I have to comment on this one because it was NEVER the case with Reed. Alison is in a mommy phase. When I see her after work she just wants me to hold her. Obviously this makes getting dinner on the table a little challenging, but I’m not complaining. It is so wonderful to have your child want you the way she wants me. Love that little girl SO much!
All posts by JB
Alison is 5 Months Old!
My little chunk is 5 months old already!!
Alison you are the smiley-est baby I have ever seen. You really only cry if you are hungry or want to be held.
You love to play in your exersaucer. You are reaching for toys and chewing on everything you can get your hands on. I wonder if you will get your teeth on time or be a late teether like your brother.
About 2 weeks ago we let you try rice cereal. You weren’t a fan at first, but I wasn’t doing a very good job of feeding you. I knew you were hungry for more than breast milk, so I let the professionals try. Of course you ate like a champ for your day care ladies. Rosario commented that you were going to get ‘fluffy’ once you started eating food. Boy was she right! You really are a big ole’ chunk of a baby girl and I love it!
Now we are on to oatmeal and applesauce. I can’t wait to make all of your baby food just like I did for Reed. (I wonder how it will go when I make you sweet potatoes…Reed is truly obsessed with sweet potatoes so I might have to make one for you and 3 for him so that he won’t eat yours. HA!)
You are a terrible napper and we are hoping your naps will get longer and more consistent next month once you move to the next room at day care. We think the room you are in is just too noisy and hectic for you to ever get into a deep sleep. Right now you only sleep for like 45 minutes 2 or 3 times a day. We need you to sleep longer than that!! At night you are finally sleeping through the night…but not every night. I still feed you around 10pm but I try not to feed you again until at least 5am. Luckily your congestion has finally cleared up so we don’t hear you coughing all night long. Let’s hope you stay clear for a few months.
You are wearing 6 month clothes and we are still shoving your little bottom into the last of our size 1-2 diapers. You really should be in size 2s, and we will get you there soon!!
It is a good thing you are such an adorable and happy baby when you are awake because it makes up for all the times you wake us up in the night.
Your daddy, brother and Duke are still wrapped around your little finger. Luckily the feeling is mutual.
The other night you were fussy right before bed. I was trying to put Reed to sleep at the same time that I was holding you to calm you down. As soon as I walked into Reed’s room and you saw him you stopped crying. He made you laugh and you were happy again. Both of you went right to sleep (but only after Reed could ‘kiss A-li’ and ‘hu-g- A-li’. He demands to do that at least 3 times every single day). I hope your relationship is always this special.
Every day of your life has been a great one for me. Your smile literally lights up my life. I love being your mommy and I love watching you get bigger and stronger. I can’t wait until you can talk and we can go on mommy/daughter dates.
I love you sweet girl!
I just can’t ignore this.
I read WAY too many blogs. Seriously. It is getting out of control.
You need to read this post. For some reason it hit my heart hard. It made this problem real. Too real for me to ignore.
http://shaungroves.com/2011/06/meeting-the-neighbors-next-door/
(And it makes me embarrassed that my last post was about Aggie Football…seems so insignificant)
Football!
Is anyone else itching for some football? I realize it is the start of June, but I am SO ready for football season.
Last night I was watching College Football Live and thos guys rank the Aggies at 11th overall to start the season. I am SO freaking excited for a good Aggie football season that I can hardly contain myself. Let’s just hope they show up for every game and don’t let all this publicity go to their heads…
Here’s to a short summer (since it is already 100 degrees in San Antonio and we are already on Stage 2 water restrictions due to this horrible drought) and here’s to a fantastic Aggie football season!
Pretty Girl
Reed has a new favorite word. ‘Pretty girl’
I’m sure this is sort of my fault because that’s what I call Alison. Reed is my ‘good boy’ and Ali is my ‘pretty girl’. He has taken it to a new level though.
Last Saturday we were flipping channels. Randy stopped on CMT and a Sugarland video was playing with the girl in a bikini. Reed stopped dead in his tracks and stared. In a zombie voice he said ‘pretty girl’. If she wasn’t on the screen for a second he got all upset and kept repeating, ‘pretty girl, pretty GIRL, PRETTY GIRL’. Then she came back and he was ok. When the song ended mayhem ensued. We kept flipping the channels looking for a pretty girl. Then I tried to distract him with baseball (which always works). Not this time. Finally a Carrie Underwood song came on and he was happy.
