Fun with the Favorites!

Stacy and has now started calling Pam, Favorite Aunt Pam, no doubt to match his own name! :) I am so thankful that both Charlie and I have such loving, helpful siblings to love this little baby! I would hate to be away from family and deprive both them and Sophia of a such a life! Thanks for all you do, guys!

Sophia went to Stacy and Pam's to play for a day last week. They all had a great time and Sophia absolutely loved being around their two Golden Retrievers. I must get some video of them next time because, unlike Walter, they let her grab, pull, tug, and even taste! Sophia loves dogs and cats and lights up every time she sees one. In fact, even when we're in the park and a dog walks by, she moans, wiggles and squirms to try and touch it! She's our little veterinarian in the making!

Milestones

Hello, faithful Bloggers! I first must apologize for my serious lack of posts lately, but now that we have a crawler on our hands, our life is a different story all together! Sophia is officially on the go! A few weeks ago we dropped her off at Grandma Sue's and she took her first crawling "step". She actually moved each knee one time! I figured that by the time we got back from dinner, she'd be taking Grandma on a tour around the house, but in fact, she didn't. I think that because she had carpet, and all we have is hard woods, it was way easier for her to get started but it still took her another 5 days before she actually crawled again, and since then she has become increasingly more adept at both moving around and creating havoc!

This is actually pre-crawl mode. Fav. Uncle Stacy really tried coaxing her, but she did the belly flop instead.

Now that she can crawl, she can reach all kinds of forbidden fruits...her favorites include Walter's toys and magazines.

See ya later, Mom!

Ah, and finally, teething...that was the other milestone. Crawling also enables her to access lots more things to chew on...again, favorites include Walter's toys, magazines, and the glass table top! Since this picture we have actually purchased a "cover" for the edges of a coffee table. It looks more like a table diaper and I don't think it's going to last long the way she pulls on it and plays with it!

Her bottom tooth (her left) finally popped up enough to be seen and then on Saturday I noticed the second bottom tooth poking through. She didn't seem to have too much trouble with that one, but I think another one is on it's way because she's been fussy the past two days, so we'll see! I have tried those Homeopathic Teething Tablets that I've heard lots of people rave about, and I must say, they do seem to work very well! They don't actually dissolve in her mouth, which is fine b/c she'd just spit them out, so I crush them up and shoot them in with the Motrin syringe. I love that thing! It comes in handy for lots of things besides Motrin!

Now that she crawls, she is really more interested in learning how to pull up and walk. She's getting the hang of it, but isn't all the way there. So far she's trying to use her abs and sheer will to just pull herself upright and hasn't quite figured out how to use her legs to push just yet.

The first video is just cute. It shows mostly her stubborn behavior as she's just toying with me, but it's pretty adorable. The second video shows some serious crawling action! And...an added bonus...you get to see the table diaper up close and personal! How hideous!

A Mother's Day to Remember

I was racing somewhere, but it wasn't the finish line!

Our only Mother-Daughter bonding of the day

An adorable picture of Baby Angela in her car seat-cocoon

Ah the joys of motherhood...you tirelessly take care of a sick child only to have the favor returned! I began my Mother's Day with an early visit to the bathroom, as our friend Jason would say, calling God on the big white phone. God and I had many conversations that day, sadly for me.



I'm putting this one on the list right under stretchmarks and the time she made me have a C-Section.



I was supposed to take part in the local Mother's Day 5K and was then hosting brunch at our house for a gaggle of our friends and family, needless to say it was cancelled. Well, moved actually. Mom volunteered to host it at her house and since the food was all made, we made the transfer. Charlie recruited Shelby and they tag-teamed Sophia, the food, some folding tables and various other brunch related tasks. My giant jug of chocolate milk was returned to me however, as mom was nervous about her white carpet! ;)



I hear that a nice time was had by all, but I was quarantined here in my bedroom.



On a lighter note, Sophia seems closer to her cheerful baby self today. She has actually eaten something besides formula and seems to be getting back on track. Additionally, and here's the really exciting part...she has a tooth! Sort of...She was chewing on my finger earlier this afternoon and I felt something awfully pointy and jagged in there. She won't let me look at it but I can feel it and she keeps sticking her tongue there and making funny sucking noises! Yay for teeth! I imagine I will not be feeling so cheerful about teeth in the near future, but the first one is pretty exciting.

So for those keeping score, her behavior within the past week may have actually been a combination between teething, constipation, and actual sickness. She was one busy baby.

Lastly, I must say that I have the most amazing husband! He was my little Cinderella all weekend helping me get ready for our company and no one even got to see his beautiful floor cleaning. The hardwoods really do look 100X better! He even took off work today to help me with the baby while I was still recuperating. I love you, Honey!!!

Obvious??

Getting some play time with Daddy

The Little Sicky with her Pedia-Pop

So, the seemingly obvious choice of a flu-bug seemed to elude us as to a cause of her vomiting...hmmm. That is now our latest theory as to why our darling daughter is sick. Later yesterday afternoon she couldn't keep anything down and continued to vomit all day. She fell asleep around her regular time and slept through the night with no other incident, thankfully.

We got through the constipation and we are now battling the diarrhea...fun!

