Sleep Training

Filed Under Six Months, Sleep | 9 Comments

Is going to begin at our house. No judgement, please. I am struggling with it enough on my own without hearing stupid negative thoughts from people who think they should mother my child.

Bailey goes to sleep on her own at nap and at bedtime. We lay her down awake and she rolls around and hugs her bear and falls asleep. If she’s really tired, she just rolls right over to her tummy and curls up. Right now she is napping- well she’s not quite asleep yet- but I let her lay down with a pacifier to chew on because I think her teeth are bugging her. She doesn’t normally take a pacifier at all (trust me, we tried) but she likes to chew on the rubbery Soothie ones sometimes.

Anyway. The problem is sleeping at night. She was only waking up once a night, then last night she was up several times. I have been told by multiple pediatricians and other people that she is capable of sleeping through the night and doesn’t NEED to eat during the night anymore. We tried about three weeks ago to let her cry during the night and she was up for two hours before Daddy finally rescued her. Starting Friday night, there will be no rescuing. I am not sure our exact strategy, but I think we will not go in to comfort her because that seems to make it worse. We will probably just look in from the doorway to make sure she is okay.

The reason I am set on this NOW is because of a conversation I had the other night with Alison’s mom, who is a pediatrician. (Remember the family I used to nanny for?) She encouraged me that we could do this. It is time for me to get some good sleep again. Counting the end of my pregnancy when I couldn’t sleep, it’s been like nine months since I had a good night of uninterrupted sleep. She said the first night she really might cry two hours or so. That sounds horrible to me, but I know it will be better for all of us once she learns to go back to sleep on her own.

Being able to roll over and go back to sleep without eating is a skill everyone should master. I would prefer for my child to learn that at seven months than at two or three years. Plus, Friday is her seven month birthday and that’s when I told myself we would start letting her cry

I will update on how it goes.

Squirrel Outfit Pics

Filed Under Food, Six Months | 4 Comments

Had to get a few shots of her looking all snuggly in her squirrels outfit!


When she eats something orange like this, even after I get it wiped off, it kind of leaves a stain on her face afterwards. Also someone told me too much keratin (sp?) could make her have an orange tint, so I have been paranoid about feeding her carrots and sweet potatoes very often. I think the food in this picture is the Turkey and Sweet Potato dinner. Gosh, she sure does love to eat, though.

Some more pictures, because I like to share :)

Filed Under Outings, Pregnant Friends, Six Months | 3 Comments

I love these pictures from the park last week. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. It was a little bit chilly, but nice and sunny. Probably one of the last really good days we’ll have before winter. A few of us decided to take the babies to the park to play. We walked the track a little bit, ate lunch, and then let them play on a blanket. It was just a nice afternoon.


Emily and Baby Ella


Amy and Baby Kaitlynn



Pictures from a baby shower like two weeks ago that we had for my friend Catherine and her husband, Jonathan. They are expecting a baby girl in December.

Bailey with her Aunt Jennifer

You Suck, AF

Filed Under Milestones, Six Months, TMI | 3 Comments

Today I got my period for the first time in 16 months. I don’t even have cramps or anything. Dang. I was not ready for this. I guess I should be thankful for such a long break… but seriously Time to search the bathroom vanities for my “supplies.”

This is something you really wanted to know, isn’t it?

Edited to add: Yes, I do have cramps. In fact I am in quite a bit of pain. But, now we all know I’m not secretly pregnant. Because I don’t want my kids 16 months apart!

Wordless Wednesday- Just Chillin

Filed Under Six Months, Wordless Wednesday | 3 Comments

Close to Crawling

Filed Under Milestones, Play, Six Months | 3 Comments

Just a few quick shots from this morning. Bailey doesn’t crawl, but she scoots, pushes off with her feet, rolls, and pulls with her hands to get where she wants to be. I decided to put a toy about five feet in front of her and watch her go for it.



Victory!

She has had quite the adventures around the house today. She likes to pull this plant in the living room over on herself. She does that at least once a day, and then plays in the leaves and chews on them. Oh yeah, it’s fake. So hopefully it won’t hurt her. She also banged her head on a utility cart tonight when she got stuck up against it. I know she’s not officially “crawling” yet, but we need to do some babyproofing around here!

