On the move!

Well, it's official: Camryn is crawling for real now. The past several days she has really taken off - no more inch-worming -- this is crawling! She does use her right leg for push off and almost walks on that one - it's pretty funny looking, but effective.

I don't have many pictures for this post, which is unusual - I think it's because now that she's on the move, she is much more interested in seeing new things rather than posing for me! Such a shame! (on the picture above - look! - you can see her tooth!)

Kevin has started babyproofing the house - he's covered outlets and installed cabinet hooks. This weekend we'll be moving some of our furniture around and will finish babyproofing.

Camryn's Firsts for the Past Few Weeks:

First trip to Wharton to see the Vidals. Our very dear family friends, Bob and Julia, recently moved to Wharton from Pearland and we stopped in to see them while I was in town for a friend's wedding shower. It was so great to see them and see their house. Here is a picture of Barbie, their granddaughter, and our little squirt. (Barbie was about Camryn's age when we started spending a lot of time together, she was the flower girl at our wedding, and now she's almost all grown up! Aren't these girls pretty?)

First time to challenge bedtime. Last weekend, Camryn decided to see how serious we were about our bedtime routine. Of course, we didn't know this was what she was doing, however, hindsight is 20/20!

Saturday night, she woke up about 2 hours after going to sleep, screaming like crazy. This is a little unusual, so Kevin went up there, tried to calm her down. (side note: I need to just leave it to him, because if I go up there and don't take her from him, then that makes her really mad!)But of course, it's hard for me to sit downstairs and listen to her be so upset).

So, I ended up taking her and she cried until I rocked her back to sleep. About 15 minutes later, same thing. Rocked again. About an hour later, same thing. Rocked again. We had decided that she must be teething, because she was just way too upset. So, Kevin went to WalMart at 12:30 for Baby Oragel that night and Camryn and I ended up sleeping on the air mattress in her room. Oh, creaky back!

The next night, we do bedtime like we always do (play, bath, bottle, read) and as soon as we laid her down in her bed, she was screaming again. At this point, I'm convinced that something is wrong, although I do notice that she does not cry if I pat her or stand by her crib and she even looks up occasionally to make sure that I am still there. She does not go to sleep and instead, cries and cries. We decide that we need to sleep and that we will take her to the doctor on Monday (as this stuff always happens over the weekend, right? we were for sure that it was an ear infection or something) and we break our biggest rule: we let her sleep with us all night. This is the first time in her life that she started out in our bed and ended up in our bed.

The next day, Kevin picks Camryn up from school early, drives to Clear Lake to see the pediatrician and the verdict? Separation Anxiety. WHAT? Basically, she's learning that when we're gone, she's alone...she's also learning how to get her way... So, we have to stick to our plan and know that she's ok - just challenging us - something that she will continue to do for the rest of our lives!

That night, we followed the method of giving her 5 minutes to cry, going up there - patting her, binky, 'it's ok, go night-night'; then we did 10 minutes. It was hard on me! But, by the 10 minutes, she was sitting up, quiet, rubbing her loveys and trying to figure out how to lay back down. Poor baby. All she could figure out how to do was just lean forward, so picture this: you're sitting up, you just lean forward and put your head on the bed. And then you go to sleep! How is that comfy? I adjusted her about 45 minutes later (scared to touch her - didn't want to start the process all over again!), but she did ok and went back to sleep.

It was a very stressful few days - I didn't realize how much I love my time after she goes to sleep (is that bad?!?) because that's when Kevin and I talk about our day, watch our silly TV shows that we tape and just breathe! It's just a little concerning when they do something so out of the norm - it's hard to not think something's wrong!

This was also the first time she used her m's -- mama, mama, mama -- I know she doesn't know what she's saying, HOWEVER, it was very effective! (Kevin thinks she does know, since she only uses her m's when I'm around and she wants me to do something, but I think it's a little early)

Other firsts for our little monkey:
* Stand up in her bed at home and at school

* Figure out how to sit up from laying down (this was a big one!) = now just need to fine tune laying down from sitting up!

* Sleep 12+ hours in her bed! (after she challenged us for three nights

* Going to sleep at 7 pm! She has been so exhausted this week (all the crawling?) - she's been begging for bedtime by 7 every night - makes me sad though because that's time we don't get to spend with her... maybe she'll start taking better naps at school!

Here are some pictures of Kevin and Camryn this past Sunday before running errands: (I like the second one - she's laughing at her silly papa!)

And now, for the funny picture of the week. There are only a handful of things people say about Camryn when they see her in person or see a picture of her. Most often, it seems that 'happy baby' is the comment that people make. But a very close runner-up is something related to 'Michelin man/baby'. So, for all of those people - here is a picture of my little Michelin baby (who also appears to be quite happy!), with her very handsome Daddy:

More in a few weeks!