new things (again)

Wow, a lot has happened in just a week!

Audrey has 4 teeth now…the top middle left tooth came in Tuesday night!

We finally moved Audrey up to her big girl car seat yesterday. It’s bittersweet. We’ve been weighing her on our bathroom scale periodically (by herself and with us, then subtracting our own weight) to get an estimate of how much she weighs. Twenty-two was the magic number (that’s the limit for her infant seat.) As far as weight requirements, she could have been moved up to her new car seat a long time ago, but we’ve been prolonging the luxury of her infant seat: always strapping her in inside the house, being able to easily click her car seat into place and take her out of the car without having to unstrap her, keeping her strapped in her seat for quick errands (by putting it in the cart), and having a handle to hang her toys from. It’s been especially handy when she falls asleep in the car and I’m able to carry the whole seat inside and just set it in her room and she can continue her nap without being disturbed. I’m dreading the first time she falls asleep in this new seat and I have to completely unstrap her, take her out of her seat, walk inside and then lay her in her crib…I’m guessing she won’t sleep through all that. (it also gives me a small glimpse of what our parents had to go through with the old school car seats…I‘m very thankful for all the advances) I remember buying it for her for Christmas and thinking that she was going to have to be in it by January…but her weight gain slowed down, so we’ve been pleasantly surprised by the extra time in the infant seat. She just looks so much bigger in her new seat…she really is a little girl already. What happened to my baby?!?
On Wednesday, I decided to drop her second feeding of the day to formula. It had been about three weeks since we dropped the third feeding of the day, so I figured it was enough time (for both mommy and Audrey). I’m now feeding her around 7:30am and 7:30pm and hope to keep this up until she‘s a year old (which is only 6 weeks away). She seems to be adjusting just fine. She gets really excited when she sees her sippy cup and is doing really well at holding the handles, but still doesn’t understand that she has to tilt it up when it’s almost gone…she’ll eventually get it. Since I’m only feeding her twice a day, I’m going to have to keep my snacking in check. I have had to eat and snack all day the whole time I’ve been nursing to keep my milk supply up. I’ve heard that some nursing moms tend to gain a little weight back once they stop breastfeeding because they don’t adjust their own eating. I don’t want that to happen! And since I’m only feeding her twice a day, it means I’ll be cherishing the rest of the times I feed her…which (hopefully) means I won’t be using the pump anymore. yay!

Audrey is definitely testing her boundaries these days. She is kind of starting to get it when we say “no.” She always smiles at us when we tell her no, and then looks back at the thing she was going to touch, and then looks back at us, just to see how we'll react. Sometimes she’ll reach for it again, so with a straight face, we simply say “no” again and then move her to something that she can play with. I also think she remembers what she’s not supposed to touch. for example: there are a few candles by our fireplace and she will crawl over to the fireplace, stand up next to the bricks, look at the candles, then look back at me and smile. The little stinker!

One last thing: one of Audrey’s new favorite things to do is listen to her daddy play the guitar. It is seriously one of the sweetest things I have ever seen! He starts playing and her little face lights up, she crawls as fast as she can to him and she’s glued to it until he stops. I melt when I see it.

Well, Audrey and I are hosting playgroup at our house in a little while, so I’m off! Have a great weekend!