We've arrived

Got to Tucson around 4:30pm.  Adelyn did even better today than she did yesterday, so we were very fortunate.  Short entry, since we are worn out. The basic game plan for this week is to hit up the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show (fossils! gemstones! jewelry! woohooo!) go hiking in Sabino canyon, head to the Univ. of Arizona campus (did I mention I went there for the first 1.5 yrs  of my ungraduate career?), and maybe even have a date night! We have 3 able-bodied babysitters here, so we may have to take advantage of that! Ok, more later (including pics).

Halfway to Tucson

After a day of driving, we are in Pecos, TX.  That's right folks, we are driving to Tucson, AZ to visit my Grandma (and my parents too, they drove out today) for a week.  We drove about 8.5 hrs today, and we will finish the other... 8ish tomorrow.  Addy did surprisingly well, napped at the beginning, woke up at 11:30, and stayed up for the rest of the trip.  You read that right. We got to the hotel around 6:30 or so, checked in, unpacked, etc. It was about 7:45pm by the time we got to put her down.  She cried for about 10 mins and then she was out.  But ahh yes, the sleeping arrangements. Since we are not yet rich enough to get a suite, or two rooms, we have to set up the pack 'n play by the window of our room.  It's a pretty nice little room, but that's all it is - a single room.  Which means that since Addy went to bed early, we have to tip toe around the room to get ready for bed, brush our teeth... Oh ya, and dinner? We ate our dinner on a couch out in a common area on our floor, just 3 doors down from our room. What did we hear as we were finishing our meal? Our little pumpkin, waking up and hollering for Momma and Daddy, because this just isn't her crib or her bedroom.  It's been a long, taxing day of driving, listening to a happy, then not-so-happy baby. If you'll excuse us, I think we will retire ealy before doing it all again tomorrow. See you in Tucson!

We think she's teething. That could explain the crankiness.

I took Adelyn shopping to see if a change in venue would put her in a better mood. It didn't. Although at one point, Addy saw another baby about her age being pushed around in a stroller and her face broke into this big ol' grin. She even went "ohh", like she wanted to talk to the baby. It was so precious! She needs to meet some babies her age :)

A little crawling news: I put her in the crawling position yesterday to see what she would do. She held it for about 5 seconds (really!) before collapsing onto her tummy and complaining that "Momma is just soooooo mean! I'll crawl when I'm good and ready." Okay, I get the hint.

Sound the alarm.

Someone woke up on the wrong side of the crib this morning...

It seems that we have the crankiest baby in the world. Addy doesn't want to play, she doesn't want to sit, she doesn't want to eat. She just wants to be carried around. So for the sake of my sanity, I strapped her into the snugli and carried her around for 45 minutes before she fell asleep. Hopefully she'll wake up in a better mood than before, because 1 cranky baby=1 cranky momma. We learned that in math class.

Happy 8 month birthday Adelyn!!! We love you!!

Rested.

Ahh, sleep.

Yesterday morning, I woke up to hear Adelyn complaining in the other room and thought "What time is it? Maybe she's hungry?". I look at the clock - 6:30am!! She'd slept straight through from 10:30pm to 6:30am.

Today, Derek and I woke up feeling even more rested. Why? Because Adelyn slept from 7:15pm-ish until 6:30am. I fed her and then surprisingly, she (and, not-so-surprisingly, we!) went back to sleep until 8:30am. That's my girl!

It seems as though Ferber's "progressive waiting" method worked well and she is now capable of soothing herself back to sleep! ::knocks on wood:: I guess she just needed a couple of weeks to get settled into the routine. She barely fusses when we put her to bed now! Up until two nights ago, she was still waking up twice after we'd gone to sleep, but now... All I can say is please let this continue, please, please, pretty please with a cherry on top! We like feeling awake during the day! We like getting more than 3 or 4 consecutive hours of sleep! Yaaaayyyy Addy!

Note: As many of you know, Addy loves loves looooves her pacifiers. Loves them. We've discovered that a great way to keep her calm when putting her to bed is for her to have one in her mouth (of course), and one in her hand. She just lays there in her crib, holding the second paci. It's so funny. I guess she considers it a backup in case she loses the one in her mouth? She eventually drops it, and the one in her mouth falls out, but I guess having two pacies in the crib doubles her chances of finding one in the dark and putting it back in her mouth. Ha! I'd really like to replace the pacifier with a different type of lovey, like a blanket or a stuffed animal, but we'll cross that bridge a little later.

