8 months

I'll spare you the "I'm sorry for not keeping up the blog." Truthfully, I've been crazy busy. Between managing Peyton full-time, trying to get this house in order to be listed, looking for homes in Birmingham, traveling for continuing ed and work requirements, and trying to keep mine and Andrew's spirits up during what has become a 4 week stretch of 18+ hour work days at the hospital, I just am plum tired! But knowing that I will regret not doing more updates of Peyton and her recent accomplishments....here we go.

She has changed so much over the past two months. She is mobile now and boy is she tough to keep up with. She is still sleeping really well and her daytime naps are my few hours to catch up on laundry, cleaning, etc. Now that she can crawl wherever she wants, she will play until she gets tired and then come find me wherever I am. It is so cute to look up from whatever chore I am doing and see her little face smiling back at me. She loves eating yogurt now and she is getting very good at feeding herself puffs and yogurt bites. She would much rather have good food rather than boring old milk so I have to try hard to get her to drink up! She is still drinking from all sippy cups which has made my dish washing much easier! She also has her first tooth coming in! So exciting...we thought she was going to be toothless forever :) I'm going to do the rest in bullet style because let's be honest....I wrote this days ago and quit when I just wasn't feeling it....

*Peyton loves her new ducky tub. She will sit in there, splash her feet and play with her toys. She is super cute when she tries to "save" all her toys from the water..she can't hold them all but she sure tries!


*She loves her paci and has a recent habit of falling asleep with one in her mouth and holding another for safe measure


*She is still sleeping really well and as of the past few weeks, will actually fall asleep when I put her down without much crying. Frees up a little more time for mom :)

*She loves to squeal! Everywhere! She especially likes to do this in stores/restaurants when she sees other babies...I guess she is going to be social?

*She looks like her daddy more and more every stinkin day! People say she looks like me, but only the ones who don't know Andrew. I am trying to come to terms with this. I mean, I did carry her for 9 months have have her cut out of my stomach....:)

*Daisy loves this new stage of Peyton trying to feed herself finger foods....and it does save me a little sweeping ;)

*She can now crawl, pull up, and is starting to walk behind her push toys...which means I am burning a lot of extra calories trying to keep up with her.

*She is also very type-A...again, totally her daddy. She knows what she wants and if she can't have it..watch out! And, the frustration....goodness! Oh well, maybe the next kid will take after me!

*That's probably enough for now...and I've got to get some actual important things checked off my list today!

The Little Things

Jaynah is working today and I'm home with the baby, trying to get some studying done between her naps and quiet times.  Even though I haven't gotten too much productive done, we've had a great day.  

The clip below just amazed me, thought I'd share.

Work Hard, Play Hard, Merry Christmas.

-A,MD

Quick update

Quick update to share some pics and video with you.

Check out our awesome pics from Altmix Photography by clicking here!

And a new video of sweetie pie Peyton



Andrew had to work Thanksgiving night so we cooked ourselves a little Thanksgiving meal that day and headed home to be with family when he got off on Friday.



Our little Thanksgiving meal



The food



Everyone seems to think Peyton is really starting to look like her Daddy...what do you think? ;)

More later....Andrew's finally off night shifts and working 8-5 for about 2 weeks so we are enjoying spending a little more family time together :)

Happy Half Birthday Peyton!

My sweet little girl is 6 months old today. I'm not even sure how to wrap my mind around this fact. It seems like such a short time ago that I wondered if we would ever get pregnant, and being pregnant....seems like it was just yesterday. I remember wondering every second of every day what she would look like, how she would act, and how I would ever be able to tell what she needed. 6 months later, I now know that she is more beautiful than I could have even imagined, that she has more personality than I ever expected, and somehow, I am able to tell what she needs....most times :) One day, I hope she is able to pull these words out as she holds her own sweet baby.

Dearest Peyton Anne,

You have brought a love to mine and your daddy's life that I never knew existed. You came into this world more anticipated and loved than you will ever understand (until you are a parent yourself.) In the early months, your slightest grin or yawn made us get the others' attention and while I thought that would have disappeared by now, I still find myself whispering..."look, Andrew" at your smallest accomplishments. We have watched you learn to smile, roll over, push yourself up, try new foods, sit up by yourself, squeal, and my favorite by far, laugh. There are no words to describe the feeling I get when I walk into your room in the mornings and you kick your feet and smile in delight. How can a day be bad when it starts that way?

We've had our share of hard times...I'm not one to sugar-coat things and the early months weren't easy. You hardly ever slept longer than 20 minutes during the day and no more than 3 hours at night. You were fussy after almost every feeding and breastfeeding was HARD. I felt so inadequate as your mother and always answered other people's suggestions with .."I don't know...maybe?" You cried a lot, I cried some, and Daddy tried to keep us both happy. But, slowly, we got the hang of it. Switching bottles made all the difference with your colic/gas issues and letting you cry a bit at bedtime quickly flipped on the "sleep switch." Breastfeeding turned into exclusive pumping and made a happier mother and baby.

Through all the hard times, I would stumble out of bed muttering to myself something about needing more sleep, pick you up and you instantly calmed down and after eating would smile and coo at me. I would head back to bed smiling knowing it was all worth it...until the next time you woke of course :) I believe that God allows babies to smile so early because sometimes it is all that get us mothers through those nights.

