Whoop WhooP!

2 nights in a row of good sleep :) Last night she went down at 8:30... awake at 11:47 to eat and then out until 6:25 :)

How many nights makes a trend?

She also learned yesterday that even if 2 year olds can be mean. One of the little girls at daycare yesterday bit laura on the arm. It didn't break the skin and Lynne said Laura didn't even cry or appear to be bothered by it, but it did leave a mark shaped like a mouth (no teeth indents) and to me, it actually looks more like a hickey. Like I said though - she wasn't hurt.

Yay!!!

She slept a 7 hour stretch last night!!! :) Fed her at 10 and didn't hear from her until 5 :)

8 months old

Yep, today is the 27th. That means little Laura is 8 months old.

*She has mastered crawling. Zooms right out of her room and down the hallway. Where is that baby gate for the stairs? Where are the outlet plugs? Yeah, definitely time to babyproof!

*She still has no teeth, although there is a lot of drool lately.

*She experiments more and more with her voice every day. The past few days it's been this gurgly sound in her throat like she's growling...but gurgly. Very cute.

*She actually falls asleep on her own about 2 nights out of the week...either because she either doesn't need to or want to nurse before bed. She'll just take the pacifier and I lie her in the crib and she goes to sleep. That's wonderful! IF she cries when I put her down...it's no longer than 10 minutes. Same with her naps at home.

*Naps are like this typically: 30-45 minute morning nap around 9am. one-2 hour nap in the afternoon starting anywhere from noon-1ish. If we're home, she is pretty much on that schedule. Traveling throws her off and she tries so hard to do well, but she does so much better if she gets her naps. Sometimes at daycare she follows that nap schedule, but a lot of days her sleep there is interrupted. Wouldn't yours be too if you were trying to sleep with kids all around you? At daycare, she still naps in the baby bouncer (yes, she's way too big for it, but she YELLS forever in her pack-n-play. Lynne said that this summer Laura will be in the pack-n-play for naps and that she'll HAVE to get used to it... Summer will be a good transition time becuase the other boy who is upstairs during nap time doesn't come in the summer...so, Laura will be able to fuss longer and not disturb everyone.

*Overnights are still cut up... she goes to bed at 6:30-7 still and is up anywhere between 8:45-10 to eat. (8:45 if she chose not to nurse before falling to sleep)... I feed her then and it buys me typically 4 hours. Then she's out for another 4 hours...then morning. So we're down to her being up 2 times after I go to bed. I'll take it - much better than a few months back!

*She is drinking just 12 ounces at daycare still.

*Not that she eats a big quantity, but she eats a good variety and seems to enjoy most of it! Haven't found anything she hates yet. Here's our list so far:
Veggies:
avacado, asparagus, carrots, broccoli, cawliflower, peas, sweet potato, pumpkin
Fruits:
pears, applesauce, blueberry applesauce, watermelon, cantaloupe, peaches, mango, banana
Cereals: cheerios, rice, barley, oatmeal
Puffs: apple/strawberry gerber puffs, banana puffs
Proteins: baked beans!
I'm sure I'm forgetting something on that list!
She'll have about 1/8 cup cereal with milk and about 1/2 ounce of fruit for breakfast and 1/8 cup cereal with milk and 1 ice cube sized hunk of veggie for dinner... we try to give her more, but she's not interested after that.

*She is solidly in 9 month clothing, but a bunch of her 12 month stuff fits well too.

*She is in her big girl carseat in the truck and the van. (yeah, did you catch that?...) We got a minivan today. Traded in my Pontiac Vibe.

*She waves ... but not really on command or at the "right" time.

*She can pick up her cheerios one at a time...quite often between her forefinger and thumb. She puts the cheerios in her mouth, but doesn't know how to let go of it in her mouth yet!

*Her hair is starting to grow back in! Yay! Maybe by the time she's 1 she won't be bald in the back anymore :)

*She is no longer in size 1 shoes...I'm not sure if she's in size 2 or 3 right now... I have a couple size 3's and 1 pair fits, the others are too big. We don't have any size 2 shoes. Usually she just wears socks.

