Company

Audrey has had a busy couple of days! On Wednesday, Aunt KK came in to town, and came over to play with Grammy.

Audrey checks out the nesting bowls Aunt KK has while Grammy takes a picture with her iPhone

Aunt KK is stealing Audrey's sugar!

This orange slice is juicy and nice...

Audrey got to hang out with Pappy on Thursday and Grammy, Aunt KK, and Gramps on Thursday evening, too, and she was totally tuckered out at the end of the day!

Today (Friday), Audrey had a play-date with Lynnde Williams, and she had a great time!

Audrey shares her toys and Lynnde shares her sippy-cup

Lynnde had a lot of stories to tell Audrey

Audrey and Lynnde play catch

Audrey admires Lynnde's shoes (she's truly my kiddo!)

Lynnde helps Audrey pick up her shapes

The girls check out the activity thingies on Audrey's play saucer


The afternoon concluded with Audrey showing Lynnde the dog in the backyard.

After playtime, Audrey went down for her nap and slept the whole 2 hours! What a great way to end such a busy week!

Sleep!

Today has been a frustrating day of not sleeping. I'm not sure why. This morning Audrey went down for her morning nap at 9:30am, showing all her usual sleep cues, but didn't fall asleep until 11am, and I had to wake her up at 11:45am (to keep her on schedule). We went about our afternoon as usual, and when she went down for her second nap at 2pm, she decided it would be way more interesting to do anything but sleep... again. It is now 3:15pm and she still hasn't fallen asleep. She's not crying or fussing, she's just crawling around in her crib, pulling up, playing with her stuffed animals, crawling around some more... did someone slip some caffeine into her Cheerios? Honestly. I hope this won't lead to an evening of fussiness and a difficult bed time.

Changes

During a discussion with a friend, I realized that although Audrey was able to hold her bottle for herself at a pretty young age, I had since stopped letting her control her bottle feedings, and she had stopped trying. To remedy that, for the last week, I've been letting her feed herself all of her bottle feedings. Thankfully, the very first time I offered her the bottle to hold herself, she grabbed on and never looked back! I'm so relieved that she didn't forget that little milestone like her Mama did!

The day after her 10-month birthday (Tuesday), we dropped one bottle feeding and replaced it with whole milk in a sippy cup. Ideally, we'll keep transitioning out the rest of the bottle feedings during the day (she still gets 3 bottles right now), and by her first birthday, we'll be off the bottle completely. THEN it'll be time to switch from sippy cups to plain old cups... won't that be a messy day!

That same Tuesday, she stood alone for a few seconds all by herself. She was standing by the coffee table, eating GrapeNuts one by one. She had a hold of the table with one hand, and was using her thumb and index finger of the other to pick up the GrapeNuts. She got distracted by a cat walking by, forgot to hold on, and used her holdin' hand to feed herself, too. So for a few seconds, she was standing by herself, watching the cat, and eating with both hands. It was totally amazing. She stood alone again today, more purposefully, while playing with her toys. I guess it won't be long before that's a regular thing!

Aaaaaaaaaaand lastly, she has now gotten up to 20 minutes of solo-playtime in her playpen, and the last 3 times I've put her in her playpen to play, she hasn't uttered one peep in protest. I'm thinking about bumping her up to 25 minutes next week. Our ultimate goal is between 35 and 45 minutes of playtime all by herself, and I think she's going to do it!

Playin' with Pappy

On Wednesday, Audrey and I went down to Keene to have lunch with Mimmy in her classroom. This week has been her in-service, and she'll get kids on Monday. Truthfully, though, she's been working in her classroom all summer, and didn't really need a designated week of working pre-students. Anyho, we went down and met Mimmy and Pappy with a Royal pizza (the best crust ever) and afterward, followed Pappy home so Audrey could take a nap before the drive back to our house.

Audrey had a great time playing with her Pappy...

This toy is an amazing piano-thing that can switch from Mozart to Vivaldi to Bach to Beethoven with the press of a button, and Audrey loves it!

