Jumper

Last week or so, Grammie Pat brought over a Johnny Jump-Up - a jumper that you clip onto the doorframe. She figured Audrey would love it, since she loves to "fly" and jump with us. Plus she's keen to crawl and/or walk and can't do either yet. She wasn't so excited about the jumper at first, but she's warming up to it - at least enough to pose for photos!

Making Friends

At six and a half months, Audrey is now old enough to start making friends - or more precisely, she is old enough to remember that she's seen some of these babies before. She and Gavin have been "friends" since about 8 weeks.


Other friends are newer - at the Birth Center mom's group that I go to on Tuesdays, there are three little girls (including Audrey) who were all born within about a week of each other - Zarya is the oldest (by 3 days), then Audrey, then Casey, six or so days younger. Here she is with Casey - look for Zarya in future posts.

Blame it on the heat

There are many things on which I may blame Audrey's tendancy to sleep for just a few hours during the night. Teething, growing, not having had enough milk, having too much vegetable at dinnertime, etc. One of the most perrenial, though, is temperature. I'm always thinking she might be too hot or too cold - we've been using sleep sacks (wearable balnkets) at night to keep her warm, but when she was teething she was running a low fever and seemed to be burning up in her sleep sack. So I stopped putting it on her for a few nights. Plus it had gotten warmer (no more temps in the 30's at night) so it didn't seem she needed it. Until last night when it seemed uncommonly cold. And she woke up every 2 hours and wanted to be cuddled up to me all night.

In the morning, Paul said we had forgotten to turn on the heat last night - it's warm during the day so we open the doors (and turn off the heat). We had grad group over last night so even as the evening temps dropped, out house with a dozen people in it remained a toasty 75 degrees. We even opened the windows. Then we closed everything up and went to bed. But we didn't turn the heat back on. So maybe that's why she was up so much...who knows!

Sleeping through the night

Audrey and I went yesterday to have a playdate with Lauren and Gavin down in Sahuarita, and we started talking about sleep. Lauren said Gavin has now been sleeping approximately 12 hours at night, and she achieved this by a means she called "Every 15 minutes" but what I would call "cry it out." It's hard to argue with the results - 12 hours of time to sleep, plus spend some time with Paul or pursuing my own interests (actually reading a book? amazing!) seems very tempting.

But I am besieged with thoughts about all the "other" things that are going on. In addition to the thought of having to listen to Audrey cry for perhaps hours for four or five nights (the time Lauren said it took Gavin to adjust, although there's no telling how long it might take Audrey) I think, should we really be forcing self-soothing on her when she's growing? When she's teething? She's a pretty good self-soother (no losing your pacifier when it is two fingers on your left hand - always there!) and will sleep in her crib, but there are just some times that she adamantly does not want to be in the crib, she would rather be close to us (well, me, sorry Paul) to sleep.

So I don't know, though some of Paul's co-workers say we're "spoiling" her by going to her in the night and bringing her back to bed with us if she won't settle otherwise (or if I'm too tired to spend the time to try to get her back in the crib) I prefer to think we're raising a happy, secure child. Will Gavin, or other "cry it out" babies turn out insecure or be somehow otherwise lacking? Probably not, but I guess each set of parents just does what seems best to them at the time and no one knows the results until much later!

Getting Baptized

So much has happened since I last wrote. If I was a more dedicated blogger, you would have heard about going to Alexandria for Christmas, including hanging out with great-grandma, and then going to the Stanley family reunion in Ventura, CA, where all the cousins but one (and there about 20 of them, 15 males and 5 females) made it to California for two days of hanging out. But the most recent event in Audrey's life was getting baptized on Sunday, January 11. This was also "Baptism of the Lord" Sunday in the liturgical calendar, so the rest of the congregation also got sprinkled to remind them of their baptism. But Audrey got the full "water-on-the-head" deal thanks to our pastor friends Ben and Gretchen. Grammie Pat Orzech made her dress, which is now the "heirloom baptismal gown" (well, at least it will be once I clean it). She actually seemed to like the fuss of getting in the dress, and especially of going down to hang out with the little kids at the children's sermon. They were all rubbing her head, like they were saying "welcome, Audrey!" and she was just loving it. The pictures I have are from after the baptism, in the church's cry room - not that she was crying, she just wanted to play and tends to want to compete with the pastor by "talking" during the sermon...So here is one of her hamming it up - after all this, and a few more pictures after church, we took her out of her gown to ride home and she fell asleep in the car seat and slept through most of the celebration lunch.