Fast forward a few days. We were playing in the front yard and Megan was playing outside. She is a middle school girl who lives across the street from us. Reed went into zombie mode again. He stood next to me and zombie voiced ‘pretty girl’. It is hilarious because he stands totally still, but points his fat finger while he says it. Megan came over to see Ali and Mr. Pretty Girl hid behind my leg. He was acting so shy and silly around her…like a middle schooler.
Who is this kid?? It is NOT time for this boygirl nonsense yet!!!
Regardless…it was awesome.
Good Nap
When I went in Reed’s room to wake him up Sunday morning he looked at me and said, ‘Good Nap!’
I love that little fat kid.
(I want to remember his funny sayings and I can’t keep up with any physical list, so you will all be subjected to some of these super short, Reed language posts)
Wait til I tell you the ‘pretty girl’ story…
Can’t.Take.Anymore
The Baldwin household has had a rough 2 weeks.
Last Monday I found out the following things:
1. My good friend’s grandmother (who I have known for 15 years) passed away. Her death wasn’t tragic, but it was still a loss and therefore humbling and sad.
2. One of our pastor’s wives had a miscarriage. Nothing good about that.
3. My friend Anna’s 34 week old baby died in the womb. And she had to deliver that sweet little girl on Mother’s Day. My heart aches in ways I can’t even understand. Maybe it is because I have 2 healthy living children, and she doesn’t…but I hurt so badly for her. I can’t even put it into words. But Anna and her husband Josh can. These two incredible people spoke at Isabel’s funeral. They spoke about their faith in God. They spoke about how her death has helped them to know God in a way they had never known him before. What a loving God we serve.
Fast forward to this week.
1. Tuesday my mom fell down. She went to the doctor on Wednesday and is now in a cast for 6 weeks. She broke 4 bones in her foot which will heal, but it changes all of our summer plans. She is terrible at sitting still.
2. I got sick. Sicker than I have ever been in my entire life. I came home early on Tuesday. My fever was so intense I was having hallucinations. (no joke). I couldn’t open my eyes, but I couldn’t sleep. And I couldn’t walk. And my throat was on fire. Swallowing was like when you accidentally scratch a new sunburn. Misery. Wednesday I finally took my temperature. 104degrees. Off to the ER we went. The awesome doctor gave me shots and the throat was better within a matter of hours. But the fatigue and the headache would not cease. Misery I tell you. I finally was able to walk across my bedroom without holding onto something tonight. I hadn’t eaten in 2 days except an applesauce cup. Worst sickness of my life.
3. Wednesday I found out my friend past away. He was my age and his death is so tragic. I still haven’t wrapped my head around his death and can’t really talk about it much.
As the title says…I can’t take anymore. No more pain, no more sadness. I just need some happiness.
And then I remember all the good things. I WILL (and did) get better, I’m not terminally ill. My mom will heal. Anna and Josh still lost Isabel, but they are already using their loss to glorify God. How amazing. And let’s not forget the little fat kid and the stinkin’ baby…Light of my life those two. I am thankful that she has learned to sleep through the night. And that Reed is still enamored with Ali. He is so protective of her and loves to make her laugh. And Randy is a great father to those babies.
Life is great…but I could really use a break from all the pain.
4 Months…already?
How is this sweet girl already 4 months old? When Reed was this tiny we would literally spend hours each night just staring at him and caring for him and loving on him. Sweet Alison gets about an hour of that…while Reed is in the tub and getting ready for bed. I feel like her little life is happening SO fast.
At 4 months old you are:
24 inches long (50%)
13 pounds 10 ounces (50%)
16 inch wide head (70%)
You still are 100% breastfed (yeah me!)
You are still a pretty sucky sleeper. You and I have had lots of talks about this…but we are working on it. On good nights we wrap you up in your blanket (I will show pictures, I promise it is safe) to keep you from taking your pacifier out. You sleep even better when I put you on your changing pad inside your crib. Those are the best nights. You are capable of sleeping through the night, you just choose not to on many occasions.
You are still pretty snotty a lot of the time. These San Antonio allergies wreak havoc on your little sinuses.
You are the smiliest baby I have ever known. We don’t have to do much more than look at you and you are smiling and laughing it up.
You love your bouncer and sit in it every night while we eat dinner. You usually just smile and laugh at me through the whole meal. I love that time
You are wearing 3-6 month clothes
You love Reed and are such a good sport about not crying when he hugs you too tight or accidentally hits you in the head with whatever toy he is holding when he dive bombs your body for a hug.
