Wow!  A lot changes in a month with a baby. Since last update, Audrey is pulling up on everything.  She wants to be standing all the time and has done a little bit of cruising too.  In the last month she has also perfected her crawling –  and that little girl is fast!  She is still in 9 month clothes for the most part but sleeves are starting to look a bit short.  I think most babies get a 9 month growth spurt so we’ll see what happens in the next month.

Audrey still naps 2-3 times a day and still (thankfully!) is an excellent nighttime sleeper who rarely wakes in the middle of the night.

She is working on her top two teeth.  Lots of hands in the mouth but she is still so good-natured.

Matt and I joke about her comedic timing.  She responds to questions and statements with the perfect tone and timing.  And she likes shaking her head “no” and seems to do it at the funniest time. (Audrey – do you want to share your toy with Jack? [head shake with smile])

She seems to like all the food she has tried.  She is getting proficient at feeding herself and seems to want to eat if everyone else is eating.  She especially likes feeding herself peas.

Audrey had her first plane ride to Seattle this month.  Way to start out big!  A long day of travel wasn’t too tough with her.  And the three hour time difference just meant that I got to fully experience sunrise in Seattle every morning (wink, wink)!  She loved the double stroller we rented and loved getting to see her way around a new city.

I don’t even know how to convey how delightful Audrey is.  She has such a sweet disposition, and her smiles just light up my day.  Seeing how she looks at Jack is such a joy for both me and Matt.

What will this sweet little daredevil be up to next month?

Somehow we are over half way through Audrey’s first year.  Boy, oh boy this little girl is busy!  She loves to sit and play and is really good at her army crawling (creeping?) to get anything she wants. In the past couple of days she has gotten really good at getting herself gracefully in a sitting position.  

She is trying more foods every week and so far seems to enjoy everything.  I remember Jack having fish as his first animal protein…but I don’t remember when.  I think I will need to brush up on baby food basics for this little one!  She eats solids 2-3 times a day and is regularly eating oatmeal, bananas, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, broccoli, peas, avocado, green beans, and carrots.  She still nurses 6-7 times a day.  And she can drink out of a straw!  I hope that will make the transition to whole milk easier in 5ish short months.

She naps 2-3 times a day, and admittedly naps much better at home than at daycare.  Her evening sleep is wonderful!  She is in bed for the night around 8.  I wake her/dreamfeed her around 5am before I head to the gym and she falls right back asleep until around 7.  (I probably shouldn’t have typed that because she has been so easy I probably jinxed myself!)

Audrey loves her big brother, bath time, being sang to, and her Fisher Price barn and animals.  The picture of Audrey and Jack is from earlier in the week.  Jack said he wants to go to Purdue but “Audrey no go to Purdue. Audrey go to Illinois.” So I had to dress them appropriately.  🙂

I’m sure this next month will bring many more fun milestones.  Increased babbling?  Pulling to standing? Audrey says bye bye for now!

Half a year old already!  These 6 months have definitely been the quickest of my life.  The little girl we welcomed into our lives is full of personality and has amazed me with how quickly she is growing.

Audrey can get around in a couple of different ways.  When she wants something (especially one of Jack’s toys) she will army crawl for it.  She gets up on her hands and knees but when there’s a toy in sight she just goes for brute force and speed in an army crawl, much to Jack’s dismay.  Trains and cars are the favorites so far, but at least they are temporarily keeping her away from dirty shoes.  Audrey really likes to “play” with her baby toys and loves music.  She loves her crib mobile and often turns it on to listen to music and talk to the animals before going to sleep.

Sleep is going really well.  She sleeps in her crib in our room because I’m just not quite ready for her to be sleeping in her own room.  I love how sweetly she wakes up!  We are at a transition point where most of the time she wakes once to eat but sometimes she sleeps straight through.  Audrey tries to stay awake but 8pm is about as late as she can cut it.  She naps 2 to 3 times a day, depending what we are doing.  Her routine seems pretty fluid.

And Audrey started foods this week.  Her first was oatmeal and she loved it!  Her next food was steamed broccoli florets – another huge hit!  I let her feed herself and when she would drop one she would yelp for me to get her another one.  Today she had a little bit of banana – and, again, she loved it.  I think Audrey is going to be an excellent eater.  I hate the diapers after starting solids (TMI?) but it is so much fun to see your little one exploring foods.  We will continue to do a combination of purees and self-feeding finger foods (baby led weaning).

Audrey has a very agreeable personality.  If she is fed and dry, and is around her people she is happy.  And if Jack is near she is all smiles and giggles.  Matt and I have to work hard to make her laugh but Jack only has to make eye contact.  Love these two kids!

