"You're Moving Backwards in Time..."
"But you're moving up in the coolness factor," says Jeff after I deactivated my Facebook page and told him, "Now I have more time to update my blog!"
So here I am... updating my blog, all about my most favorite person in the world - AUDREY!
Before I get into what's happening with Audrey, let me explain why I deactivated my account...
I've been thinking about leaving Facebook for the longest time but more recently, around the time of Lent, I started more seriously thinking about leaving. Lent is traditionally the season of giving something up to focus more on Christ's sacrifice for our sins. This past Lent I wanted to give something up but justified not doing so by saying, "I'm so stressed and busy all the time I *need* my relaxation fixes!" (i.e. Facebook) So I trudged on and signed on every. day. to see the latest from friends, family, even just acquaintences. It was getting rediculous... My best friend and mother of four left Facebook a few months ago. She sent out a private message to friends with her email address in hopes of staying in touch. With my Facebook friends, the friends I really want to stay in touch with know my email address or better yet, I see them all the time anyway. So why was I keeping this Facebook account? Towards the end I was mostly just posting photos of Audrey but even then, I didn't want certain Facebook friends (you know, the ones you accept their friend requests just to be nice...) to see them, or worse comment on them, so I had to repeatedly customize my settings. With all the changes to FB it just got to be too draining. Enough was enough. Plus, right before I deactivated my account, I was tracking down old high school peers as if I actually cared about what they were up to these days...
*click*click* DELETED!
And the cloud of obsession and self-indulgence lifted... and Jeff gave me a high five.
Now you're pretty much up-to-date. Now on to the cuteness of Audrey!
We visited her "boyfriend" today in Long Beach. Miles is the son of my friend Sara and he is 2.5 months older than Audrey. I've meantioned Sara before as the friend who was pregnant at the same time as me but since she got pregnant first, I got to learn a lot from her experience. Anyway, Miles is a super fast crawler! He was really obsessed with my camera, which meant I didn't get a lot of pictures taken but that's okay. The really neat thing is after hanging out with Miles, Audrey ditched her "army crawl" (on her tummy, pulling with her arms, pushing with her legs) and started crawling on all fours with her tummy off the floor! Neat :) She's still a little hesitant but I'm sure in no time she'll be keeping me on my toes with her speediness! Here are some pictures!
Click here to view these pictures larger
It was great to visit Sara and talk about how motherhood/parenthood is going. It was also good for me to see how she baby-proofed her home. I need to get down to Babies 'R' Us soon to get some corner protectors for our coffee table. Audrey LOVES exploring around there and I'm always worried she'll knock her head on the corner.
Audrey is 8.5 months old with still no teeth.... I'm starting to wonder about that since the doctor has been saying ever since her 3 month check up that "next time, she'll have some teeth." I guess I should count my blessings for now?
Another recent trick Audrey has been doing is making the "lither lither" sound with her tongue. It's pretty cute. A month or so ago she was saying "bah bah" to herself in the mirror... now it's "lither lither." Fun times!
Audrey is still drinking mother's milk 5 times a day and gets 2-3 servings of solids a day. I also started giving her a sippy cup with juice this past week to help with constipation (TMI? sorry.) I give her 1/3 juice and 2/3 filtered water. She can hold the cup herself but has to lie on a boppy pillow on the floor to actually drink the juice - she hasn't figured out how to tip her cup while she sits in her high chair. I may get her a sippy cup with a straw in the near future but for now, the cup we have is just fine.
Her nap schedule is somewhat predictable in that I know she'll need one or two throughout the day! Sometimes she gets a whole 3.5 hour nap in one go, other times it's spread out. At day care, she can go from sleeping 3.5 hours one day to 20 minutes (TOTAL!) another day. I still can't complain about her nap schedule because she sleeps through the night with no problems at all - hurray!
All in all, Audrey LOVES to explore. She gets really excited when she realizes we won't put her back on her quilt when she's wandered off. Sometimes she'll squeal with delight or clap her hands and then take off crawling after some interesting artifact like the napkin holder! It's so much fun watching her little expeditions. She's my big obsession!