Her first crawls

On May 21, 2011, we saw her first real crawling "steps." She'd been dragging herself for about a month.

It happened right after storytime at the library. Made me remember that Animalia's first real steps, walking steps, happened at storytime too. Maybe I work too much. Or maybe these girls are just inspired by my amazing storytime skills.

Teeny bo beeny who eats like a weenie

Animalia made up that title.

Mads is 27 inches and 17.75 lbs at her six month checkup.

She is no longer the tiny little thing we thought she'd be. No, she won't be her Nana when she grows up.

Almost crawling

The almost crawling started, after rolling and dragging herself for a few weeks, a couple of days ago.

Mads pushes herself onto her hands and knees, rocks back and forth to gain momentum, starts moving her legs just right, but still doesn't know what to do with her hands. She falls on her face.

The actual crawling will happen soon. Sooner than we're ready.

Baby poop on vacation.

Obvious title.

So while on vacation, the Animalia only pooped twice. I think it was because although she was getting some solids, she was mostly nursing since she was with me all the time. I also have to admit a teeny bit of laziness on my part. I'm already lugging nourishment around, attached to my person.

Anyhow.

One poop happened at Mars' Cheese Castle. This was actually fairly convenient. We were sitting in the bar (OH MY GOD, BABY IN THE BAR!) finishing our delicious beers and food from the deli and she was standing on my lap. She turned around to face me, stuck her butt out and started doing the baby pooping grunting red face thing. With her butt sticking out. It was pretty entertaining. So we paid up and I changed her in the back of the rental car. It was ugly.

The second time was so much more convenient, the mom said sarcastically. It was during takeoff. That's right. Headed back home, the airplane is leaving the ground, and the Animalia starts grunting. My daughter is both convenient and considerate to others, the mom said while rolling her eyes. So yeah. She pooped. And I couldn't do anything about it. She must have gotten all cozy though, right after, because I gave her a pacifier to suck on and she dozed off. She woke up a little after the seatbelt light went off. I started to head to the rear bathroom and a flight attendant told me that there was a changing table in the front. I headed there and wow. Airplane bathroom changing tables are SMALL. But it worked. And her baby poop had a couple of beans in it. From Frontera Grill, the Rick Bayless restaurant. Yum.

Diaper changes on vacation are no picnic. There are TONS of places that don't have changing tables. On the flight there, no one offered the "baby changing table in the front bathroom" advice either. So I balanced her in one arm and changed her standing up. It's really exhausting. I did that in a couple of bathrooms on the trip too, bathrooms where I wouldn't put her on the floor even with a changing pad underneath. I kind of felt like a badass when I changed her midair. Like a very tired badass.

Animalia takes a trip.

So we took the Animalia to Chicago. It was more difficult than traveling alone or with the drunken adults that I'm used to traveling with but not so difficult that I wouldn't do it again. I was a little concerned for her tiny ears on the flights but she was fine, charming even. She chatted and smiled at flight attendants and other passengers, wiggled around, ate and napped. Nice. She was lovely.

There were more tears once we got there though. I think it was because she was in unfamiliar territory and not following her usual patterns of eating, sleeping and playing. That AND she's teething. That's right. No false alarms this time. There are two teeny tiny baby teeth peaking out of her bottom gums. They're cute to look at, interesting to touch and I'm sure they're incredibly painful for her. Pobresita.

She met her Aunt Barbara and cousin Cathy for the very first time. She bonded with Cathy. She also made friends with BL, smiling at her and trying to eat her watch every chance she got.


Other firsts on the trip:

Her first Cubs game. EVERYONE in the bleachers thought she was the most adorable baby ever in her Cubs cheerleader outfit and red legwarmers. There were even some drunk guys sitting behind us who were discussing the best way to smoke in the "no smoking" ballpark and they were trying to decide whether or not to light one up right there. They decided not to. Because of the Animalia.

Her first frijoles. She had her first taste of frijol at Frontera Grill, the Rick Bayless restaurant. What can I say? She's fancy. She liked the beans too.

Her first (brief) visit to a zoo. We took her to Lincoln Park Zoo. It was near closing time so she just got to see a tiger, monkeys, takin, and sea lions. She liked the monkeys and tiger, she chatted and smiled at them. Didn't even notice the takin. She liked the sea lions too, their big bodies swimming by surprised her I think. Now google "takin."

