Stale Cereal, Mama, Dada, & Doggy

Our Labor Day weekend was productive and eventful! We cleaned out our kitchen pantry which was much, much needed - even more so than I realized. I won't miss the cans of soup from 2008 or the box of stale cereal that had been taking up precious shelf space for months. We now actually have a place to store our baby formula and rice cereal! It's the small things in life, it really is.

This weekend also marked a very exciting milestone for baby Asher. He said "Mama" and "Dada"! Check it out...




We also think we may have heard "Doggy" but the jury's still out on that one. How exciting! These are definitely some of the greatest moments in parenting. And the 6 month cuddles... I die!

This month also marked another record breaker at our shop. Holy moly - we are busier than ever! I have to apologize for my lack of blog posts but this momma has been busy, busy, busy. Thank goodness that 6 1/2 months also brought some self-entertainment skills and Asher is able to play happily on his own for a little while. Our Pack and Plays have finally become our go-to lifesaving baby gear during the day. We keep one at our shop and have one in our living room now, too. He actually took a nap in it while we were getting our clean on in the pantry. Woop-woop!

This week is going to be another hectic one while we continue to fulfill the orders that have been pouring in throughout the past month. Asher's rearin' and ready to go with Signing Time and his Pack and Play. :)

Enjoy our latest iPhone favs and have a wonderful short week!

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Teething Update - Tooth Watch + Sign for "Hurt"

We are still on TOOTH WATCH only now it has been raised to "Severe". There are no teeth in sight yet, but there are lots of fun teething symptoms going on around here.

Reinventing these terms so commonly used by the national weather services, let's define "tooth watch" and "tooth warning":

Tooth Watch - An announcement that the eruption of a tooth and teething symptoms are possible.
Tooth Warning - A tooth or teething is imminent and expected, i.e. a tooth has been spotted

Any day now we'll be upgrading this "tooth watch" to a "tooth warning" when a little peak of white pops through those pink gums. That will not be a fun day! I wish I could fast forward a few weeks and bypass this horrible discomfort, but I know the relief would only be temporary as teething is not a short-term deal.

We are fortunate that Asher is easily distracted so the crankiness comes in short spurts. We've been surviving the extra painful moments with Hyland's Teething Tablets (in moderation, once per day if needed), frozen blueberries or peaches in our Nuby Nibbler, and cold teething rings.

1. Munchkin Teething Ring  2. Hyland's Teething Tablets  3. Nuby Nibbler with Frozen Blueberries/Peaches/Ice
4. Sophie the Giraffe 5. Lots of Hugs and Kisses! :(

{ Side note about the Nuby Nibbler - I like the one with the handle MUCH  better for handling purposes and because you can hook it to his pacifier clip so that it doesn't get thrown on the floor. A warning about using bananas in it, though - you will not be able to get the black gunk out of the net! Ick. }

Last night, Asher woke up around 10pm for a midnight snack, then was wide-eyed-and-bushy-tailed for about an hour and a half. I put him temporarily in his bassinet while I got ready for bed and he made sure to tell me that he was having some teething pain (although he was, surprisingly, tear-free). Check out his super impressive baby sign language for "hurt":

We actually have never practiced the baby sign for "hurt" with him, but he's only seen it on the Baby Signing Time DVD like a billion times, so I am not surprised he picked it up. Well... I kind of am, actually. There's no denying that this definitely looks like his mouth hurting is what he was trying to convey and he is having teething pain, so, it only makes sense. Smarty pants I tell ya. He's goin' places, this one!


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SUPERBABY, Zany Zoo, + Phone Favorites

I should have a badge made that says "Crazy Mom". I am the mom whose baby fell asleep in his crib without fussing (woo-hoo!) and then decided to lug in my camera and a tripod to take some pictures of him in the dark. Risky business. Fortunately, he did not wake up. He stirred a few times and I held my breath - but thankfully he didn't wake while I was clanking around in there just a few feet away from him. I said I was crazy, didn't I?

NIGHT 6 OF BASSINET TO CRIB TRANSITION

Today, Asher only napped about 15 minutes in the car. He was up at 9 (well, up at 6, ate, then came to our room until 9. I was so tired I didn't even want to attempt the re-inserting of the paci over and over again from across the house. He went right back to sleep in our room. Bad mom! TIRED MOM.)