Staying home with you has made me the happiest person in the world. Again, not every day is perfect, but overall I would trade nothing for the precious time to spend with you. You start my day off with a smile and end it snuggled on my chest. There are nights where I feel like I could hold you all night and not get tired of looking at the content look on your face.

Your daddy and I love you so very much and your arrival has brought us closer than ever. Each new stage you go through leaves us wondering in amazement at the miracle God has allowed us to raise. I pray that we will have the wisdom, strength, and knowledge to raise you as He would desire. We love you so very much and look forward to watching you grow into a sweet little girl, a beautiful young lady, and a confident woman.

Love,
Mama

Morgan Hoe-down

For the past seven or so years, Andrew's parents have thrown a "Hoe-down" at their place. Everyone heads down to the barn to enjoy a night of bluegrass music, barbecue, ribs, and Brunswick stew. We look forward to this event every year to see family, relax, and enjoy the farm during the beautiful fall weather. Fortunately this year, it fell during Andrew's night call rotations. While it has proven to be a very taxing schedule during the week, he does get weekends off which is so nice....so we headed to T-town last Friday after he go off and spent the weekend enjoying time with our families. We are so blessed to have our families live within 5 miles of each other...makes it easy to see everyone as often as possible! Last year, most people were just finding out we were expecting a baby, so everyone was excited to see little Peyton! Here's a few pics of the weekend....



Peyton and I



Aunt Kitty from California and Peyton



Andrew, his brother Ben, and Paw Paw Bass





Andrew and Peyton



Peyton's "Barbeque"



Andrew and Paw Paw Bass

Photos overdue.....

So Jaynah mentioned a few posts ago that I had a good schedule LAST month, being September and had time to get the camera out.  Well she promised, and finally I'm delivering some of my favorite photos from the month.  Enjoy.

ICU almost over.

Hope you enjoyed these as much as I'm enjoying our little lady, but I know there is no way that is possible.

STTN

STTN: no, it's not the acronym for the latest reality show, but it is an acronym that most mothers of infants will recognize. It is letters you run across with tired eyes and unwashed hair as you GOOGLE: infant....sleep....night. Sleeping Through The Night. 

I first ran across it when Peyton was about 6 weeks old...and there were mothers who said their babies had been sleeping through the night since 2 weeks old! What?!!? Obviously something was wrong with my child. She came home from the hospital sleeping 4 hour stretches at a time which seemed great. Until that lasted FOREVER and four hours turned into three and then to an hour and a half. You just can't function as a normal member of society with that kind of sleep record. At her two month check-up, I mentioned it to the doctor who recommended a book for me to read. Read?!?! Honestly, did he know I had gotten up that morning at 4:00am just so I could have a shower for that day? I dismissed it as normal for her age and decided that she would surely start STTN soon. 

Everyone has a different milestone that they believe babies start sleeping better.....6 weeks, 8 weeks, 12 weeks....10 lbs, 12lbs, 15lbs......drinking 6ozs...7ozs...8ozs.....eating cereal, drinking cereal. Peyton passed all these milestones and yet, still not sleeping good at night. At her four month check up, I mentioned it to the doctor again and again, he recommended the book. Ok, at this point...whatever...I'll read it. 

WOW...it made so much sense! It described my child perfectly and laid out a game plan. Basically it suggested the "let them cry" method. Well, we had already tried that to no avail, but it had been awhile and the book suggested 4 months was a good time to let babies learn to soothe themselves. It made me feel better by explaining how important sleep was to babies and how important establishing good sleep habits now would be in the future. So, we decided to give it a go. She cried for about 10 minutes when she woke up the first time, about 8 minutes the second time, and about 10 minutes the third time. The next night? She woke up once and cried for 5 minutes. The next? She woke up once for about 3 minutes. Of course, it took me several nights of going in her room after she fell quiet to make sure she was alive, to realize that she was OK. This might actually work. 

For about two weeks now, I have been the mother to a different child: she goes to bed around 8 or 8:30 and sleeps pretty much 12 hours straight. She still wakes up every now and then and I hear her on the monitor, but there is hardly ever any more screaming...just small sounds as she gets herself back to sleep. She is a happier baby all the time and when she is fussy, it's usually because something's wrong...not just fussy all the time like before. I feel like a new woman and I have discovered an even deeper love for her now that I have re-entered the world of well-restedness. The book has "game-plans" for all ages so I intend to keep it around for teething, terrible twos, and every other milestone that might affect the sleep of this family! Crazy long post about a small subject, but a very important subject for new moms and babies! Here's a few updated pictures to reward your commitment to this blog :)

UPDATE: sorry, I forgot to include the name of the book! "Healthy Sleeping Habits, Happy Child" by Dr. Marc Weissbluth

She loves to eat! Wonder where she gets that from?!?!?



She loves playing on her tummy and now that she has learned to turn back to front, I can hardly keep her on her back anymore



We started baby food and have conquered carrots and green beans so far...she loves carrots..still deciding about those green beans. And she sure is messy!



She loves doing baby push-ups and is getting so strong!



We went to Atlanta on Friday where "Aunt Les" and "Aunt Doris" helped find Peyton a very fashionable outfit for our upcoming Altmix shoot....hope you are as excited as I am! Until next time....