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It’s been hectic around here!

Mike and Audrey had their first weekend alone together. I was in a friend’s wedding on Halloween, and since Audrey hadn’t been feeling well, we decided it would be best if she and Mike stayed home. (In retrospect, it was definitely the right decision–the pastor’s kids both had swine flu, so I would have been a nervous wreck worrying about her!) While I was bridesmaid-ing (and later that night, breaking my ankle. Long story.), Mike and Audrey donned their costumes, and they and Aunt Christine handed out candy in our new neighborhood. Here they are, the Mad Hatter and the world’s cutest white rabbit:

I’m told they had trouble keeping her bunny feet on. There’s nothing Audrey hates more than a shoe…

Except maybe folk music.

Let me explain… Audrey continues to amaze us with new abilities every day. Her hand-eye coordination is really taking off. A few days ago, I was singing her to sleep (“Dream a Little Dream of Me”), and she took her pacifier out of her mouth and plugged it squarely in mine. I guess she’s not a fan of the Mamas and the Papas!

She’s working hard on building up to crawling. She can scoot around backwards pretty well, but she’s still working on forward crawling. She’s very determined, though, and spends at least a few hours every day in the “gym” my parents got her as an early Christmas present.

Wow. I guess crawling is hungry work. (Rest assured, we do feed her non-plastic products.)

We hope you all have a great weekend!

Audrey will be seven months old on Monday. SEVEN MONTHS.

This week’s update will be short and sweet. As you probably already know, we moved this Saturday. (Thank you, Mom, Dad, Kathy, & Christine for all your help!!!!) We don’t have internet yet, so I’m logged on to a random wireless network and it goes in and out. I have some adorable pictures, but unfortunately cannot find the cord that connects the camera to the computer. It’s packed in one of the many boxes still sitting in the garage.

Let’s see… in addition to the move, Audrey’s second bottom tooth is coming in. She’s got her first runny nose (I think it’s probably teething-related and not a cold). She ate bananas and pears with the mesh teether and LOVED them. She’s soooo close to crawling–she gets up on all fours and rocks back and forth like she’s ready to take off. She’s started saying ma-ma-ma-ma, which I would dearly love to believe is directed at me, but since she says it to Mike, the cats, and her toys, is probably just another developmental milestone. It’s been a busy week!

I took a picture with my phone and sent it to the computer to tide you over until next week, when we will have ADORABLE HALLOWEEN PICTURES. The quality isn’t great, but here she is!

She’s on our bed with her new favorite toy, the Fisher Price Little Snoopy that Kathy brought–it was Mike’s when he was little. She thinks it’s hilarious and will absolutely crack up when you pull it around for her. She also spends a lot of time trying to chew the green knob on his tail. Also pictured is the blue bulb I have to use to clear her nose. She’s not as big a fan of that.

Have a great weekend and happy Halloween!

It has been an epic week–EPIC–in both amazing and extraordinarily challenging ways. I’m tired and brain fried, so I’m just going to list it out for you…

1.  We closed on our house. That’s right, we are homeowners! We are thrilled, relieved, overwhelmed, excited… you know. Everything all at once. Here’s the new place:

Home Sweet Home!

2. Audrey learned to play peek-a-boo. It’s incredibly adorable, but I haven’t been able to capture it on film yet. To tide you over, here’s a photo of her “helping” Mike with his inordinately complicated electronics.

Hmm... red wire goes to the green wire, or is it blue?

3. Audrey is cutting her first tooth. It started as an innocuous bulge, then a tiny point broke through, and now there’s a little white line of EXCRUCIATING PAIN AND OVERWHELMING RAGE on her gums. It has not been traumatic for any of us at all.*

* Note: Did you ever see the movie Sideways, where the guy runs down the hill guzzling a bottle of wine and hides in the vineyard? I’m not saying we’d actually DO that, but it’s really freakin’ appealing.

We haven’t been able to capture a picture of the sadistic pointy bit of bone yet, but I did capture Audrey all tuckered out after a THREE-HOUR TOOTH-INDUCED SCREAMFEST.

Ah, they’re so cute when they’re sleeping…

Audrey made her first attempt at crawling this week! She got up on all fours, took approximately one “step”, and then collapsed screaming. Guess she’s not a fan just yet–I mean, why should she crawl when she can ride in style?

I tried to capture a picture of her sitting up. Fail. As soon as I backed away, she tried to look up at me, causing her to topple backwards into the couch. Thank goodness she crash landed into something padded! Here she is mid-topple.

She’s continuing to grow like a weed. I swear she’s six inches longer this week than she was last week. We had to raise her bouncer up a notch to keep her from launching herself into the stratosphere. Apparently we raised it one notch too high, because she needs a pillow booster to reach the floor.

Mike and I are going to do the final walkthrough on the house today, and hope to close tomorrow. Audrey’s pretty excited about having a new house!

OK, well maybe not, but Mike and I certainly are. Wish us luck and have a great weekend!

I cannot believe it’s already time for another post–this week has FLOWN by!

We hit a major milestone this week–a “make an entry in the baby book” milestone. Audrey can sit up all by herself. It kind of makes me want to cry–she looks so little sitting all by herself, it just kills me!

Even though she can sit, Audrey’s favorite things to do continue to be standing and bouncing. Any time you hold her standing up, she starts bouncing like Tigger. Here she preparing to attempt a daring leap from Mike’s lap:

Up, up, and away!

And by the way, how cute is the bum of that sleeper? Too cute!!

