Six Months Already!

I can't believe it. I don' t want to believe it.

I don't know how old Patrick is in this picture, but when I saw this picture of Gloria, it reminded me of it from our wedding slideshow. Anybody see it?

She's getting herself into all sorts of funny positions that she can't get out of quite yet.



Experimenting with carrots, she seemed to enjoy herself....
...until I took the spoon away.
It' s been a fun half a year. We have learned a lot about a lot. I feel so blessed to be the Mama of such a wonderful little girl, who just loves Peek-a-boo.

Cousins and More Glory

She is now starting to try and pull herself up on things, not that this piano is much but she held this position for a good few seconds. We are beginning to think about baby proofing the apartment sooner than we planned. She loves getting in to things.

We got the guts up to take her out around the neighborhood in the trailer, it made me very excited for future rides. I think she liked it a lot.

I can't believe how much she looks like Patrick.

Grandma wanted to share the Ballerina love with her new grand-daughters. We had a fun little photo shoot.

Thank you Dr. Weissbluth

Mine eyes have seen the Glory of an entire nights sleep! I may have shared with some of you the degenerating sleep patterns of my little Glory. Over the past few weeks night time had become simply ridiculous, she basically just took a series of barely two hour naps all night and wanted to play in between. By Monday of this week, I had had it. Completely exhausted and just about at the end of my rope, I decided to pick up the copy of what Paul and Sarah call "the Sleep Bible." Health Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth. Honestly I had glanced through it when they gave it to us but everything I read I felt was either common sense, never wake a sleeping baby, or totally crazy, basically become a slave to your child's sleep schedule. Remember how crazy we all thought Paul and Sarah were about getting Benjamin home to bed just as the party was getting started at the compound? I do. Now, it totally makes sense to me. Dr. W has convinced me of the importance of good sleep routines, and that they are totally accomplish-able. We have had two nights of 7ish to 7ish sleep time and though I haven't slept all that time, Glory wakes up happy and rested and ready to make us laugh. I guess you don't know what you got til it's gone because last night I found myself really missing being up with her, rocking her to sleep (I still do for naps) and cuddling with her from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m. It's amazing how different she is during the day though. As happy as a little button as she was, I can see her well rested brain soaking up more than ever. Having a rigid sleep schedule is worth it to me at the moment. The way her routine got messed up in the first place was my work out schedule at the YMCA. I have now found a swim class and a spin group that fit around her naps. And having a set time for her sleep also gives me a great excuse to do my homework early in the week instead of cramming it in on Mondays and Tuesday nights (my online assignments are due Tuesdays midnight EST). All around, routine is better. I am aware that life is not always predictable, my whole life has been unpredictable, I hope for now I can count on the magic of a 12 hour night sleep for my baby.