falling behind

November has not been very kind. We had a great Halloween and basically woke up in November to a sick baby. Luckily I think it was just a silly virus that took a little while for S.B.G. to kick and ultimately seems to have passed (for good).

Since we've been quarantined at home we have really tried not to venture out too much, but a couple cases of cabin fever started to take hold and we just had to. After a quick run to the grocery store, we decided to let Audrey have a taste of her Halloween candy and gave her a DumDum to eat. She l.o.v.e.d. it!!! She was pretty pissed when I took it away (complete with temper tantrum), but the drool of sugar was just too much for me to take.

Later that day Miller was shaving and plopped a couple dollops of shaving cream on her face.The fun ended quickly.

My parents came in town to rescue me help out with S.B.G. and when she finally started feeling better, we headed down to San Marcos to visit the outlet malls and (hopefully) get some Christmas shopping done. Naturally, we had to stop at Cracker Barrel first.

Audrey was such a trooper the entire day. She slept for about 2.2 minutes in the car on the way down and essentially blew through her nap while we shopped around. I hoped she would sleep in her stroller (no dice), but I did manage to get her to zone out for about 20 minutes during a quick "walk" (while my parents waited in line to pay). I was so proud of her for hanging in there with us all day. Of course, she managed to have fun and already has acquired expensive taste (from her Mama, naturally).

Since we've been dealing with sickness the first couple weeks of November, we haven't had to truly adjust Audrey back from Daylight Saving Time. Every.single.day. this week, Audrey has been calling out at 5:30am wanting out of her crib. Bringing her back into our bed to sleep isn't a feasible option because the dog sleeps in our room (and thus wakes her up even more) and even though I've just gone to sleep with her in the guest bedroom in the past, I don't sleep well because I'm always afraid she'll roll off the bed. I've been keeping a couple pillows/blankets in her room so we can just make a pallet on the floor and get a couple extra hours of sleep (well...extra sleep for me - rolling around and "pretending" to sleep for Audrey). As much as I hate to admit it, I really am loving all the cuddles. And getting to wake up to her in all her bed-head glory is pretty awesome, too.

In other Audrey-related news...we still haven't experienced a true language "explosion" that a lot of moms talk about their children having. Words that we know she has down: Dada, Mama, what's that (seriously. she says it.), hi, bye, baby, ball, bubble, light, dog, uh-oh, & shoe. Words that we *think* she's working on: Riley, thank you, up, bear, belly, book & bunny. She's getting better at mimicking sounds when we say words over & over, but she still isn't associating them with any specific objects yet. Not to mention that almost everything out of her mouth sounds like baby or ball. Or gibberish.

In *my* news...because we've been dealing with a sick kiddo, I fell off the wagon in keeping up with my running. I had just finished my week 2 runs when Audrey's sickness hit high gear, so in an effort to keep her home (and inside & warm) I had to do the same. I finally made it out of the house today and since it had been almost 2 weeks since my last run, I decided to repeat my last run for week 2. And it.felt.awesome. I had complained about my knees hurting after my last run and there wasn't even the slightest hint of pain today. I know I was running faster than I had been because I hit my halfway point sooner than I had in previous attempts. I was worried about what 2 weeks off would do to my stamina & clearly it was exactly what I needed. I can't wait to get started on week 3!!!

Audrey is 1 year, 4 months & 4 weeks old