Oh What a Night!

Well, between our two lovely little ladies, Daddy and I got about NO sleep last night!

Adele took over an hour to fall asleep...most of that time was spent screaming, it seems.

Cookie was very snuggly while we watched Unforgiven, but I used that as an excuse to brush her. She was also snuggly at bedtime, but we just thought she was ready to go to bed! Around 11 she started racing around the room, stopping just to pant for a few seconds, and she was at it again. She would jump up on the bed, come stand right by our faces, then jump down again. I tried to get her to calm down for a while, but I decided that she must *need* something. I got out of bed and she was SO excited that she slammed me into the dresser (I have a nasty bruise even!) and nearly tripped me on the way downstairs. She went outside and sat in the yard, then started barking at something...who knows what. I finally got her to come back in the house, and she started all over again.

Next, I checked on Adele, thinking that maybe Cookie was trying to tell me she was in trouble. Nope, she was fine. Finally, Daddy took Cookie downstairs and slept on the couch by her. That was after midnight.

Around 2:30 Adele started crying. She cried for over 15 minutes so I decided to check on her. She signed milk right away, and with the night we'd already had, I wasn't going to fight her! She nursed until almost 3:30....ugh! I was too tired to try to lay her down and let her cry it out, so I just went with it.

So, with Adele back to sleep, I headed off to bed once again. Then at 5, I heard Cookie downstairs scratching at the baby gate (or so I thought...she was actually sticking her head through the banister, and trying to squeeze through there) trying to get upstairs. I didn't want to let her up, because I was SO afraid that she would continue her crazy behavior. She started barking even, and I heard Daddy scold her. That went on for at least half an hour, probably longer. ARGH!

Then at 7, Adele was up for good. I let her talk in her crib a little bit, but she wasn't very happy, and I wasn't able to sleep anyway. I brought her into our room to snuggle (and hopefully catch a few more zzz's) but she just kept looking for Daddy, so I gave up on the thought of more sleep and took her downstairs. Cookie was still crazy, so I let Daddy go back to bed (I truly think he had the more difficult time last night even though he did sleep through her initial craziness....)

Cookie continues to be crazy today, so Daddy is taking her to an emergency vet. Everything I read online sounds bad, but we're hoping for the best. It costs $90.00 just to walk in the door at the vet, since it's Sunday and all, but we definitely CAN'T have another night like last night!!!

So anyhow, that got me thinking about how last night was the 1 year anniversary of Adele's first night at home. I'm guessing that I got just about as much sleep then! Unfortunatley (...or maybe Forutnately) I have completely blocked it out! Except that we were afraid to let Adele sleep in the bassinet because we thought Cookie would knock it over...she was so over-excited when Adele made any little peep! I know that Daddy says that I had a much worse "first night" home than Adele did...whatever that means!

Here's to a good night's sleep tonight, and maybe some cute pictures when Miss One-Year-Old Adele wakes up from her nap :)

Oh...and the one good thing that came out of all of this is that Daddy and I are really learning what a good team we make!!!

Happy Birthday, Baby Adele!

Wow! We made it through the first year!! I can't believe that my little baby is one!!! It has been a crazy year, but SO worth it! We love our little girl more than anything, and we can't imagine what our lives would be without her!

Here she was last year on her "first" birthday:

The cake the hospital gave us:
And this wasn't quite a year ago, but it was the day we brought her home:



Back to today:

I took the day off to celebrate with Miss Adele. We slept in...well, until about 7:15, but hey, I'll take it! She was cheerful and snuggly this morning, so I rolled with that too! We had a lazy breakfast of cream of wheat and read books and snuggled in the living room.

I must admit that I was a bit nervous about her morning nap...she's been fussing SO much when it's time to sleep lately. I wanted her to get a "good" nap in because she had her 1 year check-up at 11:30, and after that we had lunch plans with Jenn and Will. Fortunately, when I tried to put her down she complied. She fussed a little bit (okay...stood in her crib, reaching for me as I "snuck" out of the room...) but by the time I had finished a sudoku puzzle she was sound asleep.

I had to wake her up to take her to see Dr. Freeman, and when I did she gave me the BIGGEST smile! That might be the best difference between today and a year ago! She LOVES her Mommy and Daddy!

Dr. Freeman gave her an A+ again! She weighs 21 lbs, 15 ounces (75th percentile). Almost exactly tripling her birth weight of 7 lbs 4 oz (which is what she was supposed to do!) She is 30 1/4 inches tall, which is the 90th percentile...the same as she's always been. She stayed upset after her shots for quite a while this time, which was a bit rough for Mommy, but she finally settled down as we left the office.

We picked up Subway for Jenn and Will and headed over for lunch. Adele ate 3 meatballs off of my meatball sub! Don't worry, she saved some room for cake too! Will insisted on making her a cake. He told Jenn that Adele liked chocolate, and I'm guessing Adele "told" him that she likes orange too, because the writing was in orange frosting.
The cake was yummy, and Adele did a pretty good job of dividing the cake between her face, her belly and the floor.



We ate and played, and eventually it was time for Jenn to get back to her daycare kiddos, and time for Miss Adele to take another nap. She didn't fuss too much for her afternoon nap either, and I was actually surprised that she slept! Only for about 30 or 40 minutes (Ha..."only!") but I was able to rest a little bit too!

