Stinky Toes

For Christmas, my folks bought a walk behind stroller for Constance as well as a baby doll to put in it. This is the first “real” baby doll for our daughter and Keith and I affectionately dubbed the doll as “Lily.” As Constance has started playing more and more with Lily I have noticed two things. One, I am concerned for her future motherhood as I see her interact with her doll. I do not think that throwing Lily on the floor and dragging her by her head is the makings of a good mommy. The second thing I have noticed is that she will smell Lily’s toes. It is hilarious to watch! When Constance was a little younger we would do that to her-That is, smell her feet and proclaim loudly, “Ewwww, stinky feet!” I guess that is where she gets the idea of smelling Lily’s feet.

Constance must have a sensitive nose though, as her dolls feet are not the only thing she smells. She smells the cats. She smells our hands. She smells her food even if it is a Cheerio. She smells her blanket and the pillows and the carpet… Now I am not saying she smells everything ALL the time but probably 1/2 of the time. As long as she does not start smelling our friends when they come over I guess she will be fine.

Long Time No Post

I just realized I have not posted since Constance turned one. With my husband being a teacher and us having our first Christmas break, our schedules have been off for the past two weeks.

Let’s see if I can recap.

Constance did very well at her birthday party even though she started out shy at first. We had my in-laws come, my parents and one of my brothers with his wife and two kids.

After changing to one nap for the baby, she went to three feedings (nursing) a day. I had planned on weaning her from her second meal a few weeks after her birthday but by default, she weaned herself from that meal on her birthday. She woke up from her afternoon nap too early and heard all sorts of new voices in the living room. I brought her to my bedroom so I could nurse her and change her into her birthday dress. She refused to nurse and was very cranky. I literally called my husband who was in the living room and had him help me get her ready. Because we skipped the second feeding on her birthday I went with that and tried not to nurse her second meal on the second day. She is now down to two meals (nursing).

A few days after her birthday we packed up the car and headed to KY to have Christmas with my parents. Constance did great, even after my sister in law came with her four kids. She slept a little rough while we were there but overall was fine. The last night we were at mom and dads, the bay had an awful night. She kept waking up and was restless and cranky. At 3 a.m. we took her temperature and sure enough she had a high fever! She battled a fever all that next day. We went home, took her to the doctor and was told it was a viral infection and we would just have to ride it out, while keeping her drugged on baby Tylenol and Motrin.

As for the actual Christmas presents, our baby still could care less. She opened two and she was done! Maybe next Christmas she will be in to opening her gifts-or maybe we will have the world’s strangest child who does not like getting gifts?

I think that Constance has LOVED having Keith home these past two weeks. She is such a happy baby. I have LOVED having Keith home.

At her last well baby appointment she weighed 22 pounds and 1 ounce. She was also 30 inches tall. She can say “dog” now and in reality says a hundred other things but we can’t make out what she is saying yet. She talks all the time. She also might be able to point to her nose when you ask but we are not 100% on that.

Since writing this post, we are now down to one nursing session-her night time feeding. If this continues to go well, in a week or so I will try to wean her off her night time feeding which will be the hardest I think.

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.