Time for some pictures!

After all, a picture is worth a thousand words, right?? :)

"I like to pull my tights!"
"Hey Daddy, check out my spike!"
"Isn't it nice?"
"This is the new hairstyle."
Playing with her Pooh Bear train.
Look at those eyes.
Love this girl, love this face.
"I like my rings."
"I'm a jedi in training, Momma. This is my lightsaber!"
"I drive trucks."

"Now I'm a magician, and this is my wand! Alakazam!"

Scaaared...

Tonight was scary. Tornado warning for our county. Tornado sirens going off. Tornadoes popping up around us. I was petrified.

Because I'd never been in anything like this before. And because my daughter, our little angel, was in the front room asleep.

Derek was at the fire station, so I was home alone. He thoroughly prepped me for the worst-case scenario, so I knew what I needed to do. We prepared the "safe room" (Derek's closet - the only "room" with no windows and a decently solid door), so if I needed to take shelter, all I had to do was grab the babe.

Thank heavens we did not need it. I didn't need to dash into Adelyn's nursery, tuck her to my chest and dive onto the closet floor as the walls shook around me (like I pictured in my worst nightmare). Instead, I sat on the couch, glued to the TV, watching the breaking news about cloud rotation and a potential tornado moving from Kilgore into downtown Longview, just miles from where we are in White Oak. Luckily, the cloud rotation weakened to the point where the tv station went back to regularly scheduled programming (ha, that's when you know things are calming down). The rain has eased up over our house, Addy is still asleep, and my blood pressure has lowered back down to normal. I think we are in the clear.

I guess this was my introduction to East Texas weather! I wouldn't mind waiting a long time before experiencing this again.... a loooong, long time.

We've discovered another favorite food: mashed up carrots! Addy tried them today, and boy, she put them away like nobody's business. Apparently she only likes orange colored foods.

Also, I guess we can modify what I wrote yesterday - it looks like Adelyn may decide to start crawling sometime soon! She was pushing up with her arms today and curving her back as if to tuck her knees under. Who knows, it could be just around the corner!

Oh, and we're watching "Planet Earth Extremes: Summit to Abyss" on Discovery HD, and can I just say WOAH. It is amazing. How did we ever live without HD before?? Haha. But seriously, the "Planet Earth" series is breathtaking.

Updates

I wrote a long post two days ago with all sorts of Adelyn updates in it, and for some reason it didn't post. Grrrrr... I couldn't bear typing it all out again right after that, so I'm just coming back to it now. I'll try to remember everything I had written. Here goes!

As I mentioned, Adelyn was sick over Christmas with her first major cold, which was no fun for any of us. We took her to a clinic on new years day and discovered she had an ear infection. She was prescribed amoxicillan and that cleared it up, but she experienced some nasty side effects that made her almost as miserable as before, poor bug. She's all better now, thank goodness.

Being sick definitely changed her eating habits. All she wanted to do was nurse (which is understandable), and she completely lost interest in solids. She's slowly regaining that interest now, but she has a selective palate. Favorites: squash and sweet potato. Least Favorites: everything else. Ha! She hates pears, tolerates peaches, used to like prunes... she still eats rice cereal, particularly the apple flavor. I gave her orange slices a few days ago and she had fun sucking all the juice out of them. Hopefully this means she's regaining an appetite for a variety of foods! Oh, and she drinks out of a cup. No sippy-cup for her, she's a big girl!

No sign of crawling yet. Addy prefers to roll around in order to get where she wants to go. She is getting really good at standing though! She tries to pull up, but gives up before her heiney can get off the ground, funny girl. Gotta build those arm muscles!

Standing like a big girl, chewing on the handle bar of her Pooh Bear train.

We haven't been very good about taking pictures lately, we've been so busy unpacking and getting settled. Here are just a few pics, all taken with our cell phones.

Crazy hairs!

Crouched in a chair while visiting Great-Grandmother and Great-Granddad Dollins in Gladewater, TX.

Adelyn and Great-Grandma Zivney.
Playing on the swings! Addy thinks they are tons of fun :)

woo hoo!

We *finally* have internet in our house. Now I feel reconnected to the outside world, haha!

I'll upload pictures of Addy and our new house soon. For now, it's time to relax on the couch with the hubs. An hour and a fifteen minutes of crying tonight before Adelyn fell asleep... that makes for a tired Momma and a tired Daddy.

Sleep training, day 2

Derek is off at his weekly firefighting training, so it's just me and Adelyn tonight.  Girls night! Although that means I get to listen to the crying all by myself... Yippee.

