ferber...

ok ferber MIGHT be on to something, but not wanting to jinx myself, the jury is still out. I will say this though:

night 1 took about 45 minutes of ava crying, us checking on her, laying her down, telling her we love her, kissing her, and leaving the room over, and over, and over again.
night 2 took about 15 minutes of ava crying, us checking on her maybe at most 4 times, doing our routine, and she was asleep. AND, when she awoke at 3:30am this morning it took only 1 time for us to go in, lay her down, and she went right back to sleep.
nap time is (knock on wood) a breeze so far. I still usually have to check on her once and lay her back down, but then she goes to sleep seemingly happy.

I'm hoping that this weekend we can seal the deal. here's to hoping. they say that babies can have relapses though so I'm still skeptical, but last night baby was in her crib and we were in our bed, everyone where they should be.

*I forgot to mention the reason we started this. It's not because we are tired of snuggling with her at night time. Quite the opposite actually. I love it when Sam would go get her in the middle of the night, he'd lay her on my chest, she'd slowly snuggle in and slide to the side and there we would lay. however the other night she was awake, I wasn't, and apparently was 1 step away from crawling right off our kind-of tall bed. by the grace of God sam woke up just in time to grab her and bring her back. and it's not just the floor that awaits her, it's our wooden foot-bed thing at the end of our bed that she would've hit on the way down. So we really had NO other choice but to nip this in the bud immediately.

This is long overdue...nonetheless I'm super excited. We changed up Ava's closet, revamped it if you will. We had a cute changing table in there, which was good for at first, though I'm not sure we EVER changed her on it...mostly it held stuff. In speaking with my sister-in-law the other day I was mentioning how I wanted to get some cute cubbie-type-things for Ava's closet to get more organized. her reply? "come with me". and voila! She gave me the cutest cubbie-cabinets ever! her girls were done with them and they were just waiting for a new home.

and going along with yesterday's post about my brother's painting expertise...see below

My pictures don't do it justice because he actually did the tree EXACTLY like the below, high tree branch and all. and this is all we gave him to go off of, along with asking him to flip the tree to the other side, and not add in any characters...we think he did an amazing job. He's out for hire by the way :) want to spice up your kids' room? gives 'accent wall' a whole new meaning!

Lastly, and completely unrelated, here's Ava playing with a picture of my grandma Purdy, her great grandma, who she was never fortunate enough to meet. actually, I bet they were friends in Heaven. either way I know she would've loved her just as much as I did. so her picture is in her room in a little Ava-sized frame and sits on her night stand.

ferber schmerber...
we'll see if this guy knows what he's talking about.

Ava used to be a good sleeper. Ava still is a good sleeper, when in my arms, or next to me sharing my pillow. When she wakes up all alone in her crib is when she is not such a good sleeper. The Ferber guy says that the most common type of sleep problem is: when your baby falls asleep in one environment (ie: your arms, being rocked, etc.) and wakes up in another (ie: her crib) this upsets them and they cry. Once they get used to their environment being the same then it's not so bad. bed time = happy time...once we get to that point. According to Ferber & other websites, it should take between 3 days and 2 weeks...but mostly within the first week they understand that throwing a fit/crying will not get their way. we still go in and tell her we love her, pat her back, and in some instances have to lay her back down because she is standing up in her crib ready to get out.

so, here we go. last night was our first attempt. we made it thru bed time, it took about 45 min to an hour of us going in every 5 minutes and then so on. at some point tho in the night one of us got her and she slept the rest of the night with us. I feel certain that's not in the Ferber rules. So we're trying again tonight.

I'm so proud of my brother - see for yourself why:

http://brsphotography.blogspot.com/

1. He's a great painter.

2. He's a fantastic photographer.

3. HE HAS A BLOG!!

(pictures of his work will be posted in another post)

feats just this week:

1. scaled her first 2 stairs successfully & on her first-ever attempt out of my office.
2. ate & loved cheerios for the 1st time (and certainly not the last).
3. says UH-UH-OH while playing her new favorite game of "throw the paci on the ground and say uh-uh-oh like it was an accident and make unsuspecting parent pick it up". it really was cute, the first, oh 10 times...now it's a little cute & more tiresome.
4. her other favorite game is to crawl away right before I change her diaper, and looks back for me to chase her, all the while giggling non-stop. so naturally, I encourage this behavior because I can't help but chase the cutest giggle on the planet until we are out the door.

AUGUST 12, 2006

AUGUST 12, 2009

YOU'RE STILL MY HERO. I LOVE YOU MY HUSBAND.

If she could talk, and I mean really talk, I wonder what she's day...

She would probably tell us that we are wasting our money on these cute-sie toys when all she really wants is the remote, our cell phones, and the dvd's that she can now get into. everything else is really worthless at this point.

and I bet she'd say how thankful she is to her daddy for feeding her tonight, because he lets her paint her face with her food.

and she would probably be mostly excited about her new blue jeans. a) because of the princess crown. but b) because it doesn't look like she's getting ready for a flood anymore!

I swear she gets busier and busier every day.

• first it was rolling over (which I thought she would NEVER do...)
• then it was the giggling and laughing (which is music to our ears)
• now it's pulling up to stand in her crib, drinking out of a sippy cup, palming her snack ball, clapping her hands like a big ole girl, and crawling EVERYWHERE!

and below? well below she's just doing a little learning, that's all. don't worry about that.

and after all that hard work, she just couldn't make it to the crib to crash. nope. the high chair suits just fine.

a story of 2 friends with pictures

AVA & ROWAN

Happy 8 months baby girl!