Lila's Food

I have been making Lila's baby food since she started solids at about 5 1/2 months. She has had a few jars, when we are traveling, or for the few items that it is more financially reasonable to buy rather than make, but for the most part, Lila has had homemade food. I love making it, it makes financial sense, and it is great knowing exactly what she is eating...organic fresh or frozen fruits and veggies, organic rice cereal and oatmeal, breastmilk and formula. Doesn't get much simpler than that! Lila truly loves the bright colors of her food, and hasn't rejected anything yet. Joe and I have started a tradition of a stay at home "date night" making baby food over a bottle of wine. We tend to make about three weeks worth at a time, since that is how many containers we have. Since there are no preservatives, we have to just thaw out what we need the night before. It has worked for us so far, and hoping to keep it up until Lila is eating food with us!

Happy eating!


Sage gobbled up the frozen cubes of butternut squash, but completely ignored the peas...




Ice cube tray full of delicious snacks...we like to drop one "ice cube" into a bowl of warm oatmeal for breakfast!




Fresh apricots...




Pureed apricots...




Broccoli in the steamer, a new one for Lila this week!




Carrots for Lila, carrot for Mommy!




Scooping the kiwi out of its peel




Jars for Lila, bottle for Mommy and Daddy!




Happy peas!




Three weeks worth of delicious food for Lila!

Seven Months Old!

Lila! When did you get to be 7 months old?? This has been a great month! Since we buckled down on sleeping, life has been great for you and for us. You go to bed between 5:30 and 7pm, depending on your last nap, and you stay in your crib until at least 6am. If you wake up before 6 and don't fall back to sleep on your own after a few minutes, I nurse you and put you back down, and you go back to sleep for a bit. I put you down awake now, and you fall to sleep on your own, which is such a great improvement! I now realized that you were sleep deprived before, and with all this sleep at night, and these great naps (at least on the weekend), you are such a happy, playful baby. You still have bad nap days at daycare, but I have learned to let go of that since I can't control it, and we just have a super early bedtime those nights. You have had a pesky ear infection since Thanksgiving that we can't get rid of, but you don't seem to run very high fevers, and it rarely seems to bother you...we only know it is back when you start playing with your ears. We are on our third antibiotic however. Hopefully, this ends soon. We are also trying to get you to eat as well as possible, since you are now in only the 10th percentile for weight. Unfortunately, these antibiotics seem to affect your appetite, so that is something we continue to work on...you are not always interested in finishing your bottles. You still hate belly time, and still no teeth. But you sit and play like such a big girl, you sometimes play on your knees, pulling up to sit up on your knees, and you LOVE to jump! You love any bouncy jumper, and you just jump and jump and laugh and laugh. Whenever I pick you up from daycare, if you are in one of them, you jump so hard with such a huge smile when you see me. It makes me so happy. You like lots of different foods - peas, green beans, avocados, zucchinis, bananas, apples, sweet potatoes, squash, carrots...you will try and eat anything we give you so far. I hope you continue to eat such variety! We had a great Christmas with our family in Ohio. You slept through the first part of Christmas morning, as it was naptime, but then you loved playing with all the wrapping paper. You and Margaret played together so well since you are now interested in each other and each other's toys. We love watching you two growing up together. This was also a great month because Daddy had Christmas break during much of it, and therefore you got LOTS of Daddy time! You stayed home from daycare several days over his break, and played with Daddy all day. It was a great break for Mommy too, and we are all rested and energized to start the new year. Can't wait for the next month with you, Lila, but let's slow down a little!! Love you!

