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...

Thirty One + Thirty Two Weeks!

 

With all the holiday hustle and bustle last week, I never found the time to sit down and blog... which means this week's post will be a combo post of weeks 31 and 32 :)

Weight: Somewhere around 14 and a half and 15 pounds maybe?
  
Sleep: Sleeping has been really good for Lizzie. She's going to bed between 7:15 and 7:45 usually, and will typically sleep until 3:00, when she wakes (like clockwork) wanting to eat usually. She'll usually sleep in until at least 8:00 :) Woooohooo for everyone during Christmas break :)

Medical Issues: Not a one :) We went in last week to get her second dose of the flu vaccine. I hadn't anticipated giving her the vaccine, as I didn't even think it was allowed for babies. But her doctor highly recommended it, and I trust his judgment for a variety of reasons, so she got her first installment at her six month check-up and, as I mentioned, had her second dose last week. It was pretty hilarious -- the moment the nurse walked into the room with us, Lizzie wailed. I said, "Oh  my gosh, it's like she knows what's coming and she remembers you're the one who gives her the shot!" and the nurse confirmed that she actually does recognize the signs of a shot coming -- she said that by seven months, they can usually tell. But on the up side (I guess?), Lizzie was already so upset about the fact that she was getting a shot that I don't think she even noticed that she actually got the shot. Babies are smart little ones, I tell you!

Clothes: Hanging out in three to six month clothes by day, zero to three month jammies by night. However, in light of the ridiculously frigid temps, we've been putting her in some of her three to six month jammies at night because she has a few fleece jams in that size. They are pretty ginormous, but they are so darn cozy!

Socialite!: Due to the holidays, Lizzie girl has been especially social with people she doesn't always get to see! She hasn't been going to daycare the last week and a half because I've been off (whooo Christmas break!), but we've seen lots of family. On the day before Christmas Eve, my dearest friend from high school came to visit, so Lizzie got to hang out with her. Then on Christmas Eve, we saw my extended family on my mom's side for the night. On Christmas day, we hung out with Andy's family, and then my family that night. I've said it before, but Lizzie really loves to watch the "big" kids. She's completely fascinated by everything they do! And they make her smile real easily :) On Friday, we drove down to the Twin Cities and did a little shopping with Andy's mom and sister, and then left from there on Saturday to make the trek to Iowa for Andy's extended family Christmas. Lizzie met buckets of new people that day! Aunts and uncles, cousins, and even a great great uncle and her great grandma! It was pretty neat. I think she was pretty overwhelmed by the new place and all the new faces, but she really did a great job -- wasn't as smiley as she normally would be, but that's okay! She was out of her normal element and routine, so that's to be expected. 

Diet: Oh boy, big changes here -- for me, anyway. After much deliberation, I decided to start weaning Lizzie the day Christmas break began. We whittled feedings down about one a day, sometimes waiting a day before tossing one out due to either A) my being a little too "full" to pull another or B) my not being ready emotionally for weaning to go so quickly. We've got enough of a back-stock in the freezer to last a little while, but it's amazing how fast it goes. At this point, I'm hoping it will last until she turns eight months, which would be January 12th, but I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't last quite that long. After that, we'll obviously have to switch to formula. She's now exclusively taking bottles and does great with it. She's a smart cookie -- she picked up on the whole, bottle --> eat association super quickly. We're now hiding bottles until it's time to eat :)

Aside from breastmilk, Lizzie's food diet has been expanding. Last week and this week, she tried green beans, had more turkey, some lasagna, some spaghetti, chicken, avocado, broccoli, cauliflower (a new favorite!), pears, pineapple, blackberries, blueberries (another new favorite!), raspberries, red pepper strips, toast, organic baby yogurt, pita chips and spinach and artichoke hummus. I'm sure we had some other things in there too, but I can't think of them right now. Anyway, she has yet to meet a food she doesn't care for. She's a pretty awesome eater.

As far as the foods go, I've been putting a lot of thought into expanding her "meals" from just at suppertime, to also at lunch as well. This is tricky with daycare, and I'm not quite sure how to go about it at this point. Not that I don't trust daycare, but I feel like a person always watches their own child better than someone else would -- and not that I don't trust Lizzie to feed herself, either. We've never had even one incident of 'choking' for her with BLW. So I'm considering one of two options: either organic baby puree or really easy, "mushy" foods that I won't be concerned with. These would be things like very ripe pear, avocados, broccoli that I've steamed the night before, hummus and pita chips (they soften as she eats them), smashed blackberries and blueberries. And maybe if I do go the food route, I'd go over to daycare for the first few weeks and show them how I cut things for her and how I give blueberries and blackberries a little 'smoosh' before letting her pick them up -- not to make them feel incompetent, but I just want to make sure everything is as it should be before I put that kind of trust in someone.

