Catching Up

I had the rare desire to blog this morning while Allie is still sleeping (I was actually up before her!).  I think this is the longest break I've taken from blogging at over two months since my last post.  I honestly don't know if I'm going to continue or not, but here's an update on life lately.

I ended up getting a new job promotion at work!  It's close to what I've been doing, but more technical, and with people I already love working with.  The only hitch is that my old job hasn't been filled yet, and even when it has been filled, I'll be training the new people taking over (they are hiring two people to replace me) so it's probably going to be a long transition from the old job to the new.  Even so, I am happy how it worked out and it's great to feel like I'm growing and learning new things at work.

In pilot wife life/news, Greg and I decided to buy a house in Houston since it seems that he'll be based there for the foreseeable future.  We still plan to stay in Charlotte, but figured it was worth the investment to own property in Houston rather than for him to continue renting.  It's something we've discussed for a long time and now that his pay is good, things are relatively stable, and (fingers crossed) it doesn't seem like much will change for a while, we thought it was time.  We bought a small ranch style house with a garage (Greg is super excited about that since his car is about 200 degrees sitting in the hot Houston sun).  I actually haven't been out to see the new house, but Greg just "moved in" a couple weeks ago and is still settling his stuff in.  This doesn't change how we do anything, because Greg still comes home to Charlotte on his days off, but for the 8ish nights a month he spends there, he now has place that feels more like home.  I hope that it will help him to feel a little less crappy about being a commuter pilot.

In case you are wondering, things are good with our marriage.  Things have been super busy, especially with the house purchase, which required a couple extra days/nights in Houston and away from home, but over all, things with us are good.  We could use more date nights and are probably due for a trip away alone together, but I think in general we are happy and things are good.

We haven't decided if we are having another child or not and it's something I think about and struggle with constantly.  I've actually sort of let me brain take a break from thinking about it in the last couple weeks because I just feel like I can't make a decision.  I kind of don't think there's a "wrong" answer.  Either way I could see a happy life and/or challenges if we do or don't have another baby.  We'll see.

Allie just turned 18 months old.  She is so much fun and so so cute!

She says mama, dada, Clyde, airplane (sounds like may main), car, moon, mouse, cat, woof, moo, milk, grapes, banana (nana), Bob (my dad), truck, cup, cracker, Parker (friend at school), cookie, bread, fish, bird, blueberry, turtle (curkle), candle, potty, duck, butterfly, fries, cloud, sky, ball, ice, no...  the list goes on.  It's getting a lot easier to communicate.

Allie loves looking at pictures.  She will go over to the wall and bang on it til you lift her up to see pictures of people and point to everyone and tell her who they are.
She is good at kicking a ball soccer style (she didn't get that from me, I suck at soccer!).
She loves rocking horses and those ride-on spring things at playgrounds.

She's very into stickers but can't stop peeling them and re-sticking them.  I made the mistake of introducing reusable stickers and regular stickers around the same time, and I think that's where the confusion lies.
She loves to climb on things, like the couches and our ottoman.  She's kind of a daredevil and will try to stand on things too, which freaks me out.
She's obsessed with airplanes, and if you are outside with her, she's constantly point at the sky and say "may main" pointing at airplanes or even at the sky if she hears a plane but can't see it behind clouds.  We've taken her to the airport lookout a couple times and she loves it.
She still loves water.  She completed Toddler One swim lessons and won the Starfish award in her class. We're signed up for Toddler Two swim this fall.  Anytime you ask if she wants to go to the pool, she always nods yes.  She also loves the beach and is fearless- she'll run to the water and would dive in if you let her.

She loves animals, especially cats.  We showed her the show Too Cute on Animal Planet (it's on Netflix too), and she will excitedly watch for a couple minutes before losing interest (she's not really into TV).  She pretty much loves any animal though.  We took her to the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia when my in-laws were visiting and she LOVED it.  Loved the penguins, the flamingos, the elephants, the gorillas... you name it.  Future vet maybe?

I feel like Allie has a super sweet nature to her.  Knock on wood, but I'm not aware of any incidents of her hitting, biting, or doing anything to another kid at daycare, even though she's been the victim of a bite.  A lot of teachers, including the floaters comment on her sweet nature and one has even said she's her favorite kid :)  I hope that continues.  She does tend to be fussy sometimes, I think when she's tired or hungry.  She definitely breaks into a wail if she wants something NOW and you aren't getting it fast enough, like every single night when I walk into the house and try to get dinner on her tray!

