I figured since Alice is eating solids (albeit pureed slop with some chunks) three times a day now that it was time for an upgrade. She's been super interested in what Matt and I eat so tonight was the night she had her first real dinner.
Dinner was easy spinach pasta salad cut up real fine.
Can you tell she liked it? Little miss piggy also had an entire jar of baby food, plus formula!Well the doc thinks that Alice's rash is contact dermatitis, which basically means we need to find new diapers. He gave us some new medicine and said that if she doesn't get better we may need to try cloth diapers at some point in the future. Fun.
Alice has been fighting a rash for almost two months now, and since June 2nd she's been on nystatin b/c the doc thinks it was a fungal infection based on the fact that she had it for 3 weeks and nothing made it better. So the meds made it better, but it would get worse again, then better, then we thought it was gone, then it would come back, etc. Well today she woke up and it looked pretty good, but I just changed her and now she has these flat, weepy, blisters on her butt and I gave up and called the doc again. She's going in tomorrow morning, and right now she's stripped from head to toe sitting on a blanket that is on top of a vinyl table cloth in our living room. It just breaks my heart b/c she SCREAMS when I just to go take her diaper off, and it sounds like I'm killing her when I try to clean her up!
Seriously, why can't 8 months of pregnancy go by this fast?! I'll be the first to admit that my pregnancy seemed to fly by, but it didn't go by as fast as the past 8 months has. I swear she was just a tiny little thing not that long ago! Now look at her, she looks like such a little person now. Laughing, talking, clapping, crawling (well, almost), it's just unbelievable how fast she's gone from the baby stage to toddler.
SO WHAT'S ALICE BEEN UP TO
- Not sleeping well for one. Apparently infants go through another sleep regression at 8 months and it looks like Alice just got there a few weeks early. Let's just say the one thing that ALWAYS puts her back to sleep when everything else has failed (sleeping with mommy) doesn't work. I can't tell you how many nights I've been up with her at 3AM just watching her play and roll around until 5AM.
- Taking baths in the big tub. Yeah it's been a while now that I gave up on bringing her into the shower with me. She just got too big so once she was able to sit we switched to the tub. I thought for sure she was going to hate it because she loathed them when she was a baby, but she LOVES it. She's definitely a water baby and I can't wait to take her in the pool.
- Feeding herself. She'd love it if I'd let her spoon the slop she eats into her own mouth, but I know better. I do however let her hold her own bottle. I just have to put her high chair back a bit and she will drink the whole thing on her own. She's also started eating some finger foods. Since I don't think she's quite ready for cheerios we bought some baby puffs that dissolve pretty easily so she can practice her eye-hand coordination. She usually gets about half of them in her mouth and the other half end up on the floor.
- Talking. She's been saying "mamamama" and "dadadadad" for many months now, but just recently she's shortened it to "MOM" or "MAMA". She's in a clingy phase right now and she hasn't said "dada" in weeks.
- Not crawling. But boy does she want to. She'll get up on her hands and try to get on all fours, but she just hasn't quite figured it all out yet. So far her biggest motivators to get moving are the cats and the remote. Put one or both just out of her reach and she'll try really hard before giving up and rolling over. Doesn't bother me really, the less places she can get into the better I say, at least for now anyway.
- Her current favorite toy - paper. Any and all kinds. I can't tell you how many magazines I've thrown away because she's gotten a hold of them. Maybe the kid just needs some extra fiber.
- She's a tooth factory. Ok, maybe not but she does have two and two more on the horizon. I can't wait to see a toothy grin from this kid. Right now she looks like she got in a bar brawl and lost. She makes looking like she belongs in a trailer park damn cute though.
That's just about it, or all that I can think of at this hour anyway. Oh and just a side note: Dad, in case you were wondering, I didn't ruin dinner. :)
I know, I know, give it a few months and THEN see if it's still cute!
And yes there are three Ls in "downhill". Didn't you know that??
Not a whole lot going on here so I haven't really thought about updating. Alice is STILL doing the whole separation anxiety BS. It gets to me, but I have to just let her cry. Unfortunately she rarely stops crying when I leave her be and go about my business. In fact most of the time she gets worse and eventually I have to give in and pick her up.
No crawling here which is fine by me, but I think she'd be a happier baby if she could. I'm just not quite ready to let go of my baby. I never thought that the old cliché about kids growing up fast was true, but it certainly is. It's hard for me to believe that in less than two months she'll have been "on the outside" longer than I carried her - and shortly after that we'll be celebrating her first birthday. Ugh, it's so amazing, yet oh so scary.
