8 months and catapulting through new developments

1. She's finally crawling hand over hand.
2. She's been pulling herself up to reach tables and chairs for weeks now -- almost a month earlier than most babies.
3. She's gained enough balance that she's now "cruising" around those objects.
4. She's practicing syllables: first "babababa" then "dadada" now "mamama."
5. She waves when she sees something or someone she likes, though she faces her hand in towards herself.
6. She easily picks cheerios and the like up between finger and thumb and has learned to chew and swallow.

We're convinced she'll be an early walker (though we've always been convinced of that).




She still only has the two teeth on the bottom, so she's taking her time with that! She has yet to meet a food she does not like.
She has now experienced her first beach (and thus her first mouthful of sand) and her first interaction with grass (and thus her first mouthful of grass).Try and keep up with her! (We do that every day!)

7 month review

Marian is currently laughing at her reflection in the bottom of a shiny mixing bowl, but I'll have only a few seconds before she's on to something else, because she's crawling pretty efficiently right now. She still hasn't quite figure out staying up on her hands and knees but she can basically push herself up, forward and down quickly enough that it's important to keep an eye on her. She's also figuring out how to pull herself up onto things -- which she's not supposed to be able to do until 9 months! -- so we're expecting "cruising" around furniture in the near future.
She has two beautiful bottom teeth and we think she's working on top teeth. She's tried and liked pear, avocado, mango, nectarine, sweet potato, carrots, squash, peas, rice cereal, barley cereal, and whole wheat cereal. We've revisited bananas and she seems better able to handle them this time around. We've started to get her going on teething foods -- sweet potato bites, cheerios, and unsalted plain rice cakes. She was a little freaked out by the texture at first but now she loves them and can join us eating at lunch and dinner.
She's headed my way so I need to end this -- photos and further updates to follow!

Pregnancy Precognition

I was reviewing some old "tweets" and found this one from my pregnancy. I guess all that eating well added up to one motivated baby! More to come!

Food, tooth, and fun

As her mom, I must have found my fingers in Marian's mouth about a thousand times over the course of her life; it's her favorite chew toy. Today, I found my finger in Marian's mouth and in turn found a tooth in there as well! She weathered its emergence remarkably well; looking back I feel like she's been sucking her fingers slightly more and the occasional random late night fuss takes on a different light now, but nothing so noticeable that we knew with certainty what was going on at the time. When it becomes more noticeable than a tiny white speck on her lower gums, we'll pass a photo along.
Marian has also started on the long path toward solid foods. She took to rice cereal (about the consistency of porridge or cream of wheat, depending on how much formula we add to it) like...well...white on rice. She mastered Swallowing and Spoon Handling 101 and has quickly moved on to the elective A World Full of Flavors. So far she has yet to reject anything but prune juice, which we diluted with water and attempted to give to her to help keep her from getting constipated; fortunately, given her dislike of it, constipation hasn't been a problem. So we moved on to bananas, which she loved, but were a little too much for her young system initially (we'll try again in a bit); and then avocado, which she loves mushed up with some formula; then we used Earth's Best organic first foods, and she has tried and liked sweet potato, pear, and apple. We let her get used to each one individually over the course of 3-4 days which also allows us to tell if she has any intolerance or allergies to them, and then we move on to something new. She continues to get rice cereal twice a day along with bottle feedings 4-5 times a day.











She has become more and more fun. Her laughter is more frequent, her smiles more charming, her energy more infectious. She still hasn't mastered crawling but her hand eye coordination is sky-rocketing and her determination to move, move, move, continues.
A few other faculty here have babies and we can't get over how sleepy and still they seem compared to our little Tigger, who is determined to bounce, grab, taste, wriggle, and explore no matter what! But the wonderful thing about Tiggers...







...is that Tiggers are wonderful things.








I kid you not!

4.5 months and GROWING

We took Marian in for her four month appointment and boy has she grown.


The photo is not exactly a flattering one, but symbolic of the fact that she's in the 95th percentile for height and head circumference and the 90th percentile for weight (15lbs6oz)! She is growing like an (adorable) weed and full of energy and determination to move, move, move. Her Grancy got her a jolly jumper for Christmas and it is her most favorite activity (perhaps second only to eating!) - she'll sit in it and bounce and bounce and bounce, stop, contemplate, spin, then bounce, bounce, bounce. She's jumped to 6-9 month clothing, which fortunately she got a lot of for Christmas as well.
This stage of her development is a really fun one. She consistently smiles when she catches someone looking at her. And she laughs now -- the laughs are the best. There's nothing that consistently makes her laugh so when she does it catches us off guard and makes us laugh too. Sometimes it's being taller than us, when we hold her up in the air; sometimes it's when we change her clothes; sometimes it's when we're intentionally being goofy and sometimes not; sometimes it's when she catches sight of herself in the mirror. No matter what, it's wonderful.
She's also bound and determined to learn to crawl. She "tripods" with her head -- when lying on her back she'll use her legs and her head to inch backwards toward what she wants (usually her dad) and she'll attempt to do that when on her belly as well. Sometimes she'll "swim" on her belly, moving her arms and legs in an attempt to figure out the coordination of movement, but she hasn't quite learned to put weight on her various appendages and then coordinate them.
She's also obsessed with her dad -- if he's in the room, she's looking at him. Right now we split her child-care evenly so it's not as though he's strange to her; she just loves to look at him. It's adorable and proves that she is and has always been daddy's little girl.We've just begin to start her on solids -- rice cereal mixed with formula until she gets the hang of it and then the fun really begins. Stay tuned!

