Thursday, June 25, 2009

Quick Growth Update

Anne went to the doc on Monday to have a rash looked at, so she got weighed on the floor scale. At almost 21 months she's 29.4 lbs, and when Sam measured her height at home he logged 33.25 inches.

Baby check this morning--all is well. It cracks me up how the doctor can feel my belly for 2 seconds and say "Okay, this is his head, this is his butt." How can you tell?!?! How does it not just feel like a jellyfish in there?

Anne and I went to the pool yesterday with Auntie Sarah and had a good time. I had to laugh at how tired Anne was on the way home, and then how much dinner she ate. Swimming tires you out! Pictures to come soon.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

So big

Anne was looking especially huge and grown-up in the high chair yesterday, so I had to take a few pictures. She was having strawberries in yogurt with a graham cracker and did very well with her spoon.


Maybe it's just me, but when I think of a "baby" in a high chair, I think of their stubby legs sticking straight out the bottom, not a set of long legs like these!

And yes, I let her eat with no pants on. It's a lazy, no-working kind of summer :)

Monday, June 22, 2009

Tally: One

That is 1, count 'em, 1 night she went to bed, stayed in bed, and slept in bed all night!

And then we had a hysterical screaming fit when it was naptime today. Go figure.

I woke up 3 times in the night, and none of those times involved a little shadow standing in our doorway. Yay, Annie!

And "yay" to Sam and Karl, who put our air conditioner in the window yesterday. Nice and cool in here now. What a pair of good fathers to work on Father's Day...

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Bed update

Last night she went down and did not get up, which was a first. I was thrilled.

That is, until 2:45, when she woke up and we went back and forth to her bed about 20 times for the next 2 hours. I was very good about not talking to her much or cuddling her, and I even made her walk back to bed by herself--I wasn't going to carry her (not like I really can!) So two hours of getting up every 7 minutes or so to walk her back to bed. No fun. We're both quite crabby today.

She got up 3 times before settling down for her nap this afternoon. It is very back-and-forth, it seems. She'll lay down just fine one day, but the next she has to get up. What's the deal?

I'm sure you're tired of reading this, but it is the first thing that has been really challenging for us. For the most part she is an easy-going girl who does what we ask. This stubbornness is a newly discovered part of her personality. And it is the first thing I am really second-guessing. All of the crying and hard nights make me think "She's not ready. We're pushing this too hard." and then I think "You're being weak! Not everything is going to be easy." So conflicted!

There was much praying last night, mostly for patience. I HATE not sleeping and am having a tough enough time doing it with a 4 lb friend in my belly, so to wake me multiple times in a night is a good way to incur some wrath. So there was a lot of "God, just help me be nice." and "God, keep me calm." Again, I'm so conflicted--I want to rock her to sleep and I want to spank her at the same time! I know she's not being naughty, but I know she can understand the command "Stay in your bed."

She pulled her first "diversion tactic" last night by proclaiming herself "Poopy wet" every time we went back to bed. I guess she thought a diaper change would be fun. I only gave in twice...

And so, we must soldier on. No point in putting her back in the crib now; we're in too deep. I told Sam that since I went solo last night, he gets tonight--and I'm sleeping far away on the couch :) Somehow I doubt that's how it is going to play out.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Humid much?

Anne's hair has gone super-curly these last two days. It is MUGGY and we can tell!


She won't be still long enough for a decent picture, so this is what you get.

She slept in bed last night from 8:15-5:15, which was pretty good. The bummer thing is that once she's up, she's up. As a baby it was very cute and endearing that she would wake up in such a happy mood--now it is like "don't you want to sleep for a while longer?" But it was progress from the night before, and her nap today went well, also (12:20-2:20).

Cute thing she does now: she counts. It is hilarious. She either says "1, 2, 3, 2!" or she counts in order with you: one, two, tee, fouh, five, seex, sennen, eight, nine!" Too funny.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Oh, what a night...

Her name is Anne. She is the crusher of dreams.

That may be a bit dramatic, but we had a topsy-turvy night last night and I'm crabby.

Wednesday, 11:00
Anne and I have a brief talk in her bedroom. It goes something like this:
"You are big now. Big girls sleep in a bed. Babies sleep in a crib."
"Let's say 'All done!' to your crib."

Wednesday, 12:20
The child is rubbing her eyes and sucking her thumb, so I lay her down in the bed. I tell her good-night, we pray, and she goes right to sleep. I do a happy dance (silently) as I enjoy her naptime. She slept until 2:40, at which time she came sauntering out to the couch to find me and ask for milk.

