Teething and Croup, Oy Vey!

First of all, I'd like to say that my blog posts are getting farther and farther apart. At first I thought it was because we were so busy, but when I thought about it further, I realized that Alli just isn't changing on a daily basis anymore. We have a nice little routine, and things are fairly stable, so there really isn't anything new to blog about.

Of course, I say that and then this week turned chaotic. Alli is teething. I swear I saw the teeth at one point, but then you look again and they aren't there. Krista said the same thing one day, that Alli was fussy and when she looked she could see two little white spots in the gum. But then later Alli wasn't fussy and Krista looked and there were no more white spots. Hmm...funky teeth! But it's enough to create a little discomfort for the poor girl and we have to deal with that.

But, no only is Alli going through the teething discomfort, but Tyler came down with Croup. Yikes! By the time symptoms show, Alli has already been exposed. So we kept her going to Krista's anyway and we are waiting to see if she develops a cough. What a week. So far, no cough, so we'll just keep our fingers crossed on that one.

The Week of Poop

This week Alli started something really fun. She poops sometime between 7:10 and 7:25 so we *have* to change her before loading her into the carseat to go to Krista-Care. There's only one problem with that schedule though...the poop keeps shooting right up her back so cleanup takes forever!!! Because she sits when she plays, the poop just goes up. Now, if you realize this is what probably happened before laying her down on the changing table, you can shove a wipe down the top of her diaper, then lay her down and the poop doesn't squirt out all over her back. But for some reason this week, she poops and then winds up on her back playing, so when we go to pick her up it's already EVERYWHERE!!!

Tuesday's poop was so bad that she wound up getting a bath before we could leave for Krista-Care. I mean, when I kept finding little patches under her arm, foot, etc, I decided that a full bath was going to be the only way to get rid of all of it.

Every morning this week we've had to wash out poop from an outfit and find a different one. The washing machine has been on double-duty washing all this crap (literally crap!).

We even tried a different brand of diapers to see if we could contain the poop. This morning I put her into a Huggies brand diaper (and one size bigger even) because Huggies has a little elastic at the top to keep everything in. Alli was sitting playing with her toys while I was in the office working. I then decided to put her laundry away from the day before so I picked her up to bring her into her room. She was laying on her back at this point. Ooops. Poop had already leaked out through the top and was all over her shirt. I must say, at least it was *less* poop than what would have come out with the Pampers. But yikes! I'll be happy when this phase is over. :D

Daddy's Assistant

Before Alli was born, I was always Kim's assistant during photography shoots. Well, now Alli is here and we didn't think that would work as well. But with Alli being so casual about everything, she has fit right in to the assistant work. Check out some of these "behind the scenes" pictures from different photo shoots over the Christmas break:

Just Cause I Haven't Blogged In A While...

All is well around this household. Alli continues to be a charmer. :) We've increased her solids to twice a day. She still feeds herself, but daddy and I still have to put the food on the spoon. Tonight I tried to give her some vegetable pasta to see if she would feed herself something like that. She played with it, so we put some in her mouth so that she would see that she could eat it. She started gumming it, and I thought "cool". And then she started choking and turning red. Darn! Don't be alarmed, we got the food out of her mouth and went back to just the pureed stuff. I try to give her more "whole foods" periodically, to see if she's ready. So far, it always results in her choking, us scraping food out, and then her crying. I feel bad, but I want to try. We don't try very often though...

Tonight I also tried another new thing. I usually thicken any jarred baby food with some rice cereal, mostly because Alli feeds herself and it's usually easier if it's a thicker consistency. Well, tonight the food had some bananas in it and so it had a sorta thick consistency to it already. I decided I would just give it to her straight. Yeah, bad idea. Not only was it all down her chin, but it seeped under the bib and got on her jammies. Oh well. More to clean, but we're pretty used to that. :)

Today she was supposed to go in for a vaccination (Hib) because we are catching her up on that series. However, the other night she ran a fever. We don't know what caused it, but it only occurred the one night (and no teeth showed up). I figured we can wait a week for the vaccination - no sense in taking any chances.

So that's about it. Alli's turning 8 months old next week. Hopefully we'll get some good pictures of her and get them posted. We've been so busy with photo shoots lately that our family shoots have taken a back burner.

If you haven't noticed, on the sidebar of the blog I've added something called "Peanut's Fans" and it's a way for our family to find out who reads this blog. If you follow this blog, please let us know by adding your name there. :)

My Nest Is The Best!

So, I realize my last post was over a week ago. So much going on with vacation!!! My last posted stated that Alli cried when she would wake up. Well, that's over with. I did set an alarm to be there when she woke up, and I think that helped a little. After a couple of days of being there when she woke up, she started realizing that this wasn't such a bad place. In fact, she's kinda liking it now.

This morning the alarm went off at 6:30. I dragged myself out of bed, feeling like it was the middle of the night and slowly made it down to her room. When I got inside, I noticed Lamby wasn't hanging along the side of the crib. (Lamby is this lamb blanket. Picture a bear-skin rug, now think of the same thing but looking like a lamb. It's really cute.) Anyway, she had pulled Lamby down and was playing with it and Monkey (a stuffed monkey wearing a Medtronics t-shirt). When I walked up, she looked at me with this big toothless grin and I knew we had it made. Who knew how long she had been awake, quiet and playing.

The truth is, now I have no clue how long she sleeps for naps. I can put her down, not hear a peep, and then check on her 30 minutes later only to find her playing with Lamby and Monkey. (Yes, I know, very original names!!) I've tried taking them out of the crib and then putting them back in once she's asleep, but then she's crying until she finally decides to fall asleep, which by the way, is about 30 minutes later... So I haven't figured out the best thing to do about this, but at least she's laying down and playing very quietly. Does that count as rest time???

I think she really likes the crib, especially since she has her animal friends to keep her company.

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. :)