Audrey Joy, 8 months old and 5/7

Audrey Joy turned eight months old on July 18th. Not much has changed this month, so I"ll just cover the main things.

This baby girl is so happy almost all of the time. She's playing hardcore now, rolling and wiggling her way around the room like a champ, and she is still fascinated with all things Josie.

Audrey's finally outgrown her 3-6 months clothing, but for whatever reason I was not prepared for this and had to run out and get a couple more summery outfits. We have enough to get us through the summer but then who knows how fast she'll go through this stage! She's almost to the point of slowing down with the growth but she's always keeping me on my toes. With her so close to crawling, she might lose her plumpness and confuse me once again.

Speaking of her plumpness, she loves food. Loves loves loves everything, except avocados. Isn't that funny? It's such a plain food, you'd think she wouldn't care. But she does! She out eats Josie at most meals but just when you think she doesn't have a limit, she refuses to take another bite. It's humorous, to say the least.

Sleep is going great, no new teeth, hair is pretty much the same, and she's still happy as a clam in her car seat. I also let her sit in the carts sans car seat and of course she loves that. Her balance is a little off sometimes but she has improved a ton with that in just a few weeks. She also loves to stand and her "tell" when she's tired is that she will squirm all over and want to go from standing to sitting to snuggling to being on the floor to being picked up over and over. She doesn't get grumpy, doesn't always rub her eyes or tug her ears or scream out, so if you don't know that the wiggling is her big clue, you'd think she never gets tired.

Everyone loves her eyes. It's funny how many people point them out, and I do love them but don't notice it like other people do. She also does this cute little thing where she lightly does a popping sound with her mouth ("puh puh puh puh puh") when she's happy or excited. She's just figuring out how to wave (I didn't expect that so soon!) and loves to feel faces with her bear paw little hands.

I love this age! I've had numerous moments of "my baby is growing up way too fast" this month and have had to squeeze her tight to not get too anxious. Thankfully, she's still pretty cuddly and doesn't mind her crazy mama. I can't imagine our lives without her.

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I'm getting my inspiration to post every day from Jennifer over at Conversion Diary.There are a bunch of other bloggers linking up so feel free to read those too!



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Audrey Joy, Seven Months Old

Audrey Joy turned 7 months old on June 18th. I took the picture shortly after that and never got the post written up. I'll do my best to remember! I do have a lot more pictures than updates, though. 

Audrey's upped her game with eating. While she was picky and just starting to eat at the start of last month, now she'll eat anything and everything I set in front of her.  We are doing mostly baby led weaning now that she knows how to use her hands and I love it. I hated pureeing food and this is so much easier. She eats quite a bit before getting bored and screaming loudly (in fun, no sadness) and I love that I can now count on a solid 15 minutes of kitchen time while she eats in her high chair. There was a while in the beginning of the month when she'd have an all out meltdown while in her highchair because she wanted to be held while she ate, but thankfully that passed quickly. This mama couldn't get a thing done that way.

She sleeps pretty well, waking up once for a bottle. Thankfully her early morning wake ups seem to have leveled out around 6:15-6:30. I can do that. I am usually up making hubby lunch at that point anyway, so we get up together. One thing to note, though, is this girl is not a morning person. She is ornery, loud, and wants it her way when she wants it asap. We have many stern talks about letting her sister sleep and being polite before most people are even awake. I hope this means she'll sleep in longer when she is older... wouldn't that be nice?

She sits solidly almost all the time and therefore doesn't spend a lot of time on her stomach. Crawling hasn't made an appearance and this mama is fine with that. I love that she can sit and play nicely for 20-30 minutes (longer if her sister is right next to her) and she can't crawl into mischief yet. It's a perfect balance. Of course, when she is on her stomach, she is practicing getting up on all fours and she can wiggle her way about two feet any direction so the mobility is sneaking in, just not too quickly.

Seriously, though, when Josie will play right next to her, hardly anything will upset her. She will go from grumpy and crying to laughing and smiling in seconds if Jo will just give her a little attention. I've been working on teaching Josie to help Audrey and love her in many different ways and it's so fun to watch her carry that out while they play. Watching them play together is the best part of every single day. I love watching them be sweet sisters.

She's started nuzzling into my shoulder and giving me little hugs on her own. I haven't seen her do it to anyone else but she has no problem being held by others. While she loves her mama, she's great with others too. Again, perfect mix.

I don't know how big she is now but she hasn't really changed much with her clothes. She is wearing mostly 3-6 month clothes with some 6-9 month summer items thrown in. Now that it is hot and summery out, she usually is either in just her diaper, a romper, or just a onesie. I haven't had her in pants for almost the whole month so she might be longer but I'm not noticing it as much without pants to give it away.

Based on this month, you'd never guess that she used to hate her car seat because now she is absolutely fine. She plays with anything she can get her hands on and is content while in carts at stores because she people watches like crazy (a girl after both parents' hearts!). 

Audrey's hair really cracks me up.  She still has the long "rat tail" in the back (that will be getting trimmed very soon, it's getting ugly) and the front is so long and dark, much more so than the rest of her head. The rest is growing in much lighter, just like Josie's, so it'll be interesting to see how much they look alike when their hair is the same. I do think that Audrey's hair is a little bit straighter naturally, but only time will tell that.

 

I know I'm biased, but she's just the cutest thing. Her personality is finding its way out and her sweet spirit is the greatest thing to discover. 

Love that girl.

Its hard to see their size difference here because the camera is closer to Audrey than to Josie, but to keep it in perspective, Audrey is about the same length but at least 2 1/2 lbs lighter, and she's in a 3-6 month onesie while Josie is in a 6-9 month onesie (and its kind of tight already). And look at the hair difference! Not looking so much alike anymore...

Read her other updates here. 

To watch her grow, click here.

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Audrey Joy, Six months old

Audrey Joy turned six months old on May 18th. This month was a good month. No, a great month.

Not much has changed for eating. We're using the sensitive formula from Sam's Club and haven't had any hick ups. I have made attempts at feeding her solids and this girl just isn't interested. She will eat one or two bites of the oatmeal cereal, but even that seems less than appealing to her. I hope and pray this doesn't mean that she will be a picky eater forever. Bah. It's not the worst thing I guess, but if I can help it I would love to introduce her to as much as I can sooner than later.

We've done a little more sleep training and have settled with her waking up ever second or third night to have a bottle around 4-5 AM. Other than those nights, she mostly sleeps until 6 or 7 in the morning and it's great! She's going to bed between 7 and 8 PM with Josie. The pacifier is her most favorite thing. We do have to go in numerous times to get her all situated with the pacifier in her mouth, but I can't complain about that. It could be so much worse.

She's been sitting up since 5 1/2 weeks and has really gotten stronger. She still needs help staying up, but every single day shows her strength and it's fun to see her attention span getting longer. Her arms seem to be longer too. She is suddenly grabbing at our plates full of food (but she doesn't want to eat any of it), toys that seem out of reach, diapers, wipes, anything she can get her hands on. It's fun to see her get excited for her toys and of course when she is excited, so is everyone else in the room. She's contagious.

Josie is her biggest source of entertainment. She loves to watch her and giggles with her constantly. All they need is a glance between them to get them both laughing hysterically. They build off of each other which makes me laugh as well. I have it on video but they were taking a bath so it's not so much blog appropriate. Trust me though, it's adorable. Josie head bumps her constantly and I caught her sitting on her once too. Audrey hardly ever cries and usually she wants to keep watching Jo so if she does cry, it's only for a minute before she's distracted again.

We still think she's more of a mommy's girl than Josie was, and she still loves to be held. She doesn't stare at my face and interact quite as much as before since she's becoming more and more aware of her surroundings. She still gives a huge smile at the smallest amount of eye contact, and loves to reach her little hands up to cup my face. Just wins me over everysingletime. 

And of course the stats! She is still just under the 50% mark for both height and weight. I have no idea what her head circumference is. Her weight is 15 lbs 8 oz and her height is 27 inches. She's the same height that Josie was but is almost 2 1/2 lbs lighter. Crazy! She's still wearing mostly 3-6 clothing with the newer things being too big. I am kind of sick of some of her onesies that Josie wore a lot, but that's not a good enough reason to buy more, especially since she'll be switching sizes soon. Plus... summer will come soon I hope!

She's much more content in the car seat now that she can entertain herself for longer periods of time. It has also helped a lot that we don't have the cover over her now that it is nice out.

I adore her. We adore her. I still don't understand how I can love both girls so much but so differently. They really are just so different. I kind of really love that too.

Audrey and Josie both at six months old

**Sorry for the shadows in the pictures. I didn't feel like redoing them since she was so smiley and happy the first time around**

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Audrey Joy, Five Months Old

Audrey turned five months old on April 18th. This month has been so much better for this little babe. Around the time of the four month update, she was continually fussing and just didn't seem to be her happy self. We tried adjusting all kinds of things, but I think that ultimately she was just going through the huge growth spurt that happens around that time. Once we got past that (along with a few other adjustments), she is doing great and we haven't looked back.

After this post about my struggles with breast feeding, I ended up pumping for the whole month while supplementing her with formula. She would not latch on once she knew that the bottle was an option, which was frustrating to say the least. I did my best to keep my supply up, but of course it eventually slowed down and I threw in the towel this week after only pumping 1 1/2 oz for an entire day. That tiny amount was not worth how much time it was taking, so even though I wanted to continue until she was six months old, I was ready to be done. I am praying that she doesn't get too sick in the next month without my immunity being passed to her. That really is the reason that I had wanted to continue until at least six months. At least after that point, I can give her some medicine for fevers or teething. 

With her now drinking formula, she has really chunked up! I don't know how much she weighs, but she is definitely quite a bit bigger than she was last month. Even within the first week of formula supplementing, her face changed a lot and she started filling out her clothes. I put away all of her 0-3 month clothing and have even noticed that some of Josie's hand-me-downs are too small even though they are 3-6 month. What a change! Those chubby cheeks are too much for me. I just can't get enough of them.

This month, she spent a large amount of play time on her tummy and she's starting to grab for toys intentionally. She's finding her feet and understanding that her hands belong to her. It's so fun to watch her pick something up, hold it in front of her, and then either throw it down or bring it closer (usually to her mouth). Her wonder and excitement is contagious. I've been working with her sitting up, and I can see that she is getting stronger although she isn't really that close yet. I'm in no hurry for her to grow up as fast as her sister did... she can take her time with this!

Sleeping has improved this month. She had been waking up 3-4 times a night because she was hungry, but once we started filling her up as much as we could before bed, she slept longer only waking once (sometimes twice) a night. The problem we had this month was that when she did get up that one time, it took up to two hours to get her back to sleep. We were practically pulling our hair out trying to figure out why she wouldn't go back to sleep. She has grown out of this too (thank you God) and is now getting up once (occasionally twice) to eat but falling back asleep almost immediately. It's such a relief. Now that I am not breast feeding, we are doing what we did with Josie for night duty. Every other night, either hubby or I (just one of us) get up with both girls no matter what. That way, the night that we have "off" is quality sleep instead of just waiting for the next crying girl. It makes a huge difference to know that if someone needs something, it's taken care of. I know we both sleep better with this arrangement. Of course, the nights when it is our turn, we are both less than thrilled about it. It's fair, though, so it keeps us from the unnecessary middle of the night bickering. (Let's face it, neither of us are at our bests then.)

I can count on smiles from this girl all the time. She's much more content playing on the floor or in her ExerSaucer. We also got out our Johnny Jumper and she enjoys that just as much. The only problem is that her sister loves to spin her around and push her like it's a swing. Because of this, not much time is spent in it since it has to hang in the bedroom door which isn't close to anything. I can't trust Josie for one second when she's in there! 

