still the flowers grow

Monday, March 24, 2014

She is getting so OLD

I can’t believe Nora is now a big 7 month old!

Teeth—Her first tooth finally came through last week, followed a couple days later by another. They are sharp and she makes the funniest faces as she gets used to these new things in her mouth.
Mimicking—this is the most exciting development for me. For the last week or so I have had a feeling that she is starting to mimic certain actions. For some reason this makes her seem like so much more of a little human to me. The first time I noticed this was when I was signing her “Twinkle, Twinkle” and making the motions for stars. She stared at her hands and seemed to be trying to open and close them like I was doing with mine. Now I also think that she is waving at people, and others seem to agree. This new “trick” get’s a lot of attention, though it is of course sporadic and often delayed.
Eating—she is a definite eater now. She has regular meals (breakfast almost always, then lunch and/or dinner). She loves trying new things, feeding herself, and the whole experience. Going along with this:
Messes—lots of them.
Planning—I have to think of her when meal planning and grocery shopping now. For some reason this seems like a major milestone.
Moving—she isn’t officially crawling (and I still think that is a ways off), but she moves. She rolls, turns, and scoots a bit. Often backwards. She sticks her butt in the air and scoots the tinniest bit at a time.
Pincher/dexterity—she can pick up the tiny, tiniest little thing (which means I really have to watch out for little stones, etc…) and she almost always spoon feeds herself (ie I put the puree on a spoon, hand it to her or set it in front of her, and she puts it in her mouth).
Library—I checked out the first book ever for Nora. Smile.

Always growing and changing!

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Personality: Happy girl (almost all the time). By far the most common thing people comment on is how smiley she is. I just love her happy-go-lucky personality. She loves to smile, laugh, and giggle. I think it is hilarious how even if she is tired or getting crabby and you smile at her she usually just has to smile back. I love how she seeks people out to smile at—if someone walks past her she is usually going to smile at them and they usually then feel the need to smile back and often come chat.

People very often also comment, “that baby never cries!” Well, she’s tricking of course: she does cry. She wouldn’t be part of this family if she didn’t have some fire! She is most apt to cry at night time—if she is tired and I am not around she can be very, very crabby. And sometimes if she isn’t sleeping well she has to cry a bit in her crib ;-( She also cries when I am getting ready to nurse because she isn’t getting what she wants fast enough. Makes being discrete a bit hard!

Physical: She’s a happy chubby girl. She was 19.6 pounds at her 6 month appt. (around 80th percentile I believe), 26 1/2 inches long (60th percentile though I think that might be a little off—her legs definitely grow out of everything), and 17 3/8 inches head circumference. Lots of chub and folds.

I’m not going to even talk about her eyes. They just look like a muddle of all different colors to me right now. I love watching her hair fill in verrrrrrrryyyyy slowly. Looks curly and light-ish reddish.

Her skin is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better!!!! We finally made it to the allergist. We started with the skin pricks. It seems she is allergic to cats (which makes a lot of sense in retrospect) and possibly to milk and eggs. Since it was ambiguous whether she was allergic to milk and eggs the allergist sent us to the hospital for blood testing. This was a horrible flop. They (2 different phlebotomists at Fletcher Allen) tried three times and could not get her blood. It was so horrible. Anyways… the allergist did give me lots of tips on how to treat her skin better and between her tips and keeping the cat away and milk and eggs out of my diet, it healed up almost all the way very quickly. I am now introducing milk and eggs back into my diet to see what that does. But it is nice to see her without such horrible eczema.

She is a pretty stable sitter (though I don’t give her a ton of practice since our floor is cement). She is not a huge mover though. She doesn’t seem terribly close to crawling. She is super at being on her tummy and turns herself well—she will play around on the floor or in her crib for good chunks of time. She is just starting to stick her butt up in the air a little—almost in crawling position, so maybe some progress…I don’t think she is going to hit her moving milestones as early as Joseph—but I think she might talk more!

Eating habits: She is really eating now and it is so fun. I just give her little bits, but of lots of different things. I am doing all different ways of giving her food—store bought purees, finger foods, and various foods in her silicon feeder thingy (thanks for all the inspiration Meredith!). After we drop Joseph off at school every day we have a leisurely breakfast together. I undress Nora completely so she can really go to town. She usually has pieces of banana or avocado and a puree—sometimes with cereal mixed in. I feed her some on a spoon, but mostly let her get it all over. She actually is starting to really spoon feed herself! Then I stick her in the sink and wash her off.

She sits in her highchair during all her meals now, which means I get to eat with both hands! I am now giving her food for one other meal a day as well. I am enjoying trying hard to give her a healthy variety and enjoy giving her tastes of what we are having. Bean soup was a big hit (again inspired by Meredith)!

She still nurses about every three hours—sometimes a little longer in between but not much.

Also, she has no problem taking bottles, which is awesome. I’ve worked a couple days here and there and had some meetings and such, and it is wonderful to know she can eat. She has no problem if I leave during the day, much harder if Brad has to put her to sleep for the night.