She naps once a day from 12-2pm and usually goes to bed between 7:30-8pm and sleeps til about 6-6:45am.  She rarely wakes up at night unless she's teething or something.  I consider her a great sleeper, and I know I'm lucky.

I love spending time with my baby, but that downtime after she goes to bed at night is my me-time.  I've been cleaning out my closet, watching Orange is the New Black, cleaning, talking to Greg when he's away, giving myself pedicures, etc...  I'm usually too tired to do anything too crazy, but I look forward to those two hours I have in the evening each day.

I'm still mostly doing stroller walks as my workout.  I probably walk with Allie and Clyde about 4 times a week, which isn't too bad.  As usual, I'd love to get more running in, but it's just not happening as much as I'd like.  I sometimes think about racing again, but still can't commit to a training schedule.  It is what it is.

That about sums it up for now!

Thoughts on the First Year

Greetings from the epicenter of snowacalypse 2014!  We have received quite the dump of snow here in Charlotte today and I have no idea when I'll be leaving my house again.  Good thing I have 8 years worth of food in my pantry for occasions like this.  It kind of worked out good for me to be home today, because I got to spend the last day of my baby's first year with her.  I pretty much savored all her smiles, cuddles, and snuggles today.

No need to change out of pajamas!  SNOW DAY!
And yes, she's wearing boys pajamas because they have planes on them!

Allie will be a YEAR OLD tomorrow!  Unbelievable...  I've done little but catalog the first year of my baby's life on the blog for almost the last year.  It makes sense since she's basically become my whole world and almost nothing in my life is the same as it used to be before she arrived.  Still, this used to be a blog about me, so I thought I should maybe catch up on some of what's gone on for me this year.  The lack of posts are pretty pathetic and I've thought more than once about stopping blogging altogether.  I still read other blogs a lot (pretty much all I do when pumping), but when I try to wrap my head around writing a post, editing pictures, and using precious time to blog, something else usually wins out.  Still, I like having the outlet here if and when I want it.

My first year as a mother has been so crazy.  I have never loved another human being like I love Allie.  It reminds me of the symbiotic relationship between E.T. and Elliot.  I feel like I hurt when she hurts.  If she is happy, I am happy.  Her smile makes me instantly smile.  As probably any mother will attest to, it's hard to describe this love.  It's actually scary, because it's the kind of love you really fear losing and you know that you would suffer extreme pain if anything were to happen to this creature you are completely absorbed with.  It makes me feel like I can't breathe to even think about it.

Changing your identity to a mother means it's not about you anymore.  I always knew that and I thought I was prepared for it, but it has still been a huge change.  Before I had Allie, I had so much free time to watch trashy TV, to go to trendy restaurants, to tie up my running shoes and hit the pavement, to clean my house, to snuggle my dog, to go to Target without a second thought, to blog...  Now all of those things are difficult to do, and require thought and planning.  They are all "big events" to me now and after thirty some odd years of doing whatever I want whenever I feel like it, it's been weird to give up all that freedom.  Still, I know my life has so much more meaning now and part of me thrives on life being so busy.

At some point I did get the hang of planning better around Allie's sleep, which helps me to feel like I have a better handle on everything else in my life (except the blog- ha!).  I guess when she became slightly more predictable sleeping at night and during naps I was able to snap out of it and tackle my long long list of things to do, which includes stuff like reading and watching TV, but also a lot of cleaning, laundry, and washing bottles.  It's really taken me all year to get a good balance though and I still wouldn't say I've completely figured it out.  In an ideal world I would have a lot more time to run, blog, watch Parenthood, organize my closet, and go out more.  I do some of these things sometimes, but most of them I do with no regularity at all.   I haven't run since Thanksgiving, which is ridiculous, I know.  It's just THAT hard for me to find the time to do it and it's so much less of a priority now.  I fit things in when I have an hour to spare, if it happens to be what I feel like doing in the hour that I have, or they fall by the wayside and I use the hour to fold Allie's laundry and shower (more often than not).  It's just reality.

