Happy Birthday Constance

Wow! A whole year has passed since giving birth to my sweet little baby. 365 days of breathing real air. 365 days worth of diaper changes. 365 days of nursing…. Who knew that something that started out so small (well sort of) could be a huge blessing?

Constance is such an amazing little girl. She amazes me with how smart she is and how much she can figure out. She has always liked books but over the past few weeks she has really started to notice what is on the pages and will flip through all the books herself. She can even point out a cat in a book and say the word “cat.”

Her sleeping habits have gotten better as well. Sometimes she falls asleep while eating her last meal and we have no problems. However a few times we have had to let her cry in her crib. Thankfully the few times that has happened she only cry’s for about 20 minutes tops and is out for the night. That helps mommy and daddy feel so much better.

We are slowly getting better at solid food eating. Either next week, or when we get back home after Christmas I will try to wean her from her second meal which will have me only nursing twice

Asleep in the High Chair

The strangest thing happened this morning. It was around 11:00a.m. and I put my baby in her high chair to feed her lunch. I knew she was tired but she does not go down for a nap till 1:00p.m. I gave her some turkey hot dog pieces, some baby granola bar, a banana cookie and some whole milk. I cut the banana cookie in three parts so she could eat it on her own while I did dishes. Constance ate all three bites and all of a sudden her eyes where closing and her head was bobbing. She was falling asleep! I hopped up to turn the water off at the sink and when I turned around, she was done. I made sure she was breathing first and then got the blankets in the crib ready. I then grabbed the camera, took a picture and she did not move. I made sure she was breathing again, picked her up and laid her in her crib. She never moved a muscle. I wrapped her in her blankets, made sure she was breathing one more time and left.

You Know You’re Tired When…

You have a dream that your baby is sleeping on the other side of your husband-even going so far as to reach over him to make sure she is not going to fall off the bed. Then, hearing the baby through the monitor-literally waking and jumping out of bed because you just knew that Constance had somehow gotten off the bed and was crawling out of the room….AND waking your husband up saying that the baby was crawling out of the room.

To begin with, Constance had been safely asleep in her own crib that entire night. Secondly, there is no way for her to get out of our bed without us knowing. Our bed is up high and if she tried to get down she would have fallen and cried. It is crazy how real your dreams can be sometimes.

I took Constance to the doctor for the second time in one week. She had started to pull on her ears again and we wanted to make sure it was not an infection. However, we wasted an hour at the doctor’s office because they could not find anything. She has gained a whole ounce though in one week-21.1 pounds.

All Better

Constance seems to be feeling much better and I think the worst is over!

We have gone to one nap a day which has been interesting for all of us. Constance wakes up between 7 and 7:45 in the morning and then stays up till 12:30p.m. or later. I no longer try to “force” a nap on her but wait till she is very tired. That has gone very well for the both of us. Her change in schedule also means that I am down to nursing her three times a day instead of four. She will wake up and I nurse her, then I feed her mid-afternoon and then again at bed time.

Her vocabulary consists of the words, “Dada, Mama, Cat, and Hi.” She can also say a hundred other words but we have not been able to interpret them yet.

Constance’s hair has been on a growth spurt as well. I have a very fuzzy headed child now and look forward to it being long enough to put in pig tails one day.

Strep Throat

Last Sunday, Keith and I noticed that Constane was very cranky which is unusual for her. Her left ear looked red and she pulled on it some and had a runny nose. Sunday night was a rough night with her waking up several times. On Monday, her ear looked better and we had a slightly better day but she still had cold symptoms. Monday night was really rough with her waking up screaming. Constance woke up this morning a little cranky and I called the doctor and set up an appointment. The doctor looked in both ears, in her throat and listened to her breathing. All seemed fine. She then told me that she would do a strep test even though having strep in a baby so young is very unusal. Sure enough, that is what she has...Strep Throat. I have medicine to give her that should make her feel better pretty quickly. Poor baby!

Hands on Head

I can’t believe that in two weeks and five days, Constance will be a year old! Looking at pictures taken over the past week I can see how big she is getting.

She also can do some really neat things. Our daughter still claps all the time and is so happy when she does it. She can put her hands on her head when we say, “Hands on Head,” and of course she claps for herself (and we clap with her) when she does this. Constance is not walking yet but we have noticed that she does not hold onto objects as firmly as she used to.

As for her eating habits, she seems to be a bottomless pit sometimes especially when it comes to Cheerios. Give her a small bowl with some Cheerios in there, and she is one happy baby. In a way, she is eating less solid food because she does not let me feed her purees (even the thicker kinds) as much as she used to. She likes to feed herself. That leads into other problems because she does not chew all food items with her teeth. So harder objects such has small bites of raw fruits and veggies or meat she often chokes on. I figured after Christmas I will start the weaning process. I am kind of hoping she starts weaning herself but so far she is not showing signs of doing that.

Leaving to MS

Heading to Mississippi in the morning. Will blog when I get back home. Have a happy Thanksgiving

Constance the clapper

Constance can clap now! It is so cute and Keith was able to see it the first time she did it. She claps all the time now-just for the fun of it, when she thinks she did something well, when someone claps on the television, when she is into something she shouldn’t be and when we say, “Yay!”

Meow goes the cat

“Meroweeeeeee” was the sound that came from the living room while I was fixing my coffee in the other room. That sound could mean only one thing. Constance must be trying to pet our cat, Sugarwafer. Peaking into the living room I was surprised to see that Constance was ON the cat, not just trying to pet him. Her chubby little body was sprawled right on top of Wafer’s and he could not get up. “Constance,” I said in a near panic, “we are not supposed to lay ON the cat.” By the time I got in there a very bitter cat was able to get up and a little girl looked quite pleased with herself.

I wonder when Constance is going to stop looking like a baby? Will it be when she learns to walk? When she celebrates her first birthday next month? When she gets more hair? I am still amazed at how quickly she grows and how fast this year has gone by since her birth. Daily she looks older, masters old things and discovers new things that she can do.

We have had a small break through with our solid food adventure. While Constance is no where close to be able to wean of breast milk, she is getting there. Almost anything we give her, as long as it is a small enough bite she can pick up and eat. She ate a whole muffin top yesterday morning. I have also learned that if I want to feed her a puree of anything I need to do it before letting her feed herself with finger foods. She won’t let me feed her if she already has the ability to feed herself. She is also enjoying whole milk. We bought a straw sippy cup since all the others she had destroyed by her chewing. At first she could not grasp that she had to bite and suck the straw to get the milk. Keith and I had to help her get it started. The next day however, she drank out of the straw like a pro.

While I still hold to the fact that she is an excellent baby she now has a new noise for when she complains. It is the high-pitched squeal that is actually really cute. I do not think she appreciates us when we laugh at her.

Sorry

I am sorry for my lack of posts. The next one will come by Friday.

The Ducks Who Want Revenge

I had two pieces of bread left over from lunch and I thought it would be a good idea for Constance and I to feed the ducks. We saw two innocent looking ducks floating lazily in the water and decided to give them the bread. What we did not know was that these two ducks were decoys-sweet little ducks that drew you in- just to have you attacked a second later. Before we knew it we were swarmed by nine angry mallards. From somewhere behind two more ferocious beasts where charging and giving us their best war cry.

The buggy and I were surrounded and there was no sign of the attack letting up. I had already tossed all the bread at them and was yelling at them to get back to no avail. They kept coming like a snake about to strike its victim. I kept pondering whether it was time to play some kick ball with the ducks. It then dawned on me to use the stroller. I tilted the stroller backwards where Constance was not in their line of sight and charged the angry mob forcing them to move. After I maneuvered my way around them I turned to face our attackers hoping that they would not re-group and try a new tactic. While all eleven of them were still yelling at us in duck-ese, they did not come after us again.

Ding! Round 1

From time to time Constance and I have to wrestle to give her a clean diaper. She hates being still and I guess having a diaper changed is the worst thing ever. She screams and will cry and flail her body backwards. She will push her body up as soon as I get her clean diaper in place. She will try to roll over continuously (even if I have a good grip on her) just so I can not change her.

The other night we were having one of those moments. I had given my sweet baby a bath, which she loves. Bath time was over and I snuggled with her in her towel to keep her warm while we walked to the nursery. I set her on the floor where I had previously laid her pajamas and diaper. I lovingly lifted her ham hock legs and the fight was on. She started crying and tried to roll over. When I would get her diaper in place she would scoot her body and I would have to start all over again etc… I finally gave up and called my husband. “Honey, I need your help NOW please!” Keith came in to the room to see his naked daughter crawling away from me, and me holding the diaper in the air like a white flag surrendering.

We recaptured Constance and he went to work expecting a fight. I had to really look closely but I noticed that a halo appeared above her golden-brown head. She sweetly smiled at her daddy and even stretched out her plump legs so he could easily put the diaper on. Within seconds the ordeal was over and our wee babe was diapered. I think Keith purposely ignored the glare that was coming from behind him.

Pumpkin Patch

Right before we went to Gatlinburg, Keith and I celebrated our 6 year anniversary. We packed up the baby and headed to the pumpkin patch, which is one of my favorite places to go (and of course, Constance's first time). This particular farm has it all-sand box, huge tunnel slides, petting zoo, pig races, hay rides, corn mazes and more. Each person even gets to leave with a small pumpkin.

