In honor of the start to the school year and our alma mater's kickoff to football season this Saturday, Surrey is showing her Penn State pride. Her Uncle Cam's blanket is also a fitting backdrop to her photo since this is his last week living with us. Fortunately, he's sticking around Richmond. It's crazy to think that he has been here her entire life - ever since she was a wee little newborn with horrendous crying spells. She's come so far.
Miss Independent continues to cruise all over the place and has now decided she enjoys pulling up on cabinets and opening the doors. Time to install the baby locks. She loves legitimately clapping and making funny faces. How does a ten and a half month old get humor? Fascinating to me.
Oh friends, we are sleep deprived this week. Our little ball of fun has decided to frequently boycott napping longer than 25 minutes and has also decided to begin waking up at 4:30 in the morning. Let's all have a moment of silence for our sanity.
Thank you.
Maybe she's teething - although I've been saying that for at least a month? Those suckers better push through soon and hopefully justify all of this craziness. Maybe she's going through a growth spurt? Maybe we have no idea? That's for sure. We're really really hoping this is a phase, whatever it is. We've tried pushing her bedtime up, being advised that sleep begets sleep and so the more sleep she gets the longer she'll sleep. That's worked for us pretty much all along, but has failed miserably these past couple weeks. At this point we're totally confused. Let's all say a prayer things get knocked back into order soon.
This past weekend Surrey and I had a little overnight getaway in northern Virginia, right down the street from Washington D.C. My dearest Richmond friend, Bevin, and her husband relocated a couple months ago for a new job. The three of us were all sad to see them leave but we're excited for their new adventure (especially since they're expecting their first baby in a handful of months!).
Although Surrey rarely slept and kept me up most of the night, we had a great trip. We headed to the city to check out the botanical gardens, snuck a picture in front of the Capitol, and picked up a sweet treat at a delicious cupcake place, Baked & Wired. We also loved just hanging out at their home, eating a delicious dinner, and talking baby things. Surrey especially loved crawling around with their dog, Charlie. He was quite the gentleman, especially with all the nighttime screaming she was doing.
Thanks Bevin, Claiborne, and Charlie for a wonderful visit!
There's no such thing as rest nowadays. Surrey is going going going, and while it's a lot of fun to see her add new fun skills to her resume each day, it's starting to get exhausting. Gone are the days we can even sit still in the same room as her, and a big goodbye to when we were able to leave her in a room while we went to the bathroom or fixed lunch. She has started cruising the entire room, transferring from furniture to furniture til reaching her desired destination. She pulls up on ev.er.y.th.ing. And just today she is perfecting the art of going from standing (not on her own yet) to sitting back on the floor. Like I said, it's so fun to watch everything unfold (other than the falls of course, which always seem to happen under my supervision), but things are getting real around here.
Our child is channeling her inner Spiderman. Surrey's quickly earning the nickname Spidey around here as she continues to try and scale walls. She hasn't quite mastered the skill yet, but at the rate she's going, I'm sure in no time we'll find her fingertip-deep in drywall.
This is our very cute, but very irritating new normal. Crib standing has catapulted Surrey into what we're hoping is a short phase. Back in the good ol' days (up until just shy of a week ago), we'd put Surrey down for a nap or bedtime and wouldn't hear a peep. She's now fighting strong with each sleep to beat her personal record of avoiding sleep for at least one hour after being put in her crib. I'm trying to hone in on my inner Nanny Jo and continue to go in to her room, not say a word, lay her back down, and walk out. She is persistent. And stubborn. And apparently a lot like me. Yikes.
She looks uninterested because she is. She's not at all interested in laying on her back or laying still. Fortunately, she humored me for three clicks of the camera before she was off rolling and crawling. As of yesterday she is officially a cruising champ. Literally turning corners, circling the ottoman and the coffee table, yelling and waving to her fans (ie anyone who is watching) in the process. Fun times!