Another thing I haven't talked about, but I do want to share for the sake of others that might be experiencing it, is that having a baby has been hard on my marriage.  A lot of people talk about how seeing their husband become a father makes their heart explode with love for him, and I do agree, it's an awesome thing and pretty overwhelming to feel your love grow when you add a person the two of you made.  Still, after that initial swell of pride and fuzzy feelings of love, came a lot of stress for us.  I've always said that any person you choose to marry has flaws and you are deciding whether you can live with those flaws or not.  I successfully lived with my husband's flaws for eleven years before we had Allie.  We went through furlough, miscarriages, and many other stressful events, and I thought having a baby would be the least of our troubles, more like a dream come true, but babies bring a lot of stress.  You lack sleep, your life is totally different, you are responsible for another human being, and you feel like there are so many decisions to be made.  We were not always on the same page, and maybe my husband being a pilot exacerbated that because we weren't able to commiserate daily on how to handle things, a lot of it gets differed to me, which makes things weird when he is home and is trying to jump in and be involved.  His aforementioned flaws that used to be cute and quirky (I married the slowest person alive), became serious annoyances when things were stressful.  It's not just him either, I'm no picnic either.  I have a short temper, and when I'm stressed out, I'm basically just cranky.  We are kind of polar opposites and while I like to think we usually complement each other, it can be hard when taking care of a baby and things need to be agreed upon.  I like things scheduled and he likes to fly by the seat of his pants and throw schedules out the window.  That drives me nuts when it comes to Allie because I feel like babies NEED to keep on a schedule, but Greg doesn't, and doesn't get why I'm so rigid about naps, feedings, and bedtime.  I was also really consumed by motherhood and still am.  At times I really have to force myself to think about being a wife and put effort into cultivating that relationship.  It's been a huge adjustment.  Around six months in, we decided to do some marriage counseling and I don't know if it was the counseling or just both of us committing to working on things, but things did improve and I think we both have a better handle on it now.  Still, this has easily been the hardest year for our marriage.  I love my husband and our little family though.  I think we're going to survive being parents, but it's taken a lot of getting used to!

What else?  Well I'm definitely a helicopter mom.  It's funny because with a lot of things in life I am a fairly laid back person, but with my fragile baby, I am like a roll of bubble wrap, constantly hovering around her scared she will fall.  And she does fall, a lot, which sort of negates the whole mission of being a helicopter mom!  As I said before, I also found out that I like things very scheduled when it comes to Allie.  As soon as I pick her up from daycare I read her full report on when she napped, ate, pooped, etc...  I want to know it all.  I'm quite the control freak!

If you had to ask me what one of my favorite things about the first year has been, I would say breastfeeding.  We've made it to year and I have LOVED it.  The thought of stopping makes me cry, and honestly, I thought when we got to a year, I'd be well on my way to weaning, but I can't even bring myself to stop pumping this week because I also just like knowing she's having my milk when she is away from me.  I feel like it connects us.  I just can't even describe the overwhelming love I feel for my daughter when I am feeding her and she is snuggled up against me.  I love sniffing her hair, stroking her cheek, and squeezing her foot.  It's beyond special to me and I am not sure when I will wean her, but basically I have no plan to just yet, which isn't something I would have expected.  I know I am very, very lucky to have had such a good experience, but just so you know, breastfeeding hasn't always been easy for me.  I have had many days and weeks when I thought my supply was dipping and I was sweating over whether I could pump enough to keep up with demand.  It's hard when you have a certain number of ounces you have to have for daycare and you realize you might come up short.  I ate lactation cookies, took fenugreek, drank mother's milk tea, doubled my water intake, have eaten too many bowls of oatmeal to count, and ate like a pig to keep up with the demand.  I had nights when I couldn't get my boobs to let down and had to feed Allie a bottle of pumped milk.  I've dipped into my freezer stash so much that many times I was down to only 2-3 bags of frozen milk and I thought that would be it.  I've also declined to do things that I knew would be too difficult because of breastfeeding or pumping.  If I had to do it over, I think I would, but part of me wonders if I should have introduced formula at some point and had it there as an option.  It would probably have been a lot less stressful.  After a while, I had gone so long without introducing formula, that it seemed like it would be more stressful to try to get her to take it than to just keep on feeding her breast milk, whatever I had to do to keep making it. Also, when we found out Allie had the milk allergy that confirmed it for me that I would breastfeed as long as I could since she could only have certain formula without milk proteins anyway.  I am glad for that reason we didn't give her formula, because she would have been allergic to most kinds.  Anyway, we've gotten through it and it's been totally worth it.  That's just been my experience, I totally respect a mother's choice and ability to do what they have to do to feed her child.

I still am happy with my choice to go back to work, most days.  I miss Allie all the time, but I like having work in my life as well.  I feel like Allie is doing well at daycare.  I like that she has that social interaction and that they keep her on a schedule, and I feel like she enjoys it.  I don't know if any mother is ever 100% sure of the decision to work or stay home, but I feel pretty good about where we are.  It is definitely a lot to work and be a mom though.

