Ten Months Old

Weight: 17 lbs 11oz (Lower than I was hoping, but not surprising since she has had a harder time keeping food down lately. Still following her general curve though, so it's ok. She's not starving.)
Length: 28 inches
Head: 17.5 inches

Likes:
-Toys! Pretty much anything becomes a toy, but her specific favorites seem to be her wooden animal train, tambourine, piano, star stacker, blocks, balls, and anything fuzzy she can chew on.

-Turkey finger puppet board book. (She finds it hilarious. I'll hear her babbling in her playpen and look over to see her biting the turkey puppet and letting the book dangle out of her mouth. Thanks Anita! You had no idea it would be such a hit :)

-A tiny polka-dot fuzzy bunny (It came in the pocket of one of her pj's that she (sadly) has outgrown. It's seriously the size of my finger. She grabs it by a limb and waves it around like none other. Sometimes it sounds like she growls at it...)

-Mirrors. Looking in the mirror together is still one of her favorite things, and she has a little hand mirror that she also waves around with great enthusiasm.

-Clapping, without actually making a clapping sound, but still adorable.

-Waving. Not every time, but super cute when she does.

-Splashing in the tub (she still gets a stunned look when she gets water all up in her face)

-Looking inside the shade of the floor lamp by her crib. For a while she would just want to touch the shade, now she has to see what's inside and try to touch the bulb. It's a new part of our bedtime routine. Right after saying goodnight to the butterflies on her mobile.

found it!

-Finger food. Like she said in her Thanksgiving list, she is loving Cheerios, graham crackers, puffs, bread and whatever little chunks of food we might give her from our plate.

-Trying to get her socks off during a diaper change. It makes it difficult.

-Playing peek-a-boo by herself. This just started a couple days ago and when I realized what she was doing I laughed so hard. She holds a burp cloth up in front of her face and then whips it down really fast and smiles. Then repeat and repeat and repeat. So cute :)

-Talking! Listening to her babble while she plays puts the biggest smile on my face. Her favorite sounds are Dada (almost getting the connection!), NayNay, NehNeh, RaRa, and Aaaahhh (either as a low monotone or a loud sliding scale) Sometimes there is a sound that I would like to believe is close to MaMa :)

Dislikes:
-Getting her snotty nose or messy mouth wiped.

-Her breathing mask treatments. At first she impressed the nurses with how well she handled it, but now she is over it!

-Hot sweet potatoes on her fingers. Her first Thanksgiving dinner was ruined by this experience. As soon as we got her in her high chair she eagerly reached over to sample the food on my plate and it resulted in a painful shock that wasn't over until she was able to sleep it off. She was out the rest of the evening.

-Surprisingly, vomiting doesn't usually seem to bother her. She's done so much of it this month she must have gotten used to it.

Accomplishments:
-Crawling!!! Just kidding :( Apparently 7-10 months is the window for most kids to start crawling, so we have just skipped right past that with barely a wiggle. Well, she is actually making slight improvements this past week. Set a Cheerio out in front of her and she'll roll, twist, and contort in new ways to get to it, so maybe we're getting closer.

-Two teeth! Yep, they're officially in! The second one came in with much less fussing than the first, so I'm hoping the rest will follow suite.

Memories:
-First Halloween. My sweet little owl didn't get to show off her costume, but that's ok. You all know how adorable she was :)

-First Thanksgiving. We went over to our friends' house and it was delicious and wonderful. Apart from the sweet potato incident, that is, which took place before I was able to snap a family picture. Bummer.

-Two "sick baby" trips to the doctor's office :( Still haven't really figured out what's going on. We go back on Monday to see how the breathing treatments have helped. I think she's got a reflux issue on top of these colds that keep settling in her lungs. Poor girl.

-First black eye. The mark on her eyebrow is still there :(

-Discovering she is allergic to an antibiotic we tried to give her.  She broke out in hives so quickly and was a crying/coughing mess. Luckily she vomited it up or it could have been much worse. But, when an ER doctor (daddy) says, "We need to get her to the ER" you start panicking. I'm so, so grateful that he was home and that it ended up being ok. Now I know what medicines to stay away from!

-Family snuggle-time/play-time in bed when Dad wakes up from a post-night-shift-nap.  Her face seriously lights up when she hears his voice, and her excitement when we walk into the room is precious. It's been a rough month with his work schedule, so we soak up these moments together.

-Watching her play. The wildly waving arms, the crazy talking, the peek-a-boo, all of it. Priceless.

Check out my teeth!

This modeling thing is exhausting.
And what is that on my head?

Audrey's Thanksgiving List

I may be only ten months old (almost!), 

but I know that being thankful for all of God's blessings is important. 

And I've got a lot to be thankful for. 

For example...

I'm thankful for my lotion bottle.

(It's so much fun to play with. I even carry it around 

the house sometimes. My mom doesn't get it.)

 I'm thankful for my star stacker. 

(I'm getting really good at taking them off; 

putting them back on is more difficult...)

 I'm thankful for Cheerios,

 and graham crackers,

and cheesy puffs,

and bread,

 and, well, food in general!

 It all makes me pretty happy :)

I'm thankful for my family who loves me so much!

(My other grandparents are coming to visit in less than a week! 

I even will get to have my first all night slumber party with them 

while my parents are gone! I'm so excited!)

I'm thankful for cute hats and puffy coats.

 ...and my new furry boots!

