Ticklish Giggles

I’m a terrible mother. Nothing posted since Halloween? Terrible. *shaking head*

There’s a ton to report on Little Miss Molly, but I don’t even know where to begin. She’s such a sweet baby – rarely fusses, sleeps like a champ, eats like a champ, fills her diaper like a champ. When she does cry it’s because she’s definitely unhappy about something – she’s hungry or has a messy diaper being the top two reasons.

On the eating thing – she has been slow to take the spoon. She prefers to chew on it than to eat the food on it. And it has only been in the last month or so that she stopped pushing the food out with her tongue as she learned to eat this way. So we’ve only introduced a few solid foods in the past few months. She hates butternut squash and cereal. She doesn’t protest verbally, but merely clamps her pretty mouth shut tight enough that no one could wedge it open. She loves her fruit, though, with pears and bananas probably as her favorites.

She’s a long baby, like her brother. She outgrows clothes quickly because of that. She’s rounder, too. So she was into 9+ month clothes very early – at about 7 months. And now we’re having to get her into 12 month clothes, too. And she’s solid – we think she’s got to be about 20 lbs now. If I know I’ll need to hold her for a while I’ll make sure to bring my baby wrap so that I can wear her instead.

She’s mobile – not crawling yet, but she is a pro at the military crawl and gets where she wants to go very quickly.

Molly Ann 12/09

She has started to get up on her hands and knees to rock, so it’s only a matter of time before she’s crawling.

Here’s a cute thing from yesterday … I sang with the band at church this weekend. Beau had parking lot duty, too. So I took MA with me to rehearsal before the services so that he only had to deal with Jesse. I forgot my wrap, so I ended up holding Molly for the 20 minutes of warm up with the band. I was worried that the drums would bother her (I stand right next to the kit and even with the plexiglass surround to baffle the sound, they’re still really loud).

First beat of the snare and she jumped hard and grabbed hold of my sweater pretty tightly. But then she leaned into me, towards the drums, and watched in utter fascination as my friend Bear did his thing. And when it got to a faster groove she kicked her legs to the beat (she kicks when she’s happy). So she totally loved it. And she wore out Mom’s arm and shoulder – it’s very sore today.

Her next doctor’s appointment is January 18th.

Molly-o-Lantern…

We have officially weaned. Today is the first day of no nursing at all. We almost made it 7 full months. That’s way better than Jesse and I did, so I’m happy.

The past week made it clear that she just wasn’t interested in The Food Source™ at all. She knew the more plentiful stuff would follow and as each day came her fussiness grew.

She’s downing about 28-32 oz of formula a day now. And she’s a little chubster. What’s funny is that Jesse was eating that and solids at this stage, but he was still so slender. Totally different kids.

Anyway, no more pumping. Actually, I haven’t pumped in weeks. The bag is at my office, but I suppose I should bring it home. I think I’ll contact the local crisis pregnancy center to see if they want it. I hate to just throw it away. The motor might need servicing, but it works fine and I’ve kept it clean.

On the solid food front – she is slow to get into them. I tried cereal again the other day and I think it ticked her off. She’ll take little bits of fruit like applesauce and bananas, but she’s not even that into them. She does love her bottles though.

The well check was a lot less stressful this time. I knew going in that Molly Ann’s weight gain would be good because she’s a chubster.

Here are the latest stats:

Weight – 15 lb 5 oz (up from 12 lb 13 oz a month ago)
Head – 17 in (up from 16.25″ two months ago)
Length – 25.5 in (up from 24.75″ two months ago)

She got three shots, including the regular flu shot. We postponed one of the vaccines to her 9 month check up. At the end of the month she’ll get the flu booster and probably the H1N1 shot, too.

All in all, the doctor was pleased. I was pleased. Molly Ann did great – she didn’t start crying until the third shot and stopped by the time the second band-aid was applied. We got home and she downed 7 oz of formula and is probably sleeping right now. She’s a champ.

It is hard to believe that Molly Ann is 6 months old today. It was just yesterday that I was sleeping with her in the recliner because she wanted to be held and the frequent feedings, right? Now she’s sleeping through the night, although she still loves to cuddle.

With the transition from me as The Food Source™ to formula being her primary food she has chubbed up quite a bit in the past couple of weeks. I’m looking forward to her check up next Monday to see how much weight she has gained. We’ve also started adding solids, although she’s really only tasting at this point. She hates rice cereal, so we’ve stopped trying to give her that. She’s not excited about applesauce either. But she seemed to really like the bananas I tried last night, so we’ll continue with that for the next week or so before trying peaches or sweet potatoes. I figure we’ll just go straight for the fruits and veggies, adding the cereal once she’s mastered the spoon feeding better. Mixing the cereal with fruit might make it more palatable, too.

