The Amazing Fanny

OK, so I really don't have any other pictures or videos of Fanny to add to this post, sorry. I just haven't taken any lately. I know several of you have been dying for a Fanny update, which will come right after I explain why I haven't been posting much. The fact of the matter is...I've been wanting to post, but due to some major morning sickness and cold/flu type symptoms to go along with a queasy stomach, I just haven't had the energy to do much. When I was pregnant with Fanny I didn't have ANYTHING! NADA! I felt SOOO good the whole time! I was a little tired, but I didn't have any of the yucky stomach stuff. This time it is a whole different story. I am feeling much better now, but most of January was awful. I'm still REALLY tired and I still have moments during the day when my stomach feels like crap, but at least I don't have some of the other stuff I was going through. The first few weeks of January I would get FREEZING cold, and I mean COLD. The only thing I could do to get warm was take a bath. Then, I would wake up in the night HOT and drenched in sweat. It was terrible! I don't have any of that now, thank goodness. I'm hoping that since I am just a few days away from being done with my 1st trimester that the moments of queasiness will go away and that I will get my energy back. I know that things could be a lot worse, so I am truly grateful. I'm also so grateful to know that the baby is in there and doing well. We really feel blessed and look forward to bringing this baby into our home!

So, explanation stated, now I can tell you all about our AMAZING little Fanny. I don't even know where to start. She has been doing so much lately. From the pictures above you can see that she occasionally likes to wear her gloves around the house. Not only that, but she is in an "I don't want to wear clothes" phase. When I try to put on a shirt or pants after changing her diaper in the morning, she will often try to run away from me. I just think it is funny and let her run around the house with just a diaper on for a while.

Fanny is now 20 1/2 months and is saying SOOO many words. There are new things she learns to say every day. She will repeat just about anything. Good thing we don't swear! She knows so many animals and will make all the animal sounds when she sees pictures of them. Sometimes she will be looking out the window and say "puppy," "cat" or "bird" accompanied with the appropriate animal sound and, low and behold, there is one out there! When we go driving somewhere she often says "cars" as she watches them go by on the other side of the street. I'm always like, "Yup, there is a car. Yes, there is another one. You're right honey, that is a car..." It's pretty cute. She always points out babies too. She knows the titles to all her books and will say them as she brings them to us to read them to her. Her favorite is "A House Is a House for Me" by Mary Ann Hoberman. It's not even a board book, but she just LOVES it and loves all the pictures. I'm pretty sure I read it to her about 10 times in a day.

Fanny has an AWESOME memory! She knows ALL the names of the children that are in her nursery class in church! I just mentioned to her on Sunday before we left for church that she was going to get to go to nursery and she started saying some of the children's names! She will even say their names when she sees their parents, making the association that that parent belongs to that child. I don't know if that is normal or not for her age, but I think it is pretty darn AMAZING! She also knows the names of mostly all of our family members. We've shown her pictures of them all since she was really little.

Fanny loves it when I sing songs to her that involve my hands and she loves to play games! Her favorites are Ring Around the Rosey, London Bridges, getting up and down off something over and over and over again, stacking and unstacking anything she can find, and Piggies. She always sits down right in front of me with her toes wiggling saying "Piggies, piggies!!" One of her favorites is when daddy swings her in her blankie. She lays it down and gets on top of it and says, "Please dada," until he swings her. It is so dang cute! When he is done, though, she gets pretty upset because she wants more.

Fanny still loves to dress up and look at herself in the mirror. Pretty much anything girlie is a hit! She loves to cuddle her doll and put her blankie over her, she loves to play with my jewelry and hair stuff, and she loves shoes and accessories! One thing that is really cute is how she will cuddle with us. She will say "snuggle" and then runs to us and gives us big hugs!! It is so adorable!

OK, so I have to share a little success story about putting Fanny to sleep. For the longest time I would hold Fanny or rock her until she fell asleep, and then I would carefully take her to her crib and try to put her down without her waking up. If she did wake up, she would start crying and I wold start the process over again. For the past few months, she has been able to fall asleep in her crib with a bottle (I know, terrible, but what can I say), but I HAD to stay in the room with her. If I would get up to try to leave, she would start crying. This was better than rocking her, but it was hard because sometimes it would take a half hour to an hour for her to fall asleep! Fanny has always been great at sleeping through the night, which I've been very grateful for, but getting her to go to sleep on her own when it is bed time has been quite challenging. Just a few weeks ago she wasn't feeling well and reverted back to wanting to be rocked to sleep every night. She got better, but still wanted me to rock her. If I put her in her crib she would start screaming. Well, last Saturday night it took me three whole hours of trying to get to go to sleep. I would rock her, she would fall asleep, then I would try to put her in her crib and she would wake up crying until I picked her up again. After feelings of exhaustion and frustration, we ended up letting Fanny sleep in out bed with us. When ever that happens, Joseph and I usually get very little sleep since Fanny is a BIG mover.

I've always struggled with letting Fanny cry, but I've got to tell you, it was sure getting hard to get her to sleep at night and Joseph and I were desperate for a solution. I did some research online at babycenter.com, one of my favorite baby/toddler info sites, and found out a little more information about something called the Ferber Method. I've been avoiding this method because it is a "Cry it Out" method, but come to find out, you're not really letting your baby cry themselves to sleep, you are reassuring them every so often and comforting them in the process. I don't really want to go into a long explanation of what the method entails, I know some of you moms already know about it, but feel free to look it up if you are curious. Guess what, though?! It totally worked!!!!! It only took two days, too! On the third day I put Fanny in her crib and told her that I loved her and said good night and she just looked up at me and with the cutest little voice she said, "Bye, bye." She didn't go to sleep right away because Joseph and I could hear her talking, but she wasn't crying and eventually fell asleep on her own! Something that really helped her fall asleep was having this little glow worm in her crib that lights up and plays music when you press its tummy. As Joseph and I were getting ready for bed that night we heard some noise and realized it was Fanny's glow worm. She had picked it up and started playing it! She has done the same thing the past couple of nights where she will play the glow worm and talk to herself until she falls asleep. I can't tell you how wonderful it has been to not have to kneel at her crib forever or rock her to sleep. I only have about six more months of this freedom, though, and then I will be up throughout the night with the baby!!! At least with this next baby I will be able to try this method sooner if I need to...I think.

So, there it is. There is so much about Fanny I'm not even including because I just don't have time to share it all and I'm sure you are all tired of reading this long post, if you even made it this far. Fanny is just such a bright, beautiful girl and we are so grateful for her!!! I'll try not to wait so long again before I update you all and I'll try to get some more pictures or even a video of Fanny posted soon. Thanks for understanding!