The Hals Family World Adventures: Three Months! Our Sweet Smiley Hannah!

Hannah being adorable while we enjoyed lunch in the Sarajevo Brewery

I cannot believe my sweet and beautiful little girl is three months old! She awakes sweet and abundantly smiley - the early morning smiles are often the biggest and best. She spends the day cycling through being hungry, being very alert and observant, and becoming sleepy and heading towards her next nap, but overall she has been a bundle of sweetness. This month she has started rolling from her tummy to her back - and is an ambi-roller (she can roll left or right from her tummy to her back). She discovered her own ability to shriek and sometimes will play with her ability to shriek-talk or shriek-cry. She laughs some, not the full on baby giggles, but she has laughed with increasing frequency through the month.

All smiles in the morning!

Not 100% sure about this bow...but Grandma H is!

Just as we rounded the corner and hit two months, something magical happened. She started falling asleep earlier in the evenings and we were able to implement a much more predictable bedtime routine. A bath, a swaddle, some snuggling and sometimes a little nursing top off and it is bed time! And most magical of all? Sometimes Daniel and I get an hour or so together to enjoy an episode of something or part of a movie before he heads to bed! There was an hour in the evening in which I could use both of my hands to quickly get things done - pay bills, respond to an email, buy whatever it was we needed on Amazon, tidy up the kitchen, etc. Amazing. She's still not remotely sleeping through the night, but a few hours in the early evening was a wonderfully liberating new thing.

She got to meet her Uncle Tom! (Daniel's cousin)

An outtake too funny not to share!

She loves her mirror...and any mirror for that matter!

playtime!

She is still eating really well - we hit a brutal growth spurt at ten and a half weeks that was fast and furious for four full days and left both her parents in a near zombie state. Sleep wise it has been pretty terrible. I honestly feel like we have majorly regressed the past three weeks. Prior to the growth spurt we had actually managed to have a bedtime with a routine and I was able to leave her alsseep, upstairs around 8 pm and then have an hour or two with Daniel before crawling to bed ourselves. I would feed her just before going to sleep (around 11) and then she would usually sleep 3 or so hours before she woke again, then another 2, and then shorter spurts through the early morning. Ever since the growth spurt...so for three+ weeks now she hasn't slept for more than 2 hours consecutively...leaving me a mess. I am desperately in need of even three consecutive hours of sleep. She wakes earlier now, so cumulatively it's not adding up as well as it was and to top it off it's not even long enough to feel remotely rested. I'm majorly struggling and hoping and hoping we will round the corner into sleeping a 3-4 hours stretch again soon.

The crash the last afternoon of our four day growth spurt...*best.nap.ever*

I thought you liked only sleeping for 30-90 minutes at a time and feeding me constantly...no?

She's growing, but still oh so tiny :) Memorial Day at Savage Mills

They are perfecting the raised brow together :)

Towards the end of this month I bought a summer infant booster seat type of thing with a tray of toys that encircles it and even though it was rated to begin use at four months, with a burp cloth folded at her back, she enjoyed the new view and sat in the seat not only checking out her surroundings, but actually laughing at her puppies as they played and wrestled together. :)

Hannah laughing out loud while her puppies put on a wrestling show for her

Bath time is improving and she seems to really love the water. In hindsight, it seems like the breakdowns during bath time are more a source of being overtired and needing to start the bath earlier than later.

Bath time at Grandma H's - looks like she is a bit confused!

She is still growing!
No checkup this month, but we have outgrown the three month clothes, the 3-6 outfits are hit or miss depending on brand, and we haves moved into the 6 month clothes! Good grief! As for appearance? Her hair is still very brown from the back, but some pictures suggest red creeping in on top! We will see! Her eyes have more brown in them than ever, but still have blue and now some green. They are currently a really pretty blend of the three. Again, something only time will reveal.

New challenges this month?
She gets bored quite easily and requires a change of scenery pretty frequently. Daniel and I both took a while to process this...I guess we hadn't realized that at just past two months we would already need to be strategizing as to how to keep our child fully entertained and stimulated. I also noticed an increasing interest in toys and started stocking up, setting up stations around the house that we could rotate through. The play gym in the nursery is a major favorite, the owls in the play yard, the sit up seat with a toy tray, a blanket station in the living room with a mirror for tummy time, our walks with the puppies, etc. By the end of the month we were leaving the house almost every afternoon to keep her entertained...and because she pretty much would only nap while being held or while moving. She loves to have her different aden and anais blankets fluttered over her and to play peekaboo with them - and really she loves just wiggling around with a light blanket on her. Other favorites this month are Jacques the Peacock (OMG I owe this toy so much! It was her favorite on the Europe trip and a perfect gift from Mark and Rachel Q), the Manhattan rattle toy (that kinda looks like an atom - perfect for little hands and nomming on), and the best free entertainer of all? Candles and lights!

Jacques the Peacock. *Awesome*

She loves her lights!

Her daddy is thrilled to learn that she loves to watch Rock Band...something about the colors, lights, and music!

Jacques saving us all as he entertained Hannah in the bassinet during our ten hour flight from DC to Istanbul. Btw...bassinets? Awesome!

Who's that baby in the mirror?! :)

Cutie loving her snuggly blankets!

Hannah finally napping one afternoon as we ran errands, props to lambie too - he's another favorite!

New experiences this month?

