28 Weeks Old

Little Nora is sleeping on the couch next to me wearing size 9 month pajamas that fit her perfectly. I can't believe how big she is getting already! I will be very interested to see how much she gains this month   given her newly expanded diet (I'll take her in to get weighed even though we don't go in for a check-up this month).  She's eaten just about everything I've let her. The first picture shows her eating zucchini - I normally cut it in circles but made hers in french fry like shapes. She devoured three of them which ended up being at least a third of the whole zucchini (maybe closer to half of it). I actually thought she was dropping them down the side of her high chair, but no, she was eating them! She loves cheese, eggs, potatoes, asparagus (those are the new ones this week). She still likes to feed herself, but she did let us feed her cheese.

She's finally enjoying (or at least tolerating) the stroller which makes going to the park and on walks much more enjoyable. The wrap is great for trips to the store and short walks, but anything else and she's getting a bit heavy for me to carry like that. I've been keeping my eyes open for a used Ergo carrier, but they are so popular I haven't been able to find one yet. With Henry riding his pedal bike so amazingly well, it's fun for us to go to Willamette Park and ride and walk. I'm looking forward to getting a baby carrier for my bike so Nora and I can ride with him.

The video is just a silly one of Henry making her laugh by blowing his vuvuzela.

27 Weeks Old

 A day late...

Lots of eating pictures this week! The list of foods she's tried continues to grow. Mostly good, whole foods - vegetables, some fruits, meats, but she's also had some frozen yogurt and jam (thanks, Gigi!). And I will say that she certainly LOVES the sweets. Seeing her devour anything with sweetness has made me reconsider doing purees because I really want her to develop the same love of vegis that Henry has. With him, I fed him a diet of nearly 100% vegetable purees and, while I can't definitively say this is the reason why, he certainly does love his vegis now.

 I did try giving her a little baby oatmeal mixed with breastmilk today and she completely refused it. Then at dinner I tried to give her some mashed up carrots which she also refused. I think it might be me trying to feed her that she is actually refusing rather than the food. I think this because she has tried absolutely everything else she has been given when she can feed it to herself.

In the picture of her in the exersaucer she is eating a baby rice cracker while Wilbur waits expectantly in hopes she'll drop it to him.


 She continues to be a happy, content baby in love with her big brother and enchanted by everything he does. She is doing great sitting up and "playing" with her toys (grabbing them, biting them, discarding them).

Lots of smiles...except, of course, when we went to have her six month pictures taken at the mall...then she pretty much refused to smile and mostly just fussed. Henry was a champ though (took his 5 year photos) - I know he doesn't particularly enjoy getting his picture taken, but he did great and the pictures should turn out really well. I can't wait to get them!

I love her chubby cheeks - and hope her dimples become more pronounced as she gets older. Also, her hair does have a tint of red to it; but so did Henry's and now it doesn't really, so who knows. No change in her eye color (yet) - still blue.

Henry's Birthday Part 2

 Henry had an awesome birthday party with all his friends last Friday at Pump It Up. Pump It Up is a place with lots of those big, inflatable bouncy houses and slides. It's one of Henry's favorite places to go and he was so super excited to have his 5th birthday party there. I was so happy for him to be able to have this special time to celebrate HIM and to have all the attention and focus on him. All of his preschool classmates were there plus some of his other friends that don't go to his school as well.

6 Months Old! (26 Weeks)

Nora is officially six months old today! And, miracle of miracles, we actually had her six month check-up scheduled for today as well. Both she and Henry went in for their check-ups at the same time which was very convenient.

Here are the important statistics - weight is 17 pounds, 2 1/2 ounces and height was measured at 27 inches which seemed wrong to me at the time and now that I've had a chance to review my notes I realize it definitely has to be wrong because they measured her at 27 inches last month and she's definitely grown! Even at 27 inches this month it puts her in the 90th percentile. Her weight puts her in the 69th percentile so she continues to grow bigger and bigger in terms of her percentile curve (was in the 65th percentile last month). Love it, love it, love it! With all the struggles I had in the beginning with Henry and nursing and doubting my supply it feels really, really great to know my body knows what it's doing and to see a chubby little baby grow and grow as a result!

Speaking of food...she continues to try lots of new foods. Let's see...in the past week she's tasted/chewed (maybe swallowed a bit) steak, chicken, cantaloupe, peas, banana, cauliflower and bread. I may be forgetting some. The only thing she's actually eaten in any meaningful quantity is avocado. Well, maybe a good bit of banana as well. Banana, I've discovered, is actually the perfect food to let her feed herself as she can pick it up and squish it herself. The avocado doesn't squish as nicely as the banana and tends to break of in chunks (hence the mesh feeder).  I have a sweet potato ready to be cooked for her...maybe tomorrow?

