Random Thoughts

Yesterday seemed like a very long day. Usually, the days just fly by, packed full of stuff going on. Yesterday was the exception, so we just stayed home all day, lounging around the house. Avery's nap schedule has been a bit off lately since she's been waking up really early everyday (6:40 AM). Before the time change, she was sleeping in until 8:30, even if she went to bed at 7:00. You'd think the time change would have caused her to sleep until 7:30, but now it's like clockwork: up at 6:40 every morning. I shouldn't complain, since it's not THAT early, but there are nights when I go to bed really late and I want to shoot myself when I have to get up with her at that hour. Anyway, this early wake up sometimes causes her to be really tired at a pretty early hour, so I have to give her a morning nap - sometimes this is good because it's short and she's ready to be dragged out the door to follow her big sister's schedule. Other times it's bad because she takes a really long morning nap, messing up the rest of her schedule and her afternoon nap. I've actually been a little worried about the amount of sleep this girl needs each day ... she's 1 year old now and sometimes she's only awake for 7-8 hours a day! In fact, she has me a little worried today: she woke up at her usual time, then she was fussy and rubbing her eyes by 9:25. I put her in her crib and she fell aseep around 9:30AM. She slept and slept and finally woke up at 2:15! What child takes a nap for almost 5 hours?!! Reagan NEVER took longer than a 45 minute nap for the entire 1st year of her life, so it's weird to have a child who takes long naps. Sure, I was able to get a lot done while she slept, so I wasn't exactly complaining, but it made me worry that something could be wrong. Maybe it's just because she's teething? I don't know. Her 1 year well-visit is next week, so I'll be talking to Dr. Battista about this. It could just be the result of her being anemic (something we discovered at her 10 month Dr. visit) ... the low iron levels could be making her tired. I make sure she gets her vitamin +iron drops everyday, so hopefully she'll grow out of it soon. Anyway, this may be very boring information for my readers, but I like documenting what's going on with sleep patterns at different ages, in case I want to look back at it later.


So, back to yesterday, Avery's napping was off and Reagan no longer takes a nap, so it felt like a long day. They were both antsy and I tried to come up with fun things to do all day. At one point, we danced and danced to the songs that played during the credits of Shrek the Third, over and over (I kept rewinding the credits). We were loving the song called "Best Days" by Matt White, so much so that I downloaded it onto my iPhone and we danced to it some more while I cooked dinner. Dinner was ready and John called to say he was just leaving the hospital (visiting his mother), so I knew we still had about 20 minutes to kill. Reagan has always loved playing with the cookie cutters in one of the lower drawers of the kitchen, yet we've never made sugar cookies together! A few weeks ago, I bought one of those Betty Crocker packages for sugar cookies (just add butter and an egg), so I pulled it out. Reagan and I had such a great time mixing the ingredients, rolling out the dough, then cutting the cookies into small shapes. Reagan was a natural. I put Avery in her high chair and she watched us do it all. I took this picture of Reagan using my iPhone:



We baked one batch, then Papa came home and we ate dinner. One of these days, I'll learn my lesson and I'll strip Avery down to her diaper before dinner. I'm so tired of spotting her clothes and doing a load of laundry every single night so that her clothes aren't stained permanently. You might be thinking, why don't you just use a bib? Well, she's figured out how to rip off bibs, therefore, I can never keep them on her very long. This girl is a maniac when it comes to eating. She eats EVERYTHING. And she always makes a HUGE mess! She picks up handfuls of food (usually in both hands) and shoves the food into her mouth ... probably half of it ends up in her mouth, and the other half ends up on her or on her high-chair. Last night's dinner was ground turkey (with onions, garlic, red peppers, etc.) and orzo, stuffed in spaghetti squash. As you can imagine, it was MESSY for Avery. Dessert was watermelon and Avery just kept eating it! By the time dinner was over, this is how she looked:


The entire top of her shirt was soaked from the watermelon juices that dripped from her mouth. There was food all over her lap, next to her in the chair, as well as in her hair.

Once again, these pictures were taken with my iPhone, so they're not the best quality, but hopefully you can see just how dirty she was.

Here's something I've been meaning to blog about: Avery's obsession with HAIR. Like many babies, Avery likes to pull hair. But I honestly believe Avery has an odd obsession with it. It started when she was very little and she would play with my hair while I nursed her. Then she started playing with her own hair ... to this day, it is the way she soothes herself to sleep! Reagan always chewed on burp cloths when I put her in her crib and this was how she put herself to sleep. Avery puts both hands on her head and plays with her hair. But when it comes to other people's hair, Avery is dangerous. I'm not kidding around here. Lately, it's become rather frustrating, especially with her big sister Reagan. Avery grabs Reagan's hair every chance she gets and then pulls it really hard. She has ripped out fistfuls of hair before! It leaves Reagan crying and Avery laughing. Isn't that weird? I keep thinking she'll grow out of it, but it actually seems to be getting worse instead of better. She's getting to an age where I'm pretty sure she understands it's wrong, since I firmly tell her "NO!" but she still thinks it's funny. The situation is usually worst whenever someone (Reagan and I are usually the victims) is laying down ... this morning, the 3 of us were snuggling and reading books in my bed and she attacked my head. She had both hands grabbing fistfuls of hair and as soon as I'd get her to release her strong grip, she'd grab another patch of hair. It was so bad that I was screaming at her to stop. The whole time, she was laughing, having a jolly old time. I don't know how to handle it. I just hope it stops soon, while Reagan and I still have some hair!

Reagan has said some really funny and adorable things recently. On Tuesday morning, I was getting her ready for preschool in my bathroom. As I was doing her hair, she looked up at me and said, "You're the best mommy I ever saw!" Lately, she often comes up to John and me and randomly tells us she loves us. It melts our hearts. Then yesterday as we were making cookies, she suddenly said, "No muss, no fuss!" This was such an odd thing to hear come out of her mouth, so I asked her where she got it. She said, "from Widget! You know, on Wow, Wow, Wubbsy!" Then while I was typing this post, she asked if she could sit on my lap, so I let her sit with me. We started messing around and I was pretending to drop her onto the ground ... she was laughing and instead of saying "you're dropping me!" or "I'm falling!" she said, "you're falling me!" She's such a sweetheart and John and I love hearing the things she says each day. What a fun age! Here's a picture I just took of her while I was sitting here typing and she was drinking a Gatorade: