3 months old.

Oh god, y’all don’t even want to know how long this Linden three month update has been sitting open on my laptop, begging for me to finish it.

(OK, so it’s only been a week.)

(Uh, a week and a half…)

L is at the stage where she must constantly be entertained. Chilling in the swing with a toy? Unacceptable. Kicking around in her crib by herself, with her mobile floating above? Not happening. Activity mat? Gets old quick.

Suffice it to say, I don’t have time to do much other than keep us both alive…

That is, until my wonderful and patient husband gets home and takes over baby duties. Then it’s time to bust out a glass of wine and hammer this puppy out once and for all.

Happy three months old, peanut!

Eating

It is with lots of relief that I announce that L gained three pounds this month! We had her second round of her first round of vaccines (got that? We’re staggering.) on January 17 and had the nurses throw her on the scale, just to see. It wasn’t an official, digital scale weight, but I was super psyched to see that she for sure surpassed 12 pounds. Estimated weight is 12.5 lbs. Yippee!

I started out the new year all pumped to pump in order to stockpile a good freezer stash of milk. Well, I have failed miserably at this so far. The only time that works for me to pump is after Linden goes to sleep, but I have this fear that she’ll wake up hungry, only to have my boobs completely empty. This has happened exactly never, but I still fear it. I’m also just lazy, I guess. By 9 PM I’m ready to crash, not suction the milk out of my chest. Plus, there’s that aforementioned nightly wine…

I am managing to pump once or twice a week, so I suppose that will have to work for now. At least I can know that if I’m out and Kev is home with L that there is something in the freezer for her to eat. Good enough for me!

That’s really all the update I’ve got in the feeding department. Maybe the only other things of note this month are that L will not nurse after I’ve been running (lactic acid, I think. Or sweat…) and sometimes she will go to bed without eating because of an epic meltdown where she’s screaming too hard to nurse. This really freaks me out, let me tell you! Breastfeeding is such an emotional thing. Rationally I tell myself that if Linden had to go on formula tomorrow I would be totally fine with it, but the truth is I probably would not. At least not right away. Though I’d be lying if I said that sometimes I realllllllly can’t wait to eat and drink and consume whatever the hell I want. Sometimes a girl needs her broccoli and brussels (gives L gas, big time) and Valerian (it’s in the Sleepytime tea I wanted to drink last night…bah). And quite possibly a crazy girls night out with vodka martinis.

Sleeping

Oh, sleep. It’s a mixed bag in this department. On the one hand, L is (usually…we’ve been having more wake ups this week than normal) a decent night sleeper. On the other, her naps are…short. I blame myself for this, to some degree. I mean, I put her down for a nap in her swing and it’s bright as hell in the living room and the music is on and then she’s up 20 minutes later. So what do I expect, right? It’s just that girlfriend will not nap anywhere other than the swing or the stroller/car seat, and so rather than fight the battle and the tears, I stick with what works. Even if it means short naps. Maybe I’ll be brave enough soon to venture forth into crib nap land, but first I must locate my backbone, which seems to have pulled a disappearing act since becoming a mama.

Speaking of crib, I said that at 3 months we’d start having Linden sleep in her own room (right now she’s in a pack n play a foot away from my side of the bed). Well, it’s 3 months and I am not ready to put Linden in her own room. I actually sort of like having her in the room with us. It makes me happy that our little family (including Chloe, who still gets to sleep on the bed!) is all in one place at night. Plus, it’s just so easy to reach over and get her to nurse or to soothe her back to sleep. If she were in her own room I’d still be doing all that stuff, but would actually have to get my ass UP and OUT of bed to do it. Plus, our house is teeny tiny, you can hear everything everywhere, and so it’s not like I wouldn’t still hear every whimper, snort and cry if she were in her own room.

So in short, I guess I’m OK with what we’re doing…for now. I do know that eventually I need to buck up and acquaint Linden with her sweet white crib. The pack n play isn’t going to cut it forever.

(Updated to add: I was all ready to put L in her crib this past weekend and then…I wussed out. I couldn’t do it! I used to think I’d be one of those “tough” mamas who’d have her kid in the crib lickety split. Yeah, no. I think it boils down to me being scared of a change in routine. And a little bit leaving L all alone in her room.)

The last topic under sleep: the swaddle. Oh when oh when do we say goodbye to the swaddle? On the one hand, it does the job of settling Linden down for bed and keeping her warm at night. On the other, she expends an awful lot of energy at night trying to bust out of it (and is usually successful). I don’t know if she’d sleep better not having to fight it, or if her free arms and hands would wake her up. It’s another one of those things I’m too scared to try because, well, sleep. Is a very precious commodity.

(Not that we’re getting that much of it. But I’d like to preserve what we do have.)

