I'M BACK

It’s been awhile since I last update the blog. I could list a bunch of reasons but it really doesn’t matter and you probably don’t really care. You really want to know what’s been happening with Aubrey. I am going to try to summarize everything that has happen since my last post. I am sure I will miss some things but I should be able to hit the highlights.

Daddy Day Care

Mommy went out of town this weekend (last weekend of the February) and left daddy in charge. This is the first time Daddy has had to keep Aubrey by himself for an extended period of time. Daddy was able to get her fed, dressed and ready for day care pretty close to on schedule. A few minutes behind schedule but not too bad. I think Saturday is going to be a lazy day for Aubrey and me. I might just let her run around in her diaper.

Stay posted for more updates from the weekend.

Size - 5 months flies by (Jayna and Jacob)

Jayna and Jacob made their arrival the first two weeks of February. We visited both of them in the hospital and it is hard for us to imagine that 5 months ago LA and I had a baby that small. It is amazing how fast time flies and how big Aubrey has gotten. I guess this continues throughout life.

Sitting Up

She has started to sit up some on her own or with some help from mommy and daddy. Hopefully, she will figure this out in the coming weeks so she doesn’t have to spend so much time on her back. She can fall to the sides and back pretty quickly. Mommy and Daddy will have to be on their toes to keep her from hitting her head. She is pretty flexible – she can be sitting and bend at her waist and put her head between her legs.

Weekend at Nanny’s (Feb)

Leigh-Ann and I went on our annual trip with our friends to our family beach house at Surfside Beach for a weekend in February and left Aubrey with Nana Von and Gramps. She did wonderful and they enjoyed keeping her. LA and I did fine and didn’t worry ourselves to death about her. However, we did miss her and were anxious to get home and spend some time with her. Everybody was worried about how we did and were asking us all kinds of questions. It wasn’t a big deal. I think the biggest reason is that Aubrey is a good baby. I would have a lot harder time leaving our child with anyone including family, if she cried all day and/or was a holy terror (which still could and probably happen in the coming years) it would be a different situation. I probably wouldn’t leave her with anyone if she was a crier or was fussy all the time. We are blessed that Aubrey has been such a good baby.

Valentines’ Day

So a week before Valentine’s Day LA brought home a flyer from school that asked if we wanted to purchase a Valentine’s Day gift for her. It was only like $3 dollars and they sucked us in. Come on, really…we weren’t going to let her be the only one not to get something even though she didn’t even know she got anything. The funny thing was about a day earlier we had discussed if we were going to do anything for her and had decided not to do anything because she wouldn’t remember it. On Valentine’s Day, LA and I got a bag of goodies for her – actually some of it was for us (a brownie and some chocolate). She also got some Valentine’s day gifts from her friends in the class. LA and I weren’t prepared for that – oops. What’s the next holiday? Looks like her friends will get something for St. Patrick ’s Day. Got any suggestions?

Baby Foods and Her Desire for Real Food

After her four months doctors appointment, we started feeding Aubrey cereal in the mornings. She did real good with it and figured it out pretty quickly. We advanced from the rice cereal which by the way is not real tasty. It taste’s like the flour and water stuff you dipped newspaper in to make paper mache. Aubrey started with squash then sweet potatoes, carrots (which she didn’t like at first but is doing better with them), peas, green beans, and applesauce. We have a few more fruits to work through but so far no allergic reactions. This is a blessing. Often times at dinner, we will feed Aubrey and then eat dinner and hold Aubrey or put her in the Boppy. She has figured out what we are doing and gets mad watching us eat. She wants you to feed her what you are eating and let her drink out of your cup. We’ve got a video of her attaching my cup and it is funny. I will try to post it to the blog.

Putting Her Hands In The Mouth and Sucking Her Thumbs

For awhile now Aubrey has wanted to put her hands into her mouth and we have been steadfast in her telling “No, hands in your mouth”. This is going to be a learning lesson for her about her daddy. I am going to win this battle/challenge. I will not loose. I am going to loose a bunch of battles over the years but this is one that I will win. I will keep you posted.

Day Care

Towards the end of January the couple keeping Aubrey decided that it wasn’t working out and they would keep her until we could find someone else. We didn’t have a plan but decided not to take Aubrey back. A couple from our Sunday school class offered to keep Aubrey for a week – Dave and Shara. They were expecting in about three weeks and I think they wanted a dry run to make sure they were ready for their new baby girl. Aubrey had a great week taking walks and playing with Maggie, their dog. Fortunately, she can not talk and tell us she wants a dog.  I don’t think mommy and daddy are ready for that yet. Shara even got to take Aubrey to her doctor’s appointment and freaked everyone out in the office with the baby in the car seat and being pregnant. I am sure she got some strange looks. It was a great knowing that they were keeping Aubrey. LA and I got on the phone on Monday and fortunately Summerville Baptist CDC had and opening and we visited and decided to enroll her there. It has been working out good. It is close to the house and the three ladies there do a good job with her. She has four new friends and will have another one in April when the fifth child arrives – the parents are paying to hold a spot. We have registered her for next year at Summerville Baptist. She is going to start out in the baby class and move to the crawler class when she turns one. Her birthday is going to cause her to be the oldest in her class. Most of the starting dates are birthdays before September 1.

