A month (and a half!) in pictures...

Here they are. Sorry it took soooooo long, but at least there are some on here! The past month has been a month of many firsts so enjoy. :) We sure did. And I just realized that this is more like 1.5 months of pictures...woops. It's been a while, huh?

Morgan and her valentines from her friends at daycare

Just before we went for our first walk of the season - it was a balmy 35 degrees!

First cereal ever...not so sure about this, mom...we started feeding her solids after she began eating like a little piggy at daycare and Mary suggested we look into it. :)

4 month shots - we (Morgan and I) cried again but did great overall!

4 months old! Big girl, growin' girl...

I *think* I'm going to roll over now...(this is roll-over #3 btw)

Here...I...

GO!

See mom?!? Look what I did!!

BLECH!! What are these, sweet potatoes??
Yup - first veggie/food outside of cereal.

Playin' with my toys, mindin' my own busines...

Were you taking a picture of ME, mom?

This hat cost HOW much? Dad's gonna flip!

Morgan sporting her new sunglasses/hat duo.
She is SO ready for summer. :)

Morgan LOVES her new high chair.
I'm glad I got the nicer one...

Two firsts here - first water ever and first drink out of a big person's cup.
She's growing so fast!

Wearing a hat to go outside from Grandma Susie and Grandpa Andy.
She's too cute for words.

So innocent...for now...

All ready to go outside and play in the yard!

What a big girl! FIVE months old on March 19th, 2010.
My baby is getting so much older!

Just for kicks ;-)

Playing on the swing at the river front park.
She was WAY interested in the kids to the left.

Swingin', swingin'...

First time having a frozen treat - peaches.
I don't think she likes the cold much...but she kept going for it for a while.

Trying it out herself...

NO! Too cold!!
(bang bang bang - new behavior discovered this weekend)

Hanging out with Daddy...Woah, Mom!! I got his nose!!

I was up in the guest room making beds and put her in her old bassinet for kicks...
she's SO huge from when she was first in it - 5.5" longer, to be exact.

Being a big girl and trying her sippy cup on her own. We have to help her get her hands on it just right and then she holds it to her mouth. No tipping up yet, but we're working on it. She LOVES drinking out of her sippy. Love love loves it.

Morgan with silly Daddy wearing a cute outfit from Grandma Susie and Grandpa Andy.

5 Months - SO big!

Can you believe it? She's 5 months old today. FIVE months! She and I had a great mommy-daughter day and started off by heading to the doctor's office for a quick weight/height check. Drum roll, please.............

She's 26" long and 16.2 lbs. Holy cow!! I KNEW I was getting better arms from lugging around this heavy kid! The thing is, she's still proportionate b/c she's still not getting super chubby legs or anything like some chunky monkey babies do...which I was/am fully expecting for her. I really think it's b/c this past month she's really started going to town on her solids and seems to be tolerating them well and enjoying it! Here are some updated stats (sorry if I add anything I've already touched on):

• She is ALMOST sitting on her own. This is relatively new in the past few days - she can now sit fine on her own if she's hanging on to something/one. I think by next weekend we might be on to something!
• Morgan now has the following foods in her repertoire: cereal, sweet potatoes, carrots, squash (still getting used to this one), bananas, and peaches. We add one veggie, then a fruit, then another veggie, and back and forth. I wish we were on veggie b/c I want her started on greens asap from a good point my friend Abbie made about babies getting too stuck on something NOT green. I have some crazy yummy zucchini with her name on it! :) Pears are going to be the next fruit.
  
• Morgan now needs a toy when changing her diaper at home or she's going to pretend to roll away and make a mess. Or just make the whole ordeal a bit more difficult.
  
• Morgan hasn't rolled over in a while. I was sad about this for a while but then figured eh, she'll do it if she needs to. She constantly rolls on her sides. That must be enough for now!
• Tonight is the first night that Morgan is sleeping sans swaddle. I'm actually pretty excited about it and can't wait to see how it goes. She's needed one nuk plug so far but that's in the range of normal at this time.
  
