9 months... in denial again

Ok! I have completely and utterly avoided updating my blog because I seem to be struggling with the fact that Stella was 7 months, then that turned to 8 months, and now.... whopping 9 months old!!!!!

We had her 9-month well-baby visit. She is "growing beautifully" according to her doctor.

Length - 27.5" - 25%

Weight - 16.5lbs - 5%

I don't even know where to start with developmental stuff.

- She just started wearing 9 month clothes, although most of it is still a little big. She fits best in 6-9 months.

- Size 2-3 diapers

- She started army crawling around 8 months & this past Sunday (Oct 18) she raised up on her hands and knees and took off across the floor.

- She is pulling up.

- She loves to open drawers and pull things of them or try to use them to pull up.

- She will eat solid food for daycare, but no so much for Stephen or I

- At home she is one #2 foods and we have ventured in to some #3's although she does not care for things that have tomato base (i.e. - #3 food of spaghetti with meatballs)

- Size 2 shoes, but we are right at the point that I need to start buying 3's if I want her to be able to wear them for more than a few weeks.

- She talks when she feels like it. By talking I mean gabbing. Still no "mama" or "dada."

- TEETH! Okay, well not yet. Her top two peeked through a few weeks ago, her gums swelled up and they have been hiding ever since. You can tell when they are bothering her- but she handles it SO WELL. She doesn't get crabby or whiney, she just doesn't like to eat when they are giving her fits.

We went to the pumpkin patch with Courtney & Boston. So here is the most recent picture I have readily available to post (aka - besides the ones that just seem to hang out on my camera)

She is going to kill me forever this probably. For Halloween she is going to be a peacock! I promise it is the cutest thing you have seen in a long time.

With the holidays coming up and family visits increase we are sure to have more fun to talk about. September was a super busy month for me because of all of the ovarian cancer activities. Hopefully, I will be able to jump on here more.

Because I do not get off of work until 5:30, I am not walking in the door until after 6 and someone has to be fed around 6:30, we eat at 7-7;15 and bed time routine starts at 7:30, with lights out by 8. By then, Stephen & I are exhausted.

Can't wait to share Halloween pictures with everyone!!

6 Month Well-Baby Check up results

Watching Daddy Work!
He was working in her rocker before her doctor's appointment and happened to look up & this is what he saw.

Playing with momma! Her smile just warms my soul.

So... I guess our kiddo is just going to be small.

Weight: 14 lbs, 1 ounce (7%)

Height: 24" (50%)

Everything looks great. Here are a few pictures I promised - these were taken either from my phone or Stephen's. Sorry, more to come.

6 Months.... Really??

I have been dreading this post for quite some time now. Stella being six months has been a little difficult for me to swallow. (I know…, I’m sure I will feel the same way when she turns one, two, three, etc.) For me, six months is a milestone – one I was not ready for. It is like six months is no longer infant stage – we now have a baby. I think most of it comes from the fact that I did not see us out of our house for this long. I just knew that we would have our own place again by now.

Enough about me – let’s talk about what our sweet angel is up to these days.
- She is still growling… but only at people she likes/admires.

- My bouncing baby girl! She loves her jumper… so much so, she will rub blisters on her little pinky toes if she doesn’t have socks on. When she is in a good mood, she likes to jump around on your legs, too.

- You can tell she is excited to see you if she pumps her legs (like she is jumping) – doesn’t matter if she is sitting, being held or in her crib – that is her communication of excitement.

- You know when she is awake because she will lift up her legs and then THROW her heels on the mattress, making a big “thump” noise.

- Where did my sweet girl go….? The teething monster has grabbed her. We are often dispensing Tylenol and oragel…. Mimi S found a great teether that when pressed on the tips, it vibrates. Stella loves it, you can tell it makes her feel better.

- She is still a pretty scooter when sleeping. (Thank God for bumpers) You never know where she will be in her crib when go to grab her in the morning.

- We are weighing in around the 14lb mark. We go for our 6-motnh well baby tomorrow. So I will post more stats tomorrow.

- We are on solid foods!!! She loves vegetables, not much of a fruit eater. She will eat bananas and pears & she takes them better if they are mixed with rice cereal. We think it is a consistency/texture thing (just like her mother ;) ). Hopefully she will keep up the vegetable eating for a long time, but I think every kid goes through a “no-vegetables” phase around 1-2.

