I had a rough holiday break. I decided to take some vacation days, so I didn’t have to work from December 17 through January 1. On one hand, it was really nice to take so many days away from the J-O-B. On the other, it made me feel like a total parenting fail!

We get a report each day when we pick Alex up from school that details her diapers, feedings and napping that happened. And she ALWAYS naps about 4 hours while there. And yet during this break while home with me… I am lucky if she napped 4 hours for the entire time. I just kept thinking I was a failure  because I couldn’t get my baby to nap. And then my thoughts were that I was a failure because I take her to daycare and if I kept her at home with me, we would have a better schedule and she would know how to nap at home. But no matter what angle I looked at it from, I was the failure.

We probably should have taken her to school at least once and gone to a movie or something!

My mom came to visit for New Year’s… Alex slept on Grandma. She has the magic touch!

During this time Alex rolled over from her back to her stomach. And she’s doing it every day now. She has started lifting her butt up while laying on her stomach, a motion that looks like it’s working toward crawling. She actually moves herself a little bit backwards sometimes when she does that, which frustrates her because she moves further away from whatever is in front of her.

My dad came to visit on Christmas, so Alex got to see her Grandpa. She thought his beard felt funny.

We got family photos during this time. The FABULOUS Orange Soda Photo took our pics. They were so good to work with, none of that awkward posing, we just kind of played with the baby and they snapped away!

Alex also got a chair. It’s for infant through toddler and hooks onto a chair at our dining table. Even though she’s not eating solids yet, she is now hanging out at the dinner table with us. She gets to play with toys during the meal. Her chair is cool, it kind of reclines for right now, when she’s not totally stable to sit upright. And then as she gets older, the tray comes off and it can just be a booster seat. She’s figured out the game of throwing her toys on the floor for me to pick up though. Eating is going to be messy…

We had to go get her 4-month checkup during the holiday break too. She was well behaved through the whole checkup. The doctor asked if she was reaching for and grabbing things, as the question was asked Alex reached out to grab the stethoscope. Proved that one! But then she had to get shots and the tears started, baby shots are awful. She bled through the bandaid they put on her leg really quickly, I didn’t realize it as I held her trying to sooth her. I laid her back down to put her pants back on and saw blood covering her entire leg. That was kind of disturbing, to see blood all over my baby. She also bled on my jacket, but who cares about that?

Sending her back to school after the break was hard. Despite the fact that I felt like a bad mom, I liked being with her so much. However, now that she’s been back at school for a couple days, I’m glad she’s getting naps again too!