Things I Wish I Had Pictures Of

Church Ladies: I am a member of a singing group at church called the "Church Ladies" (we toyed with the idea of calling ourselves the "Holy Cows" but thought this might offend some members of the group). Not only are we about music, we are also about wardrobe. Our wardrobe mistress, Gwynn, recently returned to the group after undergoing chemotherapy. Her hair is back, and her wardrobe aplomb was never gone. For this holiday performance last Sunday, she suggested that we wear Christmas-ball earrings. I said, sure, I'll wear those, thinking they would be actual earrings. But oh no, they were actual Christmas balls, of the kind that would be at home on a full-size tree. Red, silver, green, gold - each church lady took ornament hooks and threaded them through her ears and hung a pair of matching ornaments on them. If you moved your head too fast, you got a bit of whiplash. But we were festive. Yes we were. And the singing wasn't bad either.

Scenes from the Park: When it was nice weather - really, up until this week - I went for a daily walk with Audrey. Typically, we walked across the street to the park and looked at the ducks (a big hit), or smelled the roses (she didn't get it) or looked at the dogs in the dog park (very exciting). I don't take anything with me, just my keys, and Audrey in the carrier. So I've missed a few photo opportunities. Including

• Meeting another baby named Audrey - she was 8 months old and playing at the playground with her parents and older sister.


• Walking away from the dog park and seeing a woman coming toward it with her dog - I said to Audrey, "Look, a dog!" and as the women passed me, she said to the dog, "Look, a baby!" in the same tone of voice.


• Audrey on the baby swing - which is HUGE for her, but she leans up against the front and it must feel like the carrier (it hits her in about the same spot on the chest). I squat in front of the swing and hold her hands and push her back and pull her forward, and she just smiles real big!

White Elephant

No, not another trip to the zoo. I'm talking about Grad Group's annual White Elephant gift exchange, which was held yesterday at the Larson-Wolbrink's home. Although Audrey was in attendance, the clear stars of the show yesterday were Lily Larson-Wolbrink (17 months) and Allegro (2 years), our friend Liz's new guide dog. The two of them together were the epitome of cute, Lily with her boundless energy and bouncy curls, and Allegro, a big yellow lab puppy who was "off duty" for the evening so we could pet him and interact with him.

The fun thing about White Elephant, beyond watching Lily and Allegro explore new levels of cuteness, was seeing what people brought - Paul and I went home with a plastic U of A mug, a woman's hat and necklace, a 4-bottle wine rack, and a insel garland decorated with shiny paper ornaments. But we got rid of four items we have had two of for some time, including Norah Jones and Louis Prima CDs, the Shel Silverstein book Runny Babbit, and a "Touch and Feel Farm" book.

We also got rid of a musical Happy Birthday bag that has slowly become the bane of my existance. Let me explain - somewhere along the line, one of us got a birthday present in this bag, which plays Happy Birthday and lights up when a corner of it is pressed. Due to limited storage space, we keep our wrapping paper in a storage box under our bed, but it turns out that this bag is a mite sensitive. So as I have been getting up at 3:30 AM to go feed the baby, it was not uncommon to have musical accompinament to this event - a tinny "Happy Birthday" that went of as I got out of bed and continued to play as I crossed the hall to Audrey's room.

Since I hit upon the idea of getting rid of it at the White Elephant, the bag became even more insistent. As we loaded it into the car for the rise to the Larson-Wolbrink's, it went off three times, as if to say "No! Don't get rid of me! You will miss this tinny "Happy Birthday!" But we don't. Enjoy it, Stephanie, and don't be afraid to regift!