We all had a great time! Constance laughed at all the animals there (the pigs, goats, baby chickens, baby cow, donkey...). I quickly discovered that pigs have teeth! When we came up to the fence three little pigs came up and all of us were so excited for the photo opportunity. I was holding Constance in my lap with my hand being smelled by the pigs. While smiling big at the camera one of the pigs bite me. I guess my hand smelled like lunch!

We took the hay ride (well, we took a tractor ride, as the hay was not in there yet) but Constance was not fazed. We put her in the backpack carrier and she fell asleep in the corn maze. By the time we made it through the maze and waited for the tractor to pick us up she woke up again-and then it was time for pictures in the pumpkin patch. She was quite fascinated by the pumpkins and kept pulling on the stems and trying to taste them.

Before heading home I wanted to see how Constance would react to to the sandbox. I thought she would love it. However after putting her hands in it once she raised her hands and would no longer touch it! She also went down one of the big slides on daddy's lap. She did not cry but she did not look happy about it either.

Long overdue

Thinking back over the past few weeks I realized I should have been writting things down that Constance has been doing so I could blog about them now. I guess I will start with the present and make my way backwards.

Twice this past weekend Constance would let go of whatever she was holding onto and stand for a few seconds before falling. The first time she did this, Keith and I both were able to see her!

We also think she can say "mama" and "dada" and can pretty much recognize who we are. For example, we went grocery shopping and we had her in the stroller. I am not sure what happened but she started to cry and we decided to pull her out. She said "dada" as Keith started to pull her out but realized he could not with the tray being in the way. I was able to move the tray on her stroller and reached down for her and she said, "mama." It was really neat.

We had a great time in Gatlinburg with some friends. Constance tried her first lemon at a local restaurant and did not seem to be affected by it. In fact, I think she rather enjoyed it. She also decided that she likes Cheerios as long as we break them in half or thirds.

I wanted to get a few bows for Constance just because I thought they would be cute. My mom and I went shopping and she bought two for her. The only problem with that is that Constance does not like anything on her head. So I have started "bow/hat" training and it seems to be going well.

She is working on tooth number 8...which means she wakes up at night. She gets a shot this afternoon though so maybe we can get one good night of sleep.

Constance is still such a good and happy baby! We love seeing your little personality come out.

She still loves her prunes and yogurt. Once we gave her a bite of hamburger meat and she acted like it was the worst thing she has ever tasted. The other day we gave her a few bites of roast and she seemed to like that. Pretty much anything that Keith and I eat, Constance will want a taste of. It is kind of motivationg to eat healthier because of that.

Vacation time

Heading to Gatlinburg! Will post when we get back.

Head Injury

We had our first head injury the other day. Constance and I were happily playing outside on our driveway. She of course was crawling everywhere. At some point she thought I looked like a jungle gym and was crawling over my legs. She has done this several times in the house and has never had a problem. However she fell somehow and hit her forehead. I felt awful and of course Constance was screaming. I brought her in the house and the knot above her eyes started to swell and look bluish. There was a not a way to reach Keith so I gave my mom a call. She said it sounded like she broke a blood vessel and to put some ice on it and keep her up an hour. She was back to her old self later that evening.

"Mama"

This happened several weeks ago but I forgot to post it. Constance had woken up at 5 in the morning and after trying to get her to back down I decided to feed her. I sat on the couch with her and my husband asked if I wanted him to change her diaper. I told him that would be great and much to Constance's dismay, she was scooped off my lap and taken to her bedroom. She was crying and very upset since she was taken from her food source. Very clearly however, in the middle of her crying she said, "Mama" really loud! She has not said it since then so I guess it was just a fluke but I will take what I can. It made being up so early a little easier!

Constance still loves vanilla yogurt and did not seem to mind the strawberry yogurt that we fed her the other day. I hate feeding her "artificial" stuff though. Another new flavor we started yesterday was prunes. Keith said that was one of his favorite things to eat when he was a little tyke and insisted that Constance would love them as well. So we tried it and she seems to accept it just fine. I have only given it to her in little doses though as I am not sure how they will affect her bad diaper situation.

Update from the month of September

Good news! Constance appeared one morning with a new tooth in. That is why she was waking up in the middle of the night. Since then she has slept through. That new tooth equals seven.

For my lack of new pictures over the past several posts I will give a slight update from this month with the new pictures.

Pictures 1 and 2- Constance tried spaghetti…and hated it.

Picture 3- I quickly realized that my book shelf had all the paperback books on the bottom and all of her books on top. I switched everything around and she has loved getting all the books out. Looking at them and eating them.

Picture 4- Praise Jesus. She loves dancing to music and this is what she is doing in the picture.

Picture 5 and 6- We visited Cumberland City TN to do some fishing. Constance had a great time playing in the lake water and unfortunately, tasting some lake rocks.

Picture 7- I made a great discovery. While eating a bowl of vanilla yogurt Constance came over wanting a bite. I gave her one and at first she wrinkled up her face but then she opened up for another. I gave her spoonful after spoonful and she loved it. I tried it again the next day and had the same result! Her diet now consists of my milk, vanilla yogurt and anything outside that looks yummy (i.e. dirt, rocks, leaves…)

Sleep....where have you gone?

In 9 days, Constance has slept through the night once. Typically the only time she would wake up during the night was when she was teething…however we can not feel any new teeth coming in. ¼ of the time I have to feed her and that does not put her to sleep, but gets her sleepy enough to go back to sleep. The other times she just fights it and eventually falls asleep. When we first hear her stirring we wait to see if she will get herself back to sleep. If she does not go back to sleep my wonderful husband goes in and trys to get her to go down. If I went in there first we would have no hope of Constance going down as I am her food source. We have tried everything to include keeping her up later and saturating the baby and her room with prayer. It is not like she gets too much sleep during the day. Her two naps average 40 minutes! We are so tired and this is one of the hardest things about parenthood thus far.


I will post more pictures soon.

The Solid Food Woes Continue

While at Constance's 9 month well-baby checkup we told the doctor our solid food-or should I say the lack of solid food, woes. She advised that it was possible that Constance just did not like the texture of the pureed baby food and we should consider giving her "regular" food just in really small pieces. Keith and I both felt relived at the thought of her starting to eat solid food which will help, eventually, in the weaning process.

This morning, instead of warming up a homemade food puree, I lightly toasted a piece of wheat toast. I took a portion of the toast and made some itty bitty bites and placed them on her high chair tray. She looked at the bread and then back at me like I had lost my mind. She played with it some but refused to put it in her mouth or let me do it. So I moved onto crushed fresh peach. Constance refused to open her mouth. I then put some of her new yogurt nibbles on the tray and she pushed them away angrily. Trying not to be frustrated I pulled a seedless red grape out of the fridge, removed the skin and cut it into itty bitty pieces. Constance has never seen or tasted a grape before so I thought she would be excited and at least try a bite. When I put it on her tray she loudly protested and frowned. I then put some banana down because for the past two days, when putting banana in her munchkin, she loved it. She loudly protested her annoyance again and refused to touch it. I put the rest of the banana in her munchkin and as soon as she took a bite her face wrinkled up like she hated banana. I half jokingly put my hand on her chest and prayed out loud that Constance would learn to love solid food. She burst into tears and moved my hand. I guess she likes her current situation of being strictly nursed and does not want God to interfere. 

9 months old

Constance is now 9 months old (Yikes! When did that happen?) and here is what she can do.

-Plays Peek-a-Bo by holding her blanket over her head, waiting for us to say, "Where is Constance?" When she takes it off her head she smiles really big as we say, "There she is!"

-Climbs on anything and everything and pulls herself up to the standing position.

-Constance can hold onto Keith or I with one hand while remaining standing.

-Once, holding onto the couch, she walked (shuffled) from one side of it to the other.

-Dances to music by moving her hands and swaying.

-Giggles easily!

-Throws fits by throwing herself back when we move her from something that she is not allowed to play with.

-Understands the word "No" (we think!)

-She does not associate the sounds with Keith or I yet but says "dadada" and "mamama" and also can make the "b" sound.

She also weighs 20 ¾ pounds and is 28 ½ inches long. She is no longer our chunky monkey! She is tall and her weight has evened out. She is now just slightly above the 50% for her weight.

The Goat says...I'm not sure, what does a goat say?

Constance was very emotional for the two days that we gave her cow's milk so as a precaution we did not give it to her anymore. We had heard that goat's milk is better for a baby then cows milk so we went out and purchased some. That is when I wish we had a random goat running around our neighborhood! For two days we have been giving it to her and she seems to be fine with it. By "fine" I mean that she does not spit ALL of the milk back out, just some of it.

I still nurse full time with no sign of weaning around the corner. One book I read said to give Constance a partial feeding, give her solids and the finish nursing. One day, after a long nap (Constance's nap, not mine) I decided to give her solids BEFORE nursing. She ate as much as she would have as if I had waited a few hours after her normal feeding. I still make sure she has some sort of pureed food two times a day.

Another new thing we tried was giving her fresh fruit (peaches to be exact) in her Munchkin (it is a safe baby food feeding sack). We usually just throw an ice cube in it and she safely sucks on it and helps when we have teething issues. However she really seemed to enjoy the peach.

Tooth number 6 has broken through and it looks like she is working on tooth number 7. When that happens our baby typically does not sleep through the night. We miss the days of her sleeping from 9p.m.-7:30a.m. without interruption.