I'm thankful that my mom cleans me up when this happens.

(and it's been happening a lot lately...)

I'm thankful that she still loves me when I do this to her at church.

 And this to the couch (several times).

(Not to mention the carpets and all of our clothes. 

I guess I'm living up to the name Baby Laundry.)

And even though I'm not a huge fan of my new mask, 

I'm thankful that it helps me breathe easier and feel better.

Oh, and I'm thankful for Christmas pj's! 

I've been told I've got a lot to look forward to :)

But in the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!! 

The Last Nine Days

Happy Halloween (one day late) 

from Audrey the owl! 

Our Halloween didn't exactly end up being one that I would have pictured months ago. Actually, this whole past week isn't one that I would have planned. My poor little owl has had a rough go of it lately. For starters, she got sick again. She was sick at the beginning of the month, and apparently that wasn't good enough. It came back in a big way right after my aunt and uncle left last Tuesday. She was coughing, sneezing, vomiting, and purring with all the phlegm in her throat. Poor girl. One night I had to change her into new pjs 4 times because she kept vomiting all over herself (and me too. good times.) She's on the mend now and is coughing less and keeping down more food. Thanks you, Lord. A sick baby breaks a mama's heart. The only plus side to having a sick babe is that all she wants to do is sleep. While her little body worked on healing itself with hours of napping I got to read a book, make (and eat!) pumpkin bread, exercise (thanks to the pumpkin bread), and crank out at least ten mega-batches of baby food to store in the freezer. I think we're set for months. 

feeling yucky

***

And, in case being sick wasn't enough, On Sunday night I decided to give her a black eye. For 18 months my worst fear has been to fall down the stairs while carrying Audrey (either in my womb or in my arms), and guess what...it happened. (Seriously, who falls down the stairs?! Have I ever fallen down the stairs before? I think I jinxed myself that morning by saying to a friend, whose daughter fell and knocked out a tooth, that I was glad Audrey's still not mobile so I don't have to worry about all that yet. Six hours later, I'm worrying about "all that.") 

It was by far the scariest mom-moment I've had. (You better believe I now go down one at a time like a toddler.) For my own sake, I won't rehash the details, let's just say we survived. And I was able to do the only two things that crossed my mind as I tumbled: "don't drop her! don't land on her!" My head and tailbone suffered, but her little noggin got the worst bump. I can't even tell you how many times I have thanked God that Ryan was home. Dr. Dad to the rescue. He made sure both of his patients were ok (physically and emotionally) and we carefully monitored Audrey over the next couple days. She rocked the Quasimodo look for a while, and now that the swelling has mostly gone down she's sporting a lovely shade of pea green eye-shadow under her purple bruised eyebrow. I'm glad it's beanie weather. Today at the grocery store she got so many compliments on how cute she is that I think I can stop fearing people turning me in for child abuse. That is, as long as the beanie is on, and pulled down low...

Monday morning, still smiling!

***

Then Monday night hurricane Sandy decided to pay a visit. The damage to our area was minimal (again, thank you God!), but we did lose power for almost 48 hours. Audrey didn't care about the lights (flashlights, candles, and the cozy fire are quite fascinating), but she didn't seem to be a huge fan the cold. It got down to 57 in our house, so she stayed quite bundled in her little parka, looking like a pink marshmallow. She slept in her swing for a cozier little nest and thankfully stayed pretty toasty under her blankets. We ended up escaping to a friend's house yesterday for warmth/coffee/shower and then were thrilled to get our power back last night. 

snug as a bug in a rug

***

So yeah, no Halloween festivities happened yesterday. And we were Scrooges last Saturday night when our neighborhood trick-or-treated and just set out a bowl of candy--- it disappeared rapidly. Our sick babe was already in bed, and we didn't want to worry about the doorbell. Well, that was our excuse anyway. Really, she would have slept through a cannon going off in our front yard; we just couldn't muster up enough Halloween cheer. Last year we were turned off by all the punk teenagers. They were probably the ones responsible for depleting our candy bowl/gold-mine this time. 

***

So, she's been sick, wounded, and cold this week, why not add teething to the list? We've been convinced she's teething since she was four months old. Five months later we are finally getting a glimpse of two tiny white dots that should eventually emerge as her bottom teeth. How long will that actually take? Who knows. In the meantime, that's my answer for any foul mood she has (which happened to be the majority of the day today. Except of course when flirting with people in the grocery store. She's such a happy shopper. It makes life so much easier.) 

***

With the teething milestone in progress I feel renewed energy for helping her check crawling off her to-do list. She's still not that into it. This is the best we've done:

I'll go ahead and leave you with another shot of my cutie-pie baby owl. Maybe next Halloween we'll get to do more than take a picture on the kitchen floor. But in the end, that's all you really need for a first Halloween---a cute picture for the scrapbook. Done :) 

Late addition:
Had I hung on a couple more days I could have added Audrey's first trip to the emergency room to the list of recent woes. She wasn't getting any healthier so we gave her an antibiotic, only to discover that she was super allergic. She broke out in hives almost immediately, but since she was already so wheezy we couldn't tell if it was affecting her airway. Better safe than sorry. We rushed her to the hospital with her crying and me worrying the whole way. Having an ER doctor for a dad proved handy as we got her in to see the attending of his choice without having to wait at all. It was determined that her airway was ok and Benedryl should do the trick. She got better quickly and now we have a good supply of Benedryl should she prove to be allergic to anything else.