Thirty Six Weeks!

 

Weight: Officially: 16 pounds, three ounces. Still in that 5th to 10th percentile for weight.

  
Sleep: We've been battling a nasty cough again, so she's been waking once a night from that some nights. However, she has slept through the night probably three times in the last week, including last night, so that's great! We had two days off from school due to cold and snow, and on those days, she took some pretty fantastic naps. They tell me at daycare that she's a horrible napper, but I have a theory on that… how's a girl to snooze when there's crying, screaming and boxes of toys being dumped out, literally three feet from where you're expected to sleep? Poor baby.

Medical Issues: The cough that was on its way out revived itself with a vengeance! My theory is that it might be another cold on top of the sinus infection, which she had antibiotics for. Anyway, girlfriend was running a low-grade temp yesterday and wasn't eating much, so we took her in. Sure enough, the last infection didn't completely go away -- so we're on round two of antibiotics, with a slight change in the medicine. Here's to hoping this takes care of it!

Clothes: We're in three to six month clothes and three to six month jammies.

Socialite!: Hanging out with friendly friends at daycare, making friends with people at mass and hanging out with Grandmas, Grandpas and Aunties :)

Diet: I've been realizing how easy it is to cut salt from my recipes… at least, from Lizzie's portions. I make my supper recipes as written, without salt -- remove her portion for separate baking, and then add it to ours and proceed as normal. If this isn't an option, I just leave out the salt altogether and we add it to ours later, as needed. I've also been trying to add extra spices to compensate for the lack of salt, in hopes that we won't need at add any extra salt at all.

This week, Lizzie tried meatloaf and mashed potatoes for the first time… and they were devoured by our little lady! She couldn't get enough of either one. She is a fabulous eater! She also tried watermelon and peas and could pick them up and get them to her mouth without a problem. Pretty awesome! Girlfriend has yet to meet a food she doesn't like. Yahoo!

One thing I'm noticing that my BLW book warned about is that Lizzie definitely notices what we're eating and if she's not eating the same thing. For example, two nights ago, Andy and I had apples with our supper, while Lizzie had mango, blackberries and strawberries. I hadn't planned on giving her apples because they're too hard for her and could be a choking hazard; however, she insisted. So I gave her a wedge to gnaw on (it was safe -- I was right there, and she couldn't gum off any chunks); anytime I would switch foods and eat something other than my apple, she couldn't have cared less about her apple -- but the minute I was eating my apple, she wanted hers :) Silly girl.

Baby Gear Love: On Sunday, girlfriend made a great discovery: the (fake) MP3 player that Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Wayne gave her for Halloween! She couldn't get enough of it. Over and over and over, she pressed the buttons to make the songs play and would bob a little to dance… so. Darn. Cute!!!! This was definitely the first signs of her dancing. So it's now become the favorite toy, constantly in her hands, constantly being sung to by us, and constantly being "bobbed" (danced!) to.

Crying: Lizzie cries when hungry or tired and if we take something away that she's playing with. She's also starting to cry if someone takes her away from Mommy...

Mommy News: School was cancelled Monday and Tuesday this week due to bad weather and coooold temperatures. Those two days were heaven -- and I learned that I could definitely do the stay-at-home thing; I've wondered how I'd fare in the dead of winter when going outside isn't an option, but I wasn't even remotely itching to see people or get out of the house.

 

Milestones: Girlfriend is wanting to now stand by just holding one of our hands at times. I keep waiting for her to figure out how to creep, but she hasn't done so quite yet.

She did say "mama" last night after her bath when she was crying, but that's the only time I've heard it, and I don't think it was discriminatory. She did say "DA" the other day, nice and clear, and I've heard "baba" a couple of times, but not much. She does, however, have buckets of other new sounds and intonations… so she's working on things, just not producing those consonants like I keep waiting for.

Lizzie is also a huge fan of splashing in the bathtub! She soaked us last night… good thing we've moved bath time to the bath tub (not the kitchen sink) now!

We also had our first (slight) fever… a meager 99.0 degrees, but still a little elevated.

Thirty Five Weeks!

 

Weight: Somewhere between 15 and a half  and 16 pounds.

  
Sleep: Well, that sleeping through the night "binge" was certainly fleeting. Not that I have anything to complain about, really -- she's just getting up once at night, again to eat, even when she's eaten a ton before going to  bed. So I'm blaming it on a mental growth spurt, which always makes me excited to think of what's coming next!

