6 Months Part 2

Maya and I did another photo shoot today, this one with her month stickers. Compare this to one month.  Maya has her six month well baby visit a week from tomorrow.  I'm curious to see her new stats.

I made Maya butternut squash today.  She really liked it.  I dished out more than she usually eats and she cleaned the bowl.  I'm not sure if it's because she was hungry, just likes squash, is getting the hang of eating, or if homemade tastes better. We also tried a new bottle tonight.  She recently decided she wasn't a fan of the one we were using.  Not that we use it that often which is probably part of the issue.  But I have to make another long visit to the dentist tomorrow.  I'm not sure I've mentioned it here but I'm in the process of getting four crowns put on.  I have two completely finished and start the other two tomorrow.  Good times.  The first appointment took hours.  Fortunately, I didn't need a root canal.  The dentist said going in it was a 50/50 chance. All this is to say that since I have to be away for hours again it would be good if Maya would take a bottle.  She seemed to do ok with the new one but if not at least she will eat solids now.

I'm sure you've all heard me rant about diapers/poop before so I'll just say that she still poops a lot and we still haven't found anything that consistently contains it.  Also, it's kind of amusing that months ago I was wondering if I should let Maya sleep longer than 7 hours and now I'm wondering if she will give me at least 3 hours straight.  We've also been having more trouble getting her down for naps and in the evenings.  She seems to know that bed time means her crib and her crib means we leave and this makes her a bit hysterical. Then I feel bad so I snuggle her more which probably compounds the problem. 

6 Months

Six months already?  We had professional photos taken on Sunday and for once Maya was full of smiles.  Maya and I had some fun in the back yard today.  She wasn't as smiley but I think I got a few good ones.  I plan to do her month sticker ones tomorrow.  I always seem to be late with those.

Does She or Doesn't She

Does Maya get her hair inspiration from a certain doll?  

Only her hairdresser knows for sure.

Pretty standard week around here.  Maya started sweet potatoes Tuesday.  They went a little better than green beans did the first time.

On Thursday and Friday we walked to the nearby park.  On Thursday no one else was there and Maya was giggling when I would push her in the swing.  On Friday, there were six or so kids running around.  Maya still enjoyed swinging but was largely distracted by watching everyone.  I talked to the mom of a cute little 10 month old girl who was swinging with Maya.  After swinging we found a flower and one of us tried to eat it.

Saturday we went to a bookstore going out of business sale and picked up some books for Maya.  It's been exciting to read to her and start building a library for her.  We then went to another park for a stroll and some more swinging.  You couldn't ask for better weather.

Six months ago today, I was in the hospital waiting for Maya to arrive.  It doesn't seem like it's been that long.

Sorry this is a bit short.  Someone has been keeping us busy.  Hopefully everyone around here sleeps a little better tonight than last night.  So far it isn't looking good.

As in Utero She's Kind of a Trouble Maker

I know I have been slacking on the blog again.  I've heard that some of you may be suffering from withdrawals since you haven't seen any new pictures of a certain peanut.  I'll indulge you before I discuss our excitement from last week.  Here's a few photos from last Tuesday afternoon (August 9) showing of her sitting up skills.

Now on to our drama. You may remember that as an inside baby Maya was a bit of trouble.  We regularly made trips to the dr because she wouldn't move only to find out she was fine.  I always felt somewhat like "that patient".  Now I feel like I'm "that mom".  In my last post I mentioned that Maya had a little bit of a rash. We stopped cereal for a while and it seemed to clear up.  Monday we fed her oatmeal.  Then Tuesday we fed her rice.  Tuesday night as I was feeding her before we went to bed I noticed that she looked like this:

