Six Point Five

Charley is now six-and-a-half months old! Can you believe it? Here are some pictures from the last few weeks along with her latest stats and habits...(for the grandmas, aunts, cousins, really bored friends, and a mommy who lost her memory during pregnancy and has to write everything down).

• Charley is now 17 lbs 3 oz and 27.25 inches long.
• She was completely weaned right at six months. We are now a straight-formula family, which seems to bring relief everywhere but the pocketbook. That stuff is powdered gold.
  
• Charley has slept on her tummy with her arms above her head since she was five-weeks-old. The only thing that would move during the night would be her head. Back and forth. Just recently she started rolling over on her back as soon as you put her down on her tummy, so we are now greeted with a smile after naps and in the morning instead of the back of her head. As well as you may find her in a different spot in the crib. Mobility is showing its face.
  
• She also will move around the room, but not by crawling. She will roll (over and over) to reach her destination. It's pretty cute, but it definitely calls for full attentiveness... I can't leave her on the floor, run to the bathroom, and then expect her to be in the same place when I return.
• She is now sleeping the coveted 12 -13 hour night. We have just gotten* there recently after cutting out an unnecessary 11pm feeding and prior to that a random 6am feeding every now and then. *Yes "gotten" is a word (in my book).
  
• So the mystery is... What to do about diapers for a baby who sleeps that long? We currently go in there and change her before we go to bed. This usually will help her make it through the night....most of the time. Please let me know if you have any tricks to help with this! My friends and I have joked about doing double diapers, adding cloth diapers under the pampers, etc. Haven't experimented with any of these ideas yet. :)
• And....last but not least....drum roll... Our big girl now has two teeth! One popped through last weekend while we were traveling and the other, right next to it, is just at the surface. She's handled it pretty well. We thought it was happening b/c she has been drooly, snotty, and a teeny bit fussy over the last couple of weeks.
• One more thing... We took our first family trip last week to New Orleans. Mainly business (for Donald) and some pleasure (and lots of good food!). Charley traveled very very well considering we were in the car for about 20 hours and she probably only fussed a total of 10 minutes. Charley- if you read this when you grow up, don't let anyone tell you that you were a bad baby (at least through your sixth month...keep it up!). Read the previous post for more details about our "journey."
  

"Oh pumpkin...You are just too funny...Get outta here."

"Mommy voted and all I got was this lousy sticker"