Ups and Downs

We have learned, from the beginning, there are ups and downs to this whole parenting thing. It seems like as soon as you figure out one pattern, one trick, one "sure thing"...she up and changes on us. Whether it be sleeping or eating or playing - she keeps us on our toes. Luckily, the downs are not too terrible, and don't last too long, and the ups are amazing!! This last 4-5 weeks has had quite a few downs. Lila's sleep got to its all time worst. She was back to taking sometimes hours to go down at night, waking many times at night wanting to nurse, or play, or just cry. Up early, not napping hardly at all. She was at times going a full day of school napping less than an hour total, then awake for 2 hours or so in the middle of the night, not to mention a late bedtime and early morning. This baby was getting far far less sleep than she should have, which of course was leading to fussiness and crankiness. On top of that (or perhaps causing that), Lila was sick over Thanksgiving with an ear infection and upper respiratory infection, leading to an antibiotic...which apparently didn't work. A couple of weeks later, at her regular 6 month check up, she had an ear infection in both ears, even though the antibiotic had just finished! So on to another, stronger antibiotic (which at least she will take this one without a screaming fit!). And, icing on the cake, it turns out she dropped from 37th percentile in weight at 4 months to 13th percentile at 6 months. Our little bean weighed 14lbs 5oz, gaining less than a pound in two months. So of course, guilt ensues...
However, the ups have come finally! We have had a great 10 days! After desperation, and the cliff notes version of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Kids (or whatever it is called - I am now reading it more thoroughly), I put Lila in her crib on Monday night after two hours of attempting to get her to sleep...and I walked out of the room. She was fed, she was dry, she was warm, she was loved. She was also tired. 20 minutes later, Lila fell asleep and slept for the next 10 hours. The longest stretch of sleep she had had in months (also, it should be noted, the longest stretch of sleep I had gotten in months!!!). The following night, at bedtime, I nursed her, hugged and kissed her, and laid her in her crib and walked out of the room. 5 minutes later - asleep...for the next 12 hours. We have been on a roll ever since. One of the most important things I have learned is that sleep really does beget sleep. And as Lila still does not nap much at daycare (and I have no control over this), we go to bed very very early. Like sometimes at 5;30pm. And she has been sleeping until some time between 5:45 and 6:30am. And while our evening time together is cut very short (we are on a strict schedule of dinner, bath, book, nurse, bed) she is happy the whole time. And usually gives us some fun play time in the morning. Joe and I are like new people. We have gotten some good sleep, and so has Lila. This past weekend she napped for 4-5 hours between two naps both days. Good catch up after tiresome daycare. Clearly she is feeling better, and the sleep is helping as well. We also learned our lesson after the previous weekend, and when we wanted to go to a Christmas party on Friday night that started at 7, we got a babysitter. And on Sat night's Christmas party, Joe went and I stayed home and wrapped presents. There will be other parties in other years.
So now we are working on the eating thing. Lila has never had a huge appetite...she moved to eating every 3 hours before being 3 months old, and still doesn't have more than 5 oz at a time. In fact these days she sometimes goes 4 hours between bottles (though we're hoping her appetite might pick up once her antibiotics finish up). She is now eating solids twice a day, so that helps, and I mix cereal in when she will let me (not a big cereal fan!) to add some calories to her fruit and veggies. We go back for a checkup in a couple of weeks to check her ears, and her weight to see if we need to go any further than offering food often. Hopefully she will gain a little holiday weight =)
The other ups? Lila is sooo much fun these days! She sits up so well, playing, bending around, reaching for toys. Occasionally falls straight backwards if she is looking up at you, and sometimes falls on her face when reaching for a far away toy. Not interested in moving yet, but getting more motivated to reach for things she wants lately, so I think movement will come soon. No teeth yet, but we keep thinking they are coming. Lila loves Sage, and laughs and laughs when he is around. She likes to pet him and play with his collar. She loves jumping, loves musical toys, and loves playing with plastic spoons. She grabs for the spoon as soon as she is done eating dinner, and carries it around the rest of the night. We cannot wait to spend Christmas weekend with my family, and watch Lila and Margaret play together.
We are grateful to be in the "ups" right now, and know enough now not to take them for granted!!

Six Months Old!

Wow, Lila. This was such an exciting month! You are such a big girl. We had a lot of visitors this month, which was very fun. I think you liked having some new faces to look at, and you got a bit spoiled by being held all the time! You also got your first ear infection, resulting in your first antibiotic. The next morning, you got a really strange rash all over your belly, chest and arms which resulted in a visit to the pediatrician and then dermatologist. No one knew what it was, but definitely not an allergy, thank goodness, and it went away in a couple of days. It was brown and pigmented, and thankfully not itchy or scaly. Only missed one day of school for that one.
Perhaps it was all the visitors, and perhaps it was the sickness, and it definitely was the teething, but this was a terrible month for sleep! You were waking every two hours for a couple of weeks, and due to pure exhaustion, I nursed you back to sleep almost every time. (Time to dig in and do some sleep training I think!) You also had many nights of being wide awake for an hour or two in the wee hours of the night which made it very hard for Mommy and Daddy to get it together for work the next morning. A couple of nights before your 6mo birthday, things started to go a little better, and we also moved you into your own room now that all our visitors are gone. The first couple of nights we slept with you in your room, and you did pretty well. The first night with us in separate rooms, you slept through the night! You woke around midnight, but fussed yourself back to sleep without ever really crying in about 20 minutes. It was the best sleep I have had since you were born. It was amazing. You made up for it the next night, which was back to every 2 hours with a 2 hour play time from 2:30 - 4:30. Here's hoping we have fewer and fewer of those this month!
A few other major things this month...you are sitting up! You love sitting and playing, but you are also very excited about reaching for anything that catches your eye which makes you tip over at times. You also fall straight backwards every once in awhile, especially when you are excited, so we try to keep something soft behind you just in case! You are still not a big fan of the belly time, you just immediately flip to your back. So we'll see if the crawling ever comes =)
The week of Thanksgiving we started solid foods. You have had cereal, sweet potatoes, peas and green beans. Next on the agenda is carrots, squash, then we will move to some fruits. I am making your food right now, which is pretty easy and quick, and definitely cheap. We'll see how long it lasts =)
I am starting to stop coming to nurse you at lunchtime at work. You like enjoying your mealtime with coos and smiles and playing, which makes nursing you last longer than the amount of time I really have. It is also harder to predict when you eat, since we started solids. You had been eating 5 oz bottles every 3 hours. Lately, you have been eating 2-4 oz of solids per day in 1-2 meals, as well as 3.5 - 5 oz bottles every 3-4 oz. It seems like the amount you eat is a little on the low side, but you seem satisfied, and you are gaining weight, so I'm not worried.
We are so excited about this month - trying new foods, sitting and playing with new toys, sleeping in your own room, and of course Christmas. Can't believe it has been 6 months!!

So Much To Be Thankful For

This was a wonderful week! I had Wed, Thu, Sat and Sun off of work. A much needed break from work, and even better - four full days at home with Lila! This was such a treat. It was wonderful to spend time playing with her, practicing to sit up, feeding Lila her first foods, cuddling her when her teething gums were hurting, making a couple of weeks worth of home made baby food (sweet potatoes, bananas and peas, oh my!), and taking my first legitimate "nap when the baby naps". It was also great to watch Lila interact with her cousins Liam and Tucker, dance with Aunt Jenny, and laugh at Great Grand Pap! Now, on Sunday night, I am feeling a little sorry for myself that I have to go back to work tomorrow morning, and send Lila back to daycare. But I should know better. First of all, Lila goes to a wonderful daycare, and she loves it and her teachers love her. Also, working is not optional for me, and we knew that when we started this whole parenthood thing. Someday, I hope it will be. I hope to have more time like this, and to continue making our family as self-sustainable as possible, and to actually have a clean house and homemade dinners each night. But right now, working is the price I pay to have Lila in our lives. And it is well worth it! So as I get started back to work, I will try to not to fall in to the diaper, feed, bathe, bed the baby, then diaper, feed, dress, take the baby to daycare the next day. I will try to spend some time sitting and playing, teaching, blowing raspberries, and enjoying sweet potatoes! And being thankful for having a job, and for all those small moments! Happy Thanksgiving!

To my 5 month old...

