7.31.2006

thats my girl!

there are no words.

the master


bela finally mastered sitting over the weekend!! there is nothing more to say about this, but i am excited!

7.30.2006

thats my girl!


last time i took bela to the doctor, she told me that i should start trying to feed bela foods other than the basic gerber jars. after talking to a few friends with kids, to settle my first time mommy fears, i decided that we could branch out. so this morning bela had yogurt and small slivers of cheese! of course she loved both, they are two of my favorites!

7.29.2006

re: bad habits

i was just noticing that both of the pictures that i posted were with bela putting something in her mouth. kinda funny. not so much a bad habit, but just a baby thing. but still.

bad habits

so last weekend we went to a friends house for a baby playdate/mama lunchdate at my pal meghans house. her baby sebrina is about 7 weeks older than bela and a lot more advanced. although, we talked about this, you shouldnt try to compare your baby with other ones, it will only make your head hurt. plus that is a whole other post in itself. moving on.
anyhow, when we got there sebrina was sleeping, but there was another little boy there who was just over a year old. bela does this shouting/shrieking thing lately when she is happy, hungry, mad, tired... well pretty much whenever she is awake i guess. she doesn't do it constantly or anything, but it does get more frequent if she is tired. it is not a good or bad noise, just a bela noise. she will shout and then when you look at her she laughs. anyhow, this little boy was not a fan of belas shrieking. everytime she did it he would start crying and grab onto his mama. of course bela had no idea that she was having this effect on the little boy, but that didnt make me feel any less terrible about it! kept trying to quiet bela down, but shushing doesnt have much effect on an 8 month old baby. bela just kept on with her shouting, and he kept being sad, so they left. this made me feel even worse of course. well when sebrina woke up, she thought bela was funny and seemed to think the shouting was pretty funny. well long story short, my friend meghan told me yesterday that sebrina started making belas noise. way to teach other your bad habits baby! so when this same little boy came over again, it goes without saying that he is no longer a fan of sebrina either. poor little guy, too many shrieking girls! i feel so bad!!! i am sure this just getting him ready for the cruel world of girls in the future. i will always remember the first time bela made a little boy cry and as meghan said, i am sure this wont be the last time.

7.26.2006

getting older! (7 months and 8 months old!)

so i missed the 7 months old post. oops bad mom. anyhow this is going to be a 7 and 8 month post.
bela went on her first vacation in june! which also included her first really long car trip. i know that i already blogged about this after the trip, but i just need to say again how a 12 hour road trip with two girls under 12 months is not big heaps of fun. that said, the rest of the vacation was fantastic.
bela also got her first tooth at 7 months!! and i noticed last night that her second tooth (both on the bottom) is just peaking through now! tooth number two at 8 months!
i am glad to say that number two was not nearly as painful (for both of us) as number one was. i didnt even realize she was coming through until i saw it.
she still is not sitting, not totally. i think this is because she doesnt want to, not because she isnt able to. she is just too busy and preoccupied to be bothered with sitting. if you put her down with sometime to hold onto/play with in front of her she does fine. at least until something else in the room catches her eye, then she topples.
she still is not crawling yet, but she does do something that looks like a push-up. she also gets on all fours and rocks back and forth as if she thinks her body will just magically do the rest for her. she is definitely interested in crawling, unlike the sitting situation.
not much else going on really, of course she is getting cuter by the minute, but that goes without saying. also, the growling continues...

7.21.2006

strange sounds

so as of yesterday, bela started making a new noise. it freaks me out. it is this guttural growling sound that is reminiscent of a rabid dog or demon. seriously. it is not a noise that should come out of such a sweet girl! this morning i took bela upstairs to wake up daddy. lucky him, he woke up to this grumbling snarl. hopefully this will pass soon. before this she made a noise that made me rush to her aid, a choking, wheezing noise. she is over that. please let this pass soon too.

7.19.2006

my nieces

could they be any cuter??

patterns of sleep

i hate to admit it, but bela is still not sleeping through the night. i know all babies are different. i have a friend whose baby started sleeping through the night at about 8 weeks, but i also know someone whose baby is almost 2 years old and still waking up at night. of course i hope bela starts sooner than later, but of course i have no control over this. i have read numerous articles and books, it seems there is nothing i can do short of letting her scream rather than feeding her. i am not going to do that.
before we left for vacation she was only waking up once around 4am. not too bad, but being away somehow messed up her schedule completely. she was waking up 3-4 times during that week away! it was terrible. once we returned home she was back to 1-2 times and i sure wasnt complaining.
so on monday when i took her to the doctor for the eye goop, the doctor casually asked "she sleeps through the night, right?". i was tempted to lie, i dont know why, it just came over me that maybe i was somehow a bad parent because my baby wants to eat at night. i didnt lie though, i told her that she is still waking up 1-2 times a night. she eats and passes back out, no fuss. the doctor assured me that this is totally normal, but at the same time she gave bela a pep talk that she should let mama get some sleep. cute.
thanks doc! the last 2 nights we have been back to only waking up once. i am hoping that this whole thing will be a blur very soon. i will be one of those moms who can say, "of course my baby sleeps through the night!" a big smile going across my very rested and fresh looking face.
until then, i am tired and have baggies under my eyes. but ya know what, i have a good baby. so what if she doesnt sleep through the night? i keep telling myself this as i drag my sleeping body out of bed at 3am.

