Update

Hello!

I just wanted to post a quick update.

Right now I am 39 weeks pregnant. I am due in 5 days! I am making much more progress at this time than I did with Aubrey. Last week I was 1 cm dilated and I have been having contractions, though they are not regular. I have been having a HORRIBLE time sleeping. I just can't seem to shut off my mind so most nights I am not asleep until around 3am. I'm thinking I'll get more sleep once Baby comes! Baby is growing great... I keep saying "Baby" but really we have decided on a name... Cameron Alexander.  I have been measuring ahead by 2 weeks the past couple of months so the Doctors are certain he's going to be bigger than Aubrey, who was born at 8.6lb. I have an appointment later today and I am hoping they will induce me sooner. I don't care about the drugs I'm just ready to start this new chapter!

I stopped working a couple weeks ago. The hardest part was pulling Aubrey out of school. She LOVES it. I am thankful that she hasn't talked about her friends much since being home and I have done my best to keep her occupied. We signed up for MyGym classes, which she loves, and she will start preschool two days a week in the Fall. Once I'm ready to venture out regularly with two children we'll start doing some of the "Mommy & Me" groups in the area.

A Long Update

I say this every time that I stop writing for a long time but I realized how important these updates are. I love looking back and seeing the growth of Aubrey, especially since I am pregnant with baby #2! Here is an update on the family:

Baby #2 - Due April 5th

I am officially 29 weeks pregnant. I can't believe that I went almost the entire pregnancy without a single blog update. This pregnancy has been entirely different than Aubrey. The first trimester I was very sick and so tired. All around I have been so much tired with this pregnancy than with Aubs. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the fact I can't rest and sleep whenever I want because I have 2 year old that demands my attention.

Everything really does happen sooner. I started "showing" around 11 weeks and I started feeling the baby move at 17 weeks. At the doctor appointments everything is on track and my due date is April 5th 2015. It is a Boy and we have pretty much settled on the name Cameron. Except choosing a boys name was REALLY hard. I am in my third trimester now and I am still sick. I'm not sick with morning sickness, but its the heartburn that is killing me. Like with Aubrey, I have been gaining a lot, except this time the Doctors haven't been pressuring me about it.

Aubrey

Aubrey is now about 2 1/2 years old. She became potty trained shortly after Thanksgiving and is now in underwear though she still wears pull ups to sleep. Her personality in a nutshell is: independent, friendly and very stubborn. She is growing great but in in the lower percentile range for height and weight - she weighs about 28 lbs.

In March I will be leaving my job and staying at home for a few years. I plan on enrolling Aubrey in a preschool in September when she is three. She loves everything about school and I do not want to take her from that, so she will be going in the mornings 2 days a week. I'm nervous about staying home with 2 children but I know its whats best for my family at this moment.

 

(Almost) 22 months

Aubrey is just about 22 months now, I can't believe that she she will soon be 2 years old!

Her language has really taken off in the past month. We can now have little conversations with her, which makes it so much fun. Her sleeping is pretty fantastic, and I may be ruining it by transitioning her to a Toddler bed soon. Getting her to sleep is a little tough. She wants to be held, and rocked…. and rocked… and doesn't find joy in getting into her crib. I am pretty sure that once I introduce her "big girl bed" she will be so excited to sleep in it. Im confident she'll stay in it, but still worried because she's on the second floor. We shall see….!

We recently went to Disney World (Magic Kingdom) for the first time as a family. It was so hot, but so much fun. Aubrey loved the mini outdoor water park and watching all of the people, as I knew she would. I am so happy that we live so close to Orlando since there are so many things to do there as a family. We last only 4 hours but it was worth it. :) We probably won't go again until Fall or Winter. It's just not worth it in the heat… and I LOVE the heat.