Her first museums. We took her to the Museum of Science and Industry. She was cranky. The Art Institute was better, though she split her time between cranky and chatting at the paintings. We got dirty looks from people either way, whether she laughed or cried, so we left earlier than we wanted to. At first I didn't care what everyone thought but after about 30 dirty looks it starts to get old so we left a little earlier than planned. She loved the Field Museum, I'm not sure why, maybe it was because there were things to touch, it wasn't as loud and insane as Science and Industry, and there were more animal type things. Or maybe it was because her teeth didn't hurt so much.

Her first aquarium. She LOVED this. She loved the turtles, brightly colored fish and dolphins.

Her first trains, both the CTA in Chicago and the small train on the Jelly Belly tour. Two completely different things, I know, but I thought I'd put them both under the same heading.

What else? She mostly just liked walking around, making her happy noises at passers by. She got some things, souvenirs for when she tells us we never take her anywhere and we tell her that she just can't remember when we did. She got to spend time with Tío Tío and crawl around on his floor. She also got to play with a stuffed puppy that he has and try to chew on his (dirty) carpeting.

I think we can do this again sometime too. I hope our future holds a trip to DC to visit the Nina, a potential jaunt to the Cayman Islands to visit begrid, and maybe a weekend in Puerto Peñasco. Now we just have to win the lottery.

See my next post for information on baby poop while on vacation.

BFF.

The Animalia has found a best friend in our dog. We'll call him CPS. For Cooper Pooper Scooper. We imagine that if he was a boy and in school, the other dog/kids would call him that when mocking him during recess. But anyway. Every time Animalia sees him she just breaks out in a huge grin and starts babbling. Every single time. She can be pitching a huge tantrum and she calms right down when she sees him. It's amazing.

Unfortunately the feeling isn't quite mutual. Not that he's aggressive or anything close to it. He just alternates between indifferent and aloof. She touches him and he turns his head or walks away. I think he's getting better though. The other night he was on his back in front of her and she touched his belly and he made this wiggle like he was getting more comfortable. Maybe he's finally realizing that there's something in it for him.

Big Baba!

So yesterday we had a regular checkup. This is kind of confusing. If you just count the months, she's just over 6 months. If you count the weeks, she's 27 weeks. So 4/weeks per month= nearly 7 months. Anyway, so at 6 months or 27 weeks, she weighs 17.5 lbs and is 27.5 inches long. Her weight is kind of in the middle as far as infant percentiles go. That's where she's been since birth. Not super heavy, not very tiny. Just average. But her length is at the 95th percentile. She's definitely her daddy's girl. And she gained 1/4 inch in her head circumferance for a whopping 16 3/4". Still not the biggest head in the world but not too shabby for a girl that was born with a teeny head like me.

Locomotion. Backward.

So she's pushing herself up onto her hands and knees now. She'll rock back and forth, trying to propel herself forward. Then her little knees slip out from under her as she pushes. And she ends up pushing herself backward. She gets up on her hands and knees again and repeats the process. She ends up pretty far from her starting point but frustrated because she's usually aiming at a toy or two. She'll be crawling forward soon enough.

Chatty Patty

So I think I've mentioned it more than once but the Animalia is CHATTY. She spends a significant part of every day squealing, cooing, making chatty sounds, complaining and laughing. She can be very very loud or whisper something very softly.

My current obsession is her first word. I mentioned a little before but lately she's been saying Dah a whole lot and sometimes it seems like she's calling him that, other times she seems like she's calling everyone and everything Dah. Hard to tell. Another thing she's started to say is "a-ta." She said it a couple of times to my dad, her tata. He's definitely one of her favorite people so this would make sense as a first word.

She's definitely understanding a whole lot too. She giggles at the right times, acts cute when she's trying to impress (at the doctor's office, with some strangers), talks to the dog. And when I say "Dame las manitas" she gives me her hands. Cute.

In a few months she'll be talking for real.

The last few days the Animalia has been saying DAH DAH DAH DAH DAH. She says it when she's hungry, when she drops a toy and wants it back, when she wants attention. Just all the time. This concerns me. She hasn't even made anything close to the MA sound. Just saying.

