out of the crib

and into a bed. A Big Girl Bed. A bed that big girls sleep in.

But she is only two.  Two and a few weeks.  Still so little.

It had to happen.  She has been miserable sleeping for nearly all of her life, and we couldn't think of continuing the scream-fest that has been her bedtime much longer.  We also couldn't think of continuing the sleep-on-daddy-fest that has been ongoing for weeks, too.  The little couch in the playroom just isn't big enough for a grown man to sleep on, much less a grown man trying to hold onto a wiggly-even-in-her-sleep two year old.

So last night, we-the-parents raced around to the mattress store and the general store and picked out and picked up a twin-box-spring to go beneath the twin mattress we already owned, and a brand new set of Big Girl Bedding.  After dinner, we-the-family got her all set up.

And last night, sweet baby Bun, all of two years, one month and eighteen days, slept in her Big Girl Bed.  All night long.  Without waking once.  Even though we had to enter her room twice after we'd put her down (think hard to turn door knob, squeaky no matter what we do to them hinges, feet that are louder than we mean them to be, etc.)  - once to get the cat out and a second time to cover her up.

Not a peep did she make.  All night.  There was just one thunk, and that was it.

This morning, sometime after eight (!), the bitty Bun woke and cried.

As her mother tried to wake her big sister, who'd asked to be the first to greet the baby in the morning, there was a tiny knock at the little sister's door.

From inside the door.

And when her mother opened the door, there was the bitty Bun, standing in cold bare feet, with a cold little neck and cold little ears and cold little hands and carpet marks on her face from the spot on the floor where she'd spent most of the night.

She even walked me over and pointed to the exact place where she slumbered.

Guess we should've entered a third time to check on the thunk.

Sleep sweet Big Little Two Year Old Isla.

not a sleeper but still a sweetie-pants

Bitty baby Isla wore her favorite 0-3 size onesie two days ago. She was pushing the limits of its length, but still fitting right into the middle part with a bit of room to spare. Her clothes have not changed much since birth, as she fits into all but three of her newborn dresses and a few onesies. Her jammies, though, are another story. Those legs of hers are long, long, long, and at night, she swims in the excess fabric of her size-six-to-nine sleepers.

Speaking of sleepers, we-the-very-tired-parents find it amazing that our Bun-baby is not one. She sleeps, true. Short, random bits of rest - in the car, mostly - and sometimes, on a great day, she'll take a nap in the afternoon for two hours. Last night, out of the clear blue, she slept an incredible - oh, so incredible - seven hours, from ten-thirty to five-oh-oh a.m. on the dot. But this is not the norm by a long shot.

A normal night with our sweet little fussy-pot is a resistance to bedtime that begins with horrific screaming. It is worth the repetition: horrific screaming. These are the kind of screams that we are familiar with hearing when she is hurt, like say getting stuck with a ton of needles at the doctor or struggling with some 'we-didn't-know-you-couldn't-take-dairy' newborn gas'. Or the kind of screams our four-year-old lets loose when she falls down on concrete and tears the skin off her leg. They go on for as long as she is lying (though these days she actually pulls herself up and either sits or stands up against the side of her bed) in her sleeping space.

Once we pick her up, she's fine. She takes about ten minutes to collect herself while we hold her shiny faced and shaky little body in our arms. Then she's back to Mama for comfort. If Dadoo tries to walk her back to sleep, (God bless him for those moments of respite), she arches her back against his hold and screams some more as he carries her into the playroom for soothing. Sometimes it works, and she calms down enough to fall back to sleep for two hours before waking up again. Sometimes, it doesn't, and she ends up back with Mama, cuddling her tiny body right up under the covers, as close as she can get to her milk-supply.

During the day, we've been using the controlled-crying method of learning to sleep. It is not always successful. It is getting better. She is sleeping more than she used to sleep. And in between the not-sleeping, she's still being her sweet little self, cuter and cuter and sweeter and sweeter each day. It's this part that makes up for the long, rest-less days and nights.

Take for example her new skills: "Yay!" and "Where's Isla?". These are two games she's been working on for a month or two and ones she's recently nearly perfected. "Yay!" involves big smiles and claps and a sort of yay-like sound,( truthfully it's more like 'aaaaaaayyyyzzzzhhhh', but we know what she's trying to say). She's begun to do this whenever she sees her Dadoo come home from work and when her Mama picks her up to change her diaper. She also does it with added bouncing when she sees Remy.

