9 month update

It is hard to believe that Amanda has now been alive "outside" for as long as she was alive "inside"! This has been a very big month in terms of milestones. It's now a race to see whether Amanda will crawl or walk first! She has just started doing a modified crawl in which she moves forward on her hands, dragging her legs behind her (we call her Quasimodo!). But mostly she just uses this as a means towards getting to the furniture so she can pull herself up...she really wants to be standing all the time. She has become very adept at pulling up on almost anything, even just a knee! She has just started cruising on the furniture, and will "walk" for quite aways with someone holding onto her hands. She can also stand unassisted for several seconds at a time before toppling over! This month Mandy finally got her first tooth - one of the bottom front ones. We had a few very sleepless nights, but otherwise it was relatively painless for her and for us! So far she only has the one tooth, so she will have a very cute lopsided grin for awhile until its partner comes in. Amanda continues to be a very vocal baby - she has almost got "mama" and "dada" down, using them mostly for the appropriate person. We have added lots of new foods to her diet, and she continues to enjoy eating solid foods, although her appetite changes greatly from day to day. We've started her on some finger foods, but she's not that interested...everything else the girl touches goes directly into her mouth, but when we actually give her FOOD, she looks at us like "what the heck am I supposed to do with this?". She does love the rice rusk teething biscuits - the only thing she will consistently feed herself. We have finally made some headway in our ongoing sleep issues...we are attempting to convince her to go to sleep on her own (without nursing to sleep), while avoiding "crying it out". Although it's been a struggle, it is working very well. After only a couple of nights, we have gone from 3-4 night wakings (with much difficulty going back to sleep) to only one after 7-9 hours of sleep (sometimes she goes right back to sleep, sometimes not). It is encouraging to finally see some progress!

8 month update

This month has just flown by! We have continued to have some problems with sleeping, some of which seemed to be due to something she was eating. So we cut back all her food and have slowly re-introduced each type of food...so far, so good! As a result, though, poor Amanda is still only getting a few types of food. Within a few more days we will have re-introduced everything (rice, oatmeal, bananas, peaches, sweet potatoes, carrots, and chicken), and can start with some new foods - we hope to try Cheerios, since she is just starting to get into finger foods, and then maybe some teething biscuits and more fruits and veggies. Speaking of teething, still nothing...we think Amanda may be the first five year old without any teeth! Just kidding...mom is actually happy to have avoided dealing with the biting issue thus far. Mandy is very close to crawling; she lunges forward from a sitting position and rocks back and forth from her bum to her knees. The only problem she has is that she gets one leg stuck under her (still in the sitting position)... once she figures out how to move that leg, we anticipate that she'll be off to the races! (Something else we are a bit ambivalent about...it sure has been nice to have a less-than-mobile baby!). For the time being she manages to move, albeit slowly, by scooting on her rear end and squirming on her tummy. She is vocalizing a lot and has started to call us "mamamamama" and "dadadadada", although it's not perfect yet (she uses both for both of us). We also get a lot of ba, la, bla, and ga sounds, and the occasional ka. We have finished our swimming lessons - some classes were better than others, but it seems that her general lack of sleep these days makes her a bit grouchy in the pool (and sometimes out of the pool too!). Our new mom & baby group is going very well...those Friday afternoons are a life- saver! We have also started to see the very first signs that she is signing back to us, although it's still a bit sketchy...she makes something approximating the "milk" sign when she is getting hungry. Hopefully we will see more signs in the weeks to come.

7 month update

Amanda is 7 months old today! The Health Unit scale told us that she weighed exactly the same as she did at her 6 month doctor's appointment (18 lbs, 5 oz), but she had grown a bit, to 27". (I'm sure she has actually gained a few ounces, as the scales aren't too accurate and her weight depends on when her last feeding was). We had a wonderful first Christmas and enjoyed showing Amanda off to our family and friends! She was very well behaved (she even attended Midnight Mass!), but it took us awhile to get her back on schedule after the holidays were over. We are still on tooth-watch...we keep thinking she will get a tooth or two any day, but so far we haven't seen any! She is definitely keeping us on our toes sleep-wise; we have had several full 12-hour nights of sleep, but they are interspersed with terrible nights where she is up two or three times. Amanda is continuing to enjoy solids - we have now had rice and oat cereals, as well as sweet potato, banana (her very favourite!), and carrots. We also tried barley cereal, but she was waking up every night with screaming fits, so we think it gave her a tummy ache. Still nothing on the crawling front, which suits us just fine! But she is starting to pull herself up on the side of her crib - so far she can do this from a sitting position only (and she can't get herself into this position, she has to be sat up by someone else), but we are anticipating that she will figure it out soon and we'll have to lower the crib mattress. Amanda also started swimming lessons yesterday, but it didn't go too well - she cried through the whole lesson. She was a bit tired, so we'll hope that she enjoys it more next time. We will go twice a week for five weeks. We are also starting a new mom & baby group with several of the people we've met, since our babies have outgrown the mom & baby group we used to attend! It's hard to believe - I remember starting to go when Amanda was only a month old, and she was so tiny compared to all the other babies. I couldn't believe she would one day be four or five months old...and now she is seven months old! Time is going by so quickly.

6 month update

Our little girl is 6 months old! It is incredible how fast she is growing. We will get her height and weight at her Doctor's appointment later this week, but our arms tell us that she is definitely getting heavier! Sleeping has much improved over the last week or two - we are routinely getting 8-10 hour nights (although we are waiting for the 6 month growth spurt to kick in and cause a few sleepless nights...hopefully only a few!). This was a big month - Amanda started solids (rice cereal) and seems to really enjoy it; we held her baptism, which went wonderfully; sitting up is now second nature, which opens up all kinds of new avenues for play; and we started introducing a few baby signs, which we hope will help Amanda communicate with us before she is able to speak. We are trying to get organized for Christmas, which is harder than usual with a baby in the house! We're really looking forward to sharing the holidays with our beautiful girl. Looking back over the last six months, life is definitely more challenging these days, but so, so rewarding. We are so proud of the little person that Amanda is becoming - she makes us smile and laugh every day and brings so much joy to our lives!

5 month update

We can't believe that Amanda is 5 months old already! Time is flying by. At five months, Amanda weighed 17 lbs, 5 oz and was 26" long. We are still struggling with sleep issues...we usually have several terrible nights, then just when we think we can't take any more, she'll throw a really great night at us, just to keep us on our toes. We are going to visit the doctor to find out what we can do to improve her sleeping. In other news, Amanda sat up for the first time in early November, about a week before her 5 month birthday! We were surprised that it happened so soon. It was kind of an accident the first time, but then each day we could see her getting stronger and now she can easily sit up on her own (well, she can't get herself into a sitting position obviously, but she can hold it if we sit her up). She has also discovered her toes and likes to grab at them (especially at inopportune times), but hasn't quite figured out that she can put them in her mouth. She is now sitting up in a highchair and shares mealtimes with us, although she has not started eating solids yet. Also, we recently bought a Jolly Jumper which she loves! It cracks us up because she looks like she is Riverdancing. We hope to get some videos up on the site soon, including one of her "Jolly Jumping". We are making plans for Amanda's baptism, which will be held on November 27th.