Was that a Da Da?

Like I said in a previous post, I was started to get concerned that baby girl hadn't started babbling consonants yet. She's been "talking" in vowel sounds for awhile, especially when she had something in her mouth. Last Wednesday (3/24), she started making a few consonant sounds and since then hasn't looked back.

It's a beautiful sound, hearing her talking to her toys or to one of us. I love to listen to it all the time. Like I posted on Facebook, though, I've spent 8 months waiting for her to start babbling like this...but I'll be waiting 18 years for her to stop!

My daughter, the sock eater

Apparently baby girl has acquired a reputation at the sitter's house for her love of socks. I've mentioned it before, but here's a good example of her feelings for socks.

I was driving her to my parents' house on Sunday (an hour drive) and about 45 minutes into the drive, I hear her grunting back there. She'd been playing so well for most of the trip that I figured she'd hit her breaking point and was trying to get out of the carseat. I turned around to see what was going on and lo and behold, she had part of her sock still on her foot and the other up in her mouth!!!

No one at the sitter's seems to be safe. Our sitter doesn't even wear socks anymore because no one else does. I can't remember the last time I picked baby girl up and she was still wearing her socks. But now it's not just HER socks, but the socks of the other kids. There's a four-month-old who apparently never comes home with his socks, either, and his parents always know why. Baby girl has stolen them and put them in her mouth. They're then so soggy that the sitter doesn't want to put them back on the owner's feet.

At least it's starting to get warmer and we won't have to worry about socks for awhile...

Fears

This week I discovered that baby girl has begun to develop some fears.

On Wednesday she and I went to a friend's house. These friends have two sweet kitties. Baby girl had been around these kitties as well as my in-laws' small dog before with no problems. However, on Wednesday when one of the kitties entered the room, baby girl was interested. She watched her walk across the floor and back out of the room. Then the kitty came back and baby girl seemed to want to crawl after her as kitty left the room again. When the kitty came back again, baby girl crawled into my lap and started crying. She was so scared! Kitty left and came back in the room again later and baby girl started freaking again...so the kitty got locked up :( I felt bad for everyone involved and really hope this is just a phase!!!!

Then Saturday I decided to vacuum (shocker, I know) because my friend (the same one with the kitty) and her baby boy were coming over for a playdate. I figured the rug should be clean so the kiddos could play and not pick something gross up. I got out the vacuum and baby girl stared at it for a second after I turned it on, then started crying. I turned it off and picked her up. I tried running it a few other times with different situations (her in my arms, her across the room) and it resulted in the same crying. I also tried to let her explore the vacuum while it was off, but she still got scared when I turned it on again. We'll try again eventually, I suppose.

I've actually noticed that she's been startled a lot more by loud noises than she ever has been. The blender, the vacuum, the garbage disposal, and the garage door all startled her (although she only actually cried from the vacuum). Of course, I started reading online to try to figure out how to get her over her fears...and found information about kids with sensory disorders and autism having problems with loud noises. *sigh* Paranoid mommy moment!!!! This also makes me realize how much better she sleeps with a heavy blanket on her--something they do for kids with sensory processing disorders. Hoping that these fears are just something normal and will pass eventually and are not indicative of something bigger.

Meal Plan 3/28-4/3

No real plan for this week (gasp!), as the husband will be working a lot of hours, so I'll be on my own for dinners. I bought some hot dogs and some sloppy joe stuff and that will keep me fed for the week. He's got peanut butter and jelly and we've got soup and some frozen stuff. We'll be alright and hopefully next week we can get back to normal.

8 Months Old

Wow. I'll say what I say every month...I cannot believe she's eight months old. I thought time would slow down when she hit 6 months, but it hasn't, sadly. While I'm looking forward to a lot of things as she gets older, I know she's only going to be my little baby for such a short time and am trying to cherish these moments.

I'll try to get a weight on her soon. I'm guessing she's a little shy of 18 pounds. I think she was about 17 pounds around 7 months and she seems to be gaining about a pound a month.

Baby girl is just now starting to wear 6-9 month size clothes. She is still wearing most of her 3-6 month stuff, but since there are some 6-9 month clothes that are definitely for winter, I want her to get some use out of them, especially now that spring is officially here (although you wouldn't know it with the snow we had last Thursday night!).

We're getting ready to transition her into size 3 diapers. She could keep wearing size 2 for a bit longer, but they're starting to get pretty tight. She's still wearing a size 3 diaper overnight to help contain her overnight pee.

She's crawling EVERYWHERE. She's into everything!!! She can crawl really quickly and it is still incredibly cute to watch.

