Baby Wisdom

1. Be sure to suck on any exposed skin that is not your own... it may be a nipple.
2. Reward your minions with smiles and coos, but make sure to occasionally suddenly cry and scream for no apparent reason... it keeps them on their toes.
3. All electronic gadgets, things with buttons, or anything remotely interesting belongs to you... let nothing keep you from what it yours.
4. Butternut squash, peas, prunes, nectarines, and carrots are all good things... blueberries are clearly toxic waste and should be treated as such.
5. Try to hold onto spit ups until one of your minions has lifted you over their head.
6. Ensure the loyalty of your minions by screaming bloody murder whenever anyone else holds you.
7. Other people's fingers make the best chew toys... but you have to be sneaky about it.
8. For fun, wait until your minion has one hand holding your ankles and the other hand smeared with diaper ointment, and then reach down and pull the diaper out from underneath you and pea on the changing table.
9. Being dressed or being naked are both fine.  The act of getting dressed or undressed is an evil practice and should be protested.
10. The appropriate time to wake up is before dawn.  Make sure you announce this... loudly.

Lorelei is 6 Months Old!

Yeah, shades are cool!

It's been a while since my last post so we'll talk about Lorelei's 5th and 6th month here in the North Country.  It's been a very busy 2 months!

We'll start with some basic stats:

Weight (approximated with our bathroom scale): 13 pounds

Length: 27.5 inches

Number of teeth: Two! (on the bottom) and there appears to be some development in the upper gums.

Hair: Still just peach fuzz, dark on lower part of the back of her head and blond everywhere else.

Eyes: Still dark, kind of a grey-blue
Diaper size: Size 2, although some brands seem snugger than others.
Clothing size: 3-6 month clothes are sometimes a bit short, but usually fit around the trunk.  6-9 month clothes fit loosely all around.

Over the past two months, Lorelei has made the following milestones.

Moving:

     Lorelei can roll onto her tummy!  And does so, frequently and increasingly smoothly.  This makes diaper changes challenging sometimes and we now have to be very careful about where we leave her unattended.  She does this funny thing on her tummy though.  She tends to keep her arms and legs lifted so she's resting entirely on her chest and stomach.  See the picture below... doesn't she look like she's sky diving? :)

    
     Recently she's started stretching out though, and patting the ground with both hands.  And just this weekend she's started laying her head down and resting... she looks so cute, but every time I try to catch her with the camera, she pops her head up. 

     She appears to be working on the very beginnings of creeping, because she's just started to bring her knees up slightly under her and push up with her hands.  She doesn't get any real lift or movement, although she's can rotate her self, inch by inch, with some effort.  We'll put her down on her back in one orientation and look back over and she's on her tummy rotated 180 degrees. :)

     She CAN roll from her tummy to her back but I think she forgets how a lot of the time because she'll roll on her tummy, play for a bit and then get upset until someone comes to get her. :)  I expect that as she practices that knee maneuver I mentioned, she'll get better at this.  I also added a blanket under the quilt she plays on to give her a little more padding and that might be helping.

     Lorelei has discovered her feet!! She can grab them and put her toes in her mouth if she tries hard!  This means that socks are usually off quickly and chewed into sodden messes before I notice!

     She can transfer toys from one hand to the other hand, and does this with great deliberation sometimes.  She's getting much better at picking toys up form beside her and if she can't pick it up with the hand on that side, she'll roll toward it so she can reach across her body with the other hand to pick it up.  Of course, everything goes into her mouth to be gnawed on.  Andrew and I have both had the startling experience of holding her in our laps while she plays with our fingers and suddenly feeling this sharp little pain and finding teeth marks on our fingers!

"Knock and the Door shall open!"

     She can sit with minimal assistance (mostly for balance/ stability) and she can sit in the Bumbo chair.  She likes this because she can bang her toys or her hands on the tray while she's waiting for her food to arrive. 

 Which brings us to...



Eating:

Prunes are messy but Yummy!

Just let me grab a hold of that spoon there...

     She's starting to eat food!  So far she's had pureed prunes (likes very much), mashed up peas (makes a face at first but will usually eat them), pureed butternut squash (likes A LOT), and every morning I giver her 3 slices of the banana from my cereal in small pieces smushed up. 

     We've been allowing her to determine how much she wants to feed her self and she's slowly getting the idea.  Previously she would touch the food but then ignore her hand, but this morning, she actually grabbed a piece of banana in her fist and then stuffed her fist in her mouth. I'm not sure she actually got any banana in her mouth because it was all smushed up in her fist, but she's got the idea. 

   She sometimes will try to grab the spoon and guide it to her mouth, which we let her do, but usually have to help. :)  She likes to play with the spoon afterward and we've found this prevents the unhappy, disappointed crying when she realizes the food is done. 

There, I got it... wait... where are the peas?

   This food is still for fun/ practice, as she'll be continuing to get the majority of her nourishment form breast feeding and some formula, but I think she's enjoying the new tastes.  Except for blueberries...she does NOT like them. :) I think the ones I gave her were too tart because she made a 'yucky' gagging face.  Poor baby!

    As I mentioned, she's still mostly being breast fed, especially since I'm often home all day with her, although we do tend to give her one bottle of formula a day with some prune juice and vitamins.  This has been nice for me since I think she's growing or getting ready for some new milestones, because she seems to want to eat all the time and I get a little "worn out" some afternoons! :) 


Playing:

Mmmm, gotta have my morning mug!

Which to play with??? Too many decisions!!

       Lorelei's current favorite toys appear to be a blue plastic mug (I joke that Mommy and Lorelei both need their "morning mug" to be happy), a rattle shaped like an elephant,her yellow chewie, and Piglet parachute (a Piglet doll with a blanket for a body that got it's name because of the game Andrew invented in which he drops Piglet onto Lorelei's tummy, like a parachute and makes her giggle and flap her arms). 

     Her other friends are Ollie the elephant who she plays with in her bouncy chair and when traveling, Bear who hangs over the edge of her bed for morning playtime, and Dax the rattie.  She would like to play with Daddy's tablet device, my kindle or the TV remotes, if ONLY she could get her hands on them!

Reading:

  

  Lorelei is now reading the following books (well we read, she listens, looks at the pictures and tries to chew the pages - thank goodness for fabric and board books!)

What Do You See?,

Geckos Surf,

Silly Sally,

The Best Mouse Cookie,

Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes,

Guess How Much I Love You, and

It's Time to Sleep, My Love.

 Interacting:

     Lorelei is also beginning to notice her surroundings more.  It seems like every little sound gets her attention and she turns her head to look at it (annoying and sometimes painful during nursing!)  She's also started following us with her eyes when we move around the room.  We took her to the zoo on Sat and went into the butterfly house and she turned her head to follow the path of the butterflies that flew past her.  She also got very excited when seeing the llamas and alpacas at the county fair and the zoo.  I think it's because they humm to each other because they would hum and she would go "Ah!" and they would hum and she would "Ah!".  And flap her arms and kick her legs. :) Very cute. :)

     Lorelei likes to pat things now especially our faces!  This is cute, if a bit pinchy!  She also pats our arms, chests, heads, the floor, the couch fabric, the tray on her seat -- essentially anything in reach.  She grabs anything in reach and that reach is farther than you think!  She's fascinated by drinks in glasses, so you have to be careful when drinking with her in your lap!

     Lorelei is continuing her exploration in sound.  Her utterances now include (as near as I can replicate them) aaahhh, meh, bleh, emmmmmm, mmmaaa, ggaaa, geee, and several varieties of nasal noises and shrieks... she's a riot when she's in the mood, laying on her back legs held straight out, arms held up as she makes little shrieks over and over, mouth wide open, body tensing with each one, and a big smile in between. :)  She also likes to talk while she's nursing or eating.  Very funny!

     She smiles when she sees us. :)  She's very stranger shy if anyone holds her, but she's fine if people talk to her while we're holding her. This is completely normal from 5 - 8 months, so we're trying to be patient and give her as many opportunities to see and interact with people in a way that feels safe and comfortable to her.  She did manage to sit with Tutu Wendy for a little while before crying when she first met her and after 3 trips to see my folks, she let Mom feed her a bottle and read her 3 stories without fussing on the last day we were there in June.  On our last trip (I think, or maybe it was the second), Dad was able to get Lorelei into a fit of giggles in my lap by making funny sounds and wiggling his fingers. :)  So repeated interaction with the same people definitely helps.  Mom and Dad are coming to visit this weekend, so we'll see how Lorelei does then.

Sleeping:

     Lorelei sleeps in the co-sleeper bassinet next to the bed and still wakes up once or twice a night for feeding.  The doctor said this is normal throughout the first year.  We've developed a fairly good pattern of waking, nursing and putting back to bed.  Co-sleeping and breast feeding make this fairly easy and most nights we all get a reasonable amount of sleep.  she had a bad cold (we all did) a few weeks ago and so was waking up several times a  night, probably because she couldn't breath.  The baby books says that after and illness (or other disruption, like travel) it can usually take the same number of nights to get back to a normal pattern.  Since she was congested for a week and a half and we also took several weekend trips before during and after, we're just now getting back to her normal sleeping pattern.