We haven't started solids yet, although I have tried baby oatmeal with her a few times. She still isn't showing much interest in food, and I'm not too concerned with it. She'll be ready when she's ready and she's growing just fine. It's a lot more work for me, too, so when she's ready, we'll do it but for now, it's fine to just try it out here and there.

Audrey is not a fan of the car seat. Although she eventually does stop fussing, I spend a lot of every drive with my arm reaching back awkwardly trying to hold the pacifier in her mouth. Its the only thing that works to keep her from fussing (which leads to screaming). Once the weather is nice enough to take off the car seat cover, I'm hoping she'll enjoy being able to see everything and won't be angry about all things car seat all the time. Other than that, she is rarely fussy unless she's tired or hungry and then who can blame her? She's gotten a lot tougher with Josie's big sister roughness and only cries from it really is too rough. A baby can only take so much rough housing!

I just really really really love this age. She's not independent enough to be into everything but she loves to play, is starting to show personality, and is content almost all the time. So much fun. I believe that is what I thought when Josie hit this age too.

Here is a comparison of the girls. Audrey on the left, Josie on the right.

Click here to see how she's changed each month.

 

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Buttons, new looks, weekend updates, and more

I did it. I made a blog button (such a huge deal, I know). I was bound and determined to figure out how to do it, and it only took me a few hours. Does that show you how techy I am (not)? Regardless, it's on the side of my blog and you are welcome to grab it if you would like. 

I'd absolutely love to do a button trade, so if you are interested in that, let me know please! I also have my blog list on the right side, and would love to add more to it but don't always remember to update it. Let me know if you'd like to be on that too. :) I'm always up for helping out other bloggers (even though my little blog is just that - little).

And also - did you see my new blog look? If you are reading from a reader or through your email you'll have to go to my actual blog page ... I think it's worth it though. I like it. It's nothing fancy but it fits me and isn't as wintery/dark as the last one.

We had a great weekend. We finished up the training for foster care and had dinner with friends on Saturday night. Sunday was great. After church, my sister took Josie to the circus and my parents came up to hang out with Audrey. That left hubby and I to have some free time and we spent it doing the most romantic thing we could think of... shopping! We hit up a few places we had been meaning to go and got back to the house just in time to scarf down some Italian food before my sister and parents hit the road to drive back in blizzard-like conditions(isn't it mid April?). We spent the evening playing with play dough and making rice krispie bars. It was a great day, definitely one for the books.

After church but before we went on our "date," we did a 20 minute clean up where we both just ran around putting away the random things that were homeless and cleaning random floors, toilets, and rooms. I love those short little cleaning spurts when we both motivated at the same time. It felt so good to see the weird little things get done and the house just looked more put together afterwards. I was beaming all afternoon just from that 20 minute session. It's the little things, right?

They stayed for the whole first half (pretty good for a 22 month old) and apparently she hated cotton candy but loved the pickle on a stick. I'm not even a little surprised by this.

Audrey decided to redeem herself from the previous time we were with Grammy and Bappa where she screamed almost the whole weekend prior to her magical chiropractor visit. This time around, she cooed, smiled and giggled for them for most of the afternoon, officially wrapping them around her little finger.

Twas a good weekend.

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Audrey's Four Month Doctor Appointment

A little warning: I may sound a little heated in this post because its only been a few hours since the appointment, but bare with me. 

I brought Audrey to the doctor today for her 4 month check up. I had some questions and was looking for serious answers, and I gotta say, my doctor did not deliver. At her last appointment (two months), I had brought up that she had these episodes where it seemed like she couldn't breathe. She would get this look on her face of pure terror, like she was choking, and then take a large breath after several (seemingly long) seconds. Of course this terrified her, and whoever was holding her or saw it happen, so I made a big deal about it at the appointment. The doctor referred me to a child specialist who told me that it was most likely a developmental thing and that she would grow out of it. Not very reassuring, but it didn't happen for a long time after that. It's happened twice in the last two weeks, so I guess she hasn't grown out of it. 