• Morgan is doing much better with grabbing things, pulling them to her mouth, and keeping them in there for a while. This is definitely bitter sweet - as she has no clue what's ok and not ok to go in her mouth...
• Morgan is now drinking water with meals. She does OK with an open-faced cup (normal cup) but isn't quite coordinated enough for us to use one regularly. I tried a sippy cup yesterday (forgot to take off the stopper on the inside...poor thing must have been so confused) but today she did well with it. She's not sucking it, per se, but it comes out at the right rate and occasionally she does get a (surprise!) suck in and does well with it. What a big kid. Sheesh.
• As of tonight, Morgan has learned how to yell for something she wants. She was kind of fussy at dinner but was happy/calm when given water in her pink personalized sippy. After she had had several drinks in a row, I put in on the table. She made direct eye contact with the sippy, yelled, and reached for it with her closest hand. Hmm...this can't be good. I suppose we can look at it as a form of communication that I will be shaping. :)
• When on her belly, Morgan occasionally pulls her knees up under her...precrawling moves if you ask me.
  
• Morgan likes shopping with mom and friends. LOVE this.
  
• Morgan now needs to either be very hungry or tired to nurse without stopping. She's too excited about any noises that might indicate she's missing something fun, which is usually a dog walking across the floor or jumping at the door so she's got to stop eating, check it out, and then come racing back to continue nursing. Wash, rinse, repeat. Several times a feeding. Curious little monkey. Might have to start calling her George...
  

My friends Abbie & Denise introduced me to very expensive jeans today and of course I cannot remember the name of them at the moment. I now realize why these jeans are crazy expensive - it's b/c they are a MILLION times better than any pair of jeans I've tried on. I will own a pair of these jeans before I'm 30.

On that note, I have to go show Adam the day's purchases from Old Navy where I went shopping with said friends who introduce me to amazing jeans. I got myself a few skirts, shirts, and tanks, as well as a cute summer dress for Morgan and two linen button-up shirts for Adam. I'm trying to convince him to go again with me this weekend so I can use my 30% off coupon again. AWESOME.

I promised I'd post pictures a million times. Hopefully we'll be holed up in our house all weekend b/c of the bad weather that's coming (2-4" of SNOW expected in our area - ICK) and I'll be able to post pictures for real.

Off to bed. Sorry for the long post. I am just so excited about Morgan's progress. She's getting to be so big and is more fun each day. I keep waiting for her to want to sleep on me or even just rest her head on my shoulder when she's tired....but MOM, there's too much going on in the world that I haven't seen yet!! Sigh. It's just going to get worse, isn't it?

Makin' baby food

Last night was my first attempt at making baby food. I was advised per Morgan's doctor and the baby cookbook I'm borrowing from my friend, Abbie, to buy organic foods to lessen the potential for bad things to get in the food. I started with peaches (found out the book recommends them for 7-8 month old babies...woops. It was her first fruit.) and had a bit of a hard time peeling them, but afterwards, I made the most beautiful peach puree that I've ever seen. :) I got to use my new ice cube tray that has 1 or 2 oz portions and froze 6-1oz portions and 6 tiny little (for lack of better terms/descriptors) "tongue shaped" portions for this handy contraption I got for M that has a handle with a little netting bag so she can eat frozen treats without big chunks seeping through and choking her. Cheap cheap and healthy! Then I made zucchini which was even easier. From 3 small-medium zucchinis, I was able to make 13-1oz portions and another 6 of the tiny snack-sized portions. Those three zucchinis cost maybe $2 so if she eats 2oz at each meal (which she's doing at dinner now!) That's around $0.33 per serving, compared with $0.55 per serving of the store bought kind. And even better - I know exactly what's in it. I trust store bought baby food...it's not really that. I just like to be able to make her the healthiest food that I can and for now, this is it! We're likely not going to be exclusively feeding her homemade food as I can see there being times when I just don't have time to make it. But most of the food is easy and fast and when we order our next liners for her diapers, I'll order another frozen food tray so I can freeze the portions a little faster than over a few days.

