Monday, March 25, 2013

Emma: 6 Months!

Dear Mommy's Sweet Girl,

I cannot believe that you are a half a year old already!!!  Where has the time gone?  You are supposed to be my tiny little baby and you're growing up way too fast for my liking!  You are still the most content baby ever, and smiling is probably your favorite activity :)




Where as your sister is next to impossible to photograph these days, you make it very easy for mama.  Looking at the camera and smiling seems to bring you great joy ;)


Your hair, though getting sparse, is still pretty long on the top, so we attempted some different hairstyles this month:
Little pigtails :)


Headband (hairstyle courtesy of Addy)

The top ponytail cracks me up!


One of my favorite things is getting you up from your crib in the morning or after a nap.  You are always so pleasant..... always!  I seriously cannot remember the last time you cried when you woke up.  Half the time we don't even know if you are awake or not until we go in and check on you because you're so quiet!  And whenever we go in your room, this is what we find:


I absolutely love it!

You  are still exclusively breast fed, but we are going to start some solids tomorrow!  Growing up too fast I tell you! I think that you are definitely ready because you watch us like a hawk while we eat, and you smack your lips together as though you are eating too!  It's so cute :)  As of right now, you nurse either 4 or 5 times a day.  You wake up around 7:30 and eat, again around noon, around 3-4, sometimes again at 6ish (but we often skip that one), and then one last time around 7:30 before bed.  And then you sleep peacefully all night long :)





You have recently discovered your feet and you love to grab them and try to get them into your mouth.  In fact, anything that you can get your hands on these days goes directly into your mouth.  Sophie Giraffe has become one of your favorite toys for that reason; she is so fun to chew on!  No teeth yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if they come soon.

At your 6 month doctors visit you were:

15 lbs - 30th percentile
25.75 inches long - 45th percentile
43.5 cm HC - 85th percentile (You and your sister have some large noggins!)

You got a few immunizations at your appointment which you took like a champ.  No adverse reactions this time like you had after your 4 month vaccines.  The only thing that you are a little bit behind with is your rolling.... or lack there of.  Yup, you are 6 months old and still not rolling over.  You get pretty far, but not quite over yet.  (Your dear sister likes to help things along by rolling you across the floor when Mommy's back is turned.)  Bottom line is that you are totally fine, but we probably need to force a little bit more tummy time on you to encourage the whole rolling process.  I'm sure it'll happen soon, and then will begin our life with two young mobile kiddos.  If I thought life was chaotic now, talk to me in a few months ;)

You found your voice awhile back, but on your 6 month birthday you have discovered that there are different volume levels to your voice....




....and now you and your sister have screeching matches to see who can be louder.  Fun times in this house! (Insert sarcasm here).  My quiet little baby is starting to realize that it is way more fun to be loud!  But I have to laugh, because it really is the cutest thing.  It's especially cute that you get such a kick out of yourself :)

Here are some of the photos from your 6 month birthday:


Blowing raspberries.... another of your favorite activities lately :)



Got those feet :)

There's our pal Sophie :)

I love your little tongue and how it always sticks out like that right after you've eaten :)


Emmy, you truly are the sweetest thing ever!  Always pleasant, always smiling.  All it takes is for us to look in your direction, and the smiles come out.  I don't want to jinx myself, but I still cannot get over what an easy baby you are.  You are, and always will be, Mommy's Sweet Girl :)

I love you little lady!  Happy 6 Month Birthday!

Love,

Mommy

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Cousins!

A few weeks ago Mike's sister came down with her two sons to visit with us for a few days.  Addy and Luca absolutely adore each other (they are only 2 weeks apart in age), and it was our first time meeting the family's newest addition, Santino, so we were super excited!

It was a great few days spent with all of the kiddos (minus that rampant GI bug that hit, of course).  Watching Addy and Luca play together is so much fun, and they are each other's favorite playmate (even though we don't see them very often!), which is awesome.

Now, if I thought taking pictures of just Addy was tough, let's try four children age two and below:

This was the best that we could do, and there were many others before this one....


We have the Emmy face plant:


 I can still hear Addy now, "What's wrong with this baby?"


But they all sat there for a brief moment, so I guess that's all we could ask for :)


We tried to get a few of just Addy and Luca, thinking that would be a little easier.  Ha!







But eventually, I got one!



The babies:




Brothers:


And sisters: (This one totally cracks me up!)



Yes, getting pictures of these four was no easy task, and we of course have no perfect ones, but sometimes the out takes are the best ones.  They are definitely the funniest!