OH! And did I mention in the last post that we got rid of her pacifier?! This was our second go around with it. The first time we were on day 6 of still crying for it, and she just happened to get sick… with a fever. I couldn't bare listening to her cry for her paci when sick so I gave in and gave it to her. The second time around was really so much easier, I knew that she was ready. I took it cold turkey (she only got it at sleep time anyway) and she was fine by day 3. I really think it comes down to whether the  child is simply ready to deal with out the pacifier. Life really became so much easier with out it as she turned to her "paci" for every sort of self soothing. For baby number 2 I will for sure get rid of it sooner rather than later.

Her personality traits are still pretty much the same since last time I wrote, expect I am glad to say that her tantrums have calmed a bit. She still gets super mad when she doesn't get her way, or if you don't follow through with that you say you will do (if you say you are going to give her a cracker, you better give her a cracker!) but she calms down a lot quicker. She really is a little person that you have to talk through about everything. Still pretty shy, but once she opens up she's social and loves to be in the middle of everything.

I will have to post photos from Disney in another post. I wanted to at least get this done since I have been so horrible at writing anything.

…soon!

We're Back!!

I haven't blogged in almost in almost 10 months!! I feel so guilty about not blogging when I started to read back on my past posts. It was so much fun to read back on Aubrey's growth and development that I decided I must start back!

So here goes!!

First off, a quick summary on Aubrey's milestones and moments in the past 10 months.

She started walking at almost 13 months, her first words were dada/mama/bubble/ball at around 14 months. We have blown her ENT doctor's mind with her language development. Growing up he kept saying her language would be delayed and to expect surgery at age 2. (Posterior tongue tie.. which is still a controversal "problem"). He is shocked and I can shove it in his face that her language is developmentally normal. All of those months of worrying worth nothing! Goes to show you can't ALWAYS trust doctors! We did end up getting tubes put in right before her 1st birthday. She was getting a lot of ear infections and failed her hearing test. 

She has never been a big napper. She has always slept about 11 hours at night and 1.5 during the day. IF that! She lost some weight when we switched her to whole milk and strictly table food at 12 months. She gained it back now and has remained around the 60th percentile for height and weight.

Anyway… Aubrey now.

20 months

Aubrey has a BIG personality. She is very shy at first but once she warms up she is a social butterfly and loves being the center of attention. She expects routine. If you do something different she will let you know. The tantrum phase started months ago and she does not give up!

She is a little late getting teeth- she is just now getting her molars. She is starting to form two word sentences… which is mostly things like "My ball", "My milk" or "No Buster" (our dog!) 

Aubs is on a minimal diary diet. She suffered a runny nose for MONTHS. I mean it literally would run and run and run. Finally I took her off whole milk (She drinks Almond) and started giving her soy or coconut yogurt. She eats cheese maybe once a week when its mac and cheese or a cheese stick. Two weeks after I eliminated dairy her runny nose stopped! I swear diary was the root to all of her problems, even though her allergy test was clean. To this day I think dairy is evil.

Something neat that I started for her….

I created a gmail account for her to have. We will give her the e-mail username/password to her when she is older so she will have personal messages to read back on from each of us, and an e-mail account with a username that is not taken!

…Till next time!

Aubrey is 10.5 Months!

I have been so bad about keeping up with this blog and I really feel bad! I really started this blog for Aubrey. I wanted something for her to look back on so she can learn about how she was when she was growing up, incase she is ever interested. I REALLY need to do better at updating this monthly.... sorry Aubrey!

Aubrey is just about 11 months now. She is always showing her diva personality and loves to explore. In new situations she is a little shy at first and doesn't like people to crowd her. She needs a couple minutes to be comfortable before coming out of her shell. Once she is comfortable though, she is so friendly and outgoing and loves to be the center of attention!

Food: She loves to eat! She still drinks quite a bit of formula.. about 30oz a day and eats baby food for breakfast, lunch (x2 jars), snack, and dinner. She also eats "people food"! She is actually starting to refuse her baby food because she would rather have the real thing. At home and at her school we give her almost anything. Some of her favorites are sausage, bananas, bagels, pancakes and vanilla wafers! Kesar and I told each other that we HAVE to eat more healthy because she is now eating everything we are.

