I've Been Replaced......

By Curious George!!!!

You're going to need the backstory.....here goes. Austen and I used to cuddle up together before bed. It was my absolute favorite thing ever and I'm pretty sure he loved it too. Now that he's eight months old I figured that unless I want him sleeping with me for the next 15 years I'd better teach him to fall asleep on his own. We are now currently in the midst of "hell week" (not my term, but the name is certainly fitting!). It goes like this...I give Austen his nightime feeding and then put him to bed. He usually cries for about ten minutes before he cuddles up to Curious George and falls asleep. It's so sweet as you can see from the above pics! I bet you're thinking that doesn't sound too bad right??? Well that's because the bad part doesn't come until later. He then proceeds to wake up between midnight and 2 am and doesn't want to go back to sleep without me. He screams and screams for hours. Don't call DCFS.....I go in every 15 mins to calm him down, put in his passa, and put the blankets back on. (Last night this took 3 hours and I wasn't in bed until 3 in the morning.) The ultimate goal is to have him sleeping by himself through the night. Everyone claims this works, but we are already on day 4 and I have yet to be convinced we're any closer. I'm not going to give up, so we'll see. I just keep telling myself that someday his strong will and determination to never give up will actually be a good thing.

Now for the really exciting part of my post.......HE CRAWLS!!!!! A real baby crawl on hands and knees and with his tummy OFF the ground! I am so excited about it that I think I've made Brian accrue about 5 hours of crawling footage with the camcorder. It's just sooooo cute that I want to make sure we capture it. At first he was a little wobbly and it was pretty mechanical looking, but he is getting better at it and a lot faster. Sometimes he thinks the army crawl is more efficient so he switches back to it, but he's doing the scoot less and less. Also, last week I mentioned his balance needed some work before he gave himself a head injury from all the falling. Well, I'm proud to say he is making progress. He hasn't mastered balancing yet, but he is starting to get it and falling a lot less! He has also started to take steps around the ottoman (while still holding on of course) to get to things that are really exciting such as a cell phone or a remote.

I had to include this pic because I think it's funny. He thinks it's hilarious to pull ALL the toys out of his toy box, but I don't, so I try to discourage it. This is a pic of him realizing he's been caught.

And here's some pictures of him crawling. Hopefully you get the idea, but you have to see him in action to appreciate the cuteness.