Happy 6 Months Lenabel!

Lena is 6 months old today! Honestly I just can't believe it. It can't be true. She is 6 months, she's been alive half a year. She's such a young little person, and at the same time, she's grown so much since her birth in June. I look at her and I can't believe she was ever only one day old, or just three weeks, or a mere five months.

And then all of a sudden half a year has gone by, and my little baby is suddenly going to bed on her own, sleeping through the night, eating solid foods, sitting up by herself, rolling around, reaching for things, grabbing things, smiling, giggling, laughing, playing, and babbling. She's growing at an amazing rate, and we can't wait to see her grow even more in the months ahead.

Milestones!

Dear Lenaboo,

You've hit too many milestones all at once, it's hard to keep up! In the past two weeks you have done some really amazing work, the biggest and most important leap forward being that you've developed the ability to put yourself to sleep and stay asleep through the night. Sure we had to help you out with this a bit, but you learned fast, and it only took you one night/40 minutes of crying to learn this new skill. My dear Lenabel, this is called tough love.

Did we mention you're also putting yourself to sleep unswaddled and without a pacifier? We used to swaddle you up, give you your pacifier, sing to you, rock you, and put you

in your crib, sometimes asleep, sometimes just almost asleep. Exactly 45 minutes later you would wake up, and we'd have to run back into the nursery to help you get back to sleep. We'd find you out of the swaddle and without your nuk, and so we'd re-swaddle you and pop the nuk back in your mouth. Then we'd soothe you, and walk out the door, praying that you'd stay asleep this time. 2 minutes later you'd be whining again, waiting for us to come back in, and as dutiful loving parents we'd return, only to find you unswaddled again, and having spit out your nuk. This would continue through out the night, generally 3 to 4 times. So we decided it was time to teach you to sleep with out the swaddle and nuk.

Our new sleeping routine looks like this: Mama nurses you around 5:30 and we give you a bath at around 5:45. Then you get ready for bed and we sing you some lullabies. At around 6:00 we put you in your crib, awake, and after 5 or 10 minutes of babbling to yourself you're asleep, unswaddled and without a nuk. It is amazing. And as I mentioned earlier, you're staying asleep through the whole night too. This kind or sleeping has really helped everybody to feel better and more rested during the day. We can tell in the morning that you feel better, that you've gotten better sleep, and at night it's almost as if you can't wait to get into your crib to go to bed. We give you a bath, sing to you, hold you for a few minutes, and put you in your crib, always awake. Sometime we can't even get through 2 of the 3 songs because you want to be in your crib so badly. So we skip the last two and park you in the crib for the night.

You've become a champion sleeper my dear, going to bed on your own at 6:30 at night and sleeping straight through till 6:30 in the morning. Mama is still feeding you at 10 every night, just to make sure you're tummy's full and you can make it till the morning, but you sleep through this feeding and we're even contemplating getting rid of it all together, since you don't seem to eat much from it anyway.

In addition to the huge improvement in your sleeping abilities you've also learned how to roll over from your back to your tummy and from your tummy to your back. You are constantly turning onto your side and reaching for things. It's so fun to see you look at something that you want, turn on your side, reach and grab it. Then of course it goes in your mouth. Everything goes in your mouth.

Speaking of which, we fed you solid food for the first time this week. To be safe we started you with a very small portion of rice cereal mixed with breast milk. You were funny tasting your first bite of food. We've got it on video so when you're older you can look back. In a couple of days we're going to try giving you sweet potato. We'll steam it and mash it up and we hope you'll like it. It's crazy to think that you haven't had anything but breast milk for 6 months, and now this whole new world is going to open up for you!

Winter Wonderland

'Tis the season and we've been having a lot of fun! Minneapolis was slammed with 9" of snow on Friday that turned the entire city white and magical, just in time for Hanukkah. Bruno, Alicia, and Ayla hosted a very nice and delicious Hanukkah party for the family, and this year there were four children who received presents: Talia, Levi, Ayla, and Lenabel. It's so nice to have a growing family and happy healthy children to treat for the holidays. We don't have any pictures of the Hanukkah party but we do have these very cute pictures of Lena in the snow from earlier that day.

Happy Thanksgiving

Halloween came and went. It's now late November and the snow is falling, a day before Thanksgiving, making holiday travel for many a royal pain. Luckily Uncle Grish and Grandma and Grandpa Spirn flew in for the holiday earlier in the week and they're here in Minneapolis, safe and sound, ready to celebrate with us.

