Messy House

Yes, I'll admit it the house is a mess. We are in the midst of remodeling our kitchen. The floor is up (all four layers of it!!!!!!!), the cabinets are gone, backsplash destroyed and border down.

Now its time to rebuild, we hope to have the whole project, yes we are doing it ourselves, done by the middle of July.

An Abby Update

It's been a while since we just let you know generally what's going on in Abby's life.

She's at such a fun age right now, and has been for a couple of months now. Considering she doesn't crawl yet, she's quite mobil. We'll put her on the rug in the living room and a minute or two later she's on the complete opposite side.

A couple nights ago we took Abby to my parents pool for the first time. We were a little worried about how she would react, but she LOVED it! We were so excited. She loved splashing and kicking in the water. She kept dunking her head too! It made us laugh quite a bit until she inhaled a bit too much water down the wrong pipe once. But, she kept doing it. We'd be holding her and all of the sudden, she'd throw her head forward and into the water. We're going swimming again tonight, so maybe we can get some video.

EDIT: Didn't realize that Peggy already posted about the pool....oh well....just more details for you!

On the nap side of things she's doing GREAT! This was our biggest frustration with Abby....getting her to fall asleep (see previous posts). But, ever since I've been home for the summer, she's been on such an awesome schedule, and only fights sleep occasionally (and usually only for a couple minutes at most). She gets up almost at 6 on the dot everyday (rarely waking up overnight anymore! WAHOO!!!!!!!!!). She's up for about two hours, and goes down for her morning nap. This one usually lasts about an hour. Then, she's up around 9:00 or 9:30. She stays up til a little after noon, then it's time for her two to two and a half hour nap. Then she's up from about 2:30 to 5:30. She then takes her evening nap, which usually lasts about an hour. Then she's up for another two hours or so, and goes down for bed around 8:30 or 9:00. She still sleeps quite a lot! But, it's just nice that it's on such a good schedule. I never understood how people could get their children on such good schedules, but now I do! I guess that's what happens when you don't have to take her to daycare.

The Big Pool

We took Abby swimming at Tom & Nancy's last night. It was Abbys first time in the big pool. She loved it. She showed no fear at all. She was even trying to blow bubbles... not successfully. Only one picture of the evening, we forgot to charge the camera before we left. We'll try again tomorrow, when the temperature alone is supposed to hit 99 degrees with a heat index of 110!

Open.....Closed!

We recently bought Abby a stand up table from Once Upon a Child. She absolutely loves it! One of her favorite things to do is close the little lid every time we open it. Enjoy!

Cute pics

Sometimes she's just too cute for words.....

Father's Day

We had a great Father's Day. When I got home from work Abby helped Dave open his gifts. He got two books, that were more for Abby. Plus a kit to make decretative stones for the garden. Since it was already lunchtime for Abby we made chocolate chip pancakes, she had sweet potatoes. We went out to "The Butterfly House" after lunch it was free for dads. Why we decided to go to the hottest place in St. Louis on Father's day when the temps were all ready 100+, not sure. Dave claims I was trying to off him... hmmm. The carousel at the park was also free for dads and kids so they rode and I took pictures.
After Abbys nap we made the garden stones. I'm not sure how long they'll hold up but they were fun to make.

She's So Close!

Two Teeth!

Abby has two teeth, the first one came in at the beginning of the week. And overnight the second one broke through. They are sharp!

Diapers

Doing some quick calculations, I figure we've already saved 1500 disposable diapers just in Abby's first 6 months of cloth diapering.

That is all.

New Tricks

Abby hasn't been much of a laugher in her short life time. She gives great smiles and coos but no giggles. But this week she found her laugh.... little did we know all it took was a swing in the backyard. She was cracking up and loving the swing. I think she may like roller coasters later in life. If you get motion sick easily... hang on you are about to go swinging!

Also I told you earlier this week Abby had learned to wave. This video is from that morning, yes, 5am. We are earlier risers even on my days off.

The Little Gym

Today was our first class at "The Little Gym", we had a blast. Abby loved all the music, and clapping. We learned how to do a somersault. Plus today they played on some of the little people gymnastic's equipment. She played on the parrell bars and held on all by herself. She also tried the balancce beam but wasn't too interested in doing the leg work. At the end of class they blew bubbles, I think that was one of her favorite parts. It was fun to see so many other kids her age at such different levels both developmentally and physically.

6 month appointment

Abby had her 6 month doctors appointment yesterday. "Genes are kicking in" according to the pedi, see Abby has been in the 90+percentile for every appointment but not yesterday... she's slowing down. She is now in the 37% for weight and 44% for height... but she has a big head 98%. So hopes for her to be tall like Auntie Sally may be dying.

The pedi also thinks Absters might be an early walker, she pulls up on everything. She scoots across the room on her belly but doesn't really try to crawl yet. He also said her teeth are right below the surface and could pop any day now. I have a feeling when they do all four will show up pretty quickly.

Today we start "Bugs" at The Little Gym, it's an infant/parent class for 4-10 month olds. I'm excited.

Oh and big excitement this morning... Abby waved! Yep, she was taking her bottle when Dave came in the living room and said "Hi" and Abby lifted up her arm and started waving. No it wasn't a strange reflex she's been doing it all morning long when we say "Hi" or "Bye."

New Car

We bought a new car last night. It was very exciting. It's 2009 Pontiac Vibe. We've been car shopping for a while now, Dave drives a 2-door Cavalier. We have definetly outgrown that vehicle. I love the new Vibe, it's a sporty station wagon.

6 Month photos, yes, we are behind

So we finally took some 6 month photos of Abby, this month just got away from us. She wore this headband for about four hours yesterday and never even noticed it. She's the same with all hairbows. I'm not sure what she'll think of the hat I bought her but hopefully the sun will come out for a few hours in the coming days and she'll get a chance to wear it.