*She loves to sit with a basket full of goodies (toys) and empty the basket. Mommy fills it back up. She empties it again. Repeat for lots of fun.

*She is still in the "I want my mommy" phase. DOn't see a real clear end to that one anytime soon, but that's okay (with me)... not so sure Grandmas and Grandpas are enjoying that phase though.

*She poses for pictures. I have tried and tried to get candids of her enjoying her toys, but she more often than not will stop what she was doing and look at me. What a ham!

I think that's it for now...if I think of more, I'll add them. Have pictures, but haven't downloaded them yet.

MORE sleeping pics...

Hmmm...now that I'm thinking about taking pictures while she's sleeping... and I'm not so paranoid that she'll wake up when she hears the shutter click, I'm getting a lot of sleepy pics :)



This one is how I found her yesterday morning :) First time sitting up in her crib. The other morning I found her on all fours rocking back and forth and fussing, kinda like "how do I get down from here!?... HElp me mama!"

We go low...

We had to lower the crib tonight. Laura has now mastered rolling from her back to her side and pushing from here side up to sitting...and obviously from sitting she can get to pulling up to a stand. The crib looks huge now! ... and she looks so tiny all the way down there at the bottom. I'll snag a pic when I can.

But I'm off to bed now...
We had a good night here last night... she ate at 10 and 2 and was up at 5:50 :) (Yes, I realize it's sad that I consider that a "good" night...)
Yawn... like I said... it's bedtime for this mama!

One year ago this week we learned we were having a baby girl. Hardly seems like a full year has gone by since then!

Our current sleep patterns...

are driving me batty!!!

For the past few weeks, we've fallen back into the pattern of being awake eery 2-3 hours throughout the night - so what do I do to get her back to sleep? Nurse her. Works every time. I'm tired (so what else is new?) I decided to try resisting the urge to go quiet her down at her first peep....

2 nights ago - worked pretty well. I fed her at 10 before I went to bed. Then she was up for a few minutes at 12:30 (on our old routine I would have been out of bed to feed her). Then she was up at 2:45 and I did feed her. She woke up at 5:30 and I think I let her babble too long before I went in to feed her because by the time I got in there, she was wide awake and not hearing the "go back to sleep" part...

Last night (or this night...whatever it is now!) She nursed at 10:30. That bought me nearly 4 hours of solid rest for both of us. She was up at 2:15 and I nursed her. Then I heard her at 4:30 and knowing it'd only been 2 hours... I let her babble... and babble... and babble... I think I drifted back to sleep, but I'm not so sure she ever did. I woke up to her babbling again at 5:25... I went to get her and feed her... she ate a little...but no going back to sleep.

I wonder if this is the "sleep regression" they talk about when babies are learning a new big skill. She is mastering crawling (forward) this week. It's really only been the past 2-3 days she's been able to consistently go forward on her own command.

She's also got a bit of a cold (as do we all!) ... so maybe that's it? (Just the sniffles/runny nose thing). If all three of us didn't have it I'd wonder if it were alllergies for one of us.

I just hope it's not a long term patter starting of waking up before 6! Ugh!

More sleepy baby pictures.

Does she look comfy or what? I LOVE these pictures... I went in to feed her at 10pm last night and found her sacked out like this. Awe!

Love that girl!!!

...She's sporting her green with green polkadot babylegs here...

First trip to the playground.

Took Laura to the playground yesterday at the elementary school. It was rainy so we didn't stay long. There wasn't much for her to do yet - not even a baby swing :( We went down the slide a couple times, but those windy slides are definitely meant for kids - not adults with long legs! I kept getting stuck on the turns.

Here's a few pictures from May that I haven't gotten around to posting yet... ENJOY!!!

Yep, we need to baby proof! Or at least remember that the girl is mobile now. I was writing out a note and left the room momentarily to grab something and I heard "cough cough gag gag"...came back to find her holding my pretty purple pen and she had done this... So yeah - definitely time to babyproof! (Don't worry, no babies were injured during this event) :)


Helping with the laundry again. She has a thing for keeping her tongue hanging out of her mouth lately. Weird.


