Two teeth

DW and the dependent have gone on vacation. Posts are not so forthcoming, but I called DW to find out how things are going. The dependent now has one tooth on top and one on bottom. DW found that baby teeth are sharp. As the dependent was eating, she chomped down, surprizing her mother. A shocked, shrill scream only aroused laughter in the dependent. Those close enough to hear erupted in laughter too.

In Taiwan

We arrived in Taiwan last night. It was a long drawn-out travelling process. Hannah was so wired and needed much sleep. She crashed, but not well.

I'm exhausted. And after our 1st day out and about, I'm totally wasted. So is Hannah. Travelling, jet lag, and lack of sleep don't bode well for us two girls. I could post about lack of sleep - but since it's what I'm experiencing... I'd rather just sleep (like Hannah is doing right now).

We went to Taipei 101 today, amongst other things. What an amazing marvellous work of technology & progress. Wow. Tall skyscraper. Fast elevators. Nice innovations. Too bad Hannah a bit young to take it all in & comprehend. She won't even remember.

More to come later.

(photos of baby in bassinet on plane, Taipei 101 etc.)

A new tooth

Hannah has a good nature about her. She typically has no disposition to cry. Last night was different. No matter how we comforted her, she continued to cry. While I was laying beside her trying to help her fall asleep she grabbed my finger and put it in her mouth (like everything else.) I felt a sharp point strike my finger and I realized her tears that night had come from pain; teeth were making their way to the surface. It’s funny; I can’t even imagine Hannah with teeth. I don’t know how many people she drooled on that said, “She must be teething.” I laughed because they had been saying that since she was three months old.

After Tylenol and two hours of coaxing she fell asleep. DW and I finally had some time to wind down after a stressful day. Yes, we enjoy being with her while she is awake, but we really need some time to recuperate. J

She's finally napping

YAY! She's finally napping today! And now I can get stuff done. Lots to do.

Yesterday she slept about 40 minutes and woke up and didn't sleep again during the day. So now she's been asleep for an hour so far.

This morning we went to playgroup at the Bridgepoint pool. She wore her 1st swimsuit and looked rather patriotic. (I didn't get a pic though). She really enjoys the water, and she was jumping around and floating too. She went "swimming" for the 1st time around 5 months. We hadn't purchased a swimsuit for her yet at that time. She liked the water back then too.

So onto more cleaning, preparing and packing for me.

I want to get everything done today so that we can go play with daddy tomorrow and spend quality time together before we depart on Thursday. And to have more b-day celebrations with daddy! Happy B-day to daddy! We've decided to have extended celebrations for his b-day this year...and so we've been celebrating since Sunday...all the way till we leave.

Keeping up

So I seem to be lagging behind in posts, like a day behind on updating events, what not...it's sorta hard keeping up recently especially with all that's been going on.

We celebrated daddy's b-day early on Sunday and had some friends over. We had cake, cookies, & ice cream. The adults had fun chatting while all 3 little infant girls had fun rolling, sitting, and playing. Alas, I didn't get a picture cuz I was too busy hostessing. There was the friend that's 8 days older than Hannah and the other friend that's a month younger than Hannah. The other kids went outside on the playground and had fun too.

So she's been getting to bed later...partly due to mommy's fault. And she's not napping well during the day. What's new? But Sunday night, she did totally and completely just conck out while nursing at night. She just fell asleep and into a deep sleep. She hasn't done that in awhile.

So I feel a bit stressed about getting ready for this trip. It's 3 weeks overseas, and I've never travelled overseas with an infant before. Plus Hannah & I have never left daddy for this long - ever. My energies have been pulled ever which way b/c Hannah's been rather needy recently and all the other stuff going on in my life (which I won't delve into since this is Hannah's blog). She doesn't like to be left alone and needs to be able to see me at all times. I would wear her in the baby carrier to get stuff done, but she's heavy and hurts my back. Plus her legs/thighs are getting too big for the openings. She's rather plump in the legs.