Anyway, along those same lines, I introduced a lunch meal with her today since I'm home. We tried a few pita chips (a pita that I cut into wedges, put a little olive oil, garlic and pepper on and then roasted in the oven) with some hummus for the first time -- she wasn't so sure at first, but then she really chowed down. Ideally I'd like her to learn to dip her pita chips in the hummus, but that's a little advanced at this point -- so for now, I'm spreading the hummus on the pita chips with a baby spoon. She happened to get her little hands on the spoon and took a big bite of hummus on her own... and that's when the love affair started :) She had pears as her side, too.

Another thing to note is how much Lizzie is noticing what we're eating these days. She'll fuss quite a bit until we give her what we're eating for the main course some nights -- which is fine by me, because I wanted to start including her with that anyway, but sometimes it's hard to know how to give her some of what we eat, specifically if it's a little higher in sodium. Easy fix for that, though: cook with low-sodium/no salt ingredients, add salt later, or just leave it out of her food and put it in ours.

Baby Gear Love: Lizzie got so many great new toys and books for Christmas! Her favorites so far include the Fisher-Price Ocean Wonders Soothe and Glow Seahorse (a God-send when we were on our way home from Iowa... sweet girl spent half of the car ride home in the dark, which had to be ridiculously boring for her. This lit up her lap so she could see her activity bar and other toys we'd packed for her to play with in the car!), the Fisher Price Laugh and Learn: Learning Kitchen (she can't get enough of how the light turns off and on with the flip of a switch!) and the B. Snug Bugs (she loves to chew on them, plus they are so great for little hands to grab onto and they are so darn CUTE! We toss them a couple in the diaper bag so she has something little to play with if she gets restless). Another thing we're in love with is the JJ Cole Car Seat Cover, which I've mentioned before. But it's an amazing thing -- Andy read that thicker "warm suits" that you can put baby in during cold weather (like the ridiculous cold snap we seem to have been in for the last MONTH...) can negatively affect a car seat's safety for a baby because you can't get the straps as tight as they should be. Anyway, with this car seat cover from JJ Cole, a warm suit really isn't needed anyway -- it's incredible how warm this thing keeps Lizzie. We definitely tuck a blanket around her to keep her cozied in, but that plus the cover keeps her very toasty. There have been times where the outside temp is negative 10, and we pull Lizzie out of her car seat and she's sweating. It's pretty awesome.

Crying: Baby girl is awesome, as per usual. Only cries when she's tired or hungry... or if you take food away from her :)

Mommy News:  As mentioned previously, over the past two weeks, we started and ended the weaning process. This was definitely a really big step for me emotionally. I felt it was time, but I still had a really hard time actually giving up nursing -- just ask my husband. I'd considered giving it up for the past two months, but just couldn't do it. I'm a very sensitive girl, so things that go through my head that "taunt" me are things like, "this is the fifth to the last day you'll nurse Lizzie at night in the rocking chair" (ridiculous, right?). I've always been like that, setting these little milestones and making things extra dramatic. And while I know they're dramatic and that life will go on and that everything will be fine, I still worry over it and think about it too much and ask my husband eight times in one night, "am I a bad mom for not nursing her longer?" Again, ridiculous. Of course not. But for some reason I just felt selfish for making that decision. Anyway, now that I've done my last nursing session (a few nights ago), I'm fine. In fact, going into that nursing session, I 'prepped' myself, saying "enjoy this last one, and drink in the moment"... and I did. But I didn't feel any emptiness upon putting her down in her crib. And last night and tonight were no less special or snuggly when I fed her a bottle in her rocker and kissed her goodnight. I knew it would be fine. I'm just not one for change -- it makes me very anxious and can tend to make me sad. And I'm glad the process, for the most part, is over. The process itself made me anxious, too. Anyway, now what's left over is that uncomfortable 'full' feeling until my body realizes it can stop making milk. Which is also kind of sad... but I'm just looking forward and looking at the positives: now we can give her bottles when we're out and about, I won't have to find a dressing room to nurse in while shopping, skip prep times at school to nurse, wear clothes that aren't "nursing friendly" -- not that I minded any of these things, but again, I'm focusing on positives :)
 
Milestones: We have our first Christmas under our belts! Lizzie was certainly more interested in the bows and tissue paper than anything else, and was less interested in ripping open packages than I thought. I anticipated that she'd love ripping the paper off of her gifts, but she didn't care much for that.

