28 weeks

It's been a busy week! But I figured I should probably post Rose's 28-week portraits before she turns 29 weeks old this weekend! :) She is growing and developing every day - yesterday she started for-real babbling! She particularly likes practicing the "da" and "ba" sounds.  Mike is convinced it's because she's desperately eager to say "Dada"!

Last Sunday we had dinner with Grammy and Grandpa Jack. What a fun time! Rose loved trying the BBQ ribs, cheesy potatoes and broccoli. She's so over purees now that she knows what real food tastes like!

We tried taking a family Christmas photo, and here is one of the outtakes. (Once again, I don't want to spoil whatever photo the grandparents choose to send out for the holidays.) It was hard to get 6 people smiling at the camera, and harder still to do it with the auto-timer on my camera! We did get one good picture in the end, though.

(Isn't she cute?)

Rose loved all the TV she got to watch ... much to my chagrin. (I tried to play it cool, but I'm not sure I was that successful.)

Here are two of the Vikings fans, one of whom is totally zoned out with the TV behind my shoulder!

Hope you're all having a great week!

bonfire

I'm a little behind on my blogging. Haven't had a chance to sort through Rose's 28-week pictures yet. So, to tide you over, here is a photo that Mike took of us last Saturday. He was busy doing yardwork, so he built Rose her first bonfire to enjoy!

Happy Halloween (again)!

We celebrated Halloween this evening by trick-or-treating at two houses in our neighborhood: Sue and Brian's (basically the only people we know on our block), and Marcy and Andrew's.Unfortunately Marcy wasn't home, but at least we got to see Andrew!

Do you see the ladybug's two teeth? We're still waiting on the top ones.

Rose was a little overwhelmed at first...

...but then she quickly warmed up to Andrew and kept caressing his beard and giving him hugs! :)

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Monday was the Halloween festival at Rose's school. Have you ever seen a cuter lady bug?!?

She's even eating an apple - this girl never breaks character!

sleep training: night 3

Success!

I was really nervous about it since we had messed with our evening routine by going to Grandma and Grandpa's for dinner. Rose was grumpy from being tired and she fell asleep in the car (at 6:30) and slept until we got home at about 7:15. Normally she's in her bath at 6:45, in pajamas at 7, and asleep ay 7:15 (give or take). So we woke her for a super quick bath and then put her to bed around 7:30. I fully expected this change in routine to destroy her sleep, but I was happily mistaken! As far as I know, she didn't make a peep until 6:10 this morning. Yay, Rose!

P.S. Of course, I was so anxious about her not sleeping well that I keep waking up to look at the clock. But hopefully this will be a new routine that I will gratefully adjust to. The prospect of uninterrupted sleep is so, so amazing to consider!

27 weeks!

The theme for this week is that Rose has opinions! She is, after all, the daughter of two pretty bull-headed people, each of whom comes from a long line of stubborn folks - and she's learning how to communicate those opinions with us!

"I like to see Daddy play peekaboo through the doorway!"

"And when he leaves, I get grumpy!"

"Now all is right again in the world."

"If I'm not sure I like a food you've given me, I'll just hold my mouth open until I'm sure I like it."

"But sometimes I decide that I just want to feed myself!"

"That's more like it. A whole bowl of oatmeal and pears, just for me!"

"Hmmm, hand or spoon? Hand or spoon?"

 

"I want this end of the spoon, and don't try to tell me otherwise!"

After our photo shoot this morning we walked over to Byerly's to pick up a few staples for the week. Then Rose watched a bit of football (please don't tell the parenting police on us!) before we headed up to Grandma and Grandpa's for dinner. Rose was pretty exhausted from her wakeful night last night, but she eventually enjoyed playing with her cousins. She also enjoyed snacking on the hors d'oeuvres (she enjoyed the guacamole even though she hasn't been enjoying plain avocado too much, and she loved her first tastes of shrimp*!) and chowing down on the dinner (mmmm...double baked potatoes, Brussels sprouts, and chicken with cream sauce!).

Then we tried to take a photo for Grandma and Grandpa's Christmas card. It was a little bit like herding cats to try to get the four grandchildren to be smiling at the same time. I don't want to give away the one nice shot we ended up getting, so here's one of the outtakes. Okay, two of the outtakes - I couldn't resist. They are cute, aren't they! :)

Have a great week, everyone!


*for the record, back in 2008 the AAP recommended not delaying any potentially allergenic foods past 4-6 months (they used to recommend waiting until past one year to introduce those), because it turns out that delaying those foods doesn't actually decrease allergies!

sleep training: night 2

Ugh. Well, they said it would get worse before it gets better, and they were right.

Last night Rose started crying around 10:30. (Seriously?!?) I had already been asleep, but her crying was loud enough to wake me up despite the two closed doors between us and despite the white noise machine in our bedroom. Mike waited 10 minutes, then 15, then she was asleep before the 20-minute check. Whew.

Mike came to bed around midnight, and then Rose started crying again some time after that (but I didn't look at the clock, so I don't know when it was).

"Is she okay? Do we need to check on her?" I asked him. 

"She's fine," he replied.

It felt like the crying went on for hours and hours, so I asked Mike again, and again he reassured me that she was fine. I figured he was taking care of the nighttime checks so I eventually fell back asleep myself, assuming that my sense of time at night just must be grossly off, and hoping that I was just dreaming about crying and that it wasn't actually happening. 

Well, this morning I asked Mike when she woke up an how long she cried and he had no idea what I was talking about! Not only did he sleep through her crying (with the monitor on his side of the bed), but he also slept through our conversations! Poor Rose.

We'll see how it goes with sleep tonight.