And her final shot......

The daycare saga continues

I need to vent, so this is more of a novel than a fun post like most of ours are. Maybe if you make it through the entire thing, I'll reward you with a picture at the end :-)

So, as many of you know, we've been less than pleased with Abby's daycare. We take her to an in home daycare provider that we fell in love with when we first visited. However, as the months progressed many issues cropped up, that just sort of left a sour taste in our mouths. Abby's safety was never an issue, otherwise we would have pulled her immediately. It was more the "little" (although some were medium) things (only changing Abby ONCE in 9 and a half hours, not being awake when I show up to drop Abby off, lying to us about different things, not completely cleaning Abby during a diaper change, having the TV on all too often, giving preferential treatment to other sick kids, forcing us to bring her during the summer, even though our initial agreement said she didn't have to....trust me, the list goes on and on and on).

Over the summer, we agreed to bring Abby one day a week to keep her used to going there so it wouldn't be such a shock when she went back in august. The problem is that we can bring her for 4 hours for $20 or 5 hours for $30. Well, what do you think we chose? Obviously 4 hours. So, the plan was that I would drop her off on fridays at 9:30 so that Peggy could pick her up at 1:30. That way I didn't have to make two complete trips out to Lisa's house (over 30 minutes round trip). That meant over an hour of driving to keep Abby there for 4 hours....totally not worth it. But, if we did this, then Peggy could pick her up, which saved about 10 minutes of driving (since Lisa's house is not really on the way home for Peggy). Still nearly an hour of driving, but not as bad.

Well, Lisa didn't like this idea, because 9:00 is when the other babies go down for their naps. She wants us to bring Abby by 8, meaning I would have to pick her up. So, last night I sent her an email asking if we could bring Abby on mondays instead of fridays. That way, I could just go to school and get some work done while Abby is at daycare (the other chemistry teacher is there on mondays, so in order to get some work done that we need to, it would make sense to be there on mondays).

Of course, she didn't write me back last night. So, I called her cell phone, it was turned off. I called again this morning....cell turned off. This is the same cell phone that we are supposed to call her on if there is some sort of emergency.....yeah, and it's turned off (it's never been turned on when I tried to call it!!!!).

Anywho, so I showed up this morning. Well, she seemed surprised to see me. She told me she got my email last night, but never wrote back. Apparently she didn't think I was "just going to show up." You see, she just took on a new kid, 5 days a week (we'll get back to this in a minute). So, she said she really couldn't take Abby today since she didn't want to have 5 kids on her first day with the new kid (woulda been great if she had emailed me to tell me that! Ugh....instead I drove 35 minutes, the drive there in a complete downpour...)

Then, she said, well I've been meaning to call you anyways. One of the other mothers is pregnant, and will be giving birth in october sometime. So, in november, she wants to send both of her kids to Lisa. That means that there won't be a spot for Abby.

Ok, I can understand that....the mother's other child has been there longer than Abby. HOWEVER, she JUST TOOK ON A NEW KID!!!!!!!!!!!! Why did she just take on a new kid, if she knew this was happening! Why does the new kid get preferential treatment over Abby?!?! UGH!

This is not the first time she has given preferential treatment to another child. Back in january, right after we started, one of the other kids got sick with RSV. Lisa's policy is that no child can go to daycare when they're sick. Well, she didn't follow her own rules (she addmitted this to me after the fact). The kid who had RSV got to go to daycare one day because her mother was out of sick days at work. Lisa felt sorry for her, and took her!!!!! WHAT?!?! It wouldn't have been so bad, but she took her on a wednesday. She closed down to all the other kids to take the sick one. Well, because of that, Lisa wouldn't let Abby go on friday because she thought there were germs still lurking (which there probably were). So, we had to find other care (my parents...thanks again!) because she broke her own rules.

Yet, when Abby got sick a few weeks back, she was completely fine by saturday morning. But, we had to have a doctors note (costed us a $25 copay) in order to take her back, even though she was COMPLETELY FINE for two days before going back to daycare!

As you can see, we've been comletely fed up with Lisa. And this is only the tip of the iceberg.

I know in the end, it will all work out for the best....we were planning on finding someone new this summer anyways because we weren't happy with the care that Abby was getting. But, this just solidified our thoughts about why we wanted to move her in the first place.

And since you made it through this incredibly long and not fun post, here is a sneak peak at one of Abby's 6 month (yes, I know we're behind) pictures to brighten your day!

Abby's first baseball game!

Abby was already tired before we even got to the ballpark!
This was not only Abby's first game, but Peggy's first at the "new" ballpark as well.
Abby had a GREAT time at the game, and did absolutely fantastic. The game didn't start until 7:15, so we were ready for fussing and crabbiness by about the third inning. Well, that just didn't happen. There was so much for her to look at and see, that she was happy almost the entire time.

Sometime midway through the game Pujols hit a two run homerun. With all the noise and fireworks, Abby started to fuss a bit. When she's tired and gets scared by something, she usually doesn't stop crying/fussing until she gets to sleep. But once all the noise stopped, she went back to being her happy self again.
The Cards won Abby's first game, 3-1 over the Reds. We left in the middle of the 8th, when the score was 3-0. Luckily for us, it was a super fast game....only a little over two hours. On the way back to the car, we heard the Reds only run. Just as we were getting to the car, we saw and heard the fireworks, signifying the win. Carpenter pitched a phenomenal complete game. He faced the minimum through 7 and 2/3, assisted by two double plays.
Overall, I would say it was a great game for Abby's first!

Here's Abby and I singing "Take me out to the ballgame"