What's daddy doing?

Audrey had a busy weekend visiting family. She got to see two of her great-grandmothers and wowed them with her new tricks. She has started crawling with her belly off the floor, and likes to give open mouth kisses!

In true form, the nice weekend ended by us being locked out of the house. So, Audrey watched her dad "break into" our house, by climbing thru a window. Fris tried to climb in first, she was so excited to be home, but she thought better of it. Audrey looked at Eric climbing thru the window, then at me, then back at Eric. I tried to cover her eyes so she wouldn't see such behavior being modeled, but she nixed that idea. At least we got inside!

"You have a very determined daughter"

I am always greeted with some entertaining story of Audrey when I pick her up at daycare. Today, the director was in with Audrey's class, and was sitting next to Audrey on the floor, who was busy crawling in a different direction. The director greeted me by saying,

"You have a very determined daughter."

Me: "How so?"

Director: "My cell phone rang and since it was my mom, and she never calls during work hours, I answered it to make sure it wasn't an emergency. Audrey heard the cell, saw it, and immediately climbed over me to reach for it. She then tried to talk to my mom."

Me: "Yeah, she always wants to grab the phone to talk to her grandparents, but then she won't."

Director: "What does she do instead?"

Me: "She licks the phone."

Director: "Yep, that's what she did with mine, too."

Me: "Audrey Ruby!" (big grin from the red head)

We'll be working on manners next.

Poor baby...

Does this look like a sick baby? She's done pretty well considering I was told at the dr's this morning that she has the equivalent of strep throat (I didn't know babies can't get strep). She was pretty irritable all weekend, which is very unlike her typically calm, easygoing demeanor. We had a really rough night last night, in which she finally fell asleep on my chest. She had a low grade fever on Saturday and Sunday, and wasn't keeping everything down over the weekend. So, I called in sick today, and we went to the pediatrician's office, mainly to make sure she wasn't developing another ear infection. Her regular pediatrician is off on Mondays, so we saw one of her colleagues. Audrey had him all in stitches since she was quite smiley when he came in the room, and he caught her in the midst of tearing up the tissue paper on the exam table. She kept waving to him while he was examining her. It was quite cute. He stopped his exam to tell me that I should enter her in an All American Baby contest (with her red hair, blue eyes, and beautiful smile). Hmmm...

First trip to the zoo

Audrey had her first trip to the zoo today. No doubt we chose the hottest day of the summer thus far for this excursion. She mostly saw fences, rocks, people's legs, and sweaty kids, but she did manage to spot a polar bear and a random duck which chose to cross in front of her stroller. Nonetheless, we got some good pictures to help her learn her animals. We also got to see the koala bear exhibit, which is only available for another couple weeks.

She was exhausted at the end, and fell asleep before we left the parking lot! It's not surprising that all the zoo animals were snoozing today, too!

The picture says it all...

"Mommy thinks she's in charge."

One year ago today...

We found out we were having a little girl. I was so sure we were having a boy, I had the u/s tech double check! I just couldn't believe it! Eric was quietly shaking his head in disbelief, but with a grin on his face. (I think this was partly due to his earlier question, while watching the u/s, of "Was that a FOOT I just saw?" Yep. ). When I prompted him for his reaction of having a little girl, he said, "I just keep seeing ice sculptures I'm going to be paying for at her wedding!"

We're not rushing things though as we'd like to keep her this little as long as possible. Even if she did get angry with me when her bunny towel stayed on her tooooo long for her liking...

Happy Birthday!

You say it's your birthday

Na na na na na

Well, it's my birthday, too!

I've been singing this for about a week now, ever since I realized that Fris' 7th birthday fell on Audrey's 8 month birthday. Audrey is thrilled to share her day with Fris, but Fris, not so much. Since the day fell on my day off, I had decided that Audrey and I would go get Fris' traditional cake from the Three Dog Bakery. We got her cake, complete with her name written in caribou (doggie chocolate) as well as some peanut butter bagels. We may go back for the "Bark for Barack" doggie t-shirt.

Back in the pool!

I've been enjoying watching my favorite events of the Olympics, including the amazing accomplishments of Michael Phelps. The other night, Eric and I were watching when they did a segment on how Michael Phelps has the perfect swimmer's body. Turns out, Audrey does too! Most great swimmers have a long torso and short legs (ok, they also have big feet which Audrey definitely does not have - Eric keeps telling her that her feet are going to have to do some significant growing before they can be useful with the whole walking thing).