- She got sick the weekend we up to Fayetteville to see my brother (weekend after 4th of july) and she has been sick ever since (not to mention getting us sick in the process). I took her to the doctor when it turned green, they told me to just let it run its course… it is still green. She has been sleeping with a humidifier for 2 weeks now and we have not noticed any significant difference in the amount of congestion she has when she wakes up.

- She will often cough in the middle of the night – of course, I hear it – bolt out of bed to check on her. She is always fine, but I tend to have this fear that she is going to choke for some reason.

- She sits up and is pulling her self up in to the sitting position like a champ.

- Crawling is a challenge. If you give her legs something to push off with, she could go to town.

- She enjoys rolling over, but often times she gets her arm in a funny position and doesn’t quite know what to do with it. But she either figures it out or moves on to something else.

- She knows her name now. We can’t quite figure out if she understands the words “momma” and “da-da” and that they indicate an actual person.
I know this post has been very long. Thanks for bearing with me. I just feel like I have so much to tell.

5 months!

Sidenote: since I have THE hardest time posting freakin’ pictures on here… the pictures are below this post. Sorry.
Well, my baby no longer seems to be an infant. I am sad to report we have moved over to the baby stage. It is so bittersweet. Stephen & I find ourselves trying to teach her things the other one isn’t ready for to do (i.e. hold her bottle (I don’t like that one) or eat rice cereal (Stephen isn’t ready for that one))

• She growls, sometimes on demand, but usually just because she feels like it. Everyone just thinks it is the funniest thing. She has done it in public and I have received a few strange looks, but most people just laugh.
• Her favorite time to talk is in the morning after her bottle, while she is kicked back in her swing watching the news. She will just sit in there by herself and just talk up a storm.
• We do not get many laughs out of her. She is happy all the time, but the hear her laugh out loud does not happen a lot.
• We are finally starting to fit in to 3-6 month clothes… at the ripe ole age of 5 months.
• We survived our 4-month shots. I just had to give her one dose of Tylenol afterwards (more of a preventative) and we were good to go.
• She is fascinated with her toes… even if they are covered with pj’s or socks – doesn’t matter. We have caught her multiple times in the morning laying in her crib with her foot in her mouth.
• Her bedtime is usually right around 8 pm. If you don’t get her down for a good nap in the morning then she tends to cat nap a lot or is fussy until her late afternoon nap.
• She has mastered pulling her paci out and putting it back in her mouth… even while sleeping. (now that’s talent!) :)
• Tummy time is becoming more enjoyable. She will even scoot on her belly if you give her feet something to press up against (like your arm or hands)
• She will roll from her back to her side and sometimes she gets enough momentum to rock back and forth and make it to her belly, but it is not a consistent thing.
• She is a busy sleeper. Note to self: you do not want to have to share a bed with this child. She is a wigglier. You never know which way she is going to be facing when go to her crib to get her after she wakes up.
• She has discovered her jumpy seat (see pics below). Has only really figured out she can jump in it maybe twice. She just looked over at me with this “is this what I’m supposed to do expression” and I would clap and praise her and she would just grim and laugh.
• We have tried rice cereal about 4 times now. This past Sunday was the last time and she was actually reaching out for it this time wanting more. We couldn’t shovel it in fast enough.
• She tried to hold her bottle. Sometimes it’s a success, but usually she just swats at it.
  

I am sure there are things I am missing. Things have been so crazy for us at work that I forget to update everyone. Speaking of, Stephen just got back from his first trip away from home since Stella has been born. He was in NYC for 4 days. We really missed him (I think he missed Stella more).
Oh! We have discovered the pool – but that will have to be a whole other post.

Her schedule is (these times are not exact, but give you an idea):
- 5am – half way awake, daddy changes diaper then in to bed

with mommy for a/b 30 min.
- 6am – breakfast
- 7-8:30 play, if she is real sleepy she will go back down after her
morning bottle until 9-ish
- 8:30-10 – morning nap
- 10 – lunch
- 10:30-11:30 play
- 11:30-1:30 afternoon nap
- 2 – afternoon lunch
- 2:30 – 4 play
- 4:30-5 – nap… if at day care, daddy pick her up at 5, if at home, she will sleep until 5:30
- 5-6 – play
- 6 – dinner
- 6:30-7:30 play/watch everyone else eat..
- 7:30 bath
- 8:00 bedtime

4-5 months! (pictures)

Waiting on Daddy to get back from NYC!

