Papa, Scarlett and the Swimming Lessons

Today Papa went swimming with Scarlett so I could have a chance to sit out and watch both kiddos in their lessons.

Jonathan's first time putting Scarlett under.  He was a wee bit nervous about it.

 

Scarlett's cute little prune feet. :)

The Toy Box

Our Miss Scarlett pulls herself to standing on practically anything she can.  She discovered Christian's box of toys, and has far more interest in his toys than her own toys.

And just look at those chunky thighs!  I love 'em!

Scarlett and Papa

Scarlett longs for the day she can play outside in cooler temperatures.

Soon, baby girl ... very soon.

A Growing Princess

Wow!  Our Little Princessa is on fire these days!  Seems each days, she's progressing so much that I can hardly keep up with her!

She's moved from her Bumbo Seat to the full-sized high chair.  Not sure how much of that food made it into her mouth, but she sure loved to play with it!

She'd been pulling herself to a somewhat standing position when Jonathan and I would lay next to her on the floor.  But then I looked, and she'd pulled herself to a full standing position!

Last night, we gave her some watermelon in a mesh baggie (since she gags so easily).  And she thought that was pretty tasty, until ...

I brought out the mashed potatoes.  I made them really thick so she could pick them up herself and she loved them!  She gaged quite a bit, but we gave her some water (straight from a regular cup, thank you very much!) and she never threw up.

Today I put her in her crib at naptime and wondered why she was so happy and quiet:  she was playing with the curtains and paper blinds.  Of course, now that they are within reach, we'll have to come up with a new setup.  Her crib is in a corner where she's got windows on both sides.

Obviously, we'll need to lower the mattress in her crib!

Scarlett also loves her water.  We've got numerous sippy cups for her to use - I realized I didn't need to get her cups for younger babies when I saw she was able to drink from Chrsitain's cup that is similar to a tall, insulated travel coffee mug.  So I got her a shorter version.   She also amazed us when she drank from a straw recently.   Amazed us becuase we simply couldn't get Christian to do that - and Granny was able to teach him how to suck through a straw when he was two months shy of turning 2+.

Overall, Scarlett is doing things much more quickly than Christian did, which is really no surpirse:  it is well-known that girls progress more quickly than boys at this age.  Christian didn't have this level of mobility (Scarlett crawls all over everything ... she does not like to stay still ... like EVER).  And I feel quite certain that she'll be walking by year's end - before she's even one.   Mark my words ... :)

Voila! Miss Scarlett Sits Up on Her Own

I knew it was coming ... I saw the signs.  And finally, today, Miss Scarlett sat up by her self.  She was laying on the floor, got up on her hands and knees and started rocking and a few moments later, she was sitting up.

Aw, these milestones happen so quickly - and I am so blessed to be at home and see them as they take place.

Miss Scarlett is Eight Months Old

Whoooooooooooooooo time is passing by quickly!  Our Miss Scarlett is now eight months old!

She still doesn't know a stranger.  Anybody can hold her, and she's good with it.  I think fear of strangers starts to happen at around nine months.  My hope is that she's so used to unknown people holding her that she'll just skip that phase. :)

She's been eating better, though still not much.  She'll take about four bites, or so, of any food we offer her. Slow progress, but progress nonetheless.

She tends to get upset if she sees me come into a room, or hears my voice.  So if Jonathan is playing with her by himself, she is typically find and dandy until she sees Mommy and then the tears begin.  But overall, I'd say she's a pretty good-natured baby.   We tend to go a lot of places, and she handles it like a champ.  Sure, she's got her moments of discontent, but don't we all? :)

She's still not sleeping through the night.  In fact, she seems to be waking up MORE now to eat overnight.  I'm certain it is because she's just not eating enough solid food during the day to accommodate her growth.  She's got plenty of chunky baby rolls, so I'm not concerned about her intake ... I'd just like her to have more solid foods.  We'll keep trying.