2 months and great developments

First, look at this photo and tell me you can actually resist the urge to laugh:
Why yes, I did carve a pumpkin with the face of a crying baby -- it is the most horrifying thing I could think of and I did happen to know what Marian's Halloween costume would be!
Second, the stuffing in the costume aside, that is an 11lb2oz baby in that there pumpkin, and it is true that 11lbs is the magic number -- for the last 4 nights Marian has slept between 7-9 hours, awaking to two very happy parents. Her dad has the magic touch for getting her to sleep so long, so he puts her to bed every night and we alternate who will get up with her. She's also starting to eat more in a sitting, bumping up from 4oz to 6oz of formula or so. She continues to be so very active -- trying to climb, crawl and fly at times.

She also continues to get cuter and cuter:
she smiles readily, easily, and without coaxing, and if you rub her belly and smile at her you're almost guaranteed to get one back. She's started to recognize voices and faces and has learned to turn her head toward them, thus leading to a heart-melting scenario of her turning to look at you, taking a moment to register your face, and then bursting into a happy smile. It's impossible not to smile back. The other day she squealed from happiness for the first time too, and I'm looking so forward to hearing her first laugh. In the meantime she regales us with coos, squeaks, grunts, shrieks and ahs.
We have switched her to cloth diapers during the day and so far they are working out really well. We had a couple leaks the first few times we used them but learned to button the legs a little tighter and haven't had a problem since. It feels very gratifying to be saving the money and the landfill space by using "Fuzzibunz," and since they have multiple snaps they're easy to use and will grow with her right up through potty training.
Life with Marian continues to fly by, and each week seems to bring new excitement and new achievements...stay tuned!

One month down...hundreds to go!

9/23/10 marked Marian's one month anniversary. It did go by quickly, but only in retrospect!
We marked the day by taking her to the pediatrician, poor dear -- fortunately she's not due for immunizations until her two-month. Instead, we found out that she's 9lbs3oz, and we learned how to put her on a sleep schedule. Basically, we put her down at 8pm every night, awake or not, and we wait out her crying, and she falls asleep. The longest she's cried is about 45 minutes -- the MD said we can check on her every 15 to make sure nothing's wrong, but we have to wait 2 hours before we can soothe her. We've never had to do that -- her average crying jag is 15 minutes and then she crashes out. When she wakes up again, we feed her, change her, and put her right back down, preferably awake. In this way she learns to self-soothe. The idea is that eventually as her sleep cycles end and she wakes up, she'll learn to just go right back to sleep without needing us to intervene.
Her longest sleeping jag has been 4.5 hours, but the average is more like 3. Lately it's even shorter -- she hit the 6 week mark and is experiencing a growth spurt (apparently 6 weeks is a common time for a growth spurt) and she becomes hungry within practically an hour and a half of being fed, when as I said it used to be more like three. We're starting to feed her more per sitting to see if we can satisfy her. So far we can't seem to stuff her for long. But the book says these "cluster feedings" last a couple days and then chill out, so hopefully that will be the case. Steve and I are still alternating nights for who gets up to feed and change her, so each of us is getting mostly-consistent sleep every other night.
This Wednesday I'll have my 6 week postpartum check up to see how I've been doing. I'm hopeful that everything will be fine and I can exercise again -- I really miss it. And I really need my ab muscles back (what there was of them) because my back is compensating and getting achy. Marian's 9 pounds can feel much heavier after a long enough time holding her. Holding her though, no matter what, is such a sweet feeling.
For most of her life during her calm and awake states she will go through a repertoire of mouth movements and gestures that make it look like she's trying to orate. She's becoming more diverse in her vocal range as well -- "ahs" and "icks" and grumbles and squeaks and squeals and sighs. Those who meet her and know babies almost always describe her as alert, but she's upped the ante for the last few weeks: she's been in nearly constant movement when I sit holding her against me on her belly. It's like she's trying to mountain climb: her legs are kicking, her hands are grasping, she's looking up over my shoulder like the horizon is right there, calling to her.
Get used to that, kiddo -- it really is.