Tonight she ate a ton of solids (relatively~1.5oz? - probably b/c she was really hungry too). She actually even opened up her mouth wide and moved her head forward to take the spoon into her mouth. AND she swallowed the food, rather than pushing them out with her tongue. yay! I think she likes squash b/c she's been eating it willingly recently without spitting it out. She's been much more interested in solids since eating those little puff things (so probably it's not just the squash - but more developmental). I forgot to add on the last post that she ate a ton of little puffs on Saturday and Sunday. They've helped her to learn to chew/mash with her tongue before swallowing, which she quickly learned after gagging a few times. The puffs help her work on her fine motor skills and finger dexterity. Though she hasn't completely figured out to let go of the puff each time after she's gotten it into her mouth. So sometimes they come out stuck between her index finger and thumb. She does have a mean grip. It's much stronger than one would expect.

This morning, after hearing her fussy cries, I found that she had did pulled herself up into standing position after I'd just barely left her crawling and rolling around in her playroom. She was holding onto the diaper box in her playroom, but didn't know what else to do or where to go, so was whining. It was amusing.

Here's a pic of her from the shrimp boil on Saturday doing her "squinty smile" that's been her trend recently. And a pic of her with daddy.

Our little ballerina

Today we decided to dress her in this for church.

It'd been sitting in the closet for awhile (we got it from the FM baby shower), and I thought it was too big for her for the longest time. Well, we put it on her and it was tight girth-wise today. But we thought she looked super adorable in such a frilly dress and her fluffy bunny slippers!


She's still sick. Totally congested and her nose is gross. Much worse than last time. And sleeping is so difficult for her. She tosses and turns trying to find a good position she can sleep and breathe. She falls asleep, but then wakes herself by the snorting of mucus blocking her nasal passages as she tries to breathe.

Friday night we had a whole fiasco. Projectile vomiting of all the contents of her tummy onto me and the bed - after not sleeping on & off and being fussy for 5 hours. I didn't even know she could hold so much - milk, mucus, tylenol, blue decongestant. It was the decongestant that put her over the edge. Note to self: never give her the blue decongestant again b/c this happened last time you tried to give her the blue decongestant from Drs.F&F. She finally fell asleep around midnight after a warm bath to clean up the vomit (not helped by the shower head falling on her head) being cuddled, blessed by daddy, and sheer exhaustion.

Saturday day she did really well though. In the morning she played with her new toy.

She took a super long nap, and afterwards we headed to the shrimp boil at daddy's work. She was totally mellow and chill there and we met some new peeps. Yay, more peeps that we can get together with and let the kiddies play.

It was a busy day. There was a b-day party I dropped in on. And then an ice-cream party later that night. Finally we got home and she went down well considering the alternative.

6 month portraits from August finally posted

Here are shots of Hannah & each parent with Hannah. The family portrait is posted on the right hand margin with the other Family portraits from month 1 & 3.

New Sippy & Toys

Yesterday, I wandered through WalMart (it is practically the only store in town, besides HEB and Kmart. Yes it's sad. I live in a really small town.) and got her some new toys that were on clearance. The little people (fisher price) triceratops set, the classic lincoln logs ranch set(knex company) for the future, and the big discoveries activity table (fisher price). She really liked the little people that we played with at Jan's place, and I'm hoping the table will help her to stand and play with toys. So far she's content playing with the boxes.



I also grabbed a new type of sippy cup from Nuby. It has a "NEW valveless non-drip soft silicone spout" where the slits also open when you squeeze the spout. When I saw it, I thought, "hey! Hannah just chews the sippy cup, maybe this will help!" This way she can actually get some fluids through chewing and help her understand that sippy cups aren't a chew toy, but it's for fluids. I'm hoping she'll take to it more and get the hang of drinking from a sippy.

Sick Again?

She has a runny nose again?! It started last night. And she kept on waking up every hour from 9 - midnight. I wonder how & when she got exposed to a virus this time...I've been racking my brain. So of course with congestion, it's difficult to nurse and sleep.

This morning we finally made it to Thursday storytime at the library. Mr. Kippy played his tuba and Hannah seemed to enjoy the sound. She usually just stares at the other kids. We checked out books by Annabel Karmel: SuperFoods: for babies... & Top 100 Baby Purees. We're going to try some ideas and hopefully she'll do better with eating solids.

Her arms have gotten stronger and she's pulling and pushing herself onto things better.

fear of abandonment

She's rather needy-ish as of late, and especially today. I guess it's another developmental phase. I can't walk out of a room without her crying...and then it escalates even if I come back. I have to pick her up to calm her down.

So negative feelings (I'm extrapolating) she's probably experienced lately:

-fear
-abandonment
-claustrophobia
-frustration
-confusion
-pain
Who knows what she's really experiencing?