We had our 6 month doctor appointment today and Audrey is still very tall — 98% for height and 40% for weight.  Happy half birthday to our growing, sweet baby girl!

This little doll is 5 months old this week!I think 5 months is such a sweet spot in age for babies.  Coo-ing and smiling is nearly out of control but she mostly stays out of trouble…for a bit.  Audrey is quite the roller though, and especially loves to roll to her belly so she can look around.  Also on her list of loves? JACK!  He doesn’t even have to try and he has Audrey giggling so hard she gasps for breath.  It is one of my favorite sounds in the world.

Audrey loves being outside, and going to the park with Jack seemed to be a highlight of her week.  She has started playing peek-a-boo and really likes her toys.

Audrey is still a super long baby – 97th percentile for height and 50th for weight.  Her hair is beautiful and is so long that it hangs down past her eyes now.  And she got her first two teeth shortly after she turned 4 months old!  I might regret saying this but she didn’t have a hard time with these first two teeth at all.  No disruption of sleep or fussiness.  (Let’s hope this continues for the other upcoming teeth).  Speaking of sleep, we are doing really well on that front.  She goes down for the night by 8pm with usually one wake-up to eat and go right back down.  And when she is home she is a pretty good napper too.  She found her feet this week, and loves to hold the “happy baby” pose.

Audrey started day care this week.  My mom has been over every week for the past two months watching Audrey during the day.  We miss her so much already!  But Audrey is getting lots of smiling faces and fun new toys during the day.  Plus Jack and Audrey are getting ready to welcome their first cousin in about a month – and Gigi will be across the country helping welcome the sweet little girl into the family.  Audrey is an extremely happy and sweet little girl.  She wakes up in the morning coo-ing and singing like a little bird.  Matt and I are enjoying every day with her!

This happy little girl turns 4 months today.

Audrey is a complete delight, and sometimes I wonder how I got SO lucky.  She wakes up coo-ing in a super sweet voice.  She is happy to talk to her mobile for awhile and will flip herself to her side to talk to me too.

Speaking of movement, she is all over.  She turns herself over pretty well, always stopping on her side before finishing the roll.  She works so hard to sit up, and does a pretty impressive back bend to catch interesting noises behind her (especially Jack and TV).

What does she think of Jack?  She thinks he’s pretty funny, and likes following him around the room with her eyes and smiles.  We watched him play basketball over the weekend and she was very happy to sit in my lap cheering.

At four months, Audrey is seeming much more like a baby rather than a newborn.  We packed away most of her 3-6 month clothing and she is mostly wearing 6-9 month clothes.  We don’t have a doctor appointment for another week so I’m not sure about her stats but she is growing like a weed. And just look at all of that hair!  

I am enjoying all of her cuddles and smiles.  Yesterday she woke up at 4 (after 8.5 hrs of sleep!) and then again at 7.  I was productive from 4-7 with research and the gym.  But when she fell asleep nursing at 7, I enjoyed rocking her for a beautiful, slow 45 minutes.  (Thanks to a wonderful husband who got up with Jack!).

Happy 4 Months, my sweet little girl!

Where did our newborn go?  I am really feeling the stages go so, so fast with Audrey.  I know she isn’t approaching milestones at a crazy pace, but I am so much more aware of how fleeting the baby stages really are and I am trying to savor the moments before we are off and running to the next stage.

Audrey is SO happy!  She giggles now too.

I am back in class and doing research as of this last week.  We have another new normal.  My mom (whom Jack lovingly refers to as Gigi) was with Audrey all of this week while I was gone.  It took Audrey two days to take a bottle!  She wasn’t as grumpy about it as you would think, and was more than happy to wake me up throughout the night to make up for it lack of milk.  But, mom figured out that walking while giving Audrey her bottle worked.  Thank goodness!

She also “plays” now.  She loves her playmat and her mobile.  She loves being sang to, sweet baby talk, and kisses.  She hates car rides – go figure!

No doctor’s appointments this month so I don’t have any stats but she seems to keep getting longer.  She is wearing 3-6 month clothes right now and I know that the next size is coming up soon.

I think she is starting to drool a bit, and I fear that teeth might be on their way.  Jack got his first two bottom teeth right after he turned three months so I wouldn’t be overly surprised if she were an early teether too.  We are enjoying her toothless grin while we can!

Our little miss has been with us for over 2 months.  Even though time flies it seems like she has been a part of our family forever.

