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.