Six Months (and 2 weeks)

May 11, 2012 6:35 pm

Heather turned 6 months old on April 28th. Overall, I would say that things are getting much better. She's less cranky during the day and she's sleeping better. We even have a schedule! (Yes, I am ridiculously pleased by this. My life once more has order and predictability! Huzzay!) Our typical day goes roughly like this:

Between 6 and 7am—wake up
7am—nurse
8:30am—feed cereal (barley or oatmeal mixed with prune juice and applesauce)
9-10am—nap
10:30am—nurse
12:45pm—nurse (I'm thinking about changing this to another feeding of solids at some point)
1-2pm—nap
3pm—nurse
4:30pm—feed some variety of fruit/vegetable (squash, sweet potato, pears, peas)
4:45pm—bath (if it's a bath day)
5:15pm—nurse
5:30pm—storytime with Daddy (I read to her before her naps, too)
6pm—bedtime
Between 2 and 3 am—nurse (as of this last week, this feeding is going away)

IMGP7776as

All the in-between times are filled, of course, with playing and such. We usually make a circuit between the playmat, the exersaucer thingie, the bouncer, the floor with toys, and sometimes the high chair with toys. Sometimes she'll play by herself, but she really prefers to have me or Kyle hanging out right there with her. I usually take her on a walk in the afternoon, but it's been really hot...we'll see how that goes this summer.

IMGP7839as

Heather is getting to be a lot of fun and growing her own personality. Sometimes she'll be very serious, and look around with her brow furrowed, as if she's not sure her surroundings are quite up to snuff. But then she'll break out into a huge smile, start throwing her hands around, and make the goofiest noises. Here's some info about her:

Nicknames: Bug, Drgn, Goober, Bug-a-boo, Bug-a-bug,
Squirmington, Lady Heatherington Fusspants
Favorite Books (she LOVES storytime!): Snuggle Puppy, Babes of the Wild, Stanley & Rhoda
Favorite Songs: "Baby Mine," "Slippery Fish" (or anything with hand actions), "Hard Scrabble Harvest"
Favorite Toys: Taggies blanket, an empty vitamin bottle (she chews on the dropper squeezer part, and I put some rice in it so it rattles a bit), links, pacifier (she's getting pretty good at getting it into her mouth properly, but then she often pulls it back out and starts over again)
Favorite Activities: playing on the bathroom counter, going for walks (either in her stroller or the carrier, which she has just started to love)

IMGP7777as

Heather had her 6-month checkup on the 30th, and she's doing great! She weighed in at 13.5 lbs, putting her up in the 9th percentile. This made me extremely happy. Guess those solids are really helping!

Heather really likes to be outside. All of these pictures (except the first one) were taken at a little park area across the street. She enjoys laying on the blanket and watching the treetops, but she also loves to watch the cars go by. So if she gets cranky, I will often take her for a walk. The change of scenery usually calms her right down.

IMGP7855as

She's currently working on two major skills: sitting and crawling! She can sit, but somebody/thing has to support her so she doesn't tip over. And she's getting better and better at pulling her knees up under her (preparatory to crawling). So far, though, she just rocks; she hasn't made any attempt to move from that position yet. But I bet it won't be long!

IMGP7887as

And yes, she likes to put her fingers in my mouth. Best game in the world.

Mama's Day Off

May 6, 2012 6:59 pm

  1. Heather slept through the night last night. As in, I put her down at 6pm last night as usual and she didn't get up until 6:15am! Kyle went in at one point to check on her and moved her binky (which she had spit out) up to where she could easily find it, and that was all the intervention she required for 12 hours! She usually cries for her binky a few times a night and gets up to eat once. It was awesome.
  2. After I fed her at 6:30am, I wanted her to go back to sleep (though I didn't think she would), so I started bouncing her, but then she got the hiccups, so I knew she wasn't going back to sleep. I put her down in her crib, turned her mobile on, and let her play. After a while, I realized she hadn't made any noise in a few minutes, so I went in and she was asleep. She has NEVER fallen asleep in her crib on her own. This was a little early for her usual morning nap (7:40am instead of 9am), but I wasn't complaining. (I think she'd been awake for a long time before she started making noise at 6:15am.) And she slept for a whole hour!
  3. I brought Heather home from church after sacrament meeting to put her down for her nap, but she fell asleep in the car. I knew she was tired, but she hasn't slept in the car in months (or anywhere other than her crib, for that matter—that's why we went home early), so I didn't try to keep her awake on the way home. But I managed to get her into the house still asleep, so I just put her carseat down in the nursery and let her sleep. She had another good hour-long nap! (The true significance of this item will be shown later.)
  4. This afternoon, the three of us went across the street to the park and hung out in the shade for a while. Kyle and I wanted to walk downtown to walk through the Wine Country Festival going on, but the sun was too hot for me. I went home while Kyle took Heather downtown, and they were gone for about 40 minutes. That's 40 minutes I was home alone, with no baby!
  5. Once again, as I started to put Heather to bed tonight, she got the hiccups, so I just put her down in her crib to play until they went away. A few minutes later, I went in and she was asleep. Sweet!
What this boils down to is that I got to sleep all night last night, I got some alone time this afternoon, and I didn't have to get Heather to sleep one single time today! I spent zero time bouncing her on that bleeping exercise ball! Heather's gotten much better about going down relatively easy, but it's still a chore, and since she won't go to sleep for Kyle anymore, it's always my chore. I feel like a whole new woman!