Lizzie also met a whole bunch of new family over the weekend on Andy's side! This included her great grandma :)

We're working so, so, so hard on the "b" sound it seems. She's 'buzzing' her lips like she wants to say the "buh" sound, but she's not quite there yet.

Lizzie is holding her own bottle when we feed her most of the time :) We're encouraging a sippy at mealtimes with a 1:10 ratio of prune juice to water (for constipation purposes), but she's got a case of the T-Rex Syndrome (i.e., arms too short to actually hold her sippy up high enough to get anything out!) so we have to help her for now.

Her self-feeding skills are really amazing at this point. She's getting that pincer grasp down incredibly well and can pick up relatively small bits of food with her pointer and thumb and get them to her mouth. She also likes to grab my fork/utensil that I might be using to feed her with every so often and guide it to her mouth with amazing accuracy. I basically give up all control of the utensil and let her do the guiding... and she's perfect every time.

Lizzie is now starting to show quite a preference to people. No longer is it where she can go to anyone and be happy that she's being held -- instead, she's typically quite concerned with where Mommy is. The moment she gets passed off to someone, she's often looking to see where I am and it's not long after that her sweet little face wrinkles into a cry and she reaches for me. I won't lie... I do kind of love it :) But I also want her to be happy going to her daddy and other family members as well. Not to mention, daycare is going to be impossible for me if she cries every time I leave her!

Thirty Weeks!

Weight: I'm guessing around 14 and a half pounds.
  
Sleep: Lizzie's been sleeping like a champ. She's out around 7:30 or 8:00 each night pretty easily and she'll sleep usually until around 2:00 when she wakes up feeling hungry. I feed her and she falls asleep immediately after burping, and then proceeds to sleep until we wake her in the morning :)

Medical Issues: All is well for our sweet girl! We've been so lucky that the worst we've encountered has been a cold and a nasty bout of constipation. Praise God for her healthy little life!

Clothes: Hanging out in three to six month clothes by day, zero to three month jammies by night.

Socialite!: Going through the usual routine this last week -- hanging out with the other kids at daycare. She seems to especially love the older kids because she can watch them play and do all kids of neat things she can't do yet :) Apparently she's been watching another little girl who's just a few months older than her and has been getting inspired to spend more time on her tummy to get better at crawling (this is all according to daycare… is this possible for her to think this way?). She's always so happy and social and gives smiles at the drop of a hat!

Diet: Still nursing Lizzie exclusively with baby-led weaning-themed solids for supper each night. She's been eating steamed broccoli, roasted sweet potato, avocado, mango and pear this week quite a bit. I let her have some spaghetti (love at first bite!), which she did really well with. I think the noodles go down really easily without much work, but I do cut them pretty small and feed them to her (which is against the BLW mentality, but I do what works for us). She also had some (low-sodium) chicken broth and shredded chicken from our chicken and dumplings last night, which she really, really liked, too. Again -- I fed it to her. I've been encouraging her to use a spoon to feed herself yogurt lately, too. We've been showing her how to dip her spoon to "reload" it, but I think she's still working on that concept. If we load the spoon, however, she can feed herself (by default, because she sticks anything in her mouth :)). She also loves pizza -- I've only offered her homemade pizza crusts with some tomato sauce on it, but she really likes that. Last week at my parents' house she tried some of those Gerber puffs, which she liked but had a hard time getting to her mouth. I really want to start offering her more of what we're eating each night, but I've kind of been waiting for that pincer grasp to develop a little more. It's definitely improving, so I think I'll start giving her the "main course" on her tray. Another reason I've been waiting to do this is because I want to be really cautious about the sodium intake, as babies can't handle much extra sodium in their diet. While I don't add a whole lot of salt to our food myself, I do know that certain ingredients can contain a high amount (like chicken broth, for example) -- so I'll need to do a lot of label reading and the like.

