Road of Miracles

4:00 – Akiva comes upstairs. I go into the kitchen and move some things from our freezer to the extra fridge/freezer downstairs that we got off Craigslist. Akiva puts together a chair I bought at Ikea last weekend and Audrey “helps” him.

While they are busy with that, I go upstairs to my room and organize some books. I don’t get very far since I’m out of bookshelf space.

5:15 – I come back downstairs, lay down on the couch, and use the laptop for awhile…

…while Akiva and Audrey finish the chair assembly.

5:30 – Akiva feeds Audrey dinner. We alternate who feeds her dinner each night and tonight is his night. Meanwhile, I eat dinner. Akiva bought Indian food when he was out doing errands today so I have some of what he brought home.

6:00 – Audrey and I are both done eating. Akiva sorts some old clothing of his for donation and Audrey “helps” him.

We then hang out together in the living room with Audrey playing, and us watching TV and using our laptops.

7:00 – Audrey’s bathtime! I give her a bath in the kitchen sink while Akiva goes up to her bedroom and gets pajamas, diaper, and a book set out.

When she’s done with the bath, he takes her upstairs to get her dressed and reads her a story. Meanwhile, I make a bottle for her and tidy up the living room. When they are done with the story, Akiva calls me and I go upstairs to take over. I rock Audrey while she has her bottle and when she’s done, put her in her crib.

7:40 – Audrey’s asleep. I come back downstairs, where Akiva is eating dinner. I make myself another Carnation Instant Breakfast. We watch the Olympics.

8:30 – I go upstairs and listen to the new baby’s heartbeat with the doppler, watch some more Olympics, and then fall asleep by about 9:00.

11:15 – Audrey wakes up from her morning nap. My Old Navy order arrived so we open the package and throw some clothes around.

11:30 – Back upstairs for a diaper change for Audrey…

..and for me to have a shower. I have to shower after her morning nap because she sweats and drools all over me while she’s asleep. I close the bedroom door and Audrey plays in the bedroom and bathroom. This usually means taking everything out of the bathroom cupboard, dragging it into the bedroom, and harrassing the cats.

Hey, look. A pregnant lady.

12:00 – Back downstairs. Audrey plays and I start thinking about lunch.

12:30 – Lunch. I feed Audrey potato soup and then give her some corn which she feeds herself. I make myself a frozen dinner (fish!) and some grapes. I give Audrey some Ritz crackers to eat while I clean up the kitchen.

1:00 – Upstairs to put away some of my laundry and Akiva’s laundry that I washed yesterday.

I also change Audrey’s diaper while I’m up there. I gather up some dirty laundry and bring it downstairs to wash, along with the new things from Old Navy. Audrey did not want to come back downstairs and has a meltdown on the living room floor while I put the laundry in.

She’s still screaming when I’m done so we sit on the couch for awhile until she settles down. I notice that she has a red dot on her nose and cheek and figure she probably scratched herself while throwing a tantrum on the floor.

1:20 – Audrey is calmer and I get her distracted with toys in the living room while I catch up with something things online. My mom calls and asks if she can take Audrey for the day on Saturday. I say SURE!

1:45 – Upstairs for a poop diaper change. Yuck. After I’m done changing her, I leave Audrey in her room to play with toys while I clean the upstairs bathrooms.

2:15 – Back downstairs. Another baby meltdown. I distract her with crackers while I unload and reload the dishwasher.

I also move the clothes from the washer to the dryer. Audrey makes a disaster of cracker crumbs on the kitchen floor so I sweep it again.

2:45 – Baby meltdown has progressed to clinging to me and whining so I decide it’s time for an afternoon nap.

I make a bottle and lay down with her on the couch. When she’s asleep, I carefully carry her upstairs, put her in her crib, and go downstairs to tidy up the living room. That lasts about 3 minutes before she’s crying.

3:00 – Nap is a failure. I can’t get her to go back to sleep. Back downstairs to the living room. Audrey alternates between clinging/crying and playing quietly by herself with toys. I watch some Olympics coverage in between baby soothing.

3:45 – I take the clothes out of the dryer, with some help.

I put the laundry basket in the living room and go to finish putting dishes in the dishwasher. I come out of the kitchen to find that Audrey has pushed the basket of clothes in the living room, tipped it over, and was pulling all of the clothes out.

There was a discussion on a parenting forum last week about what stay-at-home moms do all day. In thinking about that, I decided to document a full day for Audrey and me. I was also inspired by Dallas Ann, who makes such awesome “Day in the Life” posts. I’m dividing our day into multiple posts because I have something like 45 pictures to share! Here is Part 1.

4:58 – Audrey wakes up crying. I go into her room, change her diaper, and bring her down to the living room. We snuggle and nap on the couch until 6:00.

6:00 – I give Audrey a bottle. Akiva gets up and plays with Audrey while I head back to bed for another hour of sleep. Akiva and I alternate who gets up with Audrey each day, since her usual waking time is between 4:00 and 5:00. The early person of the day always gets an extra hour of sleep from 6:00 to 7:00.

7:00 – I get up again and Akiva goes downstairs to his office to start his work day. Audrey plays while I use the computer and watch the morning news. We go upstairs for a diaper change, too.

8:30 – Breakfast. Audrey has a banana, toast, and milk. I have Carnation Instant Breakfast and a cinnamon roll. After I finish, I load the dishwasher and get it started and put the duvet from our bed into the washing machine and start it.