Sleep: Better! Not great, but better. She usually wakes 3 times, which is a bit much for this age, but she just nurses and goes back to sleep. She goes to sleep pretty easily at about 7-7:30, nurses at around 11, 2, and 4 and then wakes for the day about 6:30. She is usually in her crib in her room all night, though sometimes in our bed or her rock n play. I’m still debating sleep training, but haven’t really bit he bullet yet. Sometimes nights are worse, but usually not too bad. But I promised myself I would do everything I possibly could to instill self-soothing and good sleep habits in this child…so, undecided.

Days are usually pretty good: she naps about 9 for about an hour and a half, then around 1 for an hour. Sometimes she still takes a third nap, sometimes not, though she still seems to need it. I still am staying home a lot since she sleeps better and is so happy, but she does ok when we are off schedule too.

Nicknames: Babystein, Norastein, Noranator, Norabelle, Stinkerbelle, Noni (Brad’s the nickname guy clearly)

Mom stuff: Not too much. I just love 6 months! It is a great age. And she’s a pretty great babe. Luckily everyone is healthy this month! Oh, I am on a big healthy eating and exercising kick which has been awesome. I love trying out new recipes and foods and have even finally lost a few pounds.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Think they are related?

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

January Pictures!

Out of order, but skating with the Middlebury College hockey team. VERY fun!

Nora’s first time in a sled.

Nora sleeping in her own room! This was just after we set it up and she started to sleep in there. I love her having her own room. It really helped me be more scheduled and consistent with her. I almost always rock and nurse her in the rocking chair then put her into her crib (sometimes asleep, sometimes awake) for every nap and nighttime if we are home. Sometimes she eventually comes into our room at night, but she spends more and more time in her own room. One of my very favorite things is seeing my two kids sleeping in their rooms next to each other, each with their little nightlight. So cozy.

Her horrible eczema (it has since gotten much better!)

Watching the Panther’s hockey game (Middlebury College)

Nora has many admirer's

Skating with the team was a blast

Getting autographs

Cutie

A horrible horrible night. Ive kindof blocked this out. I guess the transition to the crib didn’t go terribly smoothly.

In a new snowsuit from Auntie Jenn.

Warm and cozy watching brother play hockey.

I love this picture

So cute

Very wintery…

Until this point she would almost always go to sleep in the swing. The suddenly one day all she would do was sit up and play! It changed very quickly.

Joseph reading a chapter book for his own enjoyment (meaning not assigned by school) for the first time.

It is hard to get him to stop reading these days.

Reading to Nora

Happy, happy girl in her Jumperoo

New car the day Brad got it! This is what I drive now.

This fascinated me when I was a kid and Joseph loves it as well. He always goes right to it when we visit great-gram.

The two Noras.

Telling secrets.

First day of wrestling!

And Tae Kwon Do!

Millionaire monopoly one day when Cole was over.

Looking cute!

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

The rest of December pictures-Christmas! Jenn and family visit! Cousins! More family!

Visiting with grandma

Cookie making!!!

Yumm!

Good work!

Nora and Kaia! A big part of our holiday this year was Jenn and family visiting. So super fun!

Playing with the gales old legos (of which I was always jealous)

Reading with Jodi

Back at home we had so much ice Joseph could skate around the yard!

Christmas eve with cousins

Santa baby

The two babies!

With grandpa bob

Back at home after Debbie’s christmas eve party Joseph and nora opened their first present: matching christmas pajamas! (I worked really, really, really hard to find matching pajamas in size 8 and 6 months that didn’t cost a ton)

Ack. So cute.

Treats for santa and the reindeer

Santa came!

Christmas morning! (Joseph was up at 3:30 begging to open presents, but we made him wait to a dignified hour of 5:30)

After our house we headed to grandma and grandpas. The celebration started—as always—with hot cocoa and cinnamon buns

Cousins ready to open presnets

I guess I didn’t get any pictures of present opening. But I did snap a quick photo of these presents that joseph made for his cousins. In the weeks leading up to Christams he made TONS of these little presents for people—completely on his own.

Playing with his presents.

Nora got some squash in her stocking, so she also got her first time eating real food!

She was skeptical at first, but then really liked it! She would (and still does) open her mouth like a little bird and chase the spoon.

Dressed up for Christmas (first time wearing tights—I thought dressing a girl would be easier than boys, but it is actually more complicated!)

Next we headed up to see great-gram (Nora) and the rest of my Mom’s family in Lincoln.

More presents.

More food!

Joseph discovered a love for the trumpet. The well loved family trumpet (so far it has been played by my aunt Eileen, me, my cousin Charlie, and my cousin Jasper).

We spent the night in Lincoln. Here we were visiting the next morning.

And then some more time with Jenn!

Hmmm…pictures out of order. Joseph loves when we let Nora in the bath with him.

But usually she still goes in the baby bath.

Our first major injury! Which actually ended up not being very major. Joseph got a swiss army knife for christmas and was using it to open some really, really stubborn packaging and managed to cut his thumb. It bled a lot and scared both of us, but healed up just fine.