I Got It Mom

I know it's Christmas and I should be posting about how great Alli did at opening up her gifts this morning, but I'm not gonna. At least not yet...

Yesterday we had some changes with Alli. When we were finished with her solids, Alli wanted the spoon. So I let her have it and she promptly put it in her mouth (mostly to teeth). But I thought that if she was going to go that far, there might as well be food on the end of it. So I got some more food and put a little on the spoon. She opened her mouth ready to be served. I told her "no, you do it". She finally took the spoon and shoved it in her mouth. We did this a few times and I told her she was doing a great job.

Today when we went to eat solids, I didn't even try to put the food in her mouth. I just put it on the spoon and said "here Alli". She took it and fed herself. Obviously, lunch took a little longer than usual, but Alli is now feeding herself. :) It's a it more messy too, but that's what washcloths are for!


Alli also was moved into her own room the other night. I think it was more of a change for mom and dad than her. I was afraid she wouldn't fall asleep, but she has - two nights in a row now. The unfortunate part is that she wakes up crying. She never made a peep in our room, so now I'm going to try to figure out if it's because I can't hear her playing to go get her before she starts crying, or if the surroundings are different enough that it bothers her when she wakes up. Unfortunately, that would mean setting an alarm to wake up before her...and I'm on vacation... Hmm.... We'll see when I figure this out. ;)

Ok. So for Christmas... Alli did a great job with wrapping paper. We found she really liked the paper, so as soon as she got hold of a corner, daddy could move the present around and the paper would tear off. Good system! She seemed to like paper and boxes better than any of the gifts. Go figure, right? Just like any young kid. :)

It's been a great Christmas. Rainy, but good. We've spent a lot of time visiting neighbors and friends, and enjoying our little family of 4. (3 of us and Bagheera)

Alli's first straw

Alli & Jodie at Sushi Eye

A Round of Applause

Yesterday I was playing with Alli. She's getting more and more interactive, trying to copy what we do, especially making sounds with our mouths. Well, she did something as she was playing and I clapped for her and said "yay!". She couldn't take her eye off my hands making that sound. So I kept clapping. Then I grabbed her arms and made her hands (half-opened fists) touch each other a couple of times. Then I went back to clapping. Then she touched her hands together herself!!! Yay!! No sound of course, but she was able to imitate me, so we're still chalking it up to "she knows how to clap". :)

On other notes, holidays are hard because she gets SOOOO attached to us with the extended amount of time together. Now she won't nap again because she doesn't want to leave us. Today we are spending the morning listening to her cry, going in every 10 minutes to calm her down, and then trying it again. It's going to be a LONG morning!

Our plans for this week are to slowly move her into her own room. First we'll put her in her crib at night (because we rarely have a problem with her going to sleep at night). And then after she gets a little more comfortable going to sleep in her crib, we'll try all naps in there. We didn't feel like starting with naps since she clearly is having a problem with them already.

Alli has been hitting the Christmas parties hard this week, and since most are around dinner, we are constantly getting her to bed at different times. (I'm sure that's really helping the naps!) But she's doing great at maintaining her composure around company, even when super tired. And it doesn't matter whose house we're at, she is great at keeping a smile on her face, at least until we get into the car. ;) So she's doing a great job fooling everyone into thinking she never cries! Boy, if they could only hear her now.

Rasberry!

Tonight on the way home from Krista Care, I heard an odd sound from Alli. I turned around to look and swore she was giving me the rasberries, but yet different. It was without her tongue sticking out. When we got home, I confirmed it. She's sorta doing rasberries, just with her bottom lip, not her tongue. It's really cute!

She's growing and changing so fast. She sits by herself playing with her toys all the time. I could watch her for hours, wondering what she's thinking. I've found her exploring her hand too. That's something that just started recently too. It's usually after nursing, while she's still lying on me but looking towards the ceiling. She'll lift her right arm and start moving her hand, as though it were some mechanical device that she is figuring out how it works.

Her eyes are still blue. No teeth, but definite teething. We've had some problems the last couple of days with her going to sleep at night and found that giving her a teething toy eliminates most of the crying. (Don't worry, it's crying more like "don't leave me" rather than "OW that hurts".)

Pictures to come. With the holidays, we only took a couple, but we are not yet satisfied we've captured 7-month-old-Alli. :)

Some Cute Christmas Photos

These are our Christmas card photos taken by Wendy Amstutz and Daniel Zucker over Thanksgiving. It just dawned on me that I should share them. :) Alli's huge smile is courtesy of her cousins Claire and Branden who were entertaining her while we were posing.

Fa-La-La-La-La

Well, not quite. Alli did make a new sound at dinner tonight - la la la la la. What a cutie, with tongue sticking out as she did it. I just thought I would document this fun moment.

Sharing Toys

You would think sharing toys wouldn't be an issue in our house since we only have 1 child. But alas, we have Bagheera. And I think Bagheera is looking for someone to play with since we are spending all our time running around and doing other things. Granted, we go for family walks 1-3 times a week, but clearly that doesn't cut it. So Bagheera has decided that Alli's toys look like great things to...share. Although we wind up with doggy slobbered, tooth scratched toys. He's destroyed a couple of teething rings (punctured holes in them and the liquid started leaking), and another plastic toy as well. He really likes those stacking rings (you know, the colorful rings that stack on the base with the big round spindle?) So we are trying to teach Bagheera that Alli's toys are not to be shared. Difficult lesson. He just loves watching her though when she's playing because of all of those wonderful looking toys! It's cute to watch - til he nabs one... :(

Thanksgiving Family

This year, our family hosted Thanksgiving for the Zucker clan (Jen's family). We had Jen's brother Andy and his family, as well as Jen's cousin Daniel and his family. All together 9 people staying at our house, so lots of help with Alli.

Alli really enjoyed her cousins and second cousins. In fact, we took our Holiday pictures while everyone was here. You could always tell where Claire and Branden were because Alli was facing them and laughing!!

And Aunt Wendy taught Alli Peek-A-Boo. She got her pulling the burp cloth off her head in about 3 tries.

One of the activities for the weekend was to tie-dye some t-shirts and then have everyone sign them. Here are pictures of all the kids showing off their creations.

Jonathan Amstutz (12 years)
Claire Amstutz (10 years)
Branden Amstutz (7 years)
Lawrence Zucker (10 years)
Benjamin Zucker (7 years)
Allison Guerrette (6-1/2 months)

6 Month Photos

We did great at taking photos in a timely manner, but just didn't do very well getting them posted.

So finally, here are some 6 month photos of Alli. More on Flickr.

Alli's Sounds

Alli has become quite vocal over the last couple of weeks. It's interesting to hear some of the sounds she makes. Lots of coos and light sounds, like you would expect. We hear those mostly when she is "talking" to her friends which hang on the activity mat. But then sometimes her tone changes with her friends. She has this one sound that is accompanied by a funny face. It usually lasts a long time, like she's holding a note. But this is a more gutteral sound. Hard to explain (obviously). But, we have finally come up with a name for it. It's Alli-zilla!

She has also developed quite an interesting laugh. I swear it just started this past week, but hasn't gone away. It's a deep laugh, but instead of a deep ha ha ha, we get something more staccato, and sounds like she's upset. But then you go look at her face and there's this giant smile with tongue sticking out and you realize she's enjoying whatever it is quite a bit.

I've found that this laugh comes out easily when Bagheera is around. Boy does she just adore that dog! The other day we got home from work and Bagheera was wound up. We were in Alli's room and I was encouraging Bagheera to be excited, meanwhile holding Alli facing out so she could watch him run around the room. She thought it was just great, with her staccato laugh and tongue sticking out. She even got a kick out of getting whacked in the face with the tail. Who knew that would be fun!

Six Month Update

Alli went to the doctor today for her 6 month appointment. Here are her stats:

Eyes: Yep, still blue!
Weight: 14.7 lbs (25th percentile)
Height: 25.5 in (42nd percentile)
Head Circumference: 16.1 in (13th percentile)

She's doing fantastic sitting by herself, talking up a storm to her animal friends, and rolling over. Today she did something I hadn't seen before - she rolled from her belly to her back! And the milestones keep on coming!

Alli feeding herself

She's catching on. She fed herself with only occasional help from
daddy! I'm so proud. -Kim

Alli's Email

Since the "hot keys" post, one comment was asking when Alli would get her own email address. Daddy signed her up for a gmail account when she was two weeks old.

