One Year Update

Since Lauren turned one yesterday, I was obligated to take her for her one-year well-child visit at the doctor's office this morning. Originally, I had it scheduled for her birthday, and I'm so glad I changed it to today. Poor girl shouldn't have to be subjected to needles on her birthday. Here are her stats:

Height: 29.5in (50-75th%)
Weight: 20lbs, 13oz (50th%)
Head Circ: 46cm (75-90th%)

After Dr. Smoak declared her perfectly healthy, the nurse came back in to give her the shots. She also snuck in an anemia check - the finger prick test I always dreaded as a kid. At least now they don't use the equivalent of a thumb tack. Instead they use a little contraption that punches the little needle down on the finger to draw the blood. That part didn't seem to be a problem with Lauren. It was the way the nurse was holding her arm and squeezing her poked finger while she got the blood to go in the tiny vial. This went on for at least two minutes while Lauren screamed and cried the whole time. My poor baby made me want to scream and cry with her. And when the nurse came at her finger with a Bandaid, that really put her over the edge.

And what was worse, the finger test was followed up with not one but two shots. (We usually only do one at a time with the exception of the IPV and HIB which we do together and happened to fall on this visit.)

Needless to say, Lauren was not a happy camper when we left. She was so worn out from crying, she fell asleep in the car on the way home (after unsuccessfully trying to take off her finger bandage). I got her in bed and she slept for another hour and a half until I had to wake her up to go pick up Mason from school. (I always hate having to wake her up for that.)

When we got home from school pick-up, she had some pizza and milk (which she started drinking yesterday!) and she was once again her bubbly self. Hopefully, she won't remember these doctor's office visits as she gets older.

Happy Birthday Lauren!

She may be a year old now, but she'll always be my little baby! Happy Birthday to my sweet little girl!

Photo album of Lauren with her favorite Pooh Bear taken the 13th of each month of her life...

Make a Smilebox slideshow

She Walks!

September 8, a few days before she turned 11 months old, Lauren took her first steps. She walked three paces from the ottoman in the living room to me sitting on the floor. She didn't walk more than one or two steps for another few days, but it didn't take her long after that to really get moving.


Here's the first walking shots I got on camera, taken on the day she turned 11th months.


Over the last week, she's gotten better and better every day. This past weekend we spent a few days with my parents at the beach, and she went from walking 5 or 6 steps at a time to walking across the room by the end of the trip.

By yesterday, she's walking more than she's crawling and even turning corners without falling.

I don't really remember Mason picking it up so quickly. And it wasn't until his first birthday that he took his first steps. I guess it's true that girls really do walk faster than boys - in this family it is anyway.

Happy Birthday Grandmama!

Make a Smilebox postcard

No, She's Not a Vampire...

... she's my daughter.

Lauren finally has some new teeth popping through... the upper incisors. Since she currently only has the bottom two middle teeth, it's going to look like she has fangs in a couple of weeks. She's a little early for Halloween, but if nothing new comes in before then, I guess she can go as my little jack-o-lantern. :-)

10 Months

I can't believe my baby is 10 months old today! The time certainly does go by even faster with the second child. Here's her 10 month Pooh picture

These days all Lauren seems to want to do is walk behind her push toys. I don't know how many times we walk around the circle of the bottom floor of our house with her little push wagon and airplane each day. She and Mason have gotten pretty good at doing it together...

She's also gotten pretty good at giving kisses and will usually do it when I ask. But watch out, she likes to slip you the tongue!

Nine and a Half Months

I took Lauren for her 9 month well-check (a couple of weeks late) at Dr. Smoak's office on Monday. Her latest stats are: 28in (75th percentile) and 19lbs, 12 oz (60th percentile). It looks like her height is picking up while her weight is slowing down a little bit. The weight part is a bit of a surprise to me since this girl seems to eat any and everything within reach.

Recently, I showed Mason some of the little videos I took of him as a baby, and then I started to feel bad when I realized that I don't have as many of Lauren. So I've been on a video recording kick lately. Here's one of her walking with her little wagon - the same wagon Mason learned how to walk behind.

9 Months!

My little baby isn't such a little baby anymore. It was nine months ago today that Lauren came into the world. Every day with her gets a little easier and definitely more fun. I love that her personally is coming out more and more, and she's showing interest in particular things.

Today she's crawling like crazy all over the place - including up the stairs as of yesterday! (Time to break out the gate for the bottom of the staircase.) She's also pulling herself up very easily and can cruise around the furniture without falling down.

