Halloween and Smiles

Its been quite a while since I wrote a full update about our lives, but I've been super busy. Gabriella is doing wonderfully. She is so distracted by EVERYTHING. Everything is interesting--especially Leo. Unfortunately Leo is know not so curious about her! I know they will become great friends once Gabriella becomes a little more active, but for now she'll just have to be satisfied with staring at him intently. She is SO super smiley and laughs all the time. sometimes she smiles so wide that her eyes get really squinty. It just melts my heart. She is also attempting roll over again. She rolled from tummy to back 2 times about 2 months ago and hasn't done it since and now I think she is getting interested again. However, she is way more interested in trying to sit up and bouncing in anyone's lap than she is rolling.....

October was quite the interesting month. For me, I had a clogged duct that turned into mastitis (ouch). I developed another clogged duct this weekend and am determined to not let it get worse. I am actually going to stop pumping next month. I am looking forward to it and dreading it at the same time. But, I have decided its time to stop and I am so thrilled that I will have EPed for half a year. Its WAY longer than I ever thought I would be able to do it. I was also sick 3 times this month--boo! On the health front, Chris had swine flu. He developed it last week. It was pretty much a bad flu but he's all better now and Gabriella and I are just fine. Thank you for all those that knew and kept us in your thoughts and prayers.

My mom and sister are coming to visit this weekend and I am so excited to seem them. My mom hasn't physically seen Gabriella since she was 6 weeks old (she sees her on Skype once or twice a week) and my sister was here about 6 weeks ago. I purposely waited to start fruits and veggies till this weekend so that they could be here for that. I can't believe my little baby will be 5 months old on Saturday. Time is just flying!

Sleep wise--Gabriella is doing great. She was waking up a lot and fussing overnight and I just was at wit's end about 2 weeks ago. I was against doing any type of sleep training more than anything b/c I felt that I didn't know which route to go since there are so many different methods. The book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child" came very highly recommended so I decided I might as well give it a shot. The book is wonderful and taught me SO much about infant sleep and I am so delighted to say that Gabriella has STTN ever since I started following this system. Its pretty much a CIO approach coupled with putting a baby to sleep before they get overtired (as soon as you start seeing certain signs of sleepiness). Every since we started Gabriella wakes up super happy and chipper in the morning and has become a superb napper at daycare. She went from getting about 12-13 hours of sleep per day to getting 14-16 and it has made a huge difference in her temperament. Her naps at home are still a battle, but we are working on it. I'm glad that she's at least getting good sleep at night.

For Halloween, Gabriella was a pumpkin--behold the cuteness of last weekend :)