She is getting better at holding her bottle and desperately wants to hold her spoon. She still looks tiny in the highchair, but is doing better at sitting upright on her own. And I think she likes being on the same level as her brother – they chatted together the other morning at the table (he talked to her and she smiled and cooed at him).

She’s a happy baby – I wish we could get her adorable smile in pictures. We need to take her outside for a photo shoot so that she doesn’t get distracted by the camera flash. When she smiles her whole face smiles – her eyes, cheeks, and lips – it’s great.

She does this funny coughing laugh that’s hard to describe any other way. It’s almost like she’s trying not to laugh and it just coughs out of her.

She loves to get her diaper changed and also to get her clothes changed. She’s a true girl in that. It cracks me up that she laughs so much when I’m taking off or putting on a new onesie or sleeper. And now that she’s bigger we’re getting into the cuter clothes, too – jeans and cute little shirts and I bought the most adorable shoes for her that I’m hoping arrive in the next day or so.

She loves her big brother – she’ll watch him run around. He is sweet and attentive to her and is rewarded with many smiles and coos from her. She’s very in tune to him when he’s around and it’s amazing that she’ll sleep soundly in the Pack-n-Play in the living room when he’s running around screaming and yelling in the same room.

She’s a great sleeper – she averages about 14-16 hours a day total still. I was worried until I read somewhere that some babies at this age will sleep up to 18 hours a day. She must take after me in that – I slept a lot as a baby, too. Now that she’s getting more formula during the day, she is sleeping through the night – usually from 8-9pm until I wake her up at 5:30am or so to feed her. And then she’ll often go back to sleep for a couple more hours. She still prefers to sleep on her belly, but I’ll often find her on her side when I go in to wake her up. And if we put her in the crib fully awake on her back, she’ll roll to her side to sleep.

But when she’s awake, she’s alert and active and interested in what’s going on. She’s been rolling over on her own for a while now, but she’s starting to scoot more, too. I noticed the scooting in her crib over the weekend – she’d start in the middle, but after scooting she’d end up in a ball in the corner of the crib. And last night I put her on our bed, on her back, while I changed out of my work clothes. I turned to put my jewelry on the dresser and when I turned back, she had rolled to her belly was rocking on her hands and knees. I don’t know if Beau has thought to put her on the floor to work on crawling yet, but I’ll have to remind him to do that so she can work on that new skill.

The one thing I love most that she does is when she reaches out to touch/hold my face. She’ll reach out with both hands to cup my face, with a huge smile on hers. It’s so sweet.

I love my baby girl and I’m so grateful to have her.

HUTH – Hanging up the Horns = weaning from the pump. My milk production increase only lasted for two days. So the weaning from the pump resumed this week. The daytime weaning is going well. I’m down to 2 pumping sessions in a day at work this week. I figure I’ll get down to 1 pumping session next week, which I’ll either keep or drop. I might keep that one session in order to have milk to mix with the rice cereal that we’re adding to her menu. I think breast milk might taste better in the cereal than formula.

We’ve also bought her first jars of fruit and veg. Applesauce was introduced the other night – she took the first spoonful with gusto and then promptly pushed it out with a squinty look at me as if to say, “What on earth was that?” Hilarious.

The increase in her formula intake during the day means that she’s now pretty much STTN (sleeping through the night). She went from 8pm-4:20am last night. I think I’ll miss the intimacy of the middle of the night feedings, but I’ll also be happier for no more lost sleep in the middle of the night, too.

That said, I’ll continue to nurse her first thing in the morning and when I get home from work. And slightly more often on the weekends, if she wants that, too. We almost made it to 6 months, so I have to be pleased about that.

TMI ALERT – Aunt Flo has returned. I had read in several places that her return could cause a dip in milk supply and that adding calcium/magnesium supplements could help. So I started taking two cal/mag pills a day about a week ago. I didn’t see any hope and then Aunt Flo actually arrived this week. Yesterday I saw a boost in my milk – getting 6 oz total for the day. I got 6 oz again today.

So the weaning from the pump is delayed yet again for a little bit longer.

Here are some recent pictures of the Little Miss. The first is from August.

These two are from last week.

Daytime weaning begins this week. This means that I’ll take up to the next two weeks to wean from the pump. As we go, MA’s formula intake during the day will increase. This will include weekends.

I’m just not producing the milk that she needs to get enough ounces in the day. I’m a little sad, but I know that it is time and the right thing to do. Making sure she gets fed is way more important than what it is she’s eating ultimately.

Yesterdays excursion into DC for the march helped with the decision making – I was able to nurse her out there with little problems, but it would have been much simpler to give her a bottle. As it was we did end up giving her a bottle on the Metro home when it took way longer to get home than it should have.

We almost made it to 6 months. I will continue to nurse in the evenings and before I go to work in the AM until she decides that’s no longer working either.