6 Months Old!

Norah has SO many new and exciting things to tell you about! But she was tired, so I told her I would type it all out for her after she went to bed. :-)

Sitting up!

Norah started trying to sit up at about 4.5 months, and could do it with some support so she wouldn't fall sideways. By 5.5 months she could sit up all on her own! She's a pro now!

Tummy time

If she falls over when sitting on the floor, she usually rolls onto her tummy and is happy for a little while (she used to hate being on her tummy). She sort of wants to crawl, but not enough to go for it!

Solid foods

We began feeding Norah some homemade baby food on 11-11-11, 8 days before her 6 month birthday. The plan was to start at 6 months, but she was obviously ready. She has been VERY interested in what we are eating. She has now had: rice cereal, oatmeal, banana, applesauce, sweet potatoes, and avocado. Her absolute favorite is apple and banana together.

Avacado...it usually isn't nearly this messy!! Daddy went a little crazy. :-)

Since she is so eager to feed herself and seems to be eyeing our food when we eat, we just ordered some "Baby Mum-mum" rice biscuits that she should be able to feed herself (they are supposed to dissolve instantly when wet, so very low choking risk), and also a couple of mesh feeders to put fruits and veggies in.

A Tooth!

Yesterday (11-25) her first tooth broke through! She hasn't been fussy at all, which I am so glad about. Just drool-y...as usual!

New development: as I am about to post this blog, another day has passed and Norah has been pretty clingy and fussy. L

Independence

Norah has been coping better lately while I am gone for a few hours. I usually don't come home to her crying inconsolably anymore, which is SUCH a relief, for both Travis and me.

Nursing

Norah is quite active in general, and I think she gets bored sometimes when she is nursing, unless she's sleepy. She pats or hits herself on the head, kicks her feet, flails her arms, tries to roll over, unlatches and re-latches, smacks me, pulls my hair, scratches me with her amazingly sharp fingernails, grabs anything she can find (my nose, my lip, my hand, my shirt, her own clothes...), etc. etc. I feel as though I am just a human playground to her! Even so, she obviously still wants to breastfeed. She gets fussy if she gets more than a couple of feedings from a bottle in one day, and she makes it very obvious when she wants to nurse. If I am holding her she burrows into me. If she isn't ready to quit, I'm not either. I've worked through worse than this! I value our nursing relationship very much, and would be sad if it ended this early. My plan has always been to breastfeed for at least a year, and see how it goes from there. According to the World Health Organization, breast milk remains a valuable source of nutrition even beyond two years of age. While some people view nursing a toddler as strange or even disturbing, I think it is very normal and will probably continue as long as I have the milk and Norah has the desire.

Babbling

Just today Norah suddenly started making some new sounds! She’s saying, “Nananana” a lot, and, “Bababa,” and sort of a cross between a “b” and an “r” sound. Hopefully “mama” and “dada” are soon to come!!!

She’s also been making chewing movements (maybe because of the teething?), so I’m wondering if that’s where the new sounds are coming from – she just likes to move her mouth that way and those are the sounds that come out!

Interests

She’s been loving the piano and the guitar lately! She loves to grab anything and everything within reach, hold your hands and walk in front of you, touch and grab peoples’ faces and try to eat them up, and playing with her new dinosaur toy that shoots plastic balls everywhere. As always, she also just loves being with people and getting attention!

6 Month Dr. Appointment

Norah's doctor visit went very well. She is still in the 96th percentile for height, and 75th for weight (27.5 inches, 17 lbs. 3.5 oz.). She had two shots and tolerated them AMAZINGLY well. She cried for probably less than 10 seconds. She was fussy for a while later in the day, but after she had a nap she was fine again. Such a tough cookie!

First Fall...

and I don't mean the season. Norah fell off the bed last week. :-( I brought her in bed with me early in the morning to nurse her, and I was still sleepy so I drifted back to sleep. A few minutes later I awoke to, "BAM! (pause) *SCREEEEEEAM!*" I JUMPED out of bed and scooped her up from atop a couple of books that were lying on the floor as fast as I could. She had fallen onto her tummy, so I feared the worst (a broken nose?) as I turned her over. I felt HORRIBLE as she screamed and cried, and I examined her as I apologized profusely to this infant who unfortunately couldn't understand a word of it. About two minutes later, maybe less, she stopped crying and was completely fine. In another couple of minutes she was happy as a clam, playing on the floor. Poor baby! I hear it pretty much happens to everyone, though, unless you keep your baby in a bubble! Hopefully it won't happen again!

New convertible

We are in the market for a convertible...a convertible car seat, that is. Norah's car seat straps are on the highest setting, and she's growing like a weed! We're planning to buy one that converts from rear-facing to forward-facing. The latest studies show that it is safest to rear-face toddlers until age two or until the weight/height limit of the car seat is exceeded.