You love bath time with Daddy and just stare at him and laugh the whole time.
Speaking of Daddy…you are totally in love with him. Seriously. I am sometimes a little jealous because you give him the best giggles.
You and Daddy are going to be great friends because you have the same temperament, but also the same natural rhythm. You love to stay up a little later…but you really love to sleep in! On the weekends I usually put you in bed with Daddy while Reed and I get up and eat breakfast. If I let it happen you and Daddy would sleep like that until 9am. He is so excited to sleep in with you as you get older.
You look so much like your Daddy…and it makes him love you a little extra.
I think you have all the men wrapped around your little finger. No joke, every single time Duke comes to visit you he has to hold you and he looks at me with tears in his eyes and says ‘she is just SO beautiful’. Then he calls you a home wrecker and I like to think of you as a heart-breaker…but we don’t need you to wreck and homes when you get older. Let’s just keep that straight!! Ha
I was so nervous to have a little girl…but you are better than anything I could have imagined!! (Remind me to read this again when you are in middle school and tell me you hate me for the first time…I will really need to remember this loving awesome little girl then :))
I love you sweet girl!!!
Mother’s Day
Mother’s Day truly is the most important holiday (except Easter) for me. I would rather celebrate Mother’s Day than my birthday, and I don’t think that will ever change for the rest of my life.
My entire life all I wanted was to be a mom and raise a family. That sounds so archaic, but it is also 100% truth. Like most girls I had a timeline in my mind from the time I was a high-schooler. I would go to A&M, meet my future husband in our sophomore year (freshman year was for partying). We would get engaged at the end of our junior year and get married after we graduated. We would both have steady jobs right out of college (and I didn’t want to live in San Antonio). 3 years later we would have the first of 5 children. Yes, I wanted 5 children.
Obviously that isn’t how my life turned out. I met a boy and we were on the right path to be engaged in college and married right after. Too bad God kept telling me he wasn’t the right guy. Problem…there was nothing wrong with him! I walked away from a perfectly good man, and a perfectly good relationship. Then I proceeded to work in a job I hated, in a city that didn’t fit me. After several stupid career moves and 2 changes to my city…I landed back home. In good old San Antonio. Low and behold…there was this other boy there. He had always been there as my friend, but this time it was different. This time everything was perfect. Everything was easy. This time he was the RIGHT boy. Luckily he thought I was the right girl, too! 🙂
Back to the Mother’s Day part…we got married after dating for a measly 10 months, because when you know, you know. Why waste time? We got married in December 2005 and started trying to get pregnant in January 2007. 18 LONG months passed with no success. Those 18 months were very long, and very dark for me. My faith was rocked more in those 18 months than in the 3 years I spent without a single date. Somehow I knew I would find the right husband, but I didn’t know if I would ever get my one true desire…a house full of children. We talked about fertility treatments and I had a referral from my OB. In the end I just couldn’t make myself do it.
We all know that God has his perfect timing, and I just felt like if I went in for fertility treatments I wasn’t relying on God’s perfect timing. I don’t have any judgment for people who do fertility treatments…it just wasn’t what God wanted from us. My good friend Jill gave me the perfect encouragement in that horrible and scary time. She said that God is capable of anything, and that if he wants me to do fertility treatments he will change my heart. She was 100% right, and her conviction gave me such incredible peace in a very scary time.
We all know the rest of the story…Reed was born in March of 2009. Light of my life, joy of all joys. Even how he was born was orchestrated by God. God wanted Reed to live, and God wanted me to have Reed. His timing is perfect.
Since we had so much trouble getting pregnant with Reed we intentionally did not prevent getting pregnant again. Now we have Alison too! Praise the Lord for his goodness!
So that is why Mother’s Day is better than all the holidays put together. God has given me everything I could have ever hoped for. Even on the really challenging days I am usually able to keep my gratitude at the front of my mind. It helps to keep me from getting too frustrated with that little 2 year old when he wants to wear shorts in January, or with Alison when she thinks it’s time to play at 3am.
Being a Mother is the single greatest gift I have ever received. Now my job is to make sure I honor this gift by honoring this gift. All I want is to raise kind, generous, loving children…who love football and Jesus!!!
JB
More Aggie Baseball!
The Aggie baseball team was playing UTSA in San Antonio on Tuesday. The weather was unseasonably fabulous this week, and we made a family trip to the game. Unfortunately the Aggies lost in the bottom of the 10th, but we sure had a great time!