Headed to down the stairs to go to school with dad!

"What are THESE?... I don't know guys...."

I feel a little lost in here...

3rd time to try rice cereal...

Hanging with my cousin Henry!

Tell me....

That is the main word coming out of our mouth lately. Last week we had Stella's 4 month well baby check up. She is growing normally for her pace.

She weighs 10lbs 5ounces and is 23.5” long. She is in the 3% for her weight and the 25% in her height. Apparently she is on her way to be 5’2”…. That is so weird how they can calculate that stuff.
Side note: I was in a/b three weeks before then b/c she was sick, I noticed that she had only gained 2 ounces in 2 weeks! The doc told me to start supplementing her with every breast feed. So we have stopped breastfeeding and are now on formula. I gave it my best shot and was able to make it to four months. Needless to say she gained over a pound in 2-3 weeks.

- She is becoming more conscious of her movements. She knows she can pull out her pacifier, and she is getting to where she can consistently put it back in her mouth.
- She can deliberately grab her feet.
- She is going to be right handed b/c that seems to be the dominating side.
- She has created her own bedtime – usually asleep by 8pm
- Is now taking 6 oz bottles like a champ!!
- Will sleep about 8 hours straight! A few nights ago she ate at 7:30pm, asleep by 8 and didn’t wake up until 5am. Stephen & I didn’t know what to do with ourselves.
- Talk, talk, talk. She has really started to become more vocal over the past few days. On Tuesday I was in the kitchen, Stella was in her Bumbo. As I was stepping out of the kitchen she made a noise, I mimicked her back, we did this a/b 6 times as I was out of her sight. It was so funny. She was having a little conversation with me. I loved it.
- She will follow you across the room.
- She definitely knows mommy and daddy.
- She gets excited by flailing her arms and legs and sometimes cooing.
- She has just started to laugh out loud a make little squeals, but those have not caught on like the talking.
- You can get her tickle box...she will laugh and put on a huge grin – then with a hopefully-curious expression, she will look at you like “you going to do that again?”

We get this expression a lot!

Stella, you are the center of our lives and we love you beyond measure!

So... the house situation....

So what’s going on with the house situation?... Several people have been asking. Here is the scoop. I can not say much b/c of legal reasons and the fact that this blog is subject to public view – so everything I do say is essentially public knowledge.
However, I can share pictures with you.

It is evident that the crack, excuse me, fissure near the house (aka upper crack) is spreading open even more - it is now a/b 9ft. deep and a/b 1 ft. from our foundation. There is now a “sink hole,” if you will, in the front flower bed – which leads the geo-techinical engineer to believe that the whole house may be moving with the hill… instead of the hill moving away from the house. Also, the paved brick walkway in front of the flower bed has cracks and is beginning to become unlevel. The other day I ran by there and noticed that the telephone line had finally snapped from the power pole at the bottom of the yard. (which means that the cracks have spread open enough to cause the power pole to move to then finally cause the line to fail. The next line to fail will be the cable line. Both the cable and telephone lines have been tight from the beginning. The electrical lines still have a good bit of slack in them. You see rocks continuing to pile at the bottom of the hill but you can not really grasp the severity until you see the cracks in the yards at the top of the hill.

The upper crack - looking from the patio.

At the beginning of all of this, they cut everyone's sewage lines to create a temp. line (which is what the plastic and sandbags is covering up where they cut). The upper crack has opened so much that the sewage line coming from house is exposed.

View from alley/bottom of hill.

Crack in CMU (concrete masonry unit/cinder block) wall in basement.

About 5/8" wide. You can shine a flashlight through the crack and see orange brick on the other side.

We are still living with my parents. It is nice to have the extra set of hands, as far as Stella is concerned- but man, we would really enjoy our own space right now. Much less a vacation!
Please keep this whole situation in your prayers! We truly need them. I never ever imagined we would have to be displaced from our home- not to mention still have to pay mortgage in house we can not live in.