2-3 Hours

The little shit head refuses to fall asleep the first time I feed her to put her down. It has been 3 nights in a row. I feed her, she falls asleep, I attempt to put her in her bed, she wakes up, she screams like a mad woman until I pick her up, (twice I wasn't even able to get her to her bed since she woke up before I even got up to put her down), I bring her downstairs where she receives a lecture from her Daddy about going to sleep, we all eat dessert together and watch TV, I bring her out on a late walk, at home Aubrey can't fall asleep because we're out late walking, she may or may not fall asleep on the walk, I put her in her bed if she is sleeping from her walk or I feed her again and then put her to bed. Tonight Aubrey begrudgingly took her out for a walk at 9:30. When they got back Aubrey was scowling and Copper was smiling. This has been our evenings between 8 and 10-11. I would like tomorrow night to be different.

Copper's New Skill (from 2 weeks ago)

21 Minutes

Two nights ago it took me 21 minutes to feed Copper and put her to bed. I believe this is a record. She didn't sqirm or poke my face. She just ate peacefully and fell asleep. I sat for a few minutes and watched her and then gently placed her in bed. Fast forward 2 1/2 hours. As I lay in bed willing myself to sleep, the red lights on her monitor light up as the crying begins. I watch her about 5 minutes as she steadily gets more worked up and then get out of bed at 11. We laid down on the guest bed and I fed her and then she just looked at me. Then she rolled over. Then she rolled onto her back and looked at me. This went on for a while. No crying or sqirming, just peaceful watching. I picked her up and placed her on my tummy. She propped herself up on her arms, smiled at me in the dark, and then lay her head on my chest. After a couple minutes she rolled off and looked at me again. After a hour of her contently not sleeping, we fell asleep spooning. I wish her crib was big enough for both of us and we could fall asleep this way more often.

Happy 9 Months!

(I'm a couple days late. Copper turned 9 months on Friday.

I'm not a bad mom though. I'm just behind on my blogging.)

Copper hasn't had her 9 month appointment yet, so I don't have height and weight stats yet. Should have those by the end of the week.

While the past few months have seemed a bit uneventful with little in the way of new skills, Copper has more than made up for it in the past couple weeks. (Don't get too excited though, she still isn't crawling and still doesn't have any teeth.) She has learned how to clap (I have a video that I've been meaning to post), she sometimes waves goodbye, she gets mad when I take things away from her, and she's finally learning how to control her body. She spins around when she's sitting on her butt and can right herself if she starts to tip over. If she's close to something that she can grab on to, she will try to pull herself to it or pull herself up. She can grab my glasses and pull them off my face in a matter of seconds. Within the past few days she's gotten really good at picking up food and feeding herself. She'll also push my hand away if she doesn't like the baby food I'm feeding her. She enjoys turning light switches on and off. It's been a lot of fun watching her develop so quickly lately.

I do think that she may be getting ready to start crawling. The little bit of time that she is laying on the floor, she rolls all over the place and is always pushing herself up on her hands. In her crib today she even had her knees bent a bit. I'm still not looking forward to the crawling stage of things. I'll have to vacuum all the time as Melvin keeps a pretty steady layer of dog hair on the floors and I'll have to get a gate for the top of the stairs. I also won't be able to let her nap on the bed at my parents anymore. Currently placing pillows on both sides of her keep her from rolling off the bed when she wakes up, but when she can crawl that just won't suffice.

The big 9 month birthday has been a fun one and I look forward to next three months. I can't believe she's almost 1!

My Favorite Sound

This video is from May 30th, but I just got around to uploading it. It doesn't take much to make Copper laugh and that makes me very happy. Generally hitting of some sort will do the trick. This may be an issue in the future, but for now we're having fun with it.