Felicity - 8 Months Old!

 Felicity turned 8m old on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. She seems so much bigger than a month ago when I look back!!

 She started a basic level of mobility when we were in San Diego (May 11-14). That was a sort of three point crawl where her hands, one knee, and one foot (her left foot) were on the floor. She wouldn't put that left knee down. Now, two weeks later, she is a very good traditional crawler who can go where she wants, though is still not sure she will get there. I am sure that will come in a day or two. The same time she was working on crawling she also started pulling up A LOT. And, by pulling up, I mean going into a four point stance with her hands on any slightly raised surface. She started doing this in Flagstaff (May 9th) and kept doing it more and more and more. Now she is really close to flat out standing. She WANTS to be standing. She will happily stand with one hand holding onto something (like my pant leg) while waving the other hand in joy. And - she has started to let go. Any day now she will let go and won't fall over right away. She also cruises a bit, though she is still working on that.

And what does she do with this new found power? She tries to get wherever I am. She harasses the animals. She seeks out new and interesting things to put in her mouth. Being able to pull up in her crib and pull up on the coffee table has opened up some whole new worlds to her. Now if we can keep her from ingesting random carpet fibers and rocks, and keep her from pulling giant books onto her head, she should live to see her first birthday.

For eating, she is at the stage where she is interested in putting EVERYTHING in her mouth, so when it happens to be food it usually goes well. Except cauliflower. She rejected cauliflower tonight for sure (but happily ate broccoli, tomato, strawberry, baked beans, and a pickle). At dinner last night she demolished an entire slice of lemon and was intent on eating the rind as well (but I took it from her). She likes pizza. She likes soup. She likes cottage cheese. She likes olives. She likes bacon. She likes green beans. She likes pretty much everything we have given her. Besides cauliflower. Her pincer grip is pretty decent and gets better everyday.

She also LOVES to talk. She babbles a lot, and very loudly. I am not sure she actually has any new sounds since last time - Da, Ba, Ya, Wa, and Ma. She also makes a popping noise sometimes, and a sort of swallowed "g" noise. She likes to mimic a lot now. She learned on the way home from San Diego that she could make short noises as well as long when the flight attendant started "roaring" at her. She is interested in singing and music and variation in pitch though she does not really do it yet. She can clap if she wants to and likes when other people clap.

In the last few days I have been making an effort to read her more books and she actually seems to enjoy it quite a bit. I think she really would love a texture book, she likes to touch EVERYTHING. We have some somewhere but I need to pull them out. She tries to "feel" the pictures in "Brown Bear Brown Bear What to You See?" She likes the turning pages.

Overall, she is a very happy baby still. She is almost always smiley and happy. She has started some of the "You took what I wanted!" crying when a toy or piece of food (or remote control or rock) is removed from her  possession, but overall she is cheerful. She loves when you talk directly to her. She loves her brother, even when he is tackling her (right until her face gets pushed into the floor).

Her biggest love though is Mom. She wants to stay within 18 inches of me at all times. Depending on the moment it can be adorable or stressful or overwhelming. She is growing so fast and I love to watch her grow.

7 months

Felicity turned 7 months old lately!
Oh how much she has grown and changed.

Gross Motor: Felicity is full of movement but not quite mobile!! She sits like a boss, she can roll over either way as she so desires. She pulls up on things - especially on people. She loves to be in a kneeling or standing position and tries to find something to pull up on to get to these positions. She goes into a half crawl position and rocks and is very close to taking off crawling. She seems to try to put her feet on the floor instead of her knees when she is trying to crawl, which obviously isnt very effective. She is so strong, and so squirmy. A lot of times if you are holding her and she wants to be moving/crawling she will just be squirming, reaching, stretching, arching, moving.

Fine Motor: She loves little details. She absolutely loves to grab my necklaces, but she doesn't yank them really. She just fingers them. She might try to slowly pull it to her mouth. She is still perfecting her pincer grip. She very carefully examines, pulls on, messes with zippers and buttons.

Speech: What a speech explosion recently!! She is starting to make real speech noises (consonants is what I should say). We get a whole lot of ah-bah bah bah bah and some ma ma ma and some dah dah dah. Its so fun to hear it! It makes her seem so much bigger than the previous pterodacytly style screams, grunts and vowel sounds.