Christian and Scarlett continue to absolutely adore each other.  When she sees him, her face lights up.  He likes to get in her face and makes these noises that would get on my nerves as an adult, but they get her to smiling, so that encourages him do do more.   What I love to see is when they are both in the living room together and I'm in the kitchen making dinner, and I look to see that Christian is sitting or laying next to Scarlett and he's got his arm around her and she's perfectly happy.  Ah, those are the moments that melt a Mommy's heart! :)

Scarlett's Six Month Pics are Posted

We finally got all of Scarlett's six month pictures.  You can either scroll down to the July 14th post below, or click on this link:   http://loslucerosdeux.blogspot.com/2012/07/a-preview-of-miss-scarletts-six-month.html.

Enjoy!! :)

Miss Scarlett Crawled!

For the past couple of days, Scarlett has been looking like she's on the verge of crawling.

Today she was rocking up on her hands and knees quite a bit. There was a toy she wanted that was just barely out of her reach, and so I just stayed where I was ... watching. Sure enough, she lifted herself up on her knees somewhat and made two forward advances that I'd classify as "crawling." It was was sooooo cool to watch.

And THAT is why I'm so blessed to be able to keep her home with me: I get to see moments like that!!  Exciting!

Incidentally, Miss Scarlett is 7.5 months old and that is EXACTLY when Christian crawled for the first time. Reminisce here:  http://theluceros.blogspot.com/2008/06/christian-starts-to-crawl.html

(I didn't have my camera handy and missed getting the fun recorded. My phone was nearby and I tried to capture her doing it again using my phone's camera. She didn't do much while I was recording, but you can see her giving it a try (she was just to tired to give it a full effort). Sadly, the sound is lousy, as it doesn't transfer well from my phone to the website that stores the video. So you'll either hear nothing, or garbled delayed voices. :/)

Post Yogurt Cuteness

Scarlett rolling around after some delicious Noosa yogurt:

 

Tooth #2

Tooth #2 made its tiny appearance in Scarlett's mouth today!

She's been eating solids a little better in the past few days.  For dinner she had a few bites of "Harvest Vegetable Medly" and "Noosa Yoghurt." If you're not familiar, let me enlighten you:

http://www.noosayoghurt.com/

It is absolutely the most delicious yogurt I've ever had.   And I'm not even a fan of yogurt.  I can't get enough Noosa and since Scarlett likes it, that gives me an excuse to buy it. :)   (Anybody living in Bellingham, WA, it can be found at the Albertson's on Birchwood.  Anybody living in Colorado, try Super Target, Vitamin Cottage, Sprouts, Whole Foods, Safeway, King Soopers, etc.).

Another All Nighter

Miss Scarlett had a rought time in the nursery at church last night.   She was particularly tired, and was fussy when we left.  I went back in to try soothing her, she seemed fine but then went back to crying.

So I had a choice to make:  stay with her in the nursery, or go to the church service knowing the grandmas in there would take very good care of her.    Since they only had Scarlett and one other child, I decided to go to the service, knowing they'd let us know if we needed to come get her.

By the time we returned, she was asleep in the crib.

She fussed most of the drive home.  We got her to sleep at about 9:00pm and were SHOCKED when she didn't wake up until about 5:15pm.  That is about EIGHT hours.

Now, I'm no fool.  I've finally figured out that one night of good sleep isn't necessarly indicative of a pattern that has started.  A few months ago, that is exactly what I had hoped for.  But I've learned my lesson over and over since then.

But, it just proves that she CAN go without a feeding overnight. :)

Green Beans

I was so excited to try the "Baby Led Weaning Concept."   I started off with a small piece of banana.  Scarlett grabbed it immedately and in short order, put it in her mouth.   She started to gag a bit, so pulled it back out. 

I tried agian with a more mushy piece of banana.  She put it in her mouth, started to gag a bit and then "blech!"  Projectile vomiting.  

I then tried to just mix some cereal with pureed sweet potatoes to make it really chunky.  I gave her some and "blech!"  More projectile vomiting.

So then I tried just straigh ureed sweet potatoes and "BLECH!" for the third time.  Ugh!

That was how lunch went.

At dinner, we tried again with more pureed baby food - this time one that had three imgredients.   And "blech!"   So, today just wasn't our day.