"Where's Isla?" could be one of those top-five-cutest-things. She balls her fingers up into near fists and puts them over eyes, leaving them there until someone notices and asks, 'Where's Isla?' after which she pulls them down quickly and smiles a teensy-bitty smile and jams them right back up over her eyes. She will play this game over and over and over and over without pause.

In addition to these super-cute-skills, she has moved beyond the army-crawl into a full on tummy up racing position. Except on non-carpeted surfaces. She does not like the feel of tile or wood on her knees, so when she encounters these types of flooring, she puts her flat feet down on the floor. It makes for a hilarious crab-walking kind of movement as she struggles to find her center of balance.

And ... drum roll ... she's cruising. Wow for us. Yay for her. She is doing this months earlier than our first born, and we are excited and slightly nervous. There is little in our home that is actually child-proofed to the extent needed for a new walker, thanks to the ease of life we've had since we got a four-year-old who knows not to put stuff in her mouth. Also, that four-year-old has so many tiny toys with tiny parts. And we, expecting the same sort of 14-month-old timeline for beginning steps have only recently realized that, um, our bitty-babypants is right there, right now.

Sweetie-pants is as sweetie-pants does, and our own blossoming pot of sweet is so, so very full of all that sugar. Here she is enjoying the art during her first trip to an art museum. This exhibit is called, 'Delicious: a portrait of the artist as a ten-month-old'.

done with shots

for the next six months! Woo hoo!

Her six month - oh.man.six.month - check up went well. She tipped the scales at a perfect sixteen pounds, six ounces ... a whopping ten pounds more than she weighed when we brought her home. She is twenty-seven inches from head to heel which puts her in the 95th percentile for height.

Today's four-vaccine combo went over about as well as the last round. And after it was over, the band-aids wouldn't stick to her little legs, so she kept getting poked on the sore spots with more. Sniff. It was sad.

In other news, Isla's slept well for two nights in a row. We're holding our breath and saying our prayers that tonight is no different.

sleeping at sweet sixteen

Sixteen weeks, that is. Today she is three months and twenty-six days old. It's hard to imagine that she's about to hit that official four month mark already. Most of the time it feels like she was just born.

Right now, she's sleeping peacefully and noisily on a pillow next to me. She still has the raspy breath sounds she had at birth. Even though the pediatrician says it's fine, I still find myself listening closely to her to make sure she's not in some kind of distress.

It's been a big weekend for the bitty little bun baby. She spent it with both sets of grandparents, her big sister and two aunties, celebrating her and her big sister's baptism. Isla was amazing during the service, falling asleep in her daddy's arms during the service and then only wailing a tiny bit when the cold water hit her head. She went back to sleep not long afterwards.

She's starting to pull herself into a sitting position using just her abs. It's truly incredible to watch her body work. She's so very small and so very strong and so very fragile. The juxtaposition of her strength and frailty boggles my mind. I feel so thankful to be able to watch this, to watch her (and her sister) grow and change.

eight weeks and two days old

and resting. Pretty well. Last night our little Bun slept from 12:30 ante meridiem clean through to five-point-five hours into the ninth of September. Not to be outdone, our growing Bee slept, alone in her bed, without waking up once from roughly twenty-three-hundred until nine-thirty this morning.

What???!!!!???!!!!

Yes. And that means that we-the-parents also slept, quietly, without waking (or at least waking to feed or comfort someone other than ourselves) for five beautiful hours.

Isla is resting now. Right now, this very moment, as I type this in fact. She has just returned from her baby shower (how much fun is this to do after they are actually outside the womb!) where she was adorable, awake, and quiet - aside from her standard repertoire of breathie, gruntie, baby noises (remember, the 'ie' makes it feminine ...). The super-sweet friends that Dadoo works with made her a special party lunch, complete with delicious chocolate cupcakes, sweet tea and yummy subs from Mama's new favorite sandwich shop. Her big sister got to come, too, and all four of us had a blast.

In other recent Isla news, she's a total pro at head-lifting and throwing, though like her sister before her, she doesn't love tummy time yet. She's sweet and snuggly and likes to be held - a lot - and when she's smiling, she's really, really, really smiling. She smiles most at her big sister, which in turn makes we-the-parents really, really, really smile, too.

Here's what a Bun looks like at eight weeks:

a burrito

A sweet, warm, adorably swaddled burrito baby.

*At first, Isla did not like this swaddle. Her feet were too short to stay in the bottom, and she didn't like her arms tied down. A matter of weeks is all it took for her to grow an inch and not fuss about the arms. New moms, you need this blanket. (thank you Mrs. Z for this blanket ... it was a miracle for Averie and we love it again for Isla.)