She loves to pull up on everything including, as of Friday, her crib. Imagine our surprise when we went to get her after a nap and she was standing there looking at us! Her favorite thing to pull up on, though, is her mommy. Whenever I'm on the floor with her she's crawling over to me and trying to climb up Mount Mommy.

Her favorite "toys" are plastic bags, computer cords, paper (coupons, newspaper, mail), and socks. She loves socks, unless they're on her feet!

Her favorite actual toys are her activity table and all stuffed animals, especially her sock monkey. She hasn't established a real connection to any one toy, though, which is okay with us!

Baby girl loves to grab faces. We try to allow her to explore, but she ends up being pretty rough. Both her daddy and I have quite a few scratches all over our faces. She'll grab at eyes, eyebrows, noses, and lips. She also loves to grab ahold of mommy's hair. Usually, though, she has ulterior motives when she grabs hair--she's trying to pull in for a kiss. One could probably argue that she's not actually giving a kiss, but we like to believe she is! She opens her mouth wide and drools on and licks our faces. It's the sweetest thing! Last week she even chased down her mostly immobile friend (my friend's son who is 3 weeks younger) and grabbed his head and gave him kisses. One of these days we'll be using that as blackmail!!!

Sleeping still isn't wonderful, but it's been a lot better this past week (except over the weekend). She's only been up once a night, eats, then goes back to sleep. Daddy is able to work his magic and put her down awake and she falls sleep on her own. We still rock and sing to her until she's sleeping, but she can sometimes lay down awake and soothe herself to sleep. It all depends on the quality of her naps.

To date, baby girl has eaten: green beans, peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, buttercup squash, applesauce, pears, peaches, banana (although not much), and avocado (bad news--she hated it!). She would LOVE to eat mommy and daddy's food. When we're eating something while holding her, she'll try to shove her nose into our mouths to smell what we're eating. Tonight she did it with a peanut butter cup with Daddy. One morning it was even with my toast!

Speaking of eating...we're still waiting on that tooth. She's been chewing on everything in sight for about 5 months now and still has no teeth. I'm not sure how excited I am about the experience of teething, but it would be nice to be able to give her tastes of our table food.

Learning

After our visit with my friend last Wednesday, I realized that we all are paranoid about our children and what they're doing. While I'm concerned about baby girl's size (she's sort of small, which is a direct reflection upon my body's ability to feed her), my friend is concerned about her little boy's size because he's a bit bigger. I am conscious of the fact that, until last Wednesday, baby girl wasn't babbling consonants (our doctor asked about them at her 6 month appointment, which led me to believe it should have been happening by then), she's cognizant that her little boy isn't crawling yet (and I'm sure it makes it worse that baby girl is all over the place now--but she was really early at crawling and he's 3 weeks younger, too).

We're all always thinking about where our children *should* be developmentally and where they actually are and worrying about whether it's good enough. It sucks, but it's the truth. And it's good to know I'm not the only neurotic one :)

The Zoo

Friday, March 19th, baby girl had her first trip to the zoo! The husband and I decided to make the investment into the annual membership so we could go whenever we wanted and so we wouldn't feel pressured to see the whole thing each trip, especially knowing baby girl needs to be at home to get good naps in.

I took the day off and my mom came up to join us. We headed out around 10 a.m. It was a little chilly still, so we put her in a jacket and her sun hat. We plopped her into the stroller and started walking. We made our way through many of the different areas of the zoo--the elephants, leopards, flamingos, penguins. We also went into the aquarium, which was the best decision of the day because you could get pretty close to the animals, which meant baby girl could actually see them. She loved them! It was hard to get close to the glass with all the other kids there, but we managed pretty well.

I was a little disappointed that she didn't seem to notice any of the other animals. Her favorite thing to watch was the other kids :) But she had a good time and I know as she gets older she'll become more aware of the animals. We'll keep going back! Hopefully Daddy can go with us next time. My mom wanted us to take her on the carousel, but I wanted to wait until her daddy was with us.

Another Sleep Update

I'm sure by now you're all thinking, "geez, woman, do you really think we care about how horrible a sleeper your kid is????", but oh well. Just skip this post if you're not interested ;) My blog, my topic. So there.

Baby girl's sleeping has, in general, gotten quite a bit better. Except a couple of nights, which seemed to be anomalies, we've been up one time, she's eaten, then she's gone right back to bed. Friday night was rough because we'd been to the zoo (more on that in a later post) and her only afternoon nap was in the carseat, then my mom stuck around too late and she stayed up too late.