Medical Issues: Today is day 10 of antibiotics for Lizzie girl's icky cough. She's still coughing maybe once or twice a day, which makes me wonder… should I call her doctor again and mention it? He said if it wasn't better by the end of the antibiotics, to call… any thoughts?

Clothes: We're in three to six month clothes and three to six month jammies.

Socialite!: Hanging out with friendly friends at daycare!

Diet: This week, I let Lizzie try mashed potatoes without my help -- meaning she got some dumped on her plate :) After initially just playing with them and getting to know their texture, girlfriend figured out she could put them in her mouth very successfully by using her hands. I've been offering her a baby spoon or baby fork at some meals now as well, and though I have to load it for her, she is relatively successful at getting the food to her mouth with it.

I also made her some scrambled eggs with spinach for lunch last Saturday, which she was a huge fan of. She had egg yolks around six months old (you're supposed to be cautious about the whites) and wasn't too crazy about them -- but that was when we had just started our BLW journey. This time, I sautéed some roughly torn-up spinach in olive oil and poured a slightly beaten egg + pepper (no salt!) into the pan.

Also new this week were pancakes! I made the batter for all of us, but left out the salt first. After I made her baby pancakes, I set them aside to cool and then added the salt to our batter before making the rest. Worked beautifully! We didn't do any syrup, as I'm kind of against added sugar (as much as I can be) at this point. I topped them with a little butter and cut them into strips and she devoured them!

We also tried strawberries this week. Another new food she loves! I held off on strawberries until now because those can be a potential allergen as well. But with no family history of it, I decided we could give it a little try -- and no negative reaction, woohoo! I've been considering peanut butter, as there are also no family allergies with that, but haven't done it yet…

Anyway, favorites right now include…

Veggies | Carrots, sweet potatoes, broccoli, mashed potatoes

Fruit | Bananas, strawberries, blackberries, clementines (skin around individual sections removed… which is tedious, but this girl loves her clementines!), pears, cherries (frozen, then thawed, so they're mushy), peaches (frozen, then thawed, so they're mushy) and avocado (is avocado a fruit? I think it is). We do all fresh fruits, except for cherries and peaches, which we buy frozen (no sugar added) right now.

Main course | Anything red-sauce related. We had a tortellini pasta bake that she devoured, and she's loved anything similar to spaghetti (she eats whole grain rotini because it's easier to grab onto). She also really likes pizza, but I generally take off the cheese and some toppings, if they're of the saltier variety (i.e. pepperonis). 

She enjoys hummus (red pepper) on whole wheat toast, whole wheat homemade broccoli mac and cheese, and chicken.

Baby Gear Love: Repeats of last week! How boring. We love the Fisher-Price Go Baby Go! 1-2-3 Crawl Along Snail and the Fisher-Price Laugh and Learn: Learning Kitchen. She's also a mega-fan of the Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Fun with Friends Musical Table. Quite honestly her favorite part of the whole thing is the plastic, rattling phone that it comes with (that is nothing more than a hunk of plastic that makes a nice rattling sound). She loves that thing! Take it away, and you'll be sorry.

Maybe the most popular thing in our house right now is anything she can stand next to. Our ottoman is the perfect height for her to stand next to, plus it's upholstered, so it's nice and soft for her to stand next to and pat her hands on :) She loves standing next to it -- she can't get enough!

Crying: Lizzie cries when hungry or tired and if we take something away that she's playing with. 

Mommy News: After my sad daycare experience last week, I'm happy to say things are back to how they should be… I am back in the "number one" spot compared to the daycare ladies -- woohoo! Babe's only got eyes for mama :)

Andy was out of town from Sunday to Wednesday this week for work (in San Diego… lucky guy!), so I was a single momma. Though I had to be extra organized and get everything ready the night before, getting out of the house (relatively) on time went really well. One morning we were even ahead of schedule, until someone decided to have a poopy diaper (no, not me), which ended up setting us back a few minutes. Oh well -- just a few extra minutes with my sweet girl, so I can't complain :)

Something I'm trying to savor is her cuddliness. I don't have any baby to compare it to, but I think Lizzie is a cuddly baby. Yesterday morning after she had her morning bottle, she sat on my lap and let me just hold her there, rocking back and forth. That definitely set us back quite a few minutes for our departure time, but I really didn't care even a little. Those ten minutes of just rocking, singing and talking before starting our day is completely worth it. Schedules, schmedules =)
 

Milestones: Girlfriend is crazy about walking! All she wants to do is stand and walk from toy to toy (while holding on to our hands, of course). But overnight, it seems, she figured out how to pick up her little feet and take steps. It is way. Too. Cute! Because she's still such a little peanut, so it's hilarious to watch.