When Daddy got home, I took the girls for a walk (it was REALLY nice out today) so he could get cozy and have a little rest. Then it was time to make dinner. I made Adele some Chicken Sausage Snails from a kid's cookbook I have. They were realy more like meatballs shaped into sticks, and I didn't decorate them like snails...that's too much work for something you're just going to eat! Adele liked them (I did too!) so I'm glad that the recipe made twice as many as it said it would! She also ate one of her new favorite foods....blueberries! She gets to eat "nekked" when she eats blueberries because they make such a mess!


Wow...that got long! If you prefer shorter posts, like the previous one with Daddy's video, LEAVE COMMENTS so that we know :)

Daddy's Present to Adele

As promised:

Daddy made this video, but he also wrote the song. He used his computer to record everything, and yes, that IS Daddy singing!

This song has already "saved" me once! One night, a few weeks ago, Daddy left to go work out while I was putting Adele to bed. Apparently no one asked Adele if that was okay, because when she finished nursing she sat up and asked for Daddy. "Daddy?" she said. She started crying when he didn't come up to see her. And she just kept crying. We went downstairs and looked at pictures of Daddy. That didn't help. I thought about calling Daddy's cell phone to hear his voice on his voicemail message and suddenly I remembered his song! (I've had it on my computer for a few weeks now.) I ran downstairs and grabbed my computer. I put Adele in her crib and played the song outside of her room. Five times. That was all (ALL?) it took to please her...and soothe her to sleep!

Enjoy!

Party at Adele's House!

Her first birthday party outfit...before she peed through her diaper during her nap:

Today we celebrated Adele's birthday. (Some people like to do things in timely manner. Others like to make people wait...No, Adele will never live down her extra week in the womb!) Yes, we were a bit early, but most of Adele's relatives could be here, so we went ahead and celebrated anyway.

Both sets of Grandparents came down, along with Aunt Katie, Tim, Laura and James, and Greg and Missy. Aunt Jenny stayed in Wisconsin with the dogs. We had a nice little gathering. Adele and James took turns napping this afternoon, and once everyone was awake Adele opened her presents.


After presents was the cake. We stripped Adele down to her diaper and gave her her own cupcake. She liked it. She didn't demolish it like we expected, but she ate a decent amount. She was pretty clean with it too. Unfortunately I made white cake, so what little mess she made doesn't show up well on the pictures, but you can use your imagination!








I think James was a little more excited about Adele's new toys than she was, but once he got the grownups to open the toys (and in some cases, assemble them), Adele was happy to play too!




Stay tuned for Daddy's special birthday present to Adele!

Eleven!

That's how many steps Miss Adele took in a row tonight! So...we're making progress! 7 days until her birthday!

In other news, bedtime has become a huge hassle lately. I think it is just part of Adele's adjustment to going to daycare at "Miss Jenny's". Adjustment or not, It's becoming pretty frustrating. She is taking great naps for Miss Jenny and is eating well, but at bedtime she acts as if she is starving, or exhausted, or like she just wants to play. She can't really decide. There has been a lot of screaming....that's been the one consistent thing!

I was lucky a few months ago when we decided to try and let her "cry it out" because that was exactly when she started sleeping through the night...what a lucky break (for both of us!) So, she's never really had to cry it out, and I am really having a hard time letting her cry now! I feel guilty for "abandoning" her all day, so when she wants (needs?) some extra attention at night, it's hard not to give it to her! I just hope this adjustment/phase/whatever it is passes quickly so that we don't have to resort to having her cry it out!

We had a two-hour delay today and have one again tomorrow...yippee!! But it's too cold to go outside to play, even just to take adorable pictures of Adele in the snow. But don't worry, we've got birthday party plans for this weekend, and that means LOTS of photographers, so I'm bound to post pictures again sooner or later!

One Year Ago Today...

Was my due date.



I guess no one told Adele...

...or maybe she was just as stubborn then as she is now.

That's okay. It means we've got one more week to have her walking by her first birthday. I'm not holding my breath! I also thought she was finally going to start drinking milk out of a sippy cup, but today she stopped doing that as well. The girl is stubborn. S-T-U-B-B-O-R-N!

Any ideas on who she gets that from??? (I DO have the power to delete any comments with my name in them!!!)

Snow, Take Two!

I think Miss Jenny must have talked about the snow outside today, because we were sitting in the kitchen and I said something about snow outside, and Adele IMMEDIATELY looked outside. She clealry knew what I was talking about!

So, I just couldn't resist taking her out to play in the snow again. I'm glad I did, because this time she didn't hate it. She actually liked it! She was pretty interested in looking at the snow, but she didn't really want to...interact...with it. She refused to crawl in it, but that could be because her snowsuit is so bulky! She also refusled to walk (with me holding her hands). But she LOVED when I would "jump" her through the snow. She laughed and laughed as we took huge steps across the backyard! She pointed to the pine trees in the yard and said, "dat" at them. Daddy thinks they remind her of our Christmas Tree (Yes, our decorations are taken down and put away!! Adele misses them, though!)

Afer dinner, I brought a bowl of snow into the house for her to touch, since her hands were bundled up when we were outside. She didn't hate touching the snow, but I think it was a bit cold for her. She lost interest pretty quickly...of course, it melted pretty quickly too. What she DID Hate was eating the snow! (And no, it wasn't yellow!!!) Daddy tried to catch her "yucky" face on film, but was not very successful, due mostly to a large black furry creature named Cookie. When I tried to feed her bites of snow she just shook her head "no" at me. Smart girl! She knows what she likes and doesn't like!

Maybe we'll have a snow day tomorrow and I can take some pictures of Miss Ellie Belly playing in the snow....of course, it's supposed to be so cold that going outside probably won't be an option.

This is old, but I didn't want another post without any pictures...that's just no fun!