Sunday, June 22, 2008

5 Months

Autumn,
In the past month you have accomplished many new and amazing things. We are constantly in awe of you and find us asking ourselves how in the world we got to this place.

Here are some of the things you have accomplished in the past month:

Sitting up unassisted! One day you couldn't do it and the next day you could!

Taking a round trip flight to visit your Grandparents. Thank goodness you slept most of the way!


Sleeping through the night. While we have some nights where you are hard to put down, we haven't been up with you at 3am for awhile.

Waking up happy to see us in the morning and after naps



Going swimming for the first time



Successfully eating rice cereal



Gaining 3 lbs in 4 weeks! You went from the 10-25 percentile to the 50-75 percentile!


Going to visit Daddy at work for the first time and peeing on him!

Meeting your two cousins, Jacob and Sophia, and Aunt Kate and Uncle Matt for the first time


Finally finding your toes and your tongue. You've had so many other things to occupy your interests that the simple things have gone unnoticed.

Making your Momma and Daddy so happy that you were chosen to be our daughter.

People always want to stop and talk with you and they tell you how alert you are. Everyone has been amazed at that since the day you were born. You have to take everything in around you and you rarely have time to take naps (30 min stretches). In the past few weeks you've started to be less gregarious around strangers. I don't think it's because you're scared of them, its just that they have new faces and you feel like you have to take in every detail.

When you are at home you are just a ball of laughs and giggles. Its very easy to get you to smile and your eyes crinkle up and you show off that crooked smile that you got from your Momma. You are still very active with your body, though much less now that you have so much control over it. We tell you that you don't need to karate chop everything with your arms, but you don't believe us!

You do very well at restaurants. If you get fussy we can hold you while we eat and you just look around at your surroundings. Just today at Jason's Deli you were quite entertaining. It seems that your interest in what we are eating has just kicked in and we had to watch where those little hands went!

The car rides are still a bit of a problem, unless you fall asleep. We don't have far to go usually, but you're more than ready to get there as soon as you are put in the carrier. I spend a lot of time reaching back to console you.

I think that's all that I can think of right now. Just to put everything into perspective:

Here is what was on our minds this week a year ago:

Here is what was on our minds this week 2 years ago:

Love,


Momma and Daddy

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Rice Cereal, 2nd Attempt




We made another attempt with the spoon. Its amazing that she actually figured out what to do with it in a month when we haven't even really shown her one with any purpose but feeding ourselves. I had planned to actively show her a spoon and what to do with it but never got around to it. She was actually reaching for the spoon. Although once she got the cereal in her mouth she wasn't too pleased with it, she was willing to let the next spoonful in her mouth! She does still push some of it out with her tongue, but what doesn't end up on her face she does swallow. This was on Monday the 16th and we have given it to her the last three nights.



Rice Cereal, 2nd Attempt from Deb on Vimeo.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Pool Pictures


Autumn swam for the first time on her first Father's Day! She mostly liked it. We were only in it for about 15 min because it was getting close to her next feeding, so she started getting a little grumpy in the end. She splashed in the water like she does in the bath. Plus, the water was warm, so it wasn’t a shock to her body. And we went after the sun had gone down behind some trees so it wasn't sunny. I'm looking forward to taking her to the pool in our neighborhood. And, yes, the two faceless pasty bodies that are holding that little girl are her parents. I guess it says something about how little sun we've gotten that our skin is the same color as a baby's.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Autumn's Boat


We had to get Autumn a new gadget for the bath. We had been using a bath pillow but on Monday she started refusing to lay on it. Richard called her a crocodile because she was desperately trying to roll over in the water. I just couldn't control her at all (she's very strong). It was taking both of us to bathe her. So I got this "boat" for her. She loves it! I'm thinking we might need to get another one that can stay dry so she can sit in it all day long!




Autumn's Boat from Deb on Vimeo.




Autumn's Boat, Part II from Deb on Vimeo.
If you click on the "Deb" right above this it will take you to the Vimeo site and you can see two other videos from June 11 where she is "still working on it".

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Autumn Takes a Tumble



Autumn Takes a Tumble from Deb on Vimeo.

Autumn is starting to sit up with little help for short periods of time. It's amazing. My parents were here a few days ago, and on Sunday it didn't seem like she was anywhere near ready for such things. This morning she was sitting on my lap and actually stabilizing herself. These images are from the 9th.







I swear that she is also starting to push her behind up in the air like she is trying to get her knees underneath her. That doesn't happen all the time, but there are times when I think, "Oh my gosh! Don't start crawling yet! You're still my newborn!"

Sleeping is Serious Business!

This morning I was trying to get Autumn back to sleep after her morning feeding, but she really wasn't in the mood. It took about 10 minutes for her to finally calm down, then her eyes started drooping, and finally she stopping doing her patented "wait, I'm falling asleep, we can't have that" full body wiggles. I carefully set her down in the pack'n'play, trying to be as gentle as possible. Unfortunately as soon as she touched the bed, her eyes pop open, her back arches, her hands rub her cheeks, and she gets the biggest grin on her face.

I point at her sternly and say "This is no laughing matter!" She thought that was really funny.

