The Adventures of Solids

Feeding Audra solids has been such a learning experience for both of us. Some days she is great and gobbles down almost a whole pack of baby food. Other days her lips are pursed closed all day and solids don’t make it in. Then there are days when she is perfectly happy just to play with her food and lick it off her fingers.

Banana and avocado day. A bath soon followed. 

We are still getting the hang of food. I have tried to make my own baby food but I cannot get it smooth enough for her liking so I’ve frozen it so we can revisit it in a few months. She really likes have huge chunks of apples, pears, green beans, waffles, bananas, cantaloupe and avocados to hold on to but they are slippery (not the waffle but everything else) and often make it onto the floor before long. The mesh feeder things are just as fantastic as everyone has said. She loves apple, frozen blueberries, peaches, cantaloupe and carrots in them but again she loves to fling and drop everything these days so they end up on the carpet at least once.

It is a great season to get mangoes and Aldi's has them so dirt cheap right now. I've read that she can have them but I'm too stingy at this point to share. I know...I'm so selfish.

Eating a canned pear. This worked better in the mesh feeder thing. 

Apple. Carrot. Waffle. The apple was her favorite. 

Although there is the rare occasion that she sits happily sucking out the juices of her fruit staring out the window just happy as a clam. And then I snap a picture of these serene moments. 

And since it's the season for gardens to begin busting out all sorts of yummy goodies, we snagged a bean from grandmas garden and she just loved it. 

I cannot wait to have her try all the fabulous foods this life has to offer. Especially during the holiday season that's not so far away. OK I'm excited to eat all that food too. Let's be honest. Turkey and mashed sweet potatoes for days. 

Enjoy your week and all the fresh and delicious produce this season has to offer! 

P.s. I promise to learn the proper name of those "mesh feeder things" by my next post. 

Summer Bucket List

This summer is already half over, how can that be? I'm so glad Audra is at a good age where we can go outside for 20-40 minutes a few times a day to pass the time but I also think it's cool when moms have bucket lists for the summer so they can have things to do to pass the days a little easier and make memories in the process. I wanted to start our bucket list last month but June got away from me and so here we are halfway through July. Never too late right?? Since Audra is still so little I need to keep our list simple. We've already done a few things that I wanted to do before officially documenting this list. I have placed a "\/" by the things we have already completed.

2016 Summer Bucket List

\/ Spend lots of time outside

\/ Introduce her to playing in the water outside (I placed her in a huge Tupperware container with a few inches of water and a couple toys. I thought it was adorable. She was just happy to, once again, be outside)

Eat lunch outside - no clean up!

Make 1 or more mommy friends whose kid(s) are near Audra's age

\/ Do "mommy and me" things in our area and actually go to them. Not plan to go and then chicken out with the "my baby might make a peep or loose it" excuse.

\/ Start solids

Eat more homemade ice cream than store bought (this is mostly for mommy and daddy...when Audra goes to bed)

\/ Play in Great Grandpa's pond

\/ See fireworks

\/ Go berry picking

Introduce Audra to a fire fly

Make s'mores over an open fire and maybe let Audra lick the chocolate off my finger. 

I think that's a good starter list for now. It's already been a busy and hot summer. Audra is like me and does not do well in the heat so sometimes we stay inside until I go stir crazy. I don't like to wish time away but I am also anxious for Audra's first Autumn and Winter. But that will also bring her first birthday and my baby will be turning 1 and I'm just not ready for that yet!

Audra loves her Daddy but her Daddy loves her more!

Sweet Summertime

And we have a roly-poly on our hands these days. She can be so content just laying on the floor and rolling anywhere she wants. Until the dining room table gets in the way, then she tries to hurdle it. Horizontal running!

And I'm convinced that other people pick out cuter clothes for Audra than me. This dress was bought by Liam's Mommy and I just adore it. I should get a picture of the back because the turquoise bow just makes me swoon!

Happy warm and sweaty summer my friends!

Sixth Month Summary

I know I kind of touched on Audra's six month stats in my last post but I didn't post her official six-month photo with Zeka the Zebra. One day I was scrolling through my phone at the hundreds of pictures I've taken of Audra over the past 6 months and I came across this one of her in her swing. This was 1. when she fell asleep in her swing with no pacifier, no swaddle, no noise other than me shuffling around. In other words she fell asleep completely on her own. And 2. This is the last time she was in her swing. Ever. *insert sad music here* I didn't know this was the last time she'd be in her swing at the time but I'm glad I snapped this somewhat stealthy picture of it. She's been napping in her crib ever since....my babyyyyy

If anyone can tell me where the last six months went I would be greatly appreciative. 