Lena is taking her third nap of the day, while Daniel bakes pies in the kitchen for dinner tomorrow at the Pesky's house. With Thanksgiving around the corner there's so much to be thankful for.

We're thankful for our cozy home. It isn't selling as fast as we'd like, but it's not too bad a place to be stuck in for a while.

We're thankful for Dan's job, and his attainment of Tenure. Thank you University of Minnesota!

We're thankful that Deborah is happy and able to stay home with little Lenabel.

We're thankful for the long and beautiful Fall we were able to enjoy this year, before the snow started falling.

We're thankful for Minneapolis, a safe and peaceful, albeit cold, place where we are able to raise our family.

We're thankful for our good health and the good health of our loved ones.

We're thankful for our family and friends. We feel so much love and kindness and we're so thankful to have such wonderful people in our lives. Without you we'd be alone in the world, it would be much less fun and a whole lot more scary out there.

We're thankful to have a beautiful and healthy baby girl who continues to amaze us with her giggles and smiles. Lena you have brought a joy into our lives that we didn't know was possible, a love that is so big and strong it's hard to describe. Thank you for your presence in our lives.

My First Halloween

We celebrated Halloween yesterday with a costume party at our house. We had 13 babies, 3 toddlers, 1 big girl, and 15 adults in our living room. The more the merrier as we say here at the Spirn household.

Lena had a great time with her friends and we loved seeing all the kiddos in their costumes. Lena was a lamb, a hand me down from her friend Jasper. There were also a zebra, a pea pod, a hot dog, a pumpkin, a garden gnome, and two giraffes, two lions, and two dinosaurs. A true zoo!

Puppies!

Lena was smothered by puppies yesterday! On our way home from a walk we saw these puppies playing in the park, and we just had to stop and say hello. Mama dog was there, with her little kiddos, one of them sold and the other three looking for homes. These Swiss Mountain Dogs were adorable, and Dan's lucky we're trying to sell our house and don't have the time to take care of a puppy, or we certainly would have ended up taking one of these home! They were so sweet with Lenabel, and the Mama dog too.

Nighty Night

Lenabel went to sleep totally on her own today, for the first time in her life. We've been on a pretty decent schedule with the little one for the past couple of weeks, and today was the highlight. After feeding, a bath, and a couple of lullabies, we put her down in her crib awake, and she talked to herself for a while, let out a couple short little yelps, and after about fifteen minutes or so, fell asleep. It was by far the easiest bedtime we've had with her yet, and very satisfying to feel that she is slowly but surely learning how to get herself to sleep on her own. She still can't do this for naps, but at night she's been getting better and better, and earned an A++ tonight!

Little Fish!

We took Lenabel to the pool at the YWCA today for her first swim and she did awesome! She was pretty much a natural!! All that practice in the bath tub sure paid off... not to mention all that swimming we did together when I was pregnant!

Today she went into the water without any crying, except when we tried to get her upper half wet. The water was at 84 degrees, so not too cold, but probably not as warm as she would have liked. Still, she seemed to really enjoy herself in the pool and we had a great time watching and swimming with her. We can't wait to cheer her on from the bleachers in her first 100 meter freestyle race!

Mystified by Sleep

"Whoever came up with the saying 'sleep like a baby' obviously never had one." I read this quote the other day and couldn't help but laugh. How incredibly true. We've been dealing with some crazy sleep patterns for the past two weeks, and I must admit it is getting kind of tiring. Lena seems to have two or three good nights a week, where she sleeps 6 hours at a time, feeds around 3 a.m., and then sleeps another good chunk. But these good nights are inevitably followed by several very bad nights where she decides to wake up every hour on the hour to eat and fuss and poop and pee, and do whatever else babies do when everybody else in the house just wants to sleep. It's hard when Lena doesn't sleep well, partly because Dan and I don't get any sleep and become cranky and unhappy, but also because we know she can do better than wake up every hour, and we just can't seem to understand why she's reverting back to bad sleep habits.

Tonight it's just mom and Lenabel for the first time ever. The dog-sitter taking care of Gus and Charly while Grandma's on vacation had a family emergency and had to go out of town, so Daniel is sleeping over at Grandma's house and taking care of the dogs until she gets home tomorrow. Lucky daddy gets to sleep uninterrupted all night long, and he definitely deserves the break. Let's hope Lena sleeps well tonight and gives mama a much needed break too!