We were going for a walk the other day with some friends. I put Constance in her stroller and buckled one side. She started crying/screaming and I just assumed it was because she did not want to be in the stroller/take a nap. While I was trying to hook the other buckle I realized that her skin was pinched in the buckle! I immediately unhooked her and her daddy scooped her up. Now she has a good size round circle on her belly and I feel awful

Look Mom, No Hands!

The other day I was sitting in our computer chair and saw that Constance was trying to pull herself up while holding onto the couch. She succeeded even though she still had wobbly legs. The next thing I know, my adventurous baby spotted the remote control. She grabbed the remote with both hands which of course meant she did not have a hold of the couch anymore. I made a lunge for her right before she would have fallen. I told Keith the other day that it would be tempting to let her take a tumble or two IF we had carpeted floor. But we don't and my guess is that we will continue to have heart stopping moments.

Another tooth, No Sleep and Homemade Curtains

Constance is finally getting in her last top middle tooth. Once it is in she will have two teeth on the bottom and four on the top. We did have one stressful teething day on Saturday but other than that she has been doing great.

We have had to set up the playpen (we also have named it "jail") for the times we need her to stay put while we run to the mailbox or bathroom or wherever. She is a fast crawler and every now and then she is not where we put her! At the moment, her play pen is a novelty and she does not mind playing in it.

Last week her schedule was amazing. She would eat her last meal at 8p.m. and be fast asleep in her crib by 9p.m. She would then sleep anywhere from 7a.m.-7:45a.m. Amazing! Last night however she did not get her very short evening nap and I started feeding my VERY tired baby at 7:30p.m. By 8:30ish I thought she was about done. However she opened her eyes and sat up! I got her to lay back on my lap and started rubbing her head hoping to get her to sleep. She stayed still for quite some time however she did not get back to sleep. After awhile Keith tried to lay her in her crib to see if she would go out on her own. That worked for a little while…then she became upset. I finally fed her again a little after 10p.m and by 10:30 she was asleep.

After visiting a couple who just had a baby, and being shown the nursery, I realized the one thing we were missing in Constance's room was cute curtains! My husband and I went to Wal-Mart to look at material and realized that we have different tastes when it comes to design! I wanted to get something a little on the girly side because most of her room is filled with gender neutral colors. Keith was not opposed to something girly he just did not want polka dots. We narrowed it down between jungle animals (which was not girly but very cute) and pink curtains with butterflies. We bought the pink curtains with butterflies. We still have all the work to do on them (i.e. cut and sew them, create the hooks and glue) but it will be worth the effort when we are done.

Wet Baby

I had a blonde moment last night. My daughter had a wet diaper and I was in the process of changing her. My husband was on the computer and wanted me to look at some pictures that he was looking at. I had not put her diaper back on yet but decided she would be fine, diaper free, for a few minutes. Sure enough she wet again on the kitchen floor. Constance already needed a bath and Keith had just hopped in the shower. I figured that since she had just gone to the bathroom she would be okay for a few minutes to once again be diaper free. I set my naked baby on the living room floor as I was gathering her bath supplies…and you guessed it, she wet again! I just had to shake my head at myself and laugh as I hurriedly scooped up Constance and cleaned the floor.

I'm 25!!

I just realized it has been about a week since posting on my blog. Last week was busy and now I can sit and write. I do not think I have a lot of new information going on though.

Yesterday I turned 25! Yikes! In some ways I feel old and in other ways I don't. However we had a great weekend. On Saturday my husband, daughter and I went to the zoo. My parents gave me a year membership there so we were able to get in for free. Constance had more fun looking at all the other little children…. we could not get her to touch a goat at the petting zoo…but she did spot a meerkat and laughed at him! We had a good time. On Sunday we went to church, ate out and then went to the park for some fishing fun. When we got home we ate some birthday cake-chocolate chocolate with sprinkles, and started a fire in our homemade fire pit. Enough about me.

Constance still low crawls more then she crawls. It depends on the circumstance. If she is wants a toy she might get on all fours. If she is chasing the cat she low crawls as fast as she can!

Her 5th tooth has broken through and her 6th one is so close to being seen.

Another very cute thing is she is starting to move too music. She has a toy that makes music when she pushes the buttons. She will take both hands and move them up and down while the song is on. When it goes off, Constance will stop moving her hands and wait till it comes back on. It is awesome!

It is official. Constance can crawl

It has finally happened. Constance has figured out how to crawl, however she is not a full time crawler yet. I watched her this morning get on all fours and take four or five "steps" and then low crawl. She then would get up and do it again. Later in the morning I saw her do both again as she was going from her room to the hallway. I am very excited though, sort of, and wish that her daddy was here to see it. Now is time to not procrastinate on getting the rest of the house baby crawl proof.

Another milestone is that yesterday evening I was sitting at the computer and Keith was watching a television show on the couch. We had put Constance on the living room floor to play. At some point I look over from the computer and see Constance standing up holding onto the couch. For a brief second I look back at the computer like I had seen nothing out of the ordinary. And then it clicked! Constance had pulled herself off the floor and was keeping herself steady by holding onto the couch! It was the first time she had done that. In fear of her falling I lunged out of my chair to get her and by that time Keith had seen her. We were so excited and he picked her up and gave her a hug.

Not that I find secret pleasure in this but after 8 months of parenthood Keith was finally thrown up on. Yes, he has had some mild spit up in his days but never full pledged throw up. We think she became sick from her recent shot that was given to her. It went all over both of them-shirts and jeans. My wonderful husband gave Constance a much needed bath after that.

And last but not least, teeth amount number 5 and 6 is coming in. It is the top right "eye" tooth and the one right beside that. So far she only has one of her top two middle teeth.

Friday Night Football

I have no pictures to show for it but we went to our first high school football game last night. We met up with some friends and originally Constance was not a happy camper. I guess it was because all the noise and all the people. She cried though and clung to me and to Keith. When we found our seats, Carol had a set of toy keys and let Constance play with them. She sat on my lap and played and chewed on the keys for the longest time. She then got brave and decided to stand up and look around. She did amazing even when the crowd became very loud after our team scored.

Another funny thing is that our baby has now realized that she can low crawl to ANYWHERE in the house…and she is FAST! She went from one side of the living room to down the hall to chasing the cat into our bedroom within a very short amount of time. Then when I went to bring her back into the living room she just cried and cried!

Popsicle

In a round about way, Constance had her first popsicle. I had made homemade ones out of 100% cranberry juice for myself, but as soon as she saw mommy eating one, she wanted a taste. My baby trustingly opened up her mouth and sucked on the popsicle. Every now and then she would get more juice out of it and make a sour face but overall she seemed to enjoy it. In fact we shared the whole thing! That was the first time she has had anything close to juice.

Constance also celebrated her 8 month birthday yesterday and her 5th tooth has finally come through.

The Magic Vent

It was so cute! Constance was low crawling all around our living room the other day and just happened to be by the vent when the air conditioning kicked on. It blew on her face and she squealed and kept hitting the vent with her hand. I did not know whether or not to leave her there so I picked her up and moved her to the middle of the living room floor. She immediately turned toward where the vent was and low crawled as fast as she could to get there. Once the air was hitting her again she kept laughing and cackling at it while she hit it with her hand.

I wish we had it on video camera but we pulled out the laser light that our cat Oreo LOVES to chase. When Constance saw the light she kept hitting at it and trying to scoop it up with her hand. As soon as I began moving the light Constance low crawled towards it. When she reached it and hit her hand on the floor we would move the light again. Off she went after the laser light-from one side of the living room to the other. Oreo did not find it as amusing as we did.

We had three days of successful sweet potato eating but once I gave her applesauce again she would not eat anything solid. We also started her on pears yesterday. I hate pears-anything to do with pears actually. The smell of pear lotion, the pear itself, and pictures of pears-Yuck! However I wanted to give my daughter a chance to like the fruit. I think her reaction to them was one of the worst yet!

Misc

We are not crawling yet…but still very, very close. She try's to crawl toward a toy but after awhile decides it is easier for her to low crawl and get the item! It still surprises me when I walk in a room and she is sitting up after I had just seen her rolling on the floor. Today she was studying the objects on the couch wondering how to get to those. Our guess is that shortly after she crawls she will be up and walking.

Yesterday she ate a whole cube of sweet potatoes and I gave her a little more whole milk to drink. I do not think she has developed an opinion on milk yet. I had an amusing thought this morning. If Constance does not start liking solid food asap, she won't get to enjoy any of her 1st birthday cake! If nothing else, maybe I will be able to stick a candle in some yogurt and we can sing "Happy Birthday" to her that way.

We are also researching what the best (affordable) car seat is for Constance. She is about to outgrow her infant car seat. We might have been willing to just let her use that seat till she maximized the weight and height limit but the straps keep messing up on it.

The other day, Constance gave me three slobbery kisses without me prompting her…and she looked quite pleased with herself. It was great. She has also added a new noise to her vocabulary. "Ba."

Scary Carwash=bad mommy

I am a bad mommy. Keith has wanted to wash our van for a few months now so I found $3and drove to our nearest car wash. It completely terrified Constance and there was nothing I could do but hold her hand, pray that the wash would end asap and talk to her telling her it was okay. I should have thought about the fact that it WAS loud and scary BEFORE going in. My poor baby. As soon as it was over I pulled over, got her out of the car seat and cuddled with her. That seemed to help. When we got home she was very clingy still so I was able to get some extra snuggle time in right before nap time.