I really think she's got a very sensitive gag reflex, so we'll jsut move very slowly with the "solid food" process.

Today, I bought some good ol' organic pureed green beans.  One ingredient.  And she LIKES it!   She did great at lunch and really surpirsed us at dinner when she'd open her mouth for more as Jonathan fed her. 

So I think the key is just very small bites.

And at least we're making some kind of progress!  Slow progress, but progress nonetheless.

"Mama" (ma ma maaaaaaaaaaaa mam maaa)

Today Miss Scarlett said, "Mama."  And then said it again.  And again.

Okay, well ... it was that typical "indiscriminate baby babbling" they do when discovering new sounds they can make. 

But still ... it was "Mama." :)

Miss Scarlett is Seven Months Old!

Today Miss Scarlett is seven months old!

So, what is she up to lately, you ask?

She really likes to sit up, and doesn't fall over much.  Sometimes it seems like she's making the movements to start crawling, but really ... she just enjoys rolling all over the place at this point.

She's been in the nursery at church on Saturday evenings for a few weeks now, and is doing really well.

Scarlett gets the biggest kick out of Christian, whose newest goal in life is to make is baby sister laugh.  He really had her going the other day (and though he was a bit too loud and crazy, in my opinion, Scarlett enjoyed it!).

Scarlett STILL isn't into eating  baby food.  At best, we can get a few partial spoonfuls into her mouth, but she very quickly loses interest and starts to protest.  Today she seemed to enjoy this new food better than some of the other food we've been feeding her.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, according to the "Baby Led Weaning" theory I've found, infants can eat the same food we adults eat.  Here's an unofficial description:

The basic concept is that if you eat healthy things the baby can actually eat them too (at 6+ months old) – and feed him or herself, so you can all eat together as a family (which is a novel idea after months spent switching off with the baby so nobody in the house eats together). Apparently it’s popular in many areas of Europe. There are no jars of baby food. And no homemade purees. And no spooning things into the little man/lady’s mouth. Just the same healthy food that adults eat prepared in a way that many 6+ olds can handle, which is then set on their tray and they go to town.

 the general belief is that at six months old many babies have the capacity to feed themselves, and if the item is soft enough (ex: small pieces of steamed veggies like tiny broken up broccoli florets that are very soft, chunks of banana that they can nibble on, soft overcooked spaghetti, etc) there shouldn’t be an issue with choking or being unable to chew things since a baby is programmed to masticate and swallow at that age (of course you always need to be right there as they eat, supervising as you would during any other feeding experience). The potential pluses are:

• You can eat as a family instead of someone having to spoon-feed the baby while others eat
• Your child may be a more adventurous eater because they control intake and think of it as a fun activity
• You don’t have to puree things (or buy jars of baby food) so the baby can eat whatever you’re having for dinner (tailored to work for them of course, perhaps without a lot of spices/herbs and steamed a bit longer so it’s softer)
• Your baby won’t have issues with gagging or chewing later on when you segue from purees to more solid foods because they learn to chew food thoroughly from day one instead of just swallowing blended foods
• Hand-eye coordination can be honed/improved due to learning how to use a pincher grip and get things into their own mouth

In fact, this weekend a friend of mine shared that none of her kiddos (age 4 to 1 year) have eaten baby food.  They've always eaten what she eats, just cut up into small pieces.  So there is a real-life example of how it works!

So ... I'll buy the book (because that is how I am - I need to have a book about things).  I've already tried doing this with banana chunks.  And she grabbed them and brought them to her mouth ... so maybe there's something to it after all! :)   And maybe - just maybe - doing this type of feeding will help Scarlett to become a far better eater than Christian is to this day.

Lil' GIrlfriends

We haven't seen Scarlett around other babies much.  So when these three beauties got together, I simply HAD to take a picture.

And here we can see that our Scarlett truly is a petite little princessa:

Julia, the baby on the left, is only six months old and is already 21 lbs!

Peyton, the baby on the right in yellow, was born two weeks before Scarlett.  I'm not sure how much she weighs, but she, too, is bigger than Scarlett. She's also able to sit herself up, and is already crawling a little bit.