7 months!

Time flies. I keep saying it, but it's so true!

Anyways, I've been told that my posts are huge essays, 

so I'm going to keep this brief.

G is now eating sweet potatoes and peas, in addition to brown rice (all organic and home-made). It's actually much easier than I had anticipated. I prep about 1 ounce for her, maybe half stays in her mouth. Here she is after a sweet potato meal.  BTW, peas smell really funky on a baby...

Mom got a new toy, and so did baby. G enjoyed playing with her two new boxes. S also enjoys her new toy, and E is also getting addicted to it as well (I should add that my parents came in town about 24 hours ago, and both are now addicted and I can't watch tv or play on it myself and now my mom wants me to find a Wii for her - I should also note here that my grandfather has been playing his Wii for over a year now, he loves bowling and tennis). I was able to convince E to get one after we went over to a friend's house to play on her Wii and Wii Fit. She says that all new moms should have one (see? doctor recommended!!) She also uses her storage box (of too small clothes) as a toy/drum. At this age, anything makes a great toy!

G is also creeping all over the place, and can be quite persistent and fast when she really wants too. We have pretty much switched over G to 6-9 month sized clothes, though there are still a few 3-6 things floating around in her wardrobe. 

And best of all, we finally got over our fear of the gDiapers and tested one out in the toilet. After it didn't clog, we got up the courage to put one on her. They are GREAT, we love them (even E can flush them by himself) even though the inserts are pricey, they are worth it for helping out the environment. I still keep thinking about cloth to use instead of the inserts, but can't really get past having to wash them (and don't want to use a diaper service) so for now, this is the best we can do for the environment. And they look so cute on G, with the "g" printed on the back! For now, we only use it at home (and after she has pooped). EC is also going well, she had another successful poop on the toilet this morning.

Christmas in September

Yesterday, G finished ALL her rice cereal, it was about 1 ounce, and I was so happy. It took about 30 minutes (maybe we weren't patient enough before to have her finish), a little bit of fussing, changing scenery/positions 2 times, but at least she finished. I'll add the pic of her finishing and sitting in her high chair later (I'm on a time crunch before she wakes up from her nap).

I think Sunday evenings will be my baby food mashing night. Last night, I made a sweet potato and was surprised that I could fill both of my trays with all of it (one spoonful in each container, 8 containers per tray). It was easy to make once I looked up a recipe and decided on a cooking method (I wanted to bake it but we ran out of foil so I peeled and diced it and boil/steamed it, only took a few minutes to fork tenderness), then blended with a hand blender. We decided not to invest in a big blender at this time, for lack of funds, so I can only make things that I can blend with the hand blender (that means once my rice cereal powder/flour runs out, I have to buy the pre-made stuff, sigh).

So why is it Christmas in September? Yesterday at church, we got a high chair hand-me-down from a friend, so now G has a place to sit when we feed her instead of one of us having to hold her. We also got 2 bags of mostly 6-9 month clothing from another friend. Her third baby is just old enough that she outgrows the clothes that G is just starting to grow into, so it works out perfectly for us. So now the couch is covered in clothes in different piles, sorted, but not yet washed. G is now pretty much set in the clothing department all the way up to 3 years. I've organized her clothes into shallow plastic bins and most of them are full already! It's great because it takes off the pressure of having to buy a lot of clothes to outfit her, but we still have the flexibility to buy the occasional cute item (on sale, of course!).

And lastly, G finally got her first Janie & Jack outfit. This boutique store is one of those stores where you buy gifts for other people's kids but not for your own because it's so expensive. Their clothes are really cute. The other day, I went into one store and almost bought G an outfit for next year that was on sale, but even on sale, I just couldn't justify it. This outfit is so cute, perfect for the fall, and I can't wait to get G into it! Anyways, a friend from church gave G this present as a "thank you" because we gave her my old 3/4 size violin (she just outgrew her 1/2 size one).

Food & Locomotion Defined

As promised, I (E) finally downloaded the latest pics from the camera. Here she is getting a preview of things, tasting her bib...Her first tastes:

How much G had when she started:

How much was left when she had enough (note not much difference):

Daddy, that's MY food!

