12 Weeks

Ellie continues to grow and get stronger each day. She still likes sitting up and I can see her trying to raise her head in her bouncy and her car seat. She really doesn't like being horizontal unless she's very tired. I've gotten better at recognizing the signs and the timing, although I couldn't tell you what those are necessarily. I've been tracking her naptimes and can't seem to detect a pattern between a good night of sleep and a nap schedule. The one sure thing I've determined is that she shouldn't nap for more than 20-30 minutes after 6 or so. For the most part, she takes lots of little cat naps of about a half hour. It becomes a race to fit in a meal or some household chores while she does. Of course, sometimes, she naps on me. So, then I'm glad they're pretty short because as nice as it feels at first, after a while, you start to stiffen up or have an uncontrollable unreachable itch or something.

Dressed up for a visit from Great Aunt C

She's about to outgrow her bassinet. She's just so long.... I lugged her travel crib upstairs to see if we could swap it out and keep the sleeping arrangement for a while. But, they're almost exactly the same size. I could sub the full size play yard, but I think I might just have to bite the bullet and start using her crib. Course, that means I need to clean it out. Currently it is dog-proof storage. Her whole room is basically just storage. It's going to require a pretty major change in routine. Maybe I'll try to ease into it over the weekend.

Currently, we're auditioning disposable diapers. I tried the cloth diapers for a few days and decided they were too bulky for her tiny little butt for now. So, I'm going to reevaluate maybe when size 1's (which she's just jumped into) get tight. They were easy to use, but I'm dreading resizing them again. We've been using Pampers with no complaints other than the huge size difference between newborn and size 1. They have a nice faux fabric exterior, have two nice rows of elastic which has saved our bacon just about every time, and the tabs reattach anywhere on the diaper for tidy disposal. However, I wanted to look into diapers that were biodegradable. So, after reading reviews on Amazon, I ordered a case of Seventh Generation and a case of Nature Baby Care. Hands down, I love the Seventh Generation better. They share all my favorite features of Pampers and are a nice boring eggshell color that goes with everything. The Nature Baby Care ones had a nice grey heart design, but they are much stiffer and seem a little less secure around the legs, even though they have the two rows of elastic. One or two of her wet diapers almost seemed to seep through and make the ink bleed a little. And, the tabs only stick to the waist section of the diaper, so you can't wrap them up for disposal. At least not the same way.

In other news, I'm on week 4 of personal training. I just bought a few pair of real jeans last week. I've jumped three sizes since pre-pregnancy. It's pretty depressing how much 22 pounds changes how all your clothes fit. Next week I actually go to go get my hair done. I considered coloring it since the grays are coming in kind of kinky with a tendency to stick straight up. It's such a commitment and gets so expensive though. I've always abandoned it in the past, so I'm going to try holding off a little longer. Recovering from coloring always seems to last longer than the color itself. Also, P claims he likes my hair better au natural. I'm thinking I might try growing it out though. We'll see.