Sleeping (or lack thereof) & Cousin Time

 Lexi has been having some 9 month sleep regression and we have had to start over with retraining her to put herself back to sleep.  So that's what we have been doing the last couple weeks here in the Mauldin house.  Trying to help Lexi learn to cope with her seperation anxiety and figure out that Daddy and Mommy are, in fact, right in the other room and will be there if she needs us.  We have had playtime in our crib and our room, played peekaboo in her room opening and closing the door, we have been strict about following our bedtime routine for every sleep time, and have come when she called everytime and patted and soothed her in her bed.  At first, she was crying when she was put down in bed and waking up crying out for us in the night, but consistency was the key to success.  After two weeks, Lexi is now rolling over and putting herself back to sleep in the middle of the night and sleeping at least 9 but often 10-11 hours straight.  Not that she never needs comfort or fusses, but if I hit her waketime spot on (3 hours) and start winding her down at the right time, she normally goes off easily.  Hooray for us...I'm happy we did this all without having her cry.  It took a lot of patience and work but it is certainly paying off.... until we took our trip out of town. 
    I was warned that traveling with a baby during this stage of life was more difficult.  She has so many things to look at an observe that she did NOT want to go to bed.  New place, new people around her, new bed = a MAJOR struggle.  Lexi fights sleep anyways and I saw flashbacks of her not taking naps at daycare.  Why sleep when you can people watch all day?  Once she went down to sleep she did great at night but one night she stayed up until 10:00 (which is unheard of for our little 7:30 sleeper).  Still, it was worth it to get to make a much needed trip to see Nick's family in Longview.  Courtney and Bobby's house is going up and is going to be so awesome!  I can't wait to see if finished in the fall.  Lexi rode around the farm on the Mule (the electronic one, not the animal) and enjoyed the fresh, country air.  And, of course, we loved swimming in her Gigi and Papa's pool.  Nick and I also enjoyed laying out on the floaties during her naptime, something we never get to do at home anymore!  Lexi and Cord are so fun to observe.  During our last trip, Lexi was so into watching Cord and playing with him and he didn't pay any attention to her.  This trip, he was watching her like a hawk and she was scooting, crawling and playing all over the house and didn't give him the time of day.  She was much more interested in the dogs (and trying to feed them all her finger foods) then she was Cord. 

Alright...picture time.