Any-who, he was officially up at 9, ate breakfast, then was off to work with me. He got a bottle there and we unsuccessfully attempted napping a few times. We were back home by 2.  He had lunch then we TRIED napping. He wasn't having it. Before I knew it, 5pm came around and he looked super sleepy. Since late afternoon naps can mean long, sleepless nights, I kept him up and we did bath, bottle, book, a little more from his bottle, and bed by 7:30. He fussed until that last few ounces so I think he was just still hungry? His appetite has been all over the place lately. He was out as soon as I put him down. So much for putting him down while he's still awake like "the experts" say to do, but we're doing our best here. I'm still rather new at this. :)

Presenting... SUPERBABY! He could fight crime in his sleep. He's a super sleeper.

Alas, the night is still young. I flipped our little flat head onto his side after taking these pics and got these little nuggets with my phone. Um, you're welcome.

cotton booty cuteness ;) aka cloth diaper fluffy butt

Drool spots on the sheets are probably only cute when babies do it. Or maybe it's cute for all children, but certainly not adults. Just a word to the wise. ;)

On another note, our new big boy toy came in and I, I mean Asher, was so excited! We got him a Zany Zoo that he can play with while sitting up. He already loves flipping open the doors, spinning, flicking, pressing, twirling... and he can't even see everything on top yet!

I can't even. These pictures are so edible I don't know which ones to make smaller. They're all full-size worthy. Indulge yourself in the cuteness...

Without further ado, it's time for my iPhone Favorites from the past few weeks. I am a little behind on getting these up since we've been so crazily busy. Enjoy! 

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The Big Move - Bassinet to Crib

Well, the gig is up. We are free to have more children now. Our former "angel baby" is now showing a new side. A wakeful, alert side. He still shows off his contagious smile all hours of the day...and night - he's just no longer in favor of sleeping, or more specifically, going to sleep.

We are now on night 5 of the transition from the bassinet in our room to Asher's crib in his nursery. He's 6 months old now, he is moving around a lot more in his sleep, and he is getting really close to outgrowing his bassinet. So we figured it is like a perfect time to make the move.

Night one went extremely well. Too well. Asher fell right asleep in his crib with no resistance to his 7:30pm bedtime. It may have even been 7:15pm. Out like a light. He woke just briefly around midnight for a bottle, then it was back to bed.

Our iBaby monitor allows us to watch and even take pictures of Asher in his crib on our  mobile devices.

He was then up in the morning at about 7:30am. I fed him and he wasn't having his crib anymore at that point, so I brought him into our room into his bassinet and both of us got another 2 hours of sleep (score!). <-- Daddy left early, early to go fishing and I didn't get to bed until super late - hence the excitement for extra sleep.

The following nights brought the tossing and turning and Asher's hesitance to sleep in his crib. We gave in last night, on night 4, letting him back into our room when he absolutely would not go back to sleep around 2am. Into the bassinet - done. Sleeping baby.  Tonight, if I even walked into the nursery with him he'd start to cry. I finally got him in there by rocking him to sleep with a bottle. I know that's one of the worst things to do, so I do not want to make this into a habit!

I must mention that our schedules are also all out of sorts right now. Circumstances have brought me back to our shop every weekday for at least 3-5 hours. Maybe by next week I'll be able to cut it down to 3 days or so. Sometimes, if I am lucky, Asher naps. But it's unfortunately just not a nap friendly environment there. We have loud machinery running, I am using a tape gun to package up orders... I don't blame him for not being able to get quality rest while we're there.

In addition to this new schedule, our pediatrician recommended we feed Asher breakfast and late lunch rather than breakfast and dinner since he has been having more might wakings since starting solids. Working this new feeding schedule into our new work/home schedule is going to be a little tricky. But we will make it work.

Oh - ALSO - we are supposed to have him sleeping on his stomach now to combat his "flat head". He doesn't like that. So this just adds to the difficulty at sleep time.

I'm not a fan of the "cry-it-out" method for us. So I'm going to have to get creative to get Asher into the habit of sleeping in his crib. I'm going to try to let him play in his crib while I am doing things in his room, i.e. folding laundry, organizing, cleaning, etc. I'm already putting him in there for naps (with much resistance) but I'm sure this will improve in time, as well. When he wakes, I am giving him his bottle in his nursery so that he stays sleepy and hopefully won't think about changing rooms. 

Hopefully by next week I'll have some more perspective for anyone going through the transition from bassinet to crib once we have crossed the threshold. Fingers crossed this process won't take much longer than that!

When and how did you make the transition from bassinet to crib/ How did it go? Any advice?

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