If you want to send email to Alli, her gmail account is in the format firstname.lastname@gmail.com, where firstname is Allison and lastname is Guerrette. (Sorry, trying to protect the account from lots of spam.)

Alli, Master of the Hot Keys

Today Alli decided to help me with some of my emails. She just loves the computer - can't wait to start banging on it whenever we sit down in front of it. So I let her type an email to her daddy.

Daddy decided she should be typing in a blank text document instead since she actually found the hot-keys to send the email! So, we opened up a text document and let her go. Well, let me tell you - she is a MASTER at the hot keys!!! I kept having to pull her away from the keyboard and escape out of whatever windows popped up.

When we left the computer, I told Daddy that the computer was "talking". I figured she had started one of his video clips that he was watching, so I just wanted to warn him. He sat down to figure it out, but it wasn't a video. Master of the Hot Keys had turned on the blind-assist, so it was "saying" all the keystrokes that were happening. Hilarious!!! Way to go Alli!

Green Eggs and Ham

Ok, not really green eggs and ham, but we made Alli's rice cereal green today by adding peas. And, because mom was too lazy to go to the grocery store, she got the good stuff. I steamed some frozen peas and then mashed them with a fork, added them to the tablespoon of rice cereal and voila! We had lunch. I think she got a kick out of eating with me. I made sure both our meals were ready at the same time, so we literally ate together.

Alli is really funny because she sucks her fingers in between spoonfuls of food. Yes, we had green stuff everywhere!!! I was also impressed by the way she handled some of the pea skins that didn't mash well. The bigger pieces I was able to separate, but the little ones just went down her throat - no problems.

She's really growing and changing. She's sitting more often, and has found that being on her tummy is actually interesting now. That's making her roll more. So if we leave her on her back and walk away, half the time we come back and find her on her stomach reaching for a toy.

That's our big girl!

Happy Halloween!

We took Alli to the Fountain Hills Autumn Festival (aka - keep the kids from going trick-or-treating because we have no streetlights), where we met up with the Searle, Searle, and Rosing clans. We had a lot of fun dancing to music and seeing all the costumes. Unfortunately the only kids that participated in activities were Jarrod and Josh as nobody else could even walk!

So here are some Halloween pictures for you to enjoy.


Alli - Pea in the Pod (Sweet Pea!)
Jarrod - Superman
Katie - Pink Oogley
Josh - Dragon
Ryan - Teddy Bear

Rice Cereal is Yummy!

Happy Halloween!!! We decided instead of candy, we would give Alli a different treat - her first attempt at solid foods. Ok, "solid" might be a stretch as the rice cereal was pretty more like liquid, but we did feed it to her with a spoon, so hey! At 5-1/2 months, we figured it was time...

Alli took to it really well. She even started to open her mouth and crane her head to get to the spoon. And as usual, we were very proud of her achievement. She was also very clear when she was done with the cereal - she spit the food out with a grimace.

Alli's First Happy Hour

It's funny how things are either very slow or just happen all at once. This is going to be one of those "all at once" weeks, so I'll be posting frequently!

Last night we met some friends from my job at a happy hour at Four Peaks Brewery. Everyone was excited because they had Pumpkin Porter (yummy!) And of course, Alli just couldn't resist taking part like the rest of us.

This is Alli with Dan Bossler and some Pumpkin Porter. I think we're gonna have a beer drinker!

Sittin' Pretty

Last night I was reading "What to Expect First Year" to put a plan together of how to introduce solids. I haven't read the book in a few months. So I got to "5 months" and the beginning section said (not a direct quote) "some babies can sit up on their own with their hands on the floor for balance". I realized that I had always been trying to catch Alli if she leaned too far forward because I was afraid she may hurt her back. (Guess that's only for us "old" folks!) So tonight when I picked her up at Krista's, we put her on the floor and I put her hands in front of her and let her go. Not bad! She did a pretty good job sitting. I was pretty impressed, so decided she was just going to *have* to show daddy this new trick.

Well, much to my surprise, when daddy and I put her down, sitting with a toy between her legs, she went to grab the toy and just stayed sitting. After 30 seconds or so, she wound up tilting to the side and falling over. We did this quite a few times - even got the video recorder out to show such a momentous feat!

So all excited about the video, we wound up leaving her on her back on the blanket while downloading to the PS3 so we could watch it. She was still pretty playful, so she started rolling from side to side. (Yes, she does this - rolls to her side, but not all the way over.) Apparently this night she decided she wanted to play with the blanket some more or something, so she eventually rolled all the way over on her stomach. After much grunting and struggling, she finally got her arm out from under herself and was able to push up with her arms to get her head nice and high, and then continue playing with the blanket. WOW! I was soooo proud of her! Quite a night we've had!

An Infant's Love

The thing a new mom just can't wait for is the expression of love back from the infant. The past week or so I've seen the expressions back from Alli, and it's not just in her wonderful smile.

Last weekend I spent a lot of time with Alli, and it showed when I went to pick her up at Krista's on Monday. I walked in, said my hello's to everyone, and then went to lift her up for a hug. All of the sudden there were screeches of joy as she started grabbing hold of my shirt and pulling it closer to her mouth. This went on for a few minutes and I just thought "this is what every mother loves!". I was so proud, and happy. It was a very exciting feeling knowing that she was expressing her love back to me.

I'm also seeing it in her naps on Fridays. I work from home on Fridays, and while that sounds like a great idea, it's my most stressful day of the week. Alli *loves* to spend time with me, especially on Fridays since she hasn't been with me much for 4 days. But I'm supposed to work. So I feel like I do a half-arsed job at both mothering AND working. That's very stressful for a perfectionist!! Lately she's gone so far as to skip afternoon naps to be with me. I'll let her cry, but we have a time limit. 10 minutes of straight crying and I'm going to get her. I've found that if I go in earlier, she stops and smiles at me. She *totally* just wants to be with me. But she will continue to cry for as long as I let her, or until I get her. And she doesn't fall asleep on me, she stays awake so she can spend all this time with me. It's cute, yet somewhat frustrating (especially when work emails come flying in!)

Yesterday she didn't nap at all in the afternoon, but fell asleep finally during her 6pm feeding. I let her sleep - she needed it. But after a while I decided I needed to put her down to help prepare dinner. She woke up and was crying. So, I thought maybe she should finish her meal. Well, not quite. Fell asleep again. This time I decided just to put her in her cradle - no sleep sack, just as is. I figured that would mean an early morning for me, but what can you do. The little one surprised us - she slept from 7pm til 6:30am!!! My goodness, what she does to be with Mom during the day. :)

But There Are No Teeth!

Over the last week or so, we've noticed that Alli likes chewing on things, including her fingers. Teething? No, couldn't be. Can't see any signs of teeth. Well, I'm starting to wonder a little more about that. This weekend I watched my daughter change. One day, normal Alli. The next day, couldn't go down for naps although she tried all her normal techniques for putting herself to sleep, fell asleep while nursing (mostly because she didn't nap), drool galore, and snot all over the place. Yuck!!! I still don't see any white little spots on her gums, but boy if this doesn't seem like teething. In general, she's still happy. But with the lack of sleep she's a bit more needy at times during the day. She doesn't chew *all* the time, but she definitely has her times where everything goes into the mouth. And today besides a lot of runny nose, we got lots of poopy diapers. It seemed like every time I went to change her there was some more poop. So, stay tuned. I doubt we're going to see any pearly whites, but something is growing inside those gums!

Alli's 5 Month Photos

Yesterday Alli turned 5 months old. I can't believe it. She's changing all the time - new sounds, new expressions, new fun things. Here are a couple of pictures to enjoy.

Splish Splash I was Takin' a Bath

I've been asked numerous times if Alli likes taking a bath. My only response is "well, she doesn't hate it". When we bathe her, she doesn't seem "happy", but she isn't upset either. I've tried to kick her legs to let her see the water splashing, and same with her hands. Still no real reaction, so we just go about bathing her and getting her out of there.

