4 Months Old ~ Audrey Bell

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She the littlest chicken in our tribe and she is also the most laid back, maybe because she is forced to go with the flow more often than not. Just last night she feel asleep in the middle of cooing at herself in the mirror. This is the second time that she’s fallen asleep on her own without any shusshing, nursing or rocking. To this day, Barry and I can remember exactly ONE time that Maggie fell asleep on her own. We don’t mean to compare, but in terms of sleep, we’ve got two very different children so far.

Audrey also started laughing and now Maggie does the silliest of things to hear the heartwarming giggle. Audrey has also figured out who her big sister is and spends lots and lots of time watching what Maggie is doing. When we recently noticed how good Audrey is at holding her head up during tummy time (And by the way, who likes tummy time???), Maggie was overjoyed that Audrey finally learned something that she had taught her.

The sisters adore one another….I’ve got an ongoing list of the different names that Maggie has called Audrey so far: Little Meatball, Little Missy, Little Girl (sounds like Lil Goi), Little Fellow, Little Biscuit, Little Chubby One, Little Miss, Auge, Little Darling, Darling, and Google.

Audrey has also found her hands this month and is practicing grabbing, grabbing, grabbing. She is a very mouthy baby, so all things must be tested in the mouth, too. When we give her a bath, if I can convince Maggie to wait a bit before we dump the water on her tummy, she kicks, kicks, and kicks like a little fish. A water baby for sure. 

Right now Audrey’s very favorite thing to do is to lay on her back and get pulled into a sitting and then standing position. By the time she makes it all the way up, she has the most proud look on her face and wants everybody to notice! She squawks, yells, coos and generally talks a ton and is more interested in face-time than mirror-tiime. I don’t blame her, I like to talk to people too!

Random facts: 

Height: 26 inches

Weight: 14lbs 15 oz

Diaper size: 2

Clothes sizes: 3-6 months. I still squeeze her into the 3 month onsies sometimes, but we’ve gotten out some of the 6 month ones as well. 

**Scroll all the way down for a comparison of the girls at 4 months. **

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Audrey One Day Old

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I Can Never Be a Boxer

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Around 5 a.m. Maggie comes into our bed every morning, if she isn’t there already, and announces that she’s going to get her milky. We can hear her feet pitter-pattering down the hallway, the grunt that goes with her tugging the fridge door open, and the sprint back to bed. She snuggles herself in the middle of Barry and me, with Syd snoring at her feet. Most mornings our bed feels crowded because I’ll be feeding Audrey on the other side.  We make it work, all in the name of precious sleep. 

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A couple days ago, the morning events were exactly like any other day, with Maggie handing me her milk cup after she announced she was ‘all done!” Without opening my eyes, I grabbed the milk cup and put it on our headboard and we all promptly feel back asleep. Jump an hour or two later, and Maggie whispered into my hear that she was going to check out the window if it was daylight. I might have murmured a response, I don’t remember because I was dead asleep. 

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She stood up and lifted a couple slits of the blinds to check for the morning light. In doing so, her milk cup fell off the headboard….ON TO MY NOSE!! I have never been punched in the face, but I’m fairly certain I can go the rest of my life knowing that a milk cup did the same amount of damage and I experienced the same amount of pain. 

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I went from a deep sleep to having my nose throbbing in pain in a matter of seconds, not the very best way to wake up. It has now been roughly three days and I am still sporting a fairly nice bruise on the bridge of my nose, not to mention the bump that has also become less notable with each passing day. I’m thankful that my freckles cover up the black and blue. 

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The falling milk cup story has absolutely nothing to do with these pictures, but I keep scratching my nose and am reminded of the random anecdote. Plus, we’ve been laughing about it around here regularly. 

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On Mother’s Day weekend, we headed up to A-Town to visit my family. We had toyed around with the idea of going somewhere and actually doing something, and leaving the kids with my parents, but one thing lead to another and we ended up having a nice, relaxing cook out at my parent’s house. We had brought the makings for S’Mores and my mom happened to have hot dogs, wine and salad (with yummy lettuce from their garden!) on hand, so it worked out perfectly. 

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It almost felt like we were camping, minus the whole part about pitching a tent and not having a toilet. Maggie did some major digging and towards the end of the evening, we hauled her upstairs and directly into the tub to rinse off the dirt and campfire smell. 

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My parents recently added a fence around their expanded vegetable garden and it is gorgeous! I have a deep appreciation for all the work it takes to maintain a garden of any sort, because I’m struggling with the small patch of dirt in our back yard that we call a garden….

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Food for Thought

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One of my least favorite tasks is going to the grocery store. It is just such an involved process with two children, and even when I go by myself I don’t enjoy it. So I was a bit surprised by the conversation that I had with Maggie the other night as we snuggled (her new favorite word) in bed after reading books. We’ve been reading this book lately and Mags has really connected with the part about not just telling your parents you love them, but telling them WHY you love them. Being a bucket filler is a concept that she clearly understands, so there has been a whole lot of love coming from her these days, more than normal, which was already a ton! 

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Often times she’ll list off reasons she loves me (I carried her over the hot sand, I snuggle with her, I hold her, I hug her,  I have loops (curls) in my hair, I took her somewhere….) and I return with my own list about her(she is friendly, she helped clean up, put something away, was gentle with Syd & Audrey….). 

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When Maggie is telling me the reasons she loves me, I’m often tickled pink by her insight, memory and awareness. So, I had to laugh when this happened:

Maggie:  I love you

Me: Well, you’re lucky because I love you, too!

Maggie: We love each other. 

Me: Yeah, we love lots of the same things. 

Maggie: Like grocery shopping!!!

 

Ummmm….nay-bob. I do NOT like grocery shopping, and I had no idea that Maggie does like grocery shopping.

 

Good to know, good to know.

 

I love that girl.