Changing Taste Buds

Baby A's taste for food has been constantly changing.  She is growing pickier every day.  She loves food SO MUCH.  However, the baby food sometimes just doesn't kick it for her.  She actually doesn't care so much for super sweet food, like applesauce.  She loves peas and green beans.  The more fresh or more warm the food, the better.  Even better is when the food comes directly from another person's plate.  And no matter how much she likes the food, please don't give it too more than once or twice in a day: she will refuse it until she forgets she's tried it before.

:-D

She is starting to show signs of teething, but with no teeth yet, I don't feel comfortable giving her super solid food, like whole green beans.  No matter how soft I can get them, they don't dissolve in your mouth. 

HOWEVER, today, we discovered cantaloupe!  Bananas (which make constipation--boo!) and avocados only go so far.  Even though quite sweet, when ripe, it is soft enough for baby A to gum to death.

:-)

Score!

Blast From The Past (Update)

It's amazing what you can find on the internet!

I was browsing through a blog: PRÊT À VOYAGER

When I stumbled across this post about this amazing project.

At the bottom of the post (if you're looking at it!) there is a picture of four little women.

I am currently searching to see if that picture was taken in the mountains of northern Vietnam, because I have totally seen the two women on the left before!!

I'm not going to cry if it's not true and I'm just hallucinating (LOL), but I will be super stoked if it's true!

I will update here for sure!


Update!
Yes, I can almost conclude that those four women were from Vietnam.
This site does not say what part of Vietnam, but their dress and the background indicate the northern mountain tribes.
Yay!  Close enough.
:-)

Those last 5 Lbs

Oh my goodness!!!

At 6 1/2 months after having baby A, I'm finally down to 5lbs above my pre-prego weight!!  And with hip-shrinkage to boot!!

Score!!

I know this may seem like a little dream to many people out there, and, unfortunately, not much of it is muscle (yet!), but it is an Amazing feeling when you can fit back into your loved clothes (and not lose an entire wardrobe).

Move # 4,789

Well, that's a bit of an overstatement...but man, oh man, does it feel like it.

At the end of...let me count...10 days '!', there is still one more load sitting in our old apt.

Not to mention the cleaning supplies, as, yes, the apt. still must be cleaned from top to bottom by this Sunday night.  I am completely in love with my Sabbath hours...hours of relaxation without real work...and of course worship and family/friend time--except that this isn't college where I had only me to worry about.  I can't just run over to the apt. tomorrow night for a few hours and make it a cleaning party. Baby A allows me only so many freedoms these days--one of which means that if i'm trying to do work by myself with her, one hours worth of work can stretch into like 5 or 6 hours.  This is actually why it's taken 10 days to get only most of the move accomplished.  I was able to recruit some friends and family for a little bit of time (between work schedules and nap times), and am incredibly grateful for the help they were able to give.  But man, oh man, I still thought it would take less time than this and I wouldn't be so stressed in the end.

Mmmmmm, I should know better.  I can get stressed over having to decide between doing the dishes or eating (which, of course, creates more dirty dishes) during baby A's nap time (which, on some days, if I'm lucky, can last up to 20 or 30 minutes--in the past couple of weeks she's been Finally starting to nap for up to 2 hours!).  :-D  (This is why I tend to stay up way past being tired so I can have some me-time and hopefully get a few things done.)

I will be soooooooooooo excited for Monday to come---which should hopefully mean that the old apt. will be cleaned out and cleaned up and the keys turned in!

And then on to settling in with mom (for as much as you can settle in with somebody for 4 months).

:-D

One day I'll be able to leave my house somewhere and travel with only a backpack and a tent or a suitcase and a carry-on.  :-)

I Love H2O2!

I learned a tip from my dad a few weeks ago: Hydrogen Peroxide is a stain remover.

What?!  I am nearly 30 years old.  How am I just now learning about this??

H2O2 has become a life savor!

The #1 stain I have to clean?  Bananas...  I never would have imagined that bananas would be my worst nightmare.  That yellowish-clear slime that comes from smashed bananas, very quickly turns into brown goo before it dries.  The shelf-life of bananas (and avocados) should be longer (in a perfect life).

So until that perfect life, H2O2 will be my new BFF.