I think this weekend we will be making a trip to BRU to look at gates and outlet covers and stuff. I didn’t think that time would come so soon

Trick or Treat

Filed Under Holidays, Six Months | 5 Comments

On Monday night, we took Bailey out in her costume to visit my parents and grandparents. Her wings buttoned on and off her costume, so it was easy to get her in and out of the carseat. She didn’t seem to mind being dressed up OR wearing the giant hair/hat/wig thing. Yeah, my kid rocks


Ready for Halloween!

My friend Sarah and her husband Josh came over with their baby to hang out for a while on Halloween night while we passed out candy. We sat in the driveway- and Jonathon brought the fire pit out from the backyard and built a huge fire. Seriously, at first it was like six feet tall. I was like- Um, sweetie, please don’t burn down the house!

Andrew was dressed up as The Incredible Hulk. His pacifier was just hilarious!

We took Bailey trick-or-treating to probably 7 or 8 houses. Really just to show her off to the neighbors we know and to get a little candy for Jonathon She seemed to enjoy all the lights and stuff that people had hanging around their porches.


Bailey started getting cold (I think) and a little tired, and she was becoming a crabby Tinkerbell…. so we changed her into her Halloween outfit and mittens. She got a little happier after that and we sat out in the driveway for a while longer and passed out candy. Everyone commented on what a cute little boy she was. I guess they couldn’t see the earrings.

Something I have Wondered…

Filed Under Holidays, Random, Six Months | 1 Comment

There is a place near our house with a digital sign out front, advertising that they do a “colon cleanse.”

Do people actually drive past that place and think, “Hmmm, I think I need to get my colon cleaned out. It’s been a while since last time I did that.” ?????

In other news- this is my kid’s cute trick-or-treat bag. Which I carried while we collected candy last night. Except from the old lady who wouldn’t give us any candy

I will write a real post about trick-or-treating and share lots of pictures tomorrow. Right now I need to go to bed. You know, so I can be wide awake at four a.m. with Bailey, who thinks that’s a great time to hang out with mommy.

Back to how it was

Filed Under Six Months, Sleep | 1 Comment

For the past four nights Bailey has only gotten up once, around 3-4 a.m. I can handle that. Only today she woke up for the day at like 7 and refused to go back to sleep. Which means it will be a long morning because I work Tuesday mornings at my church and she will be in the nursery… so probably no nap for her because she thinks there is something she’s going to miss if she goes to sleep.

But then I realized the reason she was so wide awake is because of our neighbor’s PITA dog. She has three or four of them and they bark ALL THE TIME and no one likes her. So there crazy lady. No one likes you.

Last Week- in Pictures

Filed Under Friends, Grandparents, Outings, Six Months, St. Louis | 1 Comment

I realized I am (once again) totally behind in posting pictures, so here are some from last week. One day I went to the Botanical Gardens with my mom and grandma (click here for a cool video made by a friend of mine) and Bailey seems to enjoy just riding around in her stroller there. plenty to see, and good exercise for her chunky Mommy!


Bailey and her Grammy- great grandma was there as well but we didn’t manage to get any pictures of her. She (MY grandma, Bailey’s great grandma) was in a wheelchair that day (my mom insisted that she push her in one because she knew she wouldn’t be able to walk very far) but anyway, I think she didn’t want it to be caught on film.

I wish this picture turned out better. It was in the Japanese garden area where there are giant koi fish that you can feed. I bet they are at least 25 pounds each.

After the Botanical Gardens, we took Bailey by to see my grandpa. He always gets such joy from holding her and playing with her. Which is funny, because apparently he wasn’t really “into” his own kids at all when they were little. I guess age and perspective can change things!

Last Friday, my mom and I went to the mall, and Bailey is a very good baby and likes to ride in the stroller, but we try to give her a break and let her out to play every so often. She liked the little cars and stuff that you pay 50 cents to ride on. This was her first driving experience.


Normally we strip her down for dinner. This is one of the rare occasions where she got to eat wearing more than a diaper

At night we went to a barbecue/sit around the fire evening with some friends. We had Bailey with us because we didn’t plan on staying very late. But it got cold fast, and we had her wrapped in a fleece blanket. She kind of looks a little KKK-ish in this picture, but that wasn’t our intent.

Bailey with my friend Renee (whose wedding I was in a few (three– already!) months ago.

I really enjoy dressing Bailey up. One of the perks of having a girl, I guess. I wish I could figure out where those eBay people and such get their wholesale clothing because then I would become a huge eBay seller, and keep the stuff I liked for me!