At her 2 month doctor appointment she weighed in at 12 lbs 4oz (73rd percentile) and 24.5 inches (99th percentile).  She is looong!  I packed away the 0-3 month clothes last week and moved her into 3-6 month clothes.  The little baby days are quickly ending.

Her eyes are still a very pretty blue, so we’ll see if she gets Matt’s pretty blue eyes.  

Eat
I have another excellent eater.  She probably eats 9ish times a day, but I track things so much less with her.  She only takes about 20 minutes to eat so I feel like to much more of our day is available.  However, we have not had luck yet having her take a bottle.  It makes this mama very nervous about leaving her.  But if she gets hungry she will have to eat, right? (sigh)

Sleep
She is a pretty good sleeper for a 2 month old.  She gets a long stretch of sleep around 7:30/8 for about 5 hours.  She hasn’t fallen into a consistent pattern after that though.  Sometimes she’ll be up every 2 hours for the rest of the night…but sometimes not.  When she wakes frequently she doesn’t take long to eat but loves to “talk” and smile at me.  I might be sleepy but at least we are both smiling. She has at least one looong nap a day and does well with her others too, even if they aren’t as long.  She is only awake for about an hour and a half at a time.

Personality
She is (in my completely unbiased opinion) the sweetest baby girl I have ever been around.  She gives away smiles all day long, and loves coo-ing.  She laughs at us and likes watching Jack run around.  She is happy to just hang around rather than being on the go.  Lucky us!

Where does the time go?  I had this draft ready two weeks ago but I was waiting on some pictures to be sent my way.  The pictures are delayed and I figured that some iPhone pics would just have to do so that this post doesn’t become a 16 month update.

………..

I decided monthly updates probably weren’t necessary after Jack turned 1, but he has been up to so many new tricks lately that I thought it would be fun to check in.

We had Jack’s 15 month checkup last week.  Our little guy isn’t so little anymore – 91% for height and 95% for weight!  He is still a phenomenal eater.  He starts his day with a bowl of steel cut oats and some berries.  He has started doing a Macaulay Culkin fist pump when he gets food that he especially likes – like raspberries and blueberries.  He loves most fruit and makes the sign language for bananas.  Fish is his preferred animal protein, (chicken is rarely enjoyed), and most vegetables are still a hit – especially peas, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans (only the flat ones!), and sweet potatoes.  And of course all things dairy like cheese, cottage cheese and greek yogurt are hits.

Sleeping is going really well.  The time change has pushed Jack’s bedtime back to 8pm but he likes to sleep until about 7:30am lately.  He’s down to one nap which makes going places on the weekend much easier to plan around.

He has 12 teeth and is working on getting his incisors and canines in next.  Poor little guy has been drooling again so hopefully these teeth will come in quickly and give him some relief.

And the really fun stuff…he has become more adventurous and is a little daring sometimes, flinging himself off the couch for a laugh.  He loves playing, running and dancing.  We got him a basketball hoop to have a good inside activity with the rough winter, and he LOVES it!  He says “ball” all the time, and has a pretty decent shot.

His language has really taken off in the last couple of weeks.  Earlier last week I was explaining to him that I had to change his diaper because it was so wet (he HATES having his diaper changed in the morning…or really anytime).  He looked at me and asked “diaper?” very clearly.  So in addition to saying mama, dada, and ball, he can tell you what sounds most of the animals make (cow, monkey, owl, lamb, doggy and cat are his favorites), says thank you (“shu shu”), yeah, uh oh, purple (and sometimes gets it right), hot, more, hat, brr! and bubble.

Speaking of bubbles, check out this bathtime video from last week from his first time saying bubble.

This age has been a lot of fun, but it would be remiss of me to not mention the start of toddler tantrums in our house.  The back-arching and screaming is not one of my favorite parts, but I guess it keeps us on our toes.  (Case in point:  Matt and I took Jack to the park last week on one of our first nice weather days for a picnic dinner and lots of playing.  As we congratulated ourselves on such a wonderful Monday night of parenting on our way to the car, Jack threw a complete fit not wanting to leave.  Kids are great for lessons in humility.)

Hope you have a great week ahead!

Yep, we’re in one of the states with bitter cold and lots of snowfall…around 10 inches of snow.  And we have a pretty sick little guy in our house with a fever, major sniffles, and big time clinginess.  We’ve been cuddling a lot, and while not much is making him smile this video seems to make Jack happy.  It makes me pretty happy too, and if you’re waiting out the cold at home I hope this gives you some smiles.  And if you want to join in the dancing I bet it will help keep you warm!