Trick'o'Treat

Audrey's first Halloween is here, and for those that were wondering, she is dressing up as a monkey.  I found a flower hair clip that I put on the ear of the monkey costume to make it clear that she is a girl monkey.  She wore the costume last night to go on her first Halloween outing with the Dippel's, which we attended a wedding in Kansas City.  Audrey seemed to enjoy the evening, and was completely worn out by the end of the night. 

In addition to her first Halloween, Audrey had her first Mizzou homecoming experience (which you can see from the pictures).  She got to see the Phi Mu house where I spent my wonderful college years.  She also got to see some of the House Decorations and the Mizzou homecoming parade.  She was quite interested in the marching bands at first, but then found the beads Jennee was wearing, and decided those were more interesting.  This trip was also Audrey's first experience staying in a hotel.  She did well, although I wouldn't let her crawl around on the floor.  Needless to say, she couldn't wait to get down on the floor and move around when we got home Sunday! 

She's Almost Mobile!

It is almost time to baby-proof the house.  She is working so hard to get those hands and knees working in sync.  Watch the attached video to see her crawling. 

Science Experiment

We started Audrey's first science experiment yesterday.  It is a biology project that started when we were visiting Greenville this weekend.  I have an orange tree that my mom takes care of, and she found an interesting orange on it last week.  The orange had a leaf growing out of it!  So, she picked the orange and gave it to us to bring home and plant for Audrey.  We also found a couple of other oranges on the tree that had sprouts growing in them, too.

Last night, we opened the three oranges and found a total of 5 sprouted seeds.  We planted all of them and are hopeful that at least one grows into a beautiful orange tree for our baby girl!

Off the Charts

Today was Audrey's six month checkup at the doctor.  She is keeping up, if not ahead of the curve, developmentally.  She is sitting up on her own, rolls back and forth, and can even get herself up onto her hands and knees.  She hasn't started crawling yet, but who is in a hurry for her to do that?  She also started clapping last week.  When the doctor entered the room today, Audrey clapped for her.

Audrey is also continuing to get closer to speaking.  Right now, the only word she says is "mama."  I am not sure that she knows what it means, but she does say it a lot.  I don't really care if she knows, it still makes my heart melt every time she says it. 

Her diet of milk has been keeping her healthy and growing.  She is now 17 lbs 8 oz and 28 inches long.  She is so long, in fact, that she is litterally off the chart for her age.  She is in the 80th percentile for weight.  And because she is growing so well, we get to start her on baby food.  Tonight, she will dine on sweet potatoes for the first time.  We will also be able to start giving her a sippy cup of water to drink.  I can't believe we are already reaching this milestone! 

We are keeping very busy with Billy working on school and because it is a busy time for me at work right now.  We are trying to make sure that we don't let all of these fun times pass us by.  It is so nice to sit down with Audrey and let her try to pull herself up on me, or just watch her squirm around trying to get her hands and knees to coordinate enough to crawl.  We are so blessed to have her. She is sitting on her blanket smiling at me right now; I guess I had better go so I can play with her. 

Explosive Poo

That's right; it is a reason for celebration when we get through the day without any explosive poo.  For approximately 2 weeks now, Audrey has been coming home from daycare every day in her extra change of clothes.  At first, it was a little funny; however, cleaning the poo off of the clothes and pre-treating them for the washer is getting old.  Cleaning up clothes daycare sends home is nothing though, especially compared to getting first-hand experience with the poo explosions.  

We have had a few explosive poos in the past, but as she gets bigger and eats more, Audrey's poos get more explosive and yuckier.  Last weekend, we went to the Lake of the Ozarks to go to the boat races.  If you look at the pictures, you'll notice a bunch of different outfits.  That is because of the constant poo leakages that lead to wardrobe changes. We took a long weekend and drove home last Monday. We cleaned up explosive poo a couple of times at the lake house and twice on my parent's boat.   On the way home, my parents had some issues with the truck, and eventually decided to pull over at a Ford dealership in O'Fallon, MO so they could take a look at the truck.  When we got there, I decided to take Audrey out of her car seat for a little bit to let her stretch her legs.  When I picked her up, I could smell it.  I turned her around, and sure enough, she had a large yellow-brown spot in the middle of her back.  It has leaked out of the top of the diaper and through the onesie and the pants. 

With 6 months of parenting and diaper-changing experience, we are proficient with curbside diaper changes.  Explosive poo, however, throws even the most experienced diaper aficionados for a loop.  The back of the car was full of our bags and Audrey's pack'n'play, so we had to change her on the back seat.  My mom took the dogs to walk them around so we didn't have the added element of curious dogs sticking their noses in the poo explosion. 

If you've ever had to face explosive poo, you know that it works best to clean up the baby with two people.  My mom and I had perfected the routine over the weekend, but Billy wanted to help out this time. So, I held the baby while he undressed her.  Removing poo-covered articles of clothing from a baby is sort of like playing Operation; the goal is to avoid touching the baby with the poo-soaked parts of the clothes while you pull the pants off of her legs and the onesie over her head.  Unfortunately, the 20 mph wind gusts and cramped quarters on the car seat were not conducive to a clean clothing removal.  The poo was smeared up Audrey's back and all over her arm. 

I didn't even know how to begin to wipe her off.  My mom had a washcloth and some water, but it wasn't enough.  We needed running water.  So, we wrapped Audrey, now in only a diaper, in a blanket and walked across the Ford parking lot and around the building to find a bathroom.  Then, we basically bathed her in the sink at the Ford dealership.  She came out of that bathroom clean and happy, and I found a plastic bag to keep the smelly clothes sealed for the remainder of the car ride home.

Then, last Wednesday, Audrey came home from daycare in the backup outfit I had sent with her that morning.  We had church that night, and after I fed her, hopped in the care and hit the road.  I did not put another change of clothes in her back.  When I went to pick her up in the nursery after our classes, Audrey was wearing a dress, pants, and sweater that were at least 3 sizes too big.  I don't think my uncontrollable laughing was what the nursery person was expecting upon my arrival.   

With that experience, we decided to move up to the next larger diaper size.  I definitely thought the size 3 diapers were the solution, until yesterday.  We were planning to go to the last service at church, so we decided to run some errands before-hand.  When we got to Target, we discovered...what else but explosive poo!  For the next 15 minutes we took over the family restroom at the Target in Brentwood and managed to clean up the baby, and save her cute little pink dress and white tights from permanent discoloration. 

Audrey, we love you, but enough with the explosive poo already!