Other things...did I mention that Morgan's now using liners in her diapers? Since starting solid foods, her little poo is much (gross, sorry) thicker and not so "come out in the wash-ish." Sometimes they rip if you pull too hard but most times they are fine. They flush. It's easy. And there's less poo to clean up in the long run.

Adam's gone again this week. For some reason it's another harder one and not b/c of the baby or anything, it's just b/c I miss him. Sigh. I am not sure but I don't think he has to travel again until sometime early-mid April and I hope I'm right. Also, Grandpa Al and Grandma Sherri left when I got home from work today and Morgan goes back to daycare tomorrow afternoon. I took the morning off and am SO excited about it. I don't think we'll even try to get anything but the normal essentials done. I think it's time for Morgan and Mommy and the dogs to have some serious alone girl time. Adam, Morgan, and I are SOOOOO thankful for the help from Susie, Al, & Sherri while we didn't have a sitter this last week and a half, but there's something to having alone time with your ever-growing baby and I'm eager to have some. Besides, I missed Mary and her comments about Morgan's day, as well as her advice. We get great advice from family and friends but I also value Mary's opinion on things. She's going to be shocked and amazed at where Morgan's at...when she left for FL, Morgan was *just* starting to have a little cereal for lunch and was having 2-3 oz of cereal for supper. NOW, she's eating about 1-2 oz of cereal for breakfast, at least 2oz of cereal and some fruit for lunch, and 2-3 oz of cereal and 2 oz of veggie for supper. She's also drinking water!

I can't believe I almost forgot to mention that - Morgan's drinking water from a cup! It's only tiny sips here and there but we're practicing with meals. I have two crappy cups that are bendy so I can shape it to her mouth and am on a bear hunt for cute little kid cups instead of Adam's golf cup and this other one we have.

Morgan is now officially sleeping with two arms out of her swaddle. It's taken us around 2 weeks to get there, but it's safe to say that's where we are at. It's been tough...we've tried 2 arms out several times but this past weekend we decided to stick with it and I'm sticking to it too while Adam's gone. So far not too bad! Last night while I was still awake, she had a hard time but ended up sleeping fairly well. We'll see how tonight goes...

I've also become somewhat addicted to the new show Parenthood (how ironic, huh?). It's oddly great if you haven't watched it yet and actually, I cried last week when watching it b/c it just strikes such a cord - something's not right with one of the family's children and it just reminds me of the scary side of parenthood - what if something's wrong...? We'd love her no less, but it's still a scary thought.

On a positive note, I have tomorrow morning off! And Friday too! I think Morgan and I might try to find the nearest Shopko as I have a hefty gift card from there to burn...and a bathroom to redecorate. As soon as I find a paint color Adam and I can agree on, we're going to do a cosmetic face lift on the main floor bathroom so we can live with it a little more until we gut and redo the thing, hopefully in the next year or two. SO excited about that...on that note, I'm tuckered out and should get to bed. Seems like that's how I'm ending all these posts nowadays...

Raspberries and a 5k

Today was a huge day in the life of Melissa. Anyone who knows me might describe me as a rather athletic person but NOT a runner. Well, today I ran my first 5k ever. It was exciting and grueling and awful and amazing.

