Have finally gone private

Hi lovely readers :)

I've officially gone private, as you can see. I was waiting a while to make sure anyone who wanted to sign up has done so. My decision to go private was just something I felt like doing. I didn't feel comfortable with pictures of Gabriella potentially floating around in cyberspace. So, here we are...

Updates with us: Gabriella is much better. Actually, I didn't blog it, but most of you know that her congestion pushed up into her ears and she got an ear infection. We're almost done with our antibiotics and Gabriella is back to her usual adorable self. There will be plenty of pictures taken this weekend as we celebrate Christmas with my in-laws (joy of all joys). Despite hating them with the fire of a thousand suns, I will grin and bear this visit b/c we leave to see my family in CA next Wednesday, for 11 glorious days. I can't wait!!

I am in the process of pump weaning. I was pumping 5 times a day, at about 35-40oz, and I am down to 2 a day. Today is my 1st attempt at only 2 pumpings. I've been dropping a pumping every 3 days, but I want to try and only do 2 days of 2x pumping and see if I can go to just 1 quickly and then stop. I really want to avoid taking my pump with me on vacation, but certainly will if I can't finish things up by then.

Going Private

Just feel the need to make the blog private. Send me your email address if you'd like to be added at mana82@sbcglobal.net. I know there are plenty of peeps out there who connect to my blog via someone else's and I do the same all the time. So, please feel free to email me :)

Ringing in the half year with a virus :(

My dear, sweet girl was sick for the 1st time this weekend. It was pretty much a cold. She was running a fever and congested when I picked her up from daycare on Friday night. Yesterday she slept most of the day, was congested, and had a fever in the morning and evening. She hasn't had a fever in 24 hours (nothing over a rectal temp of 100.5). Today she is much less congested. Her congestion sounds like its more in between her nose and throat now; its just rattling back there where I can't suck it out. Gabriella was in better spirits today and pretty much back to normal minus being a little on the tired side. I'm guessing she'll be good as new tomorrow morning. Oh and she officially HATES the bulb syringe!

It was so unbelievably hard to see her be uncomfortable. All I wanted to do was just hold her 24/7.

Hopefully she'll completely kick this out of her system really soon and we'll be back to happy-pappy baby.

My sweetheart even smiled for me so I could get a pic to commemorate 6 months :)

Half a year...my oh my!

I cannot believe that my baby is 6 months old! Well, she will be on Monday at least. Today we had her 6 month check up and everything looks great. Gabriella is 18 lbs 3 oz (90th percentile) and 26.25 in (75th percentile). She's been on those same growth paths since the 2 month mark. Her pedi is very pleased with her progress. She's got a few new tricks up her sleeve. One being actually crying for the 1st time when someone took her out of my arms. I gladly handed her over to her pedi for the exam today and she immediately gave us the pouty lip and proceeded to start wailing....through the entire exam. Now, I'm going to blame that on crankiness from only sleeping ONE HOUR TOTAL today...she used to 2 at the very least. Usually its 3! Miss Crankypants took a while to calm down, but then came the shots....and queue the screaming again. She got her 2 regular vaccines and then got the regular flu and H1N1 vaccine as well.

I told the pedi about how great she eats and we got the green light to proceed with level 2 foods and meats (weird, huh Car?). We still have 3 fruits left to finish in the level 1 foods, then I'll move onto level 2. We'll probably go to those towards the end of the month. I doubt we'll venture into meats until well into January. But of course, I'll watch how she does and we'll follow her lead as always. On an unrelated note, Gabriella's eyes are still grayish blue and while I know that's normal, her pedi did say that based on what her eyes look like now, they'll likely be green or grayish green. She no longer thinks they'll be brown. We're definitely looking at something lighter.

Developmentally our gal is rolling both ways, grabbing her feet (and eating them), teething, and working on sitting up on her own. She loves to sing in the car and babble in her crib. She has a delightful personality and her smile just lights up my whole world. Its the best thing ever to be greeted with that as soon as I walk in her room. Love you baby girl!

A change of grades...

Gabriella has had peas for 3 nights now. The 1st night was described below, but then last night and tonight she mowed.them.down. No joke I couldn't get them in her mouth fast enough! We have one more night and then onto carrots, and after that I think we'll go with a fruit before we try the green beans. I think we'll give the peas a B+ :)

This is Gabriella and squash (yes, I made her a bit messy on purpose. Usually she stays relatively clean):

Baby Food - a review

Thus far we have been on veggies for a week. Here are the grades thus far:

Squash - A
Sweet Potatoes - A
Peas - D

We started with squash, then went to sweet potatoes, both of which she ate no problem. I was debating what to go with after the sweet potatoes. My options were start a fruit, or try carrots and/or peas. Well we chose peas since we were kinda sick of orange poo. Last night for her dinner Gabriella had peas. She was enthusiastically eating the peas. I mean, she looked like she really liked them. Then, 2/3 of the way through the container I get the locked mouth....hmm, this is interesting. After I coerced her into opening her mouth again, a spoonful of peas got the look of disgust and shudder. OMG I could not stop laughing. Mean mommy, I know. I was like "kiddo, you've eaten almost the entire container and now you're gonna start not liking it?" I coerced her to open her mouth again, and again yucky face and shudder. So, I made her a little bit of oatmeal to make up for the few spoonfuls of peas she was missing out on.

I have to say I was truly perplexed at the chain of events. I would have surely thought that if she didn't like them, she would have never eaten then as gladly as she did initially. Oh well, silly baby...whatcha gonna do. I'll stick with the peas for 3 more days since we are switching every 4 days. Maybe I'll mix it with some rice or oatmeal tonight and see if it helps. I think we'll go with carrots for the next veggie. After that all we have left to try are green beans and I have a feeling that if she didn't like peas, she won't be particularly kind to green beans.

It is tons of fun though. I love seeing her making a mess and blow raspberries with a mouthful of veggies. Makes for a very clean baby.

Side note: 2 weeks till 6 month check up. O.M.G. where the eff is time going?!

5 months old!

Wow--my baby is 5 months old. She is getting so SO big!

My mom and sister were here for a visit this weekend and we had the best time. The weather was absolutely gorgeous both days so we were able to spend a good amount of time outside with Gabriella. She was adorable all weekend long and was a really good napper this weekend too. I was so happy about that; I was really worried she was going to get overtired and then be screaming like the past 2 weekends. She was giggling and smiling so much...it was so adorable. It was so hard for my mom and sister to leave, but we all knew we'd see each other in about 6 weeks for 11 glorious days. We can't wait!

We started our veggies (squash) this weekend. At first Gabriella made the most hilarious face of not necessarily disgust, but I guess of uncertainty. She warmed up to it pretty quickly though and ate almost the whole container. She made the same face on Sunday, but again warmed up to it and ate the whole container. We have 2 more days of squash and then we are moving onto sweet potatoes, then maybe carrots, or I might go to peas. Once we finish those we'll move into the fruits which I'm sure she'll love. I was so glad that my mom and sister got to be there for her first veggies!

Gabriella is now consistently rolling from tummy to back, but is still working on back to tummy. She can get to her side still, but really has no interest in going the other way for right now. She was doing the most adorable thing this weekend. I would tap my hand over my mouth and making that oh-oh-oh noise. Well, I tapped on her mouth and she would start doing the same thing. Now every time I tap my hand over her mouth she does it too. She stinkin cute! She was so much fun all weekend long that it made it really hard to leave her this morning. I totally almost cried....

But anyways, here are some pics of Miss G in all her cuteness: