Aylin 12 months

So this blog is slightly late... and I haven't posted sine Christmas. :) So i'll do the best I can to fill in the gaps.

Aylin had a fabulous 1st birthday. She got all kinds of fun stuff from the family. We got a big girl car seat, lots of fun bath toys, clothes, shoes, we also got her portraits done on her birthday. Which turned out wonderfully! We got some great pictures, that captured a glimpse of that great personality she's got. :D We also enjoyed hanging out at Nana's for our birthday celebration, and got to enjoy a cupcake! At first she stuck a finger in the frosting, and looked up at me like "Eeewww, Momma what did you give me?" the I put that finger in her mouth and that was all it took. She went to town, demolished and consumed almost the entire cupcake. And since mom and dad weren't thinking about the time, and the effects of sugar, we all ended up staying up until after 10pm (she started on the cupcake around 6:45 after dinner). We also got lots of great pictures from that fun event. Then she was promptly tossed (not literally) into the bathtub at Nana's, because she was a MESS!

She is on the verge of walking. 2 days ago she took 2 big steps free of help from Nana's coffee table to the couch. Then did the same thing that night at home. That seems to be the max for now, is a step or 2 on our own. Then we plop down on our butt and crawl off. She is SUPER fast at crawling, she can zoom across the house in no time. She'll race you to the dog food, or to anywhere she knows she isn't supposed to be. And probably some place you just took her away from. She keeps her daddy hopping during the day. Thankfully the weather lately has been lovely. So they have been able to get out in the sunshine and play some. She wasn't too sure about crawling in the grass at first (probably partly because it's dry and harsh feeling because it's not the new spring grass yet). But she loves to "throw" the ball for the dogs. She can't throw it far, but she loves it when they get all worked up and bark.

She "talks" a LOT. She doesn't know many words yet, we're limited to mama, dada, no or na (NO), nie-nie (night-night) and sometimes she associates beda (Bela), and sometimes I could swear she's saying "HEY!" she also does a gurgly hiss sound whenever she see's a cat! The rest is just gibber jabber, but it's super cute, and a lot of fun to listen to. She also occasionally yells at us... which is interesting. Not sure what to do with that yet, because she doesn't really understand yet that she's not supposed to yell at momma and daddy.

We currently have 5 teeth, and are working on #6 (and possibly 7). She has top and bottom middle two, and her right eye tooth, and working on the left eyetooth. Also under the gums and possible soon to come is the next after the eye tooth on the right side. Makes for an awfully cute little grin!

She's 100% on whole milk now (Praise God we don't have to buy formula any more!!!!!) the transition wasn't too bad. She mostly takes it well once it's warmed up. She is also eating a lot of table food now. She always eats table food at dinner time, weather it's what we are having, or something a little more kid-with-little-to-no-teeth friendly. She loves pancakes, stuffing, sweet potatoes, mixed veggies, mashed potatoes, bread, biscuits, crossants, fruit, cheese, eggs, rice, bits of pizza and pizza crust, and last night she got her first taste of chicken nuggets! We're trying to get creative with things that we can make that she can eat. So i got some of the chicken nuggets that are fully cooked and are "ground meat formed into nuggets"... perfect for a little munchkin. We also got some mac-n-cheese, baked beans, and easy rice dishes. We'll see how it all works out.

We had to go through a cry it out phase to get her sleeping at night. She got to be more and more difficult to get down at night, and no amount of cuddling, rocking, bottle, or anything else would get her down easily. So a few nights of crying it out and sure enough, we're sleeping easily (most nights). Except for when those teeth are cutting thru, and then we have a rough time. But over all we're sleeping good these days... like last night the house got 9 1/2 to 10hrs of sleep! WaHOO!

Aylin got to have her 1st crafty experience last weekend. She was bored, and we didn't have anything to resolve the bordom, so I got a piece of paper, and taped it to her highchair tray, and gave her 2 crayola washable markers. She went to town, absolutely loved it. Of course she put the markers in her mouth, and got them all over herself... But that's why they're non-toxic, and washable!