Sleep: At school she only naps once a day for about an hour and a half. There is just so much going on there she doesn't want to nap. She makes up on the weekends and naps 2x a day for about 4 hours total. Her lack of napping at her school drives me nuts but she is really learning SO much there is makes up for it. She goes to bed around 7:30 (sometimes 6:30 on the weekends) and wakes up at 6:00, regardless of what time she goes to sleep.

Milestones: Aubrey loves standing. She really loves cruising between and around furniture. We got her a walker/push toy thing and she LOVES walking while pushing it around the house. She looks so proud as she does it! Sometimes she even looks at your and waves, "baba". She loves climbing up the stairs and our built in bookshelves. I even caught her trying to hang on her jumperoo the other day! She waves "goodbye" and "hello" and has started to say "baba" (byebye) when waving goodbye. She also repeats EVERYTHING you say. She calls Kesar "Dada" but we still don't know is she actually knows what she is saying. She recently has started doing hi fives! If you hold your hand up she hits your hand and then starts laughing hysterically! She is starting to have her own words for objects. She consistently calls the ball "ba"and the dog "da".  And I swear sometimes when you say "Hi" it sounds like she says "Hiii" right back!

We had her at the beach and pool and she loves both. She is defiantly a water baby! I finally got rid of her bathtub seat and she just flops like a fish all around the bathtub. She loves to lay on her stomach and kick her feet, she's always all over the place. People always comment on how "busy" she is.

This week my parents are moving down here. I am so excited for Aubrey to build a relationship with them. It's hard having a child and being so far away from family. Sometimes I feel bad because she won't have that "big family" experience. But then I remember the reasons why we moved down here and one of them is that we are able to give Aubrey everything and more. 

Happy 8 Months!

Happy 8 Months Aubrey!

I have been so behind in posting these blogs. Which is too bad because so much as happened in the past TWO months. She isn't quite 8 months yet but she's just a few days away so I decided to update anyway :) She went to the doc last week to check her ears (she's been sick forever and now has a nasty cough) and weighed 18 lb 9 oz.

This past month I went back to work. It was so hard to leave her the first couple of days but she goes to the same place I work so I am able to see her on my lunches. The whole SAHM thing wasn't working for me anymore and I am glad to be out of the house and busy. She has adjusted so great there. I think she is happy to be able to play with other babies and she has already learned SO much. 

Milestones: She started clapping over a month ago... and she does the army crawl all over the place. She is so fast and seems so content that I'm wondering if she will ever start actually crawling or skip straight to walking. She is able to push herself to a sitting position and can pull herself halfway up. Also, she has started babbling. She says, "Da, da, ra, ra, ba, ba" and every once and awhile I hear a "Ma, ma". This past weekend she cut her first tooth. It's one of her bottom ones. With it she got a terrible diaper rash and a fever. I swear its from the teeth, though people say it's never related. 

Food: She has been so hungry we started feeding her snacks along with her 3 meals a day. She usually eats some fruit but we have started introducing the puffs. After some tries, she finally is used to the texture and will put it (and keep it!) in her mouth. Since she is more than likely allergic to milk we probably will start feeding her soy yogurt soon. She gets an allergy test at 12 months, which I am so excited for. It will provide such a relief and end this guessing game we've been playing. (She seems to be sensitive to EVERYTHING!) 

Sleep: Even with sleeping a little less through the day because all of the commotion in child care, she still sleeps through the night, 7:30-6:30. I am so blessed to have such a good sleeper who can put herself to sleep! 

Happy 6 Months!

Happy 6 Months Aubrey!