This weekend we finally saw some interest. Legs kicking the water. More like a "hey, what is this stuff anyone" sort of kick as opposed to the "wahoo, this is really cool as I make a total mess!" So, it's a start. She has also taken interest in hold on to the pitcher as I pour water over her. Either she's very helpful or very inquisitive. I'm guessing inquisitive right now, but I thank her anyway. :)

On a different note, Alli has started making a new sound. Mmmmmmmm. I like it cause I'm waiting for the "mmmmaaammmaaa". :) I think I heard it once, but it could be just wishful thinking. :)

Alli's peach fuzz is getting longer. It just started growing this past week. I hope it continues - it would be so cute for her to have some hair. We'll see. For all I know it will grow and fall out and she will be a bald baby for a couple of years!

I think I posted before that Alli likes trees blowing in the wind. Well yesterday we were at a friends house and it was a windy day. They had huge sycamore trees in their backyard and Alli just stared and laughed at them. I swear we could have been there for hours, but I was cold and she was heavy. We went outside a few times though to watch the trees. Now I am trying to figure out where in the yard we can put a sycamore!

Let The Good Times Roll

Everyone always told me to enjoy each phase of your kids because they go by so fast. Alli is closing in on 5 months and I'm seeing the changes. With each phase are the fun things and the things you miss. I love the fact that Alli smiles and "talks" so much. We get to sing together and have "discussions". She is really liking sitting at the dinner table with the family as we found out this weekend. But I lost the little baby that falls asleep on your chest. I haven't tried to do this for a while, but today I did because I was tired and thought it would just be nice to fall asleep with her. Nope. Head was up and looking around. Wanted to explore, more like tummy time than nap time. In some ways, what a bummer. But as I listen to her talking to her daddy right now, I understand the new joys that each phase will bring.

Stroller Strides

Krista takes Tyler and Alli to a Stroller Strides class a few times a week. She's worked out a great schedule around naps and feeding to make the class fit in. The kids get to sit side-by-side in a double jogging stroller. At first, like anything, it was a little hectic. Tyler would "help" by making sure Alli always had her pacifier in her mouth. Alli didn't really want the pacifier, but apparently that is where Tyler believed it belonged. The problem was, Tyler wouldn't always make it into her mouth. So she got it in her eye, forehead, cheek, etc. Tyler finally got used to the fact that Alli didn't always want the pacifier and the two would stride side by side without a problem.

Well now Tyler is finding more ways to be helpful, and this is truly helpful! See the picture below!

Growing, Growing, Growing

We just went up another diaper size. Little baby girl is now in a size 2 diaper, although we are going to use up our last remaining size 1's. I can't believe how big she is. Another grouping of onesies that will be outgrown in a couple of weeks as well.

Her personality is just precious! She just giggles like crazy when you talk to her, especially mommy, who seems to speak "Alli". I can pretty much imitate any sound she makes, and that makes her giggle.

She also likes watching mommy and daddy do chores around the house. I had her in her room on the floor while I was folding her laundry today. I told her about all the different things I was pulling out of the laundry basket, and she thought that was just awesome!

I also found that she loves watching the trees blow in the wind. She watches intently for long periods of time (when we find trees to watch). Today it was a tree outside the window where I was feeding her. That wound up being more fun than eating, so eating took a back burner.

Krista loaned us a mirror to put in the car so we can see Alli's face while in the driver's seat. I've learned that you really need to looking only when stopped at a light. But now car trips contain much more cooing as Alli looks at the baby in the mirror and talks away. It's quite fun!!

Notable Notes

Last weekend my mom came to visit. She and I spent some time working on Alli's room. We hung some wall-hangings that match the crib bumper, and also painted and hung a shelf with wooden letters "A L L I". It's soooo cute. Alli had fun with Grandma, and Kim and I got a little break for a few hours one afternoon, but were only able to use it to take care of some errands.

Last night we had the Rosing clan and Ann's nephew Chuck over for dinner. Katie is 4 months older than Alli and Alli just smiled like crazy at her. It was very cute. We are hoping they become good friends as the Rosings are planning on moving to Fountain Hills sometime, and Katie and Alli will be in the same grade going to school.

Alli is definitely talking a lot with lots of different sounds. I think one of our favorite things right now is diaper changing time. She's at just the right level for a great conversation, so she and I spend lots of time talking, singing, and laughing at the changing table. Her favorite song is "A B C's". Who would have ever thought that song would actually make someone giggle. But it does.

This morning was another funny Alli episode. She decided she wasn't very hungry, but was very interested in the ceiling fan. (It was turned on.) So she looked at it and laughed, then latched on and took a little milk, then turned and looked at the fan. Still there. Laughed at it and then turned back to me to get more milk. I think she did this about 6 times until she just couldn't help herself and just had to stare at the fan. What a cutie! It made me smile to watch her be so interested in the spinning fan.

The Right Hand Rule

I just wanted to put a post in to declare that Alli appears to be a right-handed girl. She's constantly grabbing and reaching with her right hand. That probably makes sense since Kim and I are both right-handed, but I think it's cool that it's obvious now. :)

On a side note, Kim uploaded the 4 month old pictures that we took of Alli onto Flickr, but here are a couple of cute ones in case you don't want to follow the link.

Alli's Four Month Doctor Visit (continued)

Since people are so quick to read the updates, I decided to make a new entry for the stats from this visit.

Eyes: Still blue. They said they should have turned by now if they were going to change color, but my mom also said that mine changed late. For now, blue eyes.

Weight: 12.6 lbs - 35th percentile (she's catching up!)
Height: 23.5 inches - 30th percentile (here too!)
Head Circumference: 15.5 inches - 15th percentile. (I guess she has a small head?)

Dr. Patel said developmentally she looks great - holding her head up by herself, tracking with the eyes, smiling at people who are talking to her, cooing, etc. Dr. Patel also said we could try a little rice cereal when we were ready. I'm planning on holding out just a little longer. I've read that families with food allergies are better to hold off on solids until after 6 months. Dr. Patel said that we could start rice cereal to get Alli used to swallowing instead of always sucking, but hold off on the other solids for a while. She said Alli obviously doesn't need any extra nutrition since the breast milk seems to be doing quite well. We'll think about it. Maybe next month we'll try a little rice cereal.

Alli's Four Month Doctor Visit

As Long As I Have My Toes...

For the last couple of weeks, Alli has really enjoyed holding on to her toes. It seems that's almost her new way of pacifying herself. Well, holding toes and shoving her fingers in her mouth.... She rarely takes a pacifier - spits it out like it was the most foul-tasting thing on the planet.

This morning was a first for me though - she had to hold on to her toes with one hand while feeding. Interesting. It was fun until the toes became more interesting than the food. She didn't really like it when I "took them away", but she had to eat... She was happy later though when she found them again. :)

A Day at the Mall

Yesterday we went to the mall to get some clothes for Daddy. This was Alli's first real mall trip. We left a little later than expected, so our first stop wound up being at Sauce for some food for mom and dad. Next stop though was Nordstrom's Women's Lounge for food for Alli! After all of that, I figured Alli would be pretty content, and she was. She was really interested in all the different sights and sounds that the mall offered. As we continued shopping, she got more and more tired. But did she sleep? No way. Too many things to look at, even when we were stopped in one place for a while.

I feel like a broken record when I say she did awesome, but yet again, our pliable little daughter was pretty easy with the mall. When we got to the car, we loaded her into her carseat. She was asleep before I could finish buckling it!! Way to go Alli - don't miss a darn thing no matter how tired!

Alli's First Pool Party

What's Labor Day weekend without a BBQ and a Pool Party? Just another long weekend I suppose. Well, we didn't want this Labor Day to be just another long weekend, so Kim and I decided we should host a get-together. Besides, Alli just *loves* parties. :)

We invited a few families over and wound up with 11 adults and 11 kids (not counting our family) that showed. Alli was wide-eyed until she was overcome by exhaustion. I'm not sure she knew what to make of all the commotion in the house, but she did awesome. She shared her toys like a champ and even watched intently while the kids and dads were in the pool and hot tub! Kim and I had lots of help with the food, entertainment, and kids so everyone had a good time.

It was just so fun to see everyone We're very glad that Alli likes entertaining as much as we do! :)

Bagheera

Since so many people emailed asking if Bagheera was okay, we figured we would add a quick note. Bagheera was pretty tired on Sunday, the day after we got back. I wasn't very concerned because he's usually pretty tired after a trip anyway. The important thing was that he was holding down all food and water. By Monday, he was back to his normal self - wanting to play, go for a walk, whatever we would do with him.