We have more and more fun with our photo prop every month

 So I finally gave up and just used the picture with her best smile. Zebra on her lap. That's how we do. 

Audra is also completely and utterly fascinated by tags. 

Audra weighs about 14.5 - 15lbs. She wears 3-6 and 6-9 month clothes. She is in size 2 diapers. She naps 3-4 times a day. She sleeps pretty well at night. She chews on everything but her teeth have yet to poke through. I was sad about it one day think that it'll take forever for her to get teeth but then I realized when she does she will never have that gummy smile ever again. So now I'm hoping they show up late to the party because I love love love her gummy smile. She loves when daddy comes home from work and when he plays with her. 

We are enjoying each other these days. I almost want time to slow down but I also want it to speed up just the same. Weird I know. 

Thanks for reading and watching our six month old grow either in person or through these posts. 

Fourth of July Week/End

"Just make it to six months and then you know you're going to live" - This is what my mom told me from week one and momma was right. We're going to live. 

Well we've made it to the halfway mark. Raise your hand if you're surprised. *raises hand* Raise your hand if your excited about this. *raises both hands*
 I knew we'd hit this point eventually but it definitely came faster than I thought it would. Those newborn days are behind us and part of me misses the squishy snuggles and newborn scent. But as I told someone the other day "our first 3 months sucked. Like really sucked". The next 3 months is where we finally found a rhythm and a schedule and sleep! Now here we are halfway through Audra's first year of life and already on solids.

Green beans. Before the mess. 

I told myself I would wait until she was a solid six months or later. She has her whole entire life ahead of her to eat, so why push it? Nursing is now getting easier and better (when you don't factor in nipple pain or clogged ducts or a super distracted baby) so why not just keep doing it without having her on solids? All this and more went through my head week after week. I bought some small things of food "just to have so were ready". Then I got out her high chair from storage. "I'll just put it on the chair so we can get used to having it". "I'll just put the straps in so it's ready to go" Ours was a hand-me-down from my sister in law so it needed a new cover. So I told myself "once we get a new cover she can get used to sitting in it". That held true but she hated her high chair the first few times I put her in it. Especially if I dared to strap her in. "What sweet craziness is this!? You sit me in a chair and then strap me in? Nope. Sorry. Not happening" Well it all came to a point one day when she finally was used to her chair, she had her favorite toy to play with while sitting in it and we were both sitting at the table while I ate lunch and I got THE LOOK. That "why are you eating and I'm not?" look. The "I'm ready Momma, I'm really truly ready" look. I got the puppy dog eyes, the baby face from my baby.

I melted and gave in. "Tomorrow we will start you on solids." Two weeks shy of her six month "birthday". But let's be honest for two seconds. From the time we are little girls we are given baby dolls with all the accessories. They have diapers and bottles and tiny little clothes. Then we get little spoons and plates for them and pretend to feed them. It's something that is imprinted in us from a young age and we anxiously await the day until we have our own real baby that will sit perfectly in a chair and open nice and wide for a tiny spoon filled with baby food. Then we have a baby and once we make it to the point where solids can be introduced if we feel that's what we want to do; it's even harder to wait. It's like sitting there on Christmas morning surrounded by presents and being told "OK you can open them if you want because it's the appropriate time to do it but you really don't need these gifts so we can wait 4 or 5 months". Tell a kid that on Christmas and see what they do. So all this to say that once we got closer and closer to her six month mark it became harder and harder to wait. Ants-in-the-pants wiggling may have occurred.

The next day I had it planned out that we would start around lunch, after her morning nap and we would start with green beans. If you know anything about me you know I don't eat a ton of veggies. OK I barely eat them. I eat them once a week if were lucky. I know I.Am.Horrible. But I'm planning to get Audra good and used to veggies so she can get the nutrients from them that she's not getting from me. So green beans it is. She loved it! She has also had sweet potatoes which no surprise she likes more than green beans but I'm trying to give her more beans than potatoes for now.

So aside from starting solids Audra greets six months with sitting up to play more than lying down. She also got to sit up in the grocery cart in the same week - it was a monumental week for sure! She loved just watching everyone and taking it all in. I'm pretty sure we could have wondered around WalMart for an hour and she would have been content the entire time.

I also sit her up after her bath so she can splash in the water a little bit. She loves it!

