Sunday, August 30, 2009

Big Girl Bath!

I just did a post last weekend on how much of a great sitter LL has become in the last 2 weeks. Well, Friday night, Matt and I decided that it would be a great time to try and give Lorelai a "big girl bath" without putting her in her bather!

We didn't have a non-skid mat to put in the bottom of the tub, so we just used a beach towel. She did so good! She just played with her toys and really stared at the water. But she never even got wobbly once!


She did so great that I think that we are officially done with her baby bather and we are now taking big girl baths!

Tickled about Pickles!

A few weeks ago, we bought LL a mesh teether so that we can start to put some solid foods in there for her. She loves bananas and I thought this would be a great way to start introducing some new things to her. It looks like a big pacifier, but instead of a bulb to suck on, there is a big mesh bag that you can put little pieces of food in. It's really neat because the only thing that can come between the mesh is juice and tiny tiny mushed pieces of food. We don't have to worry about her choking on anything at all.

Saturday afternoon Matt drove into town to get us some Zaxby's for lunch. LL woke up from a nap right as Matt and I were finishing up eating. Obviously it was close to lunch time, so Matt put her in her highchair and we were about to feed her her lunch (cereal and peas). Matt realized that he still had a pickle left in his tray. He asked if I thought it would be okay for her to have some and I've heard of other babies who LOVE pickles, so I thought, "why not?!". He bit off a little chunk and put it in her feeder and handed it to her. At first she made a really funny face and we all just laughed about it. But after a suck or two, she realized that she LOVED it! We couldn't wrangle this thing away from her!

She chewed and chewed on this thing for a good five minutes or so. It was so funny to us that she really liked it. She was sucking on it so hard that you could HEAR it.

This solid food stuff is hard work!


We got the camera out and I took a million pictures and I think that we got some really good ones!










Chowing down!




We also took a little video of her eating the pickle right as she was getting done. You can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBx55sJUzko

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Big Sitter

About 6 weeks ago, Lorelai started sitting semi-unsupported. I say semi because, even though we weren't holding her, she was still leaning forwards on her hands. It looked a lot like this:

Well, 2 weeks ago we took her to get her 6 month pictures done at Portrait Innovations. She had a first while we were there! In the middle of taking pictures, she sat straight up (while crying, haha) without using her hands! Since then we've really been working with her to sit without using her hands and she is getting better and better! Here are some pictures of all of her hard work.









Sunday, August 16, 2009

Meeting Benjamin

Laura finally had her baby on Monday, August 10 at 7:21 pm. We knew that, because of work, we wouldn't be able to go to see her and the baby until the weekend after he was born. I took off the Friday after he was born (August 14) so that we could leave Thursday night to go a see him. We left Thursday about 4:00 do make the drive to my dad's house. They live in Flowery Branch, about 20-30 minutes north of my sister. We were staying with them so that they could spend some time with Lorelai (they haven't seen her in about 3 weeks) and because Laura and Gino didn't want any overnight visitors at their house.

Lorelai in the car on the way to Atlanta!

She loves her blankey!

We got in around 8:45 on Friday night to my dad's, so obviously we didn't go to see my sister until Friday morning. He is beautiful! His name is Benjamin Charles Marotta. My dad's name is Charles, so he was super excited to have a grandson carry that name. Here is proud Uncle Matt with his new (and only) nephew!


Holding him, I really can't believe that my baby is so big already. I remember her being this small and holding her like this while laying on the couch. We used to do that every day. Now, she won't snuggle like this at all. On the other hand, it is hard for me to believe that my baby was even SMALLER than this. They just grow so fast!


Of course, Lorelai was being a ham as usual. She was in love with her Daddy's Boston hat on Friday and wouldn't stop playing with it. We put it on her and she looked so cute, as usual.



I was so excited to be there and spend time with my sister because, for the last six months, we've been in very different places. People who do not have kids can't really understand the lives of people who do. Well, we are finally in the same place now - we are BOTH mommy's! Here are the two sisters and the two cousins. They wont be this different in size for long!