So, Bagheera survived the memorable camping trip, although I bet he wishes he could forget about it.

Alli's First Camping Trip

Kim and I decided to take Alli camping. Yes, she's only 3 months, but camping is such a fun family activity. So, we packed up the car and headed up north Friday afternoon to camp with a family from work. Alli faced many challenges on this trip: a 3-1/2 hour car ride (it was really 3 hours, but we had to stop to nurse), sleeping in a tent in 50 degree weather, and smoke from a campfire. She handled it all like a champ.

The ride there and back was easy for her, although both directions there was a small breakdown and some crying about 20 minutes from our destination. Weird that it was at about the same time in the trip both directions.

For sleeping, we had her in a Pac-n-Play beside our mattress inside the tent. We had her bundled in SOOO many layers, including having a Boppy pillow around her head to add extra warmth.

But Bagheera... We showed up later than we wanted to on Friday and had to set the tent up in the dark. Pam took Alli so we didn't have to worry about her, and Bagheera just went exploring and getting into "stuff". Well, whatever he got into didn't agree with him. We went to bed around 10pm and that's when the problems started. Bagheera started puking. At first we were upset because we knew it was because of something he had eaten while he was exploring. But then we realized just how sick he was - he threw up every 15-20 minutes all night long. At about 3am, he started going more like 45 minutes between episodes, but still going. He threw up inside the tent 3 times because we couldn't get it open in time. After one of those "inside the tent" times, we heard an animal outside and we didn't want to send him out there (skunk? raccoon?) So we took some travel pads that I had packed for Alli and laid them at the door of the tent and just had him keep throwing up on those. Ugh. Luckily everything was well ventilated. Kim and I basically didn't sleep at all. Alli woke up at 6:30, right on time. Bagheera was still having problems.

Bagheera started feeling better by early afternoon, but still not quite all the way there. His last episode was in the car on the way home, but it was mostly food. (We had started him on bread and water to see if he could keep anything down and slowly built up to hoping his food would stay...)

So the trip in general....trying... Alli? Total camper extraordinaire!

Alli's Buddy

Alli seems to have a lot of fun during the day. Krista has been taking great care of Alli. I also know how much Alli loves watching Tyler, Krista's son. Krista took some cute pictures of the two of them over the last week or so. I hope this experience is wonderful for both kids. I'd like to believe it is and that they'll be good buddies for a long time.

Alli: 3 months
Tyler: 19 months

Pictures - Alli at Three Months

Well, we finally got around to post-processing the pictures we took over the last week. Here are some fun ones of Alli. I love her many different expressions.


Alli Concentrating:


Alli Thinking:


Alli Giggling:


Alli Flying:

Three Months Old Today

So Alli is 3 months old today and she decided to perform tricks for us for her "birthday". This morning, I finally got the timing down so that I could leave the house at 7am as opposed to 7:30. Ha! Success. But as I walked by her playing on her activity mat, I saw that she was exploring different things. Instead of staying on her back kicking and punching her animal friends, she would also kick her legs up and roll to her side to make faces at the baby in the mirror. I was astounded because she was doing it so intentionally and like she had been doing it for ages. I told Kim to come watch because she was going to roll over for us and he hadn't seen that yet. But instead she would kick her legs to get back on her back and play with her friends. She did this over and over - on her side, on her back, on her side. Finally she decided to just hang out on her side. We thought maybe she was just done playing and figured laying on her side was a nice change. But after a few minutes, she decided she wanted something more so she started kicking her legs over, and grunting, and kicking, and grunting until finally she was able to get herself over that stubborn shoulder that was in the wrong place and end up on her belly. So proud. I got out of the house at 7:30. :)

We'll take pictures this weekend and hopefully get a couple of posted as well.

Rollin' Rollin' Rollin', Get Those Doggies Rollin' (for real!)

I can officially say that I saw Alli roll over. Tonight after work, I wanted to change clothes so I brought her into my closet with me and just laid her on the floor so I could talk to her while I was changing. Bagheera came in and went straight for her with his nose. Alli turned away and wound up on her side. I figured she looked pretty comfy, so I just left her there. Pretty soon the legs started going and I was cheering her on. And finally, after a few minutes, she finally made it to her belly. She didn't like it there very much, but I was quite proud!

The Tyler Factor

Today Kim dropped Alli off at Krista's while I went to work. It was *hard* to say goodbye to her an hour earlier. And of course I had to ask both Kim AND Krista how the drop-off went. :)

When I picked Alli up this afternoon, she was sleeping. Unfortunately, while she slept her pacifier fell out of her mouth. Nothing big, but Krista and I walked into the kitchen to pick up Alli's things and Tyler tried to help (as he does) by trying to put Alli's pacifier back into her mouth. Now, you have to picture just how accurate the aim may be for an 18 month old to hit the mouth of a sleeping baby while she's being rocked in a swing. Yea, I think you have the picture. Needless to say, she woke up and cried.

No big deal - no harm done. We thanked Tyler for trying to help but also told him that sometimes Alli just doesn't want the pacifier. Not sure he understood it. But as we stood there talking, me with Alli in my arms and Krista with Tyler in her arms, Tyler reached out and grabbed Alli's hand and started yanking on her (you know how kids do). Krista reminded him to be gentle and Alli got the biggest darn smile you could ever imagine on her face. She *loved* the attention Tyler was giving her. I could see that in her eyes, Tyler can do no wrong. It was the cutest darn thing, and it made me happy cause this was the kind of relationship I was hoping she would get from this arrangement.

I remember when my oldest nephew (Jonathan) used to tug, pull, smash, etc. his younger sister (Claire) when she was a baby and she would just smile and laugh and think it was the greatest thing ever - all while us grown-ups would freak out because we thought he might be hurting her. It's amazing the interaction between kids.

So thank you Tyler for helping with Alli and keeping her very entertained and happy!

Sleeping Cutie

This is why I love being a Dad:

Our Guard Dog

Kim and I have been concerned that Bagheera, while a wonderful dog, is just not a guard dog. I'm starting to wonder if he realizes that we need to be extra careful to protect Alli.

Yesterday the alarm guy came over to make some adjustments to our system. Of course he came while I was in the middle of nursing. I actually unlatched Alli, put her with the Boppy on our bed, and answered the door. I spent 1/2 an hour with this guy all the way down at the other end of our house. Alli just stayed quiet on our bed, for the most part. I heard a couple of vocals and told him I had to check on my daughter. Well, apparently Bagheera had also heard Alli's stirring because when I got there, I found Bagheera on the bed next to Alli, head facing the bedroom door and alert. I was so proud of him!

Another "alarming" event came when I was back nursing Alli. Both Bagheera and I heard voices from outside. He growled and barked and I told him "good boy". He looked out the windows of the bedroom and then laid down in front of Alli and I, facing the bedroom door. I told him to go check the front windows, but he didn't leave us. It was then that I realized what a guard dog we had.

Bagheera doesn't protect the house. He protects the people. So all this time, we kept thinking we didn't have a guard dog, but really, he's a guard dog just for the things that *really* matter. Us. Not the material things we have in our house. The people. The family. I'm so proud of him and so very happy he's such a big part of our family!

Separation Anxiety

I had decided to go back to work gradually - only working three days this first week back - Mon, Tues, and Thurs. Today is Wednesday, my first day off after two days without Alli. It's interesting how it feels going back to work. For me, as I walked into the building, it felt like I had only been gone for a long weekend. When I got through all the emails, I jumped right in and started catching up on where everything was in the project and started right back to work, just like a long weekend again. In some ways, I was the old Jenny. But I missed holding the little munchkin and smelling her hair.

Day two was harder because I didn't get to see much of Alli on Monday. I mean, I picked her up and she was sorta sleepy. We got home, I fed her, she slept a little, I bathed her and fed her again and then she was done for the night. So Tuesday I really didn't want to leave her, but I did.

Today is *my* day. The day to hold her and smell her hair whenever I want!!! It's been great to see her smiles as she tends to smile more in the morning and early afternoon than evenings (probably because she's tired by evening time).

But in all, I'm happy to be back at work. It does give me a grounding, make me feel a little like myself again. I just wish Alli were there with me so that when I need my little "fix" of holding her I could. But, it will get easier and I'm pretty sure weekends are going to take on an entirely new meaning!