She also had her 1st park experience w. daddy, Aunt Laura, and Gentry on Friday afternoon. She got to swing on the swings, and LOVED IT (so sad I missed it tho...) Jeff got a really great picture mid air of her face, and it's priceless! Wasn't too sure what to think about the slide yet. But I'm sure that will become more fun as time goes by.

We have been so blessed by family and friends over the last few months. We are so thankful for each and everyone of you in our lives. These last few months have been rough, but I can't imagine what life would be like without the help and love of each and everyone of you. Thank you for your prayers and support. We love you all.

The Melton Clan

Aylin - 10 months, 1st Christmas & New Year

At 10 months Aylin is ALL OVER the place. The start of crawling at 9 months opened the floodgates for all kinds of mobility. She started pulling up on furniture hardly a week after she started crawling. Now she's all over the house. She gets quite angry when she's confined to the living room with a baby gate and she has her sights on somewhere else in the house. She heads straight for the dog food, or a cord of any kind if it's in sight. She's starting to get the hang of standing on her own. Just today she pulled up on my leg and let go and stood there for about a minute before she flapped her arms, excited about something and then lost her balance and plopped down on her butt. I don't think it will be too terribly long before she's testing out walking!

She also eats table food pretty regularly now. It still isn't a huge part of her diet, but she wants to try big girl food any time Jeff & I are eating. So after she's had her afternoon bottle and baby food. She also gets to have table food while we eat dinner. I think it's more about her wanting to do what momma and daddy are doing than anything. But it's good for her to learn how to handle the new tastes and textures. She gets to eat almost everything we have for dinner, unless it's stuff that she really needs teeth for. She really loved the turkey pot pie over biscuits we had the other night. All kinds of yummy noises (lip smacking, NOM NOM, MMMs, and excited squeals)!!

Christmas Morning! We had to wake Aylin up (probably one of the only years for many to come that we will have to do that!). Once we all got breakfast (and momma finished wrapping a few toys) we piled all of Aylin's toys into the living room. At first the un-wrapping was fun, and we wanted to eat all of the paper. But we soon got bored with it so momma had to help. We also wanted to play with each toy we opened if you could see the toy from the box around it. So it was a slow un-wrapping process, but we had lots of fun. She received all sorts of fun clothes and more cloth diapers! She also got LOTS of fun toys. In no particular order she got: a Vtech sit to stand walk behind toy, A Giant soft teddy bear, a Busy Activity Center Cube, a Leap Frog Learn & Groove music activity table, A Ball Popper, Veggie Tales movies, Winnie the Pooh movie, a Shapes & Colors Farm, a Juke Box music toy, and probably other's that I am forgetting because they are all strewn about the house! :D The child is not lacking in things to keep her occupied.

For Aylin New Years Eve wasn't anything much different from a regular day. However after being down to bed for an hour she woke up wailing. Our only thought is that something scared her. It took about 10 minutes of momma and daddy both trading off trying to calm her down. She was quite histerical. Once she finally calmed back down then we were wide awake (at 10pm) and wanted to play. So she stayed up for another 30 minutes or so when she started crashing again and went back to bed.

Jeff & I stayed up until midnight-ish being nerds, watching TV and surfing the inter-webs. I enjoyed a little champagne and made a cream cheese cheese ball & taco salad. This year we actually made it to midnight, where last year my pregnant body couldn't make it. :)

I am curious to see what this year has in store. Where will God lead us? What new things will we experience? A few things we are looking forward to: Aylin's 1st birthday, Our 5th wedding anniversary, Brad & Kristi's wedding, just to name a few...

Aylin 7 months, and Reflections

The last 2 weeks have brought with them a lot of changes to our lives. About 3 weeks ago I interviewed for a Replenishment Analyst position at Walmart. A week ago this past Thursday I was made an offer and promptly accepted. This is a big step for me, but brings with it lots of changes for our family. I will now be management, and not hourly. So I will be required to work longer hours. As well as 1 Saturday morning a month. This also means more income for our family. In addition it means that I see my daughter less.