I would be beside myself if Audrey turned out to be an Olympic swimmer! :)

Success!

Audrey was successful for the first time yesterday getting a "puff" cereal into her mouth! She didn't seem to think it tasted nearly as good as she was hoping considering how hard she worked to get it in there! And, might I add, she got it with her LEFT hand!! Tonight, she ate like a champ and yelled at the box on the kitchen table when she was out of puffs or Cheerios. Fris is also figuring out that things are starting to fall on the floor during Audrey's dinner time. She'll only sniff at the Cheerios that land on the floor, but Audrey sure offers her hand for Fris to lick. She'll do anything to win over the Fris.

Dance, Eat, Repeat!

Audrey has had limited interest in baby food since we started her on it at 4 months. I hadn't sent her to daycare with any because of this, wanting her to get some more practice at home before sending her off into the wide, wide world of daycare. When she didn't eat much there the day before, I decided to try it and see what happened. I warned her teacher in the morning that it would likely be an experience, with Audrey needing to have whatever was on the menu first put on her lips, then allowing her to decide whether she will agree to eat anymore (she typically only opens up for strained peas mixed with oatmeal - yuk!). Well, when I went to pick Audrey up, her teacher was so excited to tell me about Audrey's day. She said that Audrey had eaten all her baby food. This has never happened so I asked how that was possible. Her teacher said that Audrey seems to need musical accompaniment when eating. Now, her teacher has told me repeatedly that Audrey is very stringent that the music keeps playing in her classroom. She tends to only stop what she's doing when the music stops, and she then gives her teacher a look of "Aren't you going to do something about that?". Ok...apparently, she started dancing after being put in the highchair, her teacher then danced with her, and then Audrey opened up. They repeated this game until she'd cleaned her plate clean. I thought I had tried everything, including resorting to using a loud screeching sound which for some reason results in Audrey opening up wide! I'm not sure what kind of music Eric thinks they play at daycare, but when I told him this story as I was getting Audrey reading for her dinner, he proceeded to turn on some Run DMC song. It wasn't as effective, but Audrey seemed to think it was entertaining all the same.

Downward dog

Audrey is perfecting the popular yoga pose of downward dog. I have no idea how this developed. It's hilarious though as I just sit back and watch her make an inverted V pose, with her butt straight up in the air. It's as if she's making her own tunnel for others to pass through!

She had her first "school" pictures today. She was a ham for the camera and loved the photographer. Thankfully, she didn't strike a downward dog pose for him.

Who needs pants???

I have had longstanding problems finding pants that fit Audrey. Despite her consistently falling in the 75th percentile for length, she can still fit into 3 month pant sizes. When I got to daycare to pick her up today, she was crawling around in just her t-shirt. I knew immediately that she'd crawled right out of them. When I asked her teacher, she said that they finally just kept her jeans off her since she kept crawling out of them. Apparently, the first time it happened, her teachers looked down and saw Audrey crawling toward them, twirling her pants up in the air over her head! Maybe that's why her teacher greeted Audrey this morning by saying, "Hi Audrey! You look like you're ready to get this party started!", to which Audrey gave her a big grin!

I think we're going to need some back up during the adolescent years...

Wrestling

I've decided that trying to feed Audrey her bottle is like wrestling an alligator. She wiggles and squirms and attempts to jump out of my arms. No doubt she burns off any calories she's just consumed. There was a new teacher who started recently at Audrey's daycare. Her primary teacher told me that they gave this new teacher Audrey to feed ("to help break her in!"). The teacher didn't know what to do with her because she kept wriggling around! They said to just let her play, and she'll let you know when she wants to eat again!

Oops!

Audrey and I have a game while in the car, in which she will babble something, and then I will repeat it. She LOVES this game, giggling in the backseat while I drive. The game progresses until she's yelling her various sounds, and I do in turn as well. She decided this was a good game to play in the store today as well. I don't know why I was surprised by this, but I think it's because we've played this game for a while now, as a means of entertaining her on the drive to work, but she's never tried to play it in public. I couldn't help but laugh the entire time we were in the store because she was yelling trying to get me to respond. She thought it was funny that I said repeatedly, in between laughs, "Oh baby, we're not supposed to play that outside of the car!" Oops!

