6 months old!

Half a year old already!  My oh my.  It's crazy to think that she is now closer to being a year old than closer to her birth... if that makes sense....

We kind of celebrated her half birthday, but just by pampering her.  She reached two milestones on the same day!  Right on her 6 month birthday.

Let's see how she spent her half birthday....

Luckily my parents are here to help since we just moved into out house less than a week ago. My parents are sleeping on an air mattress in the nursery and for the first time ever this week, Penelope is sleeping in her crib!  She usually sleeps in a bassinet next to our bed.  Grandma must have the magic touch.  I also took all of her toys out of her crib because I used to leave her in there for a while to play, but when I would try to lay her down, she would wake up right away to play with her toys, so I think it helps that I moved them. 

So my mom has been happy to get up with Penelope in the mornings so I can sleep in a little.  But I still can't sleep any later than 8:30.  So I woke up yesterday at 8 and she was already awake for a while.  For breakfast I gave her oatmeal mixed with strawberries, bananas and apples. 

I always open my mouth when I feed her, lol.

Then I had to leave for a doctors appointment.  My ears have been bothering me and I have a swollen throat gland.  When I got back, I started steaming butternut squash to make her baby food. We played and hung out for 2 hours or so, then it was time for her 6 month doctors appointment.  While we were getting loaded in the car, the mailman pulled up and handed me a package that was addressed to "Princess Penelope" and said "Happy 1/2 Birthday!"  I put it in the house and we headed to the clinic. 

Her check-up was basically the same as it has always been.  She has to get more shots next week.  She weighs 16.8 lbs (69th percentile) and is 25 inches long (39th percentile).  Her head measures 16.14 inches and the only reason I'm mentioning that is because she's only in the 14th percentile for that.  But her daddy has a small head too. 

The doctor did say she has a herniated umbilical.  As far as I understand it, there is a small hole that is about half a centimeter big, behind her belly button where her abdominal muscles were not fully formed.  Her belly button sticks out A LOT (when she is standing) and it's from her intestines pushing against it.  The doctor said it should close over time and we will look at it again in 3 months, but it can be fixed with surgery.  The only thing to worry about is if her intestines get stuck in that little hole some how.  The doctor didn't really seem worried about it, so I'm not going to really worry either because it can fix itself and it doesn't seem to bother her.  Plus, the hole is only half a centimeter big; something larger would worry me.

Then we went home and opened her half birthday package from Auntie Shala and there were all sorts of goodies!  2 outfits, sunglasses, bibs, wipes and lots of baby food.  I can't wait to start trying some of the foods.  Well, have her try it... =]  So then I finished making her squash and froze it. 

We went on a little road trip with Grandma next.  I had to drive an hour to try on and order a bridesmaid dress for my friend's wedding in October.  Penelope slept the whole way there.  We probably spent 20 minutes or less at David's Bridal because I knew the color and style I was getting, just needed to see if I fit into a smaller size since I first tried it on in February.  And I did!  So I ordered it and we were out of there.

 Since we drove all that way, we had to make a stop at Hobby Lobby while we were in the area.  Penelope was happy riding in the shopping cart and looking at everything.  I bought fabric for my mom to make my living room curtains because I can never find curtains I like.  I haven't sewed anything in years.  I might be able to figure it out, but it's just easier for her to sew them, and I borrowed my friend's sewing machine. 

She looks JUST like me in this picture, fyi.

We got home around 5:30 and didn't do much the rest of the day.  She had carrots for dinner.  She was playing on the floor and she went from laying on her belly to sitting up!  (First milestone that day).  She is really trying hard to crawl.  She always gets up on her knees, then rocks forward and backward like she is trying to swing herself forward, then she falls on her belly and does the "army crawl".  I was not expecting her to go from laying on her belly to sitting up.  She just started sitting up on her own about 2 weeks ago.  It does seem that after she figures out how to do something, it's easy for her.    



Baseball started!

Later that night Penelope was in her crib, Josh and I were in the dining room and my parents were in the nursery hanging curtains.  My mom yelled at me to come quick and when I got to the nursery, Penelope was STANDING in her crib!  She pulled herself up on her own!  I couldn't believe it!  I thought she was too young to begin that.  We lowered the mattress after that so it might be tougher for her to pull herself up now.  But I don't want no babies falling out of the crib!