LOL

Ooo! If you're also a mom (and if you're not!), check out this website for more ideas of what to do with H2O2 and other green chemicals (and you can enroll to win some green products of your own!).  

First Signs

I know it can be hard to tell what or even if a baby is signing, well, anything, but tonight baby A gave the definite sign for milk!

I am so completely stoked!  It's not the first sign she's 'made', but it's a pretty important sign.

I'm praying super hard that she will keep using it.

It makes life so much simpler when you can communicate.  :-)

Sitting Up

Oo! Oo!

So baby A has been sitting up better (on her own!) without toppling over!

She can't pull herself up to a sitting position, yet (obviously), but if I set her down, now she stays!

I'm super excited, because the more she sits up (and rolls over), the more she can do more things by herself!  This frees me up to get more things done around the house. (Yes!)

(Maybe soon she'll start crawling!  For those who may think this will make things worse, I challenge you to watch baby A from sunrise to sunset.  See how much you get done around my house, then we'll talk.)

Zeitgeist

Okay, so I normally try to keep my posts politics-free, but right now I'm "watching" Zeitgeist: Moving Forward (2011)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qe03mYVfmg&feature=fvsr

...if you so desire.

I quoted the 'watching' as I stopped really listening to it a while ago (it's 2 hours and 40 something minutes!  I'm a multi-tasker.  I don't have that kind of attention-span.  LOLOL  I like my oxymorons...)  I also stopped listening because I started becoming wary of the topic at hand.  (Very well-rounded criticism I can give now. LOLOL)  

I actually liked the beginning of the video, esp. the intro part about the kid playing a game with grandma and the neurological science used to ascertain how humans change according to their environment (more than how genes affect humans).  And then....it started digging itself into a hole, and I started fading out.

It's very informative of one way of thinking about how a society should live and work.

Right now, it seems more like a 'perfect' society that works in theory, not necessarily in real life.

(...isn't Communism a little like that?...)

I need to do more research....

Move # 438 (ish), Part 1

Once again, we are moving.

This is the story of my life. (for the past 15 years--the first 15 years were almost firmly grounded into one house.)

Also, like many of my moves, this is a temporary one; a few months to stay with Mama.

It will be Very nice when my man gets back and we can get into a new place, that maybe we can furnish and call home for a little bit.

So, M, I and I (LOL....) started the moving process this morning (and it will be a long process...you can only leave kids and jobs and errands and etc. for so long) at Mama's.  We had to dump a mattress set, before I found out at work that a local shelter's thrift store may have actually taken it to sell.  Apparently bed bugs have become such a problem that most thrift stores won't take used mattresses anymore.  Sadness.

We finally made it back to my place to move over my furniture.  As soon as we had the major pieces prepared and started taking them out to the truck (open bed, no tarp), it started to rain.  Awesome.  We garbage bagged the chairs and blanketed the table and left the mattress behind, thankful that at least it started to rain before we left, and not after (or I'd have some very nice, very ruined furniture).

Tomorrow, we're praying for at least about 30 minutes of clear skies (or at least not rainy ones), so we can finish the next step of the move.

Please pray for us too!!

Drama Queen

Today was baby A's 6-month check-up.  Along with check-ups come vaccinations.  And taking temperatures through the tush.  And getting weighed.

Now, baby A's never cared for their way of taking temps, but she has dealt with it okay.

Today, maybe she just needed more sleep last night, but she freaked out during temp-time.  Then got mad when laid on the scale.  She wiggled so much that we couldn't get an accurate read until she calmed down a little.  She was pretty much only consoled as long as I held her.

Anytime I put her down, anywhere, she would instantly start screaming.

The shots were obviously the biggest deal.

After I got her dressed to leave, I took off my sweatshirt, and she started crying more.  I just hope she didn't think it was my time for shots... :-(

Poor thing...

She took a couple good naps later today, thank goodness.

Life is amazing after a nap.  :-)

(Not so much queen drama!)

Foot Fetish

I know it sounds incredibly gross, but I think it's terribly adorable when babies chew on their feet.

Baby A has finally started sucking feet!!!!!!

I'm sure it's mostly my fault.  :-)

I play with her feet and guide her feet that way when cleaning her nappy area.

This past week, she's been pulling them closer herself, and in the past couple of days has started chewing on them.  Even when they're clad with socks.