Pappy tried to scoot the chair closer to the keyboard with no luck

Audrey switched gears and played with the xylophone-piano

The grand finale: RT settled in to watch the show when Audrey started using her shoe to pound the keys

The day wrapped up with a round of catch and roll... Audrey's current favorite toy over anything else is a good old-fashioned ball, and she's getting pretty good at throwing and rolling it, even though some of the distance she achieves is from ricochet from accidentally dropping the ball on her foot...

The 10-Month Day

I think Audrey had a good 10-month birthday...

Breakfast of oatmeal pancakes and yogurt

20 minutes of solo play time!

Playing catch with Mama

Digging out Audrey-dishes in the kitchen cabinet

A play date with Will

Chasing Maslow in the bedroom

What a Morning!

This morning, Audrey was awake when I got up, and was sitting happily in her crib, babbling and playing with her Peep (a stuffed chick of some kind). I went up and got her up at 7:30am, and as soon as I walked in, I could tell something wasn't right. Did something crawl in to her crib at night and die? Nope... she had just dirtied her diaper. I have no idea how long she had been dirty, as she never uttered a peep and was in quite a good mood. Not the first time this had happened, and probably no the last. No big deal.

I got her up, opened up her pj's, and OH MY GOODNESS. Not only was her diaper dirty, but it had come up out of the back of her diaper, up her back, and into one of her sleeves. I had to take her pjs off and try to clean her up without her getting dirty further, which didn't happen... so after the diaper was off she stuck her heel in it, which was then a vehicle to spread the madness all over the changing table. We used half a package of wipes controlling that mess.

SO our morning started not with breakfast and bottle like it usually does, but with bath time! Once all cleaned up, we got to enjoy some oatmeal pancakes and yogurt, and because of the chaos in the beginning, I totally forgot to give her a bottle. Then it was down for a nap about 5 minutes early, and unfortunately, a brief sleep. She is now playing happily in her crib (which has a full set of fresh sheets and stuffed animals), and will get up to a big lunch to make up for the missing bottle! What a way to start your 10-month birthday! Pictures to come.

The Goings-On

It seems like each day passes so slowly, then all of the sudden it's Thursday, and then it's August... I can't believe Audrey will be 10 months old on Monday. Holy. Crap.

Yesterday, I swear she said 'Hi,' but I couldn't get her to do it again, so I decided it was a babble coincidence. This morning, when we were feeding the fish, she pointed at the aquarium and I SWEAR she said 'Hi' again! I just can't tell if it's purposeful or not, or if I'm hearing things... I am now having to keep myself from saying 'hi' constantly! Thankfully, she provides plenty of distraction. Her most recent look-what-I-can-do is climbing the stairs (all the way to the top!) as fast as she can go (I have a video I've been trying to upload all day, but it just won't cooperate, so you'll have to use your imagination).

On a different note, Mimmy and Pappy (aka Jan and Ron) added our first coral to our aquarium for my birthday, and although wee, it's quite neat. It's a toadstool leather, named for it's appearance when closed up (it looks like a mushroom) and it's texture (feels like leather). It opened up around the third hour after I placed it in the tank, then a crab picked at it and it's been closed ever since. I'm hoping we'll get to see it's "dreadlocks" again soon- it looks so cool open!

She's The Most Interesting Baby in the World

If she were to give you directions, you'd never be lost and you'd arrive at least 5 minutes early; she has undeniable proof that the Bermuda Triangle is actually a parallelogram; she's a lover, not a fighter, but she's a fighter too so don't get any ideas; she's always on the right side of the tracks, and if she were on the other side, that would be the right side, because she's The Most Interesting Baby in the World.

She is trying to talk. She is trying so hard. She says "duh" for duck when she's in the bathtub, she says "haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah" for hi when she sees Mama in the morning, she says "bah" for ball when she plays with Mimmy and Pappy...

... and she says "aah" after she takes a drink, like we do. She has also recently taken on the persona of Audzilla, Destroyer of Block Cities, with the battle cry to match the demands of the role. We can't get enough! What's next? Who knows... we just know we're anticipating something amazing, because she truly is The Most Interesting Baby in the World.