The Growing Caldwell Family

I am still going through all the pictures from our trip to the beach.  There were just so many that it is taking me a while to get through them all.  One evening we all got cleaned up and went back out to the beach to get some pictures.  I like a bunch of the ones that we captured.  I think she felt quite at home with her toes in the sand and the wind in her hair. 

I started with a cold on Sunday and now Sarah Graves has it.  It's not an awful cold, but it doesn't make you feel real good.  Last night we were at the chiropractor and she noticed that Sarah Graves had a cold.  She recommended that while she is nursing or drinking from a bottle, we pinch her nose for just a second.  She said that it will help to move the fluid out of her eustacian tubes and works to prevent an earache.  As someone who still gets earaches as an adult, I appreciated the tip.  I've never been to a chiropractor myself (this bothers our chiropractor) and so I'm not totally sure of how much it actually does.  It has helped Sarah Graves' spitting up so much that it hasn't been an issue for a couple of months now.  It is supposed to help with immunity as well as overall well-being, so I guess we will see how it works out this Fall and Winter.  The chiropractor did impress me when she told me that her 3 school age daughters have n...

These pictures capture my girl.  She's sweet, but she is rough and tumble, too.  She will usualy leave her bow in, but it starts to slip down as she moves and dances around.  Sometimes it sits on her forehead like a headlamp! 

I am still going through pictures from our trip.  I came across this one of Sarah Graves enjoying some Cheerios for breakfast with Pops.  She loves to be with Pops! 

Dear Sarah Graves, I am not even sure where to start because this has been such a big month for you. I feel like your development has been on fast forward at times! One afternoon you realized that you could pull yourself to standing and I am not sure that you have willingly sat down since. You have practiced it over and over again. You are so good at it that you can pull up on most anything, including the hair on Daddy's legs. At first, you couldn't figure out how to sit down when you were tired. There were a few times where I heard you crying in your crib and went in to find you barely able to stand up anymore while you gripped the side and looked so pitiful.  Now you know how to let yourself go down. Once you figured out how to pull up, cruising around came quickly. One of your favorite activities is to move back and forth the length of the sofa or a bench. You are also able to move back and forth between two pieces of furniture that are close enough together for you to k...

Today was the Fall consignment sale at Oak Grove Young Children's School .  I took the day off and Mom and Dad came with me and Sarah Graves.  SG was a trooper considering it opened right at naptime and I was thankful for Moby wrap because I could not have carried her in my arms for the more than two hours we were there!   I had hoped that she might fall asleep while we looked, but there was way too much activity and too many things to grab for her to fall asleep.  Pops entetained her for a while so that I could look at the clothes.  We were there when it opened and we found some good things!  I was really excited to find a little activity table for Sarah Graves to be able to pull up and cruise around.  I also found a little tikes slide that we can put in the basement.  It's small, like 2 feet off the ground, but I know she will enjoy climbing up the 2 steps to slide down!  I am so thankful that we have a basement with a wide open space...

Now that we have been using our sleep routine for over a week and have had great success, I find myself guarding her sleep. I never expected to be the parent who planned outings around naps and bedtime, but here I am. Our routine has worked so well that I am afraid to stray from it and possibly end up where we were before. On the other hand, I am usually flexible and don't regard sleep for myself that highly, so this is very different. Running to the grocery between naps or heading home the moment church lets out to make her nap time feels very rigid to me. I have made some exceptions, such as tomorrow we are going to the big consignment sale and it starts during her morning nap. We will get back on schedule for the afternoon nap. I guess I am just that parent who rearranges plans around nap time and leaves early to make bedtime.

I am still going through pictures and videos from our trip and I had to share this one. This is a really fun age.  She understands games and can really interact.  We were eating in a restaurant when she started using the napkin to initiate a game of peek-a-boo!  Fortunately, Jeanne' had the wherewithal to pick up the camera and capture it. 

I think these are my all time favorite pajamas.  They have ballet slippers on the short and little ballet slippers all over the pants with the tutu.  She doesn't sleep in her bow...she just puts it on as soon as she wakes up. 

Sunday I went to the apple store and I bought my iPad. It is every bit as awesome as I hoped it would be. It is light weight so that I can hold it close and it is so small that I can look at it while watching TV or laying in bed. At the same time, the screen is large enough that I can show Aaron pictures and he can nod and go back to his frog game. Sarah Graves likes the iPad too and even starts working her hands when she sees it. I'm a little scared of how comfortable this kid is with electronics. Speaking of her, she is 8 months old today and has another tooth coming in on top. I will try to get her monthly letter written soon, when I get tired of looking at the app store!