Back to Work

Tonight is my last night of maternity leave. Of course, it's Sunday, so I'm not sure if Friday was technically my last night but whatever. I'm partly excited to get back to "my" life, but mostly bummed that I won't be sharing every day with Alli. I'm sure we'll adjust just fine, it will just take a little while - kinda like it took both of us some time to adjust to life with each other with her outside the womb!

I figured I would take this opportunity to document some of Alli's characteristics. She is definitely a pliable little girl - very easy going. She has adjusted to about every situation we've thrown her into, whether it was dragging her all over town in the heat of Arizona, to hanging out at home, to having lots of people over making lots of noise in the house. She rarely cries most days, and smiles quite often.

She seems like she's ready to talk already. For instance, I'll tell her to say "hi" to someone and and sometimes she'll make some sort of noise, more sounding like "haaa" than "hi", but we'll take it. :) She has lots of different sounds, so in her mind I think she is already communicating - we just have no clue what she's saying.

She's very observant. Every time we take her someplace she just stares and takes everything in. For instance Kim got a haircut over the weekend and we turned it into a family affair. There were many people in the place and she just quietly stared wide-eyed and took in the surroundings. For an entire hour while all the women jabbered on, Alli checked out the scene.

We are told by strangers and friends alike what a beautiful baby we have. Of course, we know this. And of course we are not biased at all!!! :) The one I do have to record was a lady who told us as that we had "a ridiculously cute baby". Since then it's become our favorite phrase for Alli - "oh, you are so ridiculously cute!"

Alli has been trying really hard to roll over but it hasn't happened yet. I was hoping it would happen before I started back to work... What she is really good at is lying on her stomach and being able to move her head from one side to the other, and even holding her head up and looking ahead. She's actually been able to do this for a while now. Strong little peanut!

So now that I'll be going back to work, posts to the blog may become a little more sparse. I will definitely capture milestones, and we will try to take pictures and post them periodically (for sure every month).

Alli's Smile

The social smile is something that sorta happens. We couldn't tell when her first social smile occurred, probably because you're always thinking "did she mean to do that, or was that gas?" But now we know that Alli is smiling at us and it just makes our hearts melt.

Alli is happiest in the morning. In fact, it's so much fun to hear her squirming in bed in the morning, making little noises to see if we'll come get her. Once we walk over and say good morning, we usually get an ear-to-ear grin as she stares up at us. I *love* that! Talking to her in the mornings is the highlight of my day, because it pretty much doesn't matter what you say, she just smiles and coos back at you.

I think Alli has a sense of humor too. I usually ask her lots of questions, not really expecting much of a response. But once in a while she'll answer back with a grunt or some sort of vocal and it will make me laugh and then she will laugh - like she meant to say something funny and it worked based on my reaction.

This morning we had some fun while feeding. Alli is on this kick lately that when we switch sides she starts squealing as though someone pierced her stomach with something sharp. Oh my - she's going to die of starvation in the 1 minute is takes us to flip to the other side! OMG!!! :) So this morning we were changing sides and she started winding up for the squeal. But she opened her eyes and looked at me and I was just smiling and laughing at the sight of her antics and she stopped and smiled a big smile right back at me. But then she must have realized that she was supposed to be squealing so she stopped smiling and started fussing. That just made me laugh harder and I flipped her to the other side so she wouldn't die of starvation... :D

Never Over-Estimate a Diaper's Capacity...

This is my last week of maternity leave. I'm finding that I don't want to put Alli down in her cradle for naps - I just want to hold her all the time!! (yes, she's in my arms sleeping as I type this.)

So today Alli and I had one last workday lunch with Daddy and some friends. Unfortunately, Alli is settling into a feeding schedule that made the timing of lunch a bit inconvenient. She was signaling to me that she was hungry all while we were eating, but she never cried. I promised her that we would go to a parking lot and feed before heading home, and we did. Usually before any feeding (parking lot or home) I change her diaper first. Today as I pulled her out of the carseat I decided there wasn't much in her diaper, so I would just feed her. After nursing, I put her back in the caeseat and headed home.

Well, what a surprise I had when I pulled her out of the carseat at home - poop and pee everywhere!! Apparently the diaper overflowed... So we spent the next 1/2 hour at home cleaning up the mess - the carseat cover is in the wash and Alli got a bath.

You would think that someone who is at the end of her maternity leave would know better than to over-estimate a diaper's capacity! Maybe it's a sign that my brain is not ready to think logically, like say, on work-type things! :D

The Family Chair

In our living room we have a sofa, a love seat, and a double-wide chair with ottoman which we call "the blue chair" (yes, it's blue). This chair, while a little big for the size of our living room, especially with the other furniture, is a great comfy chair that holds our whole family. On Alli's Two Month old birthday, we had friends over for a photography workshop. By the end of the night, our family wound up watching the DVD seminar on the blue chair and I made the comment that I wish we had a picture. Our friends Ellen and Jon jumped at the opportunity, so I wanted to share with everyone our family on the blue chair.

I believe credit for this one goes to Ellen. Thanks guys!!

Swing Batter, Batter - Swing!!

Today Alli showed me just how coordinated she is getting. While sitting in her carseat, waiting for mommy to finish chatting so we could head home, she started swinging her fist at the froggy rattle hanging from the handle. To my surprise, she hit it - twice! Not sure if that was on purpose or not, but it was the first time that I saw her even take notice of the critter.

Then we got home and while in the bouncy seat with her animal friends (toybar), she started kicking the zebra! I was so shocked that she could actually get her leg up that high to kick it. It *surely* was intentional!! :) I'm just so proud of that eye-fist-foot coordination she's got going on.

Alli's Two Month Birthday

Today Alli is two months old. We are celebrating by relaxing and taking photos. :)

Yesterday was her two month checkup and included her first set of vaccinations. She took the shot like a trooper - screaming her head off. Dr. Patel promptly blamed Daddy for the pain, so Daddy had to console his daughter. I *love* having a woman pediatrician! haha

So, here are Alli's stats:

Eyes: Still blue
Weight: 9.4 lbs !!! Yes, she's getting big, although that is only 17 percentile.
Height: 21 inches (8 percentile)
Head Circumference: 14.5 inches (9 percentile)

So, according to the percentages, she's chubby for her length? It must all be in the belly cause her arms and legs are still pretty skinny. Apparently, she'll be storing fat like her mom - all in the middle! :)

And this past week Alli graduated out of newborn diapers and into size 1. They are a little big on her, but newborn were a little small, and big is better than small when it comes to diapers!



Credit to Jenny for this picture.



Credit to Ellen for this picture.



Credit to Ellen for this picture.



Credit to Kim for this picture.
(Our model got tired by the last part of the shoot.)

Mommy's Play Toy

Yesterday I decided to entertain myself and to see what Alli could do with holding on to objects. While on the changing table, I decided to pry her hand open and put a rattle in it. I had much fun watching her wave her arms and bang herself in the head a couple of times with the rattle. She kept holding on though until she banged it into the wall and it flew out of her hand. Am I mean?? :)

On another note, for anyone that was interested in those "warm bags", they are really marketed as heating pads. I don't know where Kim got the one we have, but they must sell them someplace because Krista (aka Krista-Care for Alli) had one as well.

The Warm Bag

Yesterday my sister-in-law called because she had read the blog and had a similar situation with one of her kids who wouldn't sleep during the day without being held. She said that a woman told her to get a "warm bag", which is basically just a bag stuffed with rice (or something) that you microwave to warm up and that has enough weight to put on the baby to make them think they are still sleeping on mommy or daddy. Well, surprisingly, we had such a bag lying around the house. (I think it was Kim's from high school.) Anyway, today I decided to give it a whirl. After play time this morning, Alli was getting tired so I kept her in my arms until she fell asleep. Then I heated up this bag and put her in her cradle and then put the bag on top of her belly. She slept for over an hour! After her 12:00 feeding, she fell asleep again so I decided I would put her back in the cradle, with the bag. Here it is 2:30 and she is STILL SLEEPING! This is like a miracle! In fact, I don't know what to do with myself with all this free time without carrying a child around.

Now let's hope she still sleeps a good bit through the night! :)

Thanks for the suggestion Wendy!

