She Had the Strangest Dream...

It is my assumption that Abby had a bizarre dream last night.  That's the only explaination that I can come up with.  Here's my story...

Last night Anny went up to church for her month Women's Group gathering where they talk about boys and stuff.  (Not really, but that is what I say!)  That meant that Abby and I got to spend some quality time together playing and reading books and such. 

At bath time something happened, though I don't know what, that made her mood change from "this is fun" to "get me the hell out of this water or you'll pay!"  Nothing happened in the water, and I could not get her to tell me what hurt.  I'm guessing that she's just crazy. 

After getting her into her PJ's, through tears, we sat down for our daily dose of Signing Time on the DVR.  She cuddled really close for the first half, and I pried her off during the latter half to get some other things taken care of.  Part of getting her to sit on her own was to give her the famous Purple Hat.  It seems to be in every other picture on our Flickr Site because she wears it all the time.



I had to take the hat away before bed time, of course. That went over okay and with very little notice, really.

Then came 2:30 this morning. With everyone sound asleep, we were awoken to hear "PURPLE" being yelled from Abby's Room. Then "HAT!"  That was followed by "PURPLE HAT?!"  Anny got up and assured her that the purple hat was okay and that it was time for sleep, not hats. 

I am assuming that she was having some sort of dream about her beloved purple hat, but can't ask her what was going on because she has no clue it even happened!

When she got up at 5:15 and we went out for our breakfast time, she very quickly found her purple hat and they were united once again. 

Weird.

Back to the Teething

We had a few nights of peaceful slumber - but then we discovered two more molars coming in on the bottom.  Bad sign.  Abby does not do well with teething.  It's hard for us because when she does not sleep, we do not sleep.  Often when she wakes up, she's in such pain that she wakes up screaming.  Very few things will soothe her, so she get's a lot of extra cuddle time.

When she's awake enough to provide some real relief she has two things that work - and neither are teethers approved by any company.  We've discovered that she has no use for the teething rings that you can buy in the store.  What works for us is frozen banana spears and frozen blueberries.  The real key for us is to balance the two because of what each does to Abby's digestion.  (I'll let you take that and run with it)

The real problem with the timing is that we had finally gotten into a good routine for sleeping overnight.  That's not to say that she didn't wake up at all, but when she woke up it was momentary and she got herself back to sleep.  There were literally two nights where all three of us slept through the night.  It was bliss.  We know that this too shall pass, but it's hard to keep that in mind at 2:30 in the morning!

So - if you see us around and we look like we're dead tired and dragging one foot behind the other - know that all is well in our house, but we're just a bit tired. 

Our Trip to St Louis, V1

Friends, I have been negligent in my blogging again, but have all intentions of making it up over the next few days! I refuse to do a step-by-step of our trip to see the family in St Louis, but I will touch on highlights. I think I will break it into categories:

1 - OUR Kiddo
2 - The Kiddos Together
3 - Parents

Today is dedicated to OUR Kiddo!

We decided to fly out late on Thursday and return mid-day Monday, mostly for Abby's sake. We ended up doing a LOT of walking around the airport, and stopped for some dinner. It was actually an ideal place for her to practice walking great distances while safely in the sight of her parents.

Once we got on the plane we grabbed two as close to the front as we could that were together. Ended up sitting next to a very nice woman who slept for most of the trip. It's always awkward to be the person bringing a baby/child onto a plane. I am always looking over my shoulder, wanting to apologize in advance. Turns out that on the flight out, we didn't have to apologize for much! Abby was a little fussy because she was being cramped, but went to sleep before we were out of Maryland airspace and slept until after we landed.

Once we landed, though, things changed. I can imagine that it's a little intimidating, though, to fall asleep in a cramped plane and wake up to a big cousin poking your leg! Abby was a trooper, and then she really woke up. And stayed up. For many hours. New Rule: Do not let Abby nap at 5:30, even if it's on a plane.

Over the weekend she was great with her cousins, but that's for the next post. :o) (Yes, just to build anticipation...)

On Monday we flew back, this time planning on landing before dinner, so that we could try to get Abby back into her "normal" of the Eastern time zone. She fell asleep between lunch and the airport. We let her sleep as long as she wanted to, which was pretty amazing. We checked in, still asleep. We got through security, including a very thorough check of both Anny and Abby because the buckles on her overalls set off the metal detector. Still asleep. She finally woke up when we found a place to sit down.

She was great in the airport again. I think that she has some extroversion in her system. Abby knows how to work a room already, and she sure did work the airport! I think she went out of her way to make eye contact with everyone at Gate 4. It's really neat to see people gabbing on their cell phones, irate about something at the office just stop and smile. The scary thing is that it looks like she understands that, so she will work to make that happen. Very cute.

On the plane we managed to get the inside seats on the front row, sitting next to a woman who had just met her 7 month old grandson for the first time. It was a great situation for us. Whenever Abby was on the floor our "friend" would put her leg out so that Abby could not get to the aisle. Brilliant. Abby also began the flight on a good note with the flight attendant by clapping for him whenever he was on the loudspeaker. It was even cuter when they welcomed "ladies, gentlemen, and Abby to flight...." She heard her name again, so she got excited again.

