I can't put my arms down!

On Saturday daddy and Abby took Lucy on her first sled ride over to grandma and grandpa's house (where I think they videotaped the entire excursion!). She loved it, dragging her hands in the snow and Abby keeping her face clean.

On Sunday Lucy said "oui oui" and wore her French outfit and as you can see, is on hands and knees. Her favorite place to crawl to is Abby's water dish - the kid is fast!

January has flown by and Christmas is a memory. We are having a glimpse of spring here, I can see the snow melting and running down the street, but the freezing weather is on its heels. Bleh. I'm ready to see green!

My goodness!

There must be something about the 9-month mark that your kids just start learning like crazy. Like in a week's time Lucy has learned to feed herself (with fingers), clap her hands, and last night - crawl! We had to catch it on video tape so we can say she did it because she usually resorts to some kind of butt-scooting instead, but there was actual forward-moving crawling going on last night and lots of it. It could have been the combo of fleece pajamas on carpeted floors that helped her 'stick' better. She's so cute with the hand-clapping though, this morning I asked if she was all done with breakfast and she clapped her hands. So sign language is in her near future if she's getting hand movements down. I could be mistaken, but I think she signed "mama" to me yesterday but it looked more like the sign for moose/donkey instead (Beth will know what I mean).

Not much is new...

...so I thought I would post Lucy's 9-month photos. Here are those teeth:

And here is the giant sheep attacking her!

Friday

Just an update, Lucy had her 9-month appointment today. If you read yesterday's post, mommy guessed her at 20lbs. even...

Height: 29 1/2" (100th percentile)
Weight: 18 lbs. 5.5 oz. (50th percentile)

We talked about all sorts of new fun foods she can try out now which will be fun. She also had to go to the lab for a finger prick to test for lead and iron. She was so funny when they did that. I held her on my lap and the lab tech took her finger and poked it and Lucy looked at her with a big "O" mouth and then was fine.

What's on the brain today

That would be jobs, vacation and diet. Probably the same things everyone thinks about in the new year, right? I have a few friends in need of new employment this year so I've been surfing my company's website in hopes to refer, and I also like to look to see if anything piques my interest. I do have the perfect job in that it is very flexible when/where I work and the work can be done from the comforts of my home office. I also like working with the boys, most of the time there is no hormonal drama added on. However with recent re-orgs and whatever corporate strategies, my small team of 5 is going to reach burnout fast. And when that happens people are known to fly the coop to greener pastures. I waffle daily on having the perfect job that allows me the hours/flexibility to be at home and a decent amount of vacation time, or pursuing what I assume would be my "dream job" in nursing without the schedule flexibility, good pay, and starting out from scratch on vacations.

What to do? I know quite a few people go back to college later in life once their children are grown to pursue their dreams, maybe this will be the case? MAYBE my husband's company will realize how detrimental he is and offer him a 200% raise and then I wouldn't really care so much about my income?! I know...but it's good to dream right? And with my job I still have time to spend with my daughter and do my crafting and all that good time kind of negates all the job stressors I may have anyway.

Now vacation...if I could afford it I would be on a plane, but this year is just the usual winter blues and dreaming of sunshine and it's also been 2 years since I've been to Disney World and so I've got Disney Fever (which is almost as cool as Disco Fever, but not as bad as Hay Fever). I have an aunt and uncle going soon and so that's got me surfing websites and seeing all that I want to do the next time we go (which will hopefully be next spring!) Good thing for me Troy is game to go. His first time there was with my parents 2 years ago where he realized it is fun for adults too. I have another friend going to Hawaii next week to just relax on a chair on the beach and that sounds pretty good to me too! And so I will just live vicariously through others this year and dream.

Lastly, diet. Egads, why is all that eating right and motivation to exercise so hard for 99% of us, and easy to others? I watch The Biggest Loser, I watch that Dr. Oz on Oprah, and think gosh, so many good ideas, let's get out there and do that! But it's cold outside, and I don't know what TO eat only what not to eat, and gym memberships are so expensive, and I don't have time, and excuses excuses excuses. So I figure I need to start small and keep adding on little things to get to the big picture. For Troy and I our first step was getting whole wheat into our diets in the form of bread, pasta, rice, taco shells, whatever, no more white bread/rice/etc. Then the convenience of the Schwann's man brought awesome frozen fruits and veggies to our door. So that's where we're at, baby steps here. If you have any great recipes that are healthy to share, please email them to me!