Our family at Wine in the Woods

She had her two month shots! (And we all survived!) Actually it wasn't as bad as expected and the best tip anyone gave me was to make sure I was ready to nurse as soon as she was given the shots (she calmed right down!) We attended the Wine in the Woods festival and she was amazingly well behaved and I had my first fun out of the house adult-ish day while still getting to have fun with Hannah. Hannah and I flew to South Carolina (aka I flew to SC by myself with my two month old) and survived both flights! They went quite well! She also gained a beautiful cousin! We also hosted ten or twelve people Memorial Day weekend. We also experienced Hannah's first illness - she had a tummy bug with a low fever...that fatefully happened the one night since her birth that we had an ER doctor spending the night with us (Daniel's dad). It was scary, but having him there was perfect timing-wise. She rebounded within 24 hours, but we were nervous for a few days. And! The ultimate - Hannah flew from Dulles to Istanbul to Sarajevo! (I'm going to have an entirely different entry about traveling with an infant). She turned three months in Kotor, Montenegro, with several stamps in her passport!

Wait, what? Really, Uncle Michael?!

Hannah's beautiful cousin! They are just over two months apart!

Hannah with Grandma M!

Hannah playing with my dad and me

boarding passes, check! infant passport, check! headed to the Balkans for our holiday!

Strolling with my cutie in Sarajevo!

She enjoyed me reading her the captions as I worked through the Sarajevo history museum

Family Check -

Our pups? Still doing very well! Holly seems to like Hannah more and more and has a better understanding that she is not a toy. In fact, she has taken to laying near her as we play in different areas of the house. She lays beside her play gym or her blanket or will hop up and lay by her as we nurse. It's very sweet! Chance is still a loving watchdog. He also loves to lay beside the rocking recliner while we snuggle before bed and still comes running when she is particularly upset. And any chance Chance gets he sneaks in a sweet puppy kiss. (I have to be on the lookout!) :)

Holly staying close by to Hannah

Chance scooting in for some Hannah snuggles :)

Meredith doling out attention to both Chance and Hannah :)

Daniel is still hanging in there and is steadily enjoying Hannah's increasing smiles and the beginning laughs. Even though I am on official nursing duty and handle nights, she sleeps in our room and her noises still affect his sleep too. The two best sleep-deprived working daddy stories? One - during a scrum Daniel (who was feeling like he was finally on his A game) opened his mouth to speak and give an update on his contributions and slurred/stuttered/drooled on himself simultaneously. Haha. Second story - probably my favorite - on his way to work, just before he got on the freeway, a lady was furiously honking at him and pointing to the roof. His window was open...he stuck his arm out and reached to the roof of the car, realized he was touching his lunch box on the roof of the car, and pulled it inside. Hahaha. At least it was saved! :)

enjoying a special Father's Day edition Georgetown Cupcake

On our trip Daniel became an experienced Hannah tamer

Hannah and her Daddy on Father's Day in Montenegro

Checking out the candle in Sarajevo

And me? OMG could I nom on Hannah's cheeks forever! :)

I'm doing well aside from the insane three or four weeks of horrendous sleep part. Other than that things are going well. I have attended mom and baby yoga when it fits my schedule (not a major holiday or travel day or guests in town) and I have been really enjoying the mommy stroller walks. I am still so in love with being Hannah's mom, still very much enjoying nursing - this month has been the most enjoyable so far, and love her coos and smiles and snuggles. Getting out and about has gotten much easier...and I rarely find the notion of going out to run an errand too daunting/exhausting anymore. And any reservations I had about going places were gone between flying to SC and then flying to Europe. After traveling within Europe not much phases me anymore. Diaper change in an awkward place? Check. Nursing in public? Check. I am a pretty confident, adjusted mom now.

I started this month still avidly looking for a job for the 2014-2015 school year...and ended this month having fatefully accepted a twelve month position as the Educational Technology Specialist at a private high school in north DC! It has made every day since very bittersweet!

I love this picture. I could snuggle with Hannah like this forever.

Shopping in Sarajevo

Nursing before our lunch in Sarajevo

Deciding to go back to work and to continue pursuing my professional goals is one of the absolute biggest decisions of my life. Marrying Daniel made sense, wanting to have a baby was not something we decided in haste - we worked towards getting our family and lives ready for this point for years, but this? Whether or not to stay home with my child or try to balance work and family has been a decision looming over me since I got married and started my career. But secretly I have kind of always known the answer. Me wanting to return to work has nothing to do with whether I love my child enough. Nothing could be further from the truth. But somehow I feel led to continue my career and think it is the best long term thing for all of us. When I first pitched the idea of getting a masters of education in Educational Technology/Curriculum and Instruction to Daniel (we had to fully pay for it, so it was something we both had to be on board with), I explained that along with it being a very forward thinking degree within my profession, I felt it was the best degree for our "family plan" as well. I cannot begin to tell you how full circle everything seems to feel as I accept this position. It all fell into place in the most meant-to-be flurry you can imagine...it is chilling when I think about all the things that had to align. And everything (including child care) did in this less than two week whirlwind. But...the final piece to the puzzle (whether or not to work and where it would be and what we would do about child care) fell into place as Hannah reached three months...and I now have the full picture of what our lives will be like this next year. (I know I cannot imagine all the ways she will grow - but I mean the factors like moving, Daniel's new job, my new job, etc.). I took what I called my third Great Leap of faith in May of 2013...and after an amazing year, in June 2014 all the pieces had finally clicked into place. (If you read the entry I wrote as I left my job in FL, I think you'll see how it all fits too)

And so at three months we have a delightfully interactive, sweet, smiley little world traveler! :)