Us outside earlier today.

I've enjoyed watching Allie grow and it's amazing how far she's come in a year, from the tiny baby that could barely move on her own, to one that is almost walking on her own now (10 steps is probably her record!).  I can't wait to see how this next year goes!  Hopefully I'll be posting more of a formal one year update on Allie next!

Ten and a Half Months!

Merry Christmas (belated)!  I hope to get a Christmas post up at some point, but since we all know I can't get it together enough to even get a monthly Allie update up on time, we'll see if that actually happens.  Allie is napping right now, so I'm going to try and get this update out.

Allie is ten ten and a half months old!  Wow, I can't believe she's almost a year old, so weird.  I'm really late with this update and I honestly can't remember what's happened before ten months and in the last two weeks, so I'll just update you on where we're at right now.

First off, the ten month photo shoot was a complete disaster, because little-miss-can't-sit-still would not cooperate.

Why yes, the sticker is stuck to my leg in this photo!

Right after I wrote my nine month update, Allie started babbling with her bababa, dadada, and all that, so it was nice to not have to worry about that being an issue, since I was kind of concerned she wasn't doing that yet when I wrote the nine month update.  It seems like with a lot of her developmental milestones, all I have to do is express concern about it and she goes ahead and does it.  I will admit she has said "dada" a lot, but I am not ready to call that her first world since Greg is typically no where in the vicinity when she is saying it, it just seems to be general babble.  Still, Greg likes to give me crap about how he won the "dada" vs. "mama" first word battle.  I actually wouldn't mind if she did look right at him and call him dada.  That would be so cute :)  Allie is very into Clyde now too, so it wouldn't surprise me if her "da" is really directed at Clyde, trying to say "dog" (which was my first word!).  She also really likes rubber ducks, so it could be "duck".

I feel like Allie is getting super close to walking.  She easily stands and can move while holding on to things.  She's also super fast in her walker and is getting good at turning around and moving in multiple directions.  I think she'll be walking by the time she's a year old if not sooner.  She also stands without holding on to things a lot now, so she's definitely testing the waters.  I think she'll be walking by a year if not sooner.

As of nine months Allie still had no teeth!  This surprised me, because she's been pretty much on target with most milestones, and this was definitely late.  About a week and a half ago one of her daycare teachers pointed at her mouth and said "I think she's teething now", because she was doing something funny with her mouth.  Sure enough, I felt around in her mouth and felt a sharp edge poking through on one of her lower middle teeth, so it's finally happening now.  She's doing ok with it.  The other day my parents were watching her while I was at work and she completely lost it for about three hours, and I ended up leaving work early to rescue them.  I stopped at Walgreens on my way home and bought every teething product they had.  I think half of it was that she just wanted me to hold and comfort her and no one else would do.  Poor kiddo.  Tylenol, chilled pacifiers, and teething tablets seem to be the most helpful out of everything we've tried.

Like I said, sleep has been a little bit disrupted lately due to teething.  She was pretty consistently sleeping through the night right before the first tooth poked through, but then got thrown off.  I have had some nights where I've gone in if she seems particularly upset and others where I've let her cry and settle herself back to sleep when it seems like she would.  I feel like I can never really decide what to do.  I want to be consistent, but don't want her to suffer alone if she needs comforting.  We started putting Allie to bed a little earlier, because it seemed like putting her to bed later didn't help much with making her sleep later, so she might as well go to bed earlier and get the sleep on the front end.  Typically she goes down by about 7:15pm, then can be up anywhere from like 5:15-7am.  Most mornings she's up more in the 5:30am range, which kind of sucks.  She usually takes two naps- one in the morning around 10am- that can be 1/2 hour to 1 1/2 hours, then an afternoon nap around 2ish that is about the same length.  Daycare tells me she's not one of the better nappers, and I agree.

Feeding is going well.  She eats three meals a day.  A typical day of feeding looks like this:

6:30am: Nurse.

8:15am: oatmeal cereal mixed with applesauce or mashed banana, sometimes a handful of sliced blueberries (her favorite food by a landslide)

10am: Bottle or nurse

12pm: A level two baby food or pouch if she's at daycare or out, maybe chunks of sweet potato and banana and/or whole grain cracker with some almond butter if she's home.

1:30pm: Bottle or nurse

Some kind of afternoon snack maybe (cheerios, diced fruit, etc).

