This week was a momentous week! Annabelle turned 9-months old and then promptly started walking. It’s amazing to me how just one week or even a few days can mark huge changes. Annabelle is developing by leaps and bounds. On Sunday of last week she took just a couple steps on her own and it was really hard for me to say that she was walking on her own but this week, it’s happened for sure and here’s a video to prove it. Love that tongue of hers hanging out!

Our bambino has 5 teeth now (click on the picture below to see her teeth up close).  For the last week or so I could see that she had another tooth getting ready to come in, top and center, but this week it finally broke through. I knew it was coming because she was gnawing on anything she could put her hands on. It’s so crazy (and a bit annoying) how as parents we spend a small fortune on all kinds of baby gear and then what do they do, not use it. Annabelle wants nothing to do with teething rings but would rather be gnawing on one of her socks. And toys, we brought some great toys for her to play with but we’ve found that she’d rather be playing with a plastic Fanta bottle, our laundry and other random things around the apartment.

Oh how I love to hear Annabelle laugh. I think it’s one of the best things; to hear a child laugh and when it’s your own it’s even better. She’s been laughing for a while but in the past month it’s become so much fun to tickle her or toss her in the air and listen to that wonderful sound.

I didn’t mention how Annabelle was sleeping last week just because there were so many factors affecting her sleep; being sick, us waking her up every 4-6 hours for her breathing treatments, and the 7-hour time change. But let’s just say, Dusty and I are exhausted. She goes to bed around 7pm, sleeps until about 11pm (if we’re lucky) and then is waking up every 1.5 to 4 hours and wakes up at 6am. Most nights she’s waking up 4-5 times. This week I’m remembering what it was like when Annabelle was a newborn and we were so sleep deprived. I’m so exhausted that I’ve been taking naps when Annabelle naps and so is Dusty on occasion. I know we should be going to bed when Annabelle goes to bed at 7pm but I’m also trying to adjust to the time change myself so there have been a few nights that I go to bed early and then wake up at midnight wide awake and not able to go back to bed until 3am.

We’ve tried to have her cry it out a time or two but we’re a little hesitant to let her cry at the top of the lungs for long periods of time when we don’t know our neighbors and it’s an old building so I’m sure the walls are thin. (Last year at our old place, a week or so after we arrived there was a note on our door asking that we not stomp around the apartment late at night. It was me, getting up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, being 7 months pregnant and not so light on my feet).

In addition to this, the apartment is so small and there isn’t a door to our bedroom that when she cries we can really hear her cry. Waiting it out is torturous when I know nursing her for a minute and laying her back down will enable us to go back to sleep. Tonight we’re moving her crib to the wall farthest from any of our neighbors (and farthest from our bedroom) and we’re doing some sleep training because Dusty and I can’t survive this much longer.

A quick note, one night of letting her cry for 30 minutes and then crying again when she woke up a second time has solved all of our problems.  She’s remembered that she can sleep through the night!  In fact, I think she might be sleeping better than she did when we were at home.

And here are some other Annabelle updates that aren’t so cute, she likes biting us, pulling our hair, and climbing on things. Dusty and I have said “no” to Annabelle more this past week than we have since she’s been born. With all of her newfound teeth, she’s biting us, and it hurts! I mentioned a couple weeks ago that she’s working on giving us kisses and now they’ve turned into kisses that end with a bite to the face! And there’s hair pulling. She’s so good at picking things up now that it’s not just toys that she wants to grab.

And then there’s the climbing. Being in a new apartment meant that it took us a couple of days to baby proof everything and even with the baby proofing we still can’t stop her from trying to climb on and then stand up on the coffee table. We can’t decide if the climbing is because there are things in the apartment that are low enough to the ground that she can do it (we don’t have these kinds of things at home–at least not this low to the ground) or if it’s just that time in her life where she’s climbing on everything. I’m quite positive it’s the latter but I wonder if it would have started sooner if we had more things she could climb onto at home. I can tell you there is more baby proofing that will be done when we get back to Omaha now that she can walk and is such a good climber!

Annabelle’s outfit and shoes came from Paris H&M.  It says, “I am a little mouse” in French! And she’s not wearing her shoe because if we didn’t give her something to chew on she wasn’t interested in sitting still for a picture!