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Eight Months Old!

DSC_0917What is the difference between a seven month and an eight month old baby, you ask? Three more teeth, for one thing. And that’s just the last time I checked. They keep popping out.

Lillian has always wanted to be freely mobile, and now she’s gotten her wish. She crawls everywhere, and pulls herself up to standing on anything, no matter how unstable. Then she climbs on top of whatever she pulled herself up on and tries to pull up on whatever is above it.
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She stuffs everything in her mouth. We’ve had some fun incidents with paper, leaves, and some unidentifiable substances.  She’s also expanding her actual food eating repetoire. She enjoys broccoli, potatoes, bits of chicken, and she really loves coconut milk ice cream.

The weather has turned bearable but not cool here in Texas. I’m really looking forward to some cooler weather so we can break out her unbelievably cute fall wardrobe. She’s got an adorable sweater from Grandpa and Grandma Oster, and a bunch of super cute outfits from Auntie Michelann. I would change her clothes three times a day, but she’s not so fond of it and protests loudly.

She has the cutest Halloween costume ever! Pictures soon.

Eating my words: my new job description

So you know how before you have a kid you say, “oh, I’ll NEVER do that” and then after it’s all shot to shit? Well that happens after you have the baby too. Daily, sometimes. I swore up and down I wouldn’t cut bangs on Lillian because it would be so cute if she had long hair that was one length. Except then her hair was all in her face and any barrettes or clips I use run the risk of ending up lodged in her throat since everything ends up in her mouth sooner or later. So guess what?

Haircut!

Bangs!

I called in the professionals (Auntie Tracy) to trim her bangs so I didn’t botch it like I did her neck trim a couple of months ago. And it really is adorable and now she doesn’t have hair in her face all the time.

And then remember that whole sleep thing where I wasn’t going to let my kid cry? Er, well, what happens when they cry for three hours while you bounce, nurse, sing, cajole, and bargain with them, but only for about ten minutes if you leave them alone? We happened on option B kind of by accident. David was alone with her at bedtime a couple of weeks ago and NOTHING was working. So he took a breather and a few minutes later she was out. For nine hours. We had to keep checking that she was still breathing. So we kept at it for the next week or so and things improved incrementally. She hit a growth spurt right after that so she was up a lot during the night to nurse for a few days, but she was getting to sleep faster and easier.

Then we both got sick and that’s been all screwed for the last week. But she’s become an avid climber and scooter in the meantime and so we can’t leave her alone and awake in her co-sleeper which butts up against our bed, because she’ll crawl out of it and roll or lunge off the bed. So probably in the next few nights we’re going to make the big move – out of our bedroom and into the crib. There were a few days where I temporarily lost my mind and started to think that I wanted to co-sleep with her instead of moving her out of our room, but I got over it.

It basically came down to this: do I want a tired, cranky baby who doesn’t have to cry in her crib (even though she cries in the car and other times so who am I kidding?) or a well-rested baby who has a bit of a tantrum at night for a little while? Do I feel guilty? Well, yeah, but that’s pretty much a given. Like I said before this little reversal, there’s always someone to tell you you’re screwing your child up. But we tried all the Dr. Sears stuff and it just didn’t work. She needed to start learning how to put herself to sleep at night and nobody was going to get any sleep until we let her. Believe me, if what we were doing before was still working we would still be doing it. I’m a great believer in not fixing what isn’t broke, but this shit was broke.

Napping has been pretty much screwed since Lillian started her rapid approach on crawling. She’s just too busy and fired up to relax for very long. We get 2-3 half hour naps in if we’re luck now.

Enough about sleep. We’re also big on food right now. I’m still making most of Lillian’s food because I’m a big snob and I like to cook. Lillian likes butternut squash, peas, and avocado. She really hates apples so far, and is iffy on sweet potatoes and pears. I’ve got an acorn squash to cook this week, some carrots, and we might try chicken.

Today I was at a birthday party for my niece and I overheard a mom complaining to another that someone she’d seen feeding a baby at a McDonald’s should have given it french fries. Yeah, I kid you not. MCDONALD’S  FRENCH FRIES. More salt than anyone should be exposed to, let alone a baby, and God knows what else. Oh wait, I do:

French Fries:
Potatoes, vegetable oil (canola oil, hydrogenated soybean oil, natural beef flavor [wheat and milk derivatives]*, citric acid [preservative]), dextrose, sodium acid
pyrophosphate (maintain color), salt.  Prepared in vegetable oil (Canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil with TBHQ and citric acid added to
preserve freshness). Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent.
CONTAINS: WHEAT AND MILK *(Natural beef flavor contains hydrolyzed wheat and hydrolyzed milk as starting ingredients).

Bleargh. And note they don’t list soy as an allergen even though it has soybean oil in it.

I’ve been a food snob for a long time, but since I’ve had to be really careful not to eat any dairy or soy it’s been impossible not to recognize how much crap is in most of our food. And I love junk food, I’m just finding I like local junk food with less actual junk in it a lot more. I like purity in my artery-clogging deep-fried food, thanks very much!

So that’s the latest. Lillian is crazy busy and active these days and keeps me on my toes. I’ll post video soon! Yay iPhone4!

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Five Months and updates

Oster Visit July 2010

Five Months!

Lillian turned five months old last Sunday! How crazy is that? It is crazy. She’s outgrowing clothes and keeping her parents on their toes (and shoving her fingers up her nose). Yes, parenthood brings on spontaneous rhyming.

Lillian is a great sitter these days, with very few faceplants. She can stand with just a little support. She’s starting to work up to her hands and knees, rocking a bit, and scooting backwards. She’s sleeping on her tummy now in a sleep sack instead of a swaddle. She’s eating rice cereal once a day. It’s all very strange.

Her personality is more fabulous all the time. She loves dancing, giggling, squawking, and banging things.

She got to meet her Nana Nancy, Grampa Dave, Uncle Shaun, Aunt Kris, and Cousin Saraphina last weekend. She looooooved all the attention. Uncle Shaun had her in stitches:

Uncle Shaun is Magic

Oster Austin visit July 10

Lillian wants the sippy cup.

Oster Austin visit July 10

With Nana Nancy

Oster Visit July 2010

Lillian and Saraphina

Oster Visit July 2010

With Grampa George

She got to spend lots of time with her grandparents, go swimming, and generally be the belle of the ball.

Lillian bellydances with Uncle Shaun

And now a word from our sponsor…

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Cutest. Kid. Ever.

I’m taking a break from the ranting to update you on the actual kid. Holy crap, she is changing so fast. She turned four months old on Friday, cut her first tooth on Saturday, and her second one on Monday. Can you believe it? I thought the first six months were going so slooooow, and now it’s all happening far too fast.

Other milestones in the last couple weeks:

  • First haircut – mama did not do a very good job
  • First ponytails – extra cuteness
  • Rolling over – both directions
  • Lots of crazy sounds – gargling, whining, weird vowels and consonants
  • Swimming – okay, not swimming  but we went to the pool for the first time and she dug it. She wanted to take over the world through kicking. Read a description on Tiffany’s blog.
  • First solids – we tried some rice cereal but decided to put it off for a month.
  • Grabbing feet, stuffing them in mouth – we have reached the grabbing things and stuffing them in the mouth phase. We really, really need to baby proof now.
  • Sitting and standing – she’s been doing this for a while now, but she needs less and less support. Did I mention baby proofing?
June 30 Playgroup at Andria's

Showing off her mad foot-grabbing skillz

Father's Day

Smiling for Daddy on Father's Day