Last night she woke up at 10:00 and was inconsolable. She'll typically calm pretty quickly when we pick her up, but even in her daddy's arms, she was crying pretty hard. Since she kept sticking her thumb in her mouth and, instead of sucking, chewing, we thought, "aha! Maybe it finally is time for teeth!" and gave her some Tylenol to take the edge off. She slept better after that, whether it was a product of the Tylenol or not. She went down fairly easily once it kicked in and slept until 2:30, woke up and ate, then started stirring around 6:40 this morning, just in time for me to nurse her, get dressed, and head out the door.

So we might have gotten over this hump. I'm sure once teeth really *do* start to come in we'll have to go through crappy sleep again. I'm sure once she starts to walk, we'll have another regression. I'm sure there will be many sleep regressions to come, but for now we're just celebrating being in this happy place of only getting up once a night.

And yes, she's still sleeping under that huge quilt. And yes, I still panic about it...but she sleeps and that's what matters, especially since she really is safe. The kid is really mobile and when I'm not feeling super emotional I know in my heart that she's fine. But at nighttime, I do still worry a bit.

Meal Plan 3/21-3/27

(the hubby is working a TON this week and won't really have any idea what the week will look like until today after work, so I've got a lot of pretty quick meals planned and they'll be fairly interchangeable between days)

Sunday: Easy Cheesy Mexican Skillet (I LOVE this blog for easy meal ideas)
Monday: Leftover Chicken Tomato Gumbo (mentioned here)
Tuesday: Hot dogs and Annie's Mac & Cheese (purchased for $0.49/box at Kroger both last week and this week after a $4 discount for buying 8 participating items)
Wednesday: Chicken Fried Rice
Thursday: Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup
Friday: DH's grandma's taco salad recipe
Saturday: Chicken Quesadillas

(the Chicken Fried Rice and Quesadillas will be made easier by pre-cooking a whole chicken (you can do it in the crockpot--I do it in my microwave cooker from Tupperware) and using that chicken in those dishes)

Jinx?

I probably shouldn't be posting this, but I feel the need to. A few days ago, I posted that I was able to get baby girl to sleep by putting our queen-sized quilt over her and turning down her white noise machine. I wasn't sure if she was just so exhausted that she fell asleep or if one of those things did the trick.

Well, it's sort of appearing that one of those things might have done the trick. This was Monday night. Well, Tuesday and Wednesday nights we've put her under a quilt, turned her wave machine on low, and she's slept. She's slept really well. She's only getting up once a night. She eats, then she goes back to sleep. Before this, she would wake up and need some soothing to get back to sleep, but now, no soothing necessary. Last night she even seemed pretty restless and we thought she'd be up early, but she slept until 2, when she got up, ate, and slept until 6:20 when DH went in and got her (she was starting to stir...she might have gone back to sleep, but she needed to get up for the day).

A fluke? Still might be. But we're feeling pretty good after two pretty good nights of sleep.

All of this started, though, with a 5 hour nap on Tuesday. FIVE HOURS. She then slept well that night. Yesterday she took normal naps, went down late (wasn't even remotely sleepy until about 7:45), and still slept well. So we're hoping it wasn't b/c of the nap.

She woke up a bit snottier than she had been and coughing a bit more. Hoping it's just a residual cough from her cold that hit its peak on Sunday. Hoping it's not something more. Hoping it's not what's getting her to sleep!!!

Of course I'm a nervous wreck with her under this huge quilt up around her head (no matter where it starts, she wiggles down until it's really close to her mouth), so we check on her before we go to bed (and then if I wake up throughout the night), but I think we'll get over that, especially if it means sleep!

I'll keep you posted. Of course I will...because you know I'll be posting when she sleeps like crap tonight, don't you?

Last Night

Yes, it's another post about my baby's sleeping habits. I feel like I'm becoming obsessed and all-consumed by getting her good sleep. I don't really care if she sleeps all night long, but just feel like she should be getting better sleep than she is.

Last night I nursed her at 6:30 like I typically (pre-DST, that is) do. Afterwards, she didn't show much sign of being tired, so we let her play a bit downstairs. DH carried her upstairs around 7:30 (I think? It was once she started showing some sleepy signs), read her her story, then I went upstairs and sang and rocked her to sleep. He put her down in her crib and all of a sudden she was wide awake again. She just sat and giggled at us. After handing her off to DH, I always sit in the rocker pretending to be sleeping, so DH curled up on the floor and we both pretended to sleep. Eventually (probably about 20 minutes later...ugh) she just laid down and fell asleep. If we could just get her to do that without us in the room!

