Sleep Regression, Teething and Ear Infections - OH MY!

It has been quite the week over here at the Gottwoods.  First, Grandma Joyce was here and we all had a lot of fun!  The day before Grandma arrived, we got a BIG box in the mail with a bunch of toys and clothes for Phoebe and a bunch of Girl Scout Cookies for Jeremy.  The cookies were the most important part since they were Jeremy's fee for the visit - they got here just in time :) 

While my mom was here we worked her pretty hard!  My poor mom has been to Monterey to visit twice and she has gotten to do ZERO touristy stuff - we always put her to work as soon as she rolls into town.  During her first visit she helped wrangle the world's most colicky baby.  During this visit our big project was cleaning, organizing and adding storage to the utility/laundry room.  This took a little longer than it might have since I didn't really have a plan ahead of time, so we spent a good day driving around considering different storage options.  In the end, we went with a ClosetMaid system from Target and I think it is going to work out really well!  I took some "before" pictures, so as soon as I finish up the last few things I'll post a before/after spread.  Of course, no visit from Grandma would be complete without a little shopping and cooking.  We ran tons of errands and made/froze food for both the baby and the grown ups. 

Phoebe enjoyed Grandma's visit a lot.  It took her a couple of days to remember my mom and get over her "stranger wariness" but I think it helped that Grandma kept promising her a pony (Jeremy points out that he thinks pony burgers sound delicious!).  It was nice for us to have a spare set of hands for helping with the baby - Phoebe is still a tad high maintenance.  Jeremy is finishing up his quarter, so while he worked on projects, my mom and I tried to keep Phoebe entertained.  This was especially hard since Grandma's visit coincided with the four/five month sleep regression.  UGH.  For those of you without small children, there are a couple of times during the first year (usually some time around four months and some time around nine months) when a baby's sleep habits just go nuts.  The explanation is that these time periods also involve major milestones/development and the baby's brain is just so busy their sleep patterns get all messed up.  In Phoebe's case, this meant she went from being pretty easy to put down with a predictable waking pattern to all out ridiculousness on the sleep front.  One night she was up every two hours.  Not ok.  It has definitely been rough on Jeremy and me.

On top of the sleep, Phoebe has been teething FOREVER.  And still no teeth.  She produces copious amounts of drool and chews on everything in sight (not to mention a noticeable uptick in grumpiness) but all she has to show for it are the same little pre-tooth bumps that have been there for weeks.  We're hoping those little guys poke through soon.  For everybody's sake! 

Because sleep regression and teething weren't quite enough, Phoebe also got an ear infection.  The last few days my mom was here, the little munchkin started to run a low-grade fever and to get even fussier than she had been.  This fussiness included the inability to sleep unless being physically held by either Jeremy or myself.  We spent a couple of pretty long nights snuggling Phoebe all night long just so she could get some shut eye (she would scream the instant we tried to put her down no matter how sound asleep she was).  After a few days of managing the fever with Tylenol and snuggles (per the suggestion of the nurse line at the doctor's office), we took Phoebe to the pediatrician.  It turns out the little pumpkin has her first ear infection and (therefore) her first prescription for antibiotics.  Luckily, she does not have her momma's allergy for amoxicillin!  We are on day three of the antibiotics and Phoebe is doing much better.  The fever is definitely gone, but we're still having some sleep issues and some grumpiness/inconsolability issues.  Of course, some of that is probably left over from sleep regression/teething, but it sure would have been nice if the prescription made EVERYTHING better :) 

So, you can see why the blog hasn't been updated in a while.  In fact, I am not sure this update makes any sense - I am still a bit sleep deprived :)  Of course, through all the grumpiness and sleep regressing, there is still plenty of adorable baby-ness going on.  Enough adorableness that we've pretty much transitioned from considering the "raised by wolves" technique of parenting to just wishing there was summer sleep-away camp for teething infants.