Must have been a man

Seriously, a man must have decided to name the crappy way I feel when pregnant "morning sickness."

Really. I have never only been sick in the morning. In fact, I'm either sick all day long or only at night. (Usually though, it's all day long...)

I had forgotten how much I hate this early part of pregnancy. I have no energy, I feel like I could vomit at any given time, the littlest things seem to make me irrationally angry, I can cry at the drop of a hat, and I can't for the life of me find anything good to eat!

I'm not even sick this time like I was with Audrey (at least not yet!) and I've already lost 5 pounds. How am I supposed to grow a baby if I can't even stand the thought of food? Seriously?

Although, I lost 18 pounds in the first half of my pregnancy with Audrey and she still grew to an enormous size. (10lb 6oz and 22.5 inches for anybody who didn't know or happened to forget...) I'm seriously hoping for a 8-9 pounder this time.

Bet you've never heard a pregnant woman say that, huh?

At least Audrey seems excited to have a sibling!

More pictures

I'm visiting Colorado right now and don't have much time for posting but here's more pictures!

Just some pictures

9 Month Stats

Audrey had her 9 month appointment today. She weighs just under 21 pounds and she's 29.5 inches long. She's grown 2 inches since her last appointment and only gained 1 pound. She's really starting to slim down! She's about 95th percentile for length and 80th percentile for weight (they didn't tell me this today, this is the best I can figure out from google...).

She only had one shot today, which she did not handle well at all. Heck, she cried when they weighed and measured her. She's got some major stranger anxiety going on!

Unfortunately, she also needed to get blood drawn to make sure she's not anemic. Apparently this is standard procedure now. The doctor told us that it would be a heel or finger prick and that it wouldn't be too bad.

Well, we made our way over to the lab and they informed me that it was not a finger stick but an actual IV blood draw.

It was awful! The lady dug around in her arm trying to find the vein for what seemed like forever!

I told Mark that I was about *this* close to throat-punching her. (Yes, I did use the term throat-punch... You can ask him).

Anyways, she screamed the whole time and I felt so bad for her. And now she has a nice bruise on her arm.

But, she's been back to her normal happy self since we got home so I guess no permanent damage was done.

I'm just glad we don't have to go back until after her first birthday!

9 Months Old

My baby is 9 months old today. 9 whole months. Almost into the double digits. That's 75% of a year. Where has the time gone? It seems like just yesterday I was waddling around praying that I would go in to labor (which I never did... At least not without some help). How on earth did she grow up so fast?

She's crawling, standing, holding on to things and walking, shaking her head no, babbling like a maniac and getting into everything.

She absolutely will not sit still for any longer than 5 seconds.

She's more interested in eating things with her fingers than anything on a spoon. She knows how to drink from a sippy cup and just recently started taking bottles with formula.

She's slept through the night once and is typically only waking up once.

She's dangerously close to not being a baby anymore.

Before I know it she's going to be a walking, talking, telling me "no", potty trained toddler. It's scary and exciting all at the same time.

I love this age and I'm looking forward to all the milestones yet to come!

Such a stinker!

So Audrey lately has become a serious babbler. But all she says is BABABABABA. She'll be nine months old tomorrow and I'm anxious to here her say mama. So I say it to her. A lot.

The other day I was sitting on the floor playing with her when she climbed up on me and started her BABABAing.

I saw the perfect opportunity to practice MAMA with her and was "showing" her how to say MAMA.

She got really close to my face.

Put her lips together like she was going to say it.

I got all excited. She was going to do it!

Then she burped.

In my face.

And laughed.

And left me sitting there. MAMAless.

She still hasn't said it yet.

In case anybody was wondering...

Audrey did not sleep through the night last night. She woke up at 2:40 and didn't go back to sleep until 3:30 or so.... Luckily she wasn't crying, she was more talking/fussing to herself, so I could doze through it.

I'm still tired though.

I was really hoping she would sleep again.
Here's hoping for tonight!

Please, please, please

Well, she's down for the night.

Any bets on how many times she'll wake up?

How about bets on the time she wakes up first?

Anybody?

My guess is she'll wake up 3 times at 11:30, 2, and 4:30. Just a guess. I could be wrong. (I really hope I'm wrong!)

I got a taste of sleep last night and I don't want to let it go!

At least she's cute, right?

Oh how wonderful it is!

I'm in shock.

I'm speechless.

I can't believe it.

I never thought this day would come.

Ever.

Last night, for the first time ever, my daughter slept through the night. (Yep, the same child that just a few days ago refused to sleep at all.) She went down at 8 pm and didn't wake up again until 6 am. 10 whole hours!! And then, to make it even better, after nursing she went back to sleep till 8. I'm almost in tears, I'm so happy!

Part of me wonders if I just slept through her crying out.... If that is the case, she woke up extremely happy. (Okay, I'm 99% sure that I did not sleep through her cries. I have become the world's lightest sleeper since having her. Unlike my husband who has become an even deeper sleeper since her birth. Not that I'm bitter or anything).

