Saturday, November 30, 2013

Move to crib!

What I said about keeping her in the pack and play a while longer? Lies.

My snuggle bum today can pull herself up on the crib sides! Yikes! So crib and pack and play will be lowered tonight, and we'll begin transition to big girl crib. Yikes!

She's growing up so fast.

Thursday, November 28, 2013

7 months (better late than never)

Our 7 month State-of-the-Union!





Eating
We've started solids!  We started at 6.5 months.  She's had boiled (in bone broth) root vegetables (carrots, sweet potatoes, rutabagas, turnips, parsnips), avocado (pictured above), liver pureed with bone broth (from 100% grass fed cow), a bit of caviar (that I rinsed to make less salty), prune puree, squash puree, peas, pear puree I made with a bit of lime and gelatin...I think that's it to date.  Oh, and some pig's blood - you know, the Chinese dish?  Just a bit.  Iron.  She doesn't seem to love or hate much yet. Ok, ok, she doesn't seem to enjoy the liver so much, but she does eat it.  And I only give her a few baby spoonfuls every other day.

We were all for baby led weaning, but she was having some constipation problems, so we moved to purees.  We seem to be back on track, this week I plan to do half purees (I used the broth to puree) and half boiled veg she can feed herself.

Still breastfeeding the rest of the time, and I give her a little water or broth to help with the poo-ing.

Infant Pottying:
Going well!  She often poo-poos in the potty.  Now that she's eating solids, this is a huge deal.  Waaaay easier to clean up.  But it's up to us to race to the potty when she starts straining.  Still pee-pees in the potty when we make the cueing noise if she has to pee (usually she does).

Cloth Diapering:
We still are.  I will say this has gone trickier with the grown-up type poos coming now.  I don't quite have a good system down yet for getting the poo off the diaper when it doesn't all go in the potty.  It tends to sort of get everywhere (GLOVES are worn!).  Hopefully this will get smoother.

My Bum Genius pocket diapers have started to repel.  Bah.  This means an instant leak as soon as baby pees.  Lame!  So I tried to strip them following instructions found online (loads of washing, use Dawn dish detergent).  They may be incompatible with the coconut oil I used on my diaper wipes?  I recently read that maybe it's my laundry soap causing the problem, Nature Clean.  I've used this for ALL of Pippa's clothes from day1, and never had a problem, but apparently it can cause repeling in some diapers (not her Happy Heinys, those are still AWESOME).  I'm currently deciding what to try next - I may keep washing them, or may give them to a friend unlikely to use homemade diaper wipes.

I have bought four more pocket diapers  - "China cheapies".  They are like 1/5th the cost of fancy diapers made in North America.  But now I feel guilty (they haven't arrived yet, actually).  So today I'm going to go out and buy a $20 AMP pocket diaper that is made in Canada and has great reviews.  Am excited.  Diapers are kinda a hobby, these days!  :)  And as they'll last for the *cross your fingers* next baby, a good investment.

Milestones:
Definitely knows her name now.  Doesn't always look at you when you call her, but that's cuz she's being cheeky!  ;)  Is a great "creeper", but isn't fully crawling yet with bum lifted.  Can really locomote around a room, whatever you call it!  She knows that when you move a toy out of sight it hasn't disappeared, she goes and tries to get it.  Loves peek-a-boo type games.  Sits up only for ... maybe 10 seconds before toppling.  Not super interested in walking at all, prefers her tummy/back, but she does stand with support.  She babbles quite a bit - we like to "sing" together, which is me imitating her noises.  Amazingly (to me), when I'm dressing her and she's playing with a toy, she knows to move the toy to the other hand because I'm going to need to put her other hand in the sleeve soon.  :)  She's not quite reaching to be picked up and held, but she's thinking about it.  :)

Favourite Songs:
You can no longer guarantee a smile by singing her fav songs.  Too bad.  I'm not sure if I just need to get her a new fav song, or she's done that stage.  With the exception of "Grand Old Duke of York" (that's the song, but we raise her up which is what makes her smile - and I don't sing it all weird and creepy like the vid), she still always smiles to that - except in swim class.  She will generally laugh to near/far type games with kisses.

Sleep:
No change.  Still wakes up twice or three times a night to feed.  We seem to know LOTS of babies that sleep through the night now.  But...I'm not bothered by it enough yet to enact complicated plans to get rid of a feed.  Maybe next month?  She's still in the pack-n-play next to our bed, so it's not terribly inconvenient.  I laid down the law said she can't move to her own crib until she's down to one feed a night.  I know we planned to move her at six months.... but this seems like too much for me, to get up 2-3 times and go into her room.

Things are going really well in generally, I'm really quite happy.  As she ages she's much easier to handle, I'm still really enjoying my maternity leave.


Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Baptism baby!

Pippa is 7 months old

Pippa was baptized this Sunday at Church!  It was a lovely ceremony.  :)  Loads of people came back to our house for lunch after, that was nice.  We counted 42 - woah!  Our little house was rammed, but it was very festive.


This is Pippa being held by a friend of the family.  We don't have too many great photos of the event/baby, alas, so this is what you get!  Thank you for the gown advice MHE!  I decided to buy here gown online, but not quite so fancy (DH would have never gone for a really pricey gown).  It was the Kayla gown.  It was reasonably priced and made in the USA, I was very happy with it.  It actually garnered a lot of compliments - and older English lady at church said it "made her day" to see a traditional gown!  Hah!  :)

I was SUPER excited the whole lead up to it.  How many times have you sat in Church during a nice baptism and wanted it to be your baby?  Loads.  Me too.  I couldn't believe it was finally our turn.

Pippa's Godmother will be her Aunt (DH's oldest sister).  No Godfather, as she's not married.  We're sort of all about family being the godparents - well, until we run out of Aunts.  ;)  My own Godparents are friends of my parents.  My Mom and the one Godmother fell out when I was a baby, so I've never met her.  Lame.  And the other ones we were all in touch (they have a girl about my age) until I was maybe.... 9ish?  Then they divorced and scattered and I never really saw them again.  Lame.  You can never divorce your Aunties, so our theory is they will always be in Pippa's life.  :)

Since both of DH's sisters don't have children, we kind of are having the kids for them, they are very involved.  That's good.  I likes.  :)  It's very good for Pippa to have lots of Aunties.  I have lots of Aunties (like, I have...10?), and I think it has benefited me.

Appleseed grows

Lilypie Maternity tickers