Whole Milk

I gave Constance whole milk for the first time today in her sippy cup. I know she at least got a little bit because I made sure of that…however she tends to chew on the cup more than drink from the cup.

Our little girl is not crawling yet but gets better every day about getting on her knees. She has become very good about low crawling though and relentlessly goes after the cats, especially Sugarwafer.

Teeth

Constance now has her 4th tooth in! It is her left middle tooth on the top.

I'm Back

I am sorry for the delay in writing this week. There seems to always be something else to do-dishes to be done, the baby needing to nap, supper needing to be made, a shower that need to be taken etc… I am very thankful for a husband who does help me with the day to day tasks when he is home. We have also added one more stressful thing to our lives (which hopefully will not be stressful once we get into a routine) a change in jobs for Keith. He is going to be a high school teacher (Yikes!) In the past two weeks I feel like I have seen and talked to him less. We both feel overwhelmed! I know that it will get easier but until then I can whine in my blog!

Constance is growing like a weed. I wonder why we say that? Don’t we hate weeds? Shouldn’t we pluck them from the brown earth when they show their shiny green petals? So let me correct my self. Constance is growing like a…rose? I don’t know. Any suggestions?

It is hard to believe that she is 31 weeks old. She still does not like solid food and I am getting so discouraged (wait a minute, am I whining again?). I was worried when we started giving her solid food on Father's Day that she would be eating more of that then my milk. Boy was I wrong! We did introduce avocado and plain (sometimes mixed with homemade fruit purees) yogurt. I am tired of heating up cubes of food just to see them go to waste. I am not one of those moms who plan on breastfeeding their child till she is five. I do plan on breastfeeding "full time" for a year but we will start the weaning process around, if not a little before, that time.

One success is that our baby sleeps 98% of the time in her own room for the whole night. She is also so close to crawling. Just today she figured out how to have both knees underneath her. I will give her a week to master it!

Much to my dismay she has started saying, "da da da da da da da, " day and night. She does not yet know that the noise she is making actually belongs to someone but it will click at some point. I tell Constance, No da da. Say mama." She will just laugh at me and start saying da da da all over again!

Coming soon

Sorry for not posting in a few days and adding new pictures. With Keith "in training" for his new job, all of our schedules have been messed up.

So please patiently wait on me for one or two days and I will happily get back into the blogging world.

Dilemma with Church

We had a mild setback with solid foods the other day. I heated up on green bean cube and one applesauce cube. For those of you who wonder what I mean by "cube"…when I make Constance's food I steam whatever it is I am making, puree it till the food is the right consistency, and then put it in ice cube trays. One ice cube puree is the equivalent to one serving. Anyway, back to my original thought. We had been doing so well for two or three days about her eating solids twice a day. Yesterday however I was able to get her to eat maybe on teaspoon of applesauce and no green beans.

When it comes to our baby and the nursery at church we keep Constance in the church service with us...for several reasons. One of the reasons is that we are not comfortable leaving her in the nursery. One person we more than likely do not know, watching several children of all ages. Those pre-toddlers can be viscous and have no sense of the words, "be careful, there is a baby right there." The second reason is that we are going to implement a book called, "Parenting in the Pew," by Robbie Castleman. The woman who wrote this book did not start this practice till her children where four years old. Here is the insert on the back since I could not find their website:

Sunday morning isn't a success if we have only managed to keep the kids quiet. And there's more to church for kids than trying out their new coloring books. Children are at church for the same reason Mom and Dad: for the privilege of worshipping God.

Burning with an infectious passion for worship, Robbie has learned how to teach children to praise God. She shows us how important it is to take our children's worship seriously. And then, with nitty-gritty advice and a touch of humor, she shows us how we can help our children (from toddler to teenager) participate in the most worthwhile and exciting act anybody can do.

"Worship is a challenge," Robbie admits. "With children it is a bigger challenge." But Jesus promised that the stones will cry out if we-and our children-forget to praise God.

While this is all well and good and we look forward to the time when Constance can comprehend what we are asking her to do; but that does not help us now. Our vocal baby, who is happiest right after she eats (which happens to be right before we go to church), likes to talk in church. In our SMALL congregation her happy babbles are heard in every corner of the four walls. So that she is not a distraction we take Constance out…which means that one of us misses the sermon. As bad as this sounds, I do not necessarily mind missing the sermon. I am tired of myself and my church being "dead." However missing it all together does not help the journey.

Solid Food is making a Come Back

Up until this past Tuesday, Constance has been on a solid food fast for about four days. We had given her some store bought baby food carrots (the only processed food other than her cereal that we have given her) and they next day she started spitting up most of what she ate. So I did not give her solid food all that day to give her tummy time to get better. Then her Nanny (my mom) came for a visit and I just did not give her any solid food during that time. I do not think Constance even missed it since it was such a struggle before! However on Tuesday I decided to try again. I heated up a homemade applesauce cube and fed it to her. She ate the whole thing! On Wednesday I heated up one applesauce and one peach cube. The peach to her seemed to be sour, however she took several bites anyway. She also ate several bites of her applesauce. On Wednesday evening I re-heated her leftovers and was able to get her to eat several bites of both. I am so excited and hope this trend continues. Today I will try a veggie, probably sweet potato and see how she does with that.

She is not crawling yet but does get on her knees before falling over. We also put her in her walker this week. She hardly moved in it at first or if she did she would go backwards. The other day I put her in it while I was cleaning the kitchen and when I started sweeping she got very excited and immediately walked towards me! She kept tripping over her feat though because it was going too fast. Once she reached me I let her touch the handle of the broom and then I went to the other side of the kitchen and called to her. She figured out how to turn in her walked and came to me again and was thrilled that I let her touch the broom handle. Silly baby.

Shots

Yesterday was shot day. Constance was given two shots this time but Keith and I were amazed at how well she did. We did give her baby Tylenol before going. When it was time to give her the shots two nurses were there to so they could inject both shots at the same time. Constance cried for maybe three seconds and then was fine. We had a rough night with her last night and we think that was due to the shots plus teething. She has her third tooth in and we are just waiting for the fourth to come through.

The Highlights and Lowlights

Sunday we had some friends over for lunch. In an effort to share with Constance, their 14 month old son ended up hitting our baby with a big Lego block. Regardless to say, she really did not appreciate that.

Monday Constance gave us a pretty bad diaper. I pulled her out of her exersaucer and knew she was dirty…I just did not know how much. When I laid her on her back the rest of the mess went up her back and all over her p.j.'s (which happen to be one of my favorites). Since she now thinks it is her job to roll in any direction she can when we change her diapers she started getting it on the front of her shirt as well, not to mention it was on the floor. I wiped her as clean as I possibly could and took off all her clothes so I could run some bath water. When I came back for Constance she had decided it would be fun to wet on our hardwood floor which of course was now all over her.

On Tuesday evening while watching a show on television, Constance was playing on the floor in front of us. Our cat Sugarwafer decided to come in and lay within arms reach of the baby. Within a very short amount of time she successfully grabbed his enticing tail and would not let go till we pried her fingers off. Thankfully Sugarwafer did not turn around and swipe at Constance.

Tuesday night she slept from 10p.m.-5a.m. and Keith was able to get her to go back to sleep till 7a.m. That has been the longest she has slept in a long time. I kept waking up wondering if she was alright.

Wednesday morning greets us and I discover that Constance has another tooth that has peaked its little sharp head. Hopefully that means she will start sleeping through the night again. If that is the case, a month long teething session just for one tooth is not going to cut it (Ha! Get it? Cut it, like she is cutting her teeth. I know I have too much time on my hands).

Another neat thing is that she is trying to figure out how to crawl. She will rise up on her hands as far as she can go and then scoot her knees under her for a few seconds and then fall. It will not be too much longer before she figures it out and then we will really have to watch her.

She also waves now…however her hand is always turned towards her when she does it. It looks like she is waving at herself! How cute!

Saturday Night

In reference to what my husband posted…Saturday night was not a good night. After traveling all day we thought Constance would go to sleep fairly easily and sleep through the night. Our little girl was not asleep till 10p.m. Keith and I went to bed shortly after she did, just to be woken up at 11:30 or midnight with her crying relentlessly. My husband went to her room and got her up. We gave her some baby oragel (I believe I felt a tooth coming in on the top) and I fed her. She fell back asleep after eating her fill and I put her back in her crib. Within seconds, Keith and I fell back asleep. Later that morning (to be exact, 3 a.m.), I was awakened by Keith coming back in our room holding our crying baby. He told me he had heard her start to stir and thought he heard a basketball being dribbled. Sure enough when he walked into Constance's room you could hear our neighbor's kids next door playing basketball. They had woken her up! He handed me the baby and said he was going to go talk to them. So in his pajamas Keith goes out and tells the group of kids (in the nicest way possible) that they woke up his baby and asked if they would stop playing. The group seemed to respond positively even though on his way back to the house one of the kids honks the car horn. By the time he gets back Constance is finished eating, and I am trying to get her to go back asleep. Almost as soon as Keith lays back down in bed we hear that basketball being played with again. We really did not want to call the cops so Keith takes the baby (against my protesting) and goes and talks to them. He tells them that he does not want to call the cops and he is just looking for respect. One of the young men that was standing over there tells Keith that he understands because he has a daughter as well. Keith looks over at him in surprise and asked how old he is. He said he was 18. Keith then asked how old his daughter was. He said she was 3! Keith in not so many words told him he needed to stop doing the things he was doing that made babies. Things went smoother and I think having Constance present helped. They did not playing basketball and we all slept till 7:30ish.

