Eight months (tomorrow)

Jane's still deciding what she thinks about this 'sleep-coaching' thing we're doing. She's not so sure, I think.
She went down in less than ten minutes on Monday night, and over two hours last night. What was the difference? Who knows. But the good news is, she stayed in her crib until 3 last night, and when she came into our bed, she just slept instead of trying to convince us it was play time. The bad news about last night is that she went to bed around nine, the same time I did. That's not enough sleep (for her or for me)!

Here's our girl, working on crawling

 "I didn't do it."

 Beloved butterfly chewy toy

Happy Anniversary to us

I know Andy thinks it's silly, but I still keep tabs on our "dating" anniversary, which happens to be today.  Nine years!!

Also, today is my grandma's birthday.  She's got 80 years on us.

We had a woman come over and talk about how best to get Jane to sleep in her crib (and ideally, stay there).  We're only a few nights in with mixed results, but we've got more of a plan now.  And someone to email for suggestions if the plan needs tweaking.

Anyway, on to the main attraction:

Standing with Daddy (I wish these vertical pictures didn't show up so small!)

 Hey, Mom!

 Can I have that thing?

 Wiggle monster

 New skill!

 Working at her desk

 No, don't eat the crayons.

 Can I eat the ocarina?  Sure.

7 Months

Jane is such a big girl. Andy found that her first tooth erupted this morning (or shortly before)! If you help her, she stands pretty securely, and Andy even got her to take some (assisted) steps the other day. I hope she doesn't skip crawling, though. It's super-cute.

We've been working on making a consistent nighttime routine so that we can mess it all up and get back into her crib. Well, that's only sort-of the case. We've been making little changes gradually, but when it comes from moving to her crib, it's an all-or-nothing proposition. If she sleeps well today at daycare, tonight is the night we'll attempt her move back to her own room. And I'll finally be able to pull the blankets up as high as I please again.

She had started communicating by way of shriek. It's cute or grating, depending on our moods. Nin told us that at daycare, she started doing it during the other kids' nap time. Oops!

My mom made Jane a hat, so let's get to the pictures.

 I am a Cabbage Patch doll.

 Look at me!

 Oh hi, Brisco!

 Could we be any cuter?

 Getting ready to munch

 She gets beyond excited for her cup of water.

 Daddy got these shots while I ran in to pick something up at the store.

I am sick

So it seems like as good a time as any to share my thoughts on this very important matter:

Could bacon packaging be any worse?  I mean, really.  It's in a non-resealable plastic pouch, and inside of that, the bacon is stacked overlapping, with the top-most piece being hidden under a cardboard-ish brand identifier/what-not.  You have to fully pull all of the bacon out of the pouch and then remove the cardboard in order to get to the top piece.

Am I missing something?  Is there a better way to get into bacon that I don't know yet?  Or is it, as I suspect, the worst packaging that there is?  I think this is where the money is.  Better bacon packaging.

Sigh.  Get well soon, me.

Just illin'

Jane's been sick for over a week now.  Her first cold, if you can call it that, just gave her a runny nose for less than 24 hours.  This, however, has not been easily shaken.

We took her to her pediatrician on Tuesday and found out she doesn't have an ear infection, but that the cold will just need to run its course.  Benadryl has been helping to dry her out a little, but she hates taking it.  She's back to sleeping in the carseat, which isn't great (but out of our bed, which is!) and we'll attempt again to get back to normal sleeping habits and locations once she's healthy.

Her cough really sounds angry and she hates having her nose wiped.  Andy spent all week at home with her, where she'd only nap on his shoulder.  She did manage to nap in our bed yesterday, which was nice because I was able to wash her toys while she slept.

Anyway, the important part of any post:

 These cute socks came from the Peras but were already too small for Jane's feet by the time we got them, so we figured she should at least have monster-hands once.

 "I'm a monsterrrrrrr!"

 One day when it wasn't 0 degrees, we decided to bundle up and let Jane check out the snow.

 I think she had a good time.

 So did Brisco.  He's dug himself a few little burrows.

 Plopped in the snow

 Wanna eat it?

 Dad and Jane

Reaching for the camera

She really is an amazing baby.  Besides crying when we have to give her the second dropper of Benadryl and not wanting to be put down, she's been in really good spirits and you wouldn't know she was sick.  Until, you know, you saw her nose explode.

We're hoping her next illnesses won't take her down quite as hard--she missed the entire last week of daycare!  Of course, that might have been overly-cautious parents there.  Who's to say.

In other news, it's been ten years since I came back from Ecuador.  It's hard to believe.  It was probably the single-most transformative experience in my life up to having Jane, if you can count six months filled with experiences as one "experience."  I hope that Jane's able to have a moment/s like I did, that take courage and show her her mettle.

Check me out!  Just carrying a balsa tree fresh from the Ecuadorian jungle, NBD.

Good times.  :-)

Bath time

Now that you've seen the cuteness, I can go on a bit of a rant.  She's sleeping terribly.  We don't know if it's due to teething, starting solid foods, being on the verge of crawling, starting daycare last week, or getting a cold.  She has not been napping well at home for several weeks now, but now it's affecting night as well.  In order to help her sleep, particularly during the height of her cold (it now seems to be tapering off), she came into bed with us when she'd wake up.  But last night, she started out the night in there, after about three hours of trying to get her down into her crib.  I'll admit it wasn't three hours straight, I fell asleep in the rocking chair with her for probably about an hour.  But she would NOT let me lay her down.  Andy just vacated, because he doesn't like sleeping in the bed with her because he worries about smothering her.  So, really no one slept well.  Well, she probably slept fine.  Until she decided it was time to get up at 5:15, and hasn't been back down yet (five hours later).

Right now she's on her tummy, pushing her feet against the couch, and shaking her head.  She's in good spirits.  But when she doesn't get good sleep all day, it makes her nights much harder, like we're starting from a negative point rather than zero.

And, of course, it's hard on us.  This is Andy's first weekend home in ages, and we've mostly spent it alternating trying to get her down.  He went out and ran some errands yesterday, and we all took a walk, but the bulk of the time has been spent being frustrated.

I put an email out to our childbirth ed. teacher to see if she has any words of wisdom for us.

I think Jane's ready for a diaper change.  If you have sleep-ideas, leave a comment!