Still no strong consonant babbling to speak of, but we've heard a few really strong, "BUH" sounds come out of her yesterday… so it's coming!

Thirty Four Weeks!

Weight: Somewhere between 15 and a half  and 16 pounds.

  
Sleep: Praise the Lord, we're sleeping through the night again! Two nights ago, girlfriend woke around 4:30 and thought it was time to play, which is so was not. Regardless, I'm counting that as a "sleeps through the night" night because really, we were pretty close to morning, right? Plus she'd been asleep since probably 7:30 p.m. And last night, she slept clear through until morning when I woke her up around 6:40. 'Atta girl! Previously, she had been waking up once a night or so due to her awful cough that wouldn't seem to go away. That's getting better now, so I think I'm going to blame the nighttime wake-ups on the cough + growth spurt.

Medical Issues: As mentioned last week (and possibly the week before), Lizzie has had a really icky cough that we've been trying to shake. Well, I waited it out and waited it out, using a humidifier next to her crib always each night, thinking that would help. Alas, it did not. But sweet girl was still acting like her normal, happy self and didn't have a temperature, so what's a momma to do? Well, we finally decided that enough was enough and called her doctor. I mean, the girl had been coughing for two weeks with no improvement. Anyway, her doctor didn't recommend we come in necessarily. He said we could definitely ride it out and she'd likely get better. Unfortunately, (but fortunately, really) there were some mix-ups with communication and Lizzie ended up being scheduled for an appointment anyway (with a different doctor because hers was booked up). By the time the nurse called to tell me we really didn't need the appointment, I'd already picked Lizzie girl up from daycare, so we decided to go anyway and just get checked out. And good thing we did! Turns out, she has an infection in her head (his words, not mine) -- which, initially, I thought meant that she was imagining it and making herself cough. However, it really meant that she has kind of a sinus infection thing going on with a lot of drainage. Anyway, after expressing how impressed he was with her for not yet having to be on any antibiotics (woohoo!), he prescribed her some delicious bubble gum medicine to take for the next 10 days, twice a day. Already it seems to be making a huge difference. As mentioned previously, she's slept through the night twice, and her cough is a thousand times better and more productive than it had been. I asked if she had to take the antibiotics to clear it up, because I'd prefer if she didn't take them, but he said that she really does have to -- if it were going to clear up on its own, it would have already.

Clothes: We're in three to six month clothes and three to six month jammies.

Socialite!: Hanging out with friendly friends at daycare!

Diet: I've decided that the reason Lizzie had been getting up to eat [seven ounces] in the middle of the night was because she was going through a growth spurt. She's definitely slowed down on her eating these days in terms of formula. Table food, however, is another story. Girlfriend can't. Get. Enough! She's now eating pretty much everything we do, though I'll sometimes pull her portion out before I add extra salt and things like that (for example, last night I made burgers using ground chicken. I added seasoned salt to mine and Andy's, but pulled out some ground chicken and made a mini-burger for her prior to adding that as the last ingredient). A new favorite this week is steamed carrots with paprika. Loves them! But it took me awhile to figure out just how to prepare them. They take forever to get soft.

Lizzie is still taking only around four ounces at night, but now this week she doesn't wake up to eat anymore, so as I said earlier, I think we were going through a growth spurt last week.

Baby Gear Love: Currently, our favorite toys are that (same ol', same ol') Fisher-Price Go Baby Go! 1-2-3 Crawl Along Snail and the Fisher-Price Laugh and Learn: Learning Kitchen. I think one of the reasons she loves the snail is that it has a mirror in its belly, so she can see herself :) The kitchen is definitely number one, though. Her little face completely lights up the moment she sees it come out of the toy box! Regardless, I've noticed that she really ends up liking things that have a face on them. She'll smile back at anything with a smiley face :)

