Friday Night Lights

I headed to my Uncle Luke's football game last Friday. Everyone in the crowd just loved me! I could tell because at least 3 different strangers held me, and one of them was even taking pictures of me. Must have been my cute bow.

Here I am with Grandma...


At home getting ready for the game...

6 month update

Wow, 6 months! Can't believe it's been half a year already! Some days I feel like a pro at this whole mom thing... some days it feels like I just brought Lucy home from the hospital.

This past month once again brought tons of changes - crawling, pulling up, solid foods. Lucy is so active! Fortunately she hasn't learned to go outside of the toy circle I provide for her in the family room yet, but I'm sure some day I'll turn around and she'll be sitting next to me in the kitchen.

Lucy is also talking a lot more now - we've heard lots of da-da-da's and every once in a while I think I hear a ma-ma-ma. But mostly she likes to scream/grunt. I'm just happy to hear her voice!

Her nursing schedule has stayed about the same - eating 5 times a day, every 3-4 hours, except now we do solid foods at "lunch" and "dinner". For solids we have conquered: rice, carrots, peas, avocado and banana. She doesn't love my homemade carrots, peas or avocado though, so I usually have to sneak those foods in with banana or rice. After her first week of solids Lucy slowed way down, to the point of not really even wanting to eat at some meals... I wonder if she was going through a growth spurt when I introduced the solids? Now she will sometimes eat a lot, but typically is too distracted by Ruthie or the trees outside.

Sleep has been great and horrible again this month! In the beginning of the month Lucy was sleeping great - 11 hours at night, no paci waking and took three 1.5-2.5 hour naps. Then, either vacation, crawling, sitting up (from laying down), solids or a growth spurt caused things to go a little haywire... The past two weeks we've sometimes been adding a feeding back at night around 4-5am, and have about 4-5 night wakings each night which either require a paci pop or rocking. Naps suddenly changed from being on schedule to happening whenever Lucy wanted and sometimes only last for 45 minutes... needless to say, I'm a little exhausted as I write this.

We've tried crying it out a couple times but that typically only gets Lucy more and more worked up, and makes me go a little crazy... She used to be able to cry for 5, 10, or 15 minutes and then fall asleep, but now it seems she could go all night! We usually gave up after 45min-1hr. Especially now that she can sit up, we go in to settle her down and she won't lay back down and refuses her pacifier... needless to say after a lot of lost sleep, broken hearts (I can't stand the crying!) and confusion, I finally decided to go with the flow a little more and just be on Lucy's schedule this week (not force my own) and that has seemed to help. Of course, I find it impossible to be on time to anything and have had to skip a couple things because a nap showed up when I wasn't expecting... but mom and baby seem to be much happier this way!

Figuring Lucy out is definitely one of the most challenging things I've ever done! I realized that I loved having a boss in my past jobs because at the end of the day if I had done everything I possibly could and could not solve a problem, I could always just turn to the boss to fix things. Now... I am the boss... ugh... Even when I feel like I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do with Lucy, some days she's just a nasty client. I sometimes wish I had a panel of 3 experienced moms that were also doctors who lived with me all the time and gave me constant recommendations... is that so much to ask? Instead I am constantly having to make decisions I don't feel confident about and spend hours on the internet researching why things are the way they are... why don't babies come with manuals?

Anyway, the only conclusions that I can make from the mess these past weeks have been is that I'm definitely having at least 2 kids - because whats the point of going through all this, gaining some experience if I can't try it out on another one!

I am thankful though... thankful for a few friends who have babies I can consult with... thankful to be starting a new Bible study with other moms so I can have more mommy consultants... thankful Lucy is 100% healthy and very happy... thankful Lucy is growing and developing perfectly... thankful I have Ben to share everything with.... thankful all of our family is so close to support us and help us when we need it... and thankful for my friends who remind me there's lots of other things going on in this world besides pacifier and sleep issues - like.... when's the next Twilight movie coming out?

Ok for stats:
Weight - 15.8 lbs (48%), Height - 27 in (90%), Head - 16.8in (60%)

Things people have said about Lucy this past month that I think do a great job describing her:
"Does she ever cry?" - the nursery at Grace after they watched her for 2.5hrs, she was an angel! of course I wanted to say... yes, typically at 2am, 3am, and 5am... want to come over and hear her? but the truth is, she really hardly crys at all during the day, and is such a flexible baby

"She's 6 months, I would have thought she was 2-3 months" - a lady a the park, along with many other people that say she is so tiny for her age... but she is perfect! my petite little princess

"awww... how old is HE" - the sales associate at sears... we're still lagging in the hair department... I think I need to go shopping for some more bows

After looking through all of the pictures I took, I realized it was hard for me to get a picture of Lucy NOT smiling... she really is so happy...


