Week 54

We are 2 weeks into a year and so far so good. Aria has completely amazed me in the last 2 weeks with her walking and now running. She doesn't crawl at all now, only walks! 

The cutest new thing she learned to do last week is blow kisses! She does it when prompted and even on her own! She puts her hand to her mouth and makes a kinds of spitty blowing sound. She just loves kisses. She gives mommy linger long kisses on the lips, sometimes with mouth open, hehe. 

Aria loves to walk up and down steps. In our little room the first thing she wants to do when on the floor is go into the little bathroom, which required stepping up. Then she just sits there on the floor and looks out. She is a funny girl. When she's outside she always makes a bee-line for the steps down to the pool. It's really just the action of stepping up and down that she likes, whether it's the fireplace mantel step or standing on top of a toy. I'm just waiting for this new found entertainment to end in tears and injury…hopefully it won't, but most likely.

Aris has started waking up earlier and going to bed earlier. She was always a late sleeper, like 10 or 11 (even 12 sometimes). Now she likes to sleep at 9 and get up at 8. This is a pretty good schedule for us, I just don't want her to stat waking up even earlier. Yesterday she was horrid and was wide awake at 5am, initially happy, then very sad that I wouldn't get up with her. I'm sorry I draw the line at 5, that's the middle of the night, we will not play or receive kisses at that time (she was trying to plant them on me while I slept)!

Aria no longer fits in her 12 month clothes. It's time to do a clean sweep and get rid of anything smaller than a year. She is 100% in 18 month clothes, my tall girl.

Two days ago I took Aria to Rancho San Antonio for the first time since September! I can't believe I went so many times, when she was a little baby in the front pack! I used the stroller that Sonia and Holy gave to me, 13 years old, but it worked great and I didn't mind getting it dirty. Carrey (my friend form BC) came with me. I felt so incredibly ghetto as I loaded the stroller into the back seat, stabbing her in the head on the passenger side with with rusty rabies metal, lol (I know tetanus is more likely, but rabies sounds scarier). I've been wanting to get a City Mini three wheeler for running/hiking, but alas, I is poor, so rabies stroller it is. Rancho is beautiful, I went again with Gabby yesterday and little stink enjoyed herself immensely, kicking her legs and generally making happy noises.

Aria loves to be read to. She now brings books over to me, or whoever she deems most capable of some quality reading time, and gestures to be picked up. She sits on my lap like a little angel and helps turn the pages. She even likes it when Billy reads her his Talk Like a Wookie book, lol.

Speaking of Uncles, Aria loves it when Billy gets home from work. She literally screams with delight and a huge smile when she sees him. It's so crazy how she loves everyone in my family. It really it like she has 7 parents who play with her and adore her everyday. What is she going to do when we leave?!

Kevin and I are looking into renting again. We are no way in he** going to have enough money to buy something nice when my parents' house goes away in a few months. Time will tell you where we'll be, time and time alone. We'll just stick together while we wait.

Until next time, xo Rosie

9 weeks old and smiling!

This past week and half has marked a huge increase in Aria's smiling abilities. Before I had to wait long and hard to glimpse a second of that precious grin. While always worth the wait, I am seriously enjoying my new girl who is easy to smile and never holds back. She flashes her adorable toothless grin to Mommy and Daddy, to Auntie Gabby and even to "Cousin-Auntie-Sister-Nurse" Brig.

Aria has also been cooing a lot. She likes to "talk" especially when you initiate the conversation. She'll talk about, just about anything, as long as you bring it to her attention with great enthusiasm and Jim Carrey-like expressions.

She also loves it when I sing to her. Ever since she was born, she has been soothed by music. I'm constantly playing the "Rock-a-bye Baby" station on my iPhone's Pandora app for her. Nearly every time I sing to her, I inexplicably forget the lyrics halfway through and sometimes even one line in. Poor little Aria is such a good sport, and doesn't seem to mind the philandering words I substitute as long as I don't miss a beat.