First Christmas

We are SO excited! We plan to decorate very soon, whereas in past years we have waited until the week before Christmas to get the tree up. I just can't wait to experience it with Norah!

I hope I'm not forgetting anything from Norah's 6th month in the world! Here are some photos!

Sittin' on the front porch

Halloween: Cat Woman and Scarecrow, from Batman

Our little pea pod!!

Cutest skeleton baby ever, riding the kitty

Playing the piano! She's been LOVING this! She's pretty into the guitar, too.

Below: Some photos from the Renaissance Festival!

Her adorable outfit was

hand knitted with love by my mom!

First time touching a tree

Watching the belly dancers

Playing with Daddy's camera

Serious baby!

Spending quality time with Valerie while watching the bird show

"I love this plastic cup!! It's mine!"

Great acrobats! The group is called "Barely Balanced."

Just watching those acrobatics made Norah tired!

SOO CUTE!!!!!!!!!!!

"Hey! No photos please! I'm not presentable!"

"Well, ok...but just one!"

"What's up there?"

These were taken just a few minutes before we discovered her tooth!

5 Months Old!

I’ve been super busy since I started my job at the day school! I now have a total of 32 students!!! So I hope you will excuse my inability to keep up with the blog!

I know I say this all the time, but I really can’t believe how big Norah is getting. Where did the time go? I still feel like I just had her.

Norah is now:

Grabbing at things! She yanks my hair and pulls at my shirt constantly, especially while nursing. She will grab ANYTHING within reach, and it goes straight into her mouth.

Almost sitting on her own. She can do it sometimes, but can’t keep her balance for long!

Very interested in food. We’ve given her TINY tastes of several things: whipped cream, ice cream, yogurt, mashed potatoes, hummus, sour cream, the filling from a crepe at IHOP… and probably a few others. I also let her suck on a piece of apple today (don’t worry, I had a firm grasp on it)! We are waiting another month to actually start feeding some foods. I plan to make homemade baby food. I’m excited – I think it will be a blast to see her reactions! And I know she’ll love it.

Intrigued with her feet. She plays with them all the time, especially when I’m trying to change her diaper.

Super friendly! She always has been, but lately we keep getting compliments on that, and people ask, “Is she always this happy?!” And the answer is yes! (Well…MOST of the time).

She’s been laughing on occasion, too, which is SO cute! Usually though, we’ll find something that makes her laugh once, and after that it’s not funny anymore. L

We left her in the church nursery for the first time last Sunday! She did great, but we missed her!! We brought her in there for the second half of the service just because she wanted to be talkative. She wasn’t crying or anything. It was strange sitting in the service without her!

My 26^th birthday was last Friday. Oh, funny story about that: recently a woman was admiring Norah and talking with us, and suddenly realized that I was the mom. She said, “Oh, I thought you were her sister!” And then as she was leaving she said something like, “Babies are just precious…but just wait till she gets to be a teenager!” I felt like she was referring to me as a teenager, but I let it go. People keep telling me someday I’ll be glad I look so young. Someday. J

I had a great birthday! I wasn’t able to get my whole family together at once, which was disappointing, but I spent some birthday time with everyone and got more gifts (mostly money!) than I could have hoped for! Travis was SO sweet and made me a whole birthday dinner (fondue with apples and bread, pot roast with veggies) AND a birthday cake in just two hours, while I was teaching! All from scratch! My mom also came to visit, which was really nice. I was glad to have some time with her, and glad she could spend some time getting to know the new Norah! She hadn’t seen her since she was 6 weeks old, so she’s a totally different baby now!

One of my sisters asked me what I’ve learned this year. It was a tough question to answer! So many things! But the one that sticks out is patience. When you have a baby to take care of, there’s no, “I’m annoyed with you, I need some time by myself, see ya later.” In general, when I’m frustrated, I’m best left alone for awhile so I can come back later with a better attitude and a clear head, etc. I’ve gotten better about keeping calm and working through the situation when I can’t seem to figure out what Norah wants, or when she seems to be crying for no reason, or when there’s nothing I can do about it (like when we’re driving down the road and she wants out of the car seat NOW), or when I’m in a hurry to get somewhere and as soon as I’ve got her buckled in, she poops. I hope nobody thinks I have horrible maternal instincts when I say this, but I have to make myself remember that Norah is just a baby, and getting bent out of shape isn’t going to help. You just have to take it all in stride and learn to laugh when things don’t go as planned, because building a loving, trusting, secure relationship with your children is more important than anything else you could possibly be doing with your day.

Here are some photos from the past MONTH! I still have more videos to post, but they were delayed because I couldn’t get the videos from Travis’s phone to upload, and I still can’t. I’ll just have to leave them out. L I’ll get the other ones posted as soon as I can.