Teeth and Emily the manipulator...

I know what you are thinking..."It can't be! She's exaggerating! That sweet baby face, how could she possibly be ::gasp:: manipulating you." I will tell you how people. She uses that sweet face as a weapon. At 3 am she looks up at you with those sweet eyes and reaches up towards you to pick her up. HOW COULD YOU NOT! And here is where I fail. I pick her up and we rock and rock. She falls into a sweet slumber. All 5 feet of me desperately try to sneak her back into her crib, however since lowering the mattress, I am unsuccessful every.freaking.time. I lean in, half the time my feet are no longer on the floor and I try to lay her down as gently as possible. Sometimes I get her in asleep and sometimes she wakes up instantly, sits up and resumes the staring up at you with those sweet eyes and reaching to be held position. Kills me.

In her defense, she is teething. She is cutting her left lateral incisor (ask yourself how freaking hysterical she is going to look till her central ones or the other lateral cuts through) and she is miserable. Teething has totally thrown off her routine. She has been sleeping through the night for months now, but lately 3 am seems to be her witching hour. At first I thought she was crying because she was in pain, so I HAD to go in there and rock my sweet baby to sleep. Problem is, she instantly falls asleep when I pick her up or when you pat her back. She just wants us to be in there with her. You can pat her back and she will fall asleep, but she makes sure to check every few seconds to make sure you are still there. We did a little test and let her cry (whine really) for a few minutes, went in and rubbed her back to settle her down, and then when she cried again, we waited a bit longer (the Ferber method if you will) and she fell back to sleep in less than 5 minutes. Zig and I were kicking ourselves for not starting it earlier in the night because we alternated for 2 HOURS trying to get her back down before coming to our senses on Tuesday night. Last night she only woke up twice and was easily comforted. We are hoping all her top incisors cut through at once so we can be relieved from our teething hell. My poor little angel, I know she is in pain, but we just can't spend the entire night rocking her in her room. We gave her teething tablets and motrin, we put on a clean diaper if she is really wet, we know she is not hungry, so she just needs to self soothe. She is 8 months old (O.M.G), it is time to wean out those night wakings.

Between you and me, sometimes there is nothing more comforting for this mama than to know that my baby needs me and that I am the only one who can make her feel better. So sometimes, if she reaches up to me at 3 am, I will snuggle her up and rock her for as long as I need for ME to feel comfortable that everything is ok. There is nothing more peaceful that staring down at that soft beautiful sleeping face in my arms and thinking it truly does not get better than this...The world is perfect.

Here are some pictures that I took of her last week for one of Zig's birthday. Let me just tell you, taking a picture of a mobile child is rough!

Pool little girl. She had been grumpy for 3 days before we noticed that she had a tooth cutting through. She literally took my finger and chomped down on it before I realized that there was tooth. I felt around for her central incisors becuase the are the 2 that are "supposed" to come in next and felt nothing so I moved on. She did the same thing to Zig the next day and I pulled up her lip...sure enough her tooth had already broke through. We had lots of these faces over the weekend.

Happy Birthday!

One day late, my afternoon totally got away from me yesterday. But it can't go unrecognized! Happy birthday to my wonderful husband! It has been a remarkable ride watching you grow these past 10 years from a 22 year old "frat guy," to the amazing father you have become today. Emily and I are so lucky to have you in our lives and we look forward to celebrating many many many birthdays to come. I love you so much!

On the move...

The day has come. She has been so close to crawling for a few weeks, but I think she truly enjoyed teasing us for a while there. She would get into position and then do the lurch and roll. I mean, why crawl when you could roll and get there faster. Well now she has done it. She took more than 2 "steps" on Tuesday and there is no turning back now. This video is when she first did it at home, but she is getting faster by the second (especially when bribed to crawl with cameras, remotes, cell phones etc. Then she moves at lightning speed.)

On a side note, check out that mop. Her hair is growing at an alarming rate. Pretty soon we are going to have to trim those bangs out of her eyes. ::tears:. She is getting so big!

What do you get when you have a child that refuses to nap...

How is that for a blog title...Anyway, you get this.

I wish I had gotten some better pics, but Abby woke her up. She refused to nap all day and when we finally got her down, this is what I found when I checked on her!

A visit from Auntie Erin

So this post is way over due. My best friend Erin, who now lives in Phoenix, was in town for the 4th and I was so happy that we were able to get together when she was here. It had been a while since I saw her last. I think Em was only 2 months old then, so a lot has changed. Erin is expecting her first baby and get this, her due date is little miss Em's birthday! How funny! Anyway, we spent the afternoon chatting it up with Erin and her mom Joanee (aka my 2nd mom and the coolest lady you will ever meet. LOVE HER!). Emmy thought she hung the moon too. Auntie Grandma (aka Joan) got lots of smiles from Em.