4pm: Bottle or nurse

5:45pm: Dinner of rotisserie chicken, butternut squash chunks, coconut milk yogurt.

7pm: Nurse.

She sometimes does have a middle of the night nurse session, and once in a while she'll have a 5:15am and 7:15am nurse session if she wakes up really early and doesn't eat much at the first session and I want to top her off before daycare.  

We met with the allergist and confirmed Allie has a milk and egg allergy.  She can have milk or eggs cooked in stuff like baked goods, but other than that, it's a no go for now.  We have a bottle of Benedryl and an epi pen for her just in case, but I think she'll grow out of it, but it's still less than ideal.  I think we're going to end up doing a combination of different milks- hemp, almond, soy, coconut, when she hits a year.  We'll probably see what she likes and use different ones for home and daycare since she can't have nut milk there.

Allie can now clap, wave, hug, and understands more of what we're saying, as far as we can tell.  Everyone says she has a lot of personality and she constantly cracks us up!

I keep saying every day she's starting to look and act more like a little girl all the time, and less like a baby.  The daycare teachers told me she's been kissing one of the boys!  Whoa, slow down little girl!

Likes: BLUEBERRIES, butternut squash, my phone, bells, Clyde, rubber ducks, me, my mom, waving, clapping, cuddling, practicing walking.

Dislikes:  Being strapped into pretty much anything (stroller, carseat, etc...), being confined in her play yard, crib, or Pack N Play, being changed, not being able to see me if I have to run to the bathroom or upstairs for a minute.

She's usually in 9M clothes now, and still in size 3 diapers.  I don't see that changing anytime soon.  I have no idea about her weight or height.  I probably won't find out til her year check up.  I would guess maybe 17 lbs, but I usually guess wrong.

Anyway, life is pretty good.  It's super hectic, and she's getting more fun, but also more challenging as she grows.  As usual, there's a lot more I would like to say and blog about, but finding the time is nearly impossible.  I'm exhausted, but happy.

Nine Months!?

Allie is now nine months old!

All the sudden my little baby is seeming more and more like a little girl every day.  This month I feel like she exploded with progress, especially on the motor skills and physical front.

Even though at the beginning of the month she was already pulling to standing, there is such a difference now.

She can easily pull to standing and also can get down from standing into a sitting position.  She also likes to stand between two things and do a 360, completely turning around, by holding each thing (like ottomans or laundry baskets).  She can climb ramps or small stairs (yikes), and crawls fast now.

We also got her a walker and she's mastered walking all over the kitchen in her walker, which is pretty hilarious to watch.  She is extremely active.

Allie is definitely showing us that she knows what we are saying a lot now.  If you ask her to hand you something, she will and likes the game of passing it back and forth.  She loves picaboo (has for a long time), loves watching me dance and sing to her, loves being bounced up and down, loves getting raspberries on her cheeks and belly.  It's so so cute to watch her laugh at things.

Allie really had fun doing a lot of fall activities this month.  She went to a pumpkin patch for the first time!

She also had her first Halloween in which she dressed up as a lady bug at both our neighborhood parade and a Halloween party with friends and other babies.

Allie is still exploring food.  We introduced her to several meats this month.  Her favorite is chicken, by a landslide, but she's also tried fish, turkey, and pot roast.  She's tried new stuff like spaghetti with sauce, hummus, kiwi, graham crackers, muffins, and raspberries.  Food is kind of hit or miss for her.  Her favorite foods are butternut squash, puffs, pears, and yogurt (coconut milk yogurt).  Allie is getting more interested in feeding herself, and with that I'm finding it harder to spoon feed her things she used to like, so that can be frustrating.  She's most successful feeding herself butternut squash (cooked, soft chunks), puffs, and Cheerios, but we're trying new things all the time.  We still do purees (I still make a lot) too, and sometimes they go over well, sometimes not.  It just depends on Allie's mood.

I don't think I've mentioned it yet, but we found out Allie has a mild milk allergy.  We had given her small amounts of yogurt and ice cream and noticed a rash around her mouth, so we took her to the doctor and she recommended Allie have a blood draw to be tested for the milk allergy.  This is bad news to me since I LOVE ice cream.  We are getting referred to an allergist to further explore this, but for now milk products are out.  The good news is we've successfully given Allie coconut and soy yogurt and ice cream.  We are really hoping she grows out of this and can have milk and milk products in the future though.  I guess we'll know more about what to expect once we see the allergist.

