Helping Papa with the wood pile

About a month ago, the power went out in the morning. It was still chilly out, so Thom brought some wood up by the house in case we needed a fire to warm the house before the power came back on. We never made the fire, so this weekend, Thom went to put the wood back on the wood pile (since it is unlikely we will need a fire again this season). Aaron wanted to help. For some reason, they don't make work gloves in Aaron's size, but I had found some rubber gripped children's gloves on sale at Target for a buck a few weeks ago, so we tried those out. It wasn't easy getting his little fingers in the fingers of the glove, but they fit pretty well. He was very excited to help Papa.

Headband from Aunt Sherry

Aaron likes to have us put this on Audrey.

Audrey discovers she has feet

It took 6 months, but my baby girl finally discovered she has feet. Quite fascinating.

6 Month Checkup

Audrey's 6 month checkup was on the 19th. She was 14 lbs 1oz, hovering around the 25% for weight. But she measured 26 inches, which pushed her up closer to 50% for height. Although the way they measure height (length, really) at this age seems very subjective to me. They lay her on the paper on the exam table, use a pen to mark abover her head, then stretch out a leg and mark under her heel. These marks themselves tend to be inexact, but then they use a paper measuring tape to determine the length and often the marks for the head and below the heel aren't in line, so the measurement is along a diagonal, adding some extra length.

The doctor checked her out and said she looks very healthy. At her size, she said she doesn't need to eat at night and that I should let her cry through a feeding (she has been eating twice between going to bed around 7pm and getting up at 7am which I don't think is extreme at this point). We aren't quite ready for letting her cry it out and maybe it won't be necessary - since I've started giving her solids before bedtime, she seems to be sleeping a little better. Last night she only woke at 1:30am.

She got 4 shots and an oral rotavirus vaccine (not the one being recalled, fortunately). She had a little fever over the weekend from it, but otherwise seemed to weather it just fine. She goes back again at 9 months.

Helpful Aaron

Aaron loves being outside. He loves his plants. He loves going through the orchard. And he loves helping Papa. These picture are from Monday when he was outside with Kim, but before Thom left for work, Aaron showed Papa how he had picked up some leaves, twigs, and weeds and put them in the yard waste trash can. So Thom got out the little rake for Aaron and showed him how to use it before he left.

The painted watering can was a gift from Thom's mom, back before we even owned our house. It's just the right size for Aaron.

It's nice to see how much he enjoys working outdoors - it fits in nicely with my long term plans of sending him outside on weekends to help Thom in the yard (and get out of my hair). Thom actually does take him outside to do small tasks like pick fruit (a favorite chore of Aaron's), water plants, fill the bird feeder. He can't do major work outside with Aaron, but he does find ways to have Aaron "help" out.

Photos of Audrey

The top pictures are of Audrey playing with the blanket Great Aunt Glenda made for her. The bottom picture is her first time in the high chair.

A week or two ago, we ordered new chairs for the kitchen table since we just had wooden folding chairs which Aaron has trouble with. We graduated Aaron to the new, big boy, chairs and gave Audrey his high chair after putting the bucket seat and tray table back on. He didn't mind at all. I thought he wouldn't want to give up his favorite chair, but he made the transition like a champ. I bought some seat pads, too, to give him some added height. Aaron likes to play with baby sister when I put her in her seat to make dinner. There are a couple of toys I put on the tray table for her and he helps her with them when she drops them in her lap, or brings them to me to rinse off when they fall on the floor. He's such a good big brother.

Rice Cereal for Audrey

Audrey had rice cereal for the first time yesterday. I'm not sure if she liked it or not. Towards the end, she seemed fussy, but Kim thought she was fussing for more since she ate what I gave her.

You can see Aaron's first experience with cereal here.

Coincidentally, they both had rice cereal 10 days before turning 6 months. With Aaron, the recommendation was to start solids at 6 months. With Audrey, they are now saying you can start as young as 4 months. I still decided to wait for a couple of reasons. One, I wanted her to be able to sit up in her high chair. And two, whatever we did with Aaron seemed to work since he's a great eater.