Sleepy Baby

Yesterday was an interesting day. Alli was doing great until it came for sleep. She sleeps great during the night, don't get me wrong. But during the day, there are many times that she just wants to be held. Yesterday was one of them. So, I put my "tough parent" hat on and decided that she needed to learn to sleep during the day without being in mommy's arms. I let her cry (just for a couple of minutes though) quite a few times. She was soooo tired. If she fell asleep with me holding her, she would wake up 5 minutes after I put her down. I keep thinking that this is not a good thing for when I go back to work, so she's going to have to learn to sleep without being held.

After her 7pm feeding, she fell asleep. I figured that she would be out for the night since she hadn't had much more than a 1/2 hour nap during the day. (Ok, there were probably about 4 half hour naps, but that's not good sleep.) In some ways, it was really nice having her fall asleep for the night so early. Kim and I got to watch a movie together before I got so tired I had to go to bed. At 1am, I woke up and heard her sucking. I figured I better go to the bathroom and prepare myself for the feeding. But she fell back to sleep. I went to bed listening for her to wake up... At 3:45am, I woke up realizing it had been about 9 hours since her last feeding. While I love the fact that she's such a good night sleeper, I fear that she is too young and too small to be able to go that long without food. So I took it upon myself to wake her up. Let me tell you, that was no small feat. I finally got her awake enough to feed and I felt much better about it.

So here are my thoughts. 1) I keep forgetting that I still have 3 weeks before going back to work and she could change into a completely different kid by then, so it's probably a little early to start worrying about her routine. 2) I forget that she doesn't *always* need me to hold her for daytime naps, so maybe I should just listen to her when she does. 3) I don't know why I am so forgetful of the above points during the time that these things are going on!!!

Bumbo

I keep thinking that Alli needs to explore different things. I mean, she's changing by the day, so I'm assuming so are her needs. I keep digging through the closet to check out all the things we've collected from gifts from everyone to see what I can use with her now. Yesterday, I got out the Bumbo. For those of you that don't know what a Bumbo is, it's a soft gel-like plastic blob that is shaped such that a child that can hold their head up can sit upright. Well, Alli can hold her head upright, so I thought maybe she would like to sit up and see the world that way, without mom holding her. I put her in the Bumbo. She was....indifferent. Not so sure what to make of anything. Dad and I took some pictures because she looked so cute (and small) in this seat.

Today I put her in the Bumbo again. This time, after taking more pictures next to a teddy bear), I sat in front of her with a bright colored rattle. I at least got a smile out of her, so I think she's okay with the Bumbo. She doesn't last long in it because she wants to move her arms and legs, and she can't while sitting in it. She should be able to move her arms once she's bigger, but for now, she's pretty much captive, so I pull her out and put her elsewhere so she can kick and bee-bop.

I thought it would be fun to show that Alli is as big as her teddy bear, sitting with her in Teddy's seat. :)

More fun pictures of Alli and the bumbo on her Flickr link. (Please refer to the side bar link to get to it.)

The Playroom/Nursery

I always thought our nursery was goofy looking. I mean, we didn't paint, we didn't buy nice wall-hangings or really nice furniture. I was almost embarrassed to show people the room because it's so....not what you would see in a magazine.

Alli *loves* her room. In fact, now that she's focusing on objects, we seem to spend quite a bit of time in there. Typically I only take her in there to change her diaper since she still sleeps in a cradle in our bedroom. But lately we've been hanging out there. We have her activity floor mat in there and all the bright posters on the wall of the colors and numbers. She can stare at the walls for quite a while when I hold her. And I'm happy to say, it looks like she has mom's attention span as opposed to dad's. (Sorry dad.) Today she stayed on the activity mat for half an hour bee-bopping around and smiling with the animals. Then I put her in her crib and wound up the mobile and she watched that for another 15 minutes while I made myself breakfast. The great thing is that after all that playing, she then slept for an hour, woke up and ate, and then we repeated the whole thing again. The second time around I had her in activity mat for only 15 minutes while I did some situps by her (counting my reps out loud - I'm sure she'll be counting to 10 very soon!) and then I moved her to the bouncy seat with the animal toy bar and into the bathroom so I could take a shower. She sat quietly in the seat with her animal friends for over half an hour while I showered, dressed, did my hair, brushed my teeth... Ah, why can't all days be this easy! :)

I'm trying to see if I notice any patterns in her day to help tailor her nap times and such for when I go back to work (27 days and counting). Unfortunately, I have made lots of plans and they may not fit in to this schedule, but then again, they may...

She's a very good baby. She doesn't cry anymore unless I neglect her for quite a while. She typically just makes little noises to let me know that she wants my attention. I'm also finding that since she sleeps in our room, its just small noises to let us know she's awake, and a lot of sucking sounds. :) (Apparently, that means FEED ME!) If I let her go too long while communicating, the volume goes up and more frequent bursts of sound. She's a really good communicator. And I love having her in our room. I feel like we are quite the pack and I'm sure listening to daddy and Baggy snore make her feel comfortable. :) I know I like listening to everyone breath - it's my pack family!

I LOVE ANIMALS!

You can tell Alli is changing by leaps and bounds, this is my 2nd post today!

Alli really enjoys looking out the window. Sometimes if I have to set her down, I make sure she's facing out the back sliders so that she can be mesmorized by the outside. The other morning after an early morning feeding, we were in here room changing her diaper. I took her to the shutters to open them and she just wanted to stare out the window. We checked it out for a while, but then I was sorta tired of holding her up so I turned to walk away. She turned her head to follow the sights out the window. I decided if she liked them that much that I shouldn't really be pulling her away from them. We wound up spending quite a bit of time in her room as there are lots of cool things on the walls for her to look at. Another thing that caught her eye that morning was the mobile above her crib. So I put her in the crib, wound the mobile, and let her watch it. As she watched the animals go around, she smiled at them. That mobile kept her entertained for a good bit of time. From there she turned her attention to the animals that are on the bumper pads. She smiled again at the animals. Awww!

Today, I thought I would try the animal thing again. I actually have two activity floor pieces, one with different items and one with different stuffed animals. I pulled out the animal one, and she LOVED IT! She was sooo happy trying to swat at the animals. I was amazed at what a difference it was between the two activities mats. Who knew!!! I then tried more. When I went to take my shower, I put her in her bouncy seat. Now, the bouncy seat comes with a play bar that has stuffed animals on it. I never attached it - it's much easier to get her in and out. Today I took it out of the closet and set it in the holes. She was thrilled with the animals (again) and started swinging at them. Her eyes were totally glued. I *loved* it.

It's really exciting to see her liking something so much. And if she's going to have a fixation, I'm happy that it's animals. I just don't know how to break it to her that we won't be able to get her a real giraffe or elephant for a pet. ;)

Random Thoughts that Came to Me While Feeding This Morning

I wanted to add a little to the last post about the feeding routine. A while ago, a friend of mine said that at about 6 weeks everything started to really click with the breastfeeding. Well, Alli is 6-1/2 weeks old now, and I have to say, my friend was right. One thing that has changed sometime in the last week, besides the long nights of sleep, is that Alli is all business now when it comes to feeding. Instead of latching on for 20 minutes, with mom having to tickle, pinch, whatever to keep her awake and sucking, she now latches on and goes about her business and then (typically) unlatches herself when she's done. Now feeding is only about 10 minutes per side. The extra time for mom is SOOO wonderful!

I also found that burping her is over-rated. I was trying really hard to be "a good mom" and burp her in between sides. Sometimes I would get a burp. Most of the time, I would get an awful lot of food, all over me, her, and whatever else might be in the general area. It was very frustrating, but I thought that this was just what had to happen. Then it dawned on me that we don't have this problem in the middle of the night, when mom is selfish and turns into a "bad mom" and doesn't take the time to burp her daughter. Typically in the middle of the night, she unlatches and then lays there mostly asleep. I quietly lift her up and take her to the cradle without changing her body position. We rarely get spitup. So I decided that maybe Alli just wasn't the burping type. Maybe it would be better just to not jostle her all over the place and let her kinda lay horizontal for 10 minutes after feedings to let everything settle. We seem to be losing less milk these days when doing it this way, so I'm gonna keep to this method until something changes.