This time around, I was focused on asking about breast feeding/her growth and completely forgot about these episodes. After I left, I realized that she never asked me about it. Maybe I'm overreacting, but I feel like it should have been something she wanted to follow up with. This doctor doesn't seem to remember us from appointment to appointment, so I shouldn't have been that surprised. Last time, I told myself that she would be more personable the more she got to know us, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

So back to my big concern this time. I touched briefly on it in Audrey's monthly update that the last couple of weeks have been tough for us with feeding. I feel like my supply has dropped a lot and combined with her growing appetite, she just never seems full. I've started pumping numerous times a day, sometimes after I feed her or if we're separated for a couple of hours (when she is fed a bottle). It has improved a little, but not back to 100%. I also have been focusing on guzzling water, but again, it has only helped a little. 

I've done a lot of research on this but am certainly no expert, so I was hoping the doctor could affirm or deny what I have already researched. Instead, when I voiced my concerns, she just said that I should make sure to have a healthy diet that includes a lot of dairy and protein. Ok, thank you doctor, but that is the most generic answer you could possibly give me. I was so disappointed.

On top of that, she jumped right into the topic of supplementing. Now I don't want to step on toes here, so please understand this. I have nothing against supplementing with formula (each parent has to make decisions based on their circumstances so there is no judgement here. Remember that we fed Josie formula from 3 months old until she was one), but we haven't exhausted or even really tried all of the options yet. To have her tell me that the only thing I can do is start giving her formula was depressing. Of course I will do that to make sure she has enough calories, but what else can I do to get my supply back up? The body can do amazing things, and it is most likely possible for this problem to be resolved. I just don't have the knowledge of how. I was hoping the highly educated doctor would. 

First time putting her hair up in a clip

She told me that Audrey's weight was concerning (great...) and that she wanted her to come back in a month to check her weight and make sure she is growing enough now that we've "talked about it." I didn't object because I hate confrontation, but I had my doubts about the whole conversation.

I think the biggest thing that frustrated me is that she just jumped on the conclusion that I had brought up. I had mentioned that my supply was low, that maybe I needed to supplement, and she considered that the end of discussion. I asked her straight out what else I could do, but she didn't seem to care or even notice that I was asking for help. 

One thing I've learned over the last couple of years is that if I don't like the doctor, I need to find another one and not go back. It's not worth it for me to be frustrated and disappointed after every appointment. I should be able to trust my doctor and ask as many questions as I want (which by the way is not that many... I'm not crazy over the top with questions). 

My questions for you are: Have you had problems with your supply not being enough? What did you do about it? Have you had issues with a doctor that just doesn't seem to care? Local friends: Any recommendations for a new doctor that I can bring both my girls to?

I had an awesome doctor when I was pregnant, but she moved on and got a new job. It's frustrating but also a little reassuring to know that not all doctors are impersonal and distant or rude. There are doctors that care, remember you and your questions, take the time to listen and come up with solutions. I just have to find one!

To help you understand my doubts, Audrey's weight is 12 lbs 14 oz which is between 25% and 50%. This is only slightly lower than where she was two months ago, and Josie had a much bigger drop than that as she got older. She just started up a lot higher from birth. Audrey's height is still at 90% with her being 24.5 inches long. 

The doctor made me feel like a failure because she isn't growing enough, when the chart she was looking at showed her to be doing just fine. That's frustrating, right?

I know in the long run this problem will seem minor, but it takes up a lot of my time, feeding this baby, and I want to do what is best for her. I want her to continue having my immunity through the breast milk as long as possible (she hasn't been sick yet! Josie had been sick more than once by this point if we're comparing) and I love the bond we have from it. I just am not ready to throw in the towel!

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