No, I'm not talking about Sarah Graves' frustration.  I'm sure she has many frustrations and I'm sure once she's verbal she will be more than happy to voice them, but this is my frustration.  I have two of them at the moment.  Sand is hard on cameras.  I knew this when we went to the beach, but our extended service plan includes a cleaning each year, so I decided to use it at the beach and just have it cleaned when we came back.  When I dropped it off yesterday, I did not expect them to tell me it would take 4 - 6 weeks to get it cleaned!  I don't think these people grasp how much happens in 4 - 6 weeks.  In 4 - 6 weeks my cruiser who keeps letting go, will probably acquire the balance needed to stand.  In 4 - 6 weeks my little climber will probably find her way to the chandelier!  The problem is that I want the camera for Thanksgiving and Christmas so there is no better time to send it off.  Ugh!  I hope you don't read this just...

Sarah Graves has been pulling up for a couple of weeks now and she is getting so good at it.  She can pull up on almost anything now, including your pant legs.  

Sarah Graves has cut her first tooth!  I was very naive and thought that the whole tooth would come up at once.  I don't know where I got that notion or how I thought an entire tooth would just appear, but that's how I thought it would happen.  Instead, you can just feel the little bump of a tooth coming through the skin on the lower right side. 

Last night was night 3 of our new routine and it went really well.  She went to sleep very easily a few minutes before 8 and I didn't hear anything from her until 4:30.  I went in, gave her the paci and her blankie, and then walked out.  She quickly started to fuss, so I went to the restroom thinking I may be up for a while.  When I came out a minute later, she had quit fussing.  I laid there for a few minutes waiting for her to start up again and she didn't.  I am so proud of what a big girl she is!  I told Aaron that my one regret is that I didn't savor the last time that I got up to nurse her during the night.  I was so tired that I didn't appreciate it for how sweet it was.  He assured me that there will likely be another time when she needs me to comfort her during the night.  Selfishly I hope there is. 

I can't believe how big she is pulling up and wanting to stand on her own.  Yet she looks so little with her ruffled, padded bottom!

While we were at the beach Sarah Graves had some nights that were just tough.  She sleeps in her pack'n play fine, but there were some nights where she was up many times and sometimes she was just plain unhappy and nothing helped her go back to sleep except getting up and playing for a bit.  This persisted our first night home and I knew it was time for me to do somethng different.  I pulled out my book on  sleep  and started reading on Sunday morning.  When I first read the book, I put it down because they suggest that you let your baby cry it out.  I read the section on her age and I actually picked up several things.  First, I am trying to get her to nurse too frequently.  This book suggests that babies 5 - 8 months old only need to nurse about 4 or 5 times a day.  As I mentioned before, I have been nursing 7 times a day.  She isn't always super interested and tends to be easily distracted, which frustrates me some.  ...

We may have over done it on the pictures.  When I uploaded from the camera it said that we took 917!  That doesn't mean they were all good, but I like a lot of them.  Here are some we took one afternoon. The water was so pretty with a clear sky. Mom tried to keep Sarah Graves from ingesting the entire beach! I gave up on trying to keep her on a blanket and just let her be with the sand.  I buried her in the sand up to her chest and she stayed put for quite a while.  She didn't get mad when she was tired of being there.  She just started kicking her legs until she was free.  She loves to pull up and now she tries to climb, too! Sometimes I think she might be attached to me! That's our sandy girl covered from head to toe. She was starting to slow down after being in the sand and water.  I love those pretty eyes! We sat outside and watched the sun sink low and wished our days could go on like this forever. Today I was back at work.  We're a...

SG has taken to the beach quite easily!  She doesn't love putting the sunscreen on, but she really likes the sand.  I bring a blanket out for her, but she imediately crawls to the edge and begins grabbing handfuls of sand to put on the blanket!  Her pacifier becomes coated in sand, it gets in her hair, and it is in every roll on her thighs!  She is perfectly happy with it, so I try to go with the flow. Aaron found this shell and gave it to her.  Of course, if had to be tasted!  She doesn't care if she gets sand in her mouth.  We are really enjoying our time relaxing down here. 

SG loves the water.  She loves being tossed around and playing motor boat.  The pool is a great time for her to be a little more free.  I'm a little nervous to toss her around and do too much in the Gulf.  

That's right, it's the most wonderful time of the year..to my husband, at least.  Saturday started the college football season for LSU and Louisiana Tech.  He's a happy guy!  We were all sporting our LSU gear, even Lucy.  Lucy declined the opportunity to be part of a picture.  Sarah Graves hasn't caught on to us yet and willingly posed with her Daddy. I'll get some beach pictures posted soon!