Indiana Jones

Audrey's teacher informed me this morning that her nickname is "Indiana Jones". She's the little explorer. When I picked her up yesterday, all the other babies were sitting nicely on the play mat. Where was Audrey? She was heading into the tunnel of the obstacle course. I've learned to let her go thru, meet her at the other end, and THEN pick her up. This takes considerable restraint on my part since I go thru Audrey withdrawal each day at work.

She's becoming increasingly restless on the car rides. This morning, she work up earlier than usual and was fighting her typical nap on the way to daycare. I used my one-handed pacifier move a half dozen times, but she had no interest in her pacifier. So, her protest of being restrained in the car seat resulted in my singing Barbara Ann for ~15 minutes straight. She was quiet so I thought she was asleep. She began to protest though when I stopped serenading her. She's the only one that will tolerate my singing (and, frequent repetition of the one and only verse I know!).

Audrey is looking more like an inchworm these days while crawling. She scoots her butt up in the air as she inches along. Quickly, that is.

It's hard to remember what life was like without this little girl.

Yuck, peaches!

Audrey has not been a fan of peaches. She really hasn't been a big fan of any baby food, until she recently began gobbling down peas with oatmeal mixed in! I've been trying to continue introducing her to the various foods that she often refuses to eat. With fruit such as pears and peaches, she often turns up her nose or refuses to open her mouth. This morning, when Eric sat down to feed her peaches with oatmeal (it's like peach cobbler, I tell her), I heard Eric say, "Oh no!" while I was upstairs getting ready for work. Audrey decided she needed to resort to drastic measures to get her point across that she does not like peaches - with just a touch of peaches on her lips, Audrey threw up part of her bottle. Ok, babe, I've got your point. No more peaches. She smiled when I signed, "All done?"

She must have forgiven me for the earlier peaches incident given her greeting for me at daycare. While I was signing her out, she used both hands to turn my face toward her. She then proceeded to plant a big, wet kiss on my mouth. She grinned from ear to ear, she was so proud. It was a great greeting after a long day at work.

Audrey pulled to a stand on her own tonight while trying to climb over Eric to get to Fris. Fris is such a good motivator for Audrey meeting her milestones!

SOOO Excited!

Audrey SQUEALED with delight today when we walked into her classroom at daycare. She was so excited and smiley that she almost jumped out of my arms to go hang out with her friends. Eric's comment of "It's nice to know how much fun we are," summed it up nicely. Apparently we aren't too entertaining on the weekends. We were admittedly pretty exhausted from starting to paint her room.

Audrey is starting to pull to a stand when she's climbing on me. I'm sure it won't be long before she's cruising around the furniture. Fris is starting to realize that Audrey is mobile now, and I notice she takes the longer way to get where she's going so as to avoid the approaching baby. Poor Fris.

Reflections

We have a makeshift nursery set up for Audrey while we're painting her nursery. Her rocking chair is now close to the door. While I was rocking her to sleep this evening, she kept smiling at something. After a few minutes, I figured out that she was smiling at her reflection in the DOORKNOB! This kid can find her reflection in anything (computer screen, etc.) and always gives herself a big smile. I hope that never changes.

T-R-O-U-B-L-E

Audrey got her first ride in the laundry basket yesterday - she LOVED it! Trouble seems to find her (tearing into the CDs, playing in Fris' water, pestering Fris while she's trying to eat breakfast, etc.), so I ended up throwing her in with some clean clothes, and pushed her around as we delivered the clothes to the respective rooms. She enjoyed it so much that she stayed in it and watched me get some other chores done. She didn't even try to get out! I'm thinking maybe it's time for a lil' red wagon!

Audrey continues to army crawl, and I'm not convinced that she'll use the traditional crawl prior to walking. I've noticed she uses simply her right big toe to move her 16 lb body - that's one strong toe! She's been crawling on top of Eric and I, and likes to try to stand with support. She'll even move her legs to "walk", with help of course.

She's been holding her hand out to catch the water streaming from her bath toys. She loves the bath, especially her new bath book. She'd stay in the bath until she was one big wrinkle if I let her!

We are starting on her nursery this weekend. I am so excited! Eric is shaking his head over what I plan to do with her room, but he knows how excited I've been to decorate her room. Can't wait til it's done!