Monthly Archives: January 2011

So I am a little late on the five month milestones….but I did actually do a picture on the right day this month and am going to try to start this with the same animal each time so we can see her grow.

Here is a picture of her on her 5 month birthday.

Just the day before we had gotten this treasure off craigslist:

• E started rice cereal a couple of days after turning 5 months and really likes it! She eats some for dinner every day. She smacks her little gums, and makes noise for more in between bites, and tries to hold the spoon.
• She will occasionally wake up once at night to eat around 4, maybe its a growth spurt?
• She still sleeps from about 8 pm til 8 am most days. She started taking a bath every night as part of our bedtime routine and really likes to kick her legs to splash and play with her pink elephant that squirts.
• Her schedule is eat, play a while, then nap. When she goes to bed about 8, she wakes up about 45 minutes later to eat (like its a nap or something) and then falls right back asleep nursing.
• We still rocked to sleep at 5 months, but this is starting to change as we approach 6 months.
• She LOVES to stand up with you holding her.She has strong legs and is a tall slender girl with such a narrow waist. She is still wearing size one diapers for this reason. She weighs 14.2 lbs according to our bathroom scale.
• She likes to play in her exersaucer/activity center. She can push the button to make sounds, and likes the tag on the blue block. We put toys like her shoes and books in the ledge and she likes to play with those a while then throw them off.
• She has started to not mind the car seat strapping in process quite as much. She does well on errands with mommy and likes to look at the mirror in the car. She is a very smiley and giggly girl. She also likes to play with her toes and scratch her fingernails on things like your jeans and the chair fabric.
• She does well at tummy time and can roll both directions but doesn’t do much rolling yet. She picks up her hips like she is trying. She also occasionally bends her legs like she wants to push off and crawl to get something, but I don’t think that will be soon. She can stand unsupported if she is leaning up against something for like a second before falling over. Same with sitting.
• If she is laying down, or sitting in her car seat, she likes this game: you hold her hands and say “Ready?” and pull her up to the standing position. She laughs at the fun of it! What a big girl standing up!

She is precious and such a joy!!

Well thanks for the people who commented to answer my question. I asked because my pediatrician encourages me to begin to teach her to put herself to sleep and it is something that I think is valuable but I have been at a loss as to how to do it. We always rock until totally asleep and then transfer her to the crib. And usually she doesn’t have to be rocked for very long so I really don’t mind too much most of the time. I mean, she is so sweet and cute and cuddly and all. But sometimes it isn’t as easy and in those moments I really wish I could just lay her down and she would go to sleep on her own. So today is day 3 of training and we are doing some things mentioned in “The No-Cry Sleep Solution” book. She has been going to sleep in the crib with me standing by her and shhhhhshing and patting as needed which we will transition out of eventually. (We have her sound machine on white noise. She is also swaddled and has a paci, things we did with rocking too.) It has gone pretty well actually but it is day three so we will see. We tried letting her cry it out a few times, and she would cry for 45 minutes which is the point my pediatrician said to just go get her. So not only did it kill me to listen to that, it didn’t seem like it was going to work. So anyway, thanks for the comments. It seemed like we should do this before she got too old that it was harder, and it seems about in line with some of yalls kiddoes. I do know that everyone is different, so we will just see what ends up working for us!

Well I just made my first book club purchase. I bought Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel
for Big Mama’s book club. I noticed that mab had it in her sidebar and gave it 4.5 stars and it is supposed to be kinda like Laura Ingalls so I figured what the hey. And it cost about the exact amount I had in amazon credit. By the way, I have now earned enough swagbucks to buy two $5 amazon gift cards. So yall should join under my referral here and then you can earn some too. And I barely even remember to search through swagbucks.

I have a question for all the moms out there.

Putting the baby down to sleep.

Do you/did you rock your baby? If so, was there an age where you started to train your child to go to bed on their own? As in, lay them down and walk out and they would go to sleep on their own? If so, at what age did you do this? Did you let them cry it out? For how long did they cry? Please leave a comment and describe this process and what age this transpired. I will blog later and tell you where I am with it and why I am asking.

Thanks!

January:

We told everyone we were expecting! We also blogged about meeting our financial goals of paying off two of our three college loans and the car.

February:

I had a birthday and didn’t blog much. Just to talk about maternity clothes and share a few links.

March:

We went on the spring break mission trip, where we got Baylor. We also went to the rodeo. And we found out we were having a girl!

April:

I drank lots of milk, started cleaning out my classroom, and sat in President Bush’s seat at an Astros game!

May:

I did some crafty projects and we went to Destin (it was so great it took two posts)!

June:

Busy month! I had my last day of school (tear), organized some things, did VBS, had a baby shower, and went to Waco for an 80th birthday party.

July:

I dressed up like a cow, had another baby shower, checked some things off my to-do list, and went to a wedding.

August:

Well I think we all know what happened in August. Life as I knew it changed! I got a nursery ready, made some photo books, and HAD A BABY!

September:

Whew! Didn’t have time to blog much this month except to share some links and pictures!

October:

We started getting out and about a lot in October! We went to the zoo, to bible study, to the park, and to the grandparents house when Daddy went out of town for a week. Oh, and I dressed like Bruiser the bear for Hallo-wii.

November:

I scored some free jeans, I told E’s birth story, and we went to visit the great-grandparents for Thanksgiving.

December:

Wow! I barely blogged at all in December. Well we were very busy going to a Sunday School party, Jr Staff party, Staff party, my maternal side extended family party, my paternal side extended family, then a week long tour of Texas staying at three different places! Whew! Oh, and we went to the Texas Bowl!

Note two new things in my sidebar: a new poll for you to answer and my recent bookmarks.

You see, I often read a blog in my favorites and want to share it with you bloggers. So I leave it open as a tab in my firefox until I get around to blogging it. Well that is like forever and a day lately and therefore it is crowding up my firefox. So I am going to try using delicious to keep up with good reads, we will see how it works. Some of these things are projects I want to do. Some of them are things I found inspiring. You can click my username to find all my bookmarks. It will change as I add more, and you are only seeing the most recent 10 in my sidebar.

I keep coming up with things to blog but use up my 45 minutes of nap in other ways so alas, no reading material for you.

I think I finally found out how to show you a video.

The other day, E and I were sitting out on the front porch and the wind was blowing the leaves around in a circle on the concrete. She loved it. She watched the leaves dance. She listened to the rustling sound. The wind blew her hair. And the dog sat nearby, enjoying the cool day too. It was a sweet memory.

She is full of giggles. She likes to stand and play with her toes and blow bubbles. This morning, she didn’t even cry when I put her in the car seat and she was cooing to herself or her toys or her world in general as we drove to church. Thank God for such a blessing. 2010 was wonderful.