Arlo is twelve weeks old!

The most exciting news this week is that we weighed him on Monday, and he's gained 13 ounces in the past week! It looks like our lots-of-milk plan is working. I'm so glad! His cheeks are filling out nicely.
It'll probably take a few more weeks of this for him to catch up to where he should be in terms of weight. My milk supply isn't increasing as quickly as we'd hoped, but it's making progress. Because of that, we're running low on frozen milk, so we've cut back on how much we're topping off his bottles, so his weight gain will probably slow down this week. Still, it's so encouraging that he put on so much weight already--about three times as much as a normal baby gains in a week.
Oh, and Patrick told me that Arlo rolled over during tummy time a few days ago! Apparently he was so outraged at being on his tummy that he figured out how to roll onto his back. He hasn't done it again, but it's exciting that Patrick got a little preview!
We've been working on establishing a sleep schedule for Arlo, now that he's coming up on 3 months. I started reading Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child this past weekend. Initially, it really stressed me out. The book isn't written very sympathetically, and the author makes it sound like if you don't follow his instructions, your child will be fat, stupid, and bratty (and he has scientific studies to back him up!). He also says not to let your baby sleep in a sling, and he says that parents who keep their baby out past 7pm (which we have done many times in the past) are being selfish. It just wasn't what I needed to hear, especially since we didn't get a ton of sleep this weekend and were kind of worn out.
But I kept reading the book, and I feel better about things now. It sounds like having a baby sleep in the sling or stay up late prior to 3 months is fine, since you can't really establish a sleep schedule at that point. We should just be a little more mindful of naptimes and bedtimes going forward. It certainly cramps our style a little bit, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to stick with it 100% to start (I love my nice long walks with Arlo sleeping in the sling!), but it's nice to have a plan at least. At this point, the goal is to (1) put Arlo down for a nap every 1-2 hours during the day, as dictated by his sleepy cues, (2) establish a morning nap around 9am, and (3) put him to bed around 6-8pm. I find it helpful to have these guidelines, even if they're hard to follow all the time.
I've also been working on establishing a naptime routine for Arlo. Right now, it involves reading him I Am a Bunny, singing him "Sweet Baby James," swaddling him, and putting him down in his crib (it's finally getting some use!). Depending on how successful I am in reading his drowsiness cues, sometimes he conks out pretty quickly, and sometimes he cries and needs to be comforted for 15 minutes or so.
The main problem we're having is that he tends to wake up after half an hour during his morning and afternoon naps. We've had decent luck with the earlier bedtime though; twice we've put him down in the evening and had him sleep for at least 3 hours before waking up to eat. It's definitely still a work in progress--for instance, as I write this, he's upstairs with Patrick, wailing and protesting bedtime loudly. Today wasn't such a great day for baby sleep. I'm hoping things will go better tomorrow. I know we need to be patient; he's still little. I sure would love some more of those 6-7 hour blocks of sleep he teased us with a few weeks ago though!
Speaking of nice long walks in the sling, we've had some fun adventures recently. Earlier this week, on a nice cool morning, we walked to Ladd's Addition and explored all four rose gardens and chose our favorite roses (mine was Hot Cocoa; Arlo is undecided because he was asleep). And last Thursday, we walked to the Buckman farmers' market, listened to some fun cowboy music, watched preschoolers dancing to the music (looks like a good preschool--I want to go to one of their open houses!), and bought some delicious peaches and apple crunch bread. I feel so fortunate to be able to do such fun stuff with Arlo while I'm on maternity leave.
Last week, Susan's fig tree was going crazy, so Patrick and I went over to her house, and Patrick picked a bunch of figs. I used them to make two kinds of jam--plain fig and more of the fig and strawberry jam that I liked so much last year. The recipes were from the Ball Blue Book and The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving, respectively.
There are marionberries at the farmers' markets right now, so I bought some and made mini marionberry pies for a party we went to. I used the marionberry pie recipe in Rustic Fruit Desserts, but I used muffin tins instead of a pie plate, and I baked them for about 25 minutes (though they could have gone a little longer). I had some issues with the pie dough being too warm when I was assembling the pies, but they were still yummy!
We've been eating turkey sandwiches for lunch pretty regularly since Arlo was born, but last week I wanted to try making something vegetarian for lunch. I turned to Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, and I ended up making sandwiches with Swiss cheese, tomato, arugula, avocado, and
tempeh strips in smoky molasses marinade. They were really nice! I'd definitely make them again.
Okay, time to go to bed and get some sleep before Arlo wakes up again!