2014!

We got to ring in the New Year for our baby girl!  Welcome to 2014!  Cordelia is 7 months old and adorable!  She can scoot around in a circle on the floor and also go backwards.  She can push up, but not lift up her butt.  She loves to play with toys, and on stuffed animals and blankets her favorite thing is .... the tag!  On her wacky dog, she loves to gum the tag to death.

Sleep training was a bust.  Cordelia can cry for over an hour.  Cry it out was not my plan, but I felt like we were never giving her the chance to put herself to sleep if we always picked her up.  They say some babies will cry for 15 minutes... half an hour... an hour.... no.  Cordelia would sometimes quiet for a moment, giving me hope, but then she cried for over an hour and a half.  Or she just screamed if I sat with her, but wasn't picking her up.  It was hell for all involved.  She seems to be having separation anxiety and crying even if we move out of sight and too far away from her.  So no progress forward, even a step back.  We are now co sleeping.  She starts the night in her bed.  But when she wakes up, I just put her in our bed.  And then: she sleeps.  She sleeps all night.  She doesn't ask to nurse.  She just sleeps, in comfort, in warmth, in the safety of being with mommy.  So this is the turning point.  Sleeping through the night, but in our bed.  So hopefully she will start doing it in her bed. (yeah right, I know!)  Months from now, we will be struggling to get her out of our bed.  We are trading one "bad" habit for another.  But it is what feels right to both me and Jason.  In the days we were focusing on her sleep so much, we were all becoming really stressed.  She was not her usual happy self.  We weren't playing as much, because we were trying to start bed and nap routines earlier.  And the minute she would start to sleepy, she would start to fight it, scared to go to sleep on her own.  The last two days she has also had a bit of a runny nose, thanks to me.

Yesterday, I swear she saw a picture of Jason on the wall and recognized it as Daddy. He was at work, but she got SO EXCITED about the picture.  Was it the frame? Could she see her reflection?  I think she saw Daddy and was happy to see him!