.... I heard my blog cry from my laptop in the corner of the room. So here I am, with Audra climbing all over me like a monkey, updating the blog.
It amazes me how much she has grown. She is now a "mere" 23 lbs and has to be at least almost as big as I am. Only kidding folks! Those would be some weird unhealthy proportions. But seriously, she is so healthy and growing to be so strong! Every day she shocks me with a new talent or skill she has developed (almost always overnight). Her favorite thing to do, of course, is to go go go! She is a pro at crawling now, which she started doing just shy of 8 months old. At about 8 1/2 months old she figured out how to pull herself to a standing position on whatever and wherever she could. Now she shuffles along the furniture, walls, humans, dogs, whatever she can hold onto to get where she needs to go (lol). Zeke is not super pleased she can follow him at light speed now, never mind the fact that she'll be walking any minute now! A few days ago she threw us all for a loop and deviated from her usual word repertoire of baby, mama, dada, and mine, to "DOG" which she shrieked at Muffin and Zeke to get their attention. She was thrilled to get such a wide eyed reaction from everyone. Audra has also decided she would rather be a worm than a human. What I mean is, the child is a contortionist. It should be dubbed an Olympic sport to change the girl's diaper, I mean it is actually becoming almost impossible to do without being stressful. I have developed a number of tactics, as mothers do, to get her to be distracted while I skillfully maneuver a diaper onto her bottom... and I would seriously like some kind of recognition or maybe even a cookie.
Audra is so far still breastfeeding like a champ at 9 month almost 10. She is just not big into food, which is ok with me since every baby's nutrition actually comes from breastmilk or in some cases formula in the first year. The only reason we feed babies food is for practice in eating. Also, interestingly enough Audra has not had any teeth break through as of yet. Joe and I both had teeth break through later on than mot so I am not going to freak out just yet. Even though Audra doesn't have teeth yet, her delights aside from mama's milk are sweet potatoes, applesauce, peaches, prunes (weirdo lol), green beans, veggie bites and sweet potato puffs (dissolvable puffs), and spinach. As of right now, she gets these things whenever the opportunity presents itself or sometimes Joe and I will give her a bit of purreed whatever from our plates (tomato sauce, potatoes, etc). Either way she is healthy as a horse and is getting plenty of vitamins and minerals through mama (I still take my prenatals for sources of calcium and iron, etc).
We are still cloth diapering also! Hooray :) I have to say it was one of the best choices we ever made with her. No more diaper rash, diaper runs at midnight, huge amounts of trash to take out, and we got to say goodbye to the diaper genie this weekend during the garage sale!
Which brings me to our serious update, The Orders Family is not moving to Alaska this Summer. Because of Joe's surgery, our report date was pushed back because he cannot deploy with his ankle the way it is. As soon as that happened, almost simultaneously, they deleted our orders. So we will probably be in SC for another 8 or so months until Joe is removed from profile. Whenever that happens he will go right back up for orders and he'll be requesting Alaska since I'm already in school there and he wants to go there. However, because of certain circumstances with where we are living now, we feel it is best to move into another house across town (of course we will send out information as soon as possible).
Hence, the garage sale and ensuing move at the end of this month. Hopefully we will be able to find some help since Joe's ankle is not exactly in tip top shape.
Well that's all I can type for now, the munchkin is getting restless. Hugs and love to all, we miss you!