 

That was pretty much the end of the day.  Just hung out the rest of the night and I think she fell asleep about 10:30, which is late for her but she did sleep the whole car ride and probably was wore out from all the excitement but was fighting sleep.

A couple nights ago, she has her first big girl bath.  Her infant bath sling just couldn't contain her anymore.  I haven't bought her a larger bath tub yet but saw something where you can put her in a laundry basket so that's what I did.  She had a bubble bath and played with toys and loved it.  She was splashing and making quite a mess.  We also went to the park for the first time.  She loves stroller rides and going on the swing.  

Penelope can say Dada now!  We were saying it to her for about a week and she was just mouthing it.  Then she finally started to say it!  I would say it's been about two weeks now and I have to say that this is my favorite accomplishment to far.  I love hearing her talk.  We just have to work on "mama" now =]

 

Easter photoshoot

 We didn't do much for Easter.  I had to work until about 1pm then I came home and gave Penelope her basket and made a ham for dinner.

She is sooo wiggly and it's almost impossible to change her diaper and clothes now.  Sometimes I have to take her off the changing table and lay her on the floor because I don't want her fighting me and rolling off the changing table.  She is very alert and loves watching the baby channel.  When strangers see her the first thing they say is "look at those eyelashes!"  She does have long eye lashes and beautiful blue eyes.  She is so pretty =]

This has been an eventful month and congratulations for making it all the way through this post.  I'm sure Penelope with be crawling on her knees by next month.  Not sure if I'm ready for her to be pulling herself up and standing yet though...



Last day at our old house!

 

 

5 months old

 

This month has gone by so quickly that I can hardly remember what is different from last month.  For starters, she is mobile now.  Not crawling, but will be in no time.  You put a toy a few feet in front of her and she will pull herself towards it.  Gotta start baby proofing the house.

 

So that is the big news this month, her scooting around.  Other than that, I think all is about the same so this post will be boring. Oh wait!  She eats baby food now.  I have been looking forward to giving her baby food for months!  I was told to wait a week before introducing a new food to her so if she has a reaction to it, I'll know what it is.  So far she has has carrots and squash.  Green beans are next.  Going to wait a while on the fruit.  I bought a baby food maker and cookbook but haven't started using it yet because I bought canned baby food while I was waiting for it to arrive and I want to use that up first.  The cookbook I bought it crazy though.  It shows how to make a whole Thanksgiving dinner for a baby in a 4 ounce jar.  I mean, I'm sure I could figure it out but there are over 200 recipes.  It's pretty cool.

 

I'm not sure what happened last night, but she did not want to sleep.  At 10 pm she was getting tired so I walked her around the house and sung to her.  It took her 35 minutes to fall asleep.  She was fighting it the whole time.  I put her in her rocker and went to bed.  She woke up an hour later.  I grabbed her and tried to get her back to sleep but she wasn't having it so I gave her a bottle and took her back to bed with me.  She couldn't get comfortable for like, 5 hours.  She was tossing and turning and wiggling all night.  So then she work up at 5 am.  I gave her a bottle and we fell asleep on the couch.  The she woke up at 6:30!  I had no idea what she wanted because it was too soon to feed her again.  I walked her and she screamed, I changed her diaper and she fell asleep 30 minutes later.  I don't know if she woke up because she had a wet diaper, but that has never woken her up before.  Then she slept until 9:30 am.  It has been a long time since I've had to get up with her three times during the night.  Hopefully she sleeps better today.

 

I have gone back to work.  So far, only on Saturday and Sunday so Josh can watch her.  I don't really want to work too much during the week because even though I found a sitter at a great price, it doesn't pay that much with you factor that in.  But I like working at the golf course.  It's nice to get out of the house and talk to adults.  I swear I talk to Penelope more than anyone else.  Plus, work gossip is always entertaining. 

 

 

Penelope is getting fussy now and I've got a lot to do tonight so see you all next month for 6 month.  Oh gosh, six months.....

How Do Dinosaurs Love Their Cats?

 

Totally forgot about children's book review Thursday.  Well, it's not really a book review, it's more like my favorite books.  This week is "How do dinosaurs love their cats?" by Jane Yolen and Mark Teag.

