what a cutie...at this moment, anyway

Well, we've had some rough spots with Miss Jane this week - hence my lack of blogging. Mostly, when I'm not holding her, swaying her, feeding her, and praying she falls asleep, I'm contemplating whether I will recover any of the hearing loss I've endured this week from her evening bouts of screaming. This is pretty common in babies her age - hilariously, they call it "fussy" - to me, it sounds more like "tortured," but what the hell do I know? We did realize that some of what is making her so cranky is that she wants to eat more, so we've started to supplement her diet with formula as well. I'm not giving up nursing at all, but this allows for another nighttime feeding that hopefully will fill her up more and allow for more sleep. You know -for all of us. Fingers crossed. Unfortunately, a lot of the time, after we put her down, I can't fall asleep because I'm nervous that she will wake up. I know this sounds crazy, but it's true.

We've spent a lot of time walking around this week, outdoors, getting - you guessed it - exercise. So much so that I thought I messed up my back the other day. It's a lot different walking around the resevoir when you're pushing a heavy stroller, especially if you haven't exercised in about a year. Unfortunately, our nightly trips to Dairy Queen have erased any of the health benefits of walking. I blame this entirely on Jane. During her nighttime rage, we also found out that she usually will quiet down when riding in a car, so we've been making these field trips to the DQ. I don't know what I'm going to do when the weather turns cold and the roads turn icy. Hopefully she won't need so much movement at that point to calm her down.

But hey - look at that smile! (That one's for Alan, who has requested more Jane pics)