Cry, cry, cry...

What did I tell you all??? That I'd appear with gusto and great intentions and then suddenly drop of, right? Right. Ask any former professor of mine or my mom: self-starting is not my greatest asset. I've never been one to produce well without deadlines or guidelines - hence my brief and abysmal career as a freelancer of any kind. But life feels a little more manageable these days, so maybe posting here will become more regular. No promises.

Someone is almost twelve weeks old!

Oof. The baby blues on this here baby kill me. Maybe they'll stay that way, thanks to blue eyes on her dad's side and her nana's (my mom)? When does baby eye color become permanent? Tell me, Google.

I would say weeks 10-12 have been the dreamiest yet, and that's because ELUSIVE SLEEP has finally (for the time being) been captured. Before I had Tess, I knew sleep would be a hot commodity. I knew I wouldn't get very much of it. But I had no idea how challenging it would be to actually put a baby to sleep. I figured she'd pass out, I'd set her down somewhere until she woke up, repeat. Not so much.

At around week 5 (or even earlier? Help me out, Matt. My brain is permanent Jell-O.) sleep became an all-out war. Our bedtime routine really had no routine to speak of. I would take Tess to the glider around our bedtime - 10 or so - and nurse her to sleep. "To sleep". For reasons I still don't totally understand, I would put her down and that kid would be up and at 'em and ANGRY the second her head hit the co-sleeper. I would repeat and repeat the process of nursing her down, only to have her up and raging seconds later. Suddenly bedtime was taking anywhere from one to three (THREE!) hours and I was a piping hot mess. Like, going cray-cray. I dreaded nighttime and bedtime and hated every second of what should be soothing, precious time with my daughter. I started polling the admired moms in my life and everyone had a different answer. Nurse her to deep, deep sleep, or start saving for thrice-weekly psychotherapy to manage her abandonment issues now! Put her down wide awake and ready to party or have that kid in bed with you until she's voting age!

I think aside from the "breast is best" debate, sleep (specifically, sleep training) has got to be one of the most fraught infant-parenting issues around. I had more than one friend say they had considered sleep training their children, but that the very sound of their babies' cries were the emotional equivalent of ASPS eating their FACES OFF or some such. And of course the underlying suggestion is, or feels like, but you! You heartless bitch! You Joan Crawford! You go for it! That's clearly some emotional extrapolation on my part - all I'm saying is, ladies get worked up. Our (very old-school but very awesome) pediatrician suggested letting her cry, but 5 weeks seemed way too early for that, so I persevered. Then one night Tess refused to take a bottle from me and would nurse only if I was lying down with her and I threw a complete nutty. I summoned Matt home from a precious man-date with a dear friend in the city because the thought of being alone with our beast of a baby was entirely too overwhelming. He came home, dear husband, and commenced sleep training that very night. The plan was to put her down awake, let her cry for ten minutes, go in and hold and soothe her to a calm-but-awake state, put her back down, repeat. I was thrown out of the house and sent to the local bar for a very large wine and told I would be alerted when she was asleep. I took the latest New Yorker and prepared myself for a long wait. Fifteen minutes later, she was down for the count.

It wasn't quite as simple as that, but with the cobbled-together advice of a few trusted friends and tips from Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child (highly recommended!) we were off. Or rather, I should say here and shout from the rooftops forever: Matt was off. He 100% spearheaded all sleep training efforts and I could not be more grateful to him for the super hard work he did. Now at 7pm Tess begs to go to bed. Like, looks you right in the eye and gives you one, big angry, "GEE!" and it's go time. Because Matt is away from her all day, he does bedtime almost exclusively: relaxing bath, baby massage and a warm bottle and she's out like a light. For the record, I would like someone, anyone, to put me to bed in a similar fashion. It looks like heaven.

I think the lesson here, and the advice I would pass on to any new mom who asks (but only if she asks! What's with all the unsolicited advice we mamas seem compelled to give one another? I find myself doing it, too. A post for another time.), is we go into parenting with certain ideas and goals and philosophies as our guides. I wanted a very attachment-focused experience. Co-sleeping, late (if any) sleep training, near-constant baby wearing, nursing to sleep, etc. But I quickly learned I HATED co-sleeping (have you ever slept next to a newborn? They're like tiny human furnaces!), could NOT sleep while Tess was nursing next to me in bed.... And it was so painful to realize that a couple of the techniques of this uber-attachment philosophy were actually hurting, rather than nurturing, my child. Like, she had bags under her eyes at 6 weeks old. So as much as one might feel a parenting approach applies to her, the fact is that approach might not apply to her kid. Once I realized and embraced that, I was able to relax a lot. And not for nothing, people: sleep training works. I've put her down wide awake for naps for the past several days and she hangs out for a bit and then falls right off.

Development and milestones!

At her three-month appointment, Tess tipped the scales at a whopping 11lbs, 3oz, measuring 23" long. She was only 6lbs, 13oz at birth, remember?! Whenever strangers ask how old she is and I tell them she's less than three months, they inevitably say she's "HUGE" or "GIGANTIC" or "REALLY, REALLY BIG". It's totally starting to give me a complex. This almost always happens when I have her in the Baby Bjorn facing out, which she loves, so I think what people really mean is that she's very alert and possesses great head control for her age, which she does. I think she definitely looks older than her age, not bigger. She loves bearing weight on her legs, and can use them to rise up into standing position while Matt holds her hands. It's super cute. She's just started grabbing at things, like toys hanging in the arch over her play mat, and my hair and mouth.

She's recently realized that putting her hands and fingers in her mouth is soothing, a trend that I REALLY HOPE CONTINUES. (She still thinks pacifiers are for suckers, unless her Meme is giving it to her. She can't say no to Meme.)

As I mentioned, she sleeps beautifully at night - 7-8pm to anywhere from 4 to even 6am! We've had a couple of blips where she seems to think 5 or 6am is wake up time. We will break her of this habit if it kills me.

She's been smiling for some time, but has started cooing like crazy and - just the other day - laughing. Everyone always says it's the best sound ever, and it's true. It's not a full-on belly laugh yet. More of a deep and husky, "Heh. Heh. Heh."

I feel really lucky to have a fun community of mamas up here on the north shore, and Tess is lucky to count Amelia, Brynn, Ethan and Jenna as some of her best friends.

I didn't think Tess would much care about or notice other babies and kids at this point in her life, but she loves them! She and one sweet little 4 month-old named Ilan were especially smitten with each other on a recent play date:

Ilan is French, clearly.

Those of you close to us know that we've had some pretty scary health stuff with members of my family recently. Everyone is going strong, but it's been quite the wake-up call. And our Tess is good for lots and lots of things, most especially bringing smiles and reminders to hang in there to the ones who really need it.