Behavior: She has definately become more clingy in the past month. She does not like it when I walk away!! She does not like it when I hand her off to someone else if she is at all tired or has not seen me in awhile. She will still play for awhile on the floor by herself, but its best if I stay away. If she sees me and I dont stick around she might get upset. She is most interested in objects that are new to her, and/or objects she sees us using, like spoons.

Food: We started her on solids a month or so ago. Baby lead weaning. She really likes salty foods like Olives, pickles, etc. Really she will eat most anything we give her. Sometimes she makes some funny faces that make it seem she doesnt like something, but then she will keep eating it.

Sleep: Not good. I need to get her full size crib up. But if she is anything like her brother, even that won't help.

Health: She has a cold at the moment and has had a lot of issues with dry skin, but she is a happy baby!!

I am in love w this little girl. She is growing so incredibly fast and I can hardly keep up with it.

Easter 2015

Ben was so excited for the Easter bunny to come because HE LOVES CANDY.

This picture pretty much captures it:

Meanwhile Felicity is all - "yeah I will sit here and play w these plastic eggs"

Ben was REALLY bad at finding eggs. He pretty much had to fall onto one to find it. I have read about kid's brains and how they don't "scan" selectively for information, but still it was crazy how bad he was at finding these. But he had a blast doing so, and he shared his candy all on his own/voluntarily. It was super sweet.

After the Easter egg hunt we all got gussied up to go out.

Then we went to my parent's house to take some pictures. These are the best with my camera. We got some family shots and some more great ones of Felicity on my dad's better camera... but Ben didn't want anything to do more pictures.

 After the photo shoot we headed up the shore to Superior Shores to eat brunch. It was a really nice meal. Felicity tried Salami, Carrot, celery, pesto pasta, and had more green olives. She gummed the salami (a single piece) for a good half hour off and on. We had a hilarious moment where Ben, tired of trying to get his yogurt out of the cup, started scooping it with his hands (blueberry of course). I am glad I bought his outfit second hand. I think that white sweater-vest was one-time use only!! LOL.

At the end of the meal we did some socializing, until Ben started running wild. Always a queue to leave.

On the way home, everyone else napped while I drove, so I took the scenic route. Then I indulged myself by stopping at French River to feel the lake wind and snap a couple of pictures.

Back at my parent's house we wiled away the afternoon chatting, napping, and playing. It was a great day.

Easter Saturday

Felicity's first Easter!

Ben got to dye easter eggs three times - twice with my parents, then at home with us. It is very cool seeing him develop all sorts of new fine motor - he used the little wire holder to move eggs in and out of the dyes. Perfectly? No. But still quite well. When Aaron went to dye an egg with Felicity he let her get to close and she spilled the bright green dye EVERYWHERE. Its a good thing I don't love our table (and its free) because it has some stains on it now.

Then I did a quick wardrobe change and did "Felicity's first egg hunt". She really was reaching for this one egg, which I tried to make to match her outfit. She is just too cute.

We even managed to get to the park for the first time late Saturday afternoon  (just Ben and I went).

Felicity at 6 Months Old

SIZE: At her 6m Doctor's appt, they had difficulty measuring Felicity. They first said she was 25.5" long (30th percentile) and then switched it to 26.5" (69th percentile) after measuring her two more times. She is definitely outgrowing the 6m clothing. I washed what we have in 9 month but am struggling emotionally w putting  a lot of the cute 6m stuff away.

GROSS MOTOR: It is hard to believe that she has only been sitting 5 weeks. It is so normal now. She loves to stand too and sometimes when you go to put her down in a seated position she won't bend at the waste. She can roll easily front to back, but I haven't yet seen back to front. She tries to do baby sit ups, but still can't maneuver to sitting on her own. Soon. She is also just getting the concept of pulling up on things. Soon.

FINE MOTOR: She is working on her pincer grip. Sometimes she gets it, sometimes not. She has come very adept at handling toys and her pacifier and can get things to her mouth no problem. Everything goes to her mouth.

VERBAL: She likes to make raspberries even more now, and will sometimes just get to shrieking and babbling. She seems to like to babble or yell at or with Ben quite a bit.

SOCIAL: In March I posted that she didn't like to be left alone. Wow. Things change FAST. Of course she still prefers if we stick around, but I am absolutely astounded by this baby's ability to entertain herself. You sit her next to a box of toys (Duplos most frequently) and if she is clean and fed and awake, she will sit a good half hour or forty-five minutes playing on her own without caring at all if you are with her or what you are doing. Its seriously impressive. In fact, she is more likely to fuss IF she sees you. Left alone she will play longer (out of site out of mind??). When she is tired or hungry then she wants up for sure. In crowds, she prefers to be held by someone familiar, especially Mom. She also likes socializing with Ben a lot. She gets excited when he pays attention to her and shrieks and laughs and babbles. She is a happy baby and laughs a lot.

