Month Six

     This month we had a lot of fun. Between learning how to roll over last month, and another wedding this month, and Christmas, and plenty of visits from family, we've had one jam-packed month full of fun. December 17 we celebrated Grant's best friend's wedding to his beautiful bride. It's been fun to see Chris and Carrie's relationship blossom over the last few years, and we are super happy that they are finally able to call each other husband and wife.

Enjoying everyone's attention at the reception

     Christmas Eve we had a lovely surprise visit from my aunt and uncle as well as my mom and new pops. The came to our Christmas Eve service and had plenty of fun playing with Abigail while I ran around setting everything up at church. Afterwords, we all came back to our house and enjoyed some beef stew and home made pumpkin bread while Abby opened her first Christmas presents.

I love this picture b/c everyone was laughing at... something.

     Then, because Christmas landed on a Sunday, and pretty much everyone in our family is in the ministry in one way or another, we met at another time to celebrate together. We had a family party/reunion/Christmas gift exchange. It was all kinds of fun, and I'm sure Abby had a blast because there were SO many more people to entertain her than she's normally used to. She was passed around from aunt, to uncle, to great aunts and uncles, to grandparents, to great grandmothers, to cousins, and pretty much didn't see either Mom nor Dad the whole day unless she needed to eat, in which case I still didn't see her as she was covered up. 

Cousin Cayley playing with Abby

Growing:
     Abigail, you are growing and growing. You is as beautiful as ever. Grant and I are just in shock and awe that the Lord has given us such a beautiful blessing. We consistently ask each other how we got so lucky.
     One thing that is very noticeable is that your hair is getting thicker. You still has a pretty large bald spot on the back of your head, but the top of your head is filling in with beautiful dirty blond hair; matched with those bright blue eyes, you're just too cute!
     You can keep her head level when I pull you up to a sitting position. And you love when I pull you up to a standing position as well. We've been working on that one for some time, so you're getting pretty good and standing still, a little wobbly still, but you're getting better and better. I even stood you up in your crib and let you hold onto the side once and you held on real good all by yourself! Big girl!
     You are definitely making more and more sounds. This month you are focusing on the raspberry sound, you are getting slobber everywhere as you exercise those little lips. Mommy tries to mimic you, but I don't get very far because that raspberry tickles my lips too much, how you do it so often is beyond me. You also like to make sounds with all the saliva in your throat. You make lots of gurgling sounds. It's pretty cute. Mommy isn't very good at mimicking you on that one though.
     You reach for toys that are out of your reach. Not only do you reach for them, but you somehow scoot yourself over to the toys. Sometimes you roll over to the toy, but other times you just scoot around on your belly until you get closer. You turn around in circles while on your belly to look in every direction and see what is most entertaining. You look for toys that you drop, and can pass toys between your hands.
     Towards the very end of the month you began getting up on your toes; I call it a tent, since that's what it looks like. There's probably some technical term for it, but I like tent. You basically are doing a push up, except you stick your little booty in the air, it's super cute of course. You began doing this all the time.

• More Doctor Visits: You were still sick after your round of antibiotics last month, but things improved slightly, so I just hoped that they would continue to get better. However, one night things just got really bad again, and you could barely sleep at night. You were up every hour, and you would wake up crying because you couldn't breath. Mommy used the little pillow from your activity gym in your bassinet to help elevate your head, but it only helped a little. You were one unhappy baby. I called the advice nurse and she suggested we come down for an appointment. Since we had an X-ray at your last visit concerning your health, this time she did a different test for RSV and we did a breathing treatment. The test for RSV came back negative thankfully. And the doctor had us take home the breathing machine and use it every day as needed. We also took home some more antibiotics just in case the breathing machine wasn't working, that way we wouldn't have to go back down to get the antibiotics. You looked so sad while getting the breathing treatments that week, but they paid off because after a few days, you definitely started improving. You still had a little bit of a cough, but the nasty congestion that I could feel/hear in your little chest before was gone. Because you still had a little lingering sickness I went ahead and gave you the antibiotics and after a few more days of that, you were practically brand new! I don't think you've been that healthy and not congested in several months. 

Eating:

     Whenever I would sub, I would come back and you would have eaten WAY more than you normally would had I been there to breastfeed you. I kept getting frustrated because I was trying to stock up on milk for you, and yet you were drinking it all. Daddy suggested that maybe you needed more... I mean, you are growing and all. So, I decided to try giving you a little more cereal at night. I decided to try out some baby oatmeal instead of the rice, and you seem to really love it, so I've decided to stick with the oatmeal from now on. I started doubling the amount I give you at night to about 1/3 cup. You still breastfeed every 3-4 hours during the day. 

Sleeping:

     With that small increase in the amount of oatmeal you have at night before bed, that helps you sleep through the night a little more. Almost instantly I saw a difference. You began sleeping for a little longer at night before waking up to feed. You are consistently waking up about 6 hours after eating at night to feed, usually around 2 a.m. And then you sleep another 5-6 hours. It's been wonderful! Now, if I could just get to bed at a decent time, I would benefit from this long stretch of sleep, however, I take advantage of this time to stay up and hang out with your Daddy watching our ridiculous shows that we can now watch because we have DVR again. 

     Another change has been that I have you sleeping in your crib all night now. Last month I was having you sleep in your crib until you woke up to feed, and then you would finish the night in your bassinet in our room. But I figured that I should just try putting you back in your room after feeding you, and along with you only getting up once, it's been great. You really haven't had any issues transitioning into your own room or your crib (I think Daddy is the only one who didn't like this change very much). I think you like it more because you can move around a lot more than in that little bassinet. Although, that means that it's much harder for you to fall asleep when you can move around and play. I think you wake up many times simply from turning over and hitting your head on the crib. 

     What's also great is that if you do wake up in the middle of the night before the 6 hours, I can give you your pacifier and you will nod right back off to sleep. You never used to be able to do that, you would just continue to cry until I picked you up and fed you. This alone has been wonderful. You don't do it that often, but its' so much better than getting up to feed you three times a night when I can just pop your pacifier back in. 

     If I time it right, I can also get you to take one to two naps close to 2 hours each during the day. This takes a lot of work though as I have to try and keep you up a little longer when you clearly want to sleep so that you'll be tired enough to sleep for a longer period of time. But those few hours of Mommy time is great while you sleep. I have dreams of being very productive during that time, but usually it consists of me retiring to the couch to relax for a moment, reading a few pages of my book before passing out. 

Playing with the piano after waking up from a nap