Allie is super interactive now.  She shrieks with delight if you call to her and smile from across the room. Every time I pick her up at daycare she loses her mind with delight, but will completely melt down in the two seconds it takes me to collect her things once she sees me from inside the play area.  She laughs and smiles and everyone says she smiles with her eyes.  She is a true joy and watching her get excited, smile, and laugh is the best thing ever.

Sleep is going pretty good.  We had a fairly rough daylight savings week, with a couple wake-ups before 5am, but she usually sleeps through the night and is just up really early most mornings.  I feel like she's still pretty unpredictable.  Some nights she'll sleep all night, sometimes up once a night for a feeding, some nights (like last night), she's up more than once a night if she's really thrown off.  Last night I gave up trying to get her back to sleep in the crib (she'd cry as soon as I put her down) at 4am and let her sleep with me.  It's rare that happens though.

Allie got in visits with both sets of grandparents this month.  Greg's parents were here at the beginning of October for a long weekend, and Allie went to see my parents at the beginning of November.

As for her stats, she is in size three diapers, and wearing 6M, 6-9, and 9M clothes.
At her 9 month check up:
Weight: 15.6 lbs  (5-10th percentile)  TINY!
Length: 27 inches (25-50th percentile)
Head: 44.5 cm (50-75th percentile)

I'll admit, her weight surprised me.  She's always been on the smaller side for weight, but less than 16 lbs at nine months seems so small!  I was guessing she was about 17 lbs now based on her eating solids and breast milk.  I think maybe because she is so mobile now she is burning a lot of calories.  Anyway, her pediatrician is not worried about it at all and showed us that she is totally in the normal range for her growth and for an exclusively breast fed baby.  I'm trying not to worry about it.  It's not like she looks skinny or anything, she looks like she has a normal amount of baby fat.

The only other concern we have at all with Allie is that she's not using consonant sounds much like "ma ma, da da, or ba ba".  We actually think we're partly to blame because we have let her have the pacifier so much, so the pediatrician said to try not letting her use it as much and try repeating those sounds in front of her a lot and hopefully within the next month she will pick them up.  She makes lots of "Eeeeeeee!" and "Arrrhhhhh" noises, but just not a lot of consonant sounds.  I am also hoping it's partially that she's so focused on moving with all the crawling and standing she's doing that she doesn't work on talking as much.

I am feeling good lately.  Still tired and never feeling caught up on things, but I feel good overall.  I feel like I'm getting the hang of work/life/baby/house/marriage more and more each day which makes me happy.   I've even been running some.  Usually only about two mile runs about twice a week (with or without the jogging stroller), but it's something. 

I can't believe we're in the home stretch to a year now.  Crazy...

Eight Months

Guess who's eight months old?!

Crazy huh?  When Allie was born, heck when she was conceived, I loved her from the first second, but honestly, my love for her grows bigger and is more overwhelming every day.  Look at that smile...  It just melts me every day.

As evidenced by the photo above, Allie is a pro at sitting now and rarely falls over.  She can also go from sitting to crawling easily.  She has moved from the army crawl to the regular crawl and has been doing this for a week or two now.

I haven't seen her pull to standing much (ok, now she is!), but she does crawl over to me and try to climb on me, which is sort of similar.  She'll stand with my assistance for long periods of time and seems to like it.  It'll be interesting to see when she does start standing more.

For the longest time I thought our jumperoo was a huge fail because Allie wouldn't tolerate being in it for long and wasn't jumping in it, but recently it clicked for her and now she's very into that and her doorway jumper.  She's pretty hilarious jumping in both.

Still, I feel like her attention span is pretty limited.  I have trouble getting anything done when I'm with her because she doesn't like to play alone and doesn't like being in the jumperoo, Pack N Play, her play yard, or any of her other baby holding things anymore unless you're interacting with her.  It's getting tough.

Feeding it going well.  Allie has cereal with fruit in the morning, a jar of baby food at daycare in the middle of the day, and more cereal and/or fruit or vegetable at dinner, so three meals a day most days.  She's an enthusiastic eater most of the time and loves being fed.  In general she's not eating much baby led style, but I try sometimes- with mushed black beans, cooked apple, etc...  She usually just kind of plays with the food on the tray but doesn't actually eat much.  We did try puffs recently though and she liked those and understands how to get them into her mouth, so we should probably try more.

