Happy 11-months Clair!

My little Clairzee is 11 months today, just one month shy of the magic 1-year-mark.
I can't believe how fast the time has gone. (I feel like I say that all the time. And I'm sure I'll be saying it again!)

One thing this means is that we need to start weaning her off of formula. With the boys, we started about a month in advance of their birthday, gradually increasing the amount of whole milk in their bottles. So we'll start that with her this week or so.

I thought I would be more excited about the prospect of never having to buy Enfamil ever, ever again. But I'm a little ambivalent about it. I'm not sure if it's because in the scheme of things, it's not that much money -- especially compared to having to buy jumbo packs of diapers and wipes for three kids, including a jumbo-jumbo pack for school (I will seriously do a happy dance when we get rid of that triple-kid diaper-and-wipes bill! Whenever that happens with my two potty-refusers!)

Or maybe it's because somewhere deep down I'm not all that excited about her growing out of this very visible marker of infancy. I dunno. I'll have to think about that some more.

Anyway, to mark the occasion of the countdown to her birthday, my sweetie was up half the night, coughing and sniffling and twisting herself into unfathomable positions in the crib. I seriously must've gone in to rescue her six or seven times. And then, around 6:15 this morning, she woke us up screaming her head off. Turned out she had somehow gotten her blanket up over her head and was unable to free herself. She hasn't done that since early infancy. She was scared to death, and she scared me to death, and after my heart rate went down to some semblance of normal, I thought to myself, "UGH! When will this baby learn how to sleep?"

Honestly, I am so much more tired than I was with the boys, because although Clair sleeps through the night (technically), she is so ridiculously fitful, and such a Princess-and-the-Pea-like diva, that she consistently requires "adjusting" -- at least twice, sometimes more times, a night. And although Miss Missy barely even wakes up to alert me to her predicament, I end up struggling to fall back to sleep each time. I don't know that I have gotten a true full-night's sleep since she was born. Heck, since I was pregnant with her! The lack-of-sleep is showing on my face, too. I feel like I look 50, instead of a few months shy of 40. So as Clair hits the 1-year-mark, here are my birthday wishes for her:

• I need her to learn to get herself back in a comfortable position when she twists and turns herself around in her crib.
• I need her to NOT get herself smothered in her blanket. Ever again!
• I need her to stop moaning and groaning so much at night as she sleeps, waking her insomniac Mother up with every wriggle and roll. (Perhaps I need to wean myself off the baby monitor?? Hmmm.)

Other than that, I hope my Clair stays exactly the way she is:
Happy and sassy, with a huge personality. 
Loving and opinionated, sweet as can be. 
Clairzee.

Sleepless leads to progress

I am having trouble sleeping.

It started because I have been sick as a dog (even in New York, but I pushed past it) and unable to breathe well at night.

Then when we got back from the weekend, I had all the normal "back-to-work/school" worries running around in my brain.

And then, last night -- horror of horrors -- I noticed the mice have come back. UGGGGHH!! I HATE living in my house! And so I spent the night lying awake, imagining every tiny sound I heard was a mouse, coming to eat me alive.

Around 12:45, I decided to just get up. I went to my computer and started to do the mindless thing I always do when I can't sleep -- looking at pictures of renovated kitchens and dreaming (something I do a lot of at cultivate.com); or looking at actual, beautiful, non-mice-ridden houses for sale in neighborhoods I only wish I lived in.

But last night, after considerable prayer for days on end for strength and courage, I decided to finally take a step toward getting that new house, and that beautiful kitchen.

I hope you know that I have been reading all of my friends' blog posts about dreaming big, and not being afraid and taking the first step toward your goals. I read them and I truly feel inspired. It just took until last night, for some reason, to turn that wistful, half-hearted inspiration and motivation into action.

I'm still not quite ready to put it out into the world exactly what I've done -- and believe me, it was a small, small, extremely preliminary step in a long line of things I'll need to do -- because there's no guarantee that I will succeed. In fact, there's a high likelihood I will not reach this goal, one I've had since I was a teenager. It is a big goal.

But in the wee hours of this morning, I took a step. One small step. But a step.

For this, I am grateful for being unable to sleep (for once). And I am truly grateful for having blogger friends who inspire me to DO something about my dreams, and not just remember them, foggily, in the morning after a long night of staring at the ceiling.