Celebrating 2012 {& Sleep Training Night 1}

2012 was a full year to say in the least!! My very favorite souvenir from this past year is of course:

my sweet baby girl

2012 was also full of pregnancy, celebrating 30 years of my parent's marriage, celebrating 50 years of MeMaw & Paw's marriage, helping Grandma through chemo, and then celebrating her life and journey to join Jesus. It was a year of teaching high school students - both social studies and English as well as life lessons. It was a year where my relationship with my brother was healed and I get to celebrate seeing Grady & Marissa every chance I get! It was a year of playing with puppies, making new friends, and reading books. It was a year of crafts. It was a year where we truly found a church home and celebrated Clara's baptism. 

Clara learned to babble, roll over, grab things, eat solid foods, SMILE, laugh, pull the puppies' fur, take walks in her stroller, love bath time, and (mostly) sit unassisted and crawl backwards & in a circle!

BUT, like it happens every 365 days, a new year closes and a new one begins. 

Everyone asks about new year's resolutions. 

I have a few:

1. I am determined to figure out life with immune system problems and a thyroid condition. These are not going to define me. I'm just going to get them under control and move on.

2. I am going to lose 5lbs every month until summer. It MUST be done. I'm disappointed in myself, so it's time to rectify this. I think I'm going to possibly do Weight Watchers to help me get started.

3. Now that I'm back in the saddle with the gym, I'm going to make it a daily habit on weekdays. They have a nursery. There is no excuse. This is going to be hard with the damage to joints my immune system has caused, but it's going to happen anyway.

4. We have made many new friends over the last year. I want us to see more of them and get to know them better. We started making a better effort in 2012, but 2013 is not going to be a homebody year!

5. I'm going to do whatever it takes to be the very best mommy I can. Which leads me to:

Sleep is important. To all THREE of us.

What I didn't know previously (silly first time mom) was that CB is completely capable of sleeping 10-12 hours without needing to eat. Babies that were full term (or beyond) and are healthy are usually capable of this from 4-5 months. I didn't realize this ...

So like the clueless first time mom I am, I've been nursing here anywhere from 1-3 times a night, every night, not knowing any better. Doh. Now I do!

ATTENTION FUTURE MOMS: READ BABY 411!!! 

I'm only 6 months late to the Baby 411 game, but I'm glad I'm now reading it. Sheesh.

Sooooo....

Sleep Training Night 1 

(yikes)

We did our bedtime routine of book, song, rocking, I love you's and then while she was still awake we set her in her crib and tried to confidently walk out of the nursery fully expecting to cry right along with her as we let her cry it out (using the Ferber method).

We put her down at 7:45pm.

She cried until 9pm.

She woke up at midnight, and screamed like a crazy person until 1:30am.

Bryan had to physically remove me from the nursery at one point while I was desperately crying as well. Ughhhh, that was a rough hour and a half (much worse than the earlier session).

She woke up at 5am, whimpered a little and "talked" to her doll for about 15 minutes, fell back asleep. (Hooray, Clara Beth!)

Woke up at 7:30am, ready for some cuddles and play time.

We are now on Sleep Training Night 2

Put her down at 7:45.

Cried until 8:30, and is now sound asleep ....

We shall see what the rest of the night brings :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!