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

A Tough Shot

These days Addy is VERY difficult to photograph.  For some reason she refuses to look at the camera and smile.  She will turn her head away at the last second and smile with her back to you.  Or she'll look at you but won't smile.  Or worse, give the fakest smile you've ever seen.  And it drives me crazy, because I adore Addy's precious little smile.  So I try hard to capture it on film.  But lots of times, it's to no avail.  Here are the types of shots I've gotten lately:

Puckered lips


Flat out refused to smile


The smile and look anywhere but the camera (She loves this move.)


Still cannot get over that this actually occurred.  She honestly fell asleep on her chair.  First and last time this ever happened.


Mad that I would even consider trying to get a picture of her with a pretty bow in her hair


Fakest smile you've ever seen


Then, one day a few weeks ago we put on her chef outfit so that she could help me in the kitchen....

Sad face

Surprised face

Shy face

Excited face

Curious face

Silly face

We had to go through all of these faces before we finally captured....

Happy face!


I love my little girl!!!.... and her many faces!




Thursday, March 7, 2013

February Self Portrait

Wow, February.  What can I say except, wow.  That was a rough month for sure.  Nothing earth shattering, but it was a month of sickness in this family and in this house.  Warning: If you have a weak stomach, you may want to skip this post.  I'm serious.  Good riddance February.

It started out with Addy (as it always does, now that she's in school) getting a cold.  She seems to have a cold 75% of the time.  But anyway, she got a cold and started coughing so much at night that she would throw up.  For many nights in a row.  Never during the day.  During the day she seemed fine.  But at night, when she would lie down, the coughing would ensue, and we knew we were in for a crib change or two.  She was so pitiful on those nights.  She would call out to us and we would go into her room to find her and her sheets covered in vomit (nice visual, I know).  So Mike and I would tackle it together.  We'd clean her up and change her bed, while she would sit on her changing mat saying, "Sorry Mommy.  Sorry Daddy."  Truly pitiful I tell you.  So we went full steam ahead with the every home remedy we could think of (since you can't give children that young any cough medicine).  We put a humidifier in her room, we propped up her mattress with pillows (which of course meant that she chose to sleep on the other side), we gave her teaspoons of honey.  Nothing worked, so we decided to drug her up with some Benadryl (and sometimes Advil too) in hopes that she would just fall asleep.  That didn't necessarily work either, and we all just dealt with the gross factor and the lack of sleep for a few days.

After a few days, it went away, only to come back with a vengeance.  It was two nights before our trip to Philly, when Addy started throwing up in her crib again.  Only this time it wasn't associated with coughing.  And this time, it was bad.  It wasn't one crib change and then back to bed.  She was literally awake until 4:45AM (meaning I too was awake until then) throwing up every half hour to hour.  I changed her crib sheets SEVEN times that night!  Seven!  I was doing laundry all night long and as soon as one load was finished, it would go back on her crib and the next load would go in the washer.  A long, long night I tell you.  And let me just add that she also had diarrhea every morning for at least a week that required baths and crib changes.  Just a nice little added bonus for us.

So on Thursday off we went to Philly.  Seems logical right?  Yeah, in hindsight I don't really know why we decided to proceed with those plans.  But truly on Wednesday she was fine all day.  Eating, drinking, playing.  Fine.  So Thursday evening we took off.  Well, let me tell you, words can't even describe that trip.  It started with Emma throwing up (on me) three times on the ride up there.  Requiring three outfit changes for both her and I.  Three.  Addy hadn't thrown up in a few days at that point so on Friday we took her to the Please Touch Museum in Philly.  We all had fun and all was well.  Then on Saturday some family came to visit, and when they left it all went downhill.  I was up all night throwing up, Mike had it from the other end, and poor Addy had both.  We literally were up changing her sheets and bathing her at 3AM in between getting sick ourselves.  Nothing like cleaning vomit and diarrhea off of someone when you are vomiting yourself.  It was every bit as bad as it sounds.  I wanted nothing more than to just lay in bed curled up in a ball and sleep.  But, as every parent knows, parents don't get sick days.  So, up we were.  Cleaning, and changing, and doing laundry in the middle of the night.  Then taking a "break" to throw up, and going right back at it.  Clean, change, laundry.  Clean, change, laundry.