And yes, I'm sure that by posting this all over the internet has surely jinxed me for a very long time and she will never again sleep through the night, and will, in fact, sleep even worse than she did before (holy run-on sentence!). But that is okay. At least I can say that she did it once and that I was able to sleep for 7 straight hours for the first time in 9 months.

Oh, how sweet it is! (Or should I say was??)

Let me help with the dishes!

What's that? You're doing the dishes???I wanna hhhhheeeelllllllllllpppppp!

See? I'm a good helper!
You stay away, Bow! I'm daddy's helper!
Okay, I'm done. Time to go play some more!

I'm Exhausted

At least Audrey seems to be in a decent mood despite her lack of sleep the last few days. I, on the other hand, am cranky and feel like a walking zombie...

Mother's Day

Today was my very first Mother's Day (not to be confused with my Mother-to-be Day last year...) and I had a blast. I spent the whole day with Mark and Audrey and they both made sure I was going to remember today. They let me sleep in. They made me breakfast. Audrey took 1 nap without a fight today (the other... not so much). I received many cards and gifts (even though the cards were plenty!). They took me to an early dinner and to the mall to do some shopping (more like window shopping since we really only bought 1 pair of pants for Audrey and a cute little outfit for my new nephew Chase). It was a wonderful day and I'm so glad to be a real Mommy this year!

I have many women in my life to look to for examples of how to be a great mom. My mother, who has done more for me than I can even begin to write about. My mother-in-law, who raised the wonderful man I married. My two grandmothers who have shown me countless examples of love and faith. To all of you, thank you. I'm so blessed to have you in my life and I know that each of you have helped make me into the woman and mother I am today.

And, because I promised my grandmother that I would do my best to put up at least one picture on here every day...

PICTURES!

Today may be a very long day

The day started with Audrey waking at 640 this morning. She usually sleeps until 730 or so. I think I knew even at that point that today was going to be a challenge. (And yes I consider myself grateful that she usually sleeps in pretty late. If she didn't and she still continued to wake up 3,4,5 times each night I think I might literally die...)

Skip forward about two hours. Mark let me sleep in (an early Mother's Day present?) while he and Audrey had breakfast and watched episodes of The Office on the computer . It was a wonderful hour and a half or so of extra sleep.

And then it was nap time.

Mark put Audrey down. Audrey screamed. A lot. And the monitor was still in the bedroom. There went my sleep...

She cried for 10 minutes or so when I finally took pity on her and got her up. She didn't seem that tired to me so I thought that maybe she just wasn't tired enough to nap yet. Took her out to the living room and she was as happy as could be. For a little while...

I took her to her room. I nursed her. She passed out. I laid her down. She screamed. Even louder this time.

I knew she needed to nap and was going to be even crankier later on if she didn't so I went to take a shower.

10 minutes or so later she's still screaming. Mark says she never stopped. I go in to calm her down. She falls asleep in my arms. I lay her down she wakes up, pulls herself up and proceeds to scream yet again. (Have I mentioned that I'm over the thrill of her pulling herself up on things?? At least when she's laying down and crying she eventually falls asleep!)

It was about 11:30 by this point so we decided to feed her lunch and let her play with the dog for a little while.

After lunch I took her into her room. Nursed and rocked her. She fell asleep in my arms really quickly but I was scared to lay her down in her crib. So this is where she is sleeping
I had Mark put a blanket on the floor so I could lay down next to her so she would stay asleep. It was surprisingly easy for me to sneak out of the room with her like that. I hate that I gave in so many times and that she never fell asleep in her crib but I'm exhausted today. I just didn't have the energy to listen to her cry like that for so long. So for today I'm letting her nap on the floor. I hope she goes to bed easier tonight!

Do I have peas on my face?

Yes, sweetie, you definitely do. At least all that green goop covers up the many bruises she's gotten the last couple of days. I swear I'm about to stop taking her out in public...

Fun Weekend

My very good friend Jen, and her beautiful baby girl Miley came to visit us this weekend. I had such a great time with them. And, I don't feel quite as homesick at the moment. Audrey was very interested in Miley and wanted to touch and play with her. Miley wasn't too sure of Audrey (who is bigger despite being 2.5 months younger...) but handled Audrey's curiosity like a champ (unless Audrey tried to "talk" to her... then she cried. But Audrey is a very loud "talker"). All in all the weekend went great and Audrey and I had so much fun. I hope Jen and Miley did too! (Despite my almost making them late for their flight. So sorry Jen!!)


And now for the pictures:

Miss Miley asleep in a very uncomfortable looking position

Audrey showing off how she can sit herself upThe girls outside at a fair type thing watching boat races
The four of us at Jen's early birthday dinner. Sushi. Yum!
My sweet baby girl pulling herself up. She does this on everything now...