big.

It seems like my Little Bit all but grew up this weekend.

She's basically a big girl now. Waaaaah.

I mean, I've seen it coming, lately. I leave her sitting on the floor in the living room and two minutes later find that she's pulled up on the couch.

Well, that's because I'm a big girl.

 And when we play in her room, she chooses complicated toys like puzzles and can manipulate the little pegs well enough to pull all of the pieces off (so that she can bang them together and chew on them, obviously).

Like I said- I'm a BIG GIRL, Mommy!!

 And my personal favorite aspect of Big Girl-ness...she can destroy her room in about the amount of time it takes me to put on my mascara. Yay.

But I really needed to see EVERYTHING IN THE TOY BIN AT ONCE!!

 In addition to doing smart Big Girl things, she's also like...big. As in, has arguably been too big for her Rock 'n Play for probably about 5 months, but since nobody gave her the memo, she had no plans to quit rockin' and playin'.

Try and separate me from my RnP. Just try. I dare you.

And ya know...my mama didn't raise no fool. Millie sleeps 11 glorious, silent hours in that puppy. Right next to my bed. It's the greatest thing on earth. Where's the motivation to mix it up?

I'll tell you where. NOWHERE. I'm not one to mess with a good thing.

Butttttt a few weeks ago we finally gave up on the swaddle. Yes, she was nine months old. More importantly, she was 21 pounds and 29.75 inches, and evidently our swaddles weren't built to handle that much baby. She basically busted out the bottom of them all and that was that. We transitioned her (pretty seamlessly, I must say- she didn't seem to care much at all) to a glorious aden + anais sleep sack (that is so soft I wish I had one for myself), and it's been good- but now that she has her arms free, all of a sudden her RnP situation started seeming a little precarious. As in, she could clearly reach up and climb out if she got a notion to do so. And sometimes it seemed like she might be getting that notion. Soooo...

.......

.......

on Friday night, we put her in her crib in her very own room to sleep for the night. Waaaaaaaaaah. 

She's been sleeping in her crib (both at home and at school) for naps for months now, so she's not unaccustomed to the idea...but apparently sleeping there in the dark, at night, for a lot of hours must be different than for a 45-minute nap. Because uhhh...yeah. Not so much on the sleeping. More like...welcome to Millie's Acrobatics Hour! Watch as she flips, twirls, climbs, and leaps!

It was super special. She would sleep for about an hour at a time, then take a break for gymnastics. Then lose her paci and need parental assistance. Then sleep, then roll over and be too foggy to remember how to roll back, then need parental assistance. Then sleep, then roll over, then sit up, then be confused about what is happening, then need parental assistance. Then lose her paci. Then do a back flip. It was all very entertaining, so it's a good thing we started this process on a weekend. Last night was a little more peaceful (the acrobatics didn't really start up til closer til morning), so I'm hoping that third time's a charm and that tonight she'll be back to normal Millie sleeping habits. 

But if not, that's cool. I kinda missed out on all the 'being up all night with a newborn' stuff (I know, wah wah, poor me. Trust me, I'm not complaining.), so if I get to make up for some of it now, I'm down with that. 

So anyway. Big girl is now officially in her crib, and I've washed the RnP and am ready to hand it off to a friend expecting twins. And I may or may not have shed a tear when I folded it up for the last time. You served us well, RnP. May you have the same magical effect on newborn twins.

So in other giant news...well, may as well change All the Things at once, right? So on Friday night while Millie was preparing for Cirque du Soleil, Matt and I (okay, mostly Matt) were preparing to blow her mind by assembling and installing her Big Girl Car Seat!!

Uhhh...my mind is not really blown. Try harder next time.

I am thankful for friends that point out things like hey, she needs to move to a new seat when she's 30 pounds OR 30 INCHES. That was good to know, since I only knew about (or remembered, I guess) the 30 pounds part...and she was 29.75 inches two weeks ago. Oops!! So we lickety-split researched and ordered her Big Girl Seat and Friday night got it all ready to go!

We went with the Diono Ranier because it seems like basically the most badass car seat on earth. Its frame is SOLID STEEL. Which means it is not exactly lightweight, but I don't really care. I need a car seat to keep her from being crushed to death, not to be comfortable for me to carry around. Also, she can rear face until she is FIFTY POUNDS. Yes. Fifty. FIVE ZERO. And we plan to be the freaks that make her stay rear facing until she reaches that limit, so...ya know, until middle school. And then it can be forward facing/booster until she is 120 pounds. College! So in conclusion, I'm trying to think of some really cool things I can let her do when she's a kid/teenager that will make up for what a horrible lame mom I am going to be about car safety. Like I will totally let her get whatever piercings she wants. She can have the coolest piercings ever. Or like...purple hair. Or no hair. Or whatever. I feel like I'm going to have to really give a lot to make up for how lame I plan to be about the car seat, but ya know...whatever. The whole purpose of mothers is to be really embarrassing to their kids, right? I'm just planning ahead about how I want to do it. Picking my battles early.

At any rate, her first few days in the new seat have been nice and uneventful. I don't think she's nearly as excited about it as she should be, but what can ya do? Maybe she can somehow sense that this is the beginning of a twelve-year relationship (how long it is til it expires), so she's starting things off cautiously. I guess that's okay.

I guess those are all of the huge milestones she hit this weekend. In addition to just...ya know, being big...she got to spend some time with her cousins!! On Saturday afternoon the girls went for a swim in Millie's new pool and it was pretty much the cutest thing ever.

First, you need to see an old picture of them from August. This will help you appreciate their current pictures.

Awww...look at little fetus-Millie!!!! So itty!!

Eliana is 2.5 months older than Millie.

Today, the tables have turned. Millie is the reigning heavyweight champion of this duo...

POOOOL PARRRRTAAAYYYYY!!!

If I get hungry, I could eat Eliana for a snack!!

Actually, she couldn't. Eliana is one quick mover, and an extremely proficient splasher. They had fun playing side-by-side (and back-to-back) in the pool, splashing and trying to stand up and grabbing handfuls of grass, sticks, and dirt into the pool. They definitely agreed that a dirty pool was a more fun pool!

After the girls wore themselves out swimming, we left the wet babies with our husbands and the three sisters-in-law went to watch Pitch Perfect 2!! I go to the movies basically never...maybe once a year, if that...but I was really dying to see PP2, particularly with people who would deeply appreciate it (as in...not my husband). I'm so glad Jess and Amy wanted to go with me- it was as amazing as I had hoped it would be. Totally lived up to the first movie. And I would like to see it again, so if you need a buddy...lemme know.

And that was pretty much our weekend!! Little Bit grew up way too much, slept way too little, and oh- she ate BBQ (pulled pork) for the first time. And as you may have guessed by her physique, she's kinda go big or go home about food she likes...and this definitely counted as go big. I bet she ate at least an average adult male-sized portion. It was touching, really. She just loved it so much- and she was so tired- and she would rub her eyes and look so sleepy and then SHOVE MORE IN HER MOUTH and then look so tired but then SEE THE BBQ AND SMILE SO MUCH AND SHOVE IT IN HER FACE...it just blessed my little southern-food-loving heart. So anyway. At least one new thing this weekend impressed her!