Lena's Naming Ceremony

Today we celebrated Lena's birth with a traditional Jewish naming ceremony, performed by Rabbi Barry Citron. With this ceremony we wanted to take the opportunity to explain why we chose the name Lena.

We named Lena after Daniel's father's mother, Lena Spirn, who was born in 1904 in New York City. Lena was a beloved mother of three sons and grandmother to seven grandchildren. Without a doubt her husband, sons, and her grandchildren were the most important part of her life. Though she didn't have more than a high school education, she had a sharp and insightful mind, something that she certainly transferred to her sons. She died last year at the age of 105. Lena's Hebrew name was Leah.

So we hope that Lena shares with her great grandmother a love of family, a quick and thoughtful mind, and a long healthy life.

Lena's Naming Ceremony and party were a huge success due to help from so many family members and friends. Thank you Grandma Marion and Grandpa Irwin for letting us use the party room in your beautiful new condo building. Thanks also for the many food runs to Costco! Thanks Naomi, Talia, and Levi for helping set up the party room! Thanks to Baba Delia for the delicious empanadas, and to Zeide Ben for the yummy bagels and coffee. A big thanks to Baba Dorita for her exquisite Torta de Chocolinas! And thanks Christina, Elise, and Holly for dressing Lena this morning, and picking out such a lovely outfit for her big day. Thank you everybody for joining us on such a happy day.

Baba Dorita and Zeide Ricardo flew in from Argentina on Wednesday, just in time for Rosh Hashana.

Granda Marion and Grandpa Irwin also arrived from New Jersey on Wednesday afternoon, and all of us including the Pesky's got together for the New Year at Baba Delia's house. Baba Delia and Baba Dorita cooked a fantastic meal including Matzo Ball Soup, Brisket, and 4 Chickens! Poor little Lenabel just had breastmilk...

We had a beautiful Rosh Hashana, filled with our family and so much love. It was very special to have all of the grandparents and some great grandparents there, as well as all of the cousins! It was so much fun to watch Talia, Levi, and Ayla play together in the living room, and we can't wait for Lenabel to join them as soon as she can.

Baba Dorita, Zeide Ricardo, Grandma Marion and Grandpa Irwin will be staying in Minnesota for the next two weeks, and we are super excited to share Lenabel with them. B. Dorita and Z. Ricardo came over tonight and we had dinner at Punch Pizza, followed by a Daniel and Deborah wedding slide show, followed by a bath for Lenabel. Here's a cutie pie photo taken after bath time (towel courtesy of Aunt Naomi and Uncle Greg) :

Sleep Deprivation Adds Up

This past week was pretty rough to say the least. Lena got her two month shots last Tuesday and turned into an entirely different baby thereafter. She was fussy, crying, hard to soothe, and hard to put to nap/sleep.

This means that mom and dad slowly deteriorated into an unfortunate state of extreme exhaustion, as spending 24 hours a day holding, feeding, rocking, jiggling, and shushing a baby can get really really hard. We were so lucky to have Bruno, Alicia, and Ayla come over yesterday and help us out a bit with Lena and give us a much needed break. It's funny how you don't realize how far gone you are until somebody comes in and saves you for a minute or two, and then you realize just how much you needed that hour of sleep.

It's possible that her week long bout of crankyness was due to the shots, or it might be that she was going through a growth spurt. It is also possible that it just took her a week to process Emily and Bobby's wedding, especially the dancing and hip hop music she was rocking too way past her bed time!

Who knows, but we're glad she seems to be getting back to her usual self. Today she was able to take a three hour nap by herself in her co-sleeper, and we were also able to put her down for sleep without too much angst. We'll see how many times she gets up tonight. Last night it she was up at midnight, 3, 5, and 7. If we can get rid of the midnight waking, we'll be happy.

Auntie Em and Bobby Get Married

One of Deborah's best friends Emily got married this weekend. It was Lenabel's first wedding and she had a grand ole time! Although she is isn't old enough yet to drink, eat, or dance, she seemed to enjoy being passed around from person to person, and especially liked being held by the gorgeous bride.