I also make myself a glass of lemon water and Audrey a sippy of water for the morning.

9:00 – When Audrey is done eating, I take her upstairs for a diaper change and get her dressed.

She plays with toys in her room while I fold her clean clothes that were washed yesterday.

I also feed the cats.

9:15 – Back downstairs. Audrey plays while I watch Regis and Kelly. The comforter is moved from the washer to the dryer. I sweep the kitchen and bathroom floors, but have to do this quickly because Audrey hates the broom and screams when she sees me take it out.

9:45 – Morning nap. I get Audrey a bottle and we lay on the couch together. She’ll sleep for up to 2 hours if she’s on my chest. The chances of that long of a nap are much smaller if I put her in her crib. Unless there’s something I really need to do, I’ll just let her sleep on my chest the whole time. Sometimes I sleep, too, and other times, I stay awake and watch Price is Right or something on the DVR. Today, I watched TV and used the laptop (balanced on my knees).

I took Audrey to the Tot Spot last week. It’s an indoor playground for toddler-age kids, plus a cafe and a shop that sells cloth diapers, baby carriers and wraps, and wooden/organic toys. It was our first time at the Tot Spot and Audrey’s first time playing with kids her age. She’s been exposed to other kids before but never been let loose to play with them like she was there. At first, she was really unsure and didn’t want to do much other than sit near me and play with a few toys by herself. By the end of our time there, she was crawling around a bit and exploring on her own. She found a cute redheaded boy and pet his hair like she pets the cats. Although it’s further from our house than I would like, we’ll definitely go back. I’m interested to see if Audrey warms up quicker on the next visit.

Audrey has also been standing on her own! She thinks it’s hilarious. She’ll stand at the coffee table, make sure we’re watching, and then slowly lift both hands up, palms facing out, like she’s being held up by a robber. We cheer and she laughs, grabs onto the table to steady herself, and then does it again. She’s able to for longer and longer periods of time without grabbing onto the table. I think she’ll be walking soon!

Here are a few pictures from Audrey’s first birthday party. The blue dress that she wore was made by my mom and is the same dress that I wore at my first birthday party.

Today, I had my 12 week ultrasound. Audrey and Akiva came with. Audrey has a sound that she makes when she sees babies, cats, or dogs. It sounds like “zzz-yeah!” As soon as the baby came on the screen of the ultrasound display and Akiva pointed it out to her, she gave it a big “zzz-yeah!” Very cute.

We had a very busy January!

We spent most of the first half of the month sorting through everything and packing up our house in preparation for our move. After a lot of frustration, we found a cute 3 story townhouse about 30 minutes north of where we were living and moved on the 18th of January. Fortunately, we had a lot of help from my family and some friends, which was great. It was a much bigger job than I had anticipated.

Audrey did pretty well with the move. She had a few rough nights at the beginning but seems to like her new room. My mom bought some paint and wall decals for her room so that’s on the list of projects to do. Her new room is much bigger than her old room. The old house was much smaller and we didn’t have a lot of space, so Audrey shared her old room with the computer printer and some bookshelves of mine. She doesn’t have to share her new room with our junk anymore!

We now have a staircase in the living room which has proven to be interesting. Audrey figured out pretty quickly how to go up stairs but can’t figure out how to go down the stairs. A few times, I’ve followed closely behind and let her climb up a few steps but she gets frustrated quickly, not wanting to go the full staircase but unable to back up. We keep the stairs blocked off but she often eyes them with intense curiousity.

January 15th was Audrey’s first birthday! Akiva took a lot of photos and they’re all on his camera, so I’ll have him upload those soon. My mom organized a great party at her house, since we were in the middle of moving. Audrey received a lot of great gifts. Thank you to everyone who came to the party!

This week, Audrey and I started swimming classes. I am afraid of water and can’t swim so the class is as much for me as it is for her. I’m putting on my brave face and showing her that swimming isn’t scary. The concidence is that the class is held at the exact pool where I had my first swimming lessons. I hated them and have such a negative memory associated with that pool. It’s been sort of therapeutic to be back there, as a grown up, showing Audrey that water can be fun to play in.

In terms of her size, Audrey is still a tiny thing. She was last weighed on the 14th of January and was 16 pounds, 2 ounces. Today, she’s wearing a 6 month size onesie and 9 month size pants. If she didn’t have a puffy cloth diaper on, she would probably be in 6 month size pants, too. She is becoming a better eater and I’ve stopped buying baby food. Right now, she loves plain yogurt, cottage cheese, mashed potatoes, Ritz crackers, and bananas.

February should hopefully be calmer for us. We’re mostly settled into our new house with the exception of unpacking a few last boxes and finishing a few projects. Swimming classes continue through the end of the month. We’ve also just joined a mom/baby parenting group that has playdates a few times a week so we will be attending the first playdate soon!

It’s technically a bib, but she prefers to wear it as a cape. Expected arrival of the new addition is mid-August!

Things that have meaning:

• Ma-ma
• Da-da
• Key-tss (kitty)
• Hewwo (hello)

Things that have no meaning:

• Dumb
• Duh
• Bwah
• La-la-la
• Ummm
• Hemm
• Ah-ba
• Several other baby sounds that can’t really be spelled out

We took the pictures of Audrey in her Hanukkah outfit after we ate dinner, so excuse the messiness!