Wednesday, 8:45
After a bath, milk, stories, and songs, we lay her down in bed again. She doesn't cry, and after I say "Amen" I am touched when she asks "More Jesus?" Awww...

8:50
Whoop, she's out of bed. Back in she goes. Tears this time.

8:55
One more visit to the living room. Back in bed, a brief snuggle, and a reminder to "Stay in your bed." It works. She stays, she sleeps. There is much rejoicing.

Thursday, 3:15 am
My child is toddling her way to me. I can hear her. I am cursing in my head. I am also already grumpy because it is hot in our house and someone is sleeping too close to me (in my totally-not-crazy prengnant opinion). I take Anne back to her room, rock her for a minute, and then tuck her back in. I return to my bed at 3:25 and sit there until 3:30, making sure she is not getting up again. Confident she is staying put, I lay down but do not sleep (hot! too close! stop snoring!)

3:30 am
She's back! Back we go. No tears, but she's wide awake. Ready to play and be silly. Not good.

3:45 am
She lays in bed just long enough to make you think she's asleep, and then she's pulls the rug out from under you. Dasher of hopes, she is! This time I jab Sam and tell him he's on-duty. He's thrilled, as you can imagine.

4:00 am
Repeat, with Sam doing the dirty work again. Like it matters--I'm still awake.

4:15 am
Craziness sets in and we let Anne into our bed. I don't know why we do this, because she doesn't like our bed. Sleeping with us is not her goal. Regardless, we're both bleary-eyed now and at least if she's between us we can kind of sleep while she rolls around and jabs us in the eyes saying "I wake up!"

5:00 am
Child is finally asleep. I'm on the edge of the mattress and have no blankets. (See, now I want blankets...go figure...)

7:30 am
Child awakes! Sam is up for work, I am begging for a magical nanny to show up at my door so I can sleep. That nanny arrives in the form of Wonder Pets on our TV. Anne was quite happy to sit there watching that while I dozed for a few more minutes.

To summarize: Not a good first night in the bed (repeated first night; we tried this a while back, remember?). Now she knows she can come to our room and watch TV if she doesn't want to sleep. Great. Annie: 1, Parents: 0. I'm starting to wonder if Baby can sleep in the playpen for a year and Anne can sleep in the crib and no one needs to sleep in the toddler bed...or we put her brother right in the bed and bypass the crib all together ;)

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

There are no words

For every day of cute ringlets and pigtails, there are days like this:

Post-nap, post-pigtail poof!

Monday, June 15, 2009

Poached Pictures

Aah, Facebook friends-of-friends. Thanks for some more wedding pictures from the last 3 weeks.

Erin and Todd at the end of their ceremony. His grin cracks me up--he was so nervous and trying not to cry--at the end he was happy!
Will singing at the beginning. So cute.

Here's Sarah getting funky at her wedding on Saturday. You can see what her dress looked like, at least.
With the Dan-Man. Also so very happy.
I am currently nursing a non-alcoholic wedding hangover. So very tired! Want to sleep all the time...

Thursday, June 11, 2009

What have we been doing?

Well, school ended and we've been fairly busy ever since. I had a good time with the girls celebrating Sarah's upcoming wedding. I only cried a little bit when I left Anne and managed to relax and enjoy dinner and the "after party," so to speak. Here's a chunk of the guests and the bride-to-be after dinner.Random thoughts:
1. Apparently the trend in bachelorette parties is for the guests to wear black and the bride to wear white. I had no idea, but that's what we did. Then we saw another party doing the exact same thing at the same restaurant, and then I saw pictures of a friend who attended a similar party the weekend before!
2. I never thought I would use the phrase "maternity Bermuda shorts" but that's what I was wearing. Man, I hate maternity clothes. So God-awful.

So I came home on Saturday and we spent Sunday together as a family. We did some shopping in Rochester and hit Sam's Club for a brick of Ramen noodles and a dozen rolls of paper towels (among other things).

Monday Sam played in a golf tournament, so Annie and I entertained each other. We tried, anyway. Rainy days and one-year-olds are not the best combination.

Tuesday was another family day, and by 2:00 Sam and I were looking at each other saying "I'm bored!" It was rainy again and we had nothing planned, so we just kind of moped around. No fun. We did have a softball game to entertain us that night--and Sam hit his second home run of the season! Definitely a result of all those afternoons in the weight room :)

Today I had a few things to look forward to--a doctor's appointment and a night out. We had a quick check-in with the doc this morning. Annie tagged along, so I was glad it was a brief visit. Baby Boy is fine, and I laughed after she checked his heartbeat, since he kicked back right where she had been pressing with the Doppler. Almost like he was saying "Hey, get outta here!" This evening Anne and I had a date to see some old college friends. There were 28 girls who lived on our freshman-dorm floor together, and we had an impromptu reunion. It was a small gathering, but it was nice to see some old friends again, especially those who brought their babies, too! I never would have guessed we would be talking "baby stuff" all these years later, but it happened.