Eat More Chicken

As I mentioned in my previous blog, we gave Constance green beans for the first time. I had my camera ready so when she gave me a bad look after trying the green veggie, I could take a picture. I gave her the first bite and nothing happened. I gave her the second bite and still no disgusted face. She ended up eating a whole homemade cube of green beans. That has never happened before. That evening I heated up one more cube of homemade green beans and one cube of applesauce. She ate all of her apple sauce and most of her green beans. I am relieved because up to this point she has hated everything we have given her. We will see how she does today with it all.

Last night was cow night at Chick-Fil-A and the three of us dressed up and went to get our free meal. We love getting free meals. We were a bit concerned because when we pulled up to the building, all the families coming out of it were NOT dressed like cows. But we decided to be brave and went in anyway. As we were ordering a family of four, all dressed like cows came in as well as a single guy. The manger also gave Constance her first Chick-Fil-A cow! Our baby also sat in her first high chair while we were at the restaurant. We have one at home but it reclines a little. This one did not. Constance did very well and we had a great time.

Dress like a cow to eat for free? We are in!

Today is "Dress Like A Cow" night at the restaurant Chick-Fil-A. If you go in wearing cow stuff from head to toe you can get a free value meal (or a free kid's meal if you are a kid). Last year, while I was pregnant with Constance, my husband, sister-in-law, and nephew all dressed up like cows and was able to eat for free. I wish I could find the picture so I could show all of you blog readers. Unfortunately my sister-in-law and nephew moved away but this year Keith and I get to dress up Constance as well. Obviously she will not be able to eat a kid's meal but we might look rather silly if Keith and I were dressed like cows and the only child with us, wasn't.  We will have to attach her spots and ears once we get there…otherwise she might spend the trip happily taking off all the black spots. We will take pictures and put them on the blog later on.

As for the solid's Constance has been trying since Father's Day she has had-Squash, Applesauce, Sweet Potato, Peach/Banana and starting today she will try green beans. So far she has not liked any of them but last night we had a break through. She ate a whole applesauce cube! That has never happened before and we are so excited.

Last night the baby slept longer than what she has in quite some time. She slept from 9p.m.-4a.m. and woke up crying. Right as I was getting ready to get up and get her she quitted down and fell back asleep. She woke up again right before 5a.m. totally miserable. I fed her and she went back to sleep for another two or so hours. She is back in her own room again and we think the birds woke her up. We can not hear there happy chirping at such an ungodly hour but when you walk in the nursery you can hear them loud and clear. I wonder if there is anything I can do about that?

Solid Food

Our one time success of Constance liking peaches and banana is no longer valid. I fed it to her last night thinking that she would enjoy it just as much as she had earlier. She took one bite and would not eat anymore. Today I heated up one peach cube and one sweet potato cube. She took one bite of sweet potato and one reluctant bite of peaches and would not eat anymore. Will she ever like solid food?

Our dear baby is still waking up in the middle (or sometimes the beginning) of the night. She is doing better about going back to sleep after waking up but it is still not good that she is waking up.

The Good: She is such a happy baby. I love to hear her giggle and daily see the new things she can do.

The Ugly: Since starting solid foods her bad diaper quotient has grown!

Two treats in one day

Today Constance was able to experience two new fruits, bananas and peaches. She ate about four baby spoonfuls of the peaches (which is far more than what she has been eating with her other baby food). After that she gave me some looks letting me know she was through. I then mashed up a small piece of a banana and added some water. I gave her a bite and she must have liked it because she opened her mouth for more. I fed her about five baby spoonfuls before cutting her off. Yes they are good for her but I read that they can also cause constipation which I do not want to go through with her. It is neat that she likes both fruits since we have not had too much success with the other foods.

Potato Potato Everywhere

Today was Constance's second day of homemade sweet potatoes. She took two bites and would not open her mouth for anymore. I got the "brilliant" idea to let her see the contents of the bowl. I tilted it her way and she trustingly put her hand in and got the orange veggie all over her hand. At first she kind of moved her hand some, a little unsure of this weird and gooey texture all over it. However it did not take her very long to decide that mommy must have given her a good thing. She hit the bottom of the bowl several times, spraying herself, me, her Bumbo and the floor with sweet potato. Given time she might have put her hands on her head but this time she left it alone and just had it spread all over her legs and hands. It was great! I put the bowl down to go start her bath water and when I came back she was reaching for the bowl, then successfully picked it up and flung it around a couple of times. I would have to say that this may have been the best day of her life thus far!

Potato Day

Today is sweet potato day! Thus far, we have fed Constance homemade squash and applesauce. She seemed to "like" the applesauce more then she did the squash but it still was not good to her. I will post sweet potato pictures later.

Last night went better

Last night went better than it has in awhile. Constance, thanks to not having an early evening nap, was asleep by 8:30p.m. She woke up at midnight and her daddy rocked her back to sleep. Once she woke up crying but a quick rub of her belly and she was out again till 6:30a.m.!

Yesterday was also her second "first" food which was homemade apple sauce. While she ate more of the apples then she ever did the squash, Constance gave me some awful looks.

What is going on?

I am not sure when the last time Constance slept through the night was. I do not know what is going on with her. I do not think she is waking up hungry because I typically do not have to feed her in the middle of the night. Maybe you can solve the mystery behind what is going on with our daughter?

She wakes up crying. Not just once but on and off the whole night. What is odd is that she never fully wakes up. Her eyes, for the most part, stay closed. If we just leave her be, her crying continues and gets worse. We can get her to go back to sleep by rubbing her belly. That seems to help until she wakes up crying again. Keith and I do not think it is gas and we are pretty sure it is not teething (but of course we could be wrong on either of those). Any suggestions?

First Family Sickness

We have had/are having our first family sickness. Last week Keith developed a sore throat but it went away after a day. This week I started having a sore throat, which lead to feeling nasty and congested and I had a fever one evening. In some ways I feel better but I have developed a cough as well. To add to this week, Constance started having a fever last night. It was 101.7 and after giving her children's Tylenol it went down to 99.7. She slept fairly rough last night and woke up with her temperature still the same. Keith is going to call Constance's doctor when they open to see if they recommend anything.

Pray for us please!

This Week

I just realized it has been several days since I blogged. Constance still does not like squash. We were supposed to make homemade apple sauce for her second solid food but I have had a cold for the past few days and have not been up to doing that. In a round about way, my daughter has already had an apple. On Father's Day (also the day we gave her her first squash) I was eating an apple and picked Constance up and placed her on my lap. Before I could stop her, my baby reached up grabbed my mostly eaten apple and promptly started sucking on it. I took it from her once but after much protest from her my husband and I decided to let her suck on the apple. She enjoyed that apple thoroughly!

I also went to my first "mom's meeting" at our church. I knew Constance would need to take a nap shortly after I arrived and typically standing with her and rocking with her would have her down quickly. She became fussy and as to not disturb the other women I stood with her and began to rock her. Constance would have none of that. She became louder so I quickly exited the room so I could get her quiet, asleep and be able to join the ladies again. My plan did not work. She just kept crying and crying. I knew I needed to leave but all my things were still where the other women were. There was nothing I could do about it so as quickly as I could I gathered my things and left. I was so embarrassed and frustrated. I do hope taking her places becomes easier.

The Good: It is an amazing feeling when Constance flings herself into my arms, puts her head on my shoulder and lets me cuddle with her.

The Bad: Twice this week she has woken up in the middle of the night. We do not know what that is about.

The Ugly: She had her first bad diaper after eating squash all this week. Thankfully Keith was home and changed her for me. Go Keith! He is such a good dad and awesome husband.

What time is it? Squash time!

Not only is today Father's Day but it was also Squash day! We gave Constance her first taste of solid food today. By default (meaning the only fresh veggie we had in our fridge) we choose yellow squash as the official first meal for our baby. With the moose bib on and the camera rolling I proudly gave her a bite of the homemade baby food. Her first reaction was not what we expected it to be. For the first couple of bites she showed neither enjoyment or dislike. Then it hit it. She gagged a few times and spit some squash out. She gave some nasty looks to go along with the food. It was great! Once we see that she is not allergic to the squash her next new food will be either sweet peas or homemade apple sauce.

We are making our own bay food if I had not mentioned that before. We will get fresh veggies and fruits and puree them for Constance. We also can puree meats and noodles! It is such a neat feeling to make your own baby food and the money it saves is amazing.

For Father's Day, Keith got his first tie today from Constance. It is green and has fish on it. He also has a shirt that says, "World's Best Father, Hand Down." What is cool about this shirt is that there is safe paint to go with it where we can put Constance's hand prints on the shirt. Later we are going bowling and eating some pizza.

Shots

Today was shot today and thankfully Constance did very well. To begin with she is still very healthy, the top of her weight range (she weighed 18 pounds 13 ounces) and was average in her height and head size. She does everything she is supposed too! We were also approved to feed her whatever we wanted too. Like I mentioned before we are going to be making our own baby food. We can puree meats-fish, chicken, beef. We can even puree noodles! We can't wait.