Room 416

If you've ever had the pleasure of staying in a hotel room for five days with a six-month-old, you may be able to relate to my tale, although, it's not the washing bottles in the sink, homeless dirty diapers, or cry-hushing that I'm talking about. It's the lemon of a room, Room 416, and its friend, Room 412, that this story's about, and if you've ever stayed in a hotel room, period, than this story is for you.
After staying a night in Montgomery, AL, where I swear a 300 lb man was playing Wii in the room above us all night, we arrived in downtown New Orleans mid-afternoon on Saturday. We quickly checked into our hotel, which was very nice and in a wonderful location. Upon entering our room, Donald and I immediately started unloading the mountain of luggage and baby supplies that we had wheeled to the fourth floor. We nestled Charley's pack-n-play in a corner of the room, set up her booster seat, assembled her Exersaucer, and the list goes on. We wouldn't ordinarily pack our entire house for such an occasion, but we were extra prepared because Charley and I were going to be spending a lot of time by ourselves in the room, and God forbid we only have the grody floor or fall-friendly bed to play on. "Fall" as in "fall to the ground" not "fall colors, pumpkins and pretty leaves."
While setting up camp, I noticed something on the wall. Get ready CSI lovers... it was blood. On the wall in two places, on the curtains, and on the curtain rod. I shutter as I write this. Eww. So it had been a long day, and we were finally in our room, and finally settled, so the thought of mentioning it to the management, which put us at risk of getting moved to another room, left me feeling exhausted, but with little debate, Donald called the front desk who immediately sent someone to check it out. Calvin, as we now know him, was very apologetic, and quickly cleaned the spots, took down the curtains, and started dishing out options to repay us for the "inconvenience." He didn't use that word, but something similar, and I later realized that it was basically payment to keep our mouths shut. I felt really guilty because we didn't bring it up in order to get anything free, but I wasn't going to argue when they gave us two nights free for future use and complimentary breakfast, which normally cost $11, which cheapskate me would not have paid, so I was very grateful for being able to eat. Some of you are probably appalled that this was "all they gave us" and you would probably own the hotel by now, but again, they were very gracious and we felt it was generous, so we'll leave it at that.
So...then we became "the Spanns in 416 who had the blood all over the place" and all of the hotel staff were very friendly and accommodating, for they wanted to keep their jobs. We tried to let them know that we weren't the type of people who would raise a stink by not raising a stink, but they didn't buy it, and continued to treat us like royalty. So then, we realized the Internet in our room did not work, and not wanting to raise a stink, we dealt with it until D absolutely needed it for work. So I mentioned it to the woman at the front desk, who then sent our man, Calvin, to visit us...He spent 20 minutes trying to fix it, and then gave up, saying that he would have to get a new Internet box and fix it later. He again was very apologetic, and again, we were like, "It's not a big deal....Relax" So, Calvin leaves, only to return a few minutes later informing us that he was going to move us to a new room.... what he wanted to do after the blood incident, but couldn't b/c there wasn't an empty room in the house. Well, apparently, the king of somewhere checked out of a suite, and Calvin hooked us up and moved us in there. It took us about 10 trips down the hall to move all of our junk, but we have been settled nicely here in very-large Room 412 for a couple of days now. However, we quickly realized upon moving in that the Internet didn't work in this room either and that the sink was slow draining, etc., but we were not about to complain. Slow draining sinks in hotel rooms, or anywhere for that matter, are pretty nasty to me, but I didn't want to become "the Spanns in 416 who had the blood all over the place, the Internet that didn't work, who got moved to room 412 with the slow draining sink."
So, back to the crime lab, not sure what the blood was about, but it did cause me to be a bit nervous when I saw a man with like 20 big, black garbage bags in his Explorer a few days later down in the parking garage. I wasn't worried, however, considering he couldn't "get me" b/c I wouldn't have fit amongst the bags in his truck. Donald thinks that me and my imagination are ridiculous, and he would like me to inform you that overall, we had a great time at this hotel, and by the end of it, the entire staff felt like old friends. And, P.S., the Internet started working the night before we left, and therefore, I was able to write this blog. The End.

What A Cow!

Charley was a cutsie-wootsie cow for her very first Halloween. The afternoon was very HOT so she was a little toasty in the costume, but a very good sport.

Rolling, Hiking, Jumping

Charley started rolling over last week! She went from not really ever trying to roll over to doing it all of the time. Here's a pic after a successful roll. I promise I didn't pose her hand like that. Seriously!

Charley and Mema

My parents were up for a couple of days last week, and as Allison would say, it was mucho fun. Unfortunately it was very cold and very rainy their entire stay, so we mainly stayed inside and couldn't take them to see any sites. They had to leave Saturday morning, after which the sun came out in all it's glory. D and I decided to take a family hike "up" Paris Mountain. We haven't hiked since I was just a wee bit pregnant with Charley, so it was good to get out and hit the trails again. Charley did wonderfully...We don't have a fancy shmancy pack, so the poor thing had to bob around in a front pack. She fell asleep the entire way back down the trail, which was precious (but probably gave her bumpy dreams). Andrea - I think Charley and Mags will make great hiking buds!


Below are some pictures of Charley in her door jumper thing. She is hilarious in it. Because she is so tall, I mean, long*, she is outgrowing it waaay too quickly. From the get go, we've had it at the highest height that it will go, and Charley's feet are flat on the ground, which is apparently a no-no with those things. D spent some time this afternoon rigging it so we can get some extra time out of it, and it worked! Yay! I'm excited b/c she loves it and it is super fun watching her in it.
*Donald pointed out to me that babies are "long" and aren't considered "tall" until they start walking. Or maybe it's when they start standing. Or maybe it's when they reach a certain height. Not sure. :)

Chucktown Trip

Donald had a meeting in Myrtle Beach for a few days, so he dropped Charley and I off to spend some time with my folks in Charleston. We had a great time...it went by too quickly...didn't get to see everyone that we wanted to see or spend enough time with the grandparents. Thanks to the Edmonds for watching our Sadie even though it meant they had up to four dogs at their house over the weekend.

