Playing in the pool

Today we went to a friend's house for a BBQ and had fun playing in the baby pool.

Nine Months Old

Here she is 3/4 of a year already! Wow - it really does go fast. She is army crawling around our house like a storm. Clapping is a regular habit and gets especially excited when we cheer and clap with her. She loves to open and close books, hold little balls, pull up on things and can easily go from laying on her tummy to sitting up. We often find her sitting in her crib playing after a nap. Speaking of which. She takes pretty good naps. A long morning one - around 9 or 9:30 that lasts for an hour and a half to two hours and then an afternoon one. Usually around 2 or 2:30, but this morning her morning nap started late and went long so who knows when her afternoon nap will start. Its almost 3 and she is still crawling around playing with her books.

She loves the dog although if he is in her way she will yell at him. He doesn't take her toys but is not happy when she takes his - which she loves. She enjoys splashing her hand in his water dish, even when he's drinking from it. She feeds the dog from her highchair and he occasionally lets a low growl out when she gets a bit too close to his breakfast and dinner. We have been trying to separate them during his mealtimes so as to discourage this behavior.

She sleeps well from 7:30/8pm to about 5/5:15am and if we are lucky for an hour to an hour and a half, she will go back to sleep after her morning feed. She only nurses three other times a day - before both naps and before bed. She is now up to three meals a day - yogurt for breakfast, fruit and oatmeal/cereal for lunch and veggies and cereal for dinner. I need to add in more meat but I will talk to the doctor about that at her next appointment.

Sorry if all this information is boring - I'm not good at keeping a baby book so I figure this is the only way to record all this information and not loose it before it all gets forgotten again.

Oh yea - and still only the two bottom teeth - one she got over mother's day weekend and one over memorial day weekend.

She got her Boobies painted....

Its a ComFest thing. All the ute girls and many of the not so cute girls will walk around the park tomorrow getting their boobies painted so I thought it would be cute if Kirsten did too. She is nine months old today after all! She also tried some of my corn dog (the corn part) and ate some grass. All ComFest staples for all that attend!

Berries

Look at all those yummy berries from breakfast today! Yup - all over her face!!!

Standing

My little girl is growing up too fast. This evening she was sick of crawling around the living room, but loved standing. I helped her get into a stand - she is not yet pulling herself up. She also needed my help to get back to a sit.

Crawling

So this past week my little one started crawling. She does an army crawl where she doesn't lift her tummy off the ground an uses her elbows and forearms to pull her around. She is pretty efficent with this and can really move!

Yes, that is a towel I had attached to her tummy - it helped to pick up some of the dog hair - you should see how much her belly picks up as she crawls around our house.

She loves to crawl into the dog's crate.

And is starting to show interest in climbing the stairs, although she has no idea what to do with her legs or how to get them up the stairs. It will be trouble once she does...

As excited as I am that she has reached this milestone, I don't think I was ready for it. It really does change your world with a baby and how they spend their time.

Mohawk

So the boy cousins in my family love mohawks...I thought that my daughter should enjoy them as well!

And in true rocker fashion, she is playing a musical instrument that needs a lot of banging.
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Also, after looking at it, I don't know that polka dots and mohawks really go together :)

Breakfast of Champions

She ate some pancakes & blueberries for breakfast the other day. She enjoyed playing as much as she did eating...

Eight Months Old

(She puts everything in her mouth)

(she loves to eat the sign)

Today my little one turned eight months old. She has been sleeping better than at 7 months and is eating like a champ. She finished her last week of swimming with her Daddy on Tuesday nights this evening. I know that I will miss this time. She is currently struggling because she has an opinion about what she wants and doesn't want but only knows how to express her opinion in whines an cries. This gets tiring on mommy by the time daddy comes home.

She is still not crawling, but rolling well and getting on all fours, rocking back & forth. It's fun and exhausting to spend every day with her.

