiet. he was sound asleep. i don't know if he cried himself to sleep or soothed himself to sleep but i felt hopeful. ten minutes is not that bad. i feel better about the future, when he doesn't fall asleep easily because of exhaustion and a bottle.

rough night #2

ugh. wednesday night was wonderful! gabe slept the whole night, not waking up once! i was hopeful, optimistic, happy. all set for thursday night. things did not go so well.

gabe was asleep by 9:30. however, he was up looking for his pacifier by 10:30 and 11:30. jorge was out and came home around 12:30 when i realized why i was so hot in my sleep. we had lost power! luckily it was only out for about an hour. but that didn't stop gabe. he got up and would not calm down. we wound up bringing him in our bed because he was so upset. usually that leads to gabe calming down and falling asleep. not that night. he tossed and turned and cried all night long. needless to say, jorge and i didn't get much sleep.

i noticed that his two top teeth were coming thru more so i assumed that was what kept him from sleeping the previous night. so i gave him some tylenol before bed. i had a migraine so i went to bed right after he did, around nine. it didn't seem like it was very long and gabe was up screaming and crying. i carried him for a little, calmed him down and put him back in bed asleep. he woke up immediately! again we tried to bring him to our bed but it was more of the same. crying, tossing and turning.

now he is sleeping on the couch with jorge. hopefully he will keep sleeping. i think this is the longest he has gone without crying. i am crossing my fingers for a better night tonight.

i took this off another blog...i just love what it says.

busy day

me after a busy busy day

i kinda hate having to put a title on my posts. everything feels the same...long week, long day...well...it was a busy day i guess.

i started out my day by trying to go to target. i had a short list but most of the items were grocery items. we walk in target and it's dark. target has no power. blah. so i only grab a few items because i only have some cash on me and i don't know if their credit card stuff is working. so i was already melting after being in the car and now i was still melting because no power means no air conditioning.

then i found out that i got to help molly with her social studies test. i was a tutor for the day. i read her chapter, made her an outline and then helped her with ideas for her test. it was kinda nice. i hadn't helped her with homework in years. also, it was social studies, my favorite. i actually learned some things too. now i finally know exactly who pancho villa was!

the rest of my day was spent chasing a very active baby around. i was not so smart the other day and i let gabe crawl up some stairs. now i cannot get him to stop. he takes of running, well crawling but he moves so fast it's almost like he is running. he is pretty cute and it's actually kind of funny the way his little butt wiggles. sometimes i find myself laughing at him. this however only makes him crawl faster! (and laugh too!) as much as i want him to walk i am afraid that i will never be able to catch him.

maybe tomorrow will be a little cooler and a little less crazy.

longest nap ever!

so gabe is taking the longest nap. i think that he is transitioning out of multiple naps a day to one big nap. that's ok, i guess. we have such a weird schedule that naps are not a priority, feeding is.

i felt bad about gabe's

sleeping/napping in a previous post. today, i read an article in Parents magazine about napping. it said how important naps are and that you should schedule life around your baby/kids nap. GREAT! so if didn't feel bad enough before about gabe napping while cuddling, now i should feel bad about not scheduling nap time on top of that.

i have an eating schedule for gabe and i try to stick to it as much as possible. he eats breakfast around 8. lunch is at noon, dinner is at four and bed time bottle is at 8:45. it works great. naps fall where they may. usually a small maybe 45 minute nap in the morning and an hour or two nap in the early afternoon. then a half hour nap around 6:30. but there is not a set schedule. now i feel horrible! poor gabe! what if he isn't getting the sleep or routine that babies need?

the only reason i am going to stop freaking out pretty soon is because gabe's nine month check up was today and he is great! he is sooo long...29 inches long! and he is almost 20 pounds. im pretty sure that someone is going to be tall like his daddy! the doctor didn't ask about his napping, only about his sleeping at night so i guess whatever i am doing is

working. i have a happy and healthy baby.

end of the week...finally!

so after my spoiled baby post i was given the idea to try putting gabe down on his blanket for naps. i only had one opportunity to try it out.

after a few cuddles, he successfully slept on his blankie on the floor for an hour!!! hopefully i will have more opportunities to have him sleep this way. right now he is at his abuelita's house so i'm sure he is cuddling for naptime.

this week was a pretty good week. tuesday we went to the pool. i wish i had brought my camera, but it's not waterproof so i was worried. gabe loves the water! he was shivering and still did not want to get out. i was thinking about putting him in swimming lessons in the fall and now i know he will love them. maybe me not so much. but for gabe i will do it.