Actually, there are a lot of things I would do if I had the time and if I could figure them out. I would learn a lot of cool crafty things to do. I would host estate sales. I would volunteer for Big Brothers Big Sisters again. (Okay, so that’s really more of a time issue than know-how). Yeah, someday I will have time and I can research all these things I want to try. Right now I feel like I do well to make it through the day and have the house somewhat in one piece when Jonathon gets home!

so sleepy

Filed Under Six Months, Sleep | 2 Comments

9:30 pm- Bailey went to bed-

12:30, 3, 6:30- those are the times she has gotten up (so far)

My six month old is resorting to newborn sleeping habits

I am exhausted.

I should go take a nap instead of screwing around online looking at stuff like Arizona luxury real estate

I am horrible at wasting time.

Costume Party

Filed Under Blogger Carnival, Holidays, Six Months | 4 Comments

My little Tinkerbell She didn’t seem to mind being dressed up at all!

Today we went to Bailey’s first “costume party” ever! Our nursing group decided to dress up the babies today. I took tons of pictures and I’m posting them here for anyone who wants to snag pictures of their own kid. I know there were a few moms without cameras or without a free hand.

Princess Kaitlynn



It was really hard to get pictures of happy babies all at one time. Plus mine kept tipping over because there was stuffing in the butt of her costume.


I’m sorry Ella, but your mom was trying to suffocate you. where is your face?? Just kidding, Emily


Freya the very cute skunk




After our nursing group, I decided to go up to my mom’s work and let Bailey pass out candy. My mom loved showing her off, and everyone got a big kick out of seeing her dressed up

Snot Eater

Filed Under Six Months | 1 Comment

For the past few days Bailey has been very cute with her tongue. She sticks it in and out constantly, and really fast. Especially when she is eating- she loves to lick the food off her mouth.

Just as I was admiring her cuteness, I realized she’s not just playing with her tongue all day. She is eating her snot as her nose drips. Lovely.

Wordless Wednesday- Sweet Potatoes

Filed Under Food, Six Months, Wordless Wednesday | 4 Comments

Last night Bailey was being a stinker at dinnertime, so I just dumped out her sweet potatoes and carrots on her tray and let her play in them!

Getting Better All the Time

Filed Under Money, Six Months, Sleep | 3 Comments

Today we had a garage sale. We got rid of a TON of junk and brought in almost $400. It was worth my time setting up.

Bailey did not see the need to sleep last night. I went to bed at like 2:15 after working on setting up the garage sale so I could just pull the stuff out of the garage in the morning. She woke up at about 3:00ish and stayed up until 6. She was crying, yelling, grumbling, etc only I would let her cry- which I hate doing but she is a manipulative little girl (saying that with a smile)… but then when I would finally give in after like an hour and go in to try to “fix it” she would smile at me and want to play. Little booger. So I slept for literally 45 minutes last night.

The garage sale was super busy. The first crazy showed up at 6:15 (before we were even open, while it was still pitch black and we were setting up!) and it didn’t stop until about 11:30. Most of the time there were several cars of people there. We stayed open until a little after 1 and a few people kind of wandered in and out for that last hour or so. It was such a nice day so Jonathon and I were just kind of enjoying sitting there with Bailey and chatting with some of our neighbors by that point.

I am convinced that people will buy anything. I sold a bunch of mostly used stuff from Bath and Body Works, used tanning lotion, really old track lighting that we took out of our kitchen, cabinet hinges, stuffed animals (which grosses me out because you can’t wash them- EW I would never buy something like that used!) My personal favorite was the used cat brushes that still had cat hair in them. We sold three of them. Really, I have discovered that you can sit anything outside and someone will want it.

ANYWAY, after all that was over, Bailey took a nap and Jonathon pulled everything back into the garage and let me go take a nap. He only got like 3 hours of sleep, tops, so I was thankful that he did that for me. Then, we found my car keys. YAY, now I don’t have to get another set made tomorrow. I can put that off a few days. Because what’s better than procrastinating?

Now I am going to eat dinner (at 9:30 pm) and read a magazine for a few minutes before heading to bed. Oh, and tomorrow Jonathon and I are going out for lunch and Bailey is going home from church with my parents. It’s been a few weeks since we’ve had a date