Hush, little baby…

But for the past few days… man, it has been hard to put her to bed. She cries because she’s teething, then I get her calm and she starts to fall asleep. She counters by mounting a protest and trying to stay awake, even though she’s wiping her eyes repeatedly, a dead give-away that she wants to go to bed….I keep at it. Calming her, soothing her, rocking her, singing to her, till eventually she starts to drift off. My left shoulder and back scream with pain from my injury, and rocking her really becomes a chore…I hate it when that happens. I love rocking her! How can you dislike holding your baby? But it just hurts so bad after a while…hopefully my physical therapy helps, and soon! Anyway…I’ll eventually get her sleepy, but then as soon as her sweet little head hits her mattress, she wakes and wails at me…reaching for me…and when my efforts to calm her without picking her back up fail miserably, I lift her back into my arms and try again from the beginning. I feel so miserable when I try so hard to get her comfortable and peaceful and it seems like all my efforts were in vain…but the worst part is that I know Abbey feels miserable, too. Poor baby…I’m so relieved when I go to check on her before going to bed and I see her sweet little body rising and falling with an easy, sleeping breath. I remind myself of the lovely smile she’ll greet me with the next morning, and I can go to bed feeling satisfied and immensely blessed. She is such a joy that when she is upset, it’s just so hard. I hold her close and hope that I can be a calming presence for her.

I hope that her trouble getting to sleep is just a short phase, but I know enough about babies to know that the only thing you can predict is that they will be unpredictable! I have been lucky to have such an easy time putting her to sleep in the past, I guess. Thankfully, Jed has been really supportive (when he’s home and not at the station…), lending a hand by cleaning the kitchen after dinner and cleaning up after Abbey’s bath so that when I get Abbey to sleep I don’t have to worry about those things. Tonight he comforted me when I was getting frustrated, with a forehead kiss and a reminder that “You’re the best mommy Abbey could ever ask for, and she loves you so much”…

In other news, Abbey, Jed and I went to a crawfish broil today at Surfside Marina…I don’t think Station Freeport won the cooking contest, but the first batch they made was yummy I had never eaten crawfish before…they’re pretty tasty, but it’s a lot of work for a little piece of meat…at any rate, we enjoyed ourselves there for lunch, and then met a friend from church and her two youngest children for a date in a park nearby our house. I’m very glad Jana (our friend) let me know about this park…it’s tucked back in a neighborhood, so I wouldn’t have known it was there if she hadn’t told me. But it’s outside the city limits, so we can bring Raven and let her play off her leash without worry. It was fun to swing on the swings with Abbey (she loves swinging) and talk with Jana, and watch Jed play with Raven and the children. Jed is such a fun-loving guy and has so much energy. It’s great to watch him have a good time and to see him interact with the kids – it makes me imagine how much fun Abbey will have with her daddy when she gets older! That was a nice afternoon activity – we’ll have to visit the park again!

Abbey is still working on crawling…she gets up higher in her “all fours” position now, but still stops right before she makes her first locomotor move! She has added a B sound to her normal “aaaah” – so now when she talks, she speaks in a combination of “bah”s, “ah”s, “gah”s, and the occasional “ma”. She is eating rice cereal and bananas with ease, grabbing mommy or daddy’s hand at the thumb to guide the spoon to her mouth I am excited about our visit to the pediatrician on Monday…I love showing him how she has grown, and it’s nice to have a professional opinion of her progress

The pictures I’ve shared are of Abbey and her Coco the cow in her car seat, Abbey eating solids for the first time (we have since then purchased baby spoons lol), and a picture of our princess modeling the dress I made for her. I would post pictures more appropriate to my post (i.e. Abbey on all fours…) but I’m on the desktop computer right now, and the most recent pics of her are on the laptop. Here’s a link to her most recent facebook album