We (Denise, the crazy friend who suggested it) started off and ended up running *almost* the entire first mile. When we got to the 1 mile marker, I almost lost it b/c it felt like we should be at the half way point at LEAST. So we walked a little and started running again. Then came some wicked hills and after the 1/2 way point, I gave Denise my blessing to carry on at a faster pace without me. I was pretty excited when I reached the 2 mile mark as I was on track for close to 11 minute miles. I ended up walking more than I wanted the last 1.1 miles but when I saw that finish line, I went all for it. I then stopped and couldn't breathe and instantly started bawling while gasping for air. I know that a 5k isn't really that big of a deal for some, but for me, it was huge. I'm not a runner. I'm currently not in shape. I never planned to do anything like that b/c that's for crazy skinny people who run all the time, rain or shine, and LIKE it. That's not me. All I could think about the whole race was (well, of course, not breathing and my hip flexors killing me) was how I had just had a baby 4.9 months ago and how doing this race should teach her (she's smart! I know she'll learn from this!) that she should go for gold and do things outside her box. A 5k was WAYYYYY outside my box. In fact, it's somewhere in someone else's box in Zimbabwe.

That all said, I'm dying. My hipflexors hurt so much I can hardly walk. Adam and I had a good chuckle at the grocery store earlier b/c I'm now walking like I'm preggo again. But now I'm too tired to do much more than a few quick Morgan highlights and bed. Sleepy mom.

Morgan things to note:

• Morgan starting raspberries on Thursday (03/11/10). These included Morgan sticking her tongue out and then making air come out of her mouth and producing tiny, short little raspberries. She did it a few times and hasn't much since. Still - she's getting there!
  
• For 2-3 days Morgan decided her new pooping time was 5am. This really woke her up and she thought she was ready to get up and go. This morning she did better so hopefully we're back on the up and up now. :)
  
• Morgan finally has a new highchair. I was able to take some things back, use a gift card, and use a 20% off coupon to get $40 off this highchair. She didn't like it much at dinner but she'll get used to it. :)

G'night peeps. I'm so tired I'm not sure I'm going to actually make it to the bedroom................zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Solid Food

I didn't realize time had gotten away from me like that...it's been over a week since I posted! Yikes! Ok, let's see how much I remember...

Mary (sitter) is gone this week and half of next. Grandma Susie was just here from Sunday night to this morning and Morgan had a great time with her. Today she hung out with Grandma Sherri and Grandpa Al and had more fun. The only downside is that she's not napping very well so she's pretty tired at night. Not too crabby...just tired.

We now have to put liners in Morgan's cloth diapers b/c her poo is now pretty solid - as is her food! We tried sweet potatoes for Morgan's first solid food (besides cereal) and the first time, it went terrible! I gave it to her straight and slightly warmed up and the poor thing gagged like a crazy person so we stopped. It took her a good day to trust me again feeding her anything by spoon but she then did well once we mixed her fruit/veggie with cereal. We started by giving her 1oz of formula mixed with a heaping TBS of cereal at night only. That was less than a week ago and now she's up to 2 oz for lunch with fruit/veggie mixed in and then 3oz of formula/cereal mixture and half a tub of fruit/veggie. Tomorrow she's going to have 2oz of cereal for breakfast, 2 oz of cereal/fruit/veggie mix for lunch, and then 3 oz of cereal and trying carrots tomorrow night for the first time. Her current repertoire of foods are sweet potatoes and peaches. Bring on the carrots!

Morgan is now a sleeper-through-the-nighter. By this I mean that she sleeps from 7:30pmish-some where b/w 5:30-6:30am without feeding. She usually needs anywhere from 1-5 nuk plugs and occasionally needs up to an hour of attention to fall back to sleep. We've also started to wean her from the swaddle which has been interesting. We've been alternating which arm sticks out each night as both arms just isn't feasible yet. I tried it one night and she made it 2 hours before her hands came flying all over her face and she woke herself up. We are also hoping to have her napping in her crib a bit very soon. Grandma Susie got her to sleep in the crib for 45 minutes sans swaddle one day! I think we're on to something! Mary's going to be so proud to hear of all her accomplishments in the past week...can't WAIT to tell her!