Benjamin is just so cute and snugly! I showed Laura and Gino how to swaddle him using the swaddleme and he seemed to really like it! He slept like a rock the whole time he was swaddled. They also put him in his boppy chair for the first time while we were there. We have the girl version of this for LL and we still use it all the time. I think they'll like it as much as we do. Ben seems to already like it!



Laura also asked me to show her how to bathe Benjamin while we were there. He was awake for his whole bath and he did a great job! I think he liked the sound of the running water because he didn't fuss at all the entire bath! He did great and looked so cute snuggled up in his ducky towel afterwards. We also took him outside and sat on the back patio after his bath. He has a pretty bad case of jaundice, so he really needs to be in the sunlight as much as possible. We just left him in his towel and went outside to sit. I propped my feed up on a table, laid him on my legs, unwrapped him from the waist up and we just sat and talked for about 20 minutes. He was so happy the whole time! He was still awake from his bath and he just faded in and out of sleep while we were out there. He would sleep a little and then wake up a little and look at everything around him. He is such a sweet boy!



Laura holding her son and her niece!


Lorelai did so good with Ben while we were there! She did try to grab him a lot and we had to stop her, but she was also very sweet with him. She would even kiss him on the head when we asked her to and she was VERY gentle! It was the sweetest thing ever!

First picture of just the cousins!

Giving kisses to Ben!


When we got back to dad's on Friday evening, we decided to take a walk down their street in the stroller. LL LOVES to be pushed in her stroller so she had an absolute blast. The house that dad just bought came with a little swing set, so we took some time to swing, too.


The swing set also had a slide attached. I have swung at church with LL before, but she's never been down a slide before. Matt tested it out first to make sure that it was okay before I took Lorelai down.



What nobody reminded me of was proper sliding technique. It has been YEARS since I've gone down a slide and I've obviously forgotten a few things. First, this slide doesn't seem like much, but after I hit the first bump, my speed on this thing tripled! We were going so fast! As the picture shows, I obviously think I'm on the world's scariest roller coaster or something. Also, I forgot that you're just supposed to put your feet down at the end to stop. Or I was just going too fast to remember. Either way, I didn't do it. When I hit the bottom, my feet stayed out straight in front of me and LL and I went flying! I flew out about 6 inches from the bottom of the slide before I landed smack on my butt. All I could think was "Don't land on my baby, don't land on my baby!". Well, I didn't! But when I hit the ground, I could NOT stop laughing! I think I was laughing so hard that the neighbors could here. Matt said they could. And of course he just kept taking pictures the whole time. I think they're pretty cute, though. :)











Saturday morning we headed over to Laura and Gino's again. We stayed and visited until about 2:30. We left and went to Discover Mills so that we could get LL some 9 month clothes at the Carter's Outlet there. Everything there is ALWAYS on sale! She didn't have very many 9 month clothes so we've been trying to buy some along and along. Now that fall/winter stuff is coming out, it is much easier. We got her so many cute things. I can't wait for her to get bigger so that she can wear them! At the same time, those clothes look so huge and I can't believe that she'll be that big in just 3 months!

Lorelai in her borrowed stroller (from Grammy) at Discover Mills.


We also stopped at the Bass Pro in Macon so that Matt could do some shopping. I decided to wear LL in and very quickly into it I realized that this is the last time that I can do this. She is so heavy! After about 10 minutes my neck was killing me! From now on, Matt will have to do all the baby wearing.



She loved looking at the fish in the aquarium!

I don't know why, but she looks so cross-eyed in this picture!

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Sunday, August 9, 2009

6 Months!

When I say that I cannot believe that my baby girl is 6 months old already, I really and truly mean it. People tell me all the time that your children grow up so fast. That I'll blink and she'll be 16. I really really believe them. And I already see it. To think that half of my baby girl's first year of life has already happened, it boggles my mind. Where did it all go?! It seems like last week that I was home on maternity leave, proud of myself for making it through the day all by myself while Matt was at work. I used to have a little baby that couldn't do anything and now I have a baby who is well on her way to crawling. I don't even want to think of how fast these next 6 months are going to go by!