Today she has still not had an appetite but is drinking at least a little bit of milk. We keep trying to spike it with Pedialyte, but I think she's figured it out! Charlie also read that giving her those Pedialyte popsicles are a good idea because she will be more inclined to suck on it and get the nutrients that way. It works better than the cup, but it's not great.

Hopefully tomorrow she will feeling more like herself, especially since we're expecting a house full of people for a Mother's Day celebration!

This has definitely been one of the hardest parts of motherhood so far! It is hard to see her feeling yucky and not sure what's the cause or how to fix it! Boooo!

Every Other Day

It seems that our little cherub is going through a phase, which phase, we're really not sure. She's currently on an every-other-day pattern for grumpiness. She is such a loving, happy child all the time that it concerns me when she has even the slightest mood change. I know that I'm being a worry wart, and Charlie is looking at it much more rationally, but still.

She may be teething, again. It seems she's been "teething" for a few months now, but now is the time that those teeth may really decide to appear. She is awfully chewy and drooly, but I'm confused because sometimes she needs the Motrin and sometimes she just needs to be held?? She's had a few bouts of some major vomiting in the past few days and this afternoon all she wanted was to be held. I'm worried that my attempts at purees may be poisoning her! With what, I don't know, it's just vegetables and water, but the time is overlapping!

I also think that I've constipated her with the rice cereal. I moved on to oatmeal and I must have had a lapse in judgement because I don't have any idea why I returned to that awful rice! So, my other theory is that she's pushing so hard to get the poop out that she is vomiting...which may seem far-fetched, but I have seen to be proven on at least a few occasions. I did mix the rice with some oatmeal, but it is still really sticky and thick.

Another theory is that she may be allergic to bananas. She's had them for a while now, but her vomit, although mostly liquid, may contain banana parts too...hmmmm? Perhaps it's just that bananas and formula are the same color and I'm confused, also plausible.

And finally, my last theory is that I just have no idea and maybe she's just going through some growing changes. Overall, she really is still happy and playful, it's just certain times of the day that she is upset (and no real pattern has shown up there either). My plan of action is to stop the bananas tomorrow and go to straight oatmeal tomorrow too. I realize that it may not be wise to make a double change but we'll see how it works and maybe I'll re-introduce bananas in a few days??

Puree Professional

Post Peaches Face

Loving those homemade green beans now!

The opposite of the milk mustache is the milk beard!

I have finally begun to make some of Sophia's baby food this week and let me tell you it is an adventure. A few months ago we went crazy and bought a fancy new blender. We had some gift cards, so that was a big influence on this decision, but our other blender broke and Charlie loves to make smoothies, protein shakes and various other concoctions in there, so we went up-scale. Plus, one of the bullet points the sales clerk used was that it can make purees...thus the creating began. Check out our fancy new blender and you just may want one of your own!http://http//www.irawoods.com/Breville-BBL550XL-ikon-Hemisphere-Blender-Stainless-Steel;jsessionid=0a0106431f43ebfec11c7b854f6f86bf9767bd93ad8d.e3eSc3eMbxuPe34Pa38Ta38Nc3f0?sc=2&category=322871



The first batch I made was green beans. I bought some nice fresh green beans at the local farmer's market. I pureed them up and put them into ice cube trays to freeze them. This is an incredibly handy idea and after 30 seconds in the microwave they are thawed and ready to eat. I trained Sophia many months ago on eating cold or room temperature food b/c it was getting very tiresome, not to mention wasteful, waiting for hot water to warm up the bottle.



My green beans looked fantastic as they had a beautiful green color to them and even smelled fresh. I tasted them and they even tasted like beans...hooray! Sophia was a little less excited by then as she had gotten used to the packaged variety but adjusted in a feeding or two. I didn't save very much money on the first batch, but I did save in packaging plus I knew exactly where the food came from, that was worth the small monetary gain right there!



Today I ventured into sweet potatoes and carrots. I started with the potatoes and the few potatoes I bought ended up making 25 servings...wowser! So, I didn't have room to make the carrots as I only have to ice trays to freeze. I'll save the carrots for tomorrow and transfer the frozen potatoes to a ziplock in the freezer. I figured the cost out on those and I went from spending $0.25/serving on Gerber to $0.06/serving on Homemade...can't beat it!



I'm not quite ready to start fruit as it seems that many fruits you have to used the dried variety. I can only guess because maybe the fresh fruits have too much water in them already and just turn to mush...not sure, though. Plus, she is only doing bananas, which don't need a blender, and peaches which I'm not sure she likes. She doesn't gag when she eats them, but she purses her lips and makes a funny face.



It will be a whole new ballgame when I try my hand at meats and other such combos, but thankfully that's still a month or so away! Whew!

Have you any wool?

Sophia and Aunt Bess

I'm still trying to get a picture where they're both looking!

Bama and her cuddly lamb

So I'm a little behind because Greek Easter was LAST Sunday, not yesterday, and I'm just getting the pictures up. In alignment with tradition we ate a wonderful meal of lamb and potatoes cooked up by my mom and there was lots of good company to be had!



Charlie's sister, Chris, bequeathed unto us some adorable Easter costumes, the first of which you saw on "American" Easter. We saved the lamb costume for Greek Easter and it was a big hit! It was a nice warm day though and she got warm quickly so we had to snap some pics quickly!