EATING: She is a distracted eater for sure these days and it can be quite aggravating and messy! Also, we have started baby lead weaning and are giving her all sorts of table foods. She especially seems to like bell peppers, apples, celery, and salty things like bacon, salami or olives. She has obviously not liked bananas (just like Ben!) and sweet potatoes. Always trying new things!!

SLEEPING: It has not been a good month sleep wise. She is cutting her first tooth and has had a lot of rough nights where I lost count of the wake ups. Two nights ago she slept 4 hr stretches and it felt like a freaking miracle. Lately I have been describing the nights she wakes only every two hours as "Acceptable". She wakes more than that and I say it was a rough night. Less than that and it was a good night.

HABITS: She loves her pacifier whenever she starts to get tired. She loves loves loves toys and will examine an object you give her for a very long time before getting board with it. She puts lots of things in her mouth. She wants to see what you have, she reaches for our phones, Ben's toys, etc. She is a happy baby. I pretty much covered it already. She entertains herself SO WELL.

The Bowy Rodger

My son has an imaginary pirate ship. He calls it the Bowy Rodger. (As in the Bow of a ship). (It took us ages to figure out the correct pronuncation. We spent several weeks going "Bolly?" and him saying "no, Bowy" and us not hearing the difference). I have been meaning to write about it for ages. It just gets more and more elaborate as time passes and I am sure I will miss some things, but here is what I remember (in the order that I think I was told it). I intend to add to this post as he adds to his ship or as I remember things he has said, or as they are reported by other caregivers in his life.

The Bowy Rodger is big. Really big.
The Bowy Rodger is good pirates, not bad pirates.  
The Bowy Rodger is so big it would fill up the whole universe.
The Bowy Rodger is just a little big. It doesn't fill up the universe.
The Bowy Rodger is so big it would fill up the whole city, but only the outside part, not in people's houses.
The Bowy Rodger sometimes has bad pirates.
The Bowy Rodger is painted many colors, not just brown. It is painted red, and white, and blue, and green, and orange, and pink.
The Bowy Rodger is one of the many "Rodger" ships. It is the biggest Rodger.
The Bowy Rodger has really big cannons that shoot lightning and can break other ships.
The Bowy Rodger has one mast with two sails.
The Bowy Rodger can have birthday parties on it. That is why its painted so many colors.
The Bowy Rodger is big enough to fit a GREAT BIG DRAGON on it as a crew member because the Bowy Rodger is REALLY big.
The Bowy Rodger has a microscope pointed down into the water so you can look for germs.
The Bowy Rodger has a cabin (not all pirate ships do, but the Bowy Rodger does).
The Bowy Rodger's cabin is for baby dragons and baby dinosaurs to live in.

Added 4/5/15
The Bowy Rodger has warm, soft beds for Mom, Dad, Felicity and Ben
The Bowy Rodger has wheels when it goes on land, but not when its in the water
The Bowy Rodger has wings when it flies (but only when it flies)
The Bowy Rodger has a small button on the inside wall that the baby dinosaur's can press to change it into a Submarine
The Bowy Rodger is the biggest ship in the world. 

...

Aren't you just on tenderhooks to see what the Bowy Rodger gets next?

Week of DOOOOM

First. Housekeeping.
For the record, Felicity started sitting on the same day that I posed to the blog that she was not quite sitting yet. 2/23/2015. I went to pick her up from daycare and had her on my lap to put her socks and jacket on, and I realized I wasn't supporting her anymore. As of that moment, she can sit just fine, as long as she so desires (which might not be that long if there is something interesting she would rather lean or lunge for).

Now that that is documented...

This week sucks.
The sucktitude of this week so far is one for the record books. No ONE big thing has happened. We all have our general health, jobs, no car accidents, etc. I am sure a week can suck more than this one. But in terms of small things adding up... this week takes the cake. This blog post is my therapy about it.. I am well aware MANY things that went "wrong" are things I could fix by being more organized, but thats sort of the point really. I am just ridiculously sleep deprived, aggravated, and everything sucks. I do NOT want suggestions for how to "fix" anything here.

What I want is a hug and a "wow yeah that really sucks". No other comments welcome.