And then to boot, we so nicely gave this lovely stomach bug to Tina, Jay, and my mom.  Tina got it Sunday, and Jay and my mom got it Monday.  By Monday we (we being our immediate family) were fine.  So that Thursday Mike's family came to visit.  Oh boy.  Again, hindsight is 20-20.  We should have told them not to come.  But we were OK by that point.  Or so we thought.  I guess our symptoms were gone, but we were still contagious.  Because in succession, Lauren, Santino, Luca, Debbie, and Paul all got sick.  And then they took it home to Alex, who also got sick.  I'm telling you, this bug was a rager.  Luckily the babies got the least of it (Yay for the antibodies they get from breast milk!!).  But with Mike's family here it was back to the continuous stream of clean, change, laundry.  And then when they left I literally disinfected every square inch of this house.  From light switches, to doorknobs, to remote controls.  From toys, to toilets.  I cleaned it all.  Clorox wipes were my dear friend.

And then of course, there was laundry. So, so much laundry.  I think I did 18 loads in 3 days.  I did every towel, sheet, sham, bedspread, and article of clothing that anyone had touched.  I shudder to see our water bill this month, because I have never done so much laundry in my life.  

So here is my February self portrait:

Me hovered over the washing machine.  Where I spent more time this past month than I ever care to again.  Goodbye sickness.  Please stay far, far away from us.  We have had more than our share, I assure you.

Emma: 5 Months!

Dear Who Who,

You are getting bigger and more beautiful every day!  This stage of life is the most precious, adorable time.  You are so happy and interactive, yet still immobile, ha ha!  I love it!

You have started to have "conversations" with us, which is the cutest thing.  Poor Daddy is gonna have to live with 3 Chatty Cathy's ;)


You are still getting only Mommy's milk, and when you take it in the form of a bottle you like to hold it yourself:

Only one more month until we start feeding you solids!  I always picture you as such a tiny baby, it's hard to believe it's almost time to feed you "real" food!  Right now you nurse 4-5 times a day and are very content with that.

You are a thumb sucker and that's how you soothe yourself to sleep:



I still believe that you are the happiest baby on the planet, but I took the following photo to prove that you too, have your moments ;)
The photo above may have resulted from the following situation:
Recently you love to put your tiny little fingers in my mouth while you are nursing, so I playfully gnaw on them when you do.  Your big sister saw me doing that and decided that it must be a good idea to bite your fingers since that's what Mommy does :(  Yup, true story.  I felt so bad for you!  But Addy (and Mommy) has learned her lesson and hopefully that will be a once and done situation.

Bath time is one of your favorite times of the day and you get a smile on your face the second we put you in the tub.  You especially love to get your face and hair washed.  You kick and splash and laugh at yourself.  It's such a great time of day (and not only because it's almost bedtime!).


You still have long brown hair, but it is getting lighter and more sparse every day.  But it remains pretty long in the back (mullet style) so I jokingly gave you a ponytail one night:

This view shows just how much hair you are losing:

How cute are you in this little outfit from Aunt Tina:

 Shoes were from Aunt Sue back when Addy was your size.  Love them!!!

You remain our star sleeper, both at night and during naps.  You take 3 naps a day, from which we often still have to wake you up.  About 2-3 hours in the morning, 2-3 hours in the afternoon, and 1-2 hours in the early evening.  Then you are in bed around 7:30-8 and sleep for a solid 12 hours.  No joke.  You LOVE your sleep, and we LOVE that about you!  You haven't woken up during the night AT ALL in over a month, so I'm hoping this is a permanent thing for us.  Uncharted territory though I tell ya.  We had to do the whole "Cry it out" thing with Addy to stop her from waking during the night, but you just did it on your own and it was so easy.  Naps too.  We always (from day one) struggled with naps with that sister of yours.  To this day she hates napping.  But you?  You go right down, almost every time, without so much as a whimper.  You, Emma, are a very easy baby.  I don't want to jinx us, but it is the absolute truth :)

You aren't rolling over yet, although you get very, very close.  You usually love to just lay around and play with your toys or watch Addy play.  You can grab onto your toys now, and everything immediately goes into your mouth.  (One of our friends has our Sophie giraffe, and we need to get it back STAT, because that is such a wonderful teething toy.)  You are pretty content wherever we put you, be it the bumbo, the activity mat, a swing, or the step and play piano.  You just chill and smile wherever you are.

All we have to do is walk in the room and you just light up with that beautiful grin of yours.  It's so easy to make you happy!  Have I mentioned how much I love this stage??

Here are your 5 month pics:




But no one can get you to smile like your sister can!  You two love each other so much!



Happy 5 Month Birthday Emma Jane!  You have been the most wonderful blessing to us and all three of us love you to pieces!

Love,

Mommy