Alli is really growing. She's coming up on 2 months of age and it looks like she'll be growing out of the newborn diapers by then. haha - 2 months to grow out of newborn diapers! She still doesn't fit in half of the newborn clothes that we got. Apparently, the sizing for newborn clothing is like that for women - they make the clothes bigger and then just label them a smaller size so that her ego isn't hurt and she can brag that she's in newborn clothes instead of 3 month old clothes. :) But that also brings me to my next dilemna. We got so many nice gifts, and I was not going to let that go unnoticed. I planned to have her wear everything she was given if even only once. So all gifts from the shower promptly had their tags taken off and thrown into the washer and put away in her drawers. Now I'm realizing that because of her peanut stature, she may not be able to wear some of the bigger clothes she received in the correct season. Not that I would want to return a gift, but I would think that anyone that was so thoughtful as to give us something would like to see *something* be worn by her, regardless of whether it was exactly what they got or whether we had to exchange it for something that fit and was seasonal. So, for all new moms, here is my advice:

Keep tags on most clothes until you are actually ready to wear them, and then wash them. Also, keep all the clothes with the receipts. I piled all the receipts together thinking I was doing good by keeping them. But now I can't match anything up, and I'm surely not going to take the time to try to match numbers. So tape the receipt to the clothes and wait. If you need to exchange them, everything is there for you.

Our Latest Feeding Trends

The one question we get asked often is how Alli is sleeping at night. I have to say, she's been a really great baby at night. It's like she knows that it's nighttime and nothing is going on, so even if she is awake, she's pretty quiet and eventually falls asleep on her own. The daytime is a different story as she wants to be part of the action - even if she's sleeping through it.

Lately, our nighttime routine has changed. She has started going longer and longer between feedings. Currently, we only have one middle-of-the-night feeding, instead of two. While that seems great, my body hasn't quite adjusted, so I'm still up a bit pumping to relieve myself. But her "trend" for feeding/sleeping is to eat anywhere from 7-9pm, then sleep til 1-3am, and then she usually gets up around 6am. She cluster feeds in the morning instead of the night before, so we usually feed at 6, and 8, and sometimes at 10, but once in a while she'll go to the 3 hours after the first two feedings.

I've read (most of) Babywise, and I can tell you - I didn't do anything to try to get her on a schedule. This baby came pre-programmed, and I'm quite happy about that. She's like Bagheera - he came basically potty trained at 8 weeks when we got him and that made things SOOO easy on us! Way to go, to both our kids!!! :)

Jen's Post-Delivery Checkup and Alli "Status"

Yesterday Alli and I went to see Dr. Plimpton. He was very happy to see Alli, walked in the room and said "Oh, you brought me a baby!" and immediately took her to hold her. :) We also brought him a picture of the 3 of us after the delivery since he seems to collect them all throughout his office.

Everything is fine with me. I've lost all my baby-weight except for 5 lbs, but I still have a lot of non-firm stuff in the mid-section. :)

Ok. So that's the boring stuff. The fun stuff is more about Alli.

While I have no scale to weigh her, I think she's gained a bit of weight again. She's getting HEAVY!!! And her chubby cheeks and thighs are getting chubbier. :) She appears to like looking at the ceiling fans. I didn't think she could see that far, but maybe she notices the contrast since they are dark brown against an off-white ceiling. She also likes looking at the photos on the TV as they scroll by while music is playing. (This is an Apple TV feature.) She holds her head up really well now - I can pick her up without supporting her head - as long as I don't whip her up. I'm hoping to give her more tummy time to strengthen her neck even more.

We've noticed she really clings to mommy. Dr. Plimpton even said something because she got really fussy when he held her. Granted, she was hungry, but she wasn't fussing in my arms (probably cause she thought there was a chance of a boob whipping out). Kim noticed this on Sunday too. He was with her and I was out to dinner with the girls. He said she cried the whole time, even after he fed her. Not sure what's going on and I'm hoping this is just a phase, but I'll try to let her try to sooth herself more during the day... starting next week. :)

An Adventurous Day

Yesterday was full of adventure for Alli and I. It started with a trip down to Tempe to meet friends for breakfast. Now I know this doesn't sound very adventurous but we were gone for a while... So or first adventure was the diaper change in the restroom. Not too adventurous - was the first time using one of those baby changing shelves, and I must say, it was...weird. Probably because this one was positioned for a 7 foot tall woman. Seriously! It only folded down to my shoulders so I was basically looking Alli eye to eye!! We also had to feed Alli, so this was our first attempt at feeding in public. I must say, I think we did pretty well! I had purchased a nursing cover thing from Target and we nursed while cloaked under our black wrap. Success!

Our next adventure was actually the drive home. While I really thought we had taken care of everything, Alli decided half way home that she was still hungry. This time, we were not near Joe's, so I had to improvise. I found a parking lot that was not busy, parked the car, climbed in the back seat and Alli nursed again. Not an adventure? Let me mention tht it was 111 degrees outside at the time. Yes, I left the car running and the air blasting. :)

When Kim got home from work, we completed our adventurous day by going to our pool and swimming Baggy a little and dipping Alli in the water a bit. We only dipped her feet for this first time, but we'll get more of her in as she gets older.

So quite a day for us!! And to think I used to think adventure was backpacking in Havasupai, or trecking to Rocky Point to do a triathlon, or... :)

My New Diaper Record

As most mom's know, sometimes when you change a diaper, you go through more than one diaper. I now have a new record for one diaper change - 5!!! And of course, this lovely event took place at 3:30am. (And somehow at that time, I thought it was 6 diapers, but maybe I can't recall all the events properly.) But wait - not only did I get to go through 5 diapers in one change, but also 2 cloth diapers, 1 changing pad cover, and a onesie. (We use the cloth diapers on top of the changing pad cover so that we don't have to have very many covers around - the cloth diaper usually gets soiled and is easier to clean.)

Ok, here's how it went... Got Alli up for a feeding and went to change her diaper. No problem. Got the new diaper (diaper 1) and changed her wet diaper. Right at the time I was going to pick her up, I heard her poop. Well, better change that diaper. So I went to change the poopy diaper, hence diaper #2. But while I was changing the diaper, she pooped again. I'm pretty good at this - I caught most of it with a wipe, so we only got diaper #2 and a little of the cloth diaper soiled. Piece of cake. Once she finished, I got out another clean diaper (3) and replaced the cloth diaper. Changed and ready to go, I heard her poop AGAIN! I looked down at her and exclaimed "You've got to be kidding me!" So I went to change *that* poopy diaper with diaper #4. While I had her feet in my hands to move her bottom, she started peeing. Yikes! Those aren't so easy to catch with the wipe, but I always try - if anything to save the onesie. So my hand with wipe went to the belly and would you believe, she pooped again! This time, it was everywhere because I was caught off guard by the pee. The poop soiled diaper #4, the new cloth diaper, the changing pad cover and the pee got the onesie. Oh, what a mess!!! This is when I yelled "GOD DAMMIT!" So out came diaper #5, my new record, and a new onesie for her. Then my nice clean, dry, poop-free baby was set lovingly on the floor so I could take care of the poopy, wet mess I had before me in preparation for the next early morning feeding. I think I'll submit this entry to Guinness Book of World Records. :)

Every Day is Different

The days with Alli are getting easier. We aren't on a schedule, but I can predict her cycles a little better, which is helping me deal with my daily happenings. And, we've had some successful outtings which makes me feel somewhat like a "normal" person again.

Lately I've noticed that Alli is finding her voice. Instead of crying being her only sound, sometimes when she is awake and happy she makes a sound that almost sounds like she is saying "hi". I view this as finding her voice, which will be a wonderful addition to the traditional sounds (of crying) that we hear.

I find there are several different sides to Alli. Some days, she fights sleep and is not happy unless she is being held. Once she falls asleep, if I put her down anywhere, she wakes up within 15 minutes and is pissed off cranky!! Luckily I have a Moby Wrap (http://www.mobywrap.com) so that I can have her tucked close to me while still having my hands free to do things around the house. She stays wrapped like that between feedings when she is that fussy. But then other days we have an Alli that wakes up happy, feeds, stays awake and plays, and then gets tired and takes a pacifier in the bouncy seat and falls asleep with minimal interaction from mom. I *love* those days!

I'm assuming that she will ween away from needing to be held so much. I keep thinking that sleep for her is more important than whether I am spoiling her by holding her so much. It's a fine line I suppose, and you never know if you are doing something that will have adverse affects later on, but for now, I feel the amount of time I give her to crying and fussing before picking her up is appropriate for her age, and sleep is a more important goal. But hey, every day is different...