7.18.2006

keep it up

i am trying to get back into the task of daily posts. i guess it isnt as easy as it used to be when i was at home. although, wait, also not sure if i am busier now or when i was still at home. being an at home mom is hard work, being a working mom is hard work too. ahh the endless debate. anyhow back at work today. i dropped bela off this morning to mama chris, eyedrops in hand. i hope clears up soon!

i worked hard all weekend trying to get bela to 1) sit and 2) crawl. she wants nothing to do with this sitting thing. when i try to put her down to sit she just stiffens her legs to stand. not sure if that is good or bad. maybe she will just bypass the sitting and go right to standing. although not sure how that will work. always standing, never sitting, it might make me kind of nervous. i guess she will do it when she is ready!! as far as crawling goes, i put her on her belly and she does this sort of swimming in the air motion. it is super funny. she definitely wants to be on the move, she has things to do. so thats the update for now. they say all babies hit their milestones at different times. and her doctor said it is okay that she has no interest in sitting. guess all we can do is wait!

7.17.2006

vacation pics - part one



the good, the bad, the teething, not napping and the sick

all of which refer to bela.
she just got her first tooth, well it officially broke through about a week and a half ago, but it is still working its way out. today at the doctors office, the nurse commented that her second bottom tooth of about to come in also. i guess in her medical minded way she could see this before me, the first time mom. so i guess that means that i will be in for more fun very soon. poor little teething baby, poor mommy.
so on the sick part, bela has some kind of "goopy eye infection", i believe that is the official name. the doctor didnt actually tell me what it was, just that i had to put drops in 4 times a day. haha, yeah, 4 times. she said it so casually too, as if she has never tried to wipe goop out of a babys eye, let alone put something in. we left the doctors office to get the prescription filled and the whole time i was quietly laughing to myself. bela is a little girl, 14lbs 9ozs to be exact, but she is strong. small, but mighty. so when we got home i put her on the changing table and stripped her down. seemed necessary, i dont know why. i know i dont need to explain the following events, i am sure you can all imagine. i will just say that about 10 drops later i got 1 drop in each eye. only 3 more doses to go, for today, and then only 4 more days! ugh.
i think the not napping part of this post is because of the 96 degree heat. of course our non air conditioned house seems way hotter than that. not that i am complaining, i am getting quality baby time today since she wasn't able to go to daycare.
i shouldnt complain though. through all of this my little bela has still be her usual self. all smiles and giggles. well atleast most of the time.
its hot though, h-o-t hot. although i do think i am taking it pretty well. both of my parents will tell you that i was the biggest whiner in the heat. i guess when you have no ac and no way out of the heat, what the use in complaining, nothing you can do about it. i think when bela gets up from not napping we might make our way to the air conditioned starbucks..mmm.. air conditioning...

7.11.2006

lots to say

its been awhile and i dont even remember all i have to write, this might have to be a two parter.
anyhow bela got her first tooth! she was not a happy camper through all of it, but i guess that is to be expected.
spent the day visiting on saturday. we went out to coffee in the morning with sarah, the current title holder for cutest pregnant lady! we had fun catching up with her, cant wait to do it again. i am also excited to meet her baby boy when he comes! then we went over for lunch with becky. delicious. we spent about an hour watching bela roll around on the floor. you wouldnt believe how entertaining that can be! after that we went to visit with uncle brent, aunt michelle, grandpa and eric. of course much oohing and aahing was done by all. they are so great with bela! we got some beautiful second hand clothes also, can't wait for fall so she can wear them!
we rounded out a nice weekend of visiting on sunday with some quality brittany time. always good times! we also had some cari and smoothie time at our favorite sunday spot!
ok, that is all for now. more later.

7.05.2006

party's over

today i am back at work after being off for over a week. ugh. it is kind of nice to be home, but not so nice being back to work.
we had a wonderful time on vacation! we were in folly beach sc (near charleston) for a week. it was so nice to get away. although we were both really happy to see brett yesterday! and i know he was glad to see us, especially his baby girl.
we spent a week doing pretty much nothing. and that is the best kind of vacation. i was glad that i got so much time to spend with my parents and my sister. it was also really cool to see all the kids together!
i will have more later and also vacation pics as soon as my mom sends me some.
also i will be posting belas 7 months old blog soon too, hopefully.