Then on the 4th, we went up to Erin's parents house for a BBQ and Emily got to see Erin's horses. She had a great time. Here are a bunch of pictures that Erin sent over. (Don't ask why they aren't all centered. I swear I am not that technologically challenged. They just wouldn't center for some reason!)

We had such a great time with you and your family Erin! I love you!

Em's first plane ride

We went to Phoenix for the weekend to see my Sister. Emily did Ah.may.zing. She is seriously such a good baby. On the way out there, our flight was delayed over an hour. Emily liked people watching (she is so her mother's daughter) and was fully entertained until bed time hit. She took her bottle like a champ and fell asleep in my arms (something she hasn't really done since she was much smaller.) She means business at bed time. She takes a bottle and then wants to be laid down in her crib to go to sleep. It was so nice to snuggle with her though. We got on the plane and it was only about half way full so Em and I took a row to ourselves. I thought she would want to be laid down, so I put some blankets down and she only slept for a few minutes. She just could not get comfortable. So I scooped her back up and she fell fast asleep again. We got in pretty late, but we laid her down in the pack and play at my sister's house and she went down pretty easily. She had a little bit of a rough night, but it was some what expected since it was a new bed and a new environment. Zig and I are not used to sleeping in the same room as her and she is a noisy sleeper. Usually we hear her wake up a few times a night over the monitor as she drifts in and out of sleep cycles, but we didn't want her to wake anyone else up so we would get up a few times to rub her back or put her binky back in.

She spent the weekend hanging out with family, playing with Kiki and swimming. She adapted so well to the change in environment. She even learned to pull herself up into a sitting position. So cute! So now she rolls and sits up and rolls and sits up all day long. It has made nap time fun and we are going to have to lower the crib since she is not starting to try and pull herself up to standing. It is seriously crazy how fast she is learning new things! And she loved meeting all the new people. We hung out with my sister's fiance's family all weekend long and some of her friends and she loved all the attention. She smiled and laughed and was ::this close:: to crawling.

The trip home was just as easy. She took a bottle right when we got on the plane. Played for a little bit and the snuggled with me for the next hour home. She is just the best. It makes me so happy that she is so laid back and content with life. Makes me think we are doing something right. That's that for now!

7 Months

A little late, but better late than never. With the car buying last week, we didn't have a chance to take pictures till this weekend. Anyway, here are some stats about Emily.
*She has her two teeth that have offically broken through the gums. They seem to be taking FOREVER to come in fully though, but don't seem to be affecting Em's attitude all that much.
*She is a rolling maniac.
*She no longer sits up for long periods of time because she would rather explore the room by rolling across every square inch.
*She is almost crawling. She pulls to her hands and knees and will rock before face planting and rolling to her destination instead. She is so close though.
*She is eating better. Still prefers solid foods over purees, but overall is a very consistent eater.
*She eats 28oz a day. Usually no matter what. She somehow averages between 4 and 6 oz bottles, but always gets in 28oz.
*She is just now growing out of her 3-6 month cloths. They fit, but they are getting snug.
*She sleeps 12+ hours through the night still.
*She takes 2 long naps a day on the weekends. We are still working on longer naps at daycare, but she wants to be in on the action.
*She smiles all.the.time. Seriously, she is always smiling.
*She loves her puppies, and God bless Bodhi for being so patient with her, even when she has a giant wad of hair in her palms.
*She loves puffs and yogurt bites. She somehow manages to hide 10 in each palm, fooling us into thinking she needs more.
*Diaper changes are fun. (see first bullet above)
*She loves her new ride.
*Sippy cup=Emmy's BFF. She loves that thing and will wave her hands in excitement when it comes out.
*We put her to bed without a binky, but leave one in the crib in case she wakes up in the middle of the night, it's easy for Zig or I to find. Lately she has been finding it in the middle of the night and usually wakes up with it in. Smiles behind the binky are the best.

That's about it. She is so so much fun! She is the happiest, easy baby. We love her more than the world!

The new Zigmobile

Zig really wanted a new car, and really he needed a new car. His old one had lots of miles on it, and we honestly had been thinking for a long time about getting an SUV. His first choice was a Yukon Denali, but when Dad came over to visit, we tried pulling it in the garage to only be heart broken when it wouldn't fit. My mom had suggested we look at the Acadia. Still in the GM family and still a SUV that seats 7-8, we decided to give it a go. It is only a few inches shorter, but thinner than the Yukon. Anyway, after a lot of thinking and internal debating we settled on this beauty.

It is awesome! It has leather seats, captains chairs instead of a bench seat in the second row, can comfortably seat 7, navigation, xm radio, the works. This bad boy even has heated AND cooled seats. The best feature, integrated DVD with wireless headphones. Awesome! It will be great for when Em gets older and we take family road trips. It is going to be a great car! Congrats Zig on your first brank spanking new car!