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.