Yesterday Aria had her 2 month check-up. She ways a whopping 12 pounds and 7 ounces and is 23 inches long. The doctor who spoke to us said she is doing fantastic on her growth curve and overall is a perfect healthy baby. She said I must be feeing her whipping cream. After much thought and deliberating, we went ahead and got her all her vaccines. She was a champ. There were 8 different vaccines combined into 3 shots. I though I was going to cry from stress before the nurse came in to administer them. Aria only cried a little for the first one then stopped before the next two. The nurse warned that the pneumonia shot burned immediately and that she was doing that one last. I felt so bad for my little Stinks, she was taken by surprise and went from looking around the doctor's office happily to letting out the saddest baby wail I have ever heard. It was the kind where she didn't breathe or even make a sound for the first 5 seconds. She got lots of mommy and daddy kisses after that.

On our way home she fell asleep in the car. We stopped at Rite Aid to get her some infant Tylenol. The doctor barely said anything about the dosage/what/where to get it, so I talked to Nurse Brig, who came to our rescue. As I unsuccessfully searched in Rite Aid for the "infant Tylenol" I finally decided to ask the pharmacist for help. She took me to the aisle where it was kept then unfortunately informed me that they were out. I left the parking lot and went straight to the car where Kevin was waiting for me watching Aria. Apparently I was missing a braincell, because I went right to a light blue Honda and when I looked in the back for my sleeping baby, I realized that she was gone and there was some roll of white paper sitting on the seat instead. I turned around in shock and then Kevin tapped on his horn at me. I had forgotten that we came in his tan Camry not my blue Honda Accord. We drove across the street to Wallgreens and luckily they had the medicine.

When we got home Aria continued to sleep on and off for about 6 hours. I gave her the baby Tylenol every 4 hours, .4 ml. She and I snuggled up in Brigid's recently vacated bed and napped the rest of the day. Needless to say, I needed the rest because I have been exhausted to the extreme due to my little lady's unfortunate sleeping schedule. Kevin went out with the boys to play some golf because he had had a dream the night before that my dad took him golfing and he couldn't get it out of his head. They went out to Jakes for pizza and beer afterwards. When Kevin returned, I was able to clean my disaster of an apartment a bit and then we watched Source Code. I had already seen it, but Kevin hadn't and wanted to and hey, I'm always down to love me some Jake Gyllenhaal.

Aria slept fairly well last night. In comparison to how she normally is, there wasn't much change. She slept form 1am to 4:30am. I fed her at 4:30 am and then dozed and held her until 6am when she started her morning ritual of grunting, squirming and crying, basically what it takes to try and get a poop out.

Right now my sweet baby is sitting in her swing, she loves sitting in it in the morning time, which is amazing for me because I can actually get a few things done. I am a bit concerned because I've notices that the swing is not swinging a hard as it used to. I fear the batteries are running low and while I know I should fix it asap to keep my girl happy, I can't seem to find that D batteries. They are here somewhere, I know it. I need to continue my search for I am definitely not ready to give up my mornings that have recently dawned a lingering semblance of a time seemingly so long passed. What did I used to do with my time. You don't miss it till it's gone. Of course I did used to work full time, so my "time" was considerable less.

Another thing I would like to mention; Aria does amazingly well in the Baby Bjorn. I can walk/hike for hours, literally and she just leans to the side like an angel and using the the time to catch up on some snoozing. It's really awesome, because I am desperately in need of exercise and this is something we can do together. I feel so much better when I can get out in the fresh air. Today I plan on hiking our 6 mile trail at Rancho San Antonio again -Wild Cat Loop, otherwise known as "Edward's Twizzley Log Trail", hehe, it's a very Schmedley hike.

Until next time,

Rosie

PS- I dreamed that Aria had about 10 teeth coming in. It was crazy, the first thing I thought, was oh no I wanted to get a picture of her toothless grin and second, I guess that's why nursing is starting to hurt. hehe. Dreams are weird.