She's already showing some signs that she's going to be a much better eater than Mason ever was (and still is.) At this age, Mason still only ate a few baby foods, and absolutely nothing resembling regular food except for Puffs. Lauren seems to like everything I've given her and is starting to even refuse some baby food. The more adventurous things she's eaten lately include cherries, cheese, yogurt, pizza crust, banana slices, pancake, and sweet potato chunks. Plus of course her favorite: mommy's milk. We are still happily nursing several times a day. I'm glad she's showing no signs of stopping that any time soon.

All of that eating is definitely making her grow fast! We're not due to go to her next check up at the doctors office for another few weeks (we split her 9-month appointment into an 8 month and a 10 month just to split up the vaccinations) so I just weighed and measured her myself today: she's 19lbs and 27" long. She's outgrown almost all of her 9 month clothes and is into 12 month sizes. I've almost exhausted all of our lovely baby gifts, and I'm enjoying shopping for her myself for a change.

She's making several sounds now and has said her first word: Dada. (Although, she says Dada all the time, so I'm not certain she's actually assigned that to her actual DaDa.) But she's definitely looking at family members when their name is called, and she knows her own name. She can also recognize "Buzz" (Georgia Tech's mascot) thanks to PoohPa during their last visit. I also hear her say "ya ya" and "ba ba" (but probably not meaning you just yet, Baba) quite a bit.

She's also much improved in the sleep department. She's pretty regular in going to bed around 7:30 each night, up around 4:30 for a quick snack, and then back to sleep until around 6:30. Then she'll take two naps a day, each for 1-2 hours. Occasionally she's up another time during the night, but thankfully I can just go in to give her a quick snuggle, put her back down, and she goes back to sleep on her own without a fuss. Another nice thing is that she usually wakes up happy and just plays a bit in her crib before "calling" for me. Mason woke up crying every time until he was at least 2 years old.

Still only two teeth. I can see a couple more trying to come out, but it just ain't happening yet. I can tell that she's pretty uncomfortable with them sometimes. She often has a rash around her mouth from jamming any and everything in there. Including her entire fist.

Her favorite thing to do these days is pull every book off the shelf and proceed to eat them. She does like to read them with me too though. She's gotten very good at turning pages. Her favorite book is one of her big brother's former favorites called Baby Food. (Thanks Aunt Anna!)

She also likes to crawl around in Mason's living room pillow forts and play with her steering wheel driving game which plays music. She's mesmerized my any sort of music. She loves to watch the opening and closing credits of Mason's favorite TV shows. And her faces just lights up whenever she sees Mickey Mouse.

As Dave put it today, she looks like a mini-human now. My baby certainly is growing up fast. Here is her 9 month Pooh Picture. (My Facebook friends can go to my profile to see her Pooh Pictures from each month.)

Movin' and Grovin'

Lauren is getting bigger and more mobile every day. The time sure does fly by faster with the second one than with the first. It seems like just yesterday she was my tiny little blob I could just lay on the bed without worrying about her falling off. Not anymore. She'll roll off in just the time it takes to turn around to throw away a diaper (just ask Dave).

Just last week while we were on vacation, she learned how to go from her tummy to sitting up. She can also army-crawl like a champ now. It only took her a few days to master it, so now I have to keep my eyes on her at all times. She can move pretty fast too. In just a couple of minutes, she can make the loop around the bottom floor of our house.

Here she is pulling herself up on her toy box. I think she likes being able to actually see inside to get her own toys out. She's kneeling here, but several times now, she's pulled herself up to standing.

And just this week, I've caught her crawling on her knees. She still mostly does the army-crawl, but she's up on her knees all the time, even if she's not moving.

Another good thing about getting bigger is how much better she is at sleeping. There have been several nights now that she's slept from 7:30 until around 4:30 or 5:00. Then I'll feed her and she'll go back to sleep for another hour or two. And a couple nights ago she slept from 8:30 until 6:30 without waking up. It was the first night I've gotten almost 8 hours of consecutive sleep since I can't remember when.

It's amazing how much they change in so little time.

A Week in Pictures

Mason has found new entertainment with the couch cushions in our living room. He likes to make "pillow forts". Last Saturday, Lauren got in on the fun.