From the mommy perspective, we're loving the Bumkins Waterproof Sleeved Bibs. I ordered three of them back in October, knowing that I wanted to do Baby Led Weaning, that it would be messy, that I didn't want her clothes to be destroyed, and that not all social situations would lend themselves to allowing Lizzie to strip down to a diaper every time we eat (which is what we do at home for our suppertime feeds most of the time, depending on the messy-factor of the meal). Anyway, we sent one to daycare and have kept two at home. They're awesome. She basically swims in them because they're so big (and she's a peanut, too), but they have elastic around the wrist that prevents anything from getting on her sleeves, and they're basically like a waterproof shirt, so it protects everything really well for the most part. We have found that the one weak spot is around her neck, so we now layer a regular terry-cloth bib underneath the sleeved bib, which seems to have taken care of that issue. I love that when she's done eating, the bib doesn't need to go in the wash, no matter how badly it's been destroyed by her eating habits -- instead, we can just wash it in the sink and it ends up looking quite clean... for the first few uses, anyway ;) But that's why we bought two, so we didn't have to constantly be doing laundry because of her bibs. Another perk? There are a bazillion options for prints for this bib -- so many that it's hard to choose! I'm not lying when I say I was tempted to order more than three because I just couldn't decide! We went with a Dr. Seuss print (which is similar to the One Fish, Two Fish print, but seems to not be for sale any longer...), Dandilion and Tweet (because I have an unhealthy obsession with all things bird [except for the actual animal itself]).

Crying: Lizzie cries when hungry or tired and if we take something away that she's playing with. She also does a hilarious 'tantrum' a few times a day if we put her down when she wants to be held. She sits on the floor and will lower her face all the way to the ground between her legs and rest her forehead on the floor, crying. It really is pretty funny just because it's so adorable (will we always think her 'tantrums' are adorable? HA! I'm guessing not). She'll also do it sometimes when she's on her tummy and doesn't want to be, and is apparently not feeling like rolling herself over to get out of that conundrum =) Otherwise, she is ridiculously happy!

Mommy News: I experienced something a few days ago that I'd hoped would never happen and that I had mentioned being worried about four months ago... when I came to pick up Lizzie from daycare the other day, she did her usual big smile and flailing arms when she saw me (love how excited she gets to see me!). She put her arms out toward me to take her (as usual), but as soon as she got there, she looked back at the daycare lady, cried, and reached for her. So I was a good sport and let her go back, attributing it to... well, I don't know what I attributed it to, but I didn't assume she actually wanted her more than me! Anyway, then Lizzie turned and looked at me, and put her arms out to me again, so I took her back. Same thing happened again: she cried and held her arms out to the daycare lady. Oh, my heart broke. It shriveled up five sizes. I died a little inside, and I could feel that icky, painful lump in my throat show up all too quickly while my eyes started to well up with tears. I turned quickly away and pretended to check to make sure everything was in her diaper bag and ready to go home (of course it was, always is). Unfortunately, the daycare lady only said things that rubbed salt in the wound and made it worse. "Oh Lizzie, I wish you could come home with me, too." Stab. I fumbled with the carseat while my baby cried and watched the daycare lady. "I think you miss me as much as I miss you when you're gone!" Sucker punch. Those darn straps! I couldn't get them around Lizzie's shoulders fast enough to make my exit as quickly as possible in that moment. "You can play with me tomorrow." Yeouch. Because Mom's not fun enough to play with tonight? Because Mommy is not as fun as the daycare lady? The lump in my throat swelled larger, and praise the good Lord, I finally got Lizzie situated safely so we could leave and I ran out the door with a real casual "See ya", which is highly unlike me. As I clicked her carseat in to the back of the car, I looked in her little eyes and felt like all she was thinking was how much she wished the daycare lady were her mommy. (How dramatic... ha!). I called my own mom on the ride home and told her what happened while fighting back tears. She told me that's just how kids are -- and my coworkers told me the same thing the next day when I told them what happened, too. They told me to get used to it -- because when they can talk, they'll be even more vocal about not wanting to go home with you.

Alas, I knew it was true even before Lizzie was born. I've seen it in all the childcare situations I've worked in -- kids have lots of fun doing whatever it is they do at daycare and, at times, end up being disappointed when Mom or Dad comes to pick them up.

But still.

I didn't think my baby would do that.

And then I realized: this is part of being a working momma. Another sacrifice.

Anyway, I've spent the better part of the last few days trying to be extra fun to win some brownie points with Lizzie girl. Which is ridiculous, I know. I know she loves me everyone else (aside from her daddy). Even my husband said, "Meg, if I thought like you, I'd be sad all the time. Who does Lizzie always want to be with? Mom. Who does Lizzie always want to hold her? Mom." And I know that's true. I can feel it in the way she snuggles her little head in in the middle of the night when I answer her cries. I can see it in the way she ever so gently touches the curls in my hair when we play. I hear it so clearly in the way she laughs just because I'm laughing. She's my baby girl. Mine. She always will be. And that Mommy-daughter love is a one-of-a-kind thing, that no one else will ever have with her.
 

