You Are My Sunshine

Yesterday was gorgeous outside.  Ray was helping one of our friends ready a house for the friend's grandmother, who will be coming out of a nursing home in about a week.  So Juliet and I had the whole day to ourselves.  After some grocery shopping first thing in the morning, I wanted to go out and enjoy the sunshine.  Since Juliet is so fair-skinned, I worried about bringing her outside for too long.  I put on her sunhat (which she loves along with her sunglasses), coated her baby skin in SPF 50, and we sat out in the back yard for a while.

She had the best time watching Ninja run after the ball, and she didn't mind having her little baby feet in the grass and dirt.  She really is just the happiest baby 99% of the time.

It was such a good day.  Beautiful weather, beautiful and happy baby, happy dog, and no stress.  Days like that are so rare right now.  Between our jobs and just trying to stay on top of the house, the yard, and all the other adult obligations, finding time to just simply be is really hard.  I think perhaps that's why I love those precious moments before sunrise on weekday mornings.  It's the only time each day I get to sit back and just enjoy my life without worrying about what I need to be doing or who I need to be attempting to make happy.

Juliet really is the most amazing thing.  She serves as a constant reminder to be grateful for my many blessings and to just be joyful.  It is hard not to feel happy when you've got this face grinning at you:

"I know you're trying to take a picture of me, but I just want to eat your phone.  Give me a bite, okay?"

Continuing Solids

I posted a week or so ago that we were starting solids with Juliet.  I don't feel like there's been a tremendous amount of progress since we started, but we're still working on it.  She really has no interest at all in the puree, no matter how coarse or fine it is.  She doesn't seem to care, either, whether it's carrots or sweet potato.  She just kind of holds it in her mouth. 

In trying to figure out what we could do differently, I realized something.  Juliet already appears to be one of those children who wants to do it herself.  She doesn't want us to put the spoon in her mouth.  She wants to put the spoon in her own mouth.  It's even to the point now where when we hold out her pacifier to her, she will take it from us and then put it in her mouth.  A month ago, she would just open her mouth really wide and let you stick the paci in like a plug. 

While it may an inconvenient trait later on when I'm in a hurry, for now, I kind of find this aspect of her personality endearing.  I want my daughter to be independent.  I want her to think independently; I want her to make choices independently (especially of her peers).  While she is an extension of me and of Ray, she is her own person.  Now I'm not going all crunchie here and going to be one of those parents who's all "It's her journey.  Let her beautiful spirit guide her where it may."  I just mean that while we will give her left and right limits, we will both encourage her to be herself and to do for herself.  When I think about what I want most for Juliet as an adult woman, high on the list is a sense of independence.  But I digress...  (By the way, I find it hilarious that thinking about how my daughter eats/doesn't eat solids can lead me to a whole train of thought about her adulthood.  This is what I mean when I say, "Being a parent makes you crazy.")

Back to solids and the problem with her not eating very well / very much.  After I realized that she was very into doing it herself, I handed the spoon over to her.  She put it in her mouth every time, but she mainly spent time chewing on it.  (See the post about teeth!)  So I theorized that she might do better if she could just grab a piece of sweet potato or a carrot and try to eat it.  I was making sweet potato fries for mine and Ray's dinner, so I just set a handful aside and cooked them with no seasoning.

Success!  While I wouldn't say she actually ate all of the fries, she certainly did a lot better with them than she did with purees and with little bite-sized pieces of carrot.  So, from now on, we'll be giving her larger pieces (cooked, of course) for her to feed herself.

"I can do it myself, Mama and Dad!"

Sweet potatoes are kind of messy.

"I'm not sure why you guys are so excited right now, but I'm going to smile like I know what's going on."

Interesting tidbit about starting solids.  I have had more than one person (and multiple family members) from the generation before me suggest that Juliet would enjoy sweet potatoes and carrots much more if I'd just add some sugar to them.  I find this suggestion fascinating.  I don't know if these people gave their infants sweetened veggies, but based on what I know (ahem, remember, Mom) from what they allowed their middle- and high school-aged children to eat, my guess is no.  But what if they did feed their children sugar?  Was it a cultural thing 30 years ago?  I know that most people my age were given some sort of rice/oatmeal cereal as a first solid.  And then we were given baby food out of jars.  My choice to give Juliet the same foods Ray and I eat comes from my research into the impact of cereals on a baby's digestive system, immune system, and metabolism.  It just made more sense to me to give her something completely natural and fresh with no artificial additives.  And I am by no means a health food nut.  I love a Coca Cola.  But I wouldn't give one to Juliet at this point.

I wonder what Juliet will feed her babies... (See?  Being a parent makes you crazy!)

I've Got Teeth!

Every weekday morning, our house has the same routine.  The alarm goes off at 6:00 or 6:15 (depending on what kind of work load we have).  I get up, feed Ninja, and let Filch out.  I listen to make sure the coffee maker is brewing away, and then I go grab Juliet out of her crib.  We spend a minute or two in her nursery snuggling and trying to locate a burp cloth.  Then Juliet and I head to the kitchen where we make Ray a cup of coffee.  Coffee in hand, we let Ninja back inside and then go pile up in bed.  I feed Juliet and Ray drinks his coffee.  Ray, bless his heart, is not a morning person.  He takes a while to wake up.  Juliet and I don't have that problem.  She is all smiles in the morning, and it doesn't matter to her that it's well before the sun is up. 