In amongst the big job change, we also are transitioning Aylin to staying home with daddy. The daycare has been gracious enough to let us stretch out our already paid for month, into next month and move her to part time on Tues/Thurs thru 10/15. This means Jeff has Aylin at home Mon/Wed/Fri. This was our first week, and things went fantastic. This also means that I don't get to see my daughter as much because I don't get to spend my lunch break with her. But she seems to be doing so much better at home with daddy, than in daycare. She takes better naps, I think she may even be eating better (it's hard to tell), and most importantly; she gets to spend good quality time with daddy. With this change, Grandma Adrienne/Aunt Melinda/Granny (Virginia) have volunteered to watch Aylin when work comes up for him that is either not on a Tues/Thurs, or once we are no longer part time at daycare. (THANKS GUYS!!!) This will be a huge help, and we are very thankful for their willingness.

We have, as most people in the present economy, found ourselves financially unstable. So far we have managed things well, but we never seem to know where that next chunk of money is going to come from that will keep us from disaster. But He has been faithful! Either work for Jeff has come available right in time, or like this past week: I received a check from Walmart from their associate in critical need fund. I had never thought that I would have been a candidate for the fund, I assumed this was for people worse off than myself. However I was highly encouraged to apply. The fund is designed to help an associate cover mortgage, or utilities in circumstances exactly like ours (any many others too). All I had to do was fill out a form, provide copies of the bills, and 4 days later I had a check. Praise God! It was just in time for the mortgage, and also allowed us to fill our propane tank for the winter!

I have also had the unfortunate experience of seeing the ugly side of people once again. Which always seems to be so hard on me, becaues I tend to always try to find the good in people. But I saw the ugliest side of my boss yesterday. I had been told by my boss that if I finished a very important (import) project by the end of this past week then they would release me to my new job starting Monday. So all week long I worked my tail off, recruited help outside of my department, and managed to get the task complete by 3pm Thursday. I sent my celebratory and FYI this project is complete email. In addition to calling my boss since she was not at the office. She told me first thing Friday morning she would talk to my new boss and see about getting me switched over. I was also supposed to go and meet my new team at 9am Friday. So in the time that I was using the Mother's room immediately before the meeting, and then the 1 hr team meeting that I attended my current boss (who sits next to me) sent me an email that told me my new start date would be 10/10... no explination just 1 sentense. So I gave her the benefit of a doubt and thought OK maybe she means thats when I won't be tansitioning any more and I won't be asked to help train their new person after that date. I waited for a bit to see if I could discuss with her in person. But she was no where to be found. So I emailed her and asked if that meant transition, or what? Then I left to use the restroom. In that time (2 minutes?) she came back responded to my email, no your start date is 10/10, and was gone again... so then I was mad. I had been promised one thing, and now it was not happening, and I felt like I was being used. So I wait impatiently for her to get back to her desk so we could discuss. She finally returns and is promptly on her phone... see a pattern yet? I'm being avoided. So once she is finally off her phone I ask her; "So what's the story here?", she responds: "What do you mean?". I explained that she had told me if I completed the project that she would release me to work with my new team. She looks at me blank and said: "I never made that commitment, I'm sorry if you got that impression, but that's not what I said"... WOW I was blown away! I told her that actually that was what she said, and that I worked my ass off to get the project done because of it. Then I was told "Well that's what is expected of you any how", to which I responded "I realize that, but I would never have recruited the help outside of my department to complete it, if I hadn't been told to get it done in that time frame. Because it would not have been necesary if I was going to be around for another 2 weeks I could have completed it on my own. To this she responded "I really don't appreciate this attidute after all that I've done for you"... Again WOW I felt like she had just thrown it in my face that she had assisted me in the right contacts to help me apply for the position I am going to, but I also felt that she was throwing in my face her help in the check that I received for assistance. It was just rotten all the way around! I was also told that she had to look out for the interest of her team, and that she needed me to be around to train the new person... the new person whom she wasn't even sure if she would be starting Monday or not. I explained to her that there wasn't much in the way of training that I could do in 2 weeks for someone (who may or may not be around) who did not have access to our systems, and was not familiar with them already. But that doesn't matter, because I'm pretty sure she hadn't even thought of it before I brought it up. Somewhere after our confrontation she decided to "see what she could do to move me over to management for this Monday, but I could come over for 1/2 days to help train when the new associate started". Who knows if it actually happened or not, because at this point I obviously don't trust anything that comes out of her mouth. Needless to say I can't wait to start my new position. It would not have been such a huge deal if she just wan't able to make the change happen, and just told me that... But she told me she never made that promise in the first place, like she had no intention of even trying! People can be so horrible some times!

