Happy Half Birthday, my Sweetie!

My baby girl is 6 months old today!  How time flies!  Sorry I've been so absent.  Hard to find time on the computer lately!

I thought I'd do a quick state-of-the-union, to update on how things are going.

Infant Pottying:
Pretty good.  We're part time still.  So whenever we change her diaper (or when I think of it in between), we put her on the potty and see if she needs to pee (which she does maybe half the time).  Sometimes it seems like she's waiting for this.  Poos are still only occasional on the potty.  But really, we're not super consistent - if we're out all day, she doesn't get many chances to potty.  We're recently started adding the ASL signs for pee and poo, so we'll see if that turns out useful!  :)  It is super awesome when she pees on a grown up toilet (if we're out).  We're so proud of our good girl.

Cloth diapering:
Still great!  My friend gave me some of her fancy cloth diapers (her kid is now like 4, and they've decided they're not having any more).  They are super fun to use, but I probably wouldn't have spent so much for them, but I sure am glad to have them as hand me downs!  I have 2 Happy Heinys pocket diapers which are my fav, and we're considering buying one more.  We have about 6 Bum Genius pocket diapers, which are my second fav.  I save these fancy pocket diapers for naps/car trips - they magically wick away moisture and so her skin stays dry.  Not that we've encountered diaper rash (yet), but I still imagine its much more comfortable for her.

We have about a billion prefold diapers (like, 24 or 36), and 5 covers.  Love them too.  Easy to wash, and CHEAP.  Because I have so many, I can do wash every three days.  Easy breezy.  And really I can stretch it to four days if pressed (since she does pee in the potty sometimes).  Once the whole wash routine is down, it isn't a big deal.  We'll see how it is when she starts eating.

I have started making my own diaper wipes.  I love them so much, they deserve their own post.

Milestones:
She started to roll both ways right on her 5 month birthday!  :)  She's just such a big girl compared to the tiny infant she was only recently.  I know all you mothers out there are like "duh", but it's surprising to me all the things she can do now.  :)  She almost answers to her name - she's not quite all the way there yet.  And she's SUPER roll-y.

Eating:
She's still exclusively breast-fed.  Well, excepting vitamin D drops and pro-biotics.  I read somewhere that children that use pro-biotics have fewer colds.  Sign me up! (she hasn't been sick yet, knock on wood!)  We're planning on starting her on food when we get back from vacation in two weeks.  I plan to slow cook some grass-fed liver, and see if she wants like a teaspoon of that.  And to cook some root vegetables in bone broth.  And egg yolk.  We're planning on doing baby led weaning.  We'll see how it goes!

Breastfeeding is much much much much easier than before.  Now it is no big shakes.  Although I do still have to use Lansinoh, or I can get a little sore.  But a LITTLE sore.  Nothing like before.

Favourite Songs:
Let the fall leaves fall,  Pippa's so Pretty, Pippa's been working on the Railroad (to which I try and rub her back to), Skinamarinkeedinkydink, mm mm went the little green frog, the Grand old Duke of York, Hello Pippa and How are you.  She used to be partial to her ABC's, but I think she's over it.  It is very cute.  When one of her favourite songs is being sung to her, she gets a look of joy on her face.  :)

Sleep:
She's generally a happy baby.  Happiest when just up from a nap, tending towards grumpy as it is time to have another nap.  She still sleeps tons throughout the day.  Love my sleepy baby!  In the night she tends to wake up about twice for feeding.  She's still in her pack 'n' play in our room, but we're going to transition her to her crib when we get back from vaca (2 weeks).  Ah!  Not sure how that will go. 

Lots of changes coming!

Baptism gown recommendation?

Hello! This is just a quick note tonight! Things are going really well, I'm enjoying our baby very much.
Question - Pippa's baptism is coming up, and I remember reading some blog posts where yall had beautiful gowns for the babies. Any tips? There are a lot of Greek stores around here, but I am picturing something more simple.thx!

Making more milk

~4 months

So we were having what I was thinking of was minor supply issues, in the breastmilk department.  So I started reading up on the million things you can do to increase breastmilk.

I'd also like to say - different strokes for different folks.  I think different solutions work well for different people.

I even went to the SUPER hippie herbalist and bought gross tea (and kind of expensive) to bring on the milk.  But even thought I was downing 3 pots of that stuff a day, it didn't really help that much.

You know what does reliably work for me?  Beer.  As in super dark beer, like a fancy stout or Guinness.  After a bit of beer, I can feel much more milk in my boobs.  Interesting, right?

Now I have a friend that swears she thinks it works because you're more relaxed - but I don't think so.  I'm pretty relaxed.  And I don't drink enough that I think it affects my mood - I literally can drink like 2-3 shots of beer, and feel more milk.

I am of course concerned about my baby drinking  (read some scary stuff on the Internet, but I also have read a lot of stuff saying it's no big deal, so...?), so I exercise extreme caution - I don't actually drink an entire beer (more like half a beer a day, max, spread out over several hours), and I don't feel drunk at all.

I even tried eating a lot of barley, because I read that maybe it was the barley in the beer - but that didn't do much.

So I've taken to buying fancy stout beer in bottles, and putting a wine bottle corker in it to help it stay carbonated-ish.  Works pretty well.  One of those fancy beers lasts me many days.  And it is tasty.