She slept until about 10:30, when DH told me that she didn't seem sleepy, so I fed her. She still didn't really fall asleep eating, but DH got her to go to sleep eventually in her crib.

Baby girl then woke back up at 3:00. DH spent a half hour with her, then tagged out and I took over at 3:30. I tried patting and shhing, I tried just rubbing her back (when she'd lay down), I tried leaving her alone (she was fine for about 10 minutes while I sat in the rocker with my eyes closed, but then got pretty upset), I tried turning on the nightlight (we'd turned it off a few weeks ago)...but she was still awake. Eventually, I went and got the queen-sized quilt that was folded in our linen closet, opened it up a bit, and laid it over her and tucked the sides in a bit. I turned down her white noise, rubbed her back a couple of times, and then just stood over her crib and she fell asleep. Not sure if the changes I made made a difference or if she was just exhausted, but she slept until we woke her at 6:20.

Of course then I returned to bed and I couldn't fall asleep. I ended up laying awake until almost 4:30, watching The Price of Beauty (what can I say? The picking of overnight TV are pretty slim...I typically watch Roseanne, but at 4:00 Three's Company comes on that channel...and I used to watch Flintstones at 4 a.m., but wasn't in the mood.). ~yawn~

I miss my baby

It's the end of the day and I'm getting ready to head home and see my baby girl, but I was just sitting here thinking about the blogs that I read/have read that talk about tragedies with babies. I just makes me want to go home, scoop her up, and never let her go. Even though we had a rough night last night, I love her more than I could ever had imagined. Only 5 more minutes (and a 40 minute commute)!

Worst Night in Awhile

I have no idea if it's because of the time change or because baby girl is getting over a cold, but last night was our worst night in awhile. She's been congested for a few nights and hasn't seemed bothered by it at all. And she went down well last night, about a half an hour late (by the clock--half an hour early by her body clock). She went to sleep at 7:30, then woke up at 9:20. She was easily soothed and I thought that was the last I'd hear of her. Nope, she was back up at 10:10ish. Again, fairly easily soothed. Then back up at 10:40ish. Again, not horrible... The husband got home around 11:15 and she woke up soon after that. This time, though, she seemed to be WIDE awake. We let her fuss in her crib for about 10 minutes until it escalated to her sounding more frantic each time. The hubby couldn't get her to go back to sleep in her crib, so he suggested I try feeding her. I fed her. She started to fall asleep on side one, but by the time she was on side two, was wide awake and not even all that interested in eating. She just wanted to play.

Since we're all sick, DH and I are EXHAUSTED. It's after midnight. We ended up just laying down and putting her between us and prayed that she'd fall asleep. Me, being ever-anxious, couldn't sleep right away, just nervous she could get smothered by a blanket, a pillow, or one of us. Eventually sleep won out. It apparently did for her, too. I remember her rolling over onto her belly (she fell asleep on her back, which is weird for her), but that's the last thing I remember until 5 a.m., when she woke up pissed off again. I fed her and, yet again, she didn't fall asleep after nursing. Up until last night, this was the easiest thing to do to get her to fall asleep. I ended up just laying her between us for another half an hour and she must have fallen back asleep because the next thing I know, DH is waking us all up to get ready to go.

I'm a walking zombie today. How miserable. Once this sickness has left our house, we'll get back on sleep training. We won't be bringing her back to bed anymore. This was the first (and last) time we've ever done it for more than just early morning hours. But something had to give. We needed some sleep to be able to function today. As it was, we only got about 5 hours...

Workaholic

(I'm post-dating this entry on the chance that someone reading right now knows where I live and, therefore, knows I'm home alone. The alarm is on, but still...can't be too careful.)

Many people would call my husband a bit of a workaholic. He isn't nearly as bad as so many other people out there, but compared to many of our friends, he works a heck of a lot. The husband has worked for the same place since his college days in 1999, so I've had a long time to built up my resentment for this place (since we've been together in early 2002) and each time he takes a phone call, checks his email, or works extra hours, the resentment grows.

I'm trying my best, though, to keep it all in check. I know he loves his job. No, he doesn't love the hours away from home, the frustrating people he works with at times, but he does generally love what he does. He loves the challenges. He hates that it takes him away from home, but he sacrifices. I believe that he's sacrificing for all of us. He's great at his job. He puts a lot of himself into it and has a lot of respect from his coworkers and, more importantly, his bosses. The people at the top of the organization are grooming him to move up within the organization and I know that really excites him. So I try my hardest to be happy for him.