Does it all just go downhill from here?
Am I going to just wake up one day, 40 with 4 kids and wonder where the heck time has gone?
When I was younger I remember summer vacation lasting what seemed like forever, and as I got older it never seemed to last long enough. Unfortunately that's what a year is feeling like to me now. I wish I could slow it all down.
BTW - When I peeked in Alice's mouth today to check on the progress of her tooth guess what I found...ANOTHER TOOTH! It's JUST broken through (and right next to the other one) so it will be another week or two before I can get a pic of it. Pretty soon the cats are going to hate her twice as much as they do now (she LOVES to nibble on their ears).
the coolest thing we saw at the zoo. It's called an Okapi . It looks like I photoshopped the picture, but I assure you I didn't. It truly looks like a cross between a zebra and a giraffe in real life. I thought I took a picture when we were standing along the other side of the fence where this okapi was trying to eat vegetation on the outside of the fence, but I must have been so mesmerized by it and it's freakishly long tongue I forgot to turn on the camera. Anyway, I think it's become my new favorite animal.
pretty soon my babe is going to have a toothy smile!after more delays matt made it home safe and sound tonight. now mommy can finally get some real sleep.
while daddy's away...
alice, mommy, auntie mary, and someday auntie kathy (fred's woman, who looks like she could be my long lost sister) went to brookfield zoo on wednesday. it was a typical day at the zoo filled with lots of animals and impatient mothers (seriously, can't i change my kid w/o you looking over my shoulder every 5 seconds to see if i'm done?!). grandma gave us tickets for a free safari ride, so we jumped at the chance to rest our legs for a bit.
there was this adorable little boy at the front of our car. he was very flirtatious with all around him. at one of our stops he and his family came and sat in the row in front of us, and he and alice had lots of fun socializing. 
after many delays, matt finally made it to orlando at 5AM EST monday morning. hopefully he got some sleep last night.
no, not the crappy 80s TV show. saturday matt, alice, and i had quite a few visitors over for dinner and some gab. 20 of us crammed into our tiny little condo for a few hours and actually it went a lot better than i thought it would. sure it was cramped, but i don't think anyone was uncomfortable.
what's with all the company? well the fam was in town for one very special reason, alice's baptism. after many scheduling conflicts we were finally able to settle on getting her baptized at 7 months old, even though i would have liked to have done it sooner but what can you do?
lucky for us GG (that's great-grandma rice to you) took really great care of grandpa rice's baptismal gown and alice was able to wear it (just like mommy and several other relatives). unfortunately the gown is so delicate that just holding her before the service we seemed to have put a tear in one of the arms. luckily our pastor allowed me to hold alice over the baptismal font for i was afraid just the extra passing around would cause the gown to deteriorate even further. then after they paraded us around the church (seriously), we took her outside and changed her. jessica took some pics of alice before we undressed her, but i'll have to wait until she sends them to me to post.
after church was over we all headed to my mother in law's house for grub. thankfully she was kind enough to offer up her house for the reception because there is no way we could have fit 60+ people at our house! good food was had by all and the cicadas didn't bother us...much. my ears were ringing for hours after i went inside.
all in all it was a pretty fun day and i'm glad so many people were able to come (although i did miss a certain baby, but i know she would have come if it had been possible).
alice received many special gifts, but one that mommy will for sure cherish forever is the quilt that jessica made. if it looks familiar it's because jess used the left over fabric from my mother's quilt that she made when mom was sick. same pattern and everything. i'll be sure to tell alice when she's older just how special it is.
but my post is better. ;) we've been dealing with a cranky sleeper ever since we got back from vacation and i think we finally have a reason why. she has a tooth! well, it's more like a very tiny razorblade at the moment. last night i was poking around in alice's mouth (poor kid) and low and behold i felt something sharp. wouldn't you know it when i peered in there she has a little tiny bit of a tooth sticking out. i wondered why she had gone back to her normal sleep routine, i guess now we know why.
i know, i know. growing teeth, crawling, talking (did i mention she says "ma-ma" and "da-da" and yes she does truly mean us), these are not uncommon things - but i can't help but be intrigued by it all.
since i couldn't get her to sit still long enough to get a pic, here's a pic of all that is good in life.
