Irene

Hurricane Irene comes to NJ so the Barker family heads to VA. Thankfully, there are no hurricanes expected here! Our first day consisted iof a lot of driving, which Eloise wanted to help with.


We also played with our big cousins and learned about sharing (which apparently doesn't come naturally).



The rest if the visit flew by! We watched Rio (sorta) and took a drive up the mountain for lunch. We also took Eloise to a really nice toy store in Charlottesville. We were able to pick some stuff out to give to her for her birthday. She is going to get her first playmobile!! Julian is especially excited about that! She also is now a full time crawler! It's been a good visit but I'm ready to head home to assess the damage from Irene.


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9 months

Wow! Baby girl, you are growing up so fast!! You grew in my belly for 9 months and you have officially been on the 'outside' fir 9 months. Time is flying by. I am enjoying every moment with you and can't get enough of you these days. I find myself sneaking into your nursery while you're sleeping just to get a good look at your beautiful face. I feel like this past month you have really gone from baby to little girl. You love exploring and making others laugh.

Here are some other things this month has brought us...
- clapping! You clap to music or just because you're happy! It's fun to watch you clap and you love doing it. Sometimes when you wake up in the middle of the night, you start clapping to distract me from trying to get you back to sleep!!
- you cut one front tooth. It was a rough week with that tooth, but it's finally through. Now we are waiting on the other front tooth.
- you dance!! Along with the clapping you move around to music. It's SO cute.
- You can go from being on your stomach to sitting. You actually became a pro at this in 2 days. Now all you want to do is sit. When you wake up from your napa, you immediately sit up. Sometimes, it's been a short nap so I don't cone get you right away, and you'll fall asleep in a sitting position.








- you can pull to standing! Yikes this one scares me. You are still very wobbly, but you'll use anything to pull up. You aren't a pro and have only done it once without assistance.
- you can crawl for a second before you go back to belly scooting.
- you sleep through the night on occasion
- you splash in the bath
- you like to be goofy and make people laugh. You think it'd hilarious to steal my glasses off my face. Your other 'go to' to make others laugh is putting a spoon in your mouth








You are the best! So silly and happy! You fill us with so much joy and I can't wait to watch you grow up!

Dr. Appointment stats:
16lbs 7oz
27 inches long
Start two solid snacks with three meals
Three teeth in and three are coming in
Cut down to Nursing 3-4x a day

Eloise at 1 month:

Eloise at 2 months:

Eloise at 3 months:

Eloise at 4 months:

Eloise at 5 months:

Eloise at 6 months:

Eloise at 7 months:

Eloise at 8 months:

Eloise at 9 months:

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I crafted!!

I was at the craft store with my mom picking out supplies for her to make Eloise's Halloween costume, when I got the motivation to buy something and craft. I wanted to start simple (considering that first grade crafting is all I have done the past four years. And before that it was all sorority crafts). So I bought two foam wreath forms, a hot glue gun and some felt. I borrowed/stole yarn from my mom (a known yarn hoarder) and off I went.


There it is! My fall creation. I wish I had done one big one instead two mini's but I'll figure out something to do with them. Easy, peasy, rice and cheesy. I'm excited to craft more for fall!! I already have about a billion and one crafts I want to do for Halloween, so let's see what else I can accomplish! Yay for fall crafts!!


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To accomplish before Christmas

Christmas seems miles away, but in reality 9 months just flew right by me without even a thought. So, I'm pretty sure Christmas will be here way too soon. Since Eloise was born I feel like I have not done much except read books about getting more sleep and make baby food.

So, in the spirit of trying to be productive, I am coming up with things I want to accomplish by Christmas.

*start an exercise routine*
Obviously with little miss's sleeping habits being so up and down it's hard to commit. Mama needs 8 hours to function, let alone workout. But, if she sleeps through the night (which she does do sometimes, when the mood strikes her) I need to workout. I have to get in good shape before I ruin it again with a little brother, mkay?

*do some crafts*
I don't just read blogs for fun- they are EDUCATIONAL and full of craft ideas. I have bookmarked at least a dozen or so and it would be fun to get a-craftin'. There's a Halloween pennant and a cake stand, and a sweater pillow..... You get the idea.

* clean my closet *
this is a prime offender of my to-do lists. And it never gets done. I used to pay friends cash money to do this awful task: true story. But, this whole 'not going back to work' thing doesn't lend itself to paying your friends to be your slave. So I'll man up and do it myself. Eventually. Before Christmas. Probably.

Good start. Let's see if I can workout, craft and clean before Christmas


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sleep (or lack thereof)

What mom doesn't think about sleep 24/7? The first thing people ask when they see you, "how's she been sleeping?" If Julian and I had our way, we would be sleeping from 9pm-8am every night. We both LOVE our sleep. Eloise's sleep habits have been so up and down, I never know which way we are going. Sometimes I feel that she is an amazing sleeper and I am so happy with our situation and then the next day I feel like I am the worst mom ever because she isn't sleeping well. But, I have come to realize that sleeping through the night doesn't determine whether or not you are a good mom. Some babies do, some babies don't. I have read pretty much EVERY SINGLE BOOK about baby sleep. I was very into "Attachment Parenting" and agreed with most everything Dr. Sears had discussed in his books. I agree with breastfeeding for a year, baby wearing, responding to your babies cries immediately. But, once Eloise hit a certain age, I started to believe she didn't need to be responded to as quickly anymore. So then I have Dr. Ferber and Dr. Weissbluth. I tried Dr. Ferber's progressive waiting approach and it just never worked for us because I can't go in every couple of minutes and watch my baby crying and not pick her up. It just doesn't feel right, and I feel like whatever path I choose it needs to feel right in my heart. So, that got thrown out the window. Then we have Dr. Weissbluth. His book is AMAZING. I really enjoyed reading about when nap time should be AND WHY and how to deal with sleep problems and he gives great advice and different tips for your different situations. My sister in law gave me this book and all of her kids are great sleepers. My only problem is I can't put Eloise down for a nap/bed awake. She will scream cry, and as I said before, leaving her screaming/crying doesn't feel right to me. No matter how many doctors/moms talk about how 'extinction' works and it won't harm the baby, I just can't do it. So I rock/nurse her to sleep and it takes about 15-20 minutes and then I lay her down and leave. She is a great napper and will take her two naps (she was taking three until recently) at 9 am and around 1pm. I have no problem rocking her before naps. I know many people would be sick of the rocking but "babies don't keep". She won't be this little forever and I want to cherish the time she actually wants to be rocked as long as possible. Sooner or later I will have to give it up, probably with some crying involved. I will wait until it feels right, though. Anyway, So with naptime, we rock and she sleeps. Usually she sleeps about an hour to an hour and a half per nap.

Now, bedtime. UGH. Most nights Eloise will fall asleep early (especially because she has given up her third nap). 6-630pm and we are doing bedtime routine. I felt bad about how early I was putting her to sleep but Dr. Weissbluth recommends an early bedtime (between 6-8) when the third nap is gone. So, every other night she gets a bath to start the night off right :). When there is no bath we still do a massage with lotion, I turn down the lights, we rock and I nurse. She will usually fall asleep nursing (which Dr. Weissbluth says is OK) and I'll wait about 15 minutes and then lay her down. Some nights she will sleep from 630-5!!!! But, that is rare. Most nights she gets up at least once. I have made a decision that the first time she wakes up (around 12-1) I will go to her and nurse her back to sleep. After that I turn off the volume on my monitor and try to ignore any crying. It seemed to work last night but things change. I guess we will see how she does if I keep this up. I just have to remember that as long as do what feels right at least I can say I tried my best with what I had.