So Much to Tell So Little Time

I don't have our external hard drive hooked up right now so no videos just yet. But believe me there's a ton to get caught up on! If you haven't checked out the online photo albums, we have pics in the 20 month and started the 21 month and there's over 100 total that have been added. I was way behind!

There are several reasons for me to be so far behind. I'd like to get into detail but I of course have limited time right now. Andrew is very good at playing by himself when he's not overly tired or hungry so I caught a good moment!

To sum up...

We've had some major sleep issues with Andrew. It's our fault really. Not only because we've let him decide when he wants to go to sleep with some encouragement from us and we do set him up a sleepy time environment, but also because we had a few nights and early mornings where we had to get up and then slept all day. We went from a pretty consistent 12am bedtime to 3am to 6am! There were nights where he'd fall asleep at 9, wake at 1am and then be up until the sun came up. And he'd be so sleepy!

Part of the problem has been that nursing no longer puts him back to sleep. It can relax him for the initial sleep and naps but once he wakes he nurses to wake up not to relax again. These last 2 nights Andy has taken over the one night waking he has and gotten him back to sleep in minutes! With me, I'd rock and nurse him for 2 hours only to end up letting him get up and play. And we're talking like 3 or 4am here!

Then we'd take maybe a short morning nap and a good afternoon nap and try to get him back to sleep by 11. We tried a lot of things really, from shorter naps to earlier bed times and found nothing stopped him from waking fully at night until Andy took over. It hasn't been too much stress for him to do it because he is usually just starting to come to bed when Andrew has his first night waking. And after that if he wakes even slightly all it takes is a hand on his back or belly and he relaxes back to sleep. At least so far, it's only been 2 nights. And if there's one thing I've learned about Andrew, it's that he changes constantly. All part of growing up.

Speaking of growing up, he is such a chatter box! He has a lot of words now he says, his latest of which is Mom-mom! I am thrilled, he just started calling me that on July 4th and it makes my day. Sometimes I think he slips up and still calls me Dada but when I correct him he says Momom. Not quite Mama or Mommy but Mom-mom. I love it! He also says Hello which is too cute. There's a lot more too. of course none I could catch on video or anything just yet but we'll keep working on it.

he also recently mastered jumping. This is something he's been practicing at for a long time and finally gets both feet off the ground and can jump off of things to the ground.

We bought him a big plastic slide today and have been having an absolute blast playing with him on it. And watching him play on it and exploring his own balance and learning to work his own body better. He can climb up so many more things at all the parks we frequent and can get onto so many more toys at the mall. he's just growing up so great and we love it! It's a joy to watch him explore and learn.

If you've already seen the new pics you saw that Andrew and his Daddy were in the Sanger 4th of July parade. I painted his body with face paint as best one can paint a busy toddler to resemble the flag. And he wore a cloth diaper made of an army print that had flags on it. The plan was for them to walk together and me to stay along the side to take pics but it didn't work out that way so fortunately I got pics of them before the parade started. Andrew was very distracted by all the candy being thrown and wanted to pick it up and rethrow it! SO I had to stay with him and help him keep going. Andy was holding a big sign with business name and phone number on it so he couldn't hold his hand. I think he was the hit of the parade! But next year we'll borrow someone's truck. It was very hot6 to be walking!

Andrew will be the ring bearer in Andy's sister's wedding this weekend so look out for a ton of pics of that. We tried him out in his little tux tonight and it is too adorable for words!

Also, please keep Andy's mom in your thoughts and prayers. She had a heart attack a week or so ago. It gave us all quite a fright. She got 3 stents put in and is recovering well.

That's all I can do for now. Videos will be up as soon as I can!