Anne Update:
New things she says this week

"I honkee" (I'm hungry)

"Yep"

"Okay!" (instead of please, as in "Would you like more milk?" "Okay!")

What does a donkey say? "Hee honk!"

"I have"

"Come" (as in "Come, daddy." or "Come, puppy")

Talking to the dog: "Hi, boy!" "Up here, puppy" "Enough!"

"Almost" (she knows when we are close to home and says "Ah-mose" as we get closer)

"Cheeps" (chips)

"Peen butter" (peanut butter)

She's also quite loud. She just talks loudly. And yells things. Ironic that the librarian's child has more of a swim-coach voice...we'll pull into the driveway and she yells "There it is!!! A house!!!" And I'm thinking "Why are you shouting at me?!?!" We must work on volume control.

Up next: Wedding this weekend (Mom AND Dad away for the night!), then we get serious about Anne sleeping in her toddler bed. It must be done!

Thursday, June 4, 2009

20 months!

Last June--8 months old, bald as can be.
She's not officially 20 months until tomorrow, but I may not have time for a blog post tomorrow. Twenty months is a lot of months! We've definitely started saying "one and a half" when asked how old she is. In 2 more months we'll say "almost 2"

Mommy milestone this weekend: first night away from baby! It's true, I've spent every night of the last 20 months with my kiddo. Now I am breaking away for a night of fun with my college friends as we celebrate Sarah's impending wedding. Sam and I will have our first night away TOGETHER next weekend when we go to the actual wedding. Thanks, Nana, for being our overnight babysitter! We'll know she's in good hands while we're away. Not that I won't check-in by text 15 times.... :)

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Last one for today

Because it is too funny not to share...

More wedding

The big sister/Matron of Honor arrives!Erin and "other Erin". Seriously, they have the same name. Erin is doing Erin's makeup.
The bouquet. Roses, tulips, and purple things. Notice her nice manicure...
The bridesmaids: Sarah, Stefanie, Corrie, and Erin. My bridesmaids were a different set of Sarah, Stephanie, Erin, and Ginger. Same names abound--we need more creatively named friends. You can see the cute dresses the other girls had--no pregnancy dress for them!
My favorite ladies.

Anne the Ham



A little video of Anne that Erin took (where was I?) darting in and out of the church. Like I said below, she was very "look at me!" the entire evening. Wonder who she gets that from...?

A Couple to Get You Started

Wedding pictures can be slow in arriving, so here are a few to get you by. There are more on Facebook, but I didn't swap them over last night (and there's NO FACEBOOK at school, so quit asking me, kids!)

Here's Anne at the rehearsal. She was a total ham the entire time. She would dash down the aisle, then turn around and laugh and spin and wave to everyone. Just totally "look at me, look at me!" It was hilarious, to me. Maybe some other people were bothered by it...
The beautiful bride. And those perfectly straight teeth I will be forever jealous of.
Annie and Sam arriving for pictures. Due to nap schedules and our desire to keep her ON a schedule, we weren't sure if Anne would make it to the photo shoot, but she did. Poor Sam probably thought I was treating him like an idiot--I left a detailed list of what to dress her in and what to put in the diaper bag so that she would be ready for the day but not get rumpled in the car. Having a toddler in a wedding is a lot to plan, for sure.
Again, it was a great day and everything went extremely well. All participants were happy and relaxed and we enjoyed having our whole family together for the first time in a while.

Erin and Todd are relaxing in Breckenridge right now, awaiting their reception in Colorado Springs on Saturday. More party! More gifts! The wedding that went on forever! After a busy year of school and planning, I think they deserve it.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Much to come

We had a wonderful weekend with Erin's wedding--everything was just perfect, and she and Todd are quite happy. I have lots of stories and will soon have lots of pictures, so stay tuned.

Sam and I also attended a very emotional funeral yesterday, and there are many things to say about that, too. I need to get my thoughts in order, first.

Four days of work left! Then I'm out of here until mid-October...wow, that's a long time.

I'll leave you with Annie--she's been copying EVERYTHING we say lately, and this morning she heard the dog whining in his kennel and said "KeeKee, 'nuf! Git down!" That translates to "Mikey, that's enough. Get down." Apparently we tell him to "get down" quite often (get off the bed, get off the couch, get off my lap, etc.) I better stop muttering "stupid dog" under my breath, lest I hear it come out of her little mouth!