I pick her up and start to rock and bounce her back to sleep. Once again, eyes droop, wiggles cease, and carefully she goes into the pack'n'play. And once again, eyes open, back arches, hands rub, and mouth grins.

"Look, this is serious business! You need to go back to sleep!" She wriggled around in the bed a few times to show me how much respect she has for my authority. Yup, definitely her mother's daughter. I was beginning to suspect that she wasn't going back to sleep but the third time was the charm.

Added by Deb:
Well, she woke up at 8 and you left at 7:50, so there wasn't much business being done!

Oh, and I heard you through the monitor. You weren't as stern as you thought you were. I heard you laughing with her! She's hard to resist though, I'll give you that!

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Growth Spurt?

Or, Who Is This Baby, Part 2.

She went down last night at 9:30. We were going to give her a bath around 9, but at 8:15 she was just getting fussy. So we gave her a bath early. I was surprised that she went down as easily as she did and expected to hear from her again in 30 minutes, tops. We heard some peeps and some whines, but she never fully woke up.

When Richard came to bed she was getting fairly vocal. I asked if he was going to go take care of her and in true Richard fashion he told me to just let her be and see if she would calm herself down. She must have! Because she slept until 8:15! THIS MORNING! I heard her stirring a few times around 7, but she never fully woke up. I finally got up at 7:50 because I was having dreams that everyone I knew was supposed to be nursed by me (a signal that it was way past time for Autumn to eat!) and I wanted to stop having those dreams! I peeked in on her and she was at the side of the pack 'n' play on her tummy. She moved her foot so I knew she was okay. Richard said that he was starting to worry as well and had already checked in on her.

When she woke up Richard was still home because some work things were having problems. He was able to change her and I was able to get breakfast before we nursed and she was just a happy baby.

She played for about an hour and then started getting fussy so I picked her up and walked around with her and SHE FELL ASLEEP! At 10:00!

It's now 10:15 and I know that as soon as I start getting into something productive she'll wake up, so for now I'm just going to waste time on my computer!

*Edited to add* I got up to take care of some things at 10:30 and she woke up 2 minutes into it!

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Christmas in June

I'm usually the one who walks around with Autumn at bedtime so she'll go to sleep. I've found that humming often helps keep her calm (or at least helps pass the time while walking around in the dark). Most of the time I just make up a little tune, although sometimes I can tell I'm humming little bits of a song I know. So last night, I start walking around humming and start off some little ditty which eventually turns into four lines of a song. I've heard the song before but I can't remember what it is or where I heard it. I just keep repeating it over and over.

Deb comes by and says, "Christmas carol."

"Wha?"

"You're humming a Christmas carol."

"I am?"

She then sings my humming with the actual words (which I still can't remember the song since I slept since then). Yup, Christmas carol.

"It works," I say as I keep walking in the dark.

Monday, June 2, 2008

The Traveler, Part 2


While at the grandparents house we introduced Autumn to a lot of my parent's friends. We joked that she was going visitin' or that her dance card was full. We dragged her to and fro and had people come to her. She was a popular baby! Everyone oh'd and ah'd over her (as well they should!) and she ate up the attention.

At her last pediatrician visit the doctor mentioned that we could try starting her on rice cereal. I know that some doctors say wait until 6 months, but she said that some babies are ready earlier. Her thought was that if she knows what to do with rice cereal on a spoon, then she is ready. If not, wait a week and try again until she is. Well, we tried rice cereal on a spoon and she DID NOT like it!

Here she is looking at it with disgust.

Here she is showing her utter disdain for rice cereal as I am concentrating very hard on shoving it into her mouth!


I repeat, rice cereal is a no go! We tried it again a few days later and got the same reaction. So we'll try again in a week or so. We went out and bought a high chair, so at least we'll have a place to put her when we try again.

We flew back home on Tuesday, May 27th. We had another crisis, of course. There were big thunderstorms in the area that morning and it caused chaos at the airport. Our flight originally was delayed an hour, but by the time we got there it had been delayed from 7:00 to 10:00. I couldn't imagine spending 2 hours in an airport with a baby. Luckily there was another flight that had a bunch of empty seats. I had this lady helping me and looking after us so we could get onto the standby flight. When I got up to the ticket counter I said that I had two bags checked, was I a lost cause? She said she could try. So she got on the radio and said that she had a favor for a “lady with a baby” and could they get my bags off the other flight. She said, “Got ‘em? Good.” Then she said, “They got ‘em, Hon, they SHOULD be on this flight.” Wait? Should? Oh well if they didn’t arrive at least we would be in Houston and Richard could help look after her while we waited on the bags. The helpful lady ended up sitting in front of me and kept looking behind asking if I needed anything. She was really nice. Autumn fell asleep about 5 min before takeoff and slept until about 2 min before touchdown. She kept her head on my shoulder during the landing and never uttered a peep. She was marvelous! And she was so happy to see her Daddy!

Then Autumn screamed the entire 30 min ride home. Fun. She slept for 6 hours straight though.

All in all, I'd say her first airplane trip was a successful one. I think I learned what I need to take and what can be left behind. Especially my carry on bag. Although, just because she didn't need anything from it this time, that doesn't mean she won't need it the next trip!