She’s also begun to take an interest in electronics, which both delights and terrifies Mike. (He already has plans to have her programming by the time she’s two.) She was “helping” him with his iPod Touch in this picture and had to be restrained…

My turn!

Now, Audrey is usually quite photogenic, but lately it’s been harder and harder to capture her cuteness on film (or, um… pixel). Exhibit A: This is Audrey with my lovely friend Amber.

Huh?

Sigh.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

It is simply not possible that Audrey will be 6 months old tomorrow. How did that happen? Isn’t she still a tiny little baby? It’s killing me!

She’s still doing well with eating–both formula and solid food. She definitely has her favorites–peaches, garden vegetables, sweet potatoes, prunes–and she will latch on to the spoon with both hands and try with every ounce of strength she has to DRAG it into her mouth. Then, once she’s attained her goal and gotten the spoonful of food, she blows joyous raspberries to celebrate her victory. It looks like a Jackson Pollock painting in here around feeding time.

She’s still working on cutting her first tooth. Her poor little gums are red and swollen, and sometimes she holds her head and just cries. I don’t know if it’s the warmth or what, but it seems to calm her down when I hold her head in my hands. But it looks kinda funny…

Whatever works, right? And check out those blue eyes!

Audrey and Mittens have started to take quite an interest in each other. He loves to curl up next to her on the couch and will sit patiently while she attempts to pet him. It’s pretty darn cute.

Wanna see my foot? It's a pretty nice foot.

Oh, you want me to pet you. OK!

She goes in tomorrow for her 6-month checkup (and vaccines–fun, fun), and I think the doctors will be blown away by how big she’s getting. She’s already in 9-month and 12-month clothes! Even Audrey looks surprised to be so big..

I'm as tall as my dad--weird!

That sleeper is still a little bit long, but I’m pretty sure her toes will be bursting through by the weekend…

Week 25 has been interesting. Audrey’s bottom gums are getting swollen and red, and she’s constantly rubbing at them or biting down on something. Sadly, she doesn’t have the hand-eye coordination to use a teething ring herself and she won’t really hold still long enough for us to give her one. Thankfully, she still sleeps through the night (11 hours last night!!), but her daytime napping is shot. I NEED THOSE NAPS. The best thing we can do seems to be to keep her distracted.

All these toys. Um... thanks, I guess.

Audrey has reached a frustrating (for both of us) point with swaddling. She still wants to be swaddled for sleep and sleeps better swaddled, but paradoxically, she fights it like you wouldn’t believe. It’s kind of like trying to bundle up a small Tasmanian devil. WHO’S TEETHING. She usually stays swaddled for about 5 minutes, then escapes and wakes herself up.

Exhibit A: This photo, taken 7 minutes after I put her down for a nap this morning. Not only has she escaped the swaddling blanket, but she has also turned herself completely upside down. And is displeased about it.

Naptime acrobatics

I have no doubt that she could beat Houdini hands-down in that whole straight-jacket escape shtick.

Have a great weekend!

Audrey has become, quite possibly, the wiggliest creature in the world. Wiggle wiggle wiggle. Riverdancing legs. Wiggly torso. Wildly waving arms. WIGGLY. Her wiggliness recently resulted in an economic disaster in our home. Mike, being the frugal soul that he is, buys TUBS of Desitin. I was changing Audrey’s diaper (always have her strapped in to prevent escape attempts) and she kicked the clean diaper onto the floor. I bent over to retrieve it. In the THIRTY SECONDS she was out of my sight, she sunk her foot into the tub of Desitin, ankle deep. She was quite proud of her accomplishment and proceeded to paint me, the wall, and the changing table before I could get control of the situation.

The artist at work

Many of you who’ve visited our apartment have seen the complex architectural construction over Audrey’s crib designed to keep the cats out and the baby in. It’s been very effective thus far. That is, as long as you close it. I put her down for a nap a few days ago leaving the crib unzipped because she was sleeping fitfully, and went to take a bathroom break. I came back to find that Audrey had a sleeping buddy.

Who me? I'm just a stuffed animal. Go on about your business.

Audrey and I went on the road again to visit her Grandma Schiller in PA (Grandpa Schiller is traveling for work). Here she is having some dinner with her Grandma…

Grandma Schiller and I also took her shopping yesterday and got her the CUTEST PAJAMAS IN THE WORLD.

Oh look! A little angel!

I think she's trying to fly...

But her wings are too small just yet...

Hope you all are doing well!

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for us! Our first two attempts to buy a home were thwarted by disturbing home inspections (mold and radon, respectively), so the last week has been a storm of househunting and realtor-wrangling. I think we visited about 12 homes on Saturday, and Audrey was a total rock star. She didn’t cry, didn’t fuss, didn’t give us any trouble at all. Best baby ever!

She’s getting more and more mobile. Pretty much every time I lay her down, she grabs her feet, pulls off her socks, rolls onto her tummy and starts trying to crawl away.

Sock thievery in progress

She’s also developed the somewhat startling ability to completely reverse the positions of her head and feet IN HER CRIB WHILE SWADDLED. I checked on her 5 minutes after laying her down in her Boppy and found her sound asleep like this:

In fact, her powers of escape have become so effective that I’ve started giving her baths in the kitchen sink instead of her baby bathtub, because she spends the whole time she’s IN the bathtub trying to throw herself OUT of the bathtub. But she likes the kitchen sink, so it’s all good…

Adorable round belly & chubby thigh alert!

She also helped her Dad with some work emails this week. She took time out from her hair appointment to help him with some tricky wording.

"C'mon, Dad... it should be WHOM, not WHO."

Hope you all are having a great week!