Where to begin?

I have that feeling that I often get when it's been too long between blog posts...like I'm about to set sail on a very disjointed trip between here and there, jolting everyone else along with me. I was well intentioned about putting up more frequent posts last week. I could go on with a list of excuses as to why, but I'm betting that's not really important to anyone, and frankly I don't know that I have the energy to do it anyway. So we'll just move on and make another Monday Resolution (I'm FAMOUS for these) to get more frequent posts up this week so as to avoid this kind of confusion next Monday.

Sleep has been a rarity at our house the past few weeks as Lauren has set out on a mission to kill me. I've always been grateful for the fact that she has been, for the most part, a much better sleeper than her brother. Well, ever since our trip to Benezette (where I fear a few bad habits were created), it's not been a good scene. I've spent more hours half-asleep in the rocking chair in Lauren's room than I've spent in my bed. I've been in a fog, truly. So maybe you should all be glad I DID NOT post over the past week because it likely would have been a big sob story about my exhaustion and perhaps may have included a "child for sale" offer that I would later have regretted.

But life has moved on despite my toothpicks-in-the-eyes-to-keep-them-open state. After all, there are bikes to be ridden! See the handsome man on his big boy bike? He's doing pretty well and has even begun to master the art of braking, which I think we all agree is a good thing. We're quite thankful to have the church parking lot within an easy walk/bike ride of our house, and find ourselves there quite a bit to practice riding where it's open and flat. I hear it's a good place to learn parallel parking too, although I don't think my heart can take the idea of him being big enough to learn to drive, so I won't linger on that.

While Joshua rides his bike, Lauren eats a lot of Puffs and practices her gymnastics stretches from the comfort of the stroller. Doesn't she look intense? She'll be a real competitor, I just know it.



Before I get into the weekend photos, I should report that Lauren had her 9 month checkup at the doctor's office on Tuesday of last week. They were shocked at her growth, but pleased. She had been 13 lb 4 oz at her 6 month appointment, and was 16 lb 12 oz on Tuesday. Way to go Lauren! She had also grown 2 full inches from 25.5 to 27.5 inches. She showed off all of her tricks (clapping, waving, saying "ma-ma-ma"...my personal favorite, standing up, crawling, pulling up, picking things up with her little fingers, etc.). After a good report, it appears that we're going to get to keep her, at least until her 12 month checkup in the fall. The only moment of comedy was my conversation with the doctor about Lauren's sleeping. I should frame it by saying that I was in the throes of the worst sleeping week I've seen in about 3 years, and wasn't really in a good place about it. But when I mentioned that we were still getting up definitely once and usually twice or more for Lauren to eat during the night, he said to me, "You know...it would be better if she was sleeping all night." To which I replied, "Really? I hadn't thought of that." If I thought it wouldn't have been rude to smack him, I might have. He suggested we let her cry it out, but not to let her fuss for more than 20 minutes. (Which sounded like such an awesome suggestion with a touchy 3 year old sleeper about 30 feet from Lauren's crib. Sure.)

Anyway, I was scheduled to be off on Friday to have a little visit from Libby, Nana and Brooke during the day. So I decided that I would try this little cry-it-out technique with Lauren at nap time rather than during the night. So I laid a very sleepy baby in the crib after nursing her for a few minutes to get her groggy. As soon as I put her in the crib, it began. The wailing. But I pressed on. I told her night-night, kissed her little head and left. I sat downstairs trying to drown out the screaming with a little TLC and watched the clock. At 20 minutes, I went upstairs to check on her. She was a mess. A mess. But after seeing that she was OK......heartbroken, but OK.....I went back downstairs. I let this go for another 20 minutes at which point I went back upstairs. She was at that point, gagging and banging her head against the side of the crib, then attempting to climb out. It was then that our little experiment ended in failure. Broken arms (or worse) isn't a good tradeoff for her learning to put herself to sleep. By the time Nana and Aunt Libby arrived, I was frazzled...and Lauren was still exhausted.

We had some very gourmet Spaghetti-O's for lunch and they were a hit. The kids finished up with some of Nana's cupcakes, and were quite happy! They played some Play-Doh while Lauren napped and we unloaded some treasures from Aunt Libby's car that we haven't seen in a while. I had every intention of putting this play kitchen in our office/play room or even down in the basement for a little while, but Lauren has been at it NON-STOP since Friday. It's served as such a great toy for her already that I think it might stay in the living area for a while. We had gotten this for Josh for Christmas right after he turned 1. Already, Laure has played with it more than he did. Brooke liked it a lot too, so it's good to see that it was $60 well spent.

It may appear that Joshua was attempting to strangle his sister, but he was not (at least not at THIS moment). Aren't they cute? Lauren had been tickling Joshua while he laid on the couch with Daddy. There was much giggling.......music to my ears.



And I just couldn't resist posting these pictures of Lauren that I took before church on Sunday morning. She was dressed in the sweetest, girliest pink dress and even let me put a tiny pink bow in her hair. She just couldn't have been any more precious.




But even though I had her dressed up, it didn't take long for her to be back to her usual antics. Her favorite mischief spot in the past few days has been ripping apart the drawer that has my Ziploc bags, Saran wrap, foil, etc. in it. I can't tell you how many times I've found her with Saran wrap all the way across the floor and 50 freezer bags scattered around her feet. The bad news is that our drawers aren't big enough for the little drawer latches (which I now have to return to Wal-Mart), so we're going to have to MacGuyver something. Perhaps Joshua can think of something! HA!



I'm proud to report that I am more together today than I've been in weeks. After a quick rocking chair session at 10:15 last night, Lauren slept until 3:57 this morning. I fed her and she was back to sleep by 4:30. She didn't wake again until 6:30 and played happily while I got dressed for work. After she nursed again, I sat her in her high chair while I ate my cereal. I gave her a handful of multi-grain Cheerios which she promptly devoured, so I gave her another handful. Down the hatch they went. So I followed it with some bites of banana while I was eating mine, and she loved it. So I guess we could say she had her first big girl breakfast with Mommy this morning. She's doing great with table foods, and really seems to be having fun exploring different things. She's still nursing at least 6, usually 7 times a day, but she's adding to that repertoire a little more every day.

More soon......and I really do promise this time.