Arden 6 months

Three months raced by and four months blended into five and suddenly, two weeks shy of Arden's six month birthday, we were sitting on the couch, watching our sweet daughter practice rolling over, and she started crawling. Just like that. You had to scrape us up off the floor, that's how unprepared we were. It was the sort of one arm one leg stomach maneuver that a Vietnam soldier might use to sneak up on the enemy, but it constituted forward motion nonetheless. I hadn't really thought about what it would be like having TWO mobile children, at least not this soon. She hasn't looked back since and now she's up on her knees trying to coordinate all the moving parts, and I see that longing in her eyes went she reaches the couch and looks up trying to decide how she can pull herself up there.

If Sawyer is going to be our politician, (or maybe a car salesman), then Arden is going to be our book nerd. I've never seen a child get so spastic over a book. She starts to hyperventilate when we sit down to read at night and her whole body quivers with excitement as I turn the pages. She even has a pocket protector laugh.

But she'll be a beautiful book nerd, whiling away the hours in the back of the Harvard library. She has a fuzzy head of soft hair (no mohawk thank goodness) that could be a dark brown color, green almost hazel eyes with long lashes and a double chin that she can blame both of us for later on down the road. A lot of people say she looks like Sawyer, but I think she looks like Scott. And, I think Sawyer looks like me. One of these days I'll post my toddler photo.

Arden's been sleeping through the night - 12 hours - since she was four months old. Here's how it happened:
She was still waking up twice a night. I couldn't deal one more day. I announced that we were going to start sleep training - we subscribe to the cold-turkey-cry-it-out method. Scott moved upstairs into Justin's room (he can't handle the crying).

Night 1: Arden wakes up a 1 am and cries for 10 minutes. Falls back to sleep and doesn't wake up until 7 am.
Night 2: Arden sleeps 12 hours.
Night 3: Arden sleeps 12 hours. Scott sleeps upstairs
Night 4: Arden sleeps 12 hours. Scott sleeps upstairs
Night 5: Arden sleeps 12 hours. Scott sleeps upstairs
Night 6: Arden sleeps 12 hours. Scott sleeps upstairs
Night 7: Arden sleeps 12 hours. Scott sleeps upstairs

After a week I was convinced enough to let Scott come back to our room. People who have toddlers who still wake up at night probably want to kill me. All I can say is that I've been blessed with two wonderful babies.