To set the stage... Felicity had a cough for a week. We went to urgent care on Friday and everything looked ok. Clear ears, clear lungs. We were told to see if it got better or worse. Saturday night it seemed to approve... then

Sunday Overnight - Felicity did not sleep hardly at all, unless it was upright in my arms. Coughing fits and general fussiness.

Monday - We had Ben' s Early Childhood assessment. I had looking forward to it for ages, I wanted to see what he did at it. I scheduled it specifically so I could be there and see it. But, Felicity was sick too and needed to see the doctor. DH stayed home to to sort out what to do with both kids. Because we got up/came downstairs later than normal, my auto-brew coffee had been sitting too long and had to be tossed. When I go to pack my pump bag I find out that I never put Friday's milk in the fridge, so it has to be tossed. Bye bye liquid gold. Felicity was fussy and did not want to be put down. I called the doctors office right at 8am when they opened and was on hold for 15 minutes. When they finally answered, I discovered my phone is broken and they couldn't hear me even though I could hear them fine. I had to hang up and call from DH's phone, wait on hold 15 minutes, and then be told "OK we will have a nurse call you back". So we had no idea when or if we could get Felicity to the doctor. We all headed out to Ben's assessment. Because we had to drive separately, I ended up trying to get both kids out of the car and into the place where the assessment was, juggling multiple bags, the carseat, and the three year old, who did not want to walk (he did walk though). We go to the assessment and its going fine, but then the doctors office calls in the middle of it. SO, I miss the part of the assessment I am most interested in, that I have been looking fwd to for months, to answer the phone. I schedule the appointment. DH takes Ben to daycare and I take Felicity to her appt. Because we did not know what would happen with it, we didn't think to pack the stroller or a baby carrier, so I have to carry her in a very long way from parking to the office, which is crowded and busy at 10am in the morning. (Also I had a feminine issue that I won't go into detail on here, but it made this even worse). We see the doctor and it turns out Felicity has a double ear infection that had popped up since Friday. The doctor prescribes antibiotics. I know that you are not supposed to jump right to antibiotics for ear infections, but I also know that if I DONT agree to the antibiotics it means I will need to come back in 24 hrs to have her ears checked again. So I agree to the antibiotics and feel like a bad mom. I take Felicity to daycare and drop her off, and go to work. At work everything is insane. It is the start of the month, which is always busy, but on top of that we have lots of bad cases we are dealing with (messy cases with mistakes, or cases where the client isn't very nice to deal with, etc). We are down a man. I am team lead, so on top of trying to catch up on my task for the day people keep bringing me all the nasty stuff, including my supervisor who seems to be having as bad of a day as I am. A migraine sets in. I should have expected a migraine because they are pretty predictable, but I didnt and I do not have any tylenol. Because I am breastfeeding, I cannot take any of the meds other people offer me, and no one has tylenol. Finally I get off at 4:30, where I go to the pharmacy. I discover once their that I don't have my prescription card for the new year, so I will have to pay out of pocket. I ask if the prescription can be mixed with milk, and they say absolutely not.  I get the prescription and go to daycare where they report Felicity has had a miserable afternoon, which I expected. I get home and go to give Felicity the first dose, reading instructions carefully because she is so little, and it explicitly says in the instructions that it CAN be mixed with milk. Who is right? The directions of the pharmacist? Who knows. This medicine is THICK gross and pink, with a horrid bubblegum smell. Felicity hates it and is gagging on the texture. She has snot coming in torrents out her nose and hates getting her nose wiped. I don't remember everything else that happened that night... so lets move on.