A couple of weeks ago I found the cutest little pair of crocs for her. (now I'm not really into baby shoes--as baby A tends to kick them off within seconds of putting them on, but I couldn't resist--and these stay on relatively well)  Apparently baby A is fond of the crocs as well, as whenever she wears them, she attacks them with force (with her hands and mouth).

I think my little foot fetish-er is cute  :-)

Take It Off The Bookshelf!

I have started a new blog page!
You will notice this to the left of this post.  :-)
I started accepting free books from Bethany House Publishers a few months ago,
(they send me books for free and all I have to for payment is write a review and post it a couple of key places),
and have finally finished one of them in order to write the review.
Yay!
I will post more reviews than just the books I receive from Bethany House, but I figured that this book was a good book to start with.
So, after a little rearranging, voila!
You may peruse and comment as you wish.

Happy Readings!

Anti-Social

As much as baby A LOVES to be social, there are just some times that she does not.

Who can blame her? There are times I'd rather be home in sweats than out having look my best and chat it up with strangers (which she does on a daily basis).

We went to watch cousin M's ballet recital today.  Go M!

All went well until 2 minutes into the first performance (a good 3 performances before M's group was on).

Baby A was little keen on the darkness of the concert hall, and more upset by the loud music.

The amount of time it took to calm her down outside, one would have thought a ghost had frightened her or maybe that she was teething.

Whatever the reason, we sat the rest of the performances outside the hall, and sometimes outside the building.

Yay! for being smart to carpool, so that I couldn't leave and instead entertain a cranky baby for 30ish minutes.  This may seem little time for you...I handle cranky minutes all day, and have many tricks up my sleeve already...most of them laying at home...or in the bag I left beside my dad back in the concert hall...which also held my phone.

:-D

Oh well, lesson learned.

No more concert halls.

This goes on the list along with no more: eating sit-down in restaurants, leaving baby A with others for more than 2 hours, eating/drinking caffeine past noon, wearing hair down, ...etc.

Socialize Till You Drop

Baby A is a socialite.  There is no denying it.

When I finally pried her out of bed at 8:30 this morning, she went almost non-stop until bedtime (19:30).

There were a couple of 5 minute naps in the car, maybe 2 minutes more at auntie L's, and say 30 minutes more at home.

In between these naps?  We jogged with miss L and little O.  We met up with some mommy's for a 2hr-ish play-date.  We hung out with auntie L, uncle D, and cousins X and M.  We cleaned up a little around the house, ate dinner, had some mommy-and-me time, and took our night-night bath.

I'm exhausted. (granted this is a few hours later---my 'me' time)

I honestly don't know how she lasted so long.

I tried to help her sleep a couple times.  And she usually naps in the jogging stroller.

No more naps around friends.

Friends are interesting.

Friends are fun to play with.  Grab at.  Blow bubbles at.  Giggle and coo at.

I think maybe tomorrow I may need a nap though, then maybe we can play the game of 'see who can sleep the longest'.

Gloating

I don't normally like to gloat.  However, having a baby has made me proud on numerous occasions.

Today, a lady told me that baby A seemed very alert.  She actually thought that baby A was 9 or 10 months old.  She's only 6 months.  :-)

That's my social butterfly, baby A.

gDiapers

So I had my first cloth diapering meet up.

:-D

I heart gDiapers!

My dear friend M and her little baby A (same name as my baby A! just spelled differently, and about 4 months younger) have decided to give cloth diapering a go.

Now, I'm no expert in cloth diapering.  I'm learning as we're going.  And every day is a new learning experience.  :-)

BUT, so far, I love it.

Every family has diapers that work best for them (and it could possibly be disposables!).  I am under the firm belief that cloth diapers work best when you have the style that fits your family best.  GDiapers fit our family amazingly.  (I believe I've raved about them before, so I won't go on.  But if you ever have any questions, feel free to ask!)

Dear M was very curious about cloth diapers in general and more specifically in gDiapers (when I showed baby A's to her).  I sent her home with our entire stash of small gDiapers as well as a couple other styles baby A has grown out of (always best to experiment!).

Here's to dear M and family finding what works best for them!

My camera still doesn't work, so this isn't my baby A-but still a cute pic!