(Related: I dread sleep training. But like a pap smear or a funeral, it’s one of those things that must be done.)

(MY OPINION, of course.)

Development

As I said at the beginning of this post, Linden is not into chilling out by herself. I feel like I’m constantly putting her down somewhere, only to have to pick her right back up because she starts to fuss. This gets old. And tiring.

I also feel like we’re getting to the point of needing new play contraptions. Right now the places where I can put Linden down while I do something are the swing (and detachable vibrating chair), the floor (but I can’t really leave her there because Chloe will come and lick her face off), the crib, the pack n play, and occasionally the rock n play, if it’s out. None of these things are really that interactive or, quite frankly, that fun. I’m guessing next on the list might be an exersaucer and a jumper that hangs in the door. She doesn’t really have enough head control for either of those just yet, though.

Walks are our savior. We take a walk every day, either in the BOB when we walk downtown or the Bjorn when we walk Chloe. The Bjorn is still OK, but I can’t go that far anymore without it killing my back, so that makes me think we will soon need a carrier with a hip belt for more support. We took her on her first hike up in Shenandoah National Park the other weekend, and she just looked all around the whole time, all wide-eyed. Can’t wait to take her on her first camping trip this summer!

In just the last week or so Linden has really started grabbing for things. Toys, hair, boobs; it’s all fair game. She’s also started kicking herself over to her side from her back. Not much action from the tummy side yet – she is NOT a fan of tummy time, that’s for sure.

Other developmental things:

- Giggling. I think she’s going to be funny like her mama

- Watching TV. Alright, before you get all PC on my ass, she doesn’t actually like sit and watch my stories with me or anything. (Well, just the Bachelor. I’m priming her to watch with me and drink wine and shit talk all the hideous chicks 20 years from now, because y’all know that show will still be on.) She’ll just stare at the people on it every once in awhile. Same with my iPhone; she’s a big fan of Instagram, probably because my feed is mostly people’s baby pictures.

- Becoming aware of her feet. Especially when she’s rocking some cute footie jam jams!

- Becoming aware of Chloe. Her buddy, her pal. Her doggie who won’t stay the hell off the bed in her room.

- Reading books. She is into the books, man. It is the cutest thing!

Me

I often hear the criticism that mama bloggers are all about portraying the perfect mama image, that we gloss up motherhood and gush about how it’s so amazing and perfect and easy.

No. I love my child more than anything, and I love being a mother, but let’s be honest. Motherhood is hard. It’s hard emotionally, it’s hard physically. I will be the first to admit that it can be rough.

Right now the hardest thing for me is the sleep battle. Contrary to popular belief, babies don’t just sleep all the time. It takes WORK to get them there. At least it does for me. Lots of crying and fussing and blood pressure-rising. It makes me crazy, especially when I see pictures of people’s angelic looking babes snoozing peacefully on Instagram and then wonder self-consciously, what the hell is wrong with me and my precious nugget?

(Absolutely nothing, I’m sure. And I’m not really one to talk; my feed is ALL happy Linden pictures.)

I just can’t wait for the day when naps aren’t stress-inducing and nighttime is not one huge clusterfuck. Oh, and I can’t wait for some sleep of my own. I am so tired. Epically, tragically EXHAUSTED.

Another thing that’s really hard is the intense cabin fever I’ve been having. With no car to use during the day, we rely on my two feet and the BOB stroller to get anywhere and that means we are seriously limited in our getting-out-of-the-house options. I’m pretty tough when it comes to weather, but when it’s really cold and windy or raining/snowing, I’m not into taking Linden out in it. So we’re stuck in the house a lot, and we all know how I feel about this house. Don’t remember? Well let’s just say this house is my least favorite house I’ve ever lived in and I am counting down the seconds until we move.

Obviously there are lots of wonderful things I feel and experience daily, but I thought I’d keep it real. Plus, as weird as it sounds, I’d like to remember these tough times too. They’re part of the whole motherhood package.

3 month stats

Weight

At January 17 appointment — roughly 12.5 lbs

Height

Not sure?

Head

Also not sure – we’ll find out on February 28 at her 4 month (!) appointment

Clothes and diapers

A solid 3 mos in clothes (some size 3-6 mos. She’s grown out of a lot of her clothes!), size 1 in disposables, 2 empty snaps on front of BGs but still snapped up in newborn mode

Likes

Breastmilk, being outside, staring at trees, her pink puppy dog lovey, grabbing at things (she’s started grabbing at my shirt when she’s hungry!), bouncing on mama’s knee, playing with Daddy (I think he’s more fun), diaper changes, books, white noise, smiling…lots of smiling

Dislikes

Napping in her bed, gas pains, being left alone, wind