WOW! Half a year old. I know I've said this probably every single post but TIME FLIES!  Aubrey is still doing great. She is fitting in size 9 shirts/onesies but wears size 12 pants! My little girl has thick thighs! I don't know how much she weights, I'm thinking 17/18 lbs but I find out for sure in 2 weeks. Diaper wise she is still in size 3 (could be size 4) but I found that if I put her in size 4 diapers at night they don't leak. I love Pampers during the day and Huggies for nights. I used to be an all Huggies Mom but as she grows the Pampers just fit better and I think stretch better as she moves.

Sleep wise she is doing so much better. She has dropped her evening nap and now goes down for bed at 6:30 and wakes at 6:30. She no longer wakes for a feeding at night so she sleeps straight through! She will wake up through out the night, but does a good job at putting herself back to sleep. Her naps are starting to fall into a pattern; she usually naps at 8:30, 11:30 and 2. They last 30 minutes to an hour but sometimes she will take a two hour nap at 2. 

This past week she has begun the steps to crawling! She pushes off the floor with her feet and pulls herself with her arms to get around. I'm excited to see if she'll be an army crawler or will eventually learn the traditional crawling method! She now sits very well unsupported.

Aubrey drinks about 24 oz a day since she's consistently been eating solids. She hardly drinks anything in the morning (which is weird since she goes all night without eating) but eats more in the afternoon/evening. She has been consistently eating an entire jar of stage 1 food for breakfast, lunch and dinner, so I am just starting to give her stage 2 food. She will take anywhere from 3-6 oz at a time. It's pretty all over the place but I'm not worried about it. 

This month we went to the Zoo with some friends and their baby. She is still too young to notice or care about the animals but she loved people watching and observing everything around her. She did notice the giraffe. Here at the Jacksonville Zoo they get really close because they feed them grass so she saw it and got SUPER excited.

Happy 5 Months!

Happy 5 Months Aubrey!

We had our 4 month check up late and know that almost 2 weeks ago she weighed 15 lbs 6 oz. Which was a little off than what I guessed! She is 25 1/4 long. Both are in the 70th something percentile. The doctor told us to go ahead and start introducing solids. So she tried some oatmeal this month and has been introduced to carrots, sweet potatoes, peas and applesauce. Her favorite is the sweet potato. She says "Mmmmm" when she eats it. I just tried peas today... she is not a fan!

This past month we accomplished a major milestone (as I like to call it). She now naps all by herself in her crib!!! Many of you know that this is a HUGE deal to me because up until a couple weeks ago she would only nap when being held. Every single time we put her down, she would wake up and cry and then the whole rocking/patting process of getting her to sleep would have to happen again. This was soooo incredibly annoying, especially in the middle of the night when we spent almost an hour sometimes getting her back to sleep. It became an even bigger issue when she started to roll over at night and would wake herself up. We had to rock her multiple times during the night to put her back to sleep, and hope she wouldn't wake up when we put her down. UGH!

Surprisingly, this was fairly easy to fix. It's almost as though one day it just "clicked" for her. One morning for a nap I decided to put her in her crib awake and see if she would fall asleep by herself. I knew that learning to sooth herself to sleep was the key to all the night time wakenings. She fussed for maybe 10 minutes and then she was out! OMG! I was so shocked. So all day I did that and after a week she pretty much got the hang of it. Sometimes for naps she needs to be patted on the back to fall asleep but she is becoming better every day at soothing herself to sleep. I seriously drove myself nuts with reading all of these books written by "experts" to help teach your baby to sleep better. They stressed me out more than anything else. I realized that all it takes is common sense and knowing YOUR child. The only good advice I got was this:

Rolling over, crawling, walking, etc. does not just happen over night. Babies practice these skills every day until they are mastered. Learning how to sooth oneself to sleep is also a skill that must be learned. How do you expect a baby to learn if they are always being rocked/held to sleep? Give your baby the chance to practice and learn!

Here is a silly little video of her in her jumperoo (you can ignore my over the top mommy voice :) --

 

Happy 4 Months Aubrey!

Happy 4 Month Birthday Aubrey!

