My Name Is Now Mom

Oma and Opa have been traveling for a while and they just got back home.  The same day they arrived home, Oma told Opa they needed to come down to see TerraDactyl.  Opa managed to convince her they should wait at least a few days before leaving town again.  So they came down to visit Tuesday and Wednesday.  TerraDactyl tried some smashed carrots and was not super impressed.  She didn't throw a fit or anything, but she did make a face.  She was willing to open up for another bite, but then she just pushed it back out of her mouth.  I'm not sure that we're making much progress on the whole introducing food front.  An apple a day keeps the doctor away We got a lot of walks with Oma and Opa.  And while we were on a walk we decided to try out a playground.  I don't think TerraDactyl can quite handle the baby swings yet, they seem a bit too big for her, and she's not awesome about sitting up yet.  So instead, we tried tandem swingi...

On Saturday we hosted DH's hometown homies' annual Halloween Party.  We've been working pretty hard on our costumes, but even though I KNEW they'd take longer this year (with TerraDactyl taking most of my time), I still underestimated just how much more time I'd need to work on them.  I stayed up late on Friday night and still had more work to do on Saturday.  I actually finished up after people had arrived.  Fortunately, they're pretty forgiving.  Mario, Princess Peach, and a squirming Toad We went with a Mario themed family.  DH was Mario, I was Princess Peach, TerraDactyl was Toad, and Riley was a Koopa (those turtle thingies).  And yes, that's totally DH's actual mustache.  He shaved off his beard just for this.  We're quite committed to our costumes.  A happier Toad We had the worst time finding overalls.  So we had to improvise.  I honestly didn't think we'd completely strike out on the overall front.  ...

TerraDactyl is now six months old!  She's 26.5 inches long and 17.1 lbs.  Both of which are about the 70th percentile.  The doctor says she's right on track with developmental milestones.  So that's good.  Our main concern is that she's got some patches of classic eczema that we're trying to keep under control.  It's harder to get good pictures now that she flips to her belly so readily... Halloween is coming up, so DH and I have been working on our Halloween costumes.  We went to Goodwill the other day and while I was in the dressing room trying on options, DH was supposed to be out looking for his own costume options.  I finished up and went looking for DH and found him holding three board games.  He'd seen the kid that was stocking the shelves with these games in the cart and he'd just followed the kid around until he finally unloaded the board games and DH snatched them up immediately.  I'm not sure why he didn't ask the kid i...

TerraDactyl continues to work on her strength exercises.  She's progressed to holding her planks for quite some time.  And she's even lifting her butt up into the air.  Sometimes I think it almost looks like she wants to do a forwards roll.  Just tuck that head under and you can roll right over it! TerraDactyl is also getting better at playing with her toys.  She can use all the toys on her jumper.  She's really good at pushing the buttons (and making the songs play), and she even rotated herself to face different toys all on her own.  That was the first time that's happened.  Oh yeah!  Who's got skills? TerraDactyl definitely is enjoying tummy time these days.  She's reaching for things and trying to move towards them (she only succeeds if she's only required to rotate, she's still scooting backwards instead of forwards).  It makes me wish we had some bigger rooms in our house so she could have more space to scoot aro...

This weekend DH, TerraDactyl, Riley, and I took a long walk.  During the course of our walk, the ball of my foot starting hurting - A LOT.  A lot , a lot.  When we got home, I took a look at my foot and saw the ball of my foot was swollen.  It's been bothering me for a while (many months), but I just sort of assumed that I'd jammed it at some point and it was just taking a while to heal.  This weekend it hurt too much to ignore and pawn off on a previous (and un-remembered) injury.  In fact, it looks like a bunion.  TerraDactyl holding her plank To be honest, I was a bit more than annoyed to discover I'd developed a bunion.  I mean, I NEVER wear heels, and I NEVER wear pointy toed shoes.  I literally only wear sandals and tennis shoes.  How the heck did I develop a bunion?  And most annoying is that according to my internet research, I can't get rid of it without surgery.  Hopefully they mean I can't get rid of the swell...

TerraDactyl just learned to do knee push ups and now she's working on real push ups!  It's crazy how fast she progressed through that.  She's still scooting backwards, but now that she's in a full push up position, I think she scoots backwards a wee bit faster.  Pretty good form for her first day! We're still working on our sleeping.  Since TerraDactyl seems to sleep so well when she's next to me in bed, I'm experimenting with recreating that environment in her bassinet.  I've got a heavier (weight and warmth) blanket to put on her.  I think she like snuggling with body heat, so I actually end up putting two blankets on her.  I think it helps.  But maybe it's just wishful thinking.  She's much more of a morning person than me We're also trying to keep her bed time routine stable.  But it's hard.  I'm terrible at keeping track of time, I've always determined when I'd go to bed based on when I was tired, or wheneve...

TerraDactyl has been adding to her bag of tricks pretty quickly.  She can now eat her toes.  She worked up to this trick.  TerraDactyl started out reaching for her toes with her hands, then grabbing them, then pulling them toward her mouth, but just yesterday was the first successful foot-in-mouth that I've observed.  TerraDactyl's first documented foot-in-mouth TerraDactyl is also continuing to work on her crawling motions.  They're getting better, but still no forward progress.  In fact, when she practices, she actually ends up moving backwards.  They're just small little scoots, but if she spends 15 minutes on her belly, she'll end up scooting backwards a foot or so.  Get that knee up there!  Higher! Yesterday while I was watching TerraDactyl during her tummy time (and taking photos), she was going through a pattern.  Push into a knee push up position, lower herself down to a Superman position, push up into a knee push u...

Tuesday is bath time for TWICE the fun!  We started out today with a bath and nail clipping.  I'd forgotten to clip TerraDactyl's nails on Friday and going a whole week between clippings is no good.  She's getting too good at grabbing and holding - those nails are brutal.  More pictures mom?  Really? (Trigger Warning - it's about to get poopy)  Anyways, around 3pm, TerraDactyl had a spectacular poop while playing in her jumper.  When I took her to change her diaper I found out that her diaper had leaked.  A LOT.  All the way down her legs and into the toes of her footie pajamas.  My mother had told me stories about this happening, but I just assumed she was exaggerating.  I mean really.  There's no way a baby can hold that much poop.  HA.  They can.  Most footie pajamas have faces on the feet.  These are the first pair I've seen with feet on the feet. I just about had hysterical breakdown laugh...

Saturday we were supposed to meet up and play another round of Werewolf Legacy, but we didn't have enough people that were able to make it.  So we ended up playing other games instead - Bang and an Escape Room game.  It was fun, even if we didn't get to play Werewolf. Rainbows! Sunday was a weird day.  TerraDactyl and I had a rough night.  I spent a lot of time rocking her to sleep, so I didn't sleep well.  I was awake long enough that I couldn't just drop back to sleep, and then TerraDactyl would wake up before I could get myself relaxed and fall back asleep.  So I spent like half the night in this weird half-doze and woke up with a sleep deprived headache.  I was pretty out of it on Sunday.  I spent half the day napping and then went to bed early.  DH got a lot of quality time with TerraDactyl. She looks ready for sleep, right? Speaking of our sleeping issues...  We've had some success rocking TerraDactyl to sleep, but sh...

I found a way to prevent TerraDactyl from grabbing her poop when I change her diaper...  A changing table toy!  I get her interested in the toy, she grabs onto it with both hands and shoves it in her mouth, and then I can change her without fear of her making a giant mess.  She still kicks her legs around, but I can handle that. TerraDactyl playing with her changing table toy The trick to the changing toy is you've got to get her interested in it before you take her diaper off.  Otherwise it doesn't work very well at all.  :)  So I just assume every diaper is poopy, and always give her the toy. We're all happy about poop free hands! Sleep training to disassociate feeding from sleeping is...  going.  We're having some rough nights right now.  Hopefully it won't be for long.   She looks like she's scheming, doesn't she? It's getting chilly in the garage, so TerraDactyl has to gear up for while I spot DH ...

TerraDactyl and I have fallen into some bad habits with nursing and sleeping.  It started slowly.  She falls asleep easily while nursing.  So in the middle of the night, I'd nurse her back to sleep because it was fast and a sure thing.  Next, when napping TerraDactyl went from napping in my arms to only napping when she could also nurse.  Seriously, she eats in her sleep and she wakes up when I unlatch her.  So, I let her keep nursing so she could get a good nap in. She really wanted that strap Now we're to the point where I think TerraDactyl actually eats more at night than during the day.  Which means she pees more at night, which means more middle of the night diaper changes.  At one point, TerraDactyl would allow me to sleep a good 4-5 straight hours at a stretch.  Now we're basically up every 90 minutes.  Clearly, we've got some bad habits to break.  Who loves eating??  This girl! There is a thing called slee...

Yesterday morning I woke up to the view below.  TerraDactyl is getting quite confident in her rolling.  I think we might have to stop sleeping in my bed.  I'm worried she'll just keep rolling.  And while I do put stuff to block her, it still makes me nervous.  It's too bad because it's a convenient way for me to sleep more.   Somebody's a morning person! (Hint:  it's NOT mom) TerraDactyl has been exploring my face more with her fingers.  It's a bit more thorough than it has been in the past.  She's gripping my nose and tweaking it.  Pulling on my lips, trying to get into my mouth, removing my glasses...  Its quite exciting.  So far my eyes have been safe, but it may just be because the glasses slow her down.  :D   Where else can I put these fingers? She's ALSO exploring her poop with her fingers!  It's not ideal (especially paired with the whole sticking her fingers in my mouth thing)....

It's like people expect DH and me to make a nerdy baby or something... TerraDactyl discovered that her mother has hair.  I usually wear it up in a ponytail, but I bent over her the other day and she saw my ponytail and started giggling.  It kept her entertained for a really long time, giggling and reaching for it.  Of course, I tried to make sure she never actually got a hold of it.  One sock on and one sock off I've started trying out some leg warmers for TerraDactyl.  They're working OK, but she's really good at getting out of them.  The pair above were on for the amount of time it took me to eat a bowl of cereal and she'd already managed to completely remove one of the leggings.  She rubs her feet back and forth and catches her big toe in the fabric and then she can kick it pretty far down in one go.  It's actually quite impressive. This pair of leggings lasted a little longer... Oh!  TerraDactyl made a big gain in rolli...

Lately TerraDactyl has been reaching more and more.  Her grabbing abilities have improved quite a bit, too.  So now she's able to reach for and grab items pretty well.  She's even managed to pull the glasses off my face a couple of times.  Toes!!  Did you know there were toes in here? TerraDactyl is also getting better at sitting upright.  She's not great at it, but she's getting better.  Look ma', no hands! TerraDactyl has been more and more comfortable during tummy time.  She's happy there for quite a while.  She's experimenting with crawling motions, and she's added in more time doing Supermans. It's like flying This weekend we had some pretty good weather.  Probably some of the last nice weather of the year, so we took some very long walks.  We managed to find some hills too, so it was an even better workout.  At one point, we were pretty far from home when TerraDactyl needed a diaper change.  It w...