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.