We tried to occupy her, and had success at it. It helped us that we didn't play all of our cards at once. We started with her book. Moved on to playing with a water bottle. Then snacks came. Then she pooped, so it was a lot of fun to distract until we got through the (very light) turbulence. After a clean diaper I showed her the clouds out the window, and when that got old I showed her that the windows could be closed. We had two windows, so it was twice the fun!

Abby fell asleep during the descent, but we knew better than to let her sleep this time! As soon as we got to the carpet inside BWI I began to gently wake her up. By the time we got to the baggage carousel she was awake and chipper again, walking all over the place with Mama. When my brother and his wife got there, Abby was in even more heaven. (They were life and money savers by picking us up from the airport, so we bought them dinner.)

GREAT trip from Abby's perspective. I'm looking forward to our next trip out, which will be at Christmas time.

Next post will be about all three of the girls. If you're itching for pictures, check them out HERE!

Quick Post

Quick post on two things that have happened in the last couple of days, some good, some bad:

Good:
Abby got up the gusto to do some more walking on her own. She made a game out of it and got really excited. Very cute.
Anny and Abby went up to Baltimore with a friend and had a great time! (I don't know if Anny will post about it, but Stephanie did HERE.)

The Not-So-Good:
Abby pooped in the tub. It was funny, and my brother and S-I-L were over which kind of made it funnier. Lucky for us it was at the end of her bath, so I scooped her out and Anny got bleach doody duty.

The Just Plain Bad:
As I've mentioned, Abby is still co-sleeping with us. We're working toward transitioning her to her own crib again by the end of summer, but we're not there yet. Until last night, we have had no problems outside of her twisting and kicking me in my sleep. Last night, though, was bad. Abby sleeps in between us. Last night she got fussy and ended up on my side of the bed at some point. (You can see where this is going) At 1:00 on the dot, I was awakened by BOOM and crying.

Yep, Father-of-the-year candidate Rob Monroe let his only child fall out of bed in the middle of the night. But I think I'll stop writing that speech now.

She was fine and went right back to sleep. Between us.

Tonight we pick up the efforts to get her into her own, caged protected bed.

Trip to the Zoo!

We took a trip to the National Zoo on Saturday! We were supposed to meet up with other parents from our church, but it just did not work out right. Luckily our church intern, Erin, rode the metro with us, so we had that connection early on. We had misty rain in the morning, but after lunch the sun broke through and it became a wonderful day.

Abby was excited as soon as we walked in to Amazonia, the zoo's indoor rainforest. When you walk in you are greeted immediately with a pond of rays and other fish. We let her stand and look at them while we waited for others to join us, and she just stared in amazement. Then we moved over to the massive tanks, with all sorts of large fish and turtles. Upstairs you can see into the tanks from a different perspective, which is cool. They also have animals like monkeys and birds that roam free. It was early in the day and we did not see any monkeys and only a few birds.

She was okay with that, since she reall just wanted to see more of the fish. Here she is looking down on the ray-pond:

She fell asleep shortly thereafter. No, seriously. We had a nice time seeing the elephants, hippos, apes, big cats and other various animals. (some pictures of animals are HERE, but I didn't want to overcrowd Abby's site with animal pics) We even had lunch without the gabbing and cuteness of Abby. When she is tired and in her ErgoBaby she can sleep like a champ. I really should post about the greatness that is the ErgoBaby. Soon, my friends.

So, when she finally woke up we were all the way back up to the top of the zoo. If you've never been to the National Zoo you don't know of the slope. It's tedious. We managed, mostly by stopping to stare at animals just a little longer than we probably would have.

She was awake to see the Sloth Bear. She was amazed to see it go back and forth, right in front of her! She was standing, hands and face on the glass, for the longest time. Very cute.

I tried to get her to look at the bear through the blue binoculars (?). She liked playing with them, but did not understand to look through them.

There is a cute bronze statue of a Giant Panda. We sat Abby there for some picture time and she loved it! There's one where it looks like she's trying to escape, and another that looks like she's being tickled. I called this one "One Thinker, One Stinker."

From May 2008

It was a great day, and I wish that I had not messed things up as far as coordination. We'll be going to the Baltimore Zoo sometime, and hopefully back to DC this summer.

No Sleep and No TV Make Homer Something Something

Continuing Teething.....

On Sunday night we had one of those nights that we like to pretend never happen. Abby was tired when we got home from a gathering at church, so she ate and went to sleep without much coaxing at all. Even skipped the nightly bath/shower and did not notice.

She slept pretty soundly. Until 2:30 that is. Something happened at 2:30 that triggered play-time in Abby's mind. At first I tried all of the normal stuff: diaper, clean sinuses (Nose Sucking), 6 ounce bottle and rocking. Nothing would work, so I gave up and plopped her on the floor. She very much enjoyed playing on the floor for the next hour and a half!

Last night, though, we had sweet redemption. After going to sleep at an incredibly early 6:30, Abby slept in her crib until about 4:00. She coughed herself awake, so I picked her up and brought her into bed with us. I gave her some water to wet her throat, and she took a few swigs and went back to sleep. Until 5:45!

Here's hoping we get another one of those tonight.....

(For all of you that are mad at me for not posting pictures in April, please accept my apologies. I honestly have not even taken any, which I know makes me a bad dad. Trust me that she is still being cute. The problem is that she's so cute that I tend to play with her instead of make her pose for pictures.....)