Four Months of Madeline!

This was probably the hardest month on me. I thought everything was going to get better. Madeline had been sleeping pretty well the last month and slowly started to grunt less in the mornings from all her gas. Well, Jon left for Arkansas for two weeks to help his dad with some work and to earn a little money since he hadn't been working for several months now. This is when it started to get bad. I was home alone for a few days before I flew to San Diego to stay with my parents while Jon was gone. The day before I flew out (also the day I was trying to pack and clean up the apartment before I left) was the day Maddie decided to be a terror. She's never been the best napper, at least not since before our first trip to San Diego. I decided to go to Babies-R-Us to pick up a few things before we left. Maddie was asleep in her carseat, and I thought she'd sleep the whole time we were there. Nope. She woke up, and I kept trying to move the cart in hopes it'd rock her back to sleep. She started to get fussy, so I decided it was time to leave. We got in the car and she screamed the whole way home. I couldn't handle it. So I placed her in her crib, while I tried to bring everything from the car inside and so I could calm down. I soon regretted just letting her cry for those 10-15 minutes. It was SO hard to get her to calm back down. Eventually she did, and I tried to pack my suitcase quickly because my sister was on her way to pick me up because I was spending the night at her place (she was taking me to the airport the next day).

Traveling with a kid by yourself is hard. Traveling with a needy baby by yourself- even harder. Thank goodness for the skycap employees though. They were able to take my bags, check me in, and give me my tickets right at the curb. Maddie had fallen asleep on the way to the airport, so I let her be while I went to the bathroom and tried to figure out where I was supposed to go (I've never flown Delta, and they have their own terminal in the SLC airport). Maddie eventually woke up, I changed her and fed her. Then we got in the security line. Ugh. I had Maddie in my arms because she still hated her car seat at this point, and I didn't want a screaming baby while I was in line. Well, I get to the conveyor belt and start getting everything into those stupid plastic bins, took off my shoes, and then realized I'd have to set Maddie down to get the stroller up on the conveyor belt. I had stuff in one hand and Maddie in the other, so placing her in her car seat carefully was a little difficult. Needless to say, her head fell into the seat a little harder than I had anticipated, and she started crying. Anyways, I got the stroller folded down and put up on the belt, picked Maddie up, and put the car seat onto the belt too. Then comes a TSA agent explaining to me that I was in the wrong line and needed to move all my stuff over to a different line. Ugh. Why didn't someone tell me this BEFORE I got everything up onto the conveyor belt? Luckily, they decided to finally help me at this point and took everything over to the correct line. I still can't figure out why I was in a "wrong" line. I know it had to do with the body scanner (young children don't have to go through them), but why couldn't I have just gone through the metal detector??? I don't know. She was pretty good the rest of the time at the airport. I got to my gate, realized I was hungry, and went to find food. I sat down to eat, and Maddie got fussy. Of course. She was tired. So I stood up, and rocked/bounced her to sleep while I ate my lunch. Then I had to hurry back to my gate because they were ready to start boarding. I pretty much hung back because I had a seat towards the back, and I didn't really want to make people wait behind me as I'm trying to get my stroller and car seat all folded up for the gate check. As I'm about to show my ticket to the airline attendant, I am called by another attendant, who tells me he has "good news" and "bad news." He proceeds to tell me that the bad news is that my seat is in the very last row, and the good news is that my baby will have her own seat (with the car seat). In my opinion, none of this was necessarily "good news." Just another thing I had to lug onto the plane with me. Actually, I really didn't care WHERE I sat, as long as I wasn't in between two people. Luckily, the flight attendants on the plane were very nice and helped me carry everything to my seat and get Maddie all settled into her own seat. I had brought some infants' tylenol, but I totally forgot to give it to her. But she just sucked on her pacifier and was a little bright-eyed when we took off, but all was okay! She actually did surprisingly well on the airplane (even in her car seat). She started to get a little fussy towards the end of the flight, but I just held her in my arms, fed her, and she calmed down and went to sleep. Oh, and funny thing the older lady that was sitting next to me said when Maddie got fussy was that "she needs a little bubbly" to help her calm down. Haha. (The lady had some champagne or something that she was drinking at the time.)

Anyways, basically the next two weeks, Maddie and I just lounged at my parents' house (okay, I tried to lounge, and Maddie screamed most of the time). My Mom, unfortunately, got sick, so she didn't get to play and help out with Maddie as much as I was hoping. BUT Maddie was SO difficult to get to sleep at night and for naps. It was ridiculous! I pretty much had to bounce her on the bed for 30 minutes until she would finally go to sleep... which many times, I would lay her down for bed, and she would wake up 30 minutes later. UGH! Also, she slept in stretches of 1-2 hours ALL NIGHT LONG, EVERY NIGHT. Needless to say, she slept in bed with me, so I could just feed her easily because that was the only thing that would calm her down. Sometimes I'd wake up and realize I had fallen asleep feeding her. I was SO TIRED. Seriously, this was worse than when she was a newborn! I cried all the time because she was just screaming at me and would not calm down (mostly for naps). I'd try to take her on walks because I figured she'd enjoy the air and would fall asleep much more easily outside in her stroller... BUT NO! Just scream, scream, scream- that's all she did! One time, I went to the mall with my Mom and Grandma. Everything was okay until after we ate lunch. She screamed and would NOT calm down. I bounced her and tried everything, but nothing worked! I felt so embarrassed because I was one of THOSE moms who everyone stares at because she has a loud, annoying baby that she can't calm down. I went out to the car to try to feed her, and she went to sleep pretty easily once in there (didn't want to eat though). Seriously, there's probably so many other horrible stories from that trip, but I don't really want to revisit those thoughts because I was miserable. Plus, this post is already long enough. The whole time I kept telling Jon that I wish he was there with us. I needed him so badly to help with Maddie and me!

Before Jon and I had gone our separate ways, we knew Maddie was really close to rolling over (back to belly). I joked that she would probably do it while we were in SD and he was in AR. Well, it was the weekend before we were to fly home, and she hadn't done it yet. So I thought he was in luck- that he would get to be there when she first rolled over. But one day, she just laid on the ground and worked those ab muscles like crazy and rolled over! It was definitely a struggle the first few times, but she still kept trying. The day came for us to head back to Utah, and Maddie was going crazy with her rolling. Anytime I set her down to change her at the airport, she would try to roll over. She did really well the plane ride home as well. I got her to sleep in my arms pretty much the whole way (which I'm glad because a guy was sitting next to me this time, and I wouldn't have felt comfortable breastfeeding with him right there). We got home, my sister took us home, and we went to pick up Jon late that evening. Maddie was still doing not-so-good in her car seat, so I sat in the back to help her go to sleep while Jon drove home.

The next day, we showed Jon how Maddie could rollover... and not long after rolling back to belly, she started doing belly to back. She even continuously rolled a few times! Although, she didn't do back to belly much after this (just occasionally).

Basically, the rest of the time we spent in Utah was spent going to all the places we love to eat at because we knew we were going to be VERY limited on GOOD restaurants in Arkansas (In-N-Out, Kneader's, Gandolfo's, Sweet Tomatoes, J-Dawgs, Wingers, etc.). We went to Costco and the mall a lot and just enjoyed some good weather for Utah in the springtime.

Jon drove out to Arkansas a week before we were to move to drop off our car there and to pick up Joseph's Tahoe and trailer (and his dad). They drove immediately back to make it for the weekend- to help pack and clean up our apartment and for Madeline's blessing.

More to come... eventually...

(Again, I'll add pictures when I find the time...)