    

     When the weather was cooler, I was going up to nurse her and put her to bed around 7:30, but now that it's been much warmer, it's not cool enough upstairs until 8:30 - 9 or later.  So we've developed a new routine.  Between 5 - 7 we make dinner.  While that's cooking, one of us feeds her her smushy food and cleans her up.  She sits in her bumbo or bouncy chair while we eat (if we're lucky) and then we play or visit a bit.  Around 7 or 8 I take her up and we do our nighttime routine (bath, or warm wash cloth, diaper, pjs) and then she comes back down to the air conditioning with us. I nurse her and we cuddle and she falls asleep.  If it's cool enough I take her up to her bed.  Lately she barely even twitches when I do this, which is nice.  Or, if it's still too hot, I put her in her bouncy chair.  She usually is sound enough asleep by the time we're ready to go to bed that we can shower, change, get in bed, etc. with out waking her.  This is also a nice change. 

     Usually she'll sleep until 1 or 2, wake and eat.  I can usually then get her back in her bed around 2 or 3 and sleep another few ours before she wakes up around 5 or 6.  Sometimes, if I nurse her again she'll go back to sleep and we can sleep until 7:30 when we all usually end up getting up.  Some nights it doesn't work out this way and it's "endless Mama buffet", but I'd still rather do it this way then have to get up and go next door to her room every time she wakes up.  We've decided to continue this way for a while more.  Neither of us have the temperament for the sleep training methods, nor do we feel an urgency to get her to sleep in her own room.  This works fine for other people, but it just doesn't fit with out lifestyle.  We did try it a few nights, and I spent some time stressing about it.  I also did some more reading into some recent studies of infant sleep and attachment-style research and ultimately, we've decided to let things stay as they are until she's a little older.

Travel and Outings:

     The past two months have been very busy in terms of travel, meeting people and outings for little Lorelei.  Overall, she's done very well.

     Since Memorial Day, Lorelei has visited with Grammom Lynne and PopPop George, Great Aunt Merry, Aunt Kerry, Uncle Ben, Cousin Will, and Tutu Wendy and Tutu Richard.  She talks on Skype with Pappa Ed and Grammom Patty at least once a week (and now recognizes his voice and looks toward the computer), and has even talked with Grammom Lynne and Tutu Wendy a few times on Skype. Skype is awesome. :)

Here are some pictures of Lorelei visiting:

Lorelei meeting Tutu Wendy!

Lorelei playing with Grammom Lynne and Cousin Will!

Having a conversation with Great Aunt Merry!

Cousins!

   

     In June, Lorelei attended her first Frank and Beans Day Festival!  For those of you who don't know, this is the annual Tolton family picnic, hosted by my Uncle Charles and Aunt Sue.  It's great fun.  She met many of her great Aunts and Uncles and cried every time someone held her, but Aunt Sue was able to get a grin and giggle out of her... she must have the magic touch.  Too bad Lorelei is too young for Franks and Beans... maybe next year. :)

On the way to Frank and Bean's Day!

Proudly wearing her F&B Day colors, Ketchup red and Mustard yellow!

Lorelei participating in the College of Useless Knowledge.

"Maybe next year they'll let me have some franks and beans!"

     Lorelei has gone to the local Farmer's market, to college, to the Jefferson County Fair, to the zoo, grocery shopping, to the garden center, and helped distribute lunches with Andrew at the summer lunch program he volunteers with.  We are hoping to get to a story time at the library soon, but always seem to miss it.


Here are some pictures from her outings:

First wagon ride to the fair!

At the zoo with Mommy, Daddy, and Marilin

Watching the bobcat.

  






















     Andrew and I are enjoying the summer to spend time together as a family.  We've spent several lazy, lovely afternoons on walks or lounging on the blanket under the tree.  Lorelei is becoming more fun as her personality emerges and really seems to enjoy interacting and spending time with us.  She is cheerful and playful most of the day, and even her fussy periods are not too bad or too long any more.  We're still learning to figure out what she wants when she cries and we've started introducing a few basic signs (milk, drink, more, finished, diaper) that she'll hopefully pick up and be able to use as she also learns to talk.  She

doesn't have the coordination yet to mimic the signs yet, but she seems to be paying attention when we make them.  I've found that making the "finished" sign when she's finished the food or the bottle and then letting her play with the spoon or empty bottle for a moment seems to make a nice transition and avoid the disappointed crying.  So we'll see.

Here are some more pictures of summer fun:

     I'm almost done teaching my summer online class (ends July 27th), I'll enjoy that.  As much as I like teaching this course, my head just isn't in it this summer. :)  I'm also trying to do a little prep work for my new course next fall and another course that I'm using a new textbook for.  I go to the office to work sometimes, but it's also very nice to be able to work at home so that Andrew and I can have lunch together and I can feed and play with Lorelei when I'm ready to take a break.  I am happy that we don't have to put her in day care yet and am so greatful to Andrew for looking after her during the day when I do go to campus. 

     Well, that about wraps it up for us here.  We see Lorelei's doctor on Friday for her 6 month check up so I'll try to post an update then. For those of you who read all the way to the end, Thank You and I'll try not to go so long between posts in the future! :)