Half Pint!

Audrey's half birthday was on Sunday! We had grand plans for the celebration, but a lot of reluctant napping led to a tired mom and Audrey...and some much-needed uneventful eating of cake. (Lemon Boston Cream Cake...yum!)
As if she didn't already have enough nicknames to keep up with, we've now added "half pint" to Audrey's impressive list in honor of her half birthday. This new addition led John and I to try to remember all the nicknames we've given Audrey.

Here is our list so far (I'm sure there are many that we're leaving out): A, Lil A, The Dragon (of course!), Monster (sorry Mom!), Sweets, Squeeza, Mon Chee Chee, Monkey, Monksie, Sugar, and in my mind, the most hillarious: Sugarbush (from Great Gma S.). We're thinking name recognition might be something of a hurdle for her.


A quick update on milestones that Audrey has hit as of 6 months:

• Sitting unassited! We never thought it would happen!
• Babbling: She says dada and mama pretty frequently. The most hilarious thing she says? "blah, blah, blah" while she's eating. I think she's mimicking what we sound like at the dinner table.
• Eating solids: Audrey LOVES pears in her cereal. Hates avocados and bananas...for now. (I'm persistent!) and as always, she's still eating prunes daily--what an old lady!
• The dragon has also started picking things up with her thumb and forefinger. I don't know about you, but I'm impressed.
  

One more thing I have to note is Audrey's new favorite hang out. It's yet to be officially named; Grandma S. and I call it her basket (sounds cute, right?) and John won't stop calling it her baby cage. The coined phrase is: No, mom. "Playpen, Baby Cage" is not like "Tomato, Tomato."

Audrey thinks her laundry basket is the greatest thing since pears, and I love having a place to plop her down if I have to go to the bathroom instead of strapping her into some apparatus ala preparation for space flight.

All future parents will be getting one as a gift from us for their child. Hopefully we will have found a better name than baby cage by then.

Finally--Pictures!

Since I actually have time to do things other than stare at Audrey sleeping (or not sleeping) while she's napping, I have finally taken more pictures of her and updated our Picasa Album for January at: http://picasaweb.google.com/GGamelin/TheNewYear#

I never thought I would be the kind of parent who took pictures of their kid with food all over their face, but it turns out I think it's hilarious...especially when it's so easy to give Audrey crazy food mustaches.
Also, Audrey has two teeth now! I was expecting first teeth to be some huge deal, but they really do just kind of sneak in on you. Maybe I thought she would just wake up some morning and smile at me with a full set of pearly whites. Her new teeth aren't in enough to capture in a photo yet, but rest assured that they will be properly documented once they can easily be seen.

Hope you enjoy the pictures! I'm off to brainstorm what baby food and baked goods I want to make this week.

It's Working!!!

...knock on wood! But, I really think Audrey is getting the hang of this whole napping thing. We have a new nap time routine that takes about five or ten minutes in which we dance and read books. Then I put her in her crib and swaddle her up and she falls asleep on her own. No singing. No bouncing. No broken back and numb fingers. Who knew this spirited little kid could ever fall asleep on her own? I'm off to do whatever the heck I want while she's sleeping.

What doesn't kill me...

Makes me stronger. At least that's my mantra right now along with: "Baked goods make everything better" Is it really possible for a chocolate chip cookie to restore one's sanity? I'm going with: yes.




I have just emerged from a battle of wills with the Dragon. Today it only took an hour and a half. Yesterday: Two. Hours. I used to think that I might possibly be one of the most stubborn people in the world, but Audrey has been testing the waters with an amazing will since we started our sleep training project (which, by the way, I started on Sunday, so I've had several days to be slowly driven crazy). She's like the Velociraptor from Jurassic Park, systematically testing the fence for weaknesses! I've got to keep my guard up with this kid and I don't see that ending anytime in the near future.

But seriously, being confined to the same small room with an uncooperative Dragon, singing Baby Beluga...for hours...can make one start to question all kinds of things. I find myself wondering if this plan is actually going to work or wondering if there's another reason why she's crying. To top it off, once the crazy kid is laying in her crib, has actually stopped crying, her eyes are closed and she's breathing normally. I'm starting to think silly thoughts like, maybe I can leave the room and go eat a cookie...Then the eye lids start to creep open!
From there, my thought process goes a little something like this: Oh, no...don't make any sudden movements. Is it possible to hold your breath and hum Baby Beluga at the same time? No. Oh, God, my arm is starting to go numb. Don't move. I can't feel my pinky...maybe if I just move realllly slowly, she won't notice. Oh good, she's not paying attention.
Que Audrey: Eyes popped wide open, big grin on her face and a huge squirm in her Houdini-proof swaddle. Is it time to play yet?
...and it's the hardest thing not to say YES! To top off being stubborn, she's just too darn cute!

God Bless the Baby Whisperer!

First, an important update: Audrey eats food now! She just lets the spoon do all the work!



The real reason for this post is that I have recently come to the conclusion that I'm doing it wrong, or rather, that I could be doing it better--parenting, that is. I usually pride myself on being a well informed individual, but when it came to babies, I really dropped the ball on researching the whole what-do-I-do-now-that-I've-got-a-kid part. Don't get me wrong, I don't think I'm a bad mother, actually, considering the amount of experience I've had with babies in the past, (zip, zero, nada) I'm doing pretty darn well just flying by the seat of my pants. But, always in search of the dream scenario, I've decided that it's not cutting it--I can always do better. (...and a big thanks to my Dad for that lesson!)

The crux of this whole issue, I guess, stemmed from Audrey's sleeping issues--namely, that she fights sleep like nobody's business and I really don't want to still be dancing her to sleep when she's 3 years old. Enter The Baby Whisperer! (who I came upon looking for a solution not involving crying it out) I've only been reading her books for a few days now, but wow! Talk about making babies make sense. She's broken down baby temperaments into 5 categories, of which, Audrey fits as a "spirited" baby. (are we really surprised?) I know my posts have a tendency to get long-winded, but I have to share an excerpt from her description:

"When spirited babies want something, they want it now! Opinionated, very vocal, and often stubborn, their moods are mercurial, going quickly from happy to sad and back again. They love the action but also tend to overdo it, which can lead to a meltdown. If spirited children sound like they're challenging, they are. But properly handled they are also born leaders."

...That's Audrey...and it's also just the tip of the iceburg.

So, now that I've got a better understanding of Audrey's temperament and how spirited babies typically handle situations, I'm diving head-first into a 10-day sleep training (sure-to-be-nightmare) endeavor...starting Tuesday. This means, I probably won't be doing any cleaning, laundry, reading or making phone calls (unless it's to John asking him why I decided to take the hard way...again) Hopefully, the result will be a happier baby and mama, both who will be sleeping more consistently. Wish me luck! Maybe I'll have the energy to post to give updates on how it's going. If not, I'll see you on the other side!

Don't forget

Check out our Christmas Picasa Album at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/GGamelin/ChristmasInTheOzarks#

A January Album will be coming soon!

Yes, it's taken this long

...to write an update. I keep trying to write posts, which I then abandon because it gets so long winded. So much has happened in the past month! Audrey had her 4 month appointment (At 4 months, 3 weeks) weighing in at 16 lbs. 3 oz, and is 27 inches long. She's still in the 90th & 97th percentiles--is anyone really surprised?

We took our big trip to the Midwest for Christmas and everything went well--there were definitely things that could've gone better. For instance, John could've been carrying dark chocolate squares in his pocket to pop into my mouth when I started getting crabby (crabby being an understatement) on our first flight to Denver. We never fully realized that breakfast is the most important meal of the day for me until I skipped it and decided to travel a couple thousand miles with a baby. That's just a lesson that had to be learned the hard way. It turns out, I'm more pleasant to be around during 13 hours of natural labor as opposed to a two hour plane ride with no snacks. But the low blood sugar and verbal abuse (for John) was worth it to see so many friends and family. Audrey was spoiled beyond belief for Christmas. We ended up shipping back two boxes and had a second Christmas when they got to the house in Kennewick.

(p.s. the return flight was much more pleasant and involved no bouts of hysteria and hardly any complaining. There was also lots and lots of chocolate--trust me, it helps.)

In other news: Audrey is changing so quickly, it's hard to keep up. In the last few weeks, she has gone from wanting nothing to do with sitting still to sitting like a frog and now being able to support herself sitting up most of the time. Rolling over is old news--she is now trying to figure out this whole crawling thing. She's been able to squirm her way across the floor to toys and is working on pushing her torso up and getting that fluffy butt up with her knees. We've decided it's time to seriously get on top of the baby proofing project.

New Years Eve for us was laid back this year; we ate a lot of snacks and hung out with our friends George and April and their two boys Lucas and Graydon. It was nice to hear little kid squeals and running feet in the house; it makes me look forward to the chaos that my life will become with several kids.

Well, I've already busted one of my two New Year's Resolutions (to finish an update for the blog by the New Year) My other Resolution this year is more serious (not to mention more realistic): to live my life according to God's plans. I figure it's the surest way to actually keep a resolution. Whatever plans I think I have in place, God usually finds a way to make them better whether I can see it or not.

I hope everyone had a Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year! Now that I've gotten the big stuff out of the way, I hope to update more often about the silly little every day things my life revolves around.