The other day, in a fit of DAHS, she sounded like she was complaining. So her nana started talking to her, asking if she was complaining, why was she complaining, what she had to complain about. And the Animalia just got louder, keeping up with her nana, actually seeming like she was talking OVER her nana. It was hilarious.

In other Animalia news, she has another cold. I'm surprised it took this long since I've been sick for over two weeks. She started to get congested a couple of days ago and now when I suction her... well, yuck. Just yuck. Poor baby. She seems to be in a relatively good mood though, as usual. She's almost always smiling when she wakes up. We both need a good long rest though. I can't wait til Sunday.

First food.

Animalia ate with a spoon yesterday!!! We mixed rice cereal with breastmilk and she loved it!!! I am very surprised and happy, can you tell?!!!

Anyhow, we were at my parents' for dinner and we decided it was time. She's been staring and grabbing at our food for a few weeks now and she seems hungry more than she used to. She's almost 24 weeks old too and has MORE than doubled her birthweight. All the indicators.

She ate Earth's Best whole grain organic rice cereal. She actually ate more of it than got on her face, hands and bib. She kept grabbing the spoon. And when she was done she kind of made a frustrated scream. She wanted MORE!

Cleanup wasn't as awful as I expected and it was just so CUTE. Yay. Now we're making plans for her first non-rice cereal in a couple of days... bananas or avocado or applesauce. The options are endless. We're cooking a huge batch of the need to be cooked stuff on Monday to stick in the freezer. In the meantime, more rice cereal, increasing quantities and some things that only need to be mashed. Some genuis gave us an immersion blender as a shower gift too so we're ready.

Little movers and shakers

Animalia went to her very first baby gym class yesterday. It didn't occur to me to take pictures until we were on the way there without the camera. So no pictures.

It was hilarious. I thought she'd be in a MOOD because she hadn't napped but once we got there she was more interested in looking around at all the babies and the bouncy blue gym floor. We did activities in a circle, sang itsy bitsy spider, bounced the babies around on our knees, learned how to make the babies tumble, and made them do exercises on big bouncy balls. There was also a crawling race (most babies are a little older than Animalia). We stayed at the starting line while she tried to eat a beanbag in the shape of a turtle. We also did ring around the rosy (love that song for dark reasons) and we put the babies in the middle of a parachute and kind of walked them in a circle, back and forth. Most babies freaked but Animalia didn't. She kind of tipped over, rolled onto her tummy, laughed and stared. She also knocked over another baby in a quest to eat the back of his shirt. She was great.

It was pretty fun. The other moms were interesting, some more likeable than others.

Next order of business: Animalia's first "real" food. Rice cereal. This evening.

Poop.

Yeah. That's right. Poop.

The first time the Animalia pooped in the hospital it coincided with Grandma Lori's visit. Da was supposed to change the first poop as I would have just given birth. Fair trade, right? But Grandma Lori was there and took care of it. We had heard and read about the first poops, meconium, black tarry sticky badness. We were still unprepared. First of all, everything we'd read said "the first couple of times or so." So when she was still pooping like that for a couple of days it was horrible (and slightly alarming). Hey, we'd never done this before. So when she'd poop it was a THING. One time she even kept pooping as we were changing the diaper. In our exhaustion we just laughed in complete horror. I think that was her second day of life. We were at my parents' house. Me, Jimmy and my mom were ALL changing her diaper. And she just kept pooping a black tarry fountain of poop. Poor Animalia, two days old and everyone's just standing there laughing at her.

So what got me reminiscing about poop? Well... The Animalia doesn't poop that frequently anymore. Apparently breastfed babies sometimes just don't. But she doesn't poop so much that a couple of months ago we had to introduce small amounts of watered down juice just to help things along. Now we're getting ready to introduce food. She's ready. She's more than doubled her birthweight 16lbs 1oz a couple of weeks ago when she had a cold and we took her to the doctor. She keeps trying to grab our food and seems a little more hungry now. She's almost 24 weeks old. I'm looking forward to it in some ways because I love to see her grow and change but in other ways I'm not. Nursing her, though sometimes inconvenient, is nice. I realize that she'll still be nursing with the first foods but this time, her first six months, has just passed so quickly.