Oh...and she's refusing to take naps.

Enjoying her room

Now that her room is cleared out and baby proofed as a playroom, we had lots of fun in there this morning. She played on the mat, played with the Baby Einstein music turtle, gnawed on some mat to soothe her gums, listened to Children's Hymns on the stereo, while mommy read a book in the recliner. Then mommy and Hannah read a book together on the recliner. I lay next to her on the mat too - it's rather cushy. This weekend, we installed a room darkening shade on the big window in addition to curtains (it is single pane and was poorly insulated making the room super hot and not bearable to be in). We also added a makeshift window treatment to the small square window opposite the big one. So the room is much cooler and the fan that was installed last month helps a whole lot. Eventually we'll move her bed in there (probably after we return from our overseas trip).

Saturday (Sept 8)

We converted her room to a playroom. (It was being used as an extra "box room".) We finally put out the ABC/123 puzzle mat we bought awhile back and rearranged her room. It's still a work in progress, but it's been babyproofed and closed off with a gate, so we can put her in there and let her crawl around. We won't need to worry about outlets, electronic cords, breakables, shoes, plants or dirt that she can suck on or little areas she can get stuck in.

Here's Hannah sitting on her playmat and making her new favorite sounds - saying "dah dah dah" and also "spitting" or blowing raspberries...

Friday (Sept 7)

Hannah playing with and eating animals at a friends' home. And chillin' on the couch afterwards...







Look how actively and quickly she grabs now!

Thursday (Sept 6)

So swallowing baby food on the spoon does not seem to be her favorite pastime. She enjoys spitting out the pureed solids or sticking her fingers in her mouth and playing with the baby food. But she is grabbing for our food when we eat. So since she likes to grab for our food, I decided to get her some "starter" baby puff things. (I looked at the label on the puffs after I'd already given them to her, and they have sugar as the 5th ingredient! I don't think I'll feed these to her much more...or just wait for awhile.)

I want to buy the baby safe mesh feeder for her, but haven't found it at a store here yet. I'll probably have to order it online. She used one at our friends' last Saturday of labor day weekend, and she seemed to enjoy the banana she had in it.

Here's video of Hannah feeding herself puffs for the first time.

Happy 7 months Hannah!

Hannah is 7 months old today! It's been a month since we've started posting. At playgroup this morning, she had her 1st ride down a slide with mommy. We were at a playground near a skate park, and Hannah was really mellow - sitting on my lap most of the time, watching the other kids and mommies.

She's been crawling a lot and can basically get anywhere she wants to. She enjoys standing more than sitting and is rather good at stepping with us supporting her arms. She doesn't like to eat baby food very much because she still prefers to nurse, but we're working on it. She likes to spit out her food by blowing raspberries and covering us with food splatters. She started picking up food and eating it this past week. During month 6, she completely stopped biting or gumming while nursing. Somewhere between month 5 & 6, she learned to stick her finger in her mouth while nursing and chew that instead of chewing me. She's very very vocal now. The sound she's been making most often the past week or so is, "dah, dah, dah, dah," and she repeats it loudly especially when she wants to nurse. She's able to balance by herself while sitting on the toilet, and goes poo poo in the morning (and/or afternoon). She pushed herself up into a sitting position from a laying down position also this past week (but only once and with the assistance of a nearby pillow as her leverage). She's very cuddly and lovable. She's become more needy or more aware (depending on interpretation) recently. If I leave a room and if she's not preoccupied, she starts to cry almost immediately. Whereas before, she could last a few minutes before she'd react.

The past 4 nights or so, she's been sleeping an average of about 7-hr stretches at night, before needing to feed and going to bed at relatively nice hours. YAY! Much to my relief.

Though tonight, she had a horrible time falling asleep. It hasn't been this bad for a long time. We started putting her down around 7:30pm-ish. And it took about 2 hours for her to finally fall asleep. The ordeal included her almost falling asleep, but then becoming alert, playing and crawling around, fussing, seemingly calming down, then many 'bouts of pick-up put-down by daddy, then crisis: bloody-murder screaming b/c I ignored her and she ended up crawling/rolling herself into a jam, and then me comforting her b/c I felt so guilty for ignoring her.