In addition to solids, Allie usually has about five or six feedings of breast milk a day (including one during the night).  When she first started daycare, we were sending four 4oz bottles and she'd usually have three of the four.  A couple weeks ago I asked the teachers if they would prefer me sending three bigger bottles with 5-6oz of milk instead and they thought that would be fine.  I think when you breastfeed you always worry if the baby is getting enough or wonder how much they should have in a bottle when they're away from you.  She's doing well with the three bigger bottles so far.

As mentioned, Allie is still up once a night most nights.  I wondered if her increased food/milk intake would change that, but most nights she still seems hungry enough for a full feeding.  I know some babies take longer to consistently sleep through the night though, so I try not worry about it.  Once a night isn't a huge deal, and honestly I usually prefer that to waking up at 5am if that's the alternative.  I definitely over analyze Allie's sleep all the time though.  She's still going to bed between 7:30-8pm, and wakes up anywhere from 5:30-7:15am.  Occasionally I've actually had to wake her up to get her ready for daycare, but you know those 5:30am wake ups always happen on the weekends when we could sleep in ;)  Allie sometimes has nights where she fusses and cries a little a couple times during the night, but I try not to respond or not too quickly until I know she really needs me.  Often she'll settle herself back down without my help so that's good.  I also started putting a couple pacifiers in the crib (including a wubanub since those are easy to find with the stuffed animal attached) with her because a lot of the time the issue is finding a paci. 

Allie had her first trip to an apple orchard a couple weeks ago.  This is a big deal to me as a former New Englander.  This year we decided to go to Skytop Orchard, after hearing it's really family friendly.  I admittedly wanted cider donuts too, so we made a day trip out of it.  It was actually a pretty big fail.  The place was absolutely mobbed, with a line of cars waiting to even park when we got there.  The lines to pay for apples were insane and we didn't even get any donuts because the line for those was even longer.  Allie wasn't happy in the Ergo either, which was my plan for carting her through the orchard.  We snapped a bunch of cute pictures, picked our apples, and got out of there as soon as we could.

Allie also got to see her uncle Mark and my parents again this month when they came for a weekend visit.  He had fun making her laugh.

Allie moved to a new room at daycare and it's going well.  The babies are much more rambunctious and mobile in this room so I've already gotten two reports of her bumping her head :(.  Poor kiddo.  She also got her second cold, which she gave to Greg and I.  Not fun.  

I took her to the doctor the other day and we know that she's 16.1 lbs now.  Still on the smallish side.  She's in size three diapers all the time now and her clothing still varies anywhere from 3M to 6-9 month stuff, so all over the place.  I should have more stats next month when she goes for her nine month well visit.

That about sums it up.  I really wish I could tell you that I'm going to be able to blog more, but honestly, it's not looking like I'm going to have more time to any time soon.  I already feel like I'm struggling (and failing) to keep up with so many things in life, and this is one hobby that's really taken a major back seat.  

Anyway, I love my girl, and spending as much time with her as I can is my first priority!  I promise to try and sneak on here whenever I get the chance though, and I do enjoy the monthly updates to keep track of it all!

Seven Months

Hey there!  Well, we have reached seven months of Allie awesomeness.

Our kiddo is growing and changing every day.  I probably say this every month, but I'm really loving the age she is right now.  She's all full of smiles and laughter and it's getting easier to get her to do both.  She is also getting to a good place with tolerating being out, so we're starting to worry less about taking her shopping or out to eat, because she's usually pretty good about it as long as we don't leave her strapped in too long.  She's a lot of fun.

Allie has definitely mastered the army crawl now and can get around quite well this way, even though she's not doing a full on regular crawl.  She does get up on her hands and knees, but she doesn't usually get mobile that way, she's usually on her forearms when she crawls.  In any case, she's definitely moving a lot, so close supervision is key now.

Allie is also sitting very well now.  We still keep a close eye on her though because without warning she'll occasionally fall over, but usually she'll sit for a while without a problem, and she likes to go from sitting to army crawling if she sees something she's after.

Allie is eating about two "meals" a day now.  Daycare feeds her oatmeal cereal with water in the mornings on the days she is there, and then we do some kind of puree in the evening at dinner time.  I was open to the idea of Baby Led Weaning, but Allie didn't seem to get it at first.  Recently though, I did give her a spear of cucumber with the skin still on and she did pretty well gumming it and getting all but the skin ingested.  I think she likes the idea of it, but we also need to work on a food she likes the flavor of, because sometimes she seems turned off by cucumber.  We'll have to try some other things.  Allie really likes being fed with a spoon though, so in terms of actual food consumption, we've had pretty good success with spoon feeding and purees.  I've been making more things for her like butternut squash, yellow squash, peaches, etc...