It's nights like these, though, that it's hard to maintain the perspective. He left here after baby girl went to bed (around 7:30--we were happy it was only a half an hour late after the daylight savings time change last night). If she had slept well, this wouldn't be a huge deal. Yes, I'm nervous when he's gone, but I have a bit of peace of mind with the security system armed. However, baby girl has now been awake three times in as many hours. Of course she slept well 7:30 to 9:20, but has been up at 9:20, 10:15, and 10:35. It's such a struggle dealing with that by myself and makes me miss my husband even more.

So here I sit at almost 11:00 Sunday night, trying to recover from a cold (and therefore feeling like crap and really needing some sleep), not wanting to get in bed because I know I'll be up again very soon. I just hope he gets home soon...at least before she wakes again.

Meal Plan 3/14-3/20

Sunday: BBQ Chicken Braid (I used refrigerated Italian bread--it is actually really easy to roll out. It has a seam in it like crescent rolls do)

Monday: Swiss Casserole Chicken

Tuesday: Leftover pork tacos

Wednesday: BBQ Chicken Braid (I made one tonight and since it was so easy will use up the rest of my shredded chicken on Wednesday)

Thursday: Tomato Chicken Gumbo (see recipe below)

Friday: Either eat out or eat something we planned on this week but ended up going out

Saturday: Creamchiladas


TOMATO CHICKEN GUMBO (we made this before baby girl arrived and froze it and now just need to thaw)

1 can (14 oz.) chicken broth
½ 1b. hot sausage links or Polish Sausage, cooked and sliced
1 can (26 oz.) chunky spaghetti sauce
2 cups cooked diced chicken
1 can (11 oz.) canned corn, drained
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 ½ cups cooked white rice

TO FREEZE: Dump all ingredients except rice into 1 gallon Ziploc freezer bag. Lay flat in freezer.
TO COOK: In 6-quart pot, bring gumbo to a boil. Add cooked rice. Cover; cook over medium heat 10 minutes or until heated through. Add additional water or broth for a thinner gumbo. For spicier gumbo serve with hot red pepper sauce.

I also bought the supplies to make 4 shepherd's pies to put in the freezer. I was planning on cooking today, but am still recovering from my cold and didn't feel nearly as motivated as I had hoped. So we might have one of those this week, but more than likely I'll end up putting them together on Saturday.

Meal Plan 3/6-3/12

Since it's already Wednesday, this is sort of retroactive. I planned all the meals for the week before heading to the grocery Sunday morning, but obviously got a bit off track...

Sunday: Wendy's (were missing an ingredient for the planned meal)
Monday: Pesto Chicken & Sweet Potatoes
Tuesday: Breakfast (pancakes, scrambled eggs, turkey sausage)
Wednesday: McDonald's (forgot to put stuff in the crockpot!)
Thursday: Pulled Pork Tacos with lime rice
Friday: Salad with Chicken (whole chicken cooked in microwave cooker, then part of chicken used for this meal, part frozen, then the rest will be used on Saturday)
Saturday: Dinner with friends. So far I know my contribution will be Buffalo Chicken Dip

Because we didn't cook two nights we'd planned on, I have two leftover meals. They'll be used early next week so the ingredients don't go bad.

Snot....again

Baby girl had a mini-cold a month or so ago. It only lasted a day or two and she acted totally fine the whole time. Thank goodness!!

Last night we were up at 11 and 2:30 and she was dry--no snot to be found. Then when she woke up at 6:30...snot. Everywhere. Everything was soggy and slimy and it was just gross. She was coughing a bit, too.

So maybe it's a cold. Or maybe it's teeth. I don't think I've fully documented here how many times we've thought she was on the brink of getting a tooth. Trust me, it's been a lot. When she stopped sleeping through the night, when she got a snotty nose, when she drooled beyond belief, when she chewed on everything in sight, when she stopped eating purees...and then again yesterday, when I heard her in her car seat, chewing her finger raw. Kid, you won't want to do that once a tooth pokes through.

So even before bedtime I thought maaaaybe there was going to be a tooth. She did the chewing thing again this morning. There's the chewing she's been doing since she could get her hands (and everything else) into her mouth, but then there's this level of chewing that I've never experienced. No sucking involved...just gnawing.

So now, who knows. She could end up with a tooth or this could be another of many false alarms and she could just have another cold, even though no one she's been around has one.

Stay tuned, I suppose....

My balls are always bouncing...

(Yes, I have Big Balls by AC/DC stuck in my head...)