January 21, 2009
4 Month Doctor’s Appointment

LA went to the doctor for her 4 month appoint today. The tale of the tape is as follows:
Length: 25 ¾ in - 95th Percentile
Weight: 14lbs 11oz – 75th Precentile
Head: 15in – 20th Precentile

Everything looks good and the doctor is pleased with her progress. We are going to start with foods this week. That should be interesting since her natural reaction is to lick everything and stick her tongue out. It is rice cereal to start with one time a day and then two times a day and eventually three times a day. From there it will be vegetables then fruits one color at a time following the same pattern.

She got her second round of shots and cried a little bit, but was a big girl. It was a little easier for mommy and daddy this time. Her next appointment will be at six months.

Miscellaneous

*Kerrick tried to kiss her (Evidently, I am going to have to talk to him and I put her on restriction from her playmate for 3 days)
*She is talking and even has a learned to yell a little bit
*She has laughed
*She has had two bouts of a head cold (took her to the doctor the first time)

Christmas

Aubrey got to celebrate her first Christmas. Unfortunately, she was only about 3.5 months old and didn’t know any difference between a normal day and Christmas day. Next year will be a little different but Santa did come see her and she got clothes, bibs, CD Player, Piggy Bank and a lamp. The economic situation must have hurt Santa because the piggy bank wasn’t loaded down with money.

We spent the late morning and afternoon at Grandma and Aube’s house with my sister’s family. The evening was with LA’s family. LA’s family rotates based on age and it was LA and my time to host. Tight quarters and semi-organized chaos would be an understatement. It was a long day but we survived and we had a great time. It was good to be able to spend time with both of our families on Christmas day. We are fortunate and blessed.

Rolling Over

Aubrey has started rolling over and her first roll over is pretty funny. LA and I were both home the first time she rolled over from back to front. It was the day after Christmas. Anyway, Aubrey and I were downstairs hanging out. She was having some daddy time. She was on her back and she rolled over and I didn’t think much about it. Later on Aubrey and I went upstairs to see mommy and I asked LA “if it was a big deal that Aubrey had rolled over from her back to her front”. I quickly learned that it was a BIG DEAL. Evidently, it is a milestone. LA wasn’t too happy about me not calling her downstairs. A little while later I am in the kitchen and I hear LA and Aubrey playing and LA is trying to get Aubrey to turnover. It was funny to hear LA trying to convince her to do it again. I think she finally rolled over put she wasn’t too happy about it. She is getting better at it but she still isn’t to hipped up on being on her tummy except when she has just finished a bottle and is tired.

Baptism

Aubrey was baptized on December 21, 2009 at Bethany UMC. It was truly a special day and was a reminder to LA and me of the responsibility that we have in raising Aubrey. We have had and continue to be surrounded by Godly family and friends that will help us along the way. Aubrey wore Leigh-Ann’s christening dress which was special but we couldn’t have waited much longer or Aubrey would not have fit in the dress. Aubrey was good throughout the entire service. She was alert and awake during the baptism. She didn’t even cry or flinch when they put the water on her. She fell asleep shortly after the baptism. We had three pews full of family and plenty of friends throughout the church.

LA and I had cleaned the house, porch and decorated the downstairs with all our Christmas decorations and had all the family over for lunch. Fortunately, the weather held off and we were able to use the porch for overflow seating.

It was a Great Day that we will remember forever for our family and friends and commitments we made.

The funniest part of the day really didn’t even have anything to with the baptism. After everyone except Nana and Gramps had left LA was playing with Aubrey and she began sticking her tongue out and wow, she has a long tongue and she would be talking while she would stick it out. Check out the video. Maybe, we should send it into America’s funniest videos.

Christmas Tree Tradition

Our first two Christmases, LA and I have purchased a Frasier Fur from the local missions committee at our church but this year we missed the deadline and would have to get one on our own. We planned all week that we would go and get a tree on a Saturday afternoon. I went and got my trailer to make it easier to carry and about 30 minutes prior to leaving we began to talk about where we were going to get a tree and LA begins to talking about going to Jedburg and Ridgeville and I begin to inquire why we had to go all the way out there to get a tree. We were on the wrong page – LA was talking about going an cutting our own tree at the Christmas tree farm and I was talking about going the Christmas tree lots around town like I had done for every year before we started purchasing them from the church. I had never gone and cut a Christmas tree down. When I heard what LA was expecting it explained a lot about the comments she had been making to me – starting a family tradition with Aubrey, don’t forget the camera…etc. After my wife finished cracking on me and my version of a “family tradition” of riding around town to find a tree, we loaded up in the car and started searching. At our second stop “Creech’s” on Bacon Bridge Road we found a lovely tree that was “fresh cut” (probably about one-two weeks ago). So we didn’t go cut a tree down but we did have fun and a few laughs and created some memories. Maybe next year we will go and cut a tree down.

Thanksgiving 08

LA, Aubrey, Grandma, Aube and I went to my sister’s house in Savannah for Thanksgiving. This was a first for us, since for the past 41 years of my life we have either been at my grandmother’s house, aunt’s house or at the beach house. I figured it would be interesting and worst case scenario was that we would have to stop at Cracker Barrel on the way home – it was a win/win for me. My nephew Carter and his girlfriend Katie Parks (KP) got to see and hold Aubrey for the first time. We had a good time that day and everyone got to hold her and we watched the Detroit Lions get killed. My sister out did herself and the food was very good. It was kind of disappointing that I didn’t get to stop at Cracker Barrel but there will be other days.