She is all over the place! Could hardly get her to sit still!


Took these pictures earlier in the day - but noticed that she had gotten a nice little shiner on her forehead... did I mention she's all over the place?

Vacation

My first Florida vacation!

Last week we headed to Florida for vacation with Mom, Tim, Jordyn and our family. We drove through the night, so the trip down went pretty smooth - Lucy slept all but a half hour at around 3 am when she woke up and cried for a bit. Same for the way up. I think we'll probably travel that way until our kids are at least over 6 - a sleeping child is a happy child!

I had been told vacations throw babies off, so I decided we'd be a little more relaxed about schedules and naps on this trip. Fortunately the first four days Lucy slept amazing and stayed on schedule on her own accord- despite the new conditions. Panama City is an hour earlier than Indy, so we found ourselves waking at 6am every day (Lucy normally wakes around 7am at home) but Lucy would then go to bed pretty early. Unfortunately, that only lasted four days and the second half of the week brought a lot of tears, a lot of fighting sleep and a grumpy mom. Double unfortunately, those trends have continued here at home... but I'll talk about that in another post.

Lucy loved the ocean and the pool - but mostly loved playing with her water toys inside her swim float...






In keeping with the flexible theme, Lucy took some of her naps on the beach... but they usually ended up being short naps, so I tried to lay her down back at the condo as much as possible.


When she was awake - she was happy as ever!


It was nice to go on vacation with Mom and Tim as they helped a lot with Lucy and allowed Ben and I to spend more time at the pool/beach and have a little alone time.




Although sometimes we caught them sleeping on the job...


Jordyn really came out of his shell on the trip - going into the "big boy pool", the ocean, and riding a jet ski!!




And of course he loved playing with Lucy...


All in all it was a great vacation. I learned a couple things: if you are trying not to get burned at the beach - take a 6 month old, as you'll spend a lot of time in the shade and a lot of time indoors... go with the flow - it was so much easier to follow Lucy's lead than for her to follow mine... little boys have a lot of energy :)... and lastly, taking a 6 month old to the beach can actually be fun - I thought this vacation would just feel like every day I am at home (which I love, don't get me wrong, I just figured why pay a bunch of money to go do what I do every day), but I actually had a blast hanging out with my family, getting extra help with Lucy and playing with her as she took in new experiences at the pool and ocean - much more fun than being at home by myself all day!

Solid Foods Continued

Here are some pictures from our first solid food experience with Lucy - as I mentioned before, she loved it! In fact, so much so, I was concerned about the amount she was taking in. The first time we offered carrots, she finished a whole jar and then cried when I took it away. Now every time we start to get the food ready she gets so excited shaking her hands up and down - kind of similar to what Ben does when I start to fix him a meal.

So far we have done Rice, Carrots, Banana, and Avocado. The avocado did not go over well, but she is slowly taking more of it, and I tried to make homemade carrots (we started with jar carrots since we were on vacation) and she did not like those as well at first either.

It's funny, Lucy has never been a very hungry baby, but I think these solid foods are changing her. I can finally start to see some of those Wehner hunger genes in her.

Solid Foods

We had a big week last week - Lucy started eating solids, she started crawling, and we took our first vacation to the ocean. Here is some video of the first time eating solids. She loved it! I definitely think she was ready...

Crawling!

Lucy started crawling last week! We were on vacation in Florida with my family - I think these new water toys gave her the motivation to get moving. I got some video of her going after my cell phone. Look at her move!

New Milestones!

Lucy has been on the move this week! She's officially "creeping" - not quite crawling, but gets forward by getting up on all fours then throwing herself forward, she can go from laying down to sitting up (adding a new dimension to nap time), and just yesterday I discovered her ability to pull herself up and stand holding on to something other than Ben or I.

Learning this was actually funny, I've never seen Lucy pulling up on anything before, but after about 20 minutes of her talking in her crib (odd bc she's usually only sleeping or crying in the crib), I peaked my head in and found her up on her knees sucking on the crib rail! What a little rascal... I couldn't help but crack up laughing... who needs a paci when you can just suck on the crib!

I took these pictures later...




I helped her to standing (she's still working on getting past being on her knees) but once she was up there she stood all on her own!


Today's nap... I peaked in after 20 minutes (thinking she was zonked) and found her sitting, spinning the mobile... this should make for an interesting couple days!

**editor's note, right after I wrote this, I was playing with Lucy downstairs and she was able to pull herself up onto her feet!

Kappa Cousins

We had a packed house this past weekend, Mom's sorority sisters came to stay for a wedding... so that would make these guys my sorority cousins... right?

Ok, let's get a group shot... places everyone...


I am one lucky lady!


And we're off...