Milestones: Rolling over is old hat now! Girlfriend sees something she wants, and she'll pop right over to get it. She hasn't quite grasped the idea that she can utilize rolling over to travel across the room, though (maybe that's a good thing?). She's also showing quite a bit more interest and much less hesitance to lunge forward into the crawling position these days. Of course, that position quickly ends with her being on her belly, but no matter -- it's definitely a big milestone that she's not so apprehensive about it and is figuring it out.

She's getting incredibly talented at pulling herself up on and standing next to things without help, too. If she has something to grab onto, Lizzie can get her feet underneath her and push up. That skill definitely popped up overnight, as well as her ability to stand next to things, unaided. Now, I wouldn't trust her to stand solo and walk away from her, but she can easily do it without any help.

On Sunday morning while getting ready for mass, we did hear a couple of "ba-ba" sounds. Now since then, we haven't heard it...  but still, it happened! So I imagine it'll become more frequent anytime.

Her eating skills continue to be extremely impressive. She's got her pincer grasp down, and has problem solved how to get small bits of food off of her tray; she'll pick up small pieces in her fist, then open that fist up and take the food with her other fingers with the pincer grasp, and then put it in her mouth. It is awesome to watch.

Thirty Three Weeks!

Weight: I'm thinking girlfriend is putting on the pounds! My guess is around 15 and a half pounds right now. She's feeling pretty solid these days!

  
Sleep: I had thought that with the switch-over to formula, Lizzie might sleep through the night again. Alas, it's not true! Baby girl is still waking sometime between midnight and three and is ready to eat. After that she'll typically fall back asleep until morning, but I've noticed a sad trend that I hope changes: she doesn't fall asleep like she did when I nursed her in the night :( I'm not sure if it provided some comfort or if it's the tryptophan that breastmilk has in it that helped her completely zonk out right away/during a middle-of-the-night-feeding, but she's definitely not "zonking" out anymore. It takes some effort to get her back to sleep when she wakes now, and she might wake up once or twice within a few minutes of putting her down, too.

Medical Issues: Nothing to report! She does have a yucky cough that we're working on getting rid of right now, but other than that, baby girl seems perfectly  healthy.

Clothes: We're in three to six month clothes and six month jammies. The jammies are still quite big right now, but that's okay… they're fleece and cozy for the sub-zero temps we've been having!

Socialite!: Sweet girl went back to daycare this week :( Although it was sad, I can tell how much she loves the interaction with the other kids (and playing with all of their toys :)).

Diet: (I'm going to keep this section strictly about her diet… my feelings/thoughts on it will come in the "Mommy News" section.) Lizzie is now on formula. We made it one week shy of her eight-month birthday with breastmilk before going to an iron-enriched formula. We were VERY surprised to see how quickly my frozen breastmilk ran out! I had probably 80 frozen bags, and it only lasted probably 14 days between weaning and being exclusively bottle-fed. I was initially pretty confused about which formula to buy for her -- after all, I wanted the best (which I realize is breastmilk, but "second best" then) I could get her, but there's so many kinds out there! So after lots of online reading, I decided we weren't going to go with any pre-mixed formula. Not only is it more expensive, it's also got more BPA in it, which I do not want. The least amount of BPA comes from powdered formula, so I knew we'd go that route. And again, powder = most cost effective. I asked a few people what they would recommend and found the same response as what I read online: generic and name-brand are practically the exact same thing, so you may as well save 50% and go with the store-brand. Daycare told me that Wal-Mart's brand tends to be gritty, so they stick to Target's Up & Up brand -- so I found a Cartwheel for it (whoo!) and in the cart it went!

Anyway, in terms of how much she's eating, she's an interesting little lady. She seems to eat a relatively small amount throughout the day, typically between two and, at most, five ounces throughout the day. Before bed, I keep hoping she'll tank up and take eight ounces to get her through the night, but she never does. Some nights, she'll take two ounces (two!How's a girl supposed to sleep through the night on that? Oh yeah, she doesn't). Most of the time, it's four ounces. Last night, she took seven (!) ounces! I thought for certain we'd be sleeping through the night. Wrong. She was up at 12:44 a.m.  to eat another six ounces. What the!? And then she woke up this morning and at two ounces. So it seems she's tanking up overnight, rather than before the night begins. I'm perplexed, and am wondering if anyone has any advice for how to change this… ideas? Suggestions? I'll take 'em!