 

This is one of Penelope's favorite books.  Sometimes we read it 3 times in a row.  I almost have it memorized.  This book is good for young children because it has a lot of pictures and few works.  It is also hardback with cardboard-like pages so curious fingers can't destroy the book.  Each page there is a picture of a dinosaur and there is the name of the dinosaur under it.  Most I can't even pronounce.  This book is good for older children because it teaches you have to care for a pet and would be very helpful if there was a pet cat in the family.  Examples of this are "Does she give it cat toys and take them away?  No, she gives it cat toys that she makes by herself and also some catnip she keeps on the shelf."  Everything rhymes, which is more fun for me to read.

 

 

There are a lot of "How do Dinosaurs..." books.  How do dinosaurs... love their dogs, count to ten, say I love you, go to school, clean their rooms....

 

I love these books because they are different from the typical children's book but still teach children something.  This is the only Dino book I have but I will look into getting more.  Prices on Amazon vary from $6- $12.

Goodnight Gorilla

Now Thursdays will be children's book review day. =]   My first choice is Goodnight Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann.  This was one of my favorite books as a kid.

The premise of the story is that the security guard is walking through the zoo at night saying goodnight to all of the animals.  The gorilla swipes his keys and lets the animals out one by one.  The animals follow the security guard back to his house and go to sleep in his bedroom with him and his wife.  The wife is not as clueless and the security guard and sees all the animals in her room then she walks them back to the zoo.

There are not many words in this book so it would great to read to a little one and easily hold their attention.  It would still be a great book for children who are a little older.  On each page, there is a mouse pulling a banana by a string.  The child could try to point out the mouse on every page.   Another part I like about the book is in each of the animal cages, there is a toy animals.  In the elephnat's cage there is a toy elephant, in the tiger's cage there is a toy tiger. 

This is a great book so don't hesitate to pick it up for your favorite tiny person if you get the chance!  I found it for $11.04 on Amazon and totally worth it!

Time to get serious

As you can see, I did a little makeover to my blog.  Nothing major though.   I finally changed the header so it doesn't say "Baby Parrish Due 10-22-12"  I want to come up with another title now but until I think of something real catchy, The Adventures of Penelope P. will have to do.

So, when I started this blog I signed up for something that would give me the ability to make money from people visiting my site.  Then Blogger kind of re-did their layout and I couldn't find it to track my earnings anymore.  Well, I finally did.  I am only $8 away from earning my first $100 check!  The more people that visit my blog, and click on the ads I have on my page, the more money I will earn.  So I am more movitated than ever.  Heck, I was able to make $92 (in 10 months) by barely doing anything.  Maybe if I posted more and spent more time working on my blog, I would be able to get those checks quicker.

So now my goal is to post more often.  Hopefully once a week and not once a month like I have been lately.  It won't all be about Penelope directly.  I'll come up with topics like, making your own baby food, what to pack in your hospital bag, my favorite baby products and so on. 

So keep on checking in and clicking on those ads for me please!  Just think, you could be helping Penelope go to college. Lol. 

4 months old

I just spend 2 hours typing this post and nothing saved then the internet closed down.  Ahhh!  Let's try this again....


Penelope is 4 months old already!  Time flies.  Can't believe next month will be 5 months.  I wonder what she will learn to do between now and then. 

She is rolling over all the time now.  She has a tendency of spitting up when she is on her belly so we have to watch her is she is on the ground playing because she will roll over, spit up and rub her head in it.  Yuck. 

She is still teething and chewing on everything that comes near her, but no teeth yet!  When we get back to Missouri she will have her 4 month doctors appointment and I'm hoping they will say she can start on cereal and when she can have baby food.  I'm really excited for that.  My sister was eating and apple and put a piece in her mouth for a second and Penelope was so confused.  She kept sucking on her lip, the bottom of her lip, the top and side.  She is going to be so confused when she gets her first spoonful of real baby food. 

She has given up her pacifier.  Probably because she is teething, and that's a real bummer.  I would only give it to her when she was tired and it would put her to sleep.  When she fell asleep, she would spit it out.  Now it's a nightmare to get her to sleep.  She will scream and scream and you have to walk her around, sing and rock her.  The more she screams, the closer she is to sleep.  She could be screaming her head off for 15 minutes then just pass out.  During the day she will sleep 30-60 minutes.  She is still a night owl though.  She will not go to sleep before 11pm.  Then she will wake up about 7am, eat and take a 2-3 hour nap.  Once she is asleep, I will put her in her rocker.  When we get back home, I will try putting her in her big girl crib in her own room. Right now the rocker is next to our bed.

She smiles and laughs a lot more.  I feel like she will be crawling soon because she is always trying to and gets frusrated when she doesn't get anywhere.  She also loves to sit up and stand up. My mom bought her one of those bouncy activity sets.  She loves it because she can stand or sit on her own and she is learning how to play with things.  It's nice that she can entertain herself now.  Her favorite toys are her phone rattle, a plush cow we named Phillip and her Sofie the giraffe chewing toy.  The giraffe is nice because with all the legs and the neck, it is easy for her to hold.



Update for Penelope's parents:
Josh just got back a few days ago and we were all happy to see each other.  But her still won't change poopy diapers.  I gained about twice as much as I should have during pregnancy and I'm only 7 pounds away from my pre-prego weight.  Can't wait to fully fit into my old clothes.  I workout everyday and try to eat only 1000 calories but sometimes I get hungry.  I'll start working at the golf course soon.  No day care for us though.  We will have to go around daddy's schedule.

See you all next month!

(Having trouble getting the video to load so it's on my Facebook page)

First trip to the ER

and hopefully the last....

So the last 2 weeks Penelope has been spitting up an awful lot and her dirty diapers have changed.  Last week I called the clinic back home and they said to keep an eye on her and if doesn't go away to call and they would set me up with a referal since I'm still in Ohio.  They said it sounded like she has a tummy bug.  That wouldn't surprise me with all the people she has been around lately.

Well she doesn't seem sick really but still spits up a lot more than usual.  She can take a 3 hour naps and spit up as soon as she wakes up.  Yesterday she spit up 7 times in 3 hours.  So I try to take her to a walk-in clinic but they don't see babies so I just went to the ER and told them everything that has been going on with her.

I weighed her on the scale last week by holding her and it said 14.5 pounds, but I didn't know if that was accurate or not.  At the hospital she weighed about 13.5 pounds so I was worried she was losing weight from spitting up. 

So finally the doctor came back.  The first thing he said was, "She's almost double her birthweight!"  (7 lbs, 2 oz.)  Is that a lot?  "Yeah, babies aren't supposed to double their birth weight until they are 6 months and she is only 3 months."  (She will be 4 months in a week).  So automatically I didn't like him.  He checked her over and said she was healthy and that I'm feeding her way too much.  And that's what is causing her to spit up.  He said she was healthy, "a little too healthy."

So we left and I was happy there wasn't anything really wrong with her but boy was I fired up.  He basically said she was fat.  She has been drinking 4 onces about every three hours since she was 2 months old.  I thought her stomach would get bigger as she grew.  I was actually thinking of upping her meals to 5 or 6 onces since she is getting bigger and she would sleep for more than 6 hours a night.  But since she has been spitting up, I didn't want to change anything because she might spit up more.  He suggested I feed her less.  I can't give her 3 onces!  She hasn't has that little since she was a newborn!  And when you have a crying baby screaming for food, you can't say, "sorry kid, doc says you gotta cut back on the bottle." 

I have never thought that she was a "big" baby.  I know that formula fed babies are typically bigger than breastfed babies.  She can still wear some 0-3 clothes!  She seems to be very on-track.  When she turned 1 month, she moved out of newborn clothes and into 0-3, when she turned 3 months, she moved into 3-6 month clothes and they are still a little big on her.  She isn't wearing 6-9 month clothes!  She is almost 4 months and just moved to size 2 diapers and 3-6 month clothes. 

I went home and googled "average weight of 4 month old baby"  Guess what the average weight was..... 13.5 pounds!   I also learned that if a baby hasn't doubled their birth weight by 6 months, that's a concern and the baby is underweight.

Needless to say, I am still upset at the stupid doctor calling my baby overweight when she is completely healthy and in the normal range for her age. 

So I'm glad that she is healthy and doesn't have an ear infection or fever or have to take medicine or anything like that.  But I still have no idea why she is spitting up so much all of the sudden.  Hopefully we will be back home in less than 2 weeks.  Then I can make her 4 month appointment and get advice from someone who has seen her before and knows what they are talking about because they didn't graduate med school in the 50s.