Lauren's 7-month picture with Winnie the Pooh

Lauren's first wagon ride

Yesterday we joined the MOMS Club for our annual strawberry picking outing. Mason was able to really take part for the first time. Since I was taking care of Lauren most of the time (where I learned it's not so hard to nurse a baby standing up in a strawberry field) he picked all his berries all by himself.

Mason and his berries. They were half eaten by the time we got home.

Adventures in Sleeping

For those of you who have seen me in the last 6 1/2 months, you have probably detected some bags under my eyes and a crazed look on my face. That's because I'm the proud mother of a non-sleeper. I can count on one hand the number of times Lauren has slept more than 6 hours at a time in her life. And none of those times have been recently. For awhile it was just a couple times up a night, but lately, it's been 3 or 4 times a night. Combine that with a son who wakes me up sometime during the night to take him to the potty, and you've got one sleep deprived Mommy.

I've known in the back of my mind that we'd have to go the Crying-It-Out route with Lauren as we did with Mason. I wasn't dreading it quite as much this time around because 1.) I've done it before, 2.) she's generally more laid back than Mason is, and 3.) unlike Mason, she has the capacity to fall asleep when someone else it holding her and it doesn't always have to be while nursing. My biggest worry was Mason, who's a pretty light sleeper, waking up from the noise.

I've been waiting to do it with her until after she was able to roll over both ways (since she sleeps on her stomach), after she started eating solid food (so I wouldn't worry about her being hungry at night), after her first round of teeth came in (they seemed painful), and after her neck rash cleared up (she always scratched it at night). With all of those things checked off my list, and with the frustration with her in the middle of the night at an all time high, I picked last night as the night to start.

She fell asleep while nursing around 7:30 so I put her to bed. She usually gets back up around 10:00, but this time it was 8:15. I was sort of glad because both Dave and I were still up, and I didn't have to listen to her on my own. So I went in to her room, cuddled her for just a minute and put her back down to sleep without nursing. I watched TV while she fussed and cried for about 30 minutes. Finally there was silence. Thankfully, she never screamed too loud and Mason never woke up.

Throughout the night, I woke up on my own around the usual times Lauren wakes up. And each time I looked at the clock, I said a quick prayer of thanksgiving that she hadn't woken up yet. At 5:30 when I heard her moving around and making some noise, I waited awhile to see if she'd go back to sleep, but I could tell she was awake. But I didn't mind getting up. It's the most sleep both of us have had in a really long time.

And the ironic thing about her getting more sleep than usual last night? She had an extra long nap this morning and she's back down for another nap now. Sleep begets sleep.

Hopefully tonight will be smooth sailing for us.

A Half Birthday

On April 13, Lauren had her half birthday. (Yes, 6 months already!) So last week, I took her for her 6-month checkup with Dr. Smoak. She's 75th-90th percentile for weight (17lbs, 15oz) and 25-50th percentile for height (25 1/4 inches). She's doing very well and has had a few milestones since my last update about her. She's standing up pretty well with assistance, she's working on getting up on hands and knees, she started eating solid foods, and she just got her first tooth this past week. With the exception for the heat rash on her neck that won't go away, and the waking up 2-3 times a night to eat or just because, I can't complain. She's one happy baby.

Here she is having her first solid food meal (oatmeal with breastmilk) she also had her first sip of water that day.

I'm still struggling with figuring out when and how many times to feed her, and how to get this new thing worked into our routine. Plus she doesn't seem to be taking to eating quite as easily as Mason did. I've tried oatmeal, rice cereal, sweet potatoes, and bananas all at different temperatures and consistencies, but she doesn't eat more than a a few small tastes at any time and spits out most of it. I know there's a learning curve, so I'm not sweating it yet. Cutting that tooth might be factoring into this as well.

Here's a random pic that's just too cute not to share. I'm so happy that Mason just loves his baby sister.

Easter Weekend

Thanks to beautiful weather, we had a very nice Easter weekend. Saturday we joined the neighbor kids for the annual HOA Easter egg hunt. Mason had lots of egg hunting practice last week, so by Saturday he was a pro. He cleaned up!

Sunday morning we went to a very lovely church service. I was proud of Mason for sitting very nicely up front during the children's message. (See Lauren's previous baptism blog for the reason why.)

After church, Mason worked out in the yard with Dave. He loved pretending to be Handy Manny with his goggles, hammer, and crowbar while helping his Daddy remove the old screen from our back porch. (We're preparing to re-screen it.)

This week is spring break for Mason. I'm working hard to think up fun activities to keep us all happy this week. The weekend can't come soon enough.