11 months old!

Only one more month until my little baby is one year old! I really am so surprised how fast she has grown up. This little girl has taken over my house, my life, my every waking moment and most of all my heart! I can't describe how much I love life with her in it. I wouldn't want it any other way. Although there are days where I want to pull my hair out and scream at the top of a mountain. There are days where I just want to sleep in for a little longer. There are days when I'm not feeling good. There are days that I just want to be a lone for an hour..... But as soon as I see her beautiful face I can't help but smile and want to swoop her up and kiss her little face a million times. I AM A MOMMY! It just boggles my mind. I can't wait to see her grow and flourish into an amazing young being. I know that everything I do and say shapes her into the person she will become. Talk about a lot of my shoulders! I hope I do this right. Anyway onto what you all care about, Emma!

This month Emma has taken her first steps! She is still wobbly and can't go far but I imagine by her birthday she will be very good at it. I see her all the time thinking about trying to walk. She gets all excited and then kinda squats back down like she isn't quite ready. Then sometimes she does it without even realizing she is doing it. Then when she does she immediately squats back down and looks around to see if anyone saw. She gets very pleases when someone says "big girl" in a happy proud voice! So cute!

I am still nursing 3 times a day. Hope to be down to twice a day at her first birthday. I think we will be finished by 14 months. She eats what we eat most nights. She has become kinda picky just this past week. I'm not sure why. I have asuspicion  that it's because of her teeth. I think it hurts when she tries to eat. She has been kinda sick with a fever. So maybe that's it too. I hope that it passes soon. I'm kinda lucky to get her to eat anything right now. One thing that she is guaranteed to eat is blueberries. She loves those suckers. 

Her favorite activities are riding in her new truck from papa! It was an early birthday gift. It is currently parked in our kitchen because it's hard to keep taking it over the gate to go outside. She also loves cruising around furniture. She can make it all around the house fairly easily. Her favorite toy is a play house that has a door and window and light. It has lots of fun things on it. She also loves drawers!! Open close open close! I have the child proof things on but it still opens like an inch. So that leaves just enough room to smash her little fingers. She does it all the time. Poor kid. 

We currently are down to 1 nap a day. I didn't realize how much I needed that second nap. It is very hard to get everything I need to get done in an hour. Sometimes an hour and a half. Some days I have to choose between a shower and house work. It boggles my mind how much energy this kid has. She is all over the place. As far as night time, She is doing well. She sometimes wakes up but falls back asleep fairly quickly. Last night wasn't easy but I attribute it to her teeth or her not feeling that great for the past few days. She wakes up at 5 usually and I nurse her and put her back to bed. She then will sleep till 7 or 8. I don't know what will happen when I cut out that feeding. I am not prepared to be up for the day at 5am. We shall see. I'm very nervous about it though. 

She is wearing 12 month clothes but I'm starting to buy 18 months because they fit better. 

We are so excited for her first birthday. It is cowgirl themed and I am having so much fun planning it. I can't wait to post pictures!

Here is some current pics of our little diva!

Cardinals fan!

She loves this car!

Swimming!

Her first friend. 

4th of July! We went to New Hampshire for the weekend.

First subway ride

First ferry ride!

Love her hazel eyes!

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Cry it out and how it worked for me

Cry it out is a very controversial subject. From day one I was against it and said I would never do it. I just couldn't stand hearing my baby cry. Well things change I guess. Emma is 10 months old now and I just couldn't handle it anymore. Nothing was working. So, I decided to do cry it out. Let me tell you, it's the best thing I ever did and I wish I hadn't waited this long!

I read a lot about how to do it and I took what I read and made it my own. Every baby is different and at this point I knew what was going to work and not work with her. 

I knew if I went in there every 5 min then 7 then 10.... It would make her worse and cry even longer. So I was literally going to have to let her cry it out. The first night was the hardest. She went to bed at 7:30 and woke up at 1:15. I sat there listening to her scream for 30 min. During that 30 min I felt like I had a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. Go in there, what if she pooped, what if she threw up, what if she has a fever, she just wants her mommy, go in there and hold her...... No Amber, she is fine, she is just upset, this too shall pass, it's worth it in the long run, you don't want a 3 year old that still can't sleep through the night. But maybe if I just go sneak a peek and pat her back..... No no, I can't that will just piss her off even more. And so on and so on.... Well after the 30 min i couldn't take it anymore, I went in there and she was standing in her crib reaching for me and screaming. I didn't pick her up. I just layed her back down on her belly and turned on her fishy crib soother. I then left the room with her still crying. She was beyond mad, her screams probably woke the neighbors. But I stayed strong and went back to my room. After a few minutes of recovering from the ringing in my ears, I turned the monitor back on. She was still crying. I layed there thinking this will never work, she is going to scream for hours! 10 min later she stopped! Ahhhhhh, ok I can do this! She didn't wake up till 5:30. I fed her and put her back to bed. She slept until 8:30 after that. I did it! I made it through night one!!!!

