So let’s just say working + taking care of a baby + life in general has gotten the best of me and I didn’t ever post her 7 month blog! 🙁 Oh well – here goes a post about the past two months.

Wow! The past two months has been so much fun Lucy! You are learning new things every day. I’m going to try my best to recap all the new things you have been doing as of late to liven up the two most dreary months of the year (January and February).

January was a pretty chill month. We stayed in Augusta all weekends just to get back into our normal schedule.

Lucy – you are getting so big, you are starting to really be your own little person with your own unique personality. For the first time, I started to think that you weren’t so little anymore. 🙁

The biggest development this month was pulling up. It was so adorable to see how excited you were the first time you pulled up (by standing on your little piano). After that you pulled up on the blue ottoman and were so proud of yourself. Then came the couch, then the side of the crib. The latest thing has been your pack n’ play and the sides of the the baby gate (what we affectionately call “baby jail”)). Although when you pulled on on the sides of baby jail – I realized that it wasn’t so safe anymore, now the sides of baby jail are reinforced with the piano bench and some pillows – to keep you from pushing it over.

Once we saw that you were able to pull up we decided to get you some new toys that you could pull up on. The most popular one so far has been the activity table. That thing is endlessly entertaining to you (and to us as we watch you play with it). We also got a little walker for you that just recently you have started walking behind (with us holding you as you take steps). Just like when you were a baby- you absolutely LOVE standing up! When you were a baby you were happiest just having someone hold you in a standing up position in their laps. Now that you know how to pull up, you spend a lot of your time just standing up hanging on to something, whether it be our legs, a table or chair leg, the side of a couch or bed, or the walls of the pack n’ play. It seems to me like you will be an early walker.

Along with pulling up came full-blown crawling. Although you were exploring with sticking your butt up in the air and practicing your yoga skills over Christmas time, it was really this January that you figured out how to put one arm in front of the other and go places. Once you discovered that you could get where you wanted to go, there was no stopping you! We have discovered that some of your favorite things to get to are: Macbook cord (to chew on of course), the printer, and our power strip. All of these things of course are off limits for you, but we think that you have an early love for electronics. When we were in Atlanta, you loved crawling after Roxy (much to her dismay). Once you reach someone, you love to touch people’s faces and pull their hair. In fact, after you got to Roxy, you were trying to touch her face but in seemed to her like you were trying to poke her in the eye! Other things that you love include zippers, my neon green shoelaces, and anything plastic that you can get your mouth. One of the main reasons you like books is so you can put your mouth on them! Although recently you have started to flip through the pages on your own – so cute to watch!

Now that you have had a few weeks to practice crawling, you are really getting fast! To solve this problem we set up the previously mentioned “baby jail” and for a few weeks you were pretty content to explore baby jail (which takes up the tan carpet in our living room). At first, I was a super paranoid mom and layered your foam letters and a comforter on top of our carpet to pad your fall whenever you fell – which was a frequent occurence when you were first starting to pull up on things. However it only took about a week of falling all the time for you to learn how to let yourself down slowly from things – it is really cool to watch you learn things like this. Now you have also started transferring yourself from hold onto one thing to another. For example, you will pull up on the ottoman, then transfer your arms to the activity table or couch one at a time.

We also made a recent change in bath time and got you an little non-slip mat to replace your baby tub. I’m hoping that you will discover now that you can move around and play more when you’re in the tub. Right now, you pretty much just sit in one place and suck on your toys. These past two months, your hair has also filled out and gotten longer so I have been able to start putting more headbands and bows in your hair – you hate them both, but you look much better with them on because without them your hair is very long in the front and gets in your face.

In early February I went on my 2nd business trip to Phoenix. I took you with me to Atlanta on Saturday, left you there with my mom (Gigi) on Monday when I flew out. On Wednesday, Gigi transferred you to Grandma Baareman who drove you back to Augusta and watched you until Friday when I got back home. The trip went really well and you behaved yourself (or so I hear…). 🙂 By the end of the trip I was really excited to see you again and the drive from the Atlanta airport was longer than it has ever been! It was so much fun to be reunited with you and I was happy that I won’t have to leave you again for that long until May.

We started feeding you baby food around Christmas time, and we have been trying to feed you more and more recently. You have tried tons of different baby foods (peas, green beans, carrots, squash, pears, etc.) You really aren’t the biggest fan of eating and many times it has taken me and your dad together to get you fed! We are hoping that you will get better at this as time goes on, but maybe you are just being stubborn and still just want milk. The most frustrating thing is that you will be hungry and will absolutely refuse baby food and will scream until you get milk. It’s like you don’t realize that food will fill up your empty stomach too! Also we have started to supplement with formula in preparation for my May business trip.

Sleep has also not been the best over these last two months. Unfortunately you do not really sleep through the night – sometimes you do – but it is very rare. The only times you sleep through the night are the days when we are vigilant to feed you LOTS of food during the day – and this just takes so much time right now and we are both so busy with work that a lot of the times it is just easier to feed you once during the night. I think that when you start eating more food, this will get better. Sometimes I feel bad that I don’t have the time to research a ton of different methods on how to get you on a perfect sleeping/eating schedule to get you to sleep through the night, but that’s when I realize that I can’t do it all as a working mom and that hopefully you will be okay even though I can’t focus on you 100% of the time. Luckily you have a wonderful babysitter who also loves you very much, so all in all, even with work in the mix, I think you are very well taken care of. However, I do hope that with the next baby I am able to not work and be 100% free to focus on baby sleeping/feeding schedules, etc.

Speaking of work and finances, over the past two months we have been thinking about buying a new house. First we were going to purchase a lot in Springlakes and build a custom home on it. We even put a contract on a lot only to find out that it was considered “wetlands” and would cost approx. $25,000 to even get the land ready to support a house! Then, we considered purchasing a home in Canterbury Farms, we also had second thoughts about this and pulled out. Finally, we decided to buy a custom home in Tudor Branch. After learning about some changes in my job future prospects, and some other news, we decided to pull out of this option too to play things more safe. Our current plan is to pay off all of our debt – except for our house, and then consider saving up for future expenses (like a new house or car (used of course!)). We have had to weigh a lot of future ramifications of purchasing a nice new house and decided that our top priority is for me to eventually be able to stay home and not work. However, this may mean not moving anytime soon. As a result, I have started to come up with lots of ideas on how to redecorate some parts of our house, and I’m thinking about repainting some rooms, moving furniture around etc.

Over the next month or so we will be quite busy rehabbing one of our rental properties and getting our own house ready for Masters, add to that all the normal stuff like bills, taxes, etc! Whew! The reason I want to mention this is that working with a baby is a LOT of work! Even without both spouses working, a baby needs constant attention that definitely is an adjustment. However, it is totally worth it and we LOVE being parents. Being a mom to Lucy is one of the biggest blessings that God has ever given to me. I take it very seriously and want to be the best mom I can be. Right now, that means working to pay off debt that will put our family in a better financial position later on. Is it fun all the time – no, but is it worth it? absolutely. I’m so thankful that at the end of every busy day I have a wonderful husband and a beautiful daughter to call my own. Thank you Jesus for all of your abundant blessings and for giving us these past two months to love and enjoy Lucy.

Lucy (and/or nicknames: Baby Boo, Lucy Boo, Sweet Girl, Cutie, Sugar, Silly Willy, etc.) – we love you so much. It is a such a gift to watch you grown and learn each day. I love each and every moment that I get to spend with you.