Houston, We Have a Problem

So, as I mentioned in the previous post, Caroline will be 8 months old soon. This Saturday to be exact. I've been so excited about all the gross motor milestones she's been making that I've conveniently ignored one milestone that she has yet to even come close to passing. I was reminded of this when I was on the phone with my mom a few days ago.
Mom: "So, how's the sleeping through the night going?"
Lauren: "Um, she's doing okay."
Mom: So, she's still getting up from time to time?"
Lauren: "Maybe once a night. Or twice. At the MOST, three times."
Mom: "And you just let her put herself back to sleep, right??"

I don't need to tell you how the rest of this conversation went. By the time I got off the phone, I was determined that sleep training boot camp would commence that evening. I talked out the game plan with Paul: Instead of going cold turkey, we'd take baby steps. After all, Caroline is only 8 months old. We decided that I would get up with Caroline the first time she woke, put her back to sleep, and then any other times she woke up she'd have to "self-soothe" (otherwise known as cry herself back to sleep).
I felt good about our plan. I'll admit I don't mind getting up a few times a night that much, but an uninterrupted night's sleep did sound pretty enticing. So we went to bed, full of determination to get Caroline's sleep habits under control.

Caroline woke at about 1am for the first time. I went in, took her out of the crib, and rocked and nursed her back to sleep. It was so easy and I was back in bed and asleep within 10 minutes. She slept until 3:45. At that time, she woke, immediately crawled to the side of her crib, pulled herself up into a stand, and began screaming at the top of her lungs. After about 15 minutes, she actually laid down and went back to sleep. There, I thought, sleep training was a piece of cake! I rolled over and settled in to go back to sleep...for about 10 minutes.
At 4:15, Caroline woke back up. And began screaming even louder. She screamed for 25 more minutes before I just couldn't take it anymore. I caved. I went in, picked up my whimpering, wet-faced Sugarboo and brought her back to bed with me. I thought I could just nurse her back to sleep and then we could all wake again at a more decent hour. I was wrong. Caroline was awake and ready to face the day, all smiles and sunshine.
I wasn't about to face this brutal start of the day on my own, so I nudged Paul out of bed and we went downstairs to face the day. It was 4:45am.
Now, one advantage of waking up at such an ungodly time is that we got to watch the exciting end of the Federer vs. Murray Australian Open tennis match live. The downside is that by 6:00am, I felt like I'd been hit by a Mack truck. By that time, Caroline was ready to go down for a nap and Paul and I went back to bed.
When we all woke up at 8am, I decided that sleep training would have to wait. Indefinitely. That's right; I gave up after one night.
Last night Caroline woke up twice. I nursed her back to sleep both times and then blissfully went back to sleep until we woke at 7am. I know this tactic is short sighted, but I'm just not ready to let her cry all alone in the middle of the night. Until I come up with a better solution, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Caroline will miraculously and suddenly sleep through the night on her own.
Here are some pics of Caroline in peaceful states of slumber throughout her 1st 8 months.

Lady on the Move

Caroline is closing in on 8 months old and is amazing us every day with her new talents and growth. She's been crawling for a month now, and this week she's been pulling herself up on every piece of furniture that she can find. She loves to go through dresser drawers, check out the top of the coffee table to see what kind of treasures she can find, and has learned to climb the beginning steps of our staircase! However, it's not all happy go lucky around here. Two things she hasn't mastered yet: falling gracefully and an understanding of depth perception. That's a combination that makes for lots of spills, bumps, and bruises. Luckily, Caroline isn't much fazed by these little roadblocks. She gets a look on her face like "well, that was annoying!" and then motors off to find something else to climb.

Here are some pictures to display our little one's talents.

P.S. After loading these pictures I realize that it appears that Caroline lives in her pjs. Rest assured, this is not actually the case. We do get dressed every day :)

Shoe Fetish?

I recently learned something new about Caroline: She LOVES tennis shoes.
Our little Sugarboo is drawn to them like a moth to a flame. I haven't a clue what it is about them that appeals to her so much. One would think it was the laces, but I'm afraid that has nothing to do with it.
I'll be standing in the kitchen, minding my own business, when all of a sudden I hear the slap, slap of Caroline's palms as she makes a beeline towards my feet. If I don't move them fast enough, Caroline promptly puts her mouth (ick!) onto the top of my shoe and begins to suck! When she is lucky enough to find a tennis shoe with no wearer, she is even more delighted. Quick as lightning (she really is quite fast), she crawls toward it, snatches it up and gives it a good lick. Now, you don't need to tell me how disgusting this is. But there is seriously NOTHING in our home that appeals more to Caroline lately than a nasty, stinky tennis shoe. I've even tried looking at her with a dirty look on my face while I say "Eeww, not for Caroline!", but she just grins and takes another lick.
This weekend I got a new pair of tennis shoes. Caroline quickly showed us that she likes new shoes just as much as old ones. I admit it; I let her lick these ones for a bit before I took them away :)