Also… anyone ever roasted carrots? I'm still trying to perfect that so I can offer Lizzie some other veggie options. Anyone out there done baby led weaning and have other food suggestions? We would love to hear some! :)

Baby Gear Love: We love our jumperoo these days! Lizzie is now getting tall enough to make that thing bounce! Ours is the Luv U Zoo Fisher Price jumperoo, and Lizzie loves it! She's always looking at the hanging gorilla and carefully trying to grab it :)

Crying: Baby girl is awesome, as per usual. Only cries when she's tired or hungry... or if you take food away from her :)

Mommy News:  Mommy can't wait to spend almost two straight weeks with her baby girl over Christmas break! Weehooo!
 
Milestones: Lizzie seems to be waving lately, though I'm not sure she really knows what it means. I think it's more than she's copying us -- but really, it's ridiculously cute. She's got this beauty queen/princess wave down beautifully. It's adorable :)

Twenty Nine Weeks!

 

Weight: My best guess is between 14 and 14 and a half pounds.
  
Sleep: I thinks we've finally solved our sleep issues (at least this time, anyway… I'm sure there will be another bout of poor sleep habits in the future again :)). As mentioned last week, Lizzie was battling some constipation issues. When those were (finally) resolved last week, Lizzie girl started sleeping beautifully again. She's now waking once each night around two or three to eat, and that's it! It feels good to be sleeping longer than two-hour stretches at a time again!

Medical Issues: Last week, I mentioned that Lizzie was having constipation issues and that we were headed in to see her doctor. Though I thought our issues would be solved in that visit, I was dead wrong. Long story short: after a doctor visit, a call to the ER, gross things we had to do at home that I never thought I'd do in my life (ever), another doctor visit, and more of that gross stuff, Lizzie's system was running as it should again! But it was sad and pretty scary for a few days. That poor baby! We were on the schedule for a baby-friendly enema at the hospital, but we were able to resolve the problem before it came to that... hooray!

Clothes: Hanging out in three to six month clothes by day, zero to three month jammies by night.

Socialite!: Over the weekend, sweet girl had her six month (er, almost seven, really) and family pictures! We should be getting them back tomorrow :) Yay! After that, we went to Grandma Kathy's and made Christmas cookies with Auntie Jenny and Grandma K. Lizzie also helped decorate the Christmas tree. Actually, she watched. But she was great for moral support! She also continues to be extremely friendly with those who sit behind us at mass on Sunday mornings :) Our sweet girl was practically playing peek-a-boo with the people behind us this last week! Too cute. She also made friends at her second doctor visit last week. Even when she was all stopped up, she was still ridiculously happy (aside from when she was trying to make things happen, that is...).

Diet: Still nursing Lizzie exclusively while doing baby-led weaning, though we backed off from solids completely for a few days when we were trying to work out her 'digestive' issues. During that time, she only had breastmilk and a tiny bit of organic baby purees -- but to be honest, she's not really a huge fan of them. Her new favorite food seems to be pears -- she can't get enough of them! 

Baby Gear Love: Nothing new to talk about... but just wait until Christmas comes! I have a feeling she might have some new favorites to rave about ;)

Crying: Baby girl is awesome, as per usual. Only cries when she's tired or hungry... or if you take food away from her :)

Mommy News:  As mentioned in a previous week, there is a couple from our area who had a sweet baby girl with a rare genetic diagnosis determined shortly after being born. Sadly, their sweet girl passed away just a couple of weeks after they welcomed her. I honestly cannot even begin to fathom what they must be going through -- it is so heart wrenching to think of that scenario. We've been squeezing our little one extra tight every day and thanking God for every second we have with her. Our journey to have Lizzie may have been agonizing and painful, but we are so lucky to have such a healthy little lady.

Milestones:Lizzie is babbling like crazy lately! She's got different tones to her voice now, almost sounding like she's asking a question or very excited about something. It's too cute! Still no repeated sounds at this point...

She's LOVING peek-a-boo now! Which she has for awhile, but we can get some really good belly laughs out of her with it! She's also a HUGE fan of the Itsy-Bitsy Spider :) It is too, too sweet.

Lizzie also drops things now and looks to see where they fell :) It is so adorable. She does the same thing whenever someone hides during peek-a-boo, too. 

Oh, and... first Christmas jammies! Silly milestone, I know, but seriously. They are too cute and even have little reindeer heads on the feet :)