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Trying to hide

Katherine likes to play on the rug in her room. I usually nurse her in the morning and then put her on the floor with some toys, set up the baby gate (to keep Hooligan out) and get myself ready. I poke my head in about every minute to check on her. Today I poked my head in and could not see her though I could hear her. I stepped over the gate and saw her almost totally under the bed. She was having a ball kicking the bottom of the bed.

Later today we were playing at Sammy’s house and he ended up 100% under the bed and tried to poke his head up. He was not too happy to hit his head on the underside of the bed.

I'm 6 months old today!

Katherine, I cannot believe that today you are 6 months old, half of a year. Time sure flies. It seems like I just brought you home from the hospital yet that seems a lifetime ago.

Every month I think it is more fun being your mom than the month before. It really does get more and more fun because you are able to do so much more. This month it seems that you have grown leaps and bounds in your abilities. You are sitting up all by yourself for a long time. You push up onto all fours and rock back and forth like you are going to take off crawling any moment now. You roll all over the place. Sometimes when you are playing in your room you will roll under the bed. Sometimes you think it is fun to kick and hear the noise of the mattress and sometimes it makes you mad to be stuck under there. You also can pull yourself up from sitting to standing if there is something for you to grab on to. Daddy and I need to get busy on babyproofing the house.

You are so much more expressive when you communicate, both the happy and the not so happy communication. You have a lot of different types of cries and many kinds of giggles, squeals of delight and babbles. Nana and I loved it when you started to laugh when we were shopping. We never could figure out what was so funny.

You have started to act shy sometimes when someone is talking to you. That is really different because you love people. You will give them a big smile and then bury your head in my shoulder.

You have really started to notice and love Hooligan. If it were up to you, you and Hooligan would be allowed to play on the floor together all the time. It does not bother you that she wants to lick your face, but I won’t allow it.

You started eating sweet potatoes. You like them OK. Today you would have nothing to do with them at all so we will wait and try again tomorrow. You still don’t take a bottle so mommy is ready for you to start drinking from a sippy cup. Mommy is ready for you to get some nourishment from other sources besides her. That is getting quite exhausting as you are getting bigger and eating more often.

As usual we have done a lot of fun things this month. We have gone swimming, shopping, out to eat, many many playdates and playgroups. You are pretty easy going and happy when we are out and about. Mommy likes that because she would be pretty miserable if she had to stay home every day.

This month you were quite a stinker when I was trying to take your monthly picture in the chair. Now that you are sitting up and moving around, you would not sit still for the picture. You also were so interested in the piece of paper that announces your age. It was very hard to get a picture of you sitting tall, looking at the camera and holding the paper. My favorite ones are when you look like you will crawl off the chair and when you are holding the paper all crumpled up. It shows your fun and curious personality.

Take a look at all of her 6 month pictures by clicking on the album.

Katherine-6 months

Jul 27, 2006 - 20 Photos

Katherine, I cannot wait to see what you do this month. I look forward to the adventure.

Mommy

puffy eye

Today at the end of playgroup I noticed that Katherine’s face was splotchy on one side. At first I did not notice because she had been crying. Since she is so fair, she often gets red after crying and when it is a really good cry, her face is spotted. She had been fussing, but not really badly.

I had to go up to church and when I got there, it was still really splotchy, just on one side. Other’s noticed it and were concerned as well so I called the doctor’s office. We are supposed to go in on Thursday for her six month check up so I was going to see if I could just move that to this afternoon. No luck, but they could get me in to see another doctor in the practice. I snatched the appointment.

When I hung up, I started to questions that I had reacted too quickly so I called the advice nurse. I described Katherine’s rash but we decided that since she was not really swollen, purple, fussy or feverish we could wait and watch it. They said if anything changed to come in tomorrow, otherwise wait until our appointment on Thursday.

She was fussy the rest of the afternoon, but I attribute it more to the fact that she was tired and there was no where to nap because we were up at the church and then at Bible study. It has gone down, but her eye is still puffy and when she cries, her face gets red and spotty again.

Katherine has really been a very healthy baby. The only times we have been to the doctor were for her routine well baby exams. This was really the first time I thought about taking her in for something wrong with her. I hope I did the right thing.

The picture was taken a few hours after I talked to the doctor when it looked much better than it had. You can see that her right eye is still puffy though.

Today we hit another milestone. Katherine is ready for the restaurant high chair. We are excited because our car seat is wider than the standard Graco version that 99.9% of all new moms have. So, it does not fit in the restaurant high chairs which is not too safe anyway. Anytime we would eat out (way to often) we sould take Katherine in her car seat in the stroller. Well now she is sitting well enough to sit in a high chair. This will be so much easier. She really liked it.

Open wide

Today we started “solid” foods with Katherine. I have to admit, I was a little sad. It means my little girl is growing up and is going to need me less, at least when it comes to eating. As my mom said though, she has to start eating sometime. Mom, you are right, I will not be breastfeeding my college student, or even my preschool student for that matter. So, I knew I had to begin sometime.

I have been putting off starting solids for as long as possible. Part of it was pride. I wanted to say that I exclusively breastfed Katherine for her first 6 months. Well, we started three days before that date, but she was born three days late so that is OK. I also put it off because breastfeeding is so easy and convenient. Her food is always ready, it is free and I love that time where we have one another’s undivided attention. I did not look forward to having to prepare food and spend a lot of time getting her to eat it. I do not look forward to having to pack food and snacks when we go out. And I especially do not look forward to the stinky diapers that come with solids.

Last week I really realized that I should not wait any longer. Katherine has been showing some of the signs of readiness for the past few weeks. She has able to sit in a high chair and hold her head steady. She has been showing interest in and grabbing for our food. And, she has been eating much more frequently for the past week or two. That was when I realized that even though I would like to put it off, she really needed to start solid food.

So, we waited until this morning to that Sam could be there to watch and video. I prepared homemade sweet potato baby food a few days ago. We put her in her high chair, got out her fancy silver cup and spoon, strapped on the new bib and went for it.

The first bite brought a funny face. She scrunched up her eyebrows and looked at us with a questioning face. But, it all stayed in her mouth! She kept giving us funny looks, but she kept opening her mouth when the spoon came at her. It was obvious when she was done because she no longer would open her mouth. I would guess that she ate between one and two tablespoons. On the final attempt, she grabbed the spoon so she had sweet potato all over her hands.

Check out more pictures here:

 

Katherine August

Jul 27, 2006 - 7 Photos

 

I took a look at our statcounter last night to see how many people have been visiting our blog and where they were from. This is always interesting to me. It seems that some of you out there are repeat visitors but I have no clue who you are. So, identify yourself if you are from Virginia (linking from Chrys’s blog), Florida, New York, Mansfield, etc.

Until this week all my visitors had been from the US. Then my friend Tamara from Australia visited. The oddest visitor though was from Turkey. I thought, who in the world do I know from Turkey. No one that I could think of. My friend Amy has been there so I thought maybe she had told her friend that lives there to look at my blog. I have looked at theirs. Then I saw how they linked to our blog. It was a google search. How random. I wonder what they were really looking for?