New Adventures

CHANGES:

In the past couple weeks our lives have changed dramatically. It all began when Sydney started crawling. I mean really all out, hands and knees, across the house kind of crawling. She crawls to different objects throughout the apartment and pulls herself up to stand, she gets into things, behind things, and to places that I would have never even thought of. It is interesting to see through the eyes of a baby. Let me tell you…you think the floor is spotless, and she’ll find something! She is like a human vacuum cleaner.

CRAWLING:
Going in to the crawling stage I would have thought that Sydney would just wear herself out crawling around all day and be nice and ready for bed at night. However this has not been the case. She is so full of energy I don't know what to do with her. She will not take naps, and will not go to bed. The small naps she does have take place when we are in the car or she is in the stroller. It has really taken its toll on me and my laundry and housework. I have decided that since she has been crawling a whole new world has opened up to her, and she is so curious that she just does not want to sleep ever. She does not want to miss out on anything!

BEDTIME:
We have been trying to get Sydney into a night time routine to try and help with the "not going to bed" stage she seems to be in. We give her a bath, with bedtime soothing bath & lotion, which is supposed to calm her down. (Doesn't she look so relaxed in this picture? She'll get the whole bathroom wet from splashing. I don't know why but she loves to sit like this in the bath- with her feet up high...)
Then we wrap her up tight, feed her, and lay her down to sleep. The second she is in her crib she begins screaming her little lungs out. I have tried rocking her to sleep in the rocking chair, which she won’t have…she does not like to cuddle. I have tried standing next to her crib for countless amounts of time, which won’t work because she plays with my hands. And I have tried letting her yell for any amount of time up to an hour. I hate listening to her cry in her crib…yelling “mama” and I usually break down, but I have been told several times that the best thing to do is let them cry themselves to sleep. Most nights I will go and get her after a half hour or so and let her crawl around the house some more until Matt and I go to bed. Then when we go to bed, we bring her with us, lay her down in between us, and when she is finally asleep we put her in her crib. Usually we begin the process of putting her to bed around 9:45 and we end the process sometime after midnight. It has made our nights awful!

THE OTHER NIGHT...
Matt and I had to speak in church on Sunday, and I also had to play the piano in sacrament because the primary kids were singing (I am the primary pianist). Needless to say, Saturday night was a very busy night for us. I was SO nervous! I haven't spoken in church since the first week of my freshman year in college -and there were 4 speakers so I didn't have to speak very long. This time, Matt and I were the only speakers, and it has been almost 5 years since I have spoken in church. So because I am the kind of person who stresses out pretty easily- I was stressed out on Saturday night. I decided that I was, no matter what, putting Sydney to bed so I could work on my talk. And I stuck to it! I did not go get her out, and she cried and cried. Around 11:30 I finished my talk and was practicing giving it to Matt, when we heard Sydney's cries getting louder and louder. All of a sudden, we heard her at her bedroom door. We rushed to the door, and Matt had to squish her fingers to open it because Sydney was right next to the door with her fingers under it. She had fallen out of her crib! I started crying because I felt so bad and guilty, and I was afraid that she was hurt. But the second we got in there and turned on the light, we had a happy baby. She crawled around the house for another half hour and talked away. Apparently, all she wanted was to crawl around. Thankfully Sydney was not hurt! We immediately moved the mattress down in her crib. So we were up very late that night, and had to get up for 9:00 church and speak. Our talks actually went well, and I am glad I got speaking over with.

Sydney's crib before we moved the mattress down...

How Sydney used to lay in her crib before she started crawling...

Sydney after falling out of her crib...waiting for Mom & Dad to come to bed, happy as can be...and waving!

Sydney playing in her crib after we moved the mattress down, for some reason she really liked it, probably because it was "new"

More playing...

Standing in the lowered crib...at least she can't fall out!

How Sydney lays in her crib now that she crawls...oh wait, she doesn't lay! We solved the falling out of the crib problem, but still have not figured out how to get her to sleep!

Not only did crawling indirectly bring about the crib incident, it brought Sydney's first bruise. She hit her head on a low table at my parent's house and actually got 2 bruises! Crawling also brings along all of the injuries. We are now very familiar with Sydney's "hurt cry." You can kind of see the two bruises on her forehead in this picture...