Twenty Six Weeks!

Weight: I did the good ol' weight trick that I always do and came up with around 15 pounds!
 
Sleep: We've had some amazing nights and some not-so-amazing-nights. A few nights in a row, Lizzie girl slept clear through the night -- woohoo! But last night and the night before were a little rough, with wake-ups every couple of hours -- not to eat necessarily, but just waking up sad and needing to be picked up to be comforted. Poor little babe.

Medical Issues: Nada :) Our stint with the common cold is over!

Clothes: Wearing 3 to 6 month clothes; shirts are a little big and pants are quite too big, but that's okay!

Socialite!: Baby girl went shopping with me, my mom and my grandma this past weekend and was perfect. She was happy as could be as I pushed her around the mall and slept at the perfect times (on our drive to and from St. Cloud :)). Sidenote: I've never been a nursing mother before (obviously) so I'd never appreciated the nursing rooms they have at the mall in St. Cloud -- they are incredibly wonderful... and with such a comfy chair, too :) It makes nursing on-the-go so much less inconvenient and so much more enjoyable.

Diet:Still nursing Lizzie exclusively while doing baby-led weaning. Since last week, I've seen some really awesome changes in her abilities to feed herself. Already she's much more accurate with both her grasp and her aim once she's trying to put the food in her mouth. She's also far less messy than she was when we first started a week or two ago. We've stayed on a pretty steady diet of steamed broccoli, sweet potato wedge "fries" and avocado, but I started to introduce a few new things over the past few days. Last night we tried organic baby yogurt with toast strips as "dippers", which she really liked. Tonight, we went with the toast dippers and organic baby yogurt again, but also tried two new things: roasted carrots with paprika and cucumber spears. Baby girl was in heaven! More often than not she had a cucumber in one fist and a carrot in the other, alternating between the two :) The carrot was quite similar to the sweet potato in terms of texture, which was good I think. Different flavor, but easy for Lizzie to break through the outside roasted skin and squeeze the inside out into her mouth. She had a great supper tonight!

Baby Gear Love: Still loving our Fisher Price Luv U Zoo jumperoo with books underneath so she can bounce herself (she's a shorty!). We're still glad with our high chair pick, which is the Fisher-Price Healthy Care Deluxe Booster Seat. It's so easy to clean after she eats. Another thing we've come to love is the clear plastic we put down on the floor beneath Lizzie's high chair before we eat. That way when we're finished with supper, we can just roll it up and throw it away and don't have to worry about cleaning up the floor below her. Another eating-time necessity is her bib. I ordered two different kinds: the OXO Roll-Up Bib and three of the Bumkins Waterproof Sleeved Bib. So far the Bumkins bibs are way too big for our little peanut -- she drowns in them. However, the OXO bib is awesome. It catches lots of what ends up falling out of her mouth (which, let's face it, tends to be quite a bit at this point) and can be washed up and cleaned in the sink after supper and left to dry. It makes clean-up of baby so much easier than if she doesn't wear a bib at all (which we did do for a little while until my parents suggested giving a bib a try, which only makes sense -- I had just thought it would get in the way previously).

Finally, I should also mention Lizzie's love of a pink stuffed bunny from a student's family from last year. She cannot get enough of this bunny, who happens to be almost her same size. She jabbers at it, eats its nose and reaches for it all the time. We like to sit her in front of it and just watch them "interact" :) It's way too cute.

Crying: She is one sweet baby. She's only fussy if she's hungry or tired :)

Mommy News: Not a whole lot to say about Mommy, really. Trying to ramp up the eating in order to accommodate for the lost calories due to nursing because I continue to be losing some weight it seems. Bring on the birthday treats, kids!

We're starting to Christmas shop for Lizzie and are also trying to think of ideas for other people to get her. Anyone out there have any good toy recommendations for babies? We would love to hear any you have!

Milestones: The sitting abilities become more and more impressive all the time. She can't be trusted to sit without someone ready to catch her if she loses her balance, but that's just a precautionary measure -- I'm sure she sat tonight without any assistance or anyone to lean on for several minutes. Playing with toys is so much more fun when you don't have to lay down!

Lizzie has also developed a lot of new sounds this week. She has a whole variety of noises to share different emotions, and it is completely awesome. We love love love listening to that little voice! Maybe the funniest new voice she has is a little "whine"... it typically elicits a laugh from us :) Poor girl.

We are also noticing how easily she will smile and giggle these days! Andy coughed last night and she laughed a good belly laugh :) Today he just came home from work and said "Hi" and she gave us a giggle. She is so sweet!