Lena was so well behaved that mom and dad even got to dance a little jig on their own, while Bobby's step-mom took care of babe. It was our first dance together since our wedding, and we had so much fun, we didn't want to leave the dance floor. But by 9 p.m. it was time to leave the growing dance party and hit the road back home.

After a long day filled with so much love and fun, we gave Lena a bath at 10 p.m. and she was asleep by 11. All in all a perfect summer day.

Cousin Hannah Comes to Visit

Two weeks ago we were lucky to get a visit from cousin Hannah, Aunt Vivian, and Uncle Rich. They came to meet Lena and also spend some time with the Pesky family. We all had a great time, especially Hannah and Talia. Soon Lena will be old enough to join in the fun with the kids. Here is a picture of the kids. We'll share pictures from Aunt Roslyn's trip in our next post.

Happy Days

Lena's growing so fast we can hardly keep up with her. She has started smiling at us and we've been trying to catch one on camera but it's been kind of difficult, her smiles are so fleeting. We'll try and post a picture soon when we manage to snap one.

Also in new developments, Lena put herself to sleep on her own today! Well, kind of. After feeding and rocking her to sleep, Mom set Lena down in her co-sleeper, only to have to pick her up ten minutes later, eyes fluttering awake. After a couple more times of this, Mom gave Lena a nuk, put her down in the co-sleeper, and walked away. Lo and behold, no whining or crying or grunting from the bedroom. Just a quiet, happy, sleeping baby. Amazing.

But it's not that perfect, she's still waking us up at night every 3 hours. We've got to work on that!

Yoga Bonding

Lena and Mom went to Yoga this morning and had a great time moving and grooving. Lena loved the class, especially the bicycle and airplane poses; she still needs to perfect yoga dog (as her cousin Ayla calls it).

There were 12 moms and 12 babies at class, most of whom Lena and Mom had met in Prenatal Yoga at Blooma. It was fun to reconnect with the girls and meet all the new babies. 50 minutes into class Lenabel got a bit fussy, as did half the class, and mom spent the next 10 minutes feeding and meditating. Afterwards Lena had a great 3 and a half hour nap, followed by some very nice quiet awake time in bed with Dad, and then dinner at Big Bowl with Uncle Grish, who leaves for college in a couple of days. We're gonna miss him!

A True Vikings Fan

Lena is six weeks old this week and it is amazing to think that just a month and a half ago we were at the hospital with our new born baby girl. We were actually back at the hospital yesterday, this time to check on mama's recovery and the ever persistent thrush problem. This annoying and painful pest has been around for the past month and it has been pretty difficult to beat. The regimen has been as follows:

• both mom and Lena have been applying nystatin ointment to affected areas
• both mom and Lena have been taking Probiotics
• both mom and Lena have been taking Fluconazol
• both mom and Lena have been treated with Gentian Violet

Unfortunately we haven't had a whole lot of success with any of these
treatments so the doctor took a culture of the breast milk and on Friday we'll see if there are any more answers to our burning question (no pun intended): how do we kick this bug.

And for your viewing pleasure, here is a pretty hilarious picture of Lenabel wearing her Gentian Violet lipstain:


And some pictures we took on Monday just before mom and dad left for dinner to celebrate their anniversary. Lena was lucky to stay with her Baba who took very good care of her.

Mama's First Outing Alone With Lenabel

On Tuesday afternoon, Lena and I dropped Daddy off at the University and headed over to HCMC for a visit with the lactation consultant. It was just me and baby, the first time since she was born that we've been away from Dad and also outside the house. I was a bit reluctant and scared at first, but the visit with Joanne went well (despite Lena being diagnosed with thrush again), and afterwards, I decided to take things a step further, and we headed to the mall! GASP!

Much to my surprise, our shopping trip went better than ever imagined. I was able to cruise the maternity section at Macy's and purchase a couple of nursing tops and a nursing bra, all while Lena slept in her stroller. What an angel! Seriously though, I left the mall one proud and happy mama. Proud of Lena for being such a good little girl, and proud of myself for actually having left the house alone with a five week old baby!

Bath Time

In the past week Lena has gotten a bit more fussy at night. Deborah's lactation consultant, Jeanne, believes it may be the dreaded thrush coming back into Lena's mouth. So...we are back to giving the little girl some medication to try to control it.

We've also started to give Lena a nightly bath before swaddling her up and putting her to bed. I've also figured out how to take much better photos with the flash in the past couple of days.

Hopefully, she'll be on the mend soon.