Her daily schedule for eating typically goes as such:

6:30 a.m.: Eat between three and five ounces.

8:30 a.m. (daycare): Eat five ounces.

11:30 a.m. (daycare): Eat food (for example, today I packed Lizzie a lunch of whole wheat bread, hummus, broccoli, cauliflower and pears.

3:00 p.m. (daycare): Eat four or five ounces.

6:00 p.m. (home): Eat supper (for example, the other night she had chicken breast cut into strips for her to pick up and eat, steamed broccoli, cauliflower and carrots, a peach segment (frozen, then thawed -- no sugar added), two cherries (frozen, then thawed -- no sugar added), two blackberries (smashed a bit on her tray). This sounds like a lot, but it's usually one or two of each thing, and some of it either doesn't get eaten or ends up in the pouch of her bib or on the floor. I used to give her just a couple things at a time (usually a veggie and a fruit), but now I'm trying to give her the same things we eat, including the main course, and I like to give her options. This lets her explore and choose what she likes. I do always wait to give her fruit until after she's eaten some of the "main" meal and her vegetables. She's her momma's daughter and would eat only fruit if allowed I think :)

7:15 p.m.: Eat anywhere from two to six ounces.

Sometime between 11:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m.: Wake and eat anywhere from two to six ounces.

So as you can see, her eating is pretty night-heavy (just like momma, again!). Any suggestions for how to make her take in more during the day?

Baby Gear Love: Girlfriend loves that silly 1-2-3 Go Snail from Fisher Price! She sees it and her eyes light up :)

Crying: Lizzie cries when hungry or tired, but she's added two new ones: when we lay her down for diaper changes, she cries like we're hurting her! So sad. She's also crying hard when we take things away from her that she either shouldn't have (i.e., cell phones, tablets, remote controls…) or that are in the way (i.e., taking her foot out of her mouth when trying to change her diaper). Luckily, a little distraction goes a long way and she stops crying quickly :)

Mommy News:  So. Weaning. It's over. My body now knows that we're done nursing, which is good from a "pain" perspective (so swollen!). Unfortunately, this is a double-edged sword -- because pregnancy and nursing were like a natural plastic surgery for me! And not that I'm dissatisfied with what God gave me, but, ya know, it was a side effect I really didn't mind. Can I get an "amen"? :)

Anyway, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't incredibly hard for me to mix Lizzie's first bottle of formula. I had tears in my eyes and a few sniffles as I shook it up and offered it to her. For some reason it was so sad to know that I wasn't the one nourishing her anymore. Granted, I never felt sad when we started offering her real food and she got nourishment that way, but somehow this was different I guess.

Another thing I struggled with in terms of weaning, was not turning back and quick trying to "save" my milk supply from dwindling as I let my body get used to not nursing. When I still had milk to give, I had this ridiculous panicked feeling that would show up randomly that made think, "No! It's almost gone! You can still save it! Just have her start nursing again now before it's too late!" I think the thoughts mostly came from A: I'm crazy and hate change, and B: it's such an amazing gift that God has given us, to nurse our babies and provide them everything they need. So incredible! And it seems so sad to turn away from that gift. But both A and B both are issues I'd have to come to terms with no matter when I'm weaning, so that's just that.

Anyway, aside from readjusting my wardrobe life to my new, non-pregnant, non-nursing body and getting the crazies out of my system, life as a mommy is amazing. I love my sweet babe.
   Milestones: Girlfriend is clapping now and making an "aaaaayyyy" sound that sounds like "yay"!  It is so darn adorable. Eek!

We also ROLLED OVER from back to front the other night… probably around eight times! She was reaching for the TV remote (one of the forbidden objects we don't let her suck on) and wanted it badly enough to send herself over the edge!  Of course I broke out the camera and caught it on film once, but she refused to do it again afterward and has only done it two or three times since (just tonight, actually!). But she proved my theory right: girlfriend can do it, but she just doesn't want to. I mean, she hates her tummy -- so why would she put herself there?

Rumor has it, she also got on her hands and knees at daycare for a little bit the other day… we have yet to see it at home, though I'm noticing she's getting a bit closer to doing it.

We're also starting to understand how to pull ourselves up to stand next to things. I'd been trying to show her how to do that for a few days, and then suddenly one day she just sort of "got it" and grabbed on to the edge of one of her toy baskets and tried her hardest to pull up! The trick is now, understanding how to transition from our knees to our feet. Tricky, tricky...