Allie has had apples, peaches, pears, avocado, prunes, sweet potato, banana, acorn squash, butternut squash, peas, zucchini, yellow squash, and cucumber.  She has liked most things, some more than others.  Zucchini was the only big miss so far (she had a funny look on her face, like "WTF"), but I'll try it again.  One thing I'm noticing is that she's not too happy if other people eat in front of her and she's not getting fed, so usually we have to feed her something at a meal time if we're eating.  I think soon we can try some proteins with her, like beans, meat, cheese, and yogurt but I need to do more research on this.  For those of you with babies, when did you introduce those?

Breastfeeding is still going well.  I'm still pumping at work three or four times a day and feed Allie two or three times on weekdays (usually once or twice in the mornings depending on how early she gets up and once at bedtime) and all her milk meals on the weekends (about 6 times a day).  I definitely pay a ton of attention to my water intake and consumption of food to make sure I can produce enough milk for Allie, but overall it's going well.

As for water, Allie also love drinking out of a glass and reaches for mine whenever she sees me drinking.  It's funny.  She gets a lot of water on her shirt in the process, but loves trying.  We've tried some sippy cups and she's got a ways to go with those too.  She does best with one that she has that has a spout in the middle and is most like a bottle.

Sleep.  Well, right at about six months we decided it was time to get Allie out of the sleep suit.  It actually seemed like her sleep was kind of getting worse because of her being restricted in it, and also she was close to being able to roll over in it, which is one reason you basically HAVE to get them out of it.  So finally one night I bit the bullet and put her to sleep in a onesie, sleeper, and a Halo sleep sack, which is the method the sleep suit people suggest you use to transition a baby out of the suit, since they still feel the buffer of the layers of clothing.  We only did the onesie layer for about a week and from then on have just put her in a sleeper and the sleep sack, which we're still doing.  Overall, the transition went well, probably better than I expected.  She immediately was up less than she had been in the suit for the first couple nights.  She even started sleeping close to the whole night consistently.  The only thing was that for a lot of this month she did this thing where'd she would sleep from about 8pm til about 4-5am, and wake up and I usually had to feed her and then SHE would go back to sleep, but it was too close to my wake time (6am) on week days for me to go back to sleep.  This week she had several nights where she made it the whole night through, but she is still kind of hit or miss on wake up time, anywhere from 5am to like 7am, so it's pretty hard to predict.  One note- we did have to go up to size 3 diapers at night because she's going so long without waking up and getting changed and leaked through some size 2 nighttime ones a bunch of times.  The 3s are working well so far.

Allie and I went to Hilton Head for labor day weekend, and she did great in the pool and beach again.

When at the beach we saw tons of little kids that are about a year older than Allie and it made me wonder how she's going to be next summer when we are there.  Mind boggling...

Allie also tried out the swings for the first time recently.  SO CUTE!

Allie has become super interested in Clyde in the past couple weeks.  When she sees him she smiles at him and if you play fetch with Clyde in front of her, she laughs hysterically.  It's hilarious.

Stats:
I think Allie is close to 16 lbs according to my scale, but she could be a little less since it's hard to figure out ounces.  I feel like she's probably going to chunk up a little more now that she's eating solids more.
She's kind of in between size 2 and 3 diapers.  She's still wearing 2s during the day, but 3s at night and I think we're on our last box of 2s because I think we can pretty much put her in 3s all the time now.
Clothes are kind of all over the place.  She can be anywhere from a 3M to a 6-9 month depending on the brand.  She pretty much fits into anything 6M well though.

I am doing pretty good.  Being a working mom is tough, and I struggle with the same stuff I'm sure all working moms struggle with. There are not enough hours in the day and many week days I feel like I do not have nearly enough time to get everything done.  It's hard, but I still think it's the right thing for us.

Allie is doing great at daycare and moves to the next room/age group this week.  I admit, I am a little teary to see her leave her first daycare room.  I really felt comfortable with the teachers in there and never worried about her.  I'm sure the new room will be great too.  It's crazy to see her moving up and growing up so quick.

I'm going to try to do a day in the life of a working mom post soon, and also should do a 7 month favorite things post since it's been a while since I've done one, and we have a lot of favorite baby things to update you guys on.  Both of these have been on my mind for a while, but finding the time to blog about them is... difficult!

I love this kid more than I can put into words...  I'm so lucky to be her mom :)