E had to finish her food again on Thursday, G ate even less, only 3-4 spoonfuls before very clearly letting us know she was done. My milk is frozen in 4-6 ounce bags, I might need to break off chunks instead of thawing out the whole bag, as once it's thawed, it's only good for a few days and can't be re-frozen.

Also, I finally got the lowdown on baby locomotion. Everyone knows what walking and crawling are, but babies do a lot more than that. Creeping is what G is doing, the army belly crawl pulling and pushing herself either backwards or forwards on the belly. Scooting is similar to creeping but from a sitting position, that is, using the hands/arms to move around while sitting. Cruising is what babies do when they use other objects (chair, sofa, crib, parent) to hold onto while they walk along, like a make-shift walker.

Locomotion!

G is officially on the move! Today, after her Little Gym class, we went grocery shopping (well, I shopped while she napped). When we got home, I turned on the front sprinklers, took out the groceries from the car, took G out of the car and put her on her playmat, put away the groceries, went out to turn off the sprinklers, came back to get G on the playmat only to find her totally NOT on the playmat. She was about 6 feet away from where I had placed her, off the mat by several feet, next to the sofa. Does she look happy to see me or surprised that I "caught" her? Yes, we will be baby-proofing and keeping a closer eye on her.

You may be wondering how exactly is she moving? She's rolling, which is old news. She's also scooting or creeping, which is the new news. Picture a soldier creeping around flat on the ground using his arms, and that's what G is doing. She uses her hands and arms to pull her body along. Her legs are trying to help, but it's mostly the arms at this point. We always knew her legs were strong from all her jumping and standing, but we never realized how strong her arms were!

Yosemite update: We stayed 2 night in a tent cabin in Curry Village. Our cabin was in a different area from everyone else's, which turned out to be a good thing. We hiked with G in her backpack carrier along the bottom of the Half Dome trail, to the second bridge. E was disappointed that we didn't go up the Mist Trail, but it was hot, he looked tired, I was tired, and I just felt that we weren't really prepared. Later that night, I woke up to rangers outside our cabin with flashlights. I didn't see or hear any bears, but I can only assume that was the reason. Apparently it was enough to wake up G and she was really upset. It took a long time to stop her crying, and after one failed attempt to put her back down in her mini-tent, I realized that I had to just hold her all night long rather than risk keeping everyone else in the camp awake, so E helped me put her in the carrier and I sat on a chair with her sleeping on me like that the rest of the night. Later, I heard what sounded like two gunshots, which we found out later were air rifles that the rangers used to scare away bears. I was so tired from sitting in the chair (that wasn't very comfortable) with her all night long, that I sent E with G to breakfast with the others while I stayed behind to sleep.
And as promised (only 3 weeks later), the pics from her first Little Gym class:

2024 Olympics, here we come...

Stay tuned for her feeding update...

Ketchup or Catsup?

I mean Catch Up (haha, yes, I'm a dork!)...

G's getting more vocal, practicing her B sounds (b-b-b, not buh or ba) and loves doing it, even when protesting/crying. She also went to a playdate recently and learned a very high-pitched scream. She couldn't learn to be a good eater, to sit longer, or crawl, but she did learn the scream.

Here is G in our first successful EC attempt. Since this photo, she has had one more (half way, because she already started it in her diaper before we got to the toilet) successful attempt. I still have to learn how to wipe her more efficiently after she's used the toilet, as it's a different angle than when she's on the changing table.
Here are some photos from our camping trip a couple weeks ago, up to Lake Tahoe Emerald Bay. We used her little tent inside our little tent (ours was by far the smallest tent at camp, most families had car-camping type of tents, we had a small backpacking tent). The little tent helped to keep her confined, as she moves a lot when she sleeps. Here she is in her tent and sleeping bag.

In the morning, I snuck her into my sleeping bag because she looked so cuddly!

E took her on a little hike to see the Balancing Rock.Here we are back at camp. We didn't bring many toys because we knew she'd find all sorts of other things to entertain herself. I think she liked my water botttle because it was shiny.

I know she liked this empty chip bag because of the crinkly sound it made.

Here are a few photos from her latest photoshoots:
Little Gym photos will have to wait until we get back from our weekend trip to Yosemite.