 We are down to 3 naps a day about an hour on average for each of them. Most of the time she'll wake up from her last nap around 4 or 5 pm and then we don't put her to bed until 9pm but it's growing harder for her to wait that long so recently I've stopped fighting it and put her to bed around 8:30. It has seemed to work out so far. She barely lets me hold her chest to chest for any reason except going down for a nap or bed time. She is too interested at looking at everything that she doesn't want to be held facing any other way other than out. Ha. She is not crawling yet but loves to push her butt in the air and use that to scoot her way towards something of interest to her. Her pincher grasp is getting better every day thanks to all the tags on every toy we own she goes directly for it with her pincher grasp. I cannot get enough of watching her grab the tag with her thumb and pointer finger. Seriously. Watching her teach herself this brand new thing is fascinating. I don't even know how else to explain it but I love watching it!! Audra also loves watching and lunging for our cat.

This weekend we celebrated (Audra's first) Fourth of July. She did well with her first fireworks but her second time around was a little rough and she was more ready for bedtime then fireworks.

Audra loves her Aunt Jackie who took this photo. Liam loves Audra. I love them both. 

Three generations. Finally. 

Totally obsessed with this picture of Audra. Despite her tired eyes she is perfect in every way. Oh and my hand on her lap keeping her from falling forward. Which she did the other day. Forward and onto the floor. Kid you not I about peed my pants. Scariest moment ever. 

She loves her Aunt Jackie. Can you tell!? 

And of course I was too busy with all the weekend's activities to take pictures of her outfits so we had to do that this morning.

 Sweet and sassy Firework of ours

Happy almost 6 months my sweet and spunky baby girl. I cannot believe how time is flying now!

An Update

No you haven’t missed a post or two. We’ve been the ones missing lately, I apologize. A couple weeks ago Jonathan was away in NC for work. That was a long but busy week for us. I purposefully made us busy so that it would go faster but it still seemed just as long. That week ended with a sweet and adorable wedding of my dear friend. Unfortunately we did not get a picture together at the wedding because by the time I remembered we were already hot, sweaty and my hair was pulled back but it was nice to get a few hours away together even if most of it was driving.

Last week was slightly less busy but ended with Audra having a play date with two of her 3^rd cousins. She was in awe of little humans her size and almost her age. We visited Grandma and Pap that night because they had been on a long road trip vacation and we hadn’t seen them in a week!

This week has been even less busy. Running to the grocery store, the second hand clothing store and picking black raspberries is about all we’ve done this week. We did experiment with playing in the water yesterday but Audra was not impressed. I basically did it so that I could put her swim suit on her. Of course…I didn’t get a picture of that because my phone was frozen all day until the battery died. It was actually kind of refreshing to not have a phone or worry about checking my phone. When I finally did get my phone back on it erased all my contacts but luckily not my pictures!

When we aren’t running to a store or playing outside (which happens about twice a day now) we spend our days inside trying to keep cool and rolling around on the floor. The other day I let Audra go beyond the confines of her play mat and she just rolls and scoots all over! She hasn’t quite mastered the coordination of pushing up on her hands with pushing her butt up but we’re getting there. She also stares us down whenever we eat around her and she’s sampled very very small amounts of yogurt, jam, applesauce, mashed carrot and mashed potato. We are awaiting the new cover we bought for her highchair but I put her in her highchair today to test it out. She. Hated. It. I promised her it will soon be her favorite place where she will eat all things yummy but she wasn’t convinced. We are still waiting for her to tell us she’s ready for solids. I think were slowly getting there as she seems to be wanting to nurse more often than usual these days.

Other than that our lives are pretty much the same day in and out. We eat, sleep, play repeat. Sometimes it’s exhausting and boring to me. Sometimes I have to remind myself to soak it in because pretty soon she’ll be mobile and I will no longer be able to just sit on the floor while she plays.

Here are some recent pictures of our sweet and sassy girl.

Outside adventures are our favorite thing to do these days. 

The laundry basket is our newest trick to keep her sitting up and all her toys within reach. 

Sitting pretty

Sleepy squishy babies are seriously the best!

Thanks for coming back and reading about our lives friend. I enjoy keeping you updated!

Five Months

I know I say it every month but...how did I make it this far already?? Five months Audra, we're actually surviving!

These days Audra and I have hit a pretty good rhythm. Night time is quiet for the most part unless she gets into a position she can't roll out of. Which is tough on such a young thing who loves to roll, kick, squirm, MOVE! I was looking at a video the other day I took of her in utero and my stomach was just moving all over. We were so curious to see if she'd be just as active outside the womb or if she'd calm down once she got some more room to move around. Turns out she just loves to move!