Jarred baby food

So I have been making all my own baby food, but I had purchased some fruits because frankly I think that fruits are harder to make then veggies. So this morning my little one tried peaches for the first time. She seemed to enjoy them and ate well. They did not sit well with her though. She was spitting up to the point that it was almost throwing up then all afternoon. Joe and I both felt so bad for her. She ate her dinner of oatmeal and sweet potatoes like a champ...in fact she ate way better than normal. So I learned my lesson -make my own food and donate the jarred stuff!

Long time no blogging

So I feel like its been forever since I've blogged about anything. For awhile I was blogging on a daily basis via my cell phone and mobile blogging. Then I stopped because I felt like I had nothing to say, then I had too much to say. I sat there and lay awake in bed and composed blog posts but didn't. So here are is a brief summary of some of the blog posts I thought about writing:

- Our little one is eating - some nights better than others. She loves to feed herself. She only sometimes like eating from a spoon while I feed her. She got pork for the first time tonight. My mother in law made a pork roast in the crock pot and we broke it up into little pieces and let her feed herself. In summary - some of the food she eats nowadays (or at least has tried):apples, pears, bananas, avocados, sweet potatoes (her favorite), acorn squash, butternut squash, yellow squash, zucchini, peas, green beans, yogurt (yo baby brand), rice, oatmeal, puffs - most flavors, and new this week yogurt melts and pork. Soon to try chicken and turkey also.

- Little one is seven months old and rolling like crazy! She is starting to rock on all fours, but no crawling yet

- Happy Mother's Day to my mother and I enjoyed my first mother's day. I got to spend the weekend with my mom and and my came back home to my husband having made me a fabulous dinner!

- I went home to NY/CT for mother's day weekend. We went to the zoo for the first time and I got my fill of some of those foods that I love from home - Dominic's, Pepe's & Colony pizza,and lobster - it was only $4.99/pound in CT so we went a little overboard - I wish I had photographed that!

(at the zoo with cousins)

- We bought a "swagger wagon" (aka - a Toyota Sienna & I love it!)

- Little one slept through the night for the first time in a long time last night after some long horrible sleep nights after she got her first tooth last week. CIO and sleep training do work. Let's just home it wasn't a fluke and tonight is just as good!

-I got the opportunity to participate in a i-spy swap. I can't wait to get the fabrics and begin an i-spy quilt for my little one's first birthday

-I was featured as a guest blogger again on Baby-to-Go. This time to talk about strollers. Harm said she thinks I like my stroller more than my husband. Some weeks I get to spend more time with it than with him so it depends when you talk to me and what his work schedule is like :)

All of these could have been expanded into long posts, but for now...and until later. Goodnight :)

Sleep in Sundays

So Joe and I a few weeks ago decided that Sundays would be the day that one of us would get to sleep in. We trade off Sundays and today was my Sunday. Poor hubby! My little one did not want to spend a morning away from mommy and with daddy only. He tried doing everything in his bag of tricks but she wanted none of it. By the time he brought her in to me, she was exhausted and so was he....both ready for a morning nap. Even though next Sunday is mother's day, he will get to sleep in again since I will be traveling home from my visit home to Connecticut. The following week my in laws will be here so we will both get to sleep in on Sunday. Who knows where we will be the Sunday after that. I may cash in and take my Sunday again...we will see where we are sleeping wise with the little one.

On a separate note, we went mini van shopping today. I can't decide between the Toyota Sienna and the Honda Odyssey. Anyone havoc any advice for me based on their experiences?

Becoming a dad

So for years my husband has been far from a morning person and a nigh owl to to the Nth degree. Well babies don't follow that same schedule. We start bedtime with a shower, a book, and 40 minutes of nursing usually around 7:15pm so bedtime is about 8 or 8:15. This means that she wakes up for feeding at about 5AM. Now my husband is wonderful and he gets up and gets her for these 5AM wake ups and brings her to me. Lately she hasn't been as quick to go back to sleep so has taken to singing in our bed after eating. This is where I say Joe is becoming a dad.

Instead of laying in bed and sleeping through her singing he has just decided that it's easier to get up to start his day. That means that today he called his boss at 6AM! I don't think he has ever done work at 6AM in his life. He admitted that he would rather do work now a days at 6AM then 6PM. We discussed this change last night and he said, "but I have never worked this way before." I responded with, " well you've never had a baby before. These are dad hours and you are becoming a dad in work as well. What a transformation!