Kisses from Daddy

"What is that, Aunt Robin?!"

Granddaddy's birthday! (with cousin, Lexie)

Smiles with Mema

Meeting Frenchiemama's co-workers

Helping Frenchiemama type

Snugglin' with Auntie MJ

Cousin, Jrew!! (they were in Charleston too!)

Housekeeping Woes

So this morning I made my list of things to do. Yes, I'm a list person. So, I set off to vacuum the house, which is a twice-weekly ritual (Donald is a huge help with this). Vacuuming a house with a black lab any less than twice a week results in black tumble-weeds rolling down the hallway. So, I couldn't find the vacuum. It's normally in the laundry room. I searched everywhere, every room. Just before calling my husband to ask him where it was (like he hid it or something), I found it under a pile of shirts that are waiting to be ironed. Also on my list. Wonderful reminder. So here I go. Off to vacuum. Charley is playing safely, contently in her crib under the mobile. Okay, one room down, two rooms...okay, Charley is screaming. Screaming! All of our attempts to create an immunity with her and the vacuum cleaner by running it in close proximity since she was a newborn have proved futile, because now it scares her. Turn it on. Screaming. Turn it off. Stop screaming. Hmmm. So I comforted her for a second, placed her back in the crib, on her tummy this time with toys, and quickly vacuumed the remainder of the house, with the dog who created most of the mess trailing behind me, getting tangled in the cord or standing in the very spot that needs to be vacuumed. Okay.... Vacuum... Check.
Earlier this morning, I spent what seemed like an hour making up Charley's crib. I had to change the mattress pad and sheet, which had been peed on while the sheet savers (ultimate crib sheets) were in the wash, becoming free of their sweet potato stains and drool spots. Normally I keep a clean one on hand, but somehow the rotation got screwed up. So here I go, putting on the sheet. It is like putting panty hose on an elephant. Miserable. I literally was out of breath by the end of it. And then there's putting the sheet saver back on. Are all of those snaps really necessary? But, of course, I snap them all, because if I don't, my child might choke on them, strangle herself, or worse yet, consume the entire thing, and then I'd go to jail for negligence and my cellmate, Myrtle the Murderer, would ask me, "what you in for?" and to that I would sadly reply, "I failed to snap all of the snaps." So, now, Charley is napping in her all-snapped-up crib, and I can breathe easy. Although, being a mom, there's rarely ever room for breathing easy. So...Crib Sheets.... Check. (actually I just added that to the list so I could have the pleasure of checking it off).

It's Been Five Months!

Charley has been with us for five months now!! Crazy! She has grown leaps and bounds this past month. She is now grabbing everything in sight and sticking it in her mouth. She doesn't have total control of her arms yet, so when she goes to grab things while sitting in our lap, it's in Whack-a-Mole fashion. She will see something she wants and then her arm will go whack, whack, whack until her little hand successfully grabs the desired object. She will then swing her arm like a crane and drop the object on the floor.
Charley began eating vegetables this month. We haven't moved past sweet potatoes yet... she dogs them as well as her oatmeal. She continues to drink her bottle like we haven't fed her in days. Not to mention she recognizes her bottle now, so if she sees it and we don't give it to her instantly, she will scream. I mean, scream. Therefore, we either hide her bottle or let her scream. We're not sure if you can teach a five-month-old that "screaming is not an appropriate behavior" and "we will not reward you with your bottle if you scream," so the lesson on "don't manipulate mommy and daddy" is on standby. Scriptures say that we are supposed to crave the Bible like a baby craves milk...something we've heard at church and Wafuasi lately... So this morning, when Charley was crying a desperate cry for her bottle while I was searching for a burp cloth, it made me think about this verse... If the Bible was taken away from me or withheld from me, how would I react? Would I be so desperate for it that I would weep like my hungry child? ...Something to think about.