LUCY: I can't blog and not talk about her. I last wrote about her nightly crying attacks. I think I figured that out by just tuckering her out. We've gone back to nightly baths, or actually just playing in the water, and then down to the playroom until she starts climbing on me and laying her head down. Troy also got her her first toothbrush and toothpaste. I have to get a picture of that, but we did catch the first time on video. So every night we brush our teeth and gums and she holds the brush and knows what it needs to do so that is good. And we're still trying to teach her hand gestures like waving bye bye and blowing kisses. As well as I sign to her. She does stare intently at me, I'm not sure if that means one day she'll be signing "all done" or "mama" back to me or not? "Dada" still rules her vocabulary. And we're talking about her first bday party already (I know it's 3 months away). We do have a date/time and I got an idea today of doing a desserts open house. We could do a build-your-own sundae bar and I was going to bake/decorate cupcakes, so that sounds like a good idea to me, especially since it will be in the afternoon between most lunch/dinner times. So that's all that is for Lucy now. We go for her 9-month checkup tomorrow. I'm guessing she's 20lbs. even. We shall see!

That's my baby!

Lucy's 8-month photos are online for viewing at www.suzannewynveenphotography.com - go to Menu, Online Viewing-Ordering, Click on Link, Portraits, and look for Lucy Lovestrand. They are all absolutely adorable and I'm going to have a hard time ordering! Rest assured, family reading, that I will be ordering wallets to pass out to you!

Every night Troy and I say "you're such a good kid, Lucy" and she truly is. I keep wondering, that cute kid came out of ME?! We are experiencing a new phase with her though. Well, I'm hoping it's not going to become a phase, or hoping it's a very short-lived phase, but the past 2 nights we've put her down to bed (normally she's somewhat awake and babbles to herself until she falls asleep) she starts this screachy screamy/crying. Now her teeth have already broken thru so it's not oral pain, and she burps fairly well so I don't think it's gas, so we're not sure what it is. Stay tuned!

Yesterday Lucy and I went and spent the day with Sam and Jamie. Lucy was very good, playing and keeping herself occupied whenever I tended to Jamie, which wasn't too often cuz she's still in that sleepy phase. But I forget what it was like, was Lucy really that tiny coming home? You can barely hold their squirmy butts still while holding legs in the air and trying to put a new diaper under it (thus an accident yesterday...)and those diapers are like barbie-sized to begin with, and then they throw up all their food. And that's just my perspective as the one who didn't give birth - add on top of all of that adjusting your sleep patterns to that of screechy baby, or waking up to their every noise (babies make lots of wierd sleeping noises which is why Troy and I shut off the monitor months ago!), or the healing your body has to go thru all the while your hormones have bottomed out and your hair starts falling out and those stretch marks take their sweet time going away (same with that extra 15 pounds...). BUT, every pound and every hair lost is worth it and I'm definitely looking forward to expanding our family.

Happy New Year!

Time to start remembering to write 2008 on everything! I like even numbers, I think this year is going to be a good one. After the holidays I start getting spring fever, or vacation fever. I am definitely ready now for some sunny days and some 40+ degree weather though. This morning it is -3!

Write a comment and tell us what YOU did on New Year's Eve! Troy and Lucy and I went downtown Baldwin to the Family Resource Center (where I go to Baby n Me playgroup), where some friends had rented out the space from 6-10pm. There was a pot luck and about 6 families with children there. Lucy made it til almost 9:30! We talked with the other parents and played with all the kids and actually had "circle time" and sang songs, like all the kids do at play group. I tried, but I was definitely asleep before midnight! And staying up 2 hours past her bedtime did not deter Lucy from getting up at 6 again this morning :)

Finally...some photos of Baby Jamie! Baby and Mom went home on Monday and now going through what we all do - no sleep wondering if baby is still breathing, regular spit up wondering if your baby is going to die of malnutrition, and even though everyone tells you to sleep when the baby is sleeping, you still gotta wash bottles and baby clothes!