It feels like a long time since I posted last Wednesday. Thinking back, my memory probably isn't accurate anyways. She didn't sleep so well that Wednesday night after sleeping well Tuesday night. I remember being a tired mommy Thursday day b/c I couldn't fall asleep after waking for the early morning feeding.

The weeks are a blur, but the days are sometimes long, and the months pass quickly. Time is all relative to me now. And some milestones I don't realize are milestones until a few days later, when they're repeated.

She's super cute. And I totally love our Hannah dearest.

Hannah's many expressions and mannerisms:




Wiggly Hannah...laughing and just being happy.

Labor Day Weekend

We got out of town, went to visit friends, eat Chinese vegetarian food, and had a good time.










Here's Hannah being held by friends that don't normally hold babies. Therefore the photos have to be posted as proof.

We visited the Water Wall across from Willams Tower and inhaled the airborne chlorine water droplets *sniff, sniff*





Hannah didn't go down well for most of the nights while travelling. But this night we finally got her asleep...



and we were able to play one of our favorite games...Settlers of Catan!!! and enjoy our time with R&R.



here's Hannah...the same size as the lamb at R&R's. Cute!

Home Sweet Home

Yay. We're home, and she's back to "normal" with her sleep. We got back late Monday night and she slept the whole car trip back. Monday night sleep was still a bit abnormal, but as of Tuesday night (last night), she slept a nice long 6-hour stretch. She fell asleep at 7:30 pm, fed again at 11:30 pm, but didn't wake up again until around 6:30 am to feed. And as of now (9:45am), she's still asleep. She still doesn't sleep 10-12 hour stretches normally. We've got friends whose babies are Hannah's age and they sleep 8-12 hours at night every night usually. Hannah does those once in a while.

So this weekend, I realized my post-pregnancy hair that was all falling out starting around 2-3 months (due to not falling out during pregnancy since the body is "holding on" to everything) is now growing back. I have all of these baby hairs all along my forehead hairline sticking up everywhere.

We had fun this weekend away from home visiting friends.
We got some items for Hannah at IKEA. I've always liked their children's section, but had no reason to buy the cute kiddy stuff. Now I do! I've been mulling for awhile how I should decorate her room and how to pull all the different random elements & furniture pieces together. Finally I've decided to decorate her room in a coral reef & rainforest theme with all sorts of colors. Bright greens, turquoise, blues, reds, salmon/pinks, oranges, yellows. It matches her jumperoo, the new purchases, and hopefully will pull the pre-existing elements, toys, and colors together.

She's now progressed yet another week with crawling. She will actually be on all fours off of the ground starting out, and then go back to the half dragging herself across the floor. She's still not completely coordinated to be off of the floor only supported by her hands and knees yet, but it'll get there.

Her facial expressions have also changed. She scrunches her face up to smile. Her eyes get all squinty, her nose all crunched up and her mouth is all big. It sort of looks like an anime expression. She'll do it when she's smiling or happy, and the expression sometimes comes up when she's vocalizing or half crying. So it's hard to tell if she's smiling or upset. Either way, if we smile at her and laugh, then it becomes a laugh back at us.

I'll add photos to the post when I get the camera battery recharged and the photos downloaded.

Travelling

It's always an experience travelling in the car with her through each stage of development. I'd say, she travels rather well because she ends up sleeping in the car seat, but she does get restless during a long drive/road-trip, squirms and screams, wanting out. If we entertain her or stop and nurse briefly, then usually we can go another long stretch of driving. Today she slept a good chunk of time, but then got really wired and wouldn't calm down. I had to sit with her in the back seat and entertain her, then she was okay.

Trying to put her down to sleep in a new unfamiliar location tonight...now that's an adventure and trial for one's patience! She'd fall asleep and end up waking due to various reasons... this was over a period of oh...2 hours. She fell asleep many times...5-6, but each time, something would wake her. She finally truly fell asleep waaay late (past 10pm I think.)

I'm not looking forward to the long overseas trip and flight pertaining to her sleep. It's totally going to mess up her sleep routine. She's gotten into a rather regular and predictable routine now. Travelling always messes things up. And then upon returning, there's another adjustment period before "returning to normal" whatever "normal" is.

Each time we take a trip, I tell myself, "I don't want to do this again for awhile because it messes up her routine and is a hassle." But I like to travel, so then after a period of time, I forget what a hassle it is with all the extra considerations of a baby, but I always hope it'll get easier, so I try again.