5 months (and 1 week (and 4 days))

April 8, 2012 10:44 am

Yeah, this post is a bit late. Sorry.

Well, I said last month that Heather's feet would be in her mouth soon, right? Here you go:

IMGP7595as

She chews on her toes all the time. She even spent most of Relief Society one week, laying on my lap with both her feet pulled up to her mouth, going from one foot to the other. She's also started sucking/chewing on her thumb, though not for very long at a time. It's pretty much the cutest thing ever. And I don't know if she's actually teething yet or not, but she has definitely figured out biting/chewing. She spends as much time chomping on things as sucking on them these days. Even her pacifier! Speaking of which, she learned a trick a few weeks ago, going from this:

IMGP7579as

to this:

IMGP7577as

While sucking on the binkie, she opens her mouth as wide as she can, then pops the bottom edge of the binkie in with her fingers (while keeping the nipple in there, too) and bites down on it. I don't know why this is so entertaining for her, but she does it all the time.

Solids are going great. She's now eaten rice cereal, oatmeal, barley cereal (mixed with prune juice these days, to keep things moving), avocado, and sweet potato. (This week, her new food will be butternut squash!) So far, she's loved everything we've fed her, though lately she seems to like the cereal less than before.

My least favorite recent development is that Heather will no longer fall asleep for Kyle. We have no idea why. This sucks because putting her down for naptime/bed was already my least favorite part of the day, and now I get no relief. On the subject of sleep, though, she's started doing very strange things when she's trying to settle down to sleep. She sleeps in basically two positions: (1) flopped over to one side or the other, with her legs out in front so she makes an "L," or (2) flat on her back, with her hands up behind her head, elbows out, and her feet up near her bum, with her knees flopped out (yes, it looks ridiculous). Oh, and Henrietta is usually over her face. But before she'll settle into either of these positions, she flops around like a crazy person! Her hands/arms pull up so she can rub her face in Henrietta, and her legs get pulled up, straightened out, and then slammed down onto the mattress, not unlike a bull pawing the ground before charging. Over and over and over. It's insane, and I have no idea how it helps her relax. But it seems to.

IMGP7480as

Heather can laugh now, but Kyle's the best at getting her to do it. It's mostly when you tickle her, or do something along those lines. It's really weird though, this kind of barking chuckle.

She really likes going for walks in her stroller. She just sits up (sometimes even leaning forward) and LOOKS at everything. Cars going by always get her attention, and it's funny to see her head whip around as she follows them.

IMGP7509as

All of a sudden, Heather became quite mobile. She's been able to roll from her stomach to her back for a while now, and there was a lengthy lead-up to learning that skill. But one morning, she just started rolling from her back to her front, and now there's no containing her. She can roll around all over the place, and she can squirm a little bit to get things that are just out of her reach. It's pretty funny to look away, then realize she's moved a few feet in the time you were checking your email. The other morning, I laid her down on her playmat, then sat down to eat my breakfast. When I got up to put my dishes away, she was like this:

IMGP7475as

Originally, she had been turned the other direction (feet to the left of the picture) and was entirely on the mat. I really can't figure out how she wriggled down between the chair legs like that.

So, to begin with, Heather would swat at things with her fists. Then she progressed to grabbing things. Now, she's on to touching things. She'll reach out and just kind of feel the hanging toys on her playmat. It's really cute. And while she's nursing, she'll often reach up and play with my hand or try to reach some of my hair so she can run her fingers through it. (Also, she loves Kyle's hair. She thinks it's super fun to run her hands through.) She also reaches out for faces, particularly mouths. And when we read to her, she'll sit way forward and try to grab the pictures on the pages. When do babies recognize the difference between pictures and real objects?

IMGP7482as

I was all set to tell you all that Heather's sleep has gone back to normal, and even improved. For several days, that was true. It was easy to get her down, and she'd even nap for an hour or two at a time, which she has never done with any regularity. But now we're back to lousy naps again. Honestly, I feel like I have two babies. Happy Heather seems to only show up for a few days at a time every few weeks, but she's fantastically awesome and fun. She naps like a rockstar and is happy and a true joy when she's awake. But mostly, we get Fussy Heather, who naps very poorly and is only really happy for a half hour or so after waking up. Much of the rest of the day, she's cranky and clingy and very demanding, not enjoying anything for very long. I wish I knew how to make her happier more often. My personal theory is that something makes her uncomfortable (gas, constipation, teething, whatever), which both irritates her and keeps her from sleeping well, making things even worse. I don't know if that's accurate or not, though, and even if it is, it's difficult to tell what's bothering her or how to help.

Even so, she's totally adorable and we love her very much. How could you not love this face?

IMGP7541as