Things Audra is working on include pushing up on her arms when she is on her tummy, "super baby" pose, getting her knees under butt, sitting on her own and putting consonants and vowels together. Her favorite "words" have been "pla, boo, ma, da, and blah" much to daddy's approval. Daddy wants her first words to be "blah blah blah" as in the movie "Hotel Transylvania" I'm still trying to get her first word to be cookie. Ha. She also still loves to stand and sometimes prefers it to sitting. Dinner time we have Audra sit with one of us or in the Bumbo to get her used to sitting at meal times. We give her a plastic baby spoon to chew on to get her used to utensils. She won't start solids for another month but as every parent before us we've tested a few things out on her in small finger-dab amounts. Yogurt and applesauce seem to be favorites! I do not know what take we will have when it comes to solids and weaning. We will just take it day by day and see what happens but my prediction is once Audra gets a good mouthful of food there will be no turning back and she will want to eat anything and everything she can. Hello higher grocery bill!

But briefly speaking of eating, breastfeeding is still going strong. I am so proud of not only mine but Audra's success in this adventure that threatened to rob us of all joy for the first 11 weeks of life. She is now so easily distracted by any little sound that nursing sometimes becomes very trying but I do not complain. She's a champ! We could not of been successful without all the incredible support as well as patience and perseverance from the Good Lord above, if it was up to me I would have quit a long time ago!

Audra also loves to be outside! The fresh air, the grass and gravel under her feet and hands. All the pretty green to look at, she's her daddy's girl for sure!

Her baby bald spot is slowly starting to fill in since she is sleeping less on her back. Yay!

Anyway Audra, here we are 5 months in and still alive and thriving. Each day is a new adventure with you. Each week you learn new things. Each month I look back and cannot believe we've made it this far. 

We can pretend she is kissing her zebra but she is really just eating his face. 

A friend of mine at the library made this matching set of a flower headband and barefoot sandals. I had to remove them from her feet before she tore the flower off but she loved them!

P.S. I have fewer monthly pictures this time because she was moving so much that the glider she sits on was rocking back and forth making for blurry pictures. 

This week daddy is gone for work but we are daily surviving. Keeping busy is key and counting down sleeps is a must! 

Thanks for reading our 5 month update friends and continuing to join me on this journey called Motherhood!

"I've got moves you've never seen"

If you can name the movie that quote came from then we can be best buds. By far one of my favorite Julia Roberts movies. It never gets old to me! Every time I watch it though I wait for Michael to choose Julianne instead of "Miss Kimberly Wallace!". Every time. But he never does.

These days Audra is rolling and moving all over the place. A glimpse of what is to be when she becomes mobile. I am slightly cringing for that time to come. When she is on her play mat she rolls to and fro and she is off her mat in no time. Then she fusses because she is out of reach of all her toys. When she is sitting she wants to be standing. When she is standing she has to be dancing. And when she is sleeping...? She has to be in between the rungs. Every night for the last few weeks she has woken up at least twice because is caught between the rungs and cannot get out. Both legs in one rung laying sideways. Both legs in two rungs up to her crotch on her stomach AND again on her back. Arms hanging out all over. Or if shes not in the rungs she's rolled herself into the corner and cannot roll out. It's (almost) a fun game as to what I'm going to find when I stumble in there at 4am.

I did borrow some old school crib bumper pads from a friends mom a few weeks ago. I put them on and then proceeded to stress about SIDS. Audra has never had her face that close to the rungs but I just knew the first night she would have the bumper pads would be the one she decided to do so. *shudder* So I took them out before bedtime. A few more weeks go by of getting up a few times a night to move or re-position her I felt it was best to look into getting the mesh crib liners. Enter: Facebook buy/sell/trade site to the rescue! I found some for $5 and snagged them up. Last night was her first time with the bumpers and it was not a silent night at all. I still had to get up twice because she was fussing. The reason? She was on her back and trying to use the rungs to push herself over but couldn't because those darn bumpers were in the way and she couldn't get a grip. Oh dear me! I cannot win with this child!

I do know in time though she will get used to having them in there and most likely figure out a way around them or to work with them.

Other than that as we enter June and rounding the corner of Audra's 5th month in our lives every week brings something new. I will wait a week to list some of her accomplishments but each one seems more adorable than the last. Except the whole "let me take your plate, napkin, fork, food from you when you eat. Because what's yours is mine right??"

Here are some pictures of our roly-poly baby

Garage sale score from last weekend. $15 for bouncer/activity center. She is still a little small for it so I have to prop her with a blanket but she loves it still. 

And seriously couldn't stop taking pictures of her after our walk the other day. Her feet ARE able to fit under the tray but they never do. She has to have them up on the tray or in her mouth. Always. 

Again, her toes are just an extension of her hands

I swear I didn't tell her to lay still but she did. The most still she's probably ever been. 

Hope you all had a very long and beautiful Memorial Day Weekend. We did indeed and I'm happy for a short week ahead. Next week my husband will be out of state for the week for work so I'll be hanging on by a few less threads this time next week. Lord help me!