This weekend I will be running my first race/walk ever. It's a 5k. I've never run a race in my life. I have done ZERO training. My SLP work friend, Denise, suggested it earlier this week and for some reason, it sounded like a good idea at the time. And by run this thing, I mean run/walk. That's all I'm going to say about that. I'm scared and very excited. It's only 3.1 miles. Ouch in advance.

Now that this post took me an hour to write b/w doing diapers with Adam, watching TV, and being sleepy. PS. Just found out yesterday that my friend, Abbie, is having a girl (most likely). How sweet! TWO girls for their family...kids are such a blessing. :)

Few quick notes...as I'm beat

Morgan is amazing. The following things are in the works at the moment:

• Morgan must be about to go through another growth spurt. She had 8oz of milk and 8oz of formula today at daycare in a 9 hour period. EIGHT of those ounces were for lunch. I didn't know she could eat that much at once!
  
• Mary (sitter) HIGHLY suggested starting Morgan on foods this weekend (or soon thereafter) as a result of her quick increase in milk/formula consumption. Ooo! What to try first...
• My milk supply is hanging in there and then today was almost a new record pumping series at work - 11oz! That's almost 3 of Morgan's normal bottles. Pretty proud of the girls today. ;)
• Morgan's new thing is to vocalize while I move my index finger up and down b/w her lips...awesome hilarious sounds ensue. LOVE it, and Adam loved hearing it over the phone in Canada last night.
• Speaking of Canada/Adam, I'm having a somewhat hard time with him being gone this week for some reason. I really think it has more to do with...
• Work. It's killing me right now. The main problem is my 0-3 assignment and feeling like no one that can change anything sees me drowning even though I've discussed it with them many times. I also feel like they think I'm incompetent and I'm petrified that with a big shake up in assignments next year that they'll take away my work baby - the 0-3 program. It makes me feel like no matter where I work that no one will see me drowning until it's too late and I'm out. I'm eager to see where they put me next year and if I was heard when requesting my assignment(s). Also, when I feel like I'm drowning, I know there are others out there that have it the same or worse than me and they're ok. I'm just taking blow after blow to my confidence at work and it's getting harder to bounce back. Sigh.
  
• Back to fun stuff - the baby - Morgan LOVES watching and reaching out to moving things. When the dogs are near enough, she reaches out and "pets" them. When we're holding her, she reaches and grabs our faces...hence the fingernail clipping she received tonight. :)
  
• Rolling over - she's still doing this but not with the crazy fervor that she did on Saturday. She is, however, practicing to roll to her right side from back to belly.
  
• Walks - Morgan and I have been on 2 walks now since the weather started to get warm last week. She loves it - she snoozes for some of it, watches the landscape when it's warm enough to keep the top open.
  
• Last night was the third in a row that Morgan slept through the night without a feeding. Cereal, God bless you. I'm not banking on it being a consistent trend yet, but one can be hopeful. :)
  

I'm heading to bed. I'm beat from the many nuk plugs last night. Here's to hoping tomorrow goes well and I get monster amounts of paperwork done. Maybe then I will only have to come in for a few hours this weekend for work instead of several. :-/

I love it when I'm right! The big ROLL OVER

I know I'm late in posting this but sure enough - I write that she might do it this weekend Friday night and less than 12 hours later she amazes us with her first ROLL OVER!! Morgan went from her back to her front to her left side. She did this over and over again on Saturday so much so that she eventually got mad that she was on her tummy and we'd end up flipping her back over and over again. We were so proud of her that it didn't matter. On Sunday she rolled over less but still did it. Today it was just once after her bath. We're soooo excited. We were (unnecessarily) getting worried that she'd be behind in her motor development but we were (gladly) wrong. :) I have pictures of one of her roll-overs but I best be getting to bed and pray for another night like last night - she slept through again for another 11 hour night! We're still not hopeful for this to be a consistent trend but we'll take it whenever we can get it! :) G'night! :-D