My mom brought baby girl a red bouncing ball, probably a foot or so in diameter, this past Sunday. We quickly discovered that she already understood the concept of pushing the ball to us. We'd sit her with her feet far apart (the ball would bounce off her feet if we let her sit like normal) and push it to her and she'd either grab it and chew on it for a second, or immediately push it back to us. I'm so happy to see her play with something and not just eat it ;)

And she's up!

I think I can officially say that baby girl has mastered pulling up, at least on Mommy. She crawled over to me a few times last night, grabbed my arm, pulled up to her feet, then stood up, hanging on with just one hand. I am SO not ready for this new stage of mobility!!!

Never want to forget

Baby girl has the biggest personality and I never ever want to forget what she's like every single day. I do a good job of noting when she starts conquering milestones, but don't document the little things. I never want to forget the way she is now. Yes, she challenges us every single night with sleeping. But during waking hours, she's such a joy. I don't want to forget the way she rubs her face in my chest when she's tired, but doesn't want to admit it. Or the way she sucks her little thumb after nursing in the middle of the night so she won't completely wake back up. How she snuggles into her daddy's shoulder after I rock her to sleep and before he lays her in her crib. The way she squeals and turns the other way with excitement when one of us is holding her and the other tries to kiss her cheek. The way she gives kisses to her mommy's cheek and mouth--sometimes seeming like she wants to nurse, but other times like she just wants to let me know how much she loves me. How she kicks her feet when in her high chair when she's eating food she really likes. How she smiles and grins when she's crawling toward us. The way she rams her head into my shin when she's crawled to me but I haven't bent to pick her up yet. How she gets tired of crawling and will stop and sit on her hip, stretched out on her side, wondering if it's worth it to keep crawling. The way she's nosy and wants to see everyone and will even lean around mommy or daddy to see new people. The way she smiles at mommy while daddy is holding her, getting ready to take her to bed. How her eyes light up when one of us walks in the room.

There are even some things that she does that seem like a nuisance at the time, but I know I'll miss it someday. How she grabs the back of my hair when she wants to get really close. The way she holds my necklaces while I'm holding her. How she screams when she's hungry (or not wanting to sleep) until I nurse her. And how sometimes only nursing her can help calm her down. The way she'll reach out to the other person when one of us is holding her. How she hates her high chair tray when she's done eating, but will still sit in the chair once we remove the tray and push her up to the table. The way she screams when we're putting on or taking off her clothes, until she gets to chew on her pants or shirt. The way she pulls her legs OUT of the leghole that we just put them into. How she sticks everything into her mouth, even the big bouncy ball (probably a foot in diameter) that her grandma got her yesterday.

I never want to let these moments go. I never want to forget.

Fun Things My Kid Is Doing--Post #239875

This past week was an explosion of development for baby girl! She has:

- Discovered her tongue. Many of you noticed in her earliest pictures that her tongue was always out. Well, I don't think she meant to do that in the past....but now she's got it hanging out all the time. She takes after her mommy--she sticks her tongue out when she's concentrating really hard on something. She's always blowing bubbles like crazy (used to do it, but this is totally different).

- Started making a new face. Many times it's accompanied by the sticking out tongue, but she wrinkles her nose and breathes in and out quickly through her nose. We've seen her do it when she's frustrated, but also when she's happy. It's hilarious and she'll even do it back when we do it at her.

- Waved! She doesn't do it regularly, but yesterday she waved at both my mom and DH. She's been flapping her arms a lot recently, but yesterday was the first time it seems to come with a purpose.

- Started pulling up. Look out!! On Friday she started pulling to her knees, then yesterday I showed her how to put one foot out and pull up that way and she did it a few times. She took a big tumble, though, which scared everyone a bit, since she banged the back of her head on a toy. Ouch! A quick snuggle by mommy and seeing her stuffed ice cream cone made it all better.

Yesterday she also tried avocado and decided she was NOT a fan! Many people talked about babies loving avocado, but this was officially the first food she did not like. We think it was the texture. She spit it back out repeatedly and even threw some of it up. Not going to try that again soon! We will be starting her on fruits this week, though. I want to make sure she isn't going to have some sort of reaction to the avocado, then we'll start applesauce.

Seven Months

I think I say this every month...but I can't believe she's seven months old!!!

At seven months, baby girl is crawling all over the place. She's still not *real* fast, but she can go for sure. I sat her on the floor outside the bathroom today with a couple of toys and by the time I was done and washing my hands, there she was, tugging on my pant legs. When she crawls over to me when I'm sitting down, she'll ram her head into my shin. Can't be comfy, but it's so cute!

Baby girl is eating like crazy. I keep saying that I'm so glad she's a good eater. If she were a bad eater and a bad sleeper, I don't know what I'd do! She loves to nurse, but also take a bottle like a champ. Every morning she has 1/4 cup of baby oatmeal mixed with organic pear juice (to help keep her tummy moving). Starting this past weekend, she's getting a veggie at lunchtime. Then, while we eat our dinner she has 3 or 4 ice cubes worth of veggies. So far she's had carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, peas, and green beans and loved all of them. Of course she likes the orange veggies a bit better since they're sweeter, but she hasn't balked at anything.

She's such a big girl about sitting in her high chair. She sometimes gets a bit fussy when the tray is on, but after she's done eating, we clean her up, take off the tray, and push the chair all the way up to the table. We give her plastic measuring cups (the 1/4 cup one was on the table from measuring out oatmeal) and she bangs them on the table. The first night this happened, we were all rocking out Bon Jovi. It's a great way to keep her occupied while we finish eating or just hanging out, listening to the radio.

Her sleeping still isn't great, but we're getting there. She'd like to sleep 12 hours a night or so, I think. We had one night where DH put her down pretty awake and he tried to soothe her to sleep, but she kept giggling and playing with him. Eventually he laid down on the floor and I put my head down and closed my eyes while sitting in the rocker. She got bored and just rolled over on her tummy and went to sleep.

She's definitely a thumb sucker. She now sucks her thumb and pulls on her ears when she's tired. She even does it in the middle of dinner.

Baby girl has recently started bouncing. She's a bit erratic about it and will only do it while being held, but it's super fun.

My favorite thing that she does right now is give kisses. I have no idea if she means to do it, but I'm the only one she'll do it to. She usually grabs my face (and sometimes my hair with the other hand) and brings her mouth to my cheek (or my mouth sometimes), open wide, and lick/suck my face. It's the sweetest thing!

She still prefers to be next to her mommy whenever possible. We can be sitting on the floor together and she'll turn and crawl up onto my lap or turn all the way around and lift her arms up to be picked up. Just this past weekend she fell asleep in our bed without any coaxing, just because she was snuggled up on mommy.

That leads me to my favorite times with her--snuggling in our bed on weekends. DH will typically get up with her if she gets up obnoxiously early and then bring her back up when she needs to nurse. I'll nurse her and we'll play a bit in bed. Some mornings we can coax her to take her nap a little early and all of us snuggle in bed together.

She can be quite impatient. Just recently she's started banging on her tray when we aren't feeding her quickly enough. And while she likes being naked, she doesn't like the process of getting changed.

Everything still goes in her mouth. She loves most of all to chew on cloth things--her clothes, her jacket, stuffed animals, tags, blankets... We always tell her she's going to get a fuzzy tongue. No teeth yet. We've had quite a few instances of some really stringy drool, TONS of chewing...but no teeth yet. Not concerned, just wondering when they're going to show up!

She's really getting the hang of standing and still prefers to stand over crawling. She will hold onto the side of her Exersaucer with one hand and stand there. Of course, we put our hands under her arms, just in case, but don't touch her. It amazes us every single time. She's *trying* to figure out walking while holding our fingers. It isn't the balance or supporting her weight that's getting her...it's actually moving her legs. She tends to walk a tightrope and that's not real conducive to learning to walk!

Baby girl loves to be upside down. I always thought she just hated being upside down, which is why she was breech, but no--you dangle her upside down and she's really happy!

She loves to squeal, especially when mommy will respond with her own squeal.

She's ticklish, but only mommy can get her to roll over to run away and squealing from being tickled. She squirms a bit when others do it, but not as much as when mommy does it!

Another great moment of the last month was when she crawled to us for the first time when we picked her up at daycare. What a great feeling to see her crawling to us, ready to see us after a long day!!!

She's still wearing size 2 diapers and 3-6 month clothes. Both are getting fairly snug and we've had to phase out a few 3-6 month outfits. I plan to exchange some of our size 2 diapers very soon for some size 3s. I have plans for her to wear a 6-9 month outfit (her first) this weekend (a sweater DH's dad picked out for her, who we'll see on Saturday).

She loves being rocked to sleep. Daddy reads her a story, then mommy comes up, lays her on her side, and starts rocking and singing. She immediately pops that thumb into her mouth. Mommy sings "You Are My Sunshine", "The Alphabet Song", "Jesus Loves Me", "Carmen Ohio", and "Amazing Grace", just to name a few.

She's giggle like crazy if you blow raspberries on her belly or make her fly.

