I couldn't miss it!

My sweet baby is 9 months old today. Ok. I'll be honest. Lately she's been a little less than sweet. Like I want to tear my hair out. Like I'm thinking we'll wait 5 more years to have another baby. Like I'm so exhausted from trying to calm her tantrums that I want to go to bed right now and it's only 6:30 pm.

BUT, she is really sweet. And when I am able to calm her down, we have so much fun!

A few milestones in the past few weeks that I haven't blogged yet:

Thursday, November 6, 2008: Alana took her first 2 solo steps into my arms. I was astounded and excited. She still hadn't crawled yet.

Friday, Nov. 7, 2008: Cooper and Ian came to play. I mention this because Cooper is a super speedy crawler. She observed him quite keenly.

Saturday, Nov 8, 2008: Alana crawled for the first time. She never army crawled or did any of the moves that normally leads to crawling. So I figured she just wouldn't. I guess she just wanted to do it, belly off the ground, or not at all.

I shouldn't be so pessimistic. But I'm not going to edit my post, because I know some people mistakenly think motherhood is all giggles and warmth and happy things. It's partly that. But it's also difficult and emotionally draining. It's hard when you're alone with your baby all afternoon and they just CRY, but the minute dad gets home they are super happy. You begin to think "does my baby even like me?" "What am I doing wrong?" "What am I going to do when they hit the terrible twos, or even worse, the teenage years?" These thoughts have all gone through my head the last 2 weeks. I can definitely see why post pardum depression isn't just in the 1st few weeks after childbirth. But I still look forward to every minute I get to spend with her. Even if I sometimes I have to put her in her bed for 10 of those minutes and go lay down while she screams.

The bright side to all of this (my attempt to "come what may, and love it") is that I know God knows how to help my baby. So today when I prayed to be able to deal with her screaming, I decided to take her for a walk while carrying her in the sling. She hasn't cried once in the hour since we've been back. Yay! :)

I'll post some cute pics later!