Tuesday: Felicity slept horribly again, and is a snotty mess in the morning. I am exhausted and what was a migraine has remained around as a dull background headache. I look at the Tylenol on my dresser and think "I need to remember to bring that to work" and promptly forget it. We are running late. Something in the kitchen smells HORRIBLE. We get downstairs at 7am (late) and realize ITS SNOWING. Boatloads. I give her the medicine, which she hates. We manage to get everything (or so we think) packed up and in the car to go to daycare drop off. We get to daycare and I realize that we forgot Felicity's milk, so DH takes them inside while I "run" home, a task that is significantly complicated by the horrible roads and us running late (we live by a high school. Running late means that there is much more traffic there). I drop off the milk, and head to work. Roads are TERRIBLE and now I am running REALLY late. I hardly make it up the hill to park, but I do. I get into work, and its exactly like Monday. We are still down a person and everything we touch is a disaster. My best work friend is in a horrible mood and not feeling well, and decides to leave early, meaning I have no company AND we are down another person. I leave work feeling horrible and stressed, and head to daycare where we have parents night. Parent's night goes OK, except for the fact that they don't have enough food, which is a first, they always have a ton of food for dinner. I leave parent's night hungry and get home with two cranky kids. We both take a moment to dig through the fridge to find the source of the stench and throw out a really old gross milk. Now our whole kitchen REEKS of rotten milk. I give Felicity her medicine, and she gags on it so badly that she throws up all over both of us. She is still a snotty mess, and now her poo is beginning to look funny from the meds. Because it snowed all day (there is a good new 8 inches outside), DH has to leave me alone w the kids while he goes and shovels. Normally not a big deal, except when you are already tired and frustrated, with a stinky kitchen. DH tries to help give me a bit of relief by taking Felicity up when he does Ben's bedtime, but it only lasts 10 minutes because she poops again, the stringy gross stuff. I try to help get rid of the kitchen smell by doing some cleaning, but discover we are out of vinegar, but I do what I can. While trying to clean up a bit I manage to spill a cup of sweet tea all over the dining room floor. It still stinks in the kitchen no matter what I do. Because we didn't get enough to eat at daycare, I am desperately hungry so I keep going to try to find a snack, but everytime I open the fridge it stinks and really we have nothing I want in the house.

Wednesday: Felicity slept slightly better but still not great. I got up and was optimistic about the day because I didn't fall into the toilet. Yes. That was reason for celebrtion, as I had the opportunity to do so and managed to avoid it. Then, when I gave Felicty her medication, I managed to spill 2/3 of the bottle of sticky pink goo all over our changing table. Cleaning up the spill was bad enough but I also would then need to get a new bottle. On the way to take the kids to my parents house I had to loop back and check that someone who ran off the road was OK. Coming back into town to go to work my mind drifted and I started heading towards home instead of work. By the time I got downtown I was running quite late. I had to try three different parking spots before I found one that was legal (got to watch out for those sneaky driveways that no one shovelled yet) and that I was confident my car wouldn't slide out of. Everything was super icey and it was bitterly cold. Work continued much the same. Chaos, problems, and strife. My supervisor was heard making the comment she wishes she could erase the week. We were short staffed for part of the day and my supervisor said other units were so short staffed we might need to lend them workers despite being behind. (This is mostly due to illness). I once again managed to NOT bring tylenol and once again my migraine reared its ugly head in the afternoon. After work I had to go by the pharmacy to get the replacement meds, which was crowded and unpleasant. I found out there that the pink sticky mess was the only option and I couldn't get something more baby friendly. I got out to my parents house to find two sleeping children, which was nice. However, my mom reported that they both had been needy all day, Felicity had a bad diaper rash and was pooping frequently as a side effect of the antibiotics. When they did wake up, both kids were extremely needy. Felicity still clearly did not feel well and JUST WANTED MOM. Ben was sleep deprived from his shortened/late map and JUST WANTED MOM and was brimming with toddler emotion that had him crying over things as horrible as "having a brownie for dessert". My parents were being lovely and trying to help but both kids just wanted me. Its nice to be needed... except when there is not enough of you to go around and your tired, sore and grumpy (did I mention muscle soreness that made me think I was getting sick??). When I got home I went to give Felicity her medicine, and she gagged to the point of vomiting, this time producing a large ball of mucous that probably explains why she hadn't been eating much, all the snot she has been swallowing was gumming things up. I got the second half of her dose in her and proceeded to try to relax only to be up to change her poopy diaper and re-spread diaper cream four times in the next hour. She also ate twice in that next hour. Ben was having a rough time settling in for the night and kept calling DH back in again and again.

Thursday: I started this morning when I woke up so optimistic!! from 6-7 went pretty smoothly. Then I got downstairs. The kitchen still/again smelled like rotten milk. We don't know if there is still a source or if the stench just won't go away. I gave Felicity her meds and she spit them all over her outfit (though didn't throw up at least?). I went to pack my pump and found MORE of my breastmilk to throw out that I forgot to put in the fridge on Wednesday night. We ended up running really late and I was practically late to work. Walking into work was FRIGID COLD. Now, its Thursday afternoon and I have a migraine again. But, Maybe things are turning around. Things have gone slightly smoother at work, and there was free pizza for lunch. I am trying to convince myself that this is the end of the bad week and tomorrow will be up up and up. Wish me luck.