Evie's 34th Week

It's been quite an eventful week for Miss Evie.  She is now 100% transitioned to the crib, including naps.  And she is sleeping in her room, by herself.  This is amazing!  We had spent Wednesday through Friday night sleeping in her room on an air mattress, but by Saturday night, I just couldn't take the air mattress anymore and needed my own bed.  So, Seth slept on the couch where he could hear her well if she cried and I got a full night's sleep for the first time since Evie's slumber party at Kathy's.  The next night, Seth and I slept in our bedroom and Evie slept in hers, and all was successful.

I'm coming to really love our bedtime routine.  Around 10:00, or whenever she shows signs of getting tired, I start putting her in pajamas and get a bottle ready for her.  We go upstairs and I turn on her little elephant lamp in the far corner by the closet, and we sit in the glider in the corner by her crib.  She is usually fussing at this point, because she sees the bottle and wants it.  I put her in the crook of my left arm and help her hold the bottle, while I pull up my Kindle app on my phone with my right hand.  I read aloud from my nightly reading (currently the Bible in chronological order), and she looks around the room while we rock.  About halfway through the bottle, her eyes get heavy and she's all eyelids.  When she's done with the bottle, I turn her onto my shoulder for burping while we rock, and I hum "What a Friend We Have in Jesus", which has been in my head nightly since Memmaw died.  It was the song we sang as she passed on.  After a few verses, Evie seems to drift off completely.  Sometimes she'll rouse up a little and squirm, as though she's trying to get more comfortable, and that's when I know she's definitely ready to be put down.  I put her down on her tummy (the way she prefers to sleep - just like her Mama), and cover her up with a blanket, tuck her in a bit, and turn off the lamp.  It's so peaceful and snuggly and wonderful.  My favorite part of the day.

In addition to gaining her sleep independence, Evie is getting quite adept in crawling backwards (my Dad calls it the mooncrawl).  Here she is, having scooted herself across the room.

Evie's also doing very well with her solid food.  We discovered that rice cereal, or any other alternative thereof (barley, oatmeal, etc.) does not agree with her.  Since we stopped giving it to her at every meal (which the pediatrician had told us to do), her tummy troubles have subsided, she no longer needs gas drops, and she's much happier, gastrointestinally.  She now eats fruit or yogurt for breakfast and veggies for dinner (and 4 ounces of each to boot!).  She's turned into a very good little eater, and she's even started getting arrowroot cookies that she can hold herself and turn into a pasty mess all over her chin and outfits.

She got a new playmat this week to replace the palet of blankets we had been using.  With four dogs, the blankets just seemed to collect too much dog fur, so we bought the foam puzzle piece mats.  Pardon the mess, and the blurriness of the picture, but I just love her expression here.

Speaking of expressions, I was trying to get a new picture with Evie, to put on my Facebook page, and while we were not successful in getting a picture I would post there, we were treated to several more of the "many faces of Evie".

Happy

Bored

Practicing her sultry modeling look

Unimpressed

Freaked out! 

(Actually, this preceded an enormous sneeze, but it makes me laugh.)

Evie also survived her first tornado.  Last night, there was a tornado that touched down about a mile from our house.  Seth and I both have weather alerts on our phones, so fortunately we were able to get Evie and seek shelter in the bathroom when we got the alerts.  Poor dogs - they would have been carried off to Oz if we'd gotten hit.  But we sustained no injuries or even damage to our property, for which we are very thankful.