Guess I should clarify *edit*

I was definitely too tired last night to be writing an entry about that.  HOWEVER, here’s what bothers me:  Alex is currently within normal limits for sitting up, though she’s getting to the outer limits.  But she can hold her own bottle, which is a fine motor skill that Sammi did not have til MONTHS later.  Shabree…well, she was just ahead, ahead, ahead.  Smiled at me at 5 weeks, rolled over at 2 or 3 months (she squirmed her way off the damn bed at 6 weeks!  Scared us half to death, she near hit the cradle on her way down), crawled at 5 months, sat up a week later, started pulling herself up not long after that, and walked at 10 months.  Everyone told me she didn’t give me much of a babyhood, not that I exactly minded, but they were right.  She was a joy however, always smiling.  However, with all those milestones, by the time Shabree was 2, she could not put two words together, by 3, you couldn’t understand a word she said unless you were me, and even then… it could be dicey, she left the first sound off everything.  By close to 4, Jerry was saying I HAD to do something about it, because it was simply destroying her happy go lucky nature and having an obvious effect on her self esteem.  So I had her evaluated by the Galt school district, and sure enough, she needed speech therapy, which she started getting. After her first session, she came out and said her own name as though she’d NEVER had a speech problem.  She’s still in speech therapy, and she needs it.  And now I have to get after her, because she’ll tell ME not to tease/criticize her speech, and I’ll tell her flat out, I’m not, I’m telling you to say it correctly.  She’s capable, she just gets to speaking too quickly, and she gets lazy (which is something she tends towards)  Now… Sammi, she rolled over at 3 months, crawled at 6 months, started pulling herself up onto the furniture at 7 months, and walked at 12 months, so a little behind Shabree, though still ahead of the normal milestones.  However, at age 28 months, she barely ever strings 2 words together, and you can barely understand a word she says, because she leaves the first consonants off them… a VERY familiar pattern to Shabree’s.  She IS talking more though than she was.  And I had her repeat after me this morning "Please may I have some?" and you could understand I and Please, but please came out as "Eee" which is how she says it.  She did try though, so that’s something.  But she couldn’t repeat it correctly, you know?  It’s a problem, and I should get her into speech therapy sooner than I did Shabree, because I’m fairly certain she needs it, and a "wait and see" approach is going to be just delaying her getting what she needs.  She should have been able to string two words together MONTHS ago.  She only just started saying mama and daddy, and for a bit there I was daddy, and that should have happened a year ago, according to the charts.  A year is quite a delay.  Though I’m not saying that alone is a problem… but when you combine it with the rest… there’s a pattern.

So then we get to Alex, and I guess what I’m thinking is… she may be within normal limits, sort of… because soon she won’t, if she doesn’t get it going quickly here.  But for OUR family, looking at how "advanced" her sisters were… should I even be making this comparison?  For our family, this isn’t good.  But… she is a smiley baby, and she has stranger anxiety, which is a little advanced (is this supposed to be a good thing?) and like I said, she can hold her own bottle.  Her doctor said she’s just calm, and content not to have to work too hard for the things she wants.  She doesn’t HAVE to roll over, and she cries so much when put on her tummy, that I have a very hard time torturing her like that.  So this may be… dare I say it?  Partially my fault.  Jerry hardly ever takes her like he did the rest, and when he does, she cries so much for me (sigh) that she’s quickly handed back to me…. and this applies to everyone.  Me and Sammi are her definite preferences… oh, and if I should luck out and leave her with another kid, or Kristin, and she’s happy… but I make the "mistake" of coming within her sight, she quickly starts crying and looking at me and even reaching for me.  If someone tries to turn her away from me, or I move, she moves so I am once again within her sight.  Trust me, the kid is a momma’s girl.  I’ve finally got her to where she will go to sleep in her cradle, thank goodness, because that allows me to get some sleep, and there are just times when I’m trying to sleep, and she needs sleep, but she won’t/can’t, and when I put her in her cradle, she calms right down and goes to sleep… and I fall into bed and go to sleep.  The whole co-sleeping thing just got to where it WAS NOT working out, no way, no how.  She’s sleeping through the night, and my milk suffers for it, and I only get about 5 hours of sleep a night, and God forbid I should stay up past 10-12, because then I’m up til 3 or 4, up at 8 or 9 to feed her, to TRY and keep the milk from suffering too much, but it drops quickly.  Especially if I make the mistake of sleeping more than 6 hours.  I’ve got my days when I just think… WHY am I doing this to myself?  But I can’t stop, because I know the guilt would haunt me, giving up like that.   Sigh… most days I can barely get one meal of solids into her, and I rarely bother with a second meal.  So SOME of these "delays" may be mom problems… mom’s too tired, mom’s too busy, mom’s not giving enough attention, or play… because mom may only be able to hold her while she helps another child with something, instead of giving her the stimulation she needs.

GAH… 5 kids is a HARD thing to do, and even harder when your husband is practically missing in action.  I used to count on him to fill these gaps, and isn’t that what dads are for?  The physical stuff?  I don’t LIKE having to think about needing to do all that stuff for her, when all I want to do is hold, feed, talk, etc.  She shouldn’t be having "stranger anxiety" with her own daddy!  That’s just wrong.  He just doesn’t do that much with her.  Even now, I hear her crying, and I’m just FORCING myself to ignore her.  But I think everyone else must be ignoring her too.  I think I’ll go lay down with her, because I probably need to empty the breasts anyway, and then I’ll put her in her cradle.  Oh, and I also probably don’t give her enough bottles of formula… but that’s another entry altogether, and I should REALLY go and get her already.

*Edit*

About the bottles, it’s just more that I want to fatten her up a bit, I don’t like that she’s 25th percentile for weight, but 75th for height.  She looks fine, but I would just feel better if she was up a little more.  Though I don’t want to set her up for a lifetime of overweight issues, either.  I’ve been considering the big "no no" of puting cereal in her bottles.  I have a TON of cereal, and I always forget to feed it to her.

And I think Sammi may be small for her age, she still fits pretty well in 18 month c

lothes (they’re like *perfect* right now) and she only weighs 27? pounds.  She was 8 pounds 1 ounce when born, and it’s "normal" to triple the weight by age 1, so obviously, she didn’t do that.  But she looks fine too.  And she doesn’t LOOK short, I’m just going by her clothes.  Size 2s are a bit big on her, for the most part.