If I can think of anything else, I'll come back and add it! I don't want to forget her the way she is right now--she's such a joy!

Better Sleep

Sleep was better last night. Went down around 7:15, up around 8:45 for no apparent reason, but easily soothed by her daddy (he was back before his ice cream melted). The hubby and I went to bed not long after that, expecting to have a long night ahead of us. We were pleasantly surprised when we weren't awakened until 2:30! We went ahead and go her up, I fed her, then she went right back to sleep. She then slept until about 6:30--just in time to get up and eat and get ready to go.

We have no idea what we've done. I did turn off her main nightlight. Who knows if that did it. Or it could just be that she's napping better during the day at the sitter's and maybe getting more tired there and therefore will sleep better for us on nights after she's been at the sitter's, rather than home with us.

It just makes me feel like we're doing something wrong on the weekends. We've tried stimulating her a lot (taking her out to stores, restaurants, etc.), we've tried staying at home and focusing on getting her her naps as soon as she needs them. We've tried playing a lot, we've tried winding down to naptime. We follow the same routines on the weekends except that we let her sleep until she's done, rather than waking her at 6:30 (which we don't even have to do all the time...this past Sunday, for instance, she was up at 6 and ready to go and we stayed up with her).

I just don't know. I'm going to just try to be happy that this probably means she'll sleep well 5 nights out of the week. I was mostly afraid that we were going to have to re-train after each weekend, but it seems whatever is naturally happening during the week is doing enough to get her to sleep.

Poop

Yep, just because some of you thought my last post would be about poop, here is a post. All about poop.

Not mine, of course. No, that would be gross. Baby girl's. She's always had really odd pooping habits. They've become MUCH harder and much more infrequent. I was hoping the addition of veggies would help a girl out, but apparently not.

Saturday I was beginning to get a bit concerned. She'd been acting like she needed to go, would grunt and push, but nothing would happen. I wondered if she'd gone at the sitter's and she didn't mention it. The sitter does typically mention it since it's so infrequent...or maybe because many times she was wearing it. Either way, I usually know when I put her up.

So Sunday morning DH let me sleep in for an hour--so nice! When he brought baby girl back upstairs, he announced that she'd pooped. Yay!!! Well, while we were laying in bed together, she pooped again. And again later that day. Within 24 hours, she'd pooped SIX times. And not small little nuggets...oh no...BIG baby poops.

I told her she felt like she was at least a pound lighter. Oh, to be able to lose a pound that way.... :)

Number 2

This morning I was quickly reminded of a situation (? problem?) I've been a part of for as long as I can remember. I've always been Number 2 (at least).

Let's go back to 1992. I was in middle school. I had a best friend from elementary school, Shelley. Over the summer, I met Lisa, who lived across the street. We became fast friends and I introduced her to Shelley. The three of us hung out a lot. But soon I realized that Lisa and Shelley were hanging out more on their own, without me. They grew closer as I grew further apart from them. By the time we started high school, they were each other's Number 1.

Enter a different Lisa, who I met before ninth grade--1994. We were in band together. She became my best friend. But I was still her Number 2. She had had a best friend since childhood. We were all friends...but I was Number 2 and was never allowed to forget it.

Next we come to 1998, when I started college. I made a great friend. She, of course, still had her BFF from high school--no problem. She was still my best friend and, I thought I was hers, at least at college. But then she met my roommate. And she and my roommate moved in together and SHE became her Number 1. I was demoted to Number 2. Again.

I've had few others that I've considered promoting to my Number 1, but they always developed (or already had) their own Number 1. So I just don't have one. And I'm generally okay with that because my husband is really my best friend. HE is my Number 1 and I am his. And all is well. I am okay with having some really close girlfriends and not one best friend most of the time. I've made my husband and my daughter my priority and I don't know if I have the time or energy right now to maintain a BEST friendship. There are days, though, when people talk about their BFFs and I feel like I'm missing something.

Why was I reminded of this this morning? Well, I have a friend at work--my closest. We do a lot together--walk to get lunch, chat about our kids, chat about work. I enjoy my time with her. She's my Work Number 1. This morning, though, one of our coworkers returned from maternity leave. And I've been demoted to Number 3. The other three (my closest coworker, the one returning from leave, and another coworker) are currently eating lunch together. Was I invited? Of course not. They have long, chatty conversations that don't involve me. I would've been involved just Friday, but now that there's a better option? I'm demoted.

I'm tired of being Number 2. I'm tired of feeling like I'm not good enough. I'm tired of this being a theme in my life.