Author: Ariana Peters

Hello!

When I first started this blog I asked for help naming it. I believe it was my friend Aimee who came up with Trailing the Blonde. Now I need help coming up with a name for our “farm”. Well I call it a farm, its only a quarter acre right hahahaha but I want the name to be something that represents where we are now but will also be carried with us as we hopefully move to a large plot of land one day.

Comment with your ideas!! And feel free to ask questions about us and our “land” to come up with ideas.

I feel like the past 5 months have gone in leaps and jumps. In the beginning when I had such bad post partum depression and anxiety I looked forward to marking each day off the calendar because it meant I had made it and was one step closer to being done breastfeed and him being more independent and now suddenly I look at the calendar and I haven’t marked a day off in 3 days. The saying the days go slow and the years go fast is 100% true……though even some days go fast.

This last month we moved the little guy to his crib in his room. He had definitely outgrown his bassinet and was waking up all turned around in there and even sideways with his head and feet pushing against the mesh. I had been doing at least one of his naps in his crib everyday so the transition was pretty smooth….for him…..for me it was a little rough. I slept in there on an air mattress for 2 days and could have totally stayed longer. It is so bittersweet to hit these milestones.

We have also just switched him from a swaddle to a sleep sack at night. He is close to rolling over so we started leaving one arm out of the swaddle to ease his transition. He also started getting out of the swaddle and waking himself up and half turning over in his sleep getting stuck so it was time. I ordered a Nested Bean sleep sack for him. It has a little pouch over the chest that has about 3-4oz of weight in it, just enough to mimic mamas hand comforting him. So far that has also gone off without a hitch….🤞🤞🤞🤞 during the day we still use the swaddle for now because we are awake and can keep an eye on him via the camera.

The 4-5 month time frame is a weird time. You are starting to to get a loose schedule but are fluctuating between the old time and new time. We are in between 3 and 4 naps. Some days we have 3 great naps and its all smooth sailing some days we have 4 and its a struggle. Some nights we do the dream feed then make it through till morning and some nights we still wake once or twice but we are getting there and most nights I get at least 7 total hours of sleep so its all good. Of course after I wrote this we had a rough night and 2 nights in a row I got less sleep lol.

We started solids!! Well purees. Right now its mostly about getting him used to eating and trying to feed himself but I can already see that his appetite has increased a bit and its so fun seeing him eat new things. As of right I am using store bought baby food because it takes him 2-3 days to get through 1 jar, but as he starts eating more and more I will start making more of his food. We were doing some at lunch and dinner but he was getting constipated so we only do lunch for now as his body gets used to it. We will try increasing again in a few weeks.

Some friends have offered us their old baby hiking backpack holder thing (that is the official name of it) we need to go pick it up so that we can start doing some hiking with him. I am super excited for that.

We are also in the middle of teething I do believe, so lots of cuddles and crying and waking during the night and extra sleep during the day. Another bittersweet milestone.

The garden is in full swing over here!!! What has been planted is poppin! And more is still to be planted.

This weekend I will be picking up a few more starts and I’ll show them to you on the next update.

I seriously cannot believe next week will be May? When did that happen!? But I am also loving the warmer days we are having mixed in with the chilly rainy days.

I have worked the last 2 Saturdays and work this Saturday…..these are the kinds of pictures I get while at work hahahaha

I had some fun at Hobby Lobby this week.

The garden is doing great! I am starting to include ‘what needs to be used out of the garden’ when I do my weekly meal planning

I’ll do a full garden update next week.

The chickens are getting big! And doing great.

Pulled out a beautiful hunk of beef from the freezer to use in meals this week

I am still keeping pretty much all dairy out of my diet and really limiting gluten and my little guys rash is clearing up pretty well. But I cannot wait to get back to some bread making. I am going to order a 1950s dehydrated sourdough starter off etsy soon that I am already drooling over.

I am working on slowly organizing each room in the house so the baby stuff all has its own space to be tucked away each night so it feels less messy, cluttered and chaotic. I’ll show you as i get it done.

Thats all for now!!

I cannot believe my baby is 4 months old!! We have settled into a pretty good routine. Of course they say once you get into a routine with your baby everything will change hahahahaha. He wakes up anywhere between 6:30-7:30am most mornings. Once we have a slightly more narrowed down wake time my goal will be to get up about 30-60 min before him to have some alone time to workout, shower and have some coffee. He currently take about 4 naps a day ranging anywhere from 20-110 min. The goal is for is last nap to end at about 5:30pm to give him a 7:30pm bedtime………the amount of days this actually happens are few and far between. Bedtime goal is simply between 7-8pm, any earlier and we are up waaaaay to early and any later and we are still up too early.

We are currently in the middle of a developmental leap meaning Robert is a little more fussy than normal but overall we are so lucky; he is such as easy baby. 4 months is also supposed to be the first of several sleep regressions during the first year of life. So far, the only issue is that he is waking up around 5am all cock-eyed in his bassinet so I have to get up, straighten him out and put him back to sleep which can take 5 min or 20 min. He is also becoming more and more aware of us being in the room which doesn’t help him go back to sleep. We have black out curtains coming for his room, once those go up we will start transitioning him to his crib in his own room.

I am excited about him going to his own room and also terrified. I am excited to have our room back and I think once we all adjust everyone will sleep better; and terrified because he wont be near me and it means he is growing up!!!!!! Very bittersweet.

We are also still dealing with some kind of reaction in the form of eczema and little red bumps. He is handling it really well but it still sucks.

He has his 4 month appt next week where he will get his second set of shots.

Worked on some yummy, healthy food this week that was dairy free and gluten free while we figure out what the baby is allergic to

The garden is doing great! We are getting things planted here and there between naps

The chickens are just over 3 weeks and getting big!!! I’m hoping to move them outside full time in about 2-3 weeks

Still working on figuring out the little mans skin stuff. We got him allergy tested and he didn’t react to anything so on to the next step. I am still going to cut dairy and most gluten to see if it helps.

We picked up fill dirt for the new planter he built me!!

Robert spend a few hours with grandma and grandpa while we got the dirt and then went out to an early birthday lunch for me.

Sadly the food was not awesome.

Our Easter wasn’t quite what we planned. All 3 of Robert’s cousins were sick so we skipped family easter. So instead we went out to lunch and hit Wilco to pick up some plants.

Robert tried out the new wagon his grandma got him so he can hang with us in the backyard while we do yard/farm work

On my actual birthday Robert and I just hung out while daddy worked. Daddy did get off work about 2 hours early though to hang with us. We went for a family walk and ordered takeout from the mexican restaurant on the corner. I got birthday snuggles from my original baby, snuggles from her like this are rare and totally non-existent since we brought the baby home.

Maybe she is finally forgiving me for bringing home a baby hahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

Robert has been dealing with an unknown allergy. He has bad eczema and little red bumps all over his body. Poor little guy. Hes handling it like a champ though. We had a consultation yesterday with an allergist and will be going back on Monday for an infant allergy test. The assumption is that its a food allergy, so once we find out what it is ill be cutting something out of my diet.

Overall it was a good week!!! Robert has been a bit fussier and sleepier but he is doing really well considering the circumstances. Also, he has started turning around completely in his bassinet at night…..not rolling over but like slowly all night wiggling his way around the bassinet. We put him in with his head facing one way and wake up with it facing the other so i think its time to start transitioning him to his crib.