Okay back to the shots. We only got her one today, her DTaP. The nurse put the shot in and it took Constance a few moments to say, "Oh wow. That hurts." She cried for a few seconds and then gave some complaining noises but after that she was fine. She slept in the car on the way to the store, ate at Wall Mart and is now happily playing in her exersaucer. Next month we go back for one more shot.

Will it ever end?

I honestly believe that teething will never end. Seriously. She has been teething (or what we believe to be teething) ALL week long. Constance has not been her normal happy self and to top of our week her teeth have only grown just a tiny amount. Regardless to say I feel helpless in helping my baby feel better. Yes, we use oragel, teething rings, Tylenol, wash cloths etc… but you can't explain to a six month old why she feels the way she feels.

Today is Constance 6 month old birthday! Wow! Where has the time gone? One moment I am cuddling with a 9 pound mass of skin and fat and now I am wondering where my chunky wonder has rolled too.

Today is also Shot Day. She is only getting one, her DTaP. We hate the unknowns about shots. They are supposed to be helpful but more and more research reveals more problems with getting your munchkins these vaccines. Prayer. Lots of prayer is going into our baby.

We are still trying to decided what "first" homemade baby food to give her. Maybe it will be sweet potatoes. Maybe it will be squash. Maybe we will go against the "experts" and start with something sweet. Maybe we won't. Ha!

Not a whole lot

Nothing new on the home front. Constance's two bottom teeth are slowly becoming bigger and boy are they sharp! She rolls everywhere and is so vocal! She has changed her schedule on me though for the past two weeks and we really do not have a consistent schedule at all. She does still sleep through the night so that is awesome.

At some point next week we will start her on real food! She loves her baby oatmeal when we give it to her and gets so excited. We are thinking about starting her on green beans or maybe squash. We will also probably alternate between veggies and fruits (a veggie the first time, a fruit the next, veggies, fruit…) I am excited about seeing her try new foods but not so excited about the diapers that will follow…

The Good: She is trying to figure out how to make her knees come up when she is on her belly. Crawling will be right around the corner.

The Ugly: I picked my Constance up from her exersaucer the other morning to cuddle with her. As I did that I had this weird wet sensation on my arm. And then I smelled it. Yep. You guessed it. Blow out diaper on the white onesie!

Pool Time

We pulled out Constance's frog pool for the first time on Monday. We put a little water in it first thing that morning and was going to let the sun heat it up and have her "swim" that afternoon. We did not get around to doing that till after supper. By that time the water was a bit chilly but thought it would be okay. With Keith videotaping and me putting our baby in the water, she quickly let us know that she was not a happy camper. She cried and I picked her up and placed her on her belly. She seemed to do better with that but was still not thrilled. So we ended her first pool time by wrapping her in a towel and outing some warm p,j,'s on her. Next time we will have to do it when the water is warmer!

I love vacations

We had a great vacation! We left town Friday evening, ate at CiCi's Pizza and drove to camp. When we got to the cottage later on that evening we were greeted with a fresh and clean cabin, a beautiful sunset and fish that were just waiting to be caught. Constance did wonderfully and over three days she mastered rolling….everywhere! One minute she would be on our rolled out blanket, we would turn out back for a minute or so and she would be under the coffee table, or by the door or trying to roll into the couch…. Another neat thing is she is trying to get the concept of crawling. She will push herself up as far as she can go and then try to get her knees to come forward. I do not think that by tomorrow she will be crawling but her brain is kicking into the fact that she has the power to move.

All day Saturday and Sunday was spent basking in the sun, fishing, reading, napping and enjoying time with each other.

Monday morning we woke up to a small surprise. Constance was sound asleep on her belly! What is unusual about this is that I did not lay her down to sleep on her belly. At some point during the night she rolled herself over.

Her one tooth has not developed any more, however, she has another one coming in right beside it!

We are getting away!

We can't wait! This weekend we get to go stay in a cabin, rest, fish, go for hikes and just enjoy being together. On Friday evening the three of us will load the car and head about 30 minutes out of town, and will be back on Monday!

On the tooth front, you can see and feel a very small sharp point but it is not close enough to say she has her first tooth in yet. None the less it is very exciting!

On a sad thought, right now Constance thinks that Keith and I are the neatest people in the world! It is wonderful! Im some ways I wish they could stay this little, cute and innocent forever. :)

Words unspoken

This morning my little girl woke up, looked and me and said, "Uga ahhhh mmmm hee." I definitely believe she said, "Good morning, I love you mom." I have a smart baby! :)

She did it!

For those of you who follow my blog, you already know that for several months Constance could easily roll from her back to her belly. For a few months now she would try to roll from her belly to her back but could never quite get it. Yesterday evening she finally did it! It happened so quickly so I was thrilled that I even got to see it. Later that evening she did it one more time and Keith was able to watch! We are so proud!

We are home again

After a long trip to Mississippi we are back home again and getting into our normal routine once more. Constance did better then what we thought she would. It took about 5 hours to get down to Tupelo with a break in the middle to feed the baby. From there Constance visited with great grandparents, great aunts and uncles, grand parents, regular aunts and uncles, cousins, second cousins, and friends of the family. Everyone seemed delighted to meet her and spend time with the family. A special treat for me was that one uncle had four kittens who were only a few weeks old, another uncle had two kittens, three puppies and a dozen baby chicks! I will post some pictures of the trip later on this week.

Monday night, Constance was fighting sleep so Keith told me to take a break from trying to feed her and let him hold her. He was in bed with us reading the book, "The Shack." I agreed and placed the baby in the side of his arm. From there Constance started carrying on a conversation. We laughed about it and Keith would ask her to read one of the sentences in his book. She just stared at it, would turn to look at me and talk in her baby talk. I knew she was smart, but a five month old who can read! Wow! Hahaha.

Since being home she has done well in adjusting. She was a bit emotional last evening but for two nights has slept till a decent hour (7 a.m. the first night and 6 a.m. the second night)

We are getting ready for a road trip

This will be my last post until we get back from our trip to Mississippi. I am a tad nervous about the whole thing. It will take us 5+ hours to get to Keith's family plus we will have to stop and feed Constance part way through. This will be her longest trip in the car. The weekend will be consisted of visiting all of Keith's family and friends so we can show off our daughter. On Sunday we are driving three hours so we can visit with my brother and his family and see our niece get baptized! On the way back to Tupelo we will stop and eat supper with some more family of Keith's… and then Monday morning we will head back home. I really hope (and am praying) that our baby will do well!

Two Posts in One Day

Parenting can be so gross sometimes.

I place my sweet little 18 pound bundle in her doorway bouncer and do some other things around the house. I did not know that she had a dirty diaper until I took her out of her doorway bouncer, felt something sticky and wet on my hand, and smelled something really bad. Gross stuff was running down one of her legs and she had sprung a leak on the other side. I quickly rushed her to our bedroom where I placed her on a blanket and begin to strip her down. As I rushed about, turning on the warm water, grabbing a wash cloth, new diaper and outfit she calmly smiled from ear to ear. I guess she was quite pleased with herself. So I began wiping the gooeyness from her leg and realize that some of it has begun to dry. So I went from rubbing gently to scrubbing her little legs. Her smile got bigger as she watched me run from the bathroom to her several times to rinse off the washcloth and scrub her, rinse off the wash cloth and scrub. I knew some of it had gone up her back so I took off her soiled onesie and had her sitting on her bottom facing the mirror that is attached to our bed. As soon as she saw herself and as soon as I started scrubbing her down she just laughed and laughed like this was the best thing that has happened to her in her short little life.

On a happier note, we had to take Constance to the doctor today because we were concerned about three rashes that had popped up. The first one was just a small yeast infection that will clear up once we put some recommended medicine on her.

Her second rash is a bit of ring worm. Once again medicine will clear it up.

The third thing is on the back of her head. She has had it since birth and they call it a 'Stork Bite." It is from where the stork handled Constance when she was dropped off on our doorstep. Seriously. Not about the stork dropping off the baby but it being true that it is called that. Apparently she will have this till she is about two and it will get inflamed when she is hot, upset, takes a warm bath etc..

Our Week with the Crib

When our baby was first born we had her sleeping in her own room, in her own crib. When the bad ice storm came through Kentucky and Tennessee knocking out all of our power in the wee morning hours, Keith told me to get Constance so she could sleep in the bassinet in our bedroom. Until this week she has stayed in our room in her bassinet at night. We went out and bought new monitors since our other ones went out and decided it was time for her to transition back to her own room at night.

Monday night we did out typical bedtime routine and I bundled my sweet, sleeping baby and placed her in her crib. It was kind of sad going to bed that night because I am so used to looking over in the bassinet and seeing our baby. However, 40 minutes later she woke up happy and ready to go. Keith and I talked about it, he got her up, I fed her again and we let her sleep in her bassinet. She slept the rest of the night.

Tuesday we decided to try again. We did our typical bedtime routine and I bundled my sweet, sleeping baby and placed her in her crib. We woke up to the wails of this child at 3 in the morning! I got her up and nursed her but did she want to go back to sleep? No! I stayed up with her another hour before she reluctantly went to bed.

I do not remember what happened Wednesday but I know she did not sleep through the night.

Thursday rolls around, we did our typical bedtime routine and I bundled my sweet, sleeping baby and placed her in her crib. She woke up at 4a.m. I let Keith get a little more sleep since he had to get up at 5. I fed Constance and she did not want to go to sleep. By 5 she was not asleep and my wonderful husband took her so I could sleep more. A short time later he placed the sleeping baby on our bed with me.

