Miss AR is 8 Weeks!!!

...Today marks the day that my sweet baby AR is 8 weeks old!!! Where has the time gone?!? She really is a VERY good baby. I feel blessed in so many ways and thank God for her every day. I'm with her all day, every day but when I lay her down at night and go in to check on her, all I want to do is pick her up and love on her some more! Now on to her 8th week highlights...

*AR has started "talking" and I love it! She's cooing up a storm and also smiling more which melts our hearts. Of course, any time either of us gets out the camera or video camera she stops so we have yet to catch it.

*When she "talks," I'll talk back to her and say, "Tell me about it" or "You telling me a story?" A couple times, she'll be cooing and I'll say that and then she'll start fussing or crying. I respond with, "AR, I've already heard that story. Tell me a different one." FYI-it doesn't work.

*I've officially had to pack up some clothes that don't fit anymore. :( I have found plain white onesies that she never even wore! It's like my tshirts...I have like 20 but only wear the same 4-5 because I wear, wash and then they go back on top of the drawer. I'm torn what to do with them...sell them, give them to friends or keep them. More than likely, AR is going to be an only child but there's that what if. What IF we have another child and we get rid of everything then what would we do? My mom said I should keep like 5 outfits in each size just in case and can always sell them in a few years. After all, it's not like baby clothes go out of style! Plus I have a hard time getting rid of the onesies Matt bought her. I just find them so sweet because her daddy got them for her and picked them out himself.

*Sunday night my baby girl slept from 8pm-3:30am! Of course, I got up at 1:30, 2:30 and 3:30 to check on her. Matt kept telling me I needed to wake her up and I said, no we have to let her sleep through the night at some point. Monday night she went back to her old routine so it was just a one night deal.

I'm surprised she slept that long because when Matt went to give her the bottle at 7:30, she would have NO part of it. He kicked me out of the room and it was so hard for me in the other room because she was crying and he kept saying, "I don't know what you want!" He tried to burp her, rocked her, sshed her, changed her diaper, nothing worked. Finally, he just let her cry and then she calmed down. I think she was just so tired and ready for bed that she couldn't calm down to take the bottle. She did this again on Monday night. I finally got her calmed down and put her back in Matt's arms still talking to her and she took the bottle then. I'm not sure why she's getting so upset because she wants to eat but is fighting it! I hope she's not rejecting the bottle or it's going to make for a very long Wednesday and Thursday next week (when I have my "surgery" and can't nurse for 24 hours).

On Wednesday, we started a new bedtime routine and moved her bedtime up an hour. I'm not so much worried about her sleeping through the night (although it would be nice especially when I go back to work!) as it pains me to see her so upset during the witching hour (5-7pm). It seems to be working some, I'll do a seperate post on this in a few days as we've only done it 2 nights right now.

*My daughter is vain. Yes, she's so vain she probably thinks this blog post is about her (song anyone???). When I lay her on her play mat all she wants to do is stare at herself. We started calling the baby in the mirror her baby. If she starts to cry, we'll say, "Autumn, don't make your baby cry." When I pick her up from the changing table, I'll walk us in front of the mirror and she'll just smile and stare at herself. It's really cute.

*Matt asked the other day if we could kiss her too much. I asked him what the negative effects of too much kissing were. His response, "She'll start kissing everyone!"

*Wednesday my mom and I took AR on her first shopping experience. We headed to Old Navy because I had a 40% off coupon so I was hoping to score some baby clothes deals (got 2 twelve month onesies, one was 60 cents!!!). I put her in the moby wrap and she slept the whole time! I loved having her close and not in a cart plus I didn't have to maneuver a cart with a carseat around all the displays. Only thing is that I think I lean back to overcompensate so my back started hurting. First trip out though=success!

Here's AR "riding" her Cardinals rocking horse. My grandparents bought this for H when she was born and H passed it on to AR.

Finally caught a smile!!! I really think she's starting to smile back when you smile at her although she also smiles in her sleep. She totally has her daddy's sense of humor and smiles when we talk about poop. Funny...having a baby increasing the discussion of poop both in baby and mom.

"Look at me! I'm 8 weeks old!"-AR

I love doing the monthly photo shoots but it also means she is growing up too fast! Happy 8 weeks Baby Girl, Momma loves you more than you'll ever know!