Hand Me Downs

So this morning after little baby K woke from her morning nap I noticed that after Joe had pulled up her drop rail, that one side had fallen down. Yes, we still had a drop rail crib. It was a hand me down from my sister. Both her kids had used it and two kids previous to them had used it so we used it. Well, back to the drop rail, when I went to pull the side that was fallen up, the rails separated from the top. Essentially the crib fell apart! Not a happy me. We tried to put it back together, it only did more damage and we realized that she would need a new crib because this one was not safe!

We had never even looked into buying cribs because we knew that my sister had been saving her crib for us for years so we had no idea how much cribs cost. A quick email to my trusty playgroup moms for advice led me to look at the Babies R Us, Buy Buy Baby and WalMart websites. One fried has an Amish made crib that I love, but when I talked to her, she said that it took 12 weeks for her crib to be made. I didn't have that kind of time. I needed one soon. I didn't need anything else to make sleep not good in our world.

Joe wasn't feeling well so I thought that he needed a nap and some time alone so off baby K and I went to Babies R Us. They had two different cribs in natural wood color well under my budget. I picked out the Graco Lauren convertible crib: took it home, disassembled the broken one and reassembled the one one just in time for her afternoon nap. Thank goodness it was a Sunday so Joe could entertain her while I worked with tools. I think all assembly required furniture people have learned from Ikea. Easy instructions and only an Alan wrench needed for assembly. That is my kind of furniture. Crisis averted!

Sitting on the front porch swing

This afternoon we dropped the dog off to be bathed and groomed and we are enjoying the the sun and beautiful afternoon on the front porch swing!

Homemade baby food

So last night I whipped up a bunch of food for munchers (that is the nickname that Joe has given her). It really wasn't that hard. I made sweet potatoes, butternut squash, and acorn squash. They all needed to be baked in the oven for an hour @ 350 so I just baked them all at once. I then pureed them individually and froze them in ice cube trays. This morning I dumped them into freezer bags and we are good to go on food for awhile.

She doesn't always love eating real food though. Yesterday she ate squash with her daddy and gave him a lip about it... But we carry on!

Seven Weeks Old

So this week was a very good week. I started with a few other women a new moms walking group. On Wed. we walked 6 and a half miles and on Friday we walked about 3 miles.

Friday night was a tough night for my husband. Kirsten just did not want anything to do with him. This was tough for him. Sunday though, the two of them danced and laughed all afternoon. He said it was one of the best days he's spent with her since she was born. This made me really happy and it made him even more happy.

Now for the fun part...some photos of her :)

Dancing with Daddy

Deep in thought...
Chilling in the rocker

Happy at seven weeks

Relaxing/almost sleeping in the jumper. Notice where her arm is....

....in the leg hole.

What a week

So after our ordeal in the hospital this week, Joe then had a huge work visit (which went very well). This visit though left me home alone with the dog and the baby from Wednesday right after we got home from the hospital until Friday afternoon. This was tough for me because I felt like I have been holding my daughter (as much as I love to) nonstop from Sunday night until Friday afternoon. I really needed to have someone else hold her. Of course, since Joe has been home she has been great. She has smiled tons (see below pictures) and allowed someone else to hold her and allow both of us to put her down. She's had a great routine of eating, playing/awake time, and sleeping. Needless to say our week is ending much better than it started. Today we are getting ready for the 3:30 OSU v. PSU game (so much has changed since last year's game when Meg and Scott were here and we were a pitcher or two of Bloody Marys in at this time of the day). Its also much warmer this year than last. We took advantage of the pretty day by taking some family pictures. Enjoy:Six weeks has really gone by quick!

Bear hasn't thought its gone quick...here he is eating the six week sign
She is really starting to look like a real person And smiling!

I made her a hat for the cold days that we go for a walk outside in the baby wrap. She seemed to like it!

And now the family just watches the game.

On another note....I started gentian violet this week for my thrush....what an improvement. Now I realize nursing isn't supposed to hurt!