The Major Milestones of Month Six (August 2014)

Month six was chock-full of developmental surprises for Cambria!  There was sitting up, rolling over, sleep training and an introduction to solids.  Wow.  I just realized I am *that* mom--the mom that gets excited about that kind of stuff and posts it incessantly all over social media.  I have arrived.

Okay, so these photos are more like 6 1/2 months but we were on vacation.  Again.  Lighting.  Terrible.  Still learning to compensate when I take photos.  I'll probably knock the socks off of her 7 month shoot.

Here is a peek at Cambria's "Quad Cousins" when Cambria turned six months old:

I think this collage captures their personalities so well.   Julie (top left) is so happy!  Like the happiest baby you will ever meet.  And she has the cutest high-pitched giggle.  Cambria (top right)?  Stinkerpants.  Love that sly little mischievous girl.  Whitney (bottom left) is the sweeeeeeeeeeeetest girl and just exudes joy from her head to her toes.  Her whole body wiggles when she is excited about something.  And Ian (bottom right) is the cool kid at school.  Super chill.  Extra easy-going.  He just rolls with life.

Cambria's personality is becoming more pronounced as the days go by.  She is super chill about letting other people hold her or playing with other kids (unless she is tired).  She just sits there and does her own thing.  Cambria doesn't necessarily get all super smiley or giggly with others and she is not much for interacting with anyone besides Mommy and Daddy.  She is pretty independent in that regard.

Cambria usually has a "sound of the week."  The month of August saw motor boating (for lack of a better term), coughing, loud sniffing through her scrunched up nose, and back to gargling.

Cambria still has her signature look: "Concerned Cambria."  People remark on it all the time.  She is very observant and when she is watching you, she furrows her brow and narrows her eyes.  Laurie mentioned that Andrew was the same way when he was a baby.

Cambria is a riot in the morning!  She wakes us up by playing in her crib and laughing to herself and then keeps up the show throughout the day.

Like Mommy, Cambria likes to do things on a schedule.  Don't mess with that girl's nap time!  Cambria likes her sleep.  If we wait too long to put her down, she becomes super cranky.  That is pretty much the only time she gets fussy.

When Cambria is tired, she covers her face.  She will use my shirt or any loose fabric within arm's reach.  If she has a little trouble winding down for a nap, I let her play with her bunny for a couple of minutes until she is relaxed enough to go to sleep.  I just go in to the nursery quickly and take it away.  Usually I find her like this:

And usually it gives me a heart attack.

Cambria sat in a high chair for the first time (August 12) when we were on vacation in Washington.  We went out for lunch a few times and it was nice to have her out of our laps while we were eating since she lunges for our food now.

We finally started Cambria on solids on August 15.  We made her a little rice cereal and let her drink water from a cup.  She was pretty thrilled to try something new!  I hadn't had a chance to buy a highchair for Cambria (too lazy!) and so we used her excersaucer for the first couple of days.  Good idea: dinner and a show.  Bad idea: dinner and a show.

I introduced pears on August 18 and then Cambria introduced us to her "bitter beer face."  I gave up on those after a few tries and switched to squash with much better results.

I realized on August 16 that Cambria had been sitting up a bit on the floor and I hadn't bothered to write down exactly when it happened.  One day, we were laying her down on the floor to play and the next we were sitting her up to play.  A little anticlimactic.

Cambria was a little out of sorts when we got back from our vacation.  She started waking up two or three times after going down at bedtime and then would wake up around midnight, 3:00 AM, 5: 00 AM, 6:15 AM and be up for the day.  With those bad sleeping patterns came tiny tantrums.  I noticed that Cambria would whine and kick her legs when she was unhappy and push away her toys when she didn't want to play with them.  Uh oh.  I can't handle tantrums.  Sleep training to the rescue!

Cambria had her six month doctor's visit on August 18.  Daddy was able to come with us!  Cambria weighs 21 pounds and 12 1/2 ounces (the big question) and is 27 1/2 inches long.

On August 20, we took Cambria to Andrew's school.  Dr. Davis had asked us to bring Cambria in to video her growth and development for the Pediatric Physical Therapy class she was teaching in the Fall.  As Dr. Davis worked with Cambria, she gave us some ideas to help her roll over.

On August 21, Andrew and I gathered our courage and committed ourselves to letting Cambria cry to sleep at night.  We discussed it at length and decided that at each awake cycle, we would wait five minutes before going in to comfort Cambria, make sure she was swaddled, give her a paci, and tell her we loved her (thirty second intervention).  After ten minutes, we would repeat the intervention and so on every ten minutes until she went back to sleep.

That night, Cambria woke up three times after going to bed initially but put herself back to sleep before the five minute mark.  We had a cycle at 11:00 and another at 3:00 that lasted 30-40 minutes before she fell back asleep.  It was challenging and neither one of us does very well with letting her cry but we felt like we made a lot of progress that night.

The next night Cambria slept soundly from 6:45 to 4:30.  We helped her back to sleep and she awoke again at 5:30 but put herself back to sleep.

On night three Cambria awoke once after going down but put herself back to sleep.  She was awake intermittently from 2:30 to 5:30 but happy.  Andrew did go in to swaddle her once because all that playing in the crib left her tangled up in her sheets.

The fourth night Cambria woke up but immediately went back to sleep four times throughout the night.

About a week and a half after sleep training began (August 31), Cambria eliminated even those brief wake ups and was sleeping straight through the night.

Sleep training was definitely a challenge for us to commit to but we knew that if we were wishy-washy in our approach, we wouldn't be able to help Cambria learn better sleep habits.  It was easier than I thought it would be because the improvement was so immediate.  And it left Andrew and I wondering why we hadn't tried it sooner.  As a bonus, Cambria started sleeping for longer stretches at nap time as well.  Sometimes her morning nap is over an hour and most afternoons I can get a nice long 1 1/2 to 2 hour nap out of her.

We put Cambria in some warmer jammies in case she wiggled her way out of her double swaddle in the night.  She thought her "feetsie pajamas" were pretty entertaining.

Cambria is learning something new every time we turn around these days.  On August 21, I took her early in the morning on a quick run to Walmart.  In her pajamas.  Just keepin' it classy.  She sat in the front of the cart and loved it!  She was able to look around and see everyone and everything.  It was pretty exciting.

On August 23, Cambria rolled from her belly to her back on the left side.  Finally!!!

Cambria loves to sing to herself.  It's darling.  On August 25, I decided to "sing back" to her and we went back and forth for a bit.  It was so cute.

A little time at the swimming pool in the summertime is always a good idea.  Thankfully, the pool at our complex will be open for a few more weeks.

Baby Thug Life

Cambria has gotten a little grabby lately

We are enjoying Saturday mornings at the Farmer's Market still.  Yummy Fall produce is in abundance there as well as the people-watching.

We have recaptured our social life a bit, too.  We watched the BYU football game with Clay and Jess Shorter's family on August 29.  Cambria stayed up until 7:45 and then we put her down in a pack and play until 9:30.  It felt liberating!

Andrew is back in school and we both miss having him free in the evenings to hang out with us.  Cambria especially misses all of the time he spent reading her books.

Cambria is so loved by our Primary children.  On Sunday, August 31, we sat down in our pew before sacrament meeting and she was immediately swarmed by the Mannings in front of us, the Binghams behind us and Ashleigh and Julia Randolph from the side.  They adore her!  We are so grateful to be surrounded by such good friends.