New Year's Resolution update

For those of you who read our Hepper family resolutions, here is proof that I am not neurotic for wanting the toilet paper rolls in our household to roll from the top instead of the bottom... :)
http://www.cottonellerollpoll.com

Our Little Stinker

This afternoon Caroline was happily playing on the floor with her toys while I was happily sitting next to her and catching up on my DVR'd TV shows. After a while I realized Caroline was being especially quiet and that she was not next to me anymore. I looked across the room and watched as she silently stalked some kind of bug that was crawling across our living room floor. Now I'm not skittish when it comes to bugs, so I didn't make a scene. I was actually curious to see what she would do. As I got closer, I realized it was a stink bug. At that moment I began to wonder: do stink bugs really stink?

I grabbed my IPhone so I could take a picture of Caroline on the hunt. Just then, Caroline reached out and snatched up the bug in her hand! Luckily I caught her hand before it went to her mouth, but prying open her clenched fist took a few seconds. That was a few seconds too long. I was hit with a wave of nasty odor as Caroline's hand opened and the bug fell back onto the floor, belly up and legs flailing.

Caroline was all for snatching up that bug again, but I quickly whisked her away to the kitchen to de-stink her hands. Three anti-bacterial hand washes later, I finally got the odor off Caroline's hands. Being a slightly paranoid first time mom, I then immediately took Caroline into the office so I could Google stink bugs to find out if they are poisonous. Luckily, they are not and I didn't have to go into full-on panic mode :)
Here's a picture of my little bug catcher and her unfortunate prey.

Caroline's Baptism

We celebrated a big moment in Caroline's life this past weekend: her baptism! We were so excited to have lots of family in town to witness the big event. Our guests included Marmee, Grampy, Grandparents Hepper, Great Grandma DeNiro, Great Aunt Heidi, Aunt Allison and cousin Sophia, Uncle Michael, Aunt Erin, and Uncle Tate and Aunt Donna. It was quite a crowd!

At our church, they perform the baptism during the Mass, so Caroline was also surrounded by our fellow parishioners when she took the "big plunge." Caroline handled all this attention (and the slightly chilly water) with her usual happy demeanor. She "talked" most of the way through the Mass, gasped but didn't cry when the priest doused her with water, and did her best to smile for the millions of pictures of her that got taken over the weekend. We were so proud of our little Sugarboo.

Having so many family members present made Caroline's big day even more special for Paul and me. We were especially excited that she got to meet her Great Grandma DeNiro and Great Aunt Heidi for the first time. An added bonus of having my Aunt Heidi in town was that she brought her fancy camera and happily snapped away taking pictures throughout the weekend. It was like having a wedding photographer except that we didn't pay her and Caroline wasn't getting married (thank goodness that's YEARS away!).

One of my favorite parts of the weekend was going out to dinner on Saturday night, without the babies. Three of our wonderful friends volunteered to come over and hang out while the babies slept so our families could enjoy ourselves out on the town (Thank you Katie, Jessica, and Celeste!!). Dinner was great, depsite the fact that Carmellos ran out of Jack Daniels two cocktails into the meal! Paul was devastated, but quickly recovered when a bottle of wine landed on the table in front of him. We also enjoyed a private dining experience because by 8:30 we were the ONLY patrons left in the restaurant! Sadly, I think that's par for the course here in Charlottesville. I certainly wasn't complaining. We could be as loud as we wanted without embarrassing ourselves.

The weekend was a lot of fun and I think a good time was enjoyed by all. Caroline probably has no clue why so many people were focused on her all weekend, but we'll have lots of pictures, mementos, and cards to show her what the hoopla was all about when she's older. When I opened Caroline's cards and gifts after our guests left, I had a good chuckle when I read Uncle Michael's note in Caroline's baptism card: Dear Caroline, Congratulations on avoiding Limbo!

Here are a few pictures from the baptism. I haven't gotten Aunt Heidi's "professional" pictures yet, so I don't have pictures for both sides of the family, but I'll post more when I get them.
Caroline and her loving Goparents: Aunt Allison and Uncle Tate


Caroline sharing her toy with cousin Sophia


The Heppers

A Couple Pics

Caroline helping Mommy unload the dishwasher.


Caroline and Daddy at play.