Aubrey is now 4 months old! Actually, she was 4 months old 2 weeks ago but I just didn't get around to writing this post. We traveled to Virginia for the holidays and were there for almost 2 weeks. Aubrey got to meet more of her family! :) I was nervous because it would be the first time she would really be taken to a lot of places. For the most part she stays home most of the day, with only short trips every now and then. But to my surprise she did great being out and about almost all day. I am lucky that she is so adaptable. She also did great in the car. The trip was about 12 hours and she did amazing. Coming home we traveled during the day so she was up quite a bit but loved playing in her carseat.

She hasn't had her 4 month check up yet (we go next week) but I'm guessing she's about 16 lbs. She now fits perfectly into her 6 month clothes and we are starting to use size 3 diapers. We wouldn't have to switch to size 3 just yet but her thunder thighs make the size 2 just a tad bit small!

Her sleep schedule has gone haywire since the holidays. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that this past month she has learned to roll over (back to front... for some reason she hasn't figured out front to back yet) and will often roll over in the night and wake herself up. So every 2-3 hours she's up, on her belly, either fussing or playing around. I'm hoping this ends soon! I am also thinking that she went through another growth spurt (even though *they* say it happens at 3 months and then 6 months) since she has been eating like crazy and actually wanting to eat through out the night. Initially I was going to start sleep training her now but I think I am going to hold off for a little longer. I'm probably going to try a modified CIO method and want her to be more mature. 

She has also began to sit all by herself! If sitting unsupported on my bed she can last awhile before toppling over, on the floor she is still very wobbly and will last only a few minutes. 

This past week we introduced rice cereal. She's a natural. She swallows almost everything and takes the spoon very well. For now I am just giving it to her in the evenings since that is when she is the most hungry. I really have my eyes open for any allergies since we have been battling eczema and she is already on Soy. PS- Which by the way, Aveeno Baby lotion for eczema is AMAZING!

I hope everyone had a great Holiday and Happy New Year!

'Till next time!

<3

Happy 3 Months Aubrey!

Happy 3 Months Aubrey!

Aubrey is now 3 months old! She is growing and getting so big! I was just looking back on her newborn photos the other day and she has changed so much!

She loves to talk! Her new thing is screaming with excitement. She's discovered her feet so she's always playing with them. She has also mastered grabbing toys and loves to put them in her mouth (also her hands!) We are still working on her rolling over, Her personality is really starting to show. We've learned that she is a very adaptable baby that craves a schedule. She enjoys people and new surroundings but can be very sensitive.

Aubrey has been such a trooper with seeing doctors since she's been born. Early on we discovered she has moderate laryngomalacia and has been seeing a specialist for that. Laryngomalacia is a fairly common condition in infants where the cartilage surrounding the larynx is floppy, which results in noisy breathing. We noticed it in the hospital but the nurses attributed it to her still having amniotic fluid in her lungs from the birth. But when we got home it got worse and she started having a hard time eating. She often choked and made loud "seal like" sounds. Turns out she was having a hard time coordinating breathing and swallowing. She should grow out of it by the time she is one, we just need to monitor her closely when she eats. Now we have been seeing the pediatrician 'cause poor baby girl developed pretty bad reflux. Since she's been on the meds though she's eating again and back to her normal, happy self!

She now weighs 13lbs 12oz. We just started using size 2 diapers (I love Huggies!) and she can fit in most of her 6 month clothes.

Naps are still a mess. I can get her to nap occasionally in her bassinet but she will only nap 20 minutes. In my arms she will nap 1-2 hours. At night she is still a good sleeper, her first stretch is usually 8:00-5:00 or 6:00. After the holidays I plan on sleep training her and moving her to her own room and crib. No more sleeping in Mommy and Daddy's room! It is going to be a huge transition for all of us. My goal is to finally get her to sleep in her crib for ALL naps and maybe even fall asleep all by herself!

Hanging out in her bassinet after waking up.

She LOVES reading books. She gets so excited, yelling with excitement and hitting the book!