So that's my story for now.  BF'ing had taken a sort of nasty turn, and everything was hurty again, but we're back on track, things are good the last week or so.  I think it's the beer.  Or maybe that she's done a growth spurt.

Only ~2 more months of exclusive breastfeeding left!  Time flies.  While it will be exciting to give her food, I am enjoying this stage in her life.

Camping!

4 months + 4 days

As you can see:

Last weekend we went camping.  It was super fun!  They say camping with a baby isn't hard, and I see they were right!  At this age feeding is easy because I brought my boobs along, and she doesn't crawl in the dirt and run around the fire or anything, so.... not too bad!  It was great seeing a lot of my University friends as well.

Last year I was a tiny bit pregnant on this trip.  :)  The year before - sad that we were the only married couple without kids. 

Nighttime was a bit tricksy - first she was too hot, then too cold - but we did figure it out in the end.  Second night was waaay better than the first night.  Lately she's been sleeping rather well - knock wood!  We are lucky to have a pretty good sleeper on our hands - at least for now.

Now that she's four months I said I would put her on a schedule...haven't done this yet.  Maybe I will start tomorrow - my plan is to observe for a few days, then try to fit a schedule to when she is generally napping already.

I signed us up for Mom and Baby Diaper Aqua-fit starting in September.  I'm kind of excited for it.  She has the cutest swim diaper and rash guard (for warmth) ever....so pretty much I am just excited to use them!  Hahha.  Yes.  I've become obsessed by diapers. 

I'm even planning to try out reusable wipes.  Now, before Pippa was born this was our plan, which we quickly abandoned.  BUT - I want to give it a try again.  Even though I kind of love the Kirkland wipes - can't stand throwing 2.2 cents out the door with every wipe!  hahha.  Just wasn't hippie enough for me, I guess.  So I'm going to try reusable again.  It was a hassle before because we tried it when she was a newborn and we weren't using cloth diapers yet... but now that I'm doing a diaper load every 2-3 days anyway, I can't see how washing some added wipes will be that big a deal.  I can see how having to make up a solution every week or so will be a hassle, so we'll see....  :)

Pillow Baby

Just a little slice of crazy for you today:

I use two pillows at night.  One under my head, and a hugging pillow.  So EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, I think my hugging pillow is my baby.

It freaks me out, yo.

One minute, I am holding my baby, she is breathing and a real little baby...then gradually she turns into a pillow.  Is she under the pillow?  No.  IS SHE IN THE PILLOW?  CAN SHE BREATHE?

Oh, wait.  She's in the pack and play like she is every night.  She's fine.  Ok.  Back to sleep.

This seriously happens every night, and we are 3.5 months in!  Hahahahah.  My poor husband.  I very often wake him up to confirm where the baby is.  Sometimes I figure it out on my own, because, like, duh, I do this every night.  But still at least every few days I wake him to confirm her whereabouts, because she seemed particularly real before turning into a pillow.

Our brief experiment with co-sleeping probably started all this lunacy, mayhaps.  But I am a known crazy sleeper - somehow dreams take a little longer to fade than they should.  But never before in my life have I done the exact same thing night after night.

(To be clear, we've settled in with her sleeping in a pack and play [top shelf] on DH's side - this seems to work best for us - and travelling is easy, we take her bed with us, no transition!  The doctor now seems to recommend sleeping in the same room for 6 months, and this works very well for all of us so far.  For night feeding DH just has to hand her over when she starts to fuss, before she actually has to cry.  And she's calmed down from her infant grunting stage, so she's not very loud, so we all get a decent sleep, generally.)

 

Well, this was your insaneagram for today.  :)

100 + 8 days

3.5 months

Last week we had a 100 days banquet for our baby girl!  In Chinese culture, they don't do baby showers, but they do celebrate when the baby is one month (or alternatively 100 days) old.  We thought at one month she would be too little to be handed around to a kajillion relatives (and I was still on the tail end of being a huge disaster), so we chose to wait for 100 days.

Here she is looking all China-fied in her cute little outfit (which went on to stain everything pink when it accidentally got thrown in the laundry - ha!).

I am still feeling so lucky and blessed to have this little babes in my life. Many times a day I think about how lucky I am.  It still is what makes me remember to start my prayers at night, I naturally turn to praying for ladies still waiting or those who miscarried when I think about how good I have it.  I know it isn't fair.

I would like to throw this out there - her name is Pippa.  There.  I find it very hard to keep calling her Appleseed on the blog when we dropped that nickname as soon as she was born.  Pippa isn't her full legal name - that is my Grandmother's name with "-Rose" added.  But Pippa she'll be until she decides that is not grown up enough for a CEO/Prime Minister/Surgeon/Whatever she chooses to be.  :)

Sorry, I haven't been blogging much lately.  They're all swirling around in my head!  I did set up bloglovin', so I'm lurking on all the public blogs, even if not commenting.  Cheers!

Google reader leaving has killed me!

13 weeks, 4 days

I'm all unorganised with blogs now that google reader is dead, so you'll have to forgive me! I'm trying to reorganize. Blog loving?

We just got back from vacation. Long road trip. Baby girl did alright!  The last day home was maybe too hard on her, she was quite fussy.

She was a bit fussy last few days- I hope she's not teething!

Generally I am just super happy.   :-)

Baby girl is getting bigger.  This is her with her boy cousin, who we just visited in NJ.