Here are her stats from her 6 month appointment:

She weighs 16 lbs 1 oz (up 2 lbs 5 oz from 4 months - 55%)
She is now 27 1/4" long (up 2 3/4" from 4 months - 92%)
Her head circumference is 16 1/2" (up 1/2" from 4 months)


Now lets start talking about some changes:


1- Food! We are currently drinking between 23 - 28 oz of food every day. That is in addition to 2 meals a day of baby food and cereal. Once we started her on baby food, our struggle to get her to drink her formula went away! This little girl just wanted something to eat!

2- Sippy cup. We've just started giving this to her. So far, she's been a little frustrated with it. I think that is partially due to the fact that I put water in it. I think she gets mad with the water because she thinks it should be milk! I plan on putting milk in it, I just haven't had the opportunity to yet. I'm excited for her to start using it more in the next month.

3- She can roll over all four ways! This means she can roll from her tummy to her back both right and left and she can roll from her back to her tummy both right and left. She'll roll to her tummy all the time, but she's in a stage where she's refusing to roll back over to her back again. She'll start fussing for you to do it for her. But we know she still can because she does it during the middle of the night all the time. :)

4 - Pushing up. She's gotten really really good at this! She can extend her arms all the way when pushing herself up, now. She's getting super strong and I think it's only a matter of time before we really start seeing her start to try to crawl.

5 - Getting her knees under her. This kind of goes along with pushing up. She can get her knees under her pretty good, the only problem is that when she does it, her face goes into the ground! All of the processes are there, she's just got to start putting them together!

6 - Sitting up. She has gotten SO much better at this! At her 5 month post, she had JUST started doing this and had to lean forward pretty far. Now she can sit up with her back straight and she just barely leans on her arms. Pretty soon we'll be seeing her sitting up without a problem!

7 - Blowing raspberries. She does this ALL the time now. This has replaced her "kissing noises" that she did before. I like it and I think that it's cute EXCEPT for when we are eating. It is not good manners (which we are working on) and it makes a huge mess. Other than that, it's adorable.

8 - Dropping her last nap. She's actually started doing this herself recently. Her nap times during the day are 8 - 10, 12-2, and 4-6. That 4-6 nap really isn't happening anymore! She might take a little cat nap for about 30 minutes, but that's about it. This is right on par with Baby Wise and I LOVE it because I get to spend more time with her after I get home from school.

9 - Sleeping through the night. She is doing this now! We might have to get up to give her her paci a couple of times, but even that has been minimal (maybe once a night) recently. That makes me so happy! I think her dream feed has really helped with this!

10 - This one I'm SO happy about - - - NO MORE SWADDLE! AT ALL! In fact, she sleeps in footy pj's and with a small blanket. We don't do a swaddle or a sleep sack. YES! It is so much better not to have to worry about any of that junk anymore. I am so thankful that we are through with that phase!


11 - Putting her own paci in. She can't do this 100 % of the time, but I'd say she gets it about 60% of the time. I don't think we're going to start weening her from it just yet, but I'm glad she's starting to be able to put it in herself. That helps a lot. I think for right now we're going to keep it until 9/10 months, but we're just going to take it week by week and see. She definitely won't have it at her 1st birthday!

12 - Blue eyes. They're still there! And they're still just as bright! Here's hoping that they stay!



Last but not least, here's her current schedule:

6 am - wake up! (bottle)
6:30 - breakfast with mommy and daddy (cereal, vegetable)
7:15 - leave for Grammy's
8:00 - nap
10:00 - bottle
12:00 - nap
2:00 - bottle
3:30 - daddy picks her up
4:00 - home with mommy!
5:00 ish - cat nap
6:00 - bottle and dinner (cereal, vegetable)
7:30 - bath
7:45 - bottle
8:00 - bed
10:00 - dream feed