Friday… we did our typical bedtime routine and I bundled my sweet, sleeping baby and placed her in her crib. She woke up at 3a.m. fought sleep for am hour and went to bed.

Saturday night… we did our typical bedtime routine and I bundled my sweet, sleeping baby and placed her in her crib. She woke up at some point in the wee hours, I fed her and Keith stayed up with her until she went back to sleep.

Sunday night. Because of an odd rash that developed on Constance we decided to have her sleep in her bassinet in our room again. She slept all night. Maybe we should have her sleep in her bassinet in her room…

Regardless to say, we hope she starts sleeping through the night again.

My first Mother's Day

I had a great Mother's day! I woke up and Keith and Constance had a card for me. They also got me a porcelain plate with a really cool design on it! We then went to church where they had all the mom's stand up. It was the first time that I got to stand up and it was a bit embarrassing! After church we went home where my wonderful husband prepared an entire meal for us. We had chicken chili, salad, corn bread, rice krispie treats and lemonade. It was delicious! That evening we went to the park to fish (we did not catch anything though) and had a picnic. It was wonderful.

On another note, when the baby was first born we had her sleeping in her own room. However when we had the bad ice storm come through and knocked out our power, we pulled the bassinet into our bedroom and had the baby sleep in there. Since that time, Constance has always slept in our bedroom at night in her bassinet. We just purchased new baby monitors since our other ones went out. So we decided to have Constance transfer back to her own room at night. We did the typical routine and when she was out I placed her in her crib and bundled her nice and tight. It was a little sad going to bed that night since I am used to peeking at her in the bassinet before going to bed. Unfortunately, the baby woke up about 40 minutes later due to some unknown reason. Keith went and got her for me and I nursed her again and we just put her back in her bassinet. We will probably try again tonight to have her sleep in her crib.

A better week

After the initial craziness of teething, we have had a great week. Constance is such a happy baby and is such a blessing. I can't believe how big she is getting and all the new things she does and sounds she makes. She is fascinated with cups! Any time anyone near her drinks something she immediately reaches out her chubby little hands to grasp the cup. After that any time you drink she watched every moment of it. We have given her a small plastic cup from time to time but I do not think she is as fascinated with it as ours.

We have also started up rice cereal again mainly due to Constance having eaten earlier than normal one evening. We wanted to make sure her belly stayed full so we would continue sleeping through the night…which by the way she has done awesome with.

No teeth.

Teething

Wow, up to this point, parenthood has been relatively easy. We have a great baby who smiles all the time and laughs and does not cry very often…till today. The ugly thing that we call TEETHING has arrived in full force and it has been rough!

Constance and I had a pleasant morning. She woke up at 6:30a.m., ate really well and took an hour long nap later on. Then she woke up at 9:30a.m. ate okay and then totally had an emotional breakdown. She cried and cried and screamed like she was in pain. I rubbed her gums with baby oragel which only made her more upset. And so the afternoon continued like the above with only one more catch. Up to this point, she has not eaten in almost seven hours. She only goes that long at night. She becomes very upset when I try to feed her. I called her doctor and he has me take her temperature which was normal and told me to give her baby Tylenol. However, he said that if she does not eat anything by tomorrow morning to go ahead and bring her in to the office. That seems like an awful long time for an 18 week old to not have eaten.

UPDATE** Yesterday evening Constance did start eating again! We gave her some baby tylenol before bed and she slept through the night. Today has gone well so far! We have no teeth to show for yesterday though!

A great weekend

We had a great weekend this past weekend. Constance and I actually got to see Keith pretty much all weekend-and that has not happened in quite some time.

On Saturday we went to pick up some landscaping rock and then on to Guthrie KY where we ate some shredded bbq. It was delicious! We then went to Cold Stream Camp to visit some friends and to fish in their lake. The weather was beautiful. At some point Constance became very emotional…we think she just got to hot.

The first picture is of Constance with the fish that she caught.

The second picture with Keith holding the bass, I actually caught. It was funny. I was holding the baby and we put a worm on my hook and dropped it into the water. Shortly afterward I got a small fish. I pull it out and Keith took it off and throws the fish back in the water. He then part jokingly/part seriously suggests that I put the hook back in the water with NO bait to see what would happen. In about 20 seconds I got a bite, but when I went to pull up the fish it was obviously much larger than the first one. I had to hand over my pole to Keith because I could not reel it in AND hold the baby!

The third picture is of one of the fish that Keith caught…no he really did not eat it!

On Sunday evening we went fishing again at Dunbar Cave. I caught an easy three and then Keith started fishing. A guy down the lake from us caught a decent size bass and a few people are checking it out. Then Keith hooked a turtle. By the time he got it to the shore there were people everywhere, mainly kids. The turtle was so mad and it kept hissing at Keith as he held it for the kids to touch. It turned out that turtles have claws, at least this one did, and Keith accidentally dropped it on its back after getting clawed. The turtle was definitely not happy at this point and the hissing continued until Keith put the turtle back in. It was a yellow-belly slider.

Play Time

Our daughter is so much fun. The other day after I got done feeding Constance and burping her I had her sit in her Bumbo chair. (http://www.bumbobabyseat.com/) I ran and got a book off of her book shelf and when I showed it to her she became very excited (when she gets very happy she does this accelerated breathing thing). So we looked through the book and she seemed fascinated with every page. She of course had to hold it and taste test it. Since she was so happy about the one book I went and got another….and was rewarded with the same reaction. I did this two more times and we repeated the routine. Excited breathing, holding and taste testing. It was awesome.

We have continued the rice cereal after holding off for one day. She still hates it and looks at us like we lost our minds for giving it to her.

It is hard to believe that she is 17 weeks old! Wow!

Healthy Baby and Cereal

We are very happy to report that Constance is healthy! We had her 4 month well baby checkup the other day. She weighs 17 pounds 2 ounces which puts her in the 99% of her age range. She is 25.5 inches long (which puts her in the 89%) and her head is average. The doctor said she is a big girl but not fat by any means because of how long she is. Everything she is supposed to be doing by now she does.

We were really a bit nervous about going to her new doctor since we had to leave the pediatrician she has seen since birth. However we really liked it there. Everyone was very nice and very informative and there is no trouble with us delaying her shots.

Another thing that we started last night was rice cereal. It was suggested to us that we go ahead and start on that and next month we can introduce veggies and fruits. We might wait till she is 5 ½ months old or just starting 6 months to do that just because my breast milk is the healthiest thing for her and she has not had any shots yet. So anyway, we mixed up the cereal which was 1 T cereal and 5 T breast milk. We put a bib on her, placed her in her bumbo and gave her the first spoonful. She kind of gave us a look like we were crazy! I was able to give her three or four spoonfuls of it. Now I can not guarantee that it all went in her but at least some did. At some point she stopped opening her mouth. However, she did not sleep through the night. She woke up at 2:30a.m., ate, and did not want to go back to bed. Her schedule was so messed up yesterday though so maybe it will go better tonight.

I love cloth diapers!

Cloth diapers are amazing. I must admit that I was a VERY big skeptic in the beginning. Keith had mentioned that he would like to try them when we were pregnant…and I told him I was willing to try them but not to hold his breath that I would use them very long.

We began researching which ones we thought would be best. And so we picked some out called Bum Genius (http://www.bumgenius.com/one-size.php). They are designed to fit newborn to toddler. No need for pins, inserts, or extra covering. These diapers do it all! A big thank you to my parents for purchasing them for us! Very quickly she grew into the diapers and we discovered that twelve would not get us very far. It is amazing how many diapers one so small can go through! Also, to preserve the "life" of the cloth diapers it is recommended that you do not put them in the dryer. It took a good two /three days for the bum genius to dry (if we could not put them outside on the line). So we continued buying paper diapers.

One day my mom came to visit and she suggested using regular cloth diapers, the type of ones that she used on us when we were little. They are the plain white ones where you would need something to hold them together plus a plastic covering over the top. I was still a bit skeptical but the desire to save money overruled my thinking. Thankfully I did not have to use the pins that hold them together. A friend of ours had given us something called a "Snappi." (http://www.snappibaby.com/products/snappidiaperfastener.html). It is pin and pain free and works just as well. My mom easily put the cloth diapers on Constance. When she left however I called her with Specimen A (Constance) and Specimen B (the cloth diaper) because I could not get it on her to save my life. She talked me through it and now I can put the cloth diapers on pretty easily. They are great and can be washed/bleached/and dried easily.

Then we received another type of cloth diaper (15 of them to be exact) called "Kushies by Baby Bebe." (http://www.babybungalow.com/kubaba.html). These diapers are amazing as well! You can not bleach them like you can the plain white ones, and they do take a bit longer to dry but they hold up well. With these I do not have to worry about using a Snappi or plastic cover. It has everything I already need.

In the past three days I have only used 2 paper diapers. It is so exciting and I love the money it saves. For those of you who are still skeptics, it is not as bad as you think it would be, even with a messy diaper!
Go cloth!

P.s. In the second picture of Constance where she looks so happy…she is modeling one of the Bum Genius diapers!

My baby thinks I am funny

Besides the amount of time, energy, and work a baby creates, it is also incredible how much joy someone so little can produce. In spite of the times where she has emotional outburst for no reason, or produces bad diapers right as we are heading out the door, or how I can not just get out and go without having to think about her feeding and nap schedule, or how I do not get as much sleep as I did before she was born, Constance has been a blessing.