One Month Old Today

Today is Alli's one month birthday, and was also her one-month doctor's appointment. So, current stats on the little rascal:

Weight: 7 lbs 5 oz (Holy cow - a whole pound since last visit 2 weeks ago!)
Length: 20 inches (2 whole inches longer than when she was born!)


Other notes:

Alli is getting much better at supporting her own head. Pretty strong little girl! She doesn't do as well when she's tired, but she's doing great when she's wide awake.

I see hints of purposeful smiles, which is really cool. I'm looking forward to her looking at us and smiling because she's happy.


Kim and I are definitely getting to know her better. We also know that she's a gassy little girl (probably cause mommy still eats lots of gas-producing food). She's tough though, and typically doesn't cry about it. But mix the gas with being tired and LOOK OUT! Fussy!!!

An Adventure in Breastfeeding

Today Alli and I met Daddy, Jef (co-worker), Krista (Jef's wife and soon to be caretaker of Alli), and Tyler (Jef & Krista's son) down in Old Town Scottsdale for lunch at El Molino (my favorite lunch-time Mexican place). We had a great lunch with everyone and it was so nice to eat El Molino food again.

I should have been able to make it home before her next feeding time, but Alli woke up early and was crying bloody murder. I pulled over to give her the pacifier, but that didn't do it. I continued driving, but I decided quickly that I just couldn't drive the 20+ minutes home with her that miserable. So I was trying to figure out where to go to feed her. Then I remembered back in the day, when partying in Scottsdale and not being able to drive home, I would go to Joe Searle's house. So I drove to Joe's, hoping he still kept the spare key hidden in the same spot.

We are older now, and I wasn't sure if edicate had changed when entering someone's house when they are not home. Should I call them at work? Should I just leave them a note?? Maybe I'll just borrow the back yard and sit in the shade. I decided I would try that first, but quickly dismissed that when I realized it was about 100 degrees in the shade. I was going to have to go inside. I was staring in the house when I saw someone inside walking toward the patio door. What the ????? OH YEA! I forgot - their nephew Chuck (aka the manny) watches Ryan and Katie at their house!!! Chuck remembered me from his visit over spring break and graciously let me in. We chatted a little, then I went into the office to nurse.

For the first time, Alli and I were there to fend together - no glider, no boppy, no watch or time-piece, no journal to record the timings. Just us. We sat on the floor and did everything naturally. I have to say, it was the most amazing, exhilarating, precious experience I had had with her. It was so refreshing to really experience being able to feed my daughter anywhere, anytime - totally unprepared and unplanned, and I could take care of her. I loved it.

After nursing, Alli went to sleep so I stayed and chatted with Chuck and played a little with Katie and Ryan. We took a picture of the 3 kids together. Katie is 4 months, Ryan is 3 months, and and Alli is almost 1 month.

More Photos on Flickr

I added a few more photos tonight to Alli's Flickr gallery. Check them out.

Rollin' Rollin' Rollin', Get Them Doggies Rollin'

I know this seems weird, and I didn't believe my mom when she told me, but Alli rolled over today. Yes, a little early I would say, seeing that she's just 3+ weeks. Now mind you, it was on the sofa cushion and she had a little gravity helping her as the sofa cushion is a little slanted, but she did it. Like 2 or 3 times every time we put her back up. We put her down, watched her tuck her arm and squirm her legs over, and there she went. So, I guess we'll be always surrounding her with pillows if we set her down someplace and walk away (we were anyway, but this just solidifies that we need to).

And just to note, she did it again, only rolling the other direction. We just had to give her the correct "gravity" advantage. :)

Alli's First Lunch Out

We took Alli to The Cove Trattoria today. The Cove is the place we had
cater our AZ wedding reception. Jenny was so happy to eat out. I think this
means a trip to El Molino is in store next week.

The Let Down

So, of all the nursing information I've read, they all talk about the milk "let down". In the beginning, I was positive I had no idea when this occurred. The information always said that mothers know when it happens, and I thought maybe I was a little defective. Well, I know now when it happens. Unfortunately, what I'm finding is IT HURTS!!! OMG - burning sensation. WTF??? And my body seems to know better than Alli when 3 hours is up, cause now I get "let down" about every 3 hours and so I wake up from a sound sleep, or pace around the house waiting and waiting for her to wake up to help her poor mother out. Sometimes I wonder how in the world we really evolved as a race with these kind of reproductive pains.

But in general, everything is going well. Alli and I are both a little under the weather, so it's not helping. She's sleeping well when we can get her to fall asleep. She really wants to be held, probably because she doesn't feel well. If she feels like me, her head is all stuffed up, but can breath just fine. So I'm dying for a long sleep thinking that will make me feel better, but it's just not going to happen. Even if someone gave her a bottle to let me sleep, I wake up with the darn "let down"!!!!

Gettin' Big!

Today was Alli's weigh in visit, you know, to make sure her life outside the womb is treating her well. Apparently it is. Alli now weighs 6 lbs 3 oz, a whole 1/2 lb more than her lowest weight after birth!

I am very happy that all the frustrations I have felt with the breastfeeding and pumping were more in my head than anything and apparently what I have been doing is working well for our little girl. Someone did tell me though that whatever I decided to do with the feeding was the correct thing to do. She was very wise. :)

The Blessings of Other Mothers

I have about 15 minutes (I think/hope) before another feeding, and actually thought I had time to log in and submit a post. Sorry the posts are fewer these days, both Kim and I are adjusting. And quite frankly, a nice hot shower for me sounds better than a post to a blog. :)

There is really nothing major to report, but I wanted to get something out on the blog for everyone that checks periodically. Hopefully tomorrow (or this weekend) I will get a small blurb up about her weigh-in, which is tomorrow afternoon.

I just want to say that one thing this has taught me is that I am fortunate to have so many friends that are already moms. Staying at home and going through the confusion of new motherhood has been fun in that I get to call, and get calls, from other mothers and I get to hear how they endured these early days, what their kids did to them, etc. It's really a great bonding experience for me with my other "mom" friends - a part of a relationship I never had with them before (because seriously, you can't even imagine what they are talking about until you experience it first or second hand).

So, I am very grateful for my friends and family that continually help me through this time. I think it's getting better. At least my attitude is as I've realized my life is no longer my own and I am at the total beckon call of a precious little creature. And the highlight of my day is now if I get to shower!! :)

Nobody Told Me About the Hazing!!!

We had our first milestone this past week - Alli's umbilical cord fell off...on Thursday morning. So, why did it take me 3 days to post this to the blog? Well, any mother I assume knows, but I didn't. It's the hazing that has to take place to really become part of "The Mothers Club". You ask what this is? Well, it's my interpretation of what every mom (as I'm finding) has to go through to graduate to the other side and learn life not as we ever knew it before.

When you hear about infants, you hear that they only eat, sleep, and poop. You hear stories of how precious they are, how wonderful it is to be a mom, etc. But I'm telling a slightly different story. Yes, Alli is adorable and I wouldn't trade her for the world. But the cycles of the day (or feeding hours) are more like a hazing period to me. How is it that I can look at this adorable child as she yawns while waking up, makes faces like crazy, and then slowly opens her eyes just to gaze up at me. My heart just sinks thinking that this beautiful creature came out of my belly. And then we nurse and I play with her hands, tell her stories, stroke her head, sing... (What else are you supposed to do when you're stuck on a chair for 30 minutes!) And then we get up and sometimes she's awake and calm and happy. And I think 'this is so wonderful'. And then she stays awake and there is nothing I can do to entertain her at this age. And then some more time passes and she gets fussy, constantly wants to be held, which is wonderful, but also trying if you want to accomplish anything for your own personal life. And then the fussiness turns into crying and all you can think is "God child, can't you just fall asleep already?" And then you try every trick in the book to appease her, resorting last for the boob because what are the chances she's actually hungry already? And then finally, she falls asleep and you are relieved, happy, exhausted. Unfortunately, 1/2 hour later, you see her squirming and all you can think of is "NOOOOOOOOO!!!! I'm not ready!!! I can't do this again!!!" And then she wakes up with her beautiful yawn, her facial expressions, and then opens her eyes and you think "you are the most wonderful thing..." And so goes the hazing of motherhood - the total rollercoaster of emotions, anxiety, exhaustion.

I hear everyone's hazing period is different. I'm hoping to be one of the lucky ones with a short term.