Awe. Snagged another sleeping picture just a few days before we stopped using her infant carseat. Haven't gotten a picture in her new seat yet. (add that to the mental to-do list!)


Laura hanging with her goofy buddy Logan :) Aren't they a sweet pair? I love his facial expressions!


Playing nice together...


Laura loves taking flight! Can you see her glee here? She's definitely a rough and tumble kind of kid...but loves it all!


Just a goofy face that I love :) I mean Laura's is goofy...not Richie's...but I love them both :)

Just reposting a picture from April - I've been playing... (read - reading and trying things out with PSE6) ...I think I'm finally catching onto the new program! And I'm liking it :)

And just a couple cute ones from getting ready for the bath tonight...

Talking with Grammie on the phone...

Thought Grandma would like to see how our conversation went this evening...


Whoops - there she goes again ...backwards!

She was all ready to fuss until she realized ... she can sit up under the crib...





***DISCLAIMER!*** Megan and mom... don't print these! They look terrible at the larger version... I am so confused by this new program! I miss my old one :(

Happy First Mother's Day!

Andrea and Laura - first of many Happy Mother's Days :)



Richie made me breakfast today :) And then, being that it was mother's day - I only wanted to do one thing. I wanted to take a nap with my baby girl. I love taking naps with her sweet little face right next to me... the way she curls up into me and grasps at my fingers or shirt as she's half asleep. Listening to her sigh as she gets cozy. It's just the most peaceful thing in the world lying with a sleeping baby. ... I got woken up twice during our nap (thanks to being on call!) but other than that, I really enjoyed it.

I am also getting 2 trees for our front yard. We've taken down a lot of trees and it's time to replace some with better strategie (ie: not planting 8 maples under the power lines!) ... so we'll be getting 2 silver maples for out front as my mother's day gift. When? Not sure yet, but we will. And then we'll be able to watch them grow as we watch Laura grow.

New foods today:
Blueberry applesauce (mmm! She liked!)
Watermelon - I think the texture was weird for her, but she did eat it!
...so much for waiting 3 days in between foods!

Newest foods...

Forgot to add which foods we've introduced in the past week...
Laura's had asparagus (and yes, she liked it so don't say EWWW!)
She's also had baby bagels - donut seeds - cheerios. She doesn't do well with whole ones yet, but halfs or thirds she does great.

Sorry for the lack of updates!

Yikes...has it really been 2 weeks since I've had time to get on here and update? Seems life is getting busy busy busy and I'm getting tired tired tired. Work has been super crazy lately... Lots of early mornings, but that doesn't mean I get to leave any earlier... so that just means LONG days.

You're all here to read about Laura though so...

What's been going on?

She's getting bigger - we've packed away the infant car seat. This week Richie has been dropping Laura off in the mornings and I've been picking her up in the afternoons. For a couple days we made sure we left the infant seat at daycare during the day, but then we figured we could just put the convertible one in my car and Richie could keep the infant one in the truck. Then today we went to the County Car Seat fitting and we got a new seat for his truck. They give them out for free (a NYS grant pays for them) but we gave them a $30 donation for it.

Speaking of getting bigger - we've also packed away the rest of her size 3 diapers. Two nights in a row now she's had a damp bed when she's woken up. It's not sweat either. Time to upsize. Tonight she's sleeping in a size 4 Huggies.

What's she doing since the last update?
She says "da-da" now! ... A LOT! She waves. Can't say she waves "bye bye" or "hi"... because she just looks at her hand and waves to herself. It's the cutest thing and she just started doing that today. (edited to add: Yes, I do believe she picked this up from Aunt Megan today!) She is SO close to crawling. This week she mastered pushing herself up from her belly to a sitting position. And she's tried crawling, but usually ends up going sideways or backwards still. She'll have it down in just a couple days - a week at most I think. Richie said he saw a little forward motion today actually, but only one time. Oh, and she does this stance where she's on all fours - hands and feet - butt up in the air. So cute!

I do have a ton of pics since the last picture update, but I'm still waiting on my photo software... sorry guys - you'll just have to wait :)