It's not the greatest photo since it was low light with my phone.  But I think you can see the rash.  It was on her face, neck, shoulders, stomach, arms, thighs.  It was still there on Wednesday morning so I gave her pediatrician a call.  We went in that afternoon.  Since she had a rash we had the pleasure of using the back door, the isolation door.  We also had to be confined to the isolation room.  The dr wasn't quite sure what it is but said that it's nothing serious.  She said it could be a virus, a heat rash, eczema, or sensitive skin.  She thought that her checks looked like eczema but the rest of her more like heat.  She didn't think that it is an allergy to rice since they are so rare.  She said that she has only seen one in her career.  But we have cut rice out for now, just in case.  We will try it again in about a month.  We have also started using lotion on her after her bath.  And in the really bad places, like her checks and neck, I've been using lanolin.  That stuff is great.  Her checks are finally starting to look better today.  The dr suggested we switch bath soap and lotion.  We went back to the stuff we used when she was a newborn but haven't switched to what she recommended yet.  If she is still rashy in a few days we plan on trying that too.  Maya weighed 17 lbs.  That's pretty crazy considering how small she was.  It will be interesting to see her 6 month stats.

Maya tried green beans for the first time on Thursday (August 11).  This was the first "real" food she's had other than cereal.  She was not impressed at first.  She would make the yuck face and gag.  We finally decided that it might be the texture so we thinned it with a little milk.  She seemed to like it after that.

The gag face.

On Sunday we went had a picnic at the park with lots of friends from church.  Maya tried out the swings. She really seemed to enjoy them.  We couldn't get a picture of her smiling.  You can see how rashy her checks still were.

Maya is sitting up well and rolls around everywhere now.  She always wants the toy just out of reach and seems to get frustrated because she can't crawl.  She can push herself up on her hands and she can get up on her knees, but can't seem to get the hang of both at the same time.  Today she was up on her hands and lifted up with her feet causing her to move backwards.  She seemed a surprised by the sudden motion.  Last week she really started babbling, lots of baas and few da and ma.  She has started squealing again too.  Sunday at church she was distracting everyone around us I'm sure.   She has also recently started doing more with her hands.  When you give her a bath, she has to sit up and she splashes water with her hands, then grabs anything within reach.  Before she was content to be reclined and would always splash with her feet.  She seems to enjoy sucking her thumb and fingers recently.  She like for me or Derek to be right beside her most of the time.  Frequently she will start to fuss if we leave, then when we come back over she's content playing with her toys.  I think we need to get some new toys, she seems bored with the ones that we have.  She prefers to play with cups and bottles.  I'm always drinking water, and she's always trying to drink my water.  When we eat in front of her she watches our spoon/fork go from plate to mouth and back.  Makes you feel guilty for not feeding her when you eat.  I'm sure I"m forgetting something but I'll try to update again soon.

Hello, world!

Maya composes her first post:


       szs Ssssssszzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                                    oo     asqa      js89Az ZZZZZZZZZZZ6  777XX                                              GBT

"Solids"

I'm behind on my posting again.  Excitement around here, aside from the mouse from this morning, is that we started rice cereal last Wednesday (July 27).  She wasn't sure what to think at first.  But she seems to be a fan of it now.  We switched to oatmeal on Sunday.  She is a little bit rashy on her checks, neck, and chest.  Hopefully it's not related to the cereal.  We recently changed baby wash too. She was fussy last night.  Wouldn't nurse from about 3 to 11 pm, even though she was acting hungry.  We went for a drive and she finally fell asleep.  When she woke up she ate and seemed content.  She screamed for an hour tonight.  It's almost like colic again, but shorter.  She's still up at least twice in the night.  Naps are hit or miss.  Saturday we went to a food festival and she was so interested in what was going on she hardly ate or slept.  Today she was extra sleepy. Before the whole mouse thing, we were having some success in her crib with swaddling.  

This is from Wednesday.  Her first few bites.  She wasn't so sure what to think of it.

This is from Sunday.  Her first day of oatmeal.  This is her preferred method of eating cereal.

Here is a few pictures from today, since she is just too cute. I can't believe she's 23 weeks old.

Worse Than Spiders

Maya woke up around 3:30 this morning. I went in and fed her as usual. Then I put her on the changing table to check her diaper and a mouse ran by. Creepy. I made Derek get up even though there was really nothing he could do. Maya came back to our room for the rest of the night and will stay until it's gone.