Now on to happier things: AYLIN!

She is now 7 months old. She sits up beautifully on her own. She has 2 teeth! Both on the bottom, the first arrived Labor Day weekend, the second started about a week later. We think that she is starting to know that mama is me, and dada is Jeff. Alto she has multiple associations for mama and dada. She makes the most hilarious wounded dinosaur noises. She'll growl and gurgle really low sounds from the back of her throat really loud, but they are happy sounds! She CHEWS on EVERYTHING, she especially loves glasses (like the ones on daddy's face). She loves to be out and about, Walmart, the mall, the fair, anywhere there are new people she loves it. She's eating babyfoods with meats in them, but doesn't much care for the chicken and noodles kind. We got very mad over that one. She does like the sweet potatoes and turkey, and spagetti w. meat. She also LOVES her baby mum mum rice crackers and her veggie flavored corn puffs. She's also learning to use a sippy cup. She loves it, even tho she makes a mess and hasn't quite figured it out yet. We usually give her pedialyte in it and she'll kind of play with it. But she loves anything that she can do on her own (rice crackers and sippy cups especially). She is a very independant little booger. She's thinking about scooting a little. When on her belly she pivots to one side or the other. And occasionally sticks her bottom in the air, or raises up really high on her arms. But hasn't done both in combination yet. We tried real banana's once, but really didn't like those. She watched her first movie: Milo & Otis and loved it. It was a great distraction while we were teething w. tooth #2. Her hair is starting to get thicker and longer. But is still as wild as ever. It stands on end at all times. As soon as it's dry after a bath it poofs up again, no matter how much I brush it flat! But it's adorable so I'm not worried about it. Daddy calls her his little dandilion. She also (if you can imagine) has a temper like no other. When she gets mad or frustrated there is no turning back. Watch out world! These tempers are usually associated with trying to get our bib off She HATES to wear a bib now, and pulls and pulls until she gets it off. If she can't get it off then full blown tantrum ensues. She also managed to get her shirt off at daycare. Apparently once the bib was off, the shirt had to go too... not looking forward to the I-wanna-undress-myself phase... isn't this a little early for that? Pictures soon to follow!

6 Weeks and counting

So sweet little Aylin is now 6 going on 7 weeks old. On Monday we made a trip to the pediatrician's office because of her upset tummy. She was diagnosed with mild to moderate GER or acid reflux. The dr. put her on infant zantac and told us to try it for a week to 10 days to see if it helps. If not, then I am to go on a no dairy diet for 2 weeks. We've had good and bad days since she's been on the zantac. But mostly good. We're going to see it through the weekend, and see where we are at on Monday. But I really hope to have this all worked out before I go back to work...

... Speaking of, that clock is quickly ticking away. And I find myself frustrated with the small amount of time I have left to spend at home with my sweet girl. Especially when a lot of those days here lately have been spent with an upset baby because of her acid reflux. I know that going back to work is going to absolutely kill me. How can I leave my sweet little girl with people that don't even know her or us for the majority of the day! Then I start thinking about all of the wonderful things I am going to miss while I am at work, and it makes me so SO sad! I took Aylin up to the office on Thursday. I had my 6 week check up (everything is great, and relatively back to "normal"), so I figured we'd drop in and see everyone. But that just left me feeling overwhelmed about what I am going to be walking back in to. And on top of that what I will be missing while I am being miserable at work. I guess I'm letting it swarm on me a bit, and I need to step back and take a breath. But that's just really hard for me to do right now. I just hope that the zantac does the trick and that I can have more sweet days then frustrating ones before I go back to work.

Back to happy things! Miss Aylin has been smiling at us for a few weeks now. She's been thinking about giving us a little laugh now and again. But not quite yet. Just a little caugh excited type noise mostly. It was pretty special the other evening: Jeff had come home from work and she was asleep in the swing. His recliner is directly across the living room from her swing. She started to wake up and he said "well hello little one" and suddenly her eyes were wide and she gave him the biggest smile I'd seen yet! It was awesome to see her recognize him like that and be so happy that daddy was home.