The Perils of Room Sharing

Our girls share a room. Its generally works out okay, except for in the early mornings. Lindsey usually wakes to nurse between 6 and 6:30. This is not when she is ready to be awake for the day. If I hear her in the morning, she'll eat then go back to sleep until 7:30 or 8 (my latest sleeper, but a LONG shot!). 

Problem is, Allison is an early riser. So when Lindsey wakes to eat, Allison is pretty close to the surface and wakes up too. Usually before I have heard Lindsey. Allison usually decided that Lindsey is awake for the day, turns on the lights and starts entertaining Linds, while I sleep a little longer. Which doesn't sound so bad when its put that way...

However, its makes for a tired baby. On Sunday a few weeks ago I came downstairs at 8:45 after getting ready for church to find this:

Totally conked out in her doorway jumper... which is one of her favorite things ever. It takes a whole lot of tired to fall asleep during active play. We have since decided that with the finishing of my sewing room in the basement this fall that the girls will not longer be sharing a room. Lindsey will move into the former guest/sewing room. Since we don't often have guests we decided its silly to have a dedicated guest room. We will, instead, displace Allison from her room when we do have guests. She'll either start sleeping on the queen bed in the current guest room or we'll trundle her daybed with a 2nd twin mattress, so that we can still accommodate guests.

Fringe benefit to this decision: I get to have fun designing and decorating another kids' room! Yay!

Trouble

Something is telling me that the easy, honeymoon phase is about to be over...

and I'm about to be in big trouble.

Seriously... she's only 7 months old!

Mama's in trouble...

Starting to crawl at just 6 months old.

Something tells me I'm in big trouble...

Who's she look like?

I'm sure I'm not the only mother of more-than-one who gets this, but I get asked all the time who we think Lindsey looks like: Carter or Allison. Both Brian and I have been seeing Allison in her and sticking to it.

Then I started looking through photos last night. What do you see?

Newborns:

 

 In my defense, they all look alike as newborns, pretty much. Right? I think this is why were first said that Linds looks like Allison and were sticking to it. But look at these...

And almost/about 4 months old 

(and I chose 4 months because I, true to third child form, don't have a great picture of Lindsey in the last 6 weeks.. oops. Note to self: take more pictures).

 

 

  

She looks like Carter! Maybe its the chub... and the bald... I mean they all looks like siblings: all the kids have got my eyes and my distinctly shaped "Allison" chin from my mom's side (Allison is a surname on that part of our family tree), I think they all have the same nose and same shape of lips...

But, I admit my mistake. Lindsey doesn't really look like Allison. She totally looks like Carter.

Rave Review

Lindsey's only complaint lately about mom's cooking is the speed of the service. :)

And yes, I have been too lazy to make or buy girly bids for Linds, so she's still using Carter's boyish leftovers. But if my memory serves me correctly, Carter was using girly bibs until he was 7 or 8 months old and my mom bought him some boyish and neutral ones, so I'm pretty par for my course right now. :)

Milestones

Apparently no one informed Lindsey that growing up is verboten. She is supposed to stay my itty bitty baby forever!

However this week:

Lindsey "turned" 4 months old...

(so cute and chubby! I made these leggings... had to make them twice becuase someone was too chubby for the first pair...)

and rolled over for the first time...

(no picture yet, but hopefully I can get it on video... although she usually does it when I'm not looking...)

and tasted solid foods for the first time...

(mmm... smashed bananas! Jury's out in this photo, but tonight's tasing got RAVE reviews.)

and SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT for the first time!!! This one I'm not so sad about. If she could repeat it a few times I might be able to sleep a whole night too. :)

*sigh* Next thing I know, I'll have blinked and we'll be celebrating her first birthday...

Chubba Chubba

For those who haven't heard, Lindsey is not the petite little thing that Allison was. She is taking her own path and riding the 75th percentile growth curve.

Good thing chubby looks good on her! :)

Little Miss Lindsey

In January I took Lindsey to get her portraits done. Nothing special, just JCPenney. I wish they were special... but a few shots turned out cute. Wishing they were special makes me jealous of my cute sister Emily, who not only had fabulous hair that I envy, but also has a great photographer for a sister-in-law... AND she lives near her. The pictures of her cute baby boy are always fabulous. *sigh* I mean really, go look at her blog. The top bar picture? Shonda. The Valentines and 7 month pictures? Shonda. Newborn pictures, family pictures, engagement pictures... Shonda, Shonda, Shonda. So jealous...

Anyway, these pictures were definantly not what I had pictured in my head for newborn pictures, but I probably waited to long for the one I wanted. Oh well... I can't figure out how to grab the pictures to show on here... if you want to see them, check my facebook page. In the mean time, you get this...

Which is at least as cute as anything that the photographer at JCP got (even though its not a portrait kind of picture). Plus she's smiling, which she would not do for her "real" pictures.

And this one...

We definantly have another finger-sucker on our hands. I'm looking forward to the end of my binky-chasing days too, acutally. Lindsey will quite happily gnaw on her fists, but I'm thinking she'll be really happy once she finally uncurls those fists. Few more weeks, right?

Other than that, Linds is happy, chatty (our house will never, ever be a quiet house I'm pretty sure!) and generally conent, as long as she's being held. 'Cause if she's not being held, its pretty hard to protect her from the onslaught of her siblings' love.

This is them giving Lindsey space. Normally they're about on top of her if I leave her vulnerable.

By the way, I'm about ready to buy a DSLR camera body... I have some great lenses from the film SLR we have, so I just need a body... anyone have a recommendation for a good camera? I don't expect to do a lot of photography, I just want better picture of my kids than my point and shoot will take. And maybe, with a little practice, I would take my own kids' portraits and be happy with them...

Adorable Ridiculousness

Baby girls are just too fun to dress up. :)

Finally...

The long awaited baby:

Lindsey Elaine, born December 16th at 8:02 a.m. 8 pounds, 7 ounces 20 inches long and not happy about being out in the cold. And yes, she has a set of lungs to support that yell...

She's beautiful. And we love her, even if she was late.