7:30 Dozed during her last feeding for the night, so I put her in her crib and she fell asleep easily.
7:42 Woke up crying, so Momma went in, comforted Addy with a kiss, pat, and "Momma loves you, goodnight baby!".  Crying begins again as I leave the room.
7:46 Silence.  What?! Seriously???? Woo hoo!
7:50 I can hear her moving around in there, she's not really asleep.
7:55 Sounds like she's working herself up, not really full-out crying, but definitely not happy.
7:59 I think she's asleep right now...
8:29 Still sleeping! She must have been one tired little bug.

Well, tonight hasn't been too bad so far, but Momma needs a cookie. Or a cocktail.

Sleep training

Background: Addy still doesn't sleep through the night yet.  She wakes up 2, 3, 4 times a night: sometimes to eat, sometimes to be held, sometimes it's gas pains.  Sometimes she falls asleep while nursing, othertimes we have to walk her to sleep in the snugli.  Things got worse over Christmas because of her cold, but now that she's better, we've decided that we need our sleep too, so we are going to "sleep train" her to fall asleep on her own.

Y'all, this is probably the hardest thing I've ever done.  Harder than labor, you ask? Well, that's a different kind of "hard"... This is emotionally painful.  It is almost unbearable, listening to your child scream like this, especially when they rarely cry in the first place.  I know all parents go through this, it's a rite of passage, etc., but it doesn't make it any easier...  We are in the process of doing our first night of sleep training, so I'm hoping that blogging about it may distract me and make the crying easier to handle.  Oh please, let blogging make the crying easier to handle!

Here is the play by play so far:
8:50 Adelyn had been asleep for about 2 hours at this point, but decided to wake up (she had a long busy weekend and fell asleep while nursing).  I fed her one last time to make sure her tank was filled, so to speak, and then we decided to start "progressive waiting" (Ferber method - leaving baby for gradually longer periods of time before comforting.  No picking up!)
9:00 Hmmm, maybe we will have to try tomorrow, she's falling asleep again... Opps, no, Nova knocked something over in the next room and definitely woke her up (grrrr... free cat, anyone? I kid.).  And so begins our adventure.  I make sure she is calm, then put Addy down in her crib and leave. Crying ensues.
9:05 Derek goes in to check on her. Put the pacifier back in, quick kiss and a soft pat, "Momma and Daddy love you", and it's right back out the door.  More screaming.
9:10 Momma's turn, same as what Daddy did. Peanut quieted down, thinking I was coming back to feed her.  Sorry babe, no such luck. Momma leaves, screaming continues.  Breaking-the-sound-barrier type screams. Screeches, if you will.
9:20 Daddy goes in, repeat above.
9:30 Momma goes in, repeat above.
9:36 Silence????
9:43 Screams again, Daddy's turn
9:51 Silence again?! Could it be working???
9:52 No. Back to screams.
9:53 Wait for it... She may be winding down here...
9:58 Well, she's not screaming, but it sounds as if she's playing with her Fisher Price sea creatures on her crib?
10:04 More crying.
10:18 Crying continues off and on, like she falls asleep and then has a bad dream and wakes up.  Poor angel. Here's hoping things are drawing to a close...
10:33 I think this is it!  Addy seems to be sleeping :)
10:45 Houston, we have a sleeping child.  Now it's time for sleeping parents.

Derek says he wasn't sure if I was going to be able to handle it, but I'm proud to say that I hung in there! Same thing tomorrow night, and the next night, and the next, until Adelyn has mastered putting herself to sleep.

Oh yes, and I wrote this on my phone again (no internet, remember?)  Talk about using all of my concentration, trying to push the right keys on the keyboard! Ha!

I promise I haven't forgotten about the blog! We don't have internet or TV at our house yet (we have to wait until weds... Grrrr), so I'm updating by phone. It is very difficult using the little keypad, so this will be a short entry.  Things here are going well, we are slowly settling in, unpacking boxes, etc.  Addy is basically all better from her cold and ear infection (fun trip to the doctor on New Years day... More on that later...)  It's freezing freezing freezing here!  Currently 25 degrees, feels like 12.  Brrrr. Perfect weather for staying in and drinking hot chocolate.  I guess that's it for now. Sorry no pics, I guess you will just have to wait until Wednesday! Maybe I'll put up some pics of the house too :)  Sorry, boring entry this time around. I will try to make the next post exciting and upbeat.  Ha!