This time of day, when it's just the three of us piled up in bed, is my absolute favorite time of day.  Everything is calm and quiet, and none of the world's stresses have had a chance to creep into our lives yet.  These moments in the early morning quiet with my husband and daughter remind me that there is a God and that He is very, very good.

On Wednesday morning, after I'd fed Juliet, I was letting her gnaw on my finger.  She's been teething for months now, but she has been very intent on chewing anything and everything lately.  I felt some sharp little baby teeth, but I assumed they were still beneath the gum since I've been able to see them for a couple of weeks now.  I didn't think too much about it, and I eventually passed Juliet to Ray so that I could start getting ready for work.

When I went by to feed Juliet at lunch, I remembered feeling something sharp in her mouth, so I pried her baby mouth open and looked.  Sure enough, her two bottom teeth were there.  Just barely above the surface, but they are most certainly there!  So, Juliet got her first teeth (two at the same time!) at six months, nine days. 

Her chewing hasn't slowed a bit since she cut her teeth.  But we're so lucky!  She never ran a fever, she was never terribly fussy, and she didn't seem to be in too much pain from teething.  I hope all of her other teeth come in just as easily!

Proof that the best baby toys are free.

Using her new teeth

Starting Solids

After lots of research about how and when to start solids, we decided to go with a more crunchie approach.  No cereal, no super-runny purees, nothing but breast milk for the first six months.  Honestly, we made this choice because it's just what felt right for us.  We don't endorse this for others, and we don't think people who start with cereal and/or purees are wrong.  (Sorry for the disclaimer, but I don't want readers to think that our way is the only way or best way.  It's just what works for us.)

As a side note, I discovered while researching that you can pretty much find "scientific proof" to support any position you'd like to take on when and how to introduce solids.

Juliet's first solid food was carrots.  I steamed the carrots in our BabyCook contraption that we received as a gift at a shower.  I wanted to give her options, so I gave her some small, steamed pieces that she could pick up and gum herself and also made a rough carrot puree.

Steams and purees in one dish!

I didn't get any pictures of Juliet picking up the pieces of carrot.  I fully expected her to get them and shove them in her mouth since that is what she does with everything else.  However, she seemed interested only in picking up the carrots and moving them from one side of the tray to the other.  So we removed the pieces and went to the puree.  Ray fed her while I documented the process.

"Yum!  That looks great!"

"OMGOMGOMG!  What IS this?!? Why would you give that to me?!?"

"It wasn't very good, but I still want some more!"

And here is a short video of the fun.  Ray seems to forget that Juliet's mouth is still very small...

Last night, we continued with carrots, and she was marginally better.  She still isn't eating a ton, but she is definitely improving!  :)

Six Months

Today, Juliet is six months old. Ray and I spent a few minutes this morning thinking about how our day on October 1, 2012, started and how things have changed since then. 

This month has brought lots of fun changes in Juliet:

• She now weighs about 16 pounds.
• She is thisclose to crawling.
• She is growing even more responsive to stimuli and laughs uncontrollably at times.
• She can sit up unsupported for long stretches.
• She rolls around a good bit.
• She loves her toys.
• She enjoys hanging out in her high chair while I cook supper.
• She is happy literally almost all the time.
• She responds to the sound of voices in other rooms.
• She loves remote controls and cell phones and wants to eat them.
• She wants to pretty much eat anything she can get in her mouth.
• She is rocking a mohawk pretty hard.
• She is growing significant amounts of hair that will (hopefully) soon help tame that mohawk.

The sound of my child's laughter is probably the best thing I've ever heard.  And I love watching her jump in surprise and then dissolve into giggles when Ray and I play peek-a-boo with her.

I love her baby mohawk.  It's so funny looking and cute.  But the rest of her hair is starting to really grow in, so when she wakes up from a nap, her hair on the sides of her head is messy.  It's just so stinking cute.  But I realize that it's probably not as precious to everyone else as it is to me.  I've become That Mom.  I feel like I do an okay job, though, at recognizing "growing hair" doesn't really count as an accomplishment and isn't really trophy-worthy.  I know that all the things I'm proud of are just me being a proud mom and not a rational, objective human.  When I lose that ability, someone will need to schedule an intervention.

One development has left me with mixed feelings.  Juliet is really starting to respond to voices in other rooms.  And those voices tend to just be mine and Ray's.  While this is really cool, it's also not cool in that if she is in one room and hears one of us in another, she will fuss.  On more than one occasion, she has been almost settled down after fighting sleep and then hear one of our voices and jerk her head back up.  That is pretty frustrating for sure.  But man, it's good for the ego! Our baby loves us! ;)

 We started solids tonight, and we got some hilarious video and photos.  But that's for another post. In the meantime, two more gratuitous pictures:

Ray says that she's practicing her sky diving arch.

This is what happens when you give Dad the monthly sticker and the camera and say, "Please take her 6 months picture while I make supper."  Not her best look, but it'll be good for when she has boys we need to try to run off.