Dear Lila,

You are such a big girl! It has been another busy month, and I can't believe how much you have learned! The beginning of this month was a little rough with a couple of weeks of sleep regression. Joe and I tried not to pull our hair out, and reminded ourselves how lucky we had been for the previous 4 months. Luckily, it seemed to be a phase, and you are through it. You even seem to be napping a little better lately. On the weekends, you nap in your crib, and this past weekend you even put your self to sleep. I put you down sleepy buy awake, and you talked to yourself and fussed a little, then were asleep 15 minutes later. It was great! We are preparing to move you into your own room in about a month, after all our November visitors have come and gone. I think I might miss you sleeping next to me in your pack and play.
Also this month, you had your first Halloween. You dressed as a pumpkin, and had a parade at school which was hilarious. You were strapped into the front row of a six seater buggy, and you laughed your way through the one block parade lined with adoring parents. That night, we hit the neighborhood and walked around with some of your big kid friends for their first Trick or Treat, and also hung out at our block party. You slept through most of it, but were a trooper, particularly because it was raining!
The biggest news this month, is that you finally learned to roll over. We have been trying to give you lots of chances, but you hated being on your tummy so much, that we usually couldn't bear your screaming, and we helped you flip over. But then one evening (Nov. 2), I put you in your crib while I was running your bath, and I put you in on your tummy. When I returned, you were on your back smiling away! I made you do it three more times, so you would remember how to show Daddy, which you did first thing the next morning. Now there is no stopping you, you roll all over the place, reaching for toys and to look around at the people in the room.
This month will be so fun. We have Aunt Beth, Uncle AJ, Cousin Margaret, Aunt Mary, Grandma and Grandpa, Great Grandpa, Aunt Jen, Cousin Liam and Cousin Tucker coming to visit over the next few weekends. We also plan to try cereal, as we haven't had the time to try it yet! Can't wait to keep experiencing new things with you baby girl!

Late (Late!) Night Dates with Daughter, and a Prayer

Lila has been experiencing what I am hopeful is a classic 4 month sleep regression...that I am hoping will pass soon (actually the last two nights weren't bad). After a nice long stint of either sleeping through the night (like 9-12 hours!) or waking just once to eat then straight back to sleep, she has changed gears on us. Lila has been waking us between 1-4am with the gentle sounds of cooing and laughing. It is a sad thing when you wake to such sweet noises and cringe. Because you see, if she wakes crying, this means hunger, nurse, back to sleep, 20 minutes tops. If she wakes in this delightful mood, it means at least 1.5 hours, as many as 2.5 hours attempting to get the little bug back to sleep so we can squeeze out a little nap before getting up for work. We have tried to not reinforce this behavior. We let her play in her bed (which is still the travel pack and play inches from my side of the bed) until she gets bored, and therefore fussy, and eventually crying. Then, we do the usual middle of the night routine - Joe changes her diaper, and I nurse. And nurse, and nurse, in hopes that she will fall asleep. But, alas, on these nights, she looks at me with wide eyed smiles when she is done eating, and continues with the cooing and laughing. So Joe and I take turns bouncing on the yoga ball, trying not to fall asleep/fall off, and attempting to lull Lila back to lullabye land. We try the rocking chair (so we can "almost" sleep). Lila is not soothed by this, gets bored, and cries. We try bouncing her back to seep in her bouncy chair which we set in the pack and play, so that we can lay down, barely moving one hand at 2:30am. This worked only once. We try having her face her fish tank so that the lights and fishies mesmorize her back into dreamland. This apparently gets boring. So we bounce. And eventually, she does fall back asleep. Usually at around 6am, exactly 30 minutes before the alarm goes off and we start the long busy day again.
It would be easy to get frustrated. It would be easy to get sad, mad, or delusional. Sometimes this 2 hour middle of the night playtime happens twice in one night. It makes the mornings seem impossible, the workdays seem eternal, and the following evenings disastrous, as Lila is also exhausted (and this girl is not a napper). It would be easy.
However, I have both the misfortune and the blessing to know there are other families out there who are not as lucky as Joe and I are. As I hold smiley Lila, bouncing precariously on the yoga ball at 4:30am, I am more aware lately that her lungs are strong and efficient, her heart is regular and beats with ease. Her brain is growing and quick, her arms and legs quick around and her eyes and ears take in the world. All I have to do is think about the little babies and kids out there who spend weeks in the hospital, weeks on a ventilator, who have not been home yet since they have been born. And I snuggle Lila a little closer. I bounce a little longer. I say continuous prayers. Knowing so many families with sick babies is very sad and disheartening sometimes. However, it has shown me strength, and God's graces in the strength that surrounds these families. it has made me so grateful and aware of my blessings. So, I am embracing my late (late) night date nights with Lila, and know they will not go on forever, and that every day, every wakeful middle of the night moment, is a blessing. And God Bless little Caleb, little Chaia, little Grant and their mommies, daddies, families, friends, and the doctors and nurses who are caring for them. Amen.