Right now, my baby finds me hilarious. She is responding back to certain things and showing her personality more and more. The other day while we were visiting at my parent's house I tried to mimic a noise that my daughter had created. I messed it up and laughed at myself. Constance laughed too. So I tried again to make the noise, paused and then laughed. She laughed again. I did this over and over again getting the same results. It was so awesome.

In some ways I wish they could stay this young and innocent. Stay where they know and feel and receive mom and dad's love without all the attitude that comes later

Ahhh

Constance was so sweet this morning. Until she constantly sleeps through the night we have her in a bassinet in our bedroom (or until she outgrows her bassinet, which ever one comes first). So our daughter woke up at 4a.m. demanding to be fed. I tried to rock her back to sleep but that did not work. My husband woke up and said that he was going to go sleep on the couch since he had his alarm to set for just an hour later at 5a.m.

So I fed my wailing infant and she is as happy as can be. She does not want to go back to sleep. So at first I bundle her and put her in the bassinet and I hop back in bed. After a few minutes of her crying I pick up my bundled baby and put her on Keith's side of the bed, and lightly cover her with our covers. I rarely do this. I put my hand on he chest and she immediately grabs it and starts gnawing on my finger. I talk to her softly and tell her it is time to sleep and I am able to start rubbing her chest. I have my eyes closed but am not asleep and when I look to see what she was doing, I see that she has turned her body and is staring at me. I told her that I loved her and that it was time to sleep and I close my eyes again. A little while after that I open my eyes to see what she was doing and she is still staring at me but this time smiles and then closes her eyes and falls asleep. Ahhhh.

Cereal and sleep

Our daughter keeps waking up in the wee morning hours. Last night she woke up at 3:30a.m. just as happy as can be. Typically we can rock her back to sleep but this morning Constance would not have any of it. My wonderful husband got her up for me, cleaned out her nose and changed her diaper. Then once I was done feeding her, he bundled her for me (he is an excellent bundler).

A few people have suggested we start feeding her cereal at night and that may help her sleep through the night. While we might start that once she turns four months old we will probably hold off on other baby food till she is five months or even 6 months. Part of our reasoning is that we are delaying getting the baby her shots. Since I strictly breastfeed her then she can still remain relatively healthy. I also have no idea how to begin feeding her cereal and other baby food. I am sure I can research it online but I will see if her doctor has any information on it.

I still hold to the fact that we have a great baby. She is laughing so much more now and that is such an awesome sound.

I am so proud!

Since Constance hated "tummy time" so much a friend of ours suggested we place her, tummy down, on her boppy pillow. That way she is not just on her tummy and it will still help get her arms strong when she pushes up. For a few weeks we have been doing that and she enjoys it so much more.

For a few days now, Constance will turn herself on her side but has never turned all the way over. However while I was sorting laundry I looked over and she had turned herself on her side and was trying to flip over. I stopped what I was doing to watch her and sure enough, she went from her back to her belly…twice!! She still has trouble getting that one arm to go out from underneath her. Not only that but when she did flip herself and I got her little hand out from underneath her she stayed raised up for a few minutes on her arms!

It was awesome!! I am so proud of her and a little sad. What happened to my "little" 9 pound 6 ounce baby?

I have feet!

I made a great discovery today. I can see my feet again! Now some of you may be thinking why I did not discover this right after I gave birth. The answer, I just did not think about it before. I can now see my feet. I can paint my toenails in my favorite color of polish, black. I do not have to ask my husband (even though he was great while I was pregnant) to paint them for me. I can do it on my own! I can bend down without feeling uncomfortable and I am not out of breath when I stand back up! I do not have to pull the table further out just so I can sit down! I am fitting into my pre pregnancy clothes…not all of them…but that will come. I can sit on the couch and then get right back up again without my husband having to push me up! I can get out of bed normally instead of having to roll off! For that matter, I can sleep on my stomach again. I can think about certain foods, like potato soup, without wanting to toss my cookies!
If you have ever been pregnant you know exactly how I feel!!

Reflection

The baby seems to be back on schedule! It is very nice having her sleep through the night again. The cutest thing happened the other day. I picked her up after changing her diaper and we passed by the mirror in our bedroom. I stopped in front of it to see what she would do. For a few minutes she just stared at the mirror doing nothing. All of sudden she just started grinning from ear to ear at the reflection. She did the same thing today. Keith says that "she doesn’t know who it is, but whoever it is, that baby is awfully cute!"

One other thing that we are wondering about is when she will get some teeth? She drools and gnaws on her dragonfly all the time. From what we read and gathered from others who have gone before us in the parenting world is that it is different in all children. Some get their first tooth when they are two months old and then others do not get their first tooth till their nine months. Whenever it happens it will be pretty neat!

I can not think of a title

After thinking it over and reading some of my last posts, I will probably not write every day. Maybe I will write every other day or as amusing things come up. So please keep checking it out!

With that being said, the baby and I had a great day. She had a good night's rest and went down fairly easily for all of her naps. When she was awake she was such a happy baby. We had some great mommy-daughter time and when Keith got home he was able to get in good dad-daughter time! We have such a good baby!!

Yes! It happened!

I know all of you blog viewers have been anxiously awaiting this announcement…so here it is. Last night, after writing my blog post, our baby produced for us a messy diaper! It gets even better then that though. The baby woke up at 5a.m. with the alarm clock (after going 7 hours between feedings), ate well…tossed everything back up and then had an even worse diaper then the night before!

My life must be dull when I get excited about bad diapers…

94 Days

Hello world of blog viewers,

I have been a mom now for 94 days! Nothing really exciting to report…but as I type that I just remembered that our baby slept (between the beginning of one feeding to the beginning of the next) ten hours! She started to stir at the four hour mark but I was successfully able to rock her back to sleep…three times, poor baby. The extra sleep was amazing.

The Bad
Constance has not had a bad diaper since the day before yesterday. Our doctor told us that going three or so days without a bowel movement is normal…it just has never happened to us till now. Not that I am necessarily complaining about that fact but I will be relieved when she produces one for us.

A Day in the Park

The Good

We had a great day out today. Keith, Constance, Marcus (Keith's "little brother") and I went and grabbed a bite to eat and then went to the park to do some fishing. Because we were out so long I had to feed the baby in the van which is relatively easy now that we have tinting. Let me tell you, I have had had to feed her in much worse places (i.e. Wal- Mart Bathroom). The weather was beautiful and the baby did great. At some point she was talking loudly. I believe she was saying, "Here fishy, fishy, fishy. Here fishy, fishy, fishy." If that reference is lost on anyone I am referring to a Sesame Street episode that I saw long before I had Constance. Bert and Ernie were in a boat fishing and Bert was not catching anything using a plain ole fishing pole and bobber. Ernie explained to him that he was fishing all wrong. "All you have to do is say, "Here fishy, fishy, fishy…" and the fish will hop right in." "There is no way that can happen Ernie," Bert explained. However Ernie started calling and all the fish happily started jumping into the boat with them. Now that is what I call fishing! Constance and I did not catch anything but I believe Keith and Marcus caught two fish each.

The Bad

BEFORE the time change our baby girl was consistently going to bed by 10p.m. and sleeping 8-9 hours. Since the time change I think she has slept only twice for that long, However she typically averages 5 hours during the night. Last night I sleepily woke up to her cries and it had been only 3 ½ hours….and then she woke up 3 ½ hours after that. Thankfully her daddy was able to re-bundle her and rock her back to sleep.

Sorry if the post was a bit boring but I did say I would try and write every day.


Happy weekend,

The Sleepy One

Introduction

The past three months since the baby's birth have been full of many joys, surprises, laughter, tears and messy moments. I can say honestly that we have been blessed with a very good baby. I can share with so many stories like the time she had a bad diaper and it ended up shooting in the crib and OVER the crib and onto the carpet.....or the first time we saw her genuinely smile at us......or the time she changed clothes five times in one day because of spit up or some other unnatural secretion......or how she loves to be lifted in the air....and how she constantly gnaws at her dragonfly etc...

Parenthood has been a challenge, but a good challenge. I love being a mom in spite of the "tough' times and lack of sleep. So for this blog post I will leave you with the good, bad and ugly.

The Good
I love when my baby wakes up from a night of sleep. It is usually when she is the happiest. Seeing her grin at me makes my job worthwhile.

The Bad
Sometimes the baby wakes up from her nap crying and I wait a few minutes to see if she really is up or if she is going to go back to sleep. Today she went from "complaining" as I call it (not really crying, just letting us know she is not content) to crying. I went in and tried to soothe her but she was having none of it. So I picked up my baby and brought her into our room for a diaper change and to be fed. The baby did not want to be set down so she went from crying to loudly crying. I wanted to use the "booger sucker" (i.e. Nasal Aspirator) before I fed her so she would not choke but as soon as I put it in her nose she jerked her head and I ended up hurting her. So the baby went from crying loudly to screaming. Sigh. I calmed her down enough to begin feeding her but she had the hiccups and it took several more minutes for her to be calm enough to actually eat a good meal.

The Ugly
You would think I would learn that when I change the baby on the couch to place something underneath her, such as a towel. So for the hundredth time, she had a bad diaper and now there is poopey on the couch....again.

And the journey continues...