The pictures are (in order from top to bottom): Henry giving Nora a hug. He continues to be so sweet with her and asks to hold her at least once a day. I love this picture because they really look like they are hugging. Then a picture of Nora tasting steak...at first she seemed to not like it at all, but then she couldn't get enough of it and I actually had to cut her another piece because the one she had started to fall apart.  Below that, another picture of the brother and sister. Although it's not a great picture I like it because it shows of her chubby rolls all up and down her chest and tummy. So cute!! And finally a picture of her new favorite pass time - taking toys out of that yellow bin one at a time, inspecting them, then tossing them aside. The key to this activity is the yellow bin. If I just put a pile of toys in front of her she has little interest in them, but if I put them in the bin, she is fascinated with pulling them out one at a time and putting them down outside the bin until the bin is empty. (At which point, you guessed it, I put them all back in and she starts over!)

Henry had his friend birthday party this week...but I will do a separate post for that...maybe tomorrow or the next day.

Nora's First Food

I thought I would give this special milestone it's own post - Nora's first real food! Here are some pictures of her eating the avocado...after she was all done I realized that this is probably why you start giving your kids a bath every night! I forgot how very messy the whole eating thing actually is.

First taste!

Figuring out how to hold it and feed herself.

Yummy! And messy!

More successful when Mommy helps.

Wait! Where'd it go? Give it back!

25 Weeks Old

Lots of excitement this week! We gave Nora her first food! First she got to try chicken (seriously, who has chicken as their first food?!?) - she grabbed a piece of chicken off my Mom's plate and just sucked and sucked and sucked on it until it started to shred. At that point I took it away from her; then a couple nights later I let her do the same thing at home. She really loved it. That's her "eating" the chicken in the first picture. Then last night, we gave her avocado in a mesh feeder which she absolutely devoured! She couldn't get enough. Haven't given her anything today - I'd like to see how her tummy handles the avocado first. She has been very fussy this evening which I don't know whether to attribute to the new food or teething so I'm glad I didn't give her anything else today. We'll just stick to the avocado for awhile. I got some baby oatmeal at the store and maybe we can try that next week although I've read a lot about the baby led weaning technique in which you basically skip cereals and purees and go straight for soft, mushy foods they can feed themselves (like avocado). I like that idea a lot but at the same time she is so eager to try foods that it might be hard not to give her purees. We'll just play it by ear and see how it goes. She's drinking out of an open cup extremely well...although NOT coffee even though she's trying to in the picture above! She tries to drink out of any cup that's near her and I couldn't resist taking a picture of her trying desperately to get to my coffee.
She is sitting up so well on her own. She still tumbles over every now and then but not very frequently and can stay seated for quite a long time. I put a bin of toys in front of her and she likes to pull them out one at a time, look at them, then toss them aside. Still no rolling over. I keep practicing with her but she hasn't done it on her own yet. She's quite content to stay on her belly for a long time so she doesn't have a lot of motivation to get onto her back. On the other hand, when she's on her back she will turn to her side to try and reach things on the floor...so maybe she'll go from  back to front before front to back. I love this picture of the two of them - Henry, big brother, so serious with his hands on little sister's shoulders as she smiles gleefully.

 For some reason I'm having a hard time uploading videos again. Hopefully I will be able to figure out why and remedy the problem. So in the meantime, here she is in her Easter dress in her exersaucer...

Easter

Nora's first Easter! We had a great, pretty relaxing Easter enjoying the first really nice, warm weekend of the year.  We kicked off the celebrating with  the annual Egg Hunt with Brett's parents. Henry always has a blast racing across the driving range grabbing as many eggs as he can. It was also his chance to get his photo taken with the Easter Bunny.

 Easter morning Henry woke up and found his and Nora's Easter baskets set out for them. Since he still didn't want the bunny to come into our house (his request for the last couple years) we set the baskets outside for the bunny. However, I had to get up early to let Wilbur outside so at that point I just brought the filled baskets inside. ;)  Being the good big brother that he is, he looked through Nora's basket first and showed her each item, then laid them all out to look at (as seen in the picture below).  Then it was time to hunt for eggs in our yard.

 I didn't count them, but I know there were a TON of eggs - Henry had to call in Dad to be his basket carrier there were so many.

Then it was time to open ALL those eggs which were mostly filled with candy and some quarters. I have a feeling next year there might be more quarters than candy...just a hunch I have.  Henry had a very unique (although ineffective) method of opening his eggs...cracking them on the side of the bowl as if they were real eggs. 

Then we headed to Merriweather's for brunch with my family and everyone came over to our house after for some sweet treats and visiting. All in all a great Easter. Now we are back to our regular school schedule and Henry's new term of extra-curricular classes beginning. He's taking a new acting class (different program and teacher) and swimming. We might end up doing another class since the swimming is on Saturday...we'll see how it goes.