Night 2! I thought for sure it was going to be a repeat of the night before. She went to bed at 7:30. And... Like clock work she woke up at 1am again. This time I was a little calmer. Not so many fights going one with the angel and devil. I got on my phone, checked Facebook, read a few blogs I haven't had time to read and tried to remember how nice it was to get a full 6 hours of sleep straight!!! Oh how marvelous it will be when I can get a full nights sleep! :) After 15 min I layed back down with the monitor in hand on the lowest volume. I fell asleep. When I woke back up the monitor was off!!!!! WTF, OH MY GOD! MY BABY IS PROBABLY DEAD! I turned it back on as quick as my fingers could. Silence!! Oh god, what time is it? How did it turn off? I must have hit the off button by accident! I'm an awful mother! What do I do? I have to go in there! It was 3am. Who knows how long she cried for. I tip toed as fast and quietly as I could to her room. Opened the door slowly and saw her laying there very still. I got closer, is she breathing? I put my finger under her nose, HOT BREATH!! Thank god!!! I exited the room hoping not to wake her up. I didn't. I went back to bed feeling relieved and upset at the same time. She woke up at 6 to eat and then slept till 9. I guess you could say night two was a success. I don't know. 

Night 3! Well I wasn't going to let the same thing happen as last night, that's for sure. I put the monitor on my night stand and made sure it was going to stay there. She woke up at 2:30 this time. I felt bad because of the night before and really thought hard about going in there to comfort her. But I talked myself out of it. I didn't want to have to start all over again. 10 min later the monitor went silent. I turned over to make sure it was still on. Yep! SUCCESS! Only 10 min! I fell back asleep with a smile that night. She didn't wake until 7am. 

Night 4 she slept through the night! Waking up at 6 to eat. Every night since has been the same. I don't consider her waking up at 5 or 6 to eat a bad thing. I can handle that. As long as she isn't up before the birds lol ;) 

So that's how cry it out worked for me. It wasn't as bad as I imagined and read about. It was a bit nerve racking but it's worth it. I feel great! 

We just bought a tempurpedic mattress the other day. This is my first night sleeping on it! I am hoping for a great nights sleep!!!! ;) 

If you are having doubts about CIO I suggest you do your own version of it. Take everything with a grain of salt. You know your baby better than anyone. So do what you think is best. I felt the time was right. At 10 months she knew what she was doing. She was pulling one over on me and I had had enough. No sleep for nearly 18 months is pretty awful. I couldn't sleep when I was pregnant. And I defiantly couldn't sleep after she was born up until now. Anyway, like I said before it was the best thing I ener did. And if we have another one I won't wait as long to do it. 

Here is a quick pic of her pushing her cart. She just figured it out the other day! Go Emma!!!

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10 months old

Well, only 2 more months and our little angel will be ONE! Oh man, I just can't believe it. She is getting so big. 

Emma and I went on a long trip to visit with my sister in KC and family in STL. We had so much fun. We were able to see lots of people! Unfortunately Emma got sick towards the end of our stay in St. Louis. I guess it was just a little bug. But she definitely gave me a little scare. I won't go into details but she was very sick. Anyway, we went to the aquarium with my sister and her twin girls Grace and Sophia, the park, played in the pool, got pictures taken and had great fun just playing in the house. The twins are almost a year older than Emma so they are running all over the place. I got the feeling Emma really wanted to run with them. Lol

Scrub a dub dub!

While in STL we met with more cousins, aunts, uncles grandparents and great grandparents! We also went shopping with Mimi and swimming in the pool! 

Nanny Poppy and Grammy 

When we got back from our trip we went to Emma's first carnival! They had a petting zoo and lots of games and rides! Daddy won Emma two fish that we named Sheldon and Amy but unfortunately they died the next day :( 

It was fun for all of us if you couldn't tell! Lol

 

We also switched Emma into her big girl car seat! It was time. She really likes it and fell asleep in it very fast :)

For the past two nights we have done cry it out. It has been hard but we are managing. I just can't keep doing this. Momma needs sleep! So far so good. I think she will get the hang of it soon. I'll keep you updated. 

She is currently taking two naps still but occasionally only one. I will probably drop the second nap soon. 

Her favorite foods are cheese, toast and the pouches of baby food. I have tried to make all finger foods but she insists on the pouches still. She has three meals a day and nurses 4 times. I am also dropping a feeding after we get through CIO. Don't want to make things to stressful. 

She enjoys banging blocks together, reading, cruising around the furniture, playing with all the singing toys and just started trying to walk with the push walker. She is trying hard but just hasn't gotten it yet. She loves peek a boo games! She is crawling all over the place these days! Can't believe how fast she is. We have lots of baby gates in our house lol. 

Her vocabulary consists of babababa and bob. We aren't sure who Bob is yet but she is very fond of him lol. I hope she starts saying mama and dada soon. 

She is currently in size 12 clothing for the most part. Shorts and skirts are usually 9 though. She has thinned out a lot.

As far as features, she looks a lot like her daddy! As of now her eyes are hazel and her hair is dirty blonde, just like her dad. She does have my ears and I see a lot of my personality in her. :)

  

Well that's about all that's going on here! Here are a few more pics....

All the kids!

Daddy picked us up from the airport!