also this week gabe tried kiwi for the first time. i was worried he wouldn't like it because it can be sour sometimes. boy was i wrong! i couldn't cut it up fast enough for him! he had a very interesting lunch of sweet potato and kiwi. i really love it when he can eat fresh food. i had baked the sweet potato for him in the morning. i will still be able to give it to him for a few more meals. sweet potato is one of his favorites and has been since he started eating solids. he also loves strawberries. well, any kind of berry actually. but he especially loves strawberries and cheerios, both of which he feeds himself.

gabe's kiwi/sweet potato lunch

flashback wordless wednesday

spoiled baby

these are some of the first pictures taken of gabe sleeping. i cannot tell you how amazing it felt to have this little baby snuggled up on my chest, sound asleep. he would nudge his little head up under my chin. he would get a sweaty head and i would get a sweaty neck from all of the cuddling we did.

i also admit to a lot of sleeping on the couch when he was still little. he would sleep, sometimes i would sleep too, he'd eat and we'd do it all over again. i tried to put him down in the bassinet. sometimes it worked. sometimes it didn't. i would wind up holding him so that we could each get some sleep.

this is where i went wrong. yes, they say that you cannot spoil a baby this young. he wasn't even six weeks old yet. i just wanted to cuddle and love this little man that i had been carrying around inside of me for so long.

the wonderful sixth week came. gabe slept through the night, in his crib! i slept on the couch preparing myself for him to wake up. HE DIDN'T!!! amazing! wonderful! oh bed how i missed you! this bliss went on for almost two months. however, i was still letting him sleep in my arms while he napped. not always, sometimes he was in his swing or in his car seat after a trip in the car.

then it happened. he got an ear infection but we thought he was teething or going through a growth spurt. so we got up and gave him a bottle. we rocked him. we might have even slept on the couch with him again. and still i was cuddling with gabe during naps.

fast forward to nine months old....most nights gabe sleeps through the night in his crib. however, if he cries too much or too many times, he winds up in our bed. then there is still the problem with napping. there is no longer a swing to hold him. he gave that up months ago. it's just mommy's arms. i tried so hard today to get him to nap in his pack and play. he only slept about twenty minutes. the second i picked him up and held him close....snoring.

as much as i love it i need some time to myself. how do i break my cuddler from cuddling but only during naptime?

gabe spending some time sleeping in our bed

sucky saturday

today was kinda a sucky day. jorge worked a lot of overtime this week. which is good financially speaking but not so good family wise. we hardly saw him. he worked overnight, which was a little hard for me. i admit it....gabe spent a lot of time in bed with me. mostly in the morning so that we could have a little more time to sleep.

this morning i went to work out. i have been wanting to go. it's a great workout, even though i wind up not being able to breathe about half way through the hour. it's also only eight dollars which i think is a good deal. anyway

....i went to work out with sidney and gabe. sidney was supposed to watch gabe but sensai made her work out too! gabe was so good. he sat in his stroller and played with his toys or ate cheerios.

then the bad day started....i suffer from migraines. every time that i have gone to work out i have wound up with a headache. usually i just take my migraine medicine and i am ok. however, i used the last one and didn't refill the prescription. BAD IDEA! i went from a little headache to a full blown migraine in twenty minutes. yuck! so to make a long story short...i had to get a refill and get better fast because jorge was home from work and super sleep deprived. thank god my mom came to our rescue! she filled my prescription and took gabe to her house for a few hours. thanks MOMMY!

hopefully tomorrow will be a better day!

wordless wednesday (even though it's thursday!)

happy fourth!

i actually hate the fourth of july, but i am the only one in my family who does. you can tell from his cheesy smile that gabe enjoys the holiday.

jorge and his bestie were lighting some fireworks yesterday and gabe was enjoying looking at them. he did not really like the loud noise from them though.

i don't know if jorge likes the fourth of july

or christmas more. he always goes and stocks up on fireworks. i wish that he wouldn't but ..... every year it's the same. a road trip to indiana (because fireworks are illegal in illinois).

yesterday was a great day. jorge and i got to hang out with each other (babyless!) it's nice and it sucks at the same time. i miss gabe when i'm not with him. however, i like to have sometime to be a grownup, not just a mommy.

we also went to a bbq at our friends house. it is actually gabe's future in laws house. we decided that we are setting our kids up. it's so cool now that gabe is bigger. he and maggie, who is exactly 40 weeks older, are now able to kind of play with each other. before she would try to play with gabe and he just kinda laid there or sat there. now he is up and crawling and babbling and interacting. it's good practice for magg

ie since she will have a baby brother or sister soon. and it's nice for gabe who doesn't get to see alot of people his size.

maggie is trying to show gabe how to use a sippy cup!