later

i have so much to write about, but no energy for it right now. totally slacked on the "9 months old" blog. soon, i swear. also so much to tell about this past weekend! sleepover, work, visits, sick baby. its all to much right now, i didnt work today and i swear that made me more beat than if i had.
one thing i would like to note though. there is a little girl at belas day care that calls me "belas mom". every time she says it i can feel my heart melting. "hi belas mom!" bye belas mom!" belas mom is here!" i will no longer have a name to other children, i will just be known as belas mom. and i love that. kinda like a super hero. or something.

30 hours without baby

oy. not sure i am gonna make it through! i dropped bela off this morning to stay with my oldest and dearest friend becky for the day. i know she is in good hands!! oma will be picking her up from there at 5. she is sleeping over there tonight because i have to work tomorrow morning. so that means i will not see my bela until about 1:30 tomorrow afternoon! i guess in a way it is good for me (and her), but i will still miss her little face tonight at bedtime!
hopefully in the next few days we will have our very first guest blog here on the sweetest pea!! i think that becky will entertain us with an epic tale (complete with photos) from her day with bela!! can't wait for that!!

sleep is good

i have been having a hard time sleeping lately, well since i was pregnant really. the last 2 nights bela has slept through the night. i started taking melatonin to help me sleep. last night was the second night in about 16 months that i have slept straight through the night. well almost straight through. i woke up at about 3am from a disturbing, yet reoccurring dream. most nights, if i woke up for any reason, i would then stay awake for at least an hour, unable to fall back to sleep. the last two nights i slept like a champ. wonderful, i hope it lasts!

more firsts

we were in cinci over the weekend. such a good time! i really wish my sister lived closer and i could see her every day!! but i guess it makes it more special now when i do get to see her. or something like that.
summer is almost over and bela started out not wanting anything to do with water, other than the bathtub. we spend a week in south carolina and she freaked whenever i got her too close to the ocean or the kiddie pool. well, this weekend in cinci she took on the big bad baby pool. she loved it! she was crawling around and splashing like an old pro! i am just glad that she finally likes the water, but i wish it could have happened earlier. oh well.
also this weekend bela got her first booboo. not the first time she took a tumble or a fall, but the first mark or proof. no this is not a good thing, but at this point in the game i gotta take all the firsts i can, they are dwindling!

surprise!

bela woke up this morning at 5:45 to eat, i heard her talking to herself so i gave her a minute. when she started screeching i went in. i walked in and thought my tired eyes were playing tricks on me. there she was standing up with both hand on the crib rail, just like she had been doing it for years. she looked at my and started giggling. i picked her up and squeezed her for her newest milestone. although, once again, it was new for me, but i heard about it from mama chris yesterday when she did it for the first time there. i just ignored that though, had to see it with my own eyes!!

holding

so bela is still sleeping through the night. or at least her version of it. she is still waking up around 5ish and eating, but falling back asleep until closer to 7. i am hoping that this is the end of the middle of the night feedings!
why is it that other babies go to bed at like 9 and sleep until 9? why does my girl go to bed so early? it works out though, if she slept any later in the morning i would have to wake her up to get out of the house on time. although, is there any way i can train her to sleep later strictly on the weekends? ha, wishful thinking.

we are going to cincinnati this weekend with brittany to see heather, paul and the girls! can't wait. also brittany gets to see the new house for the first time and the chicken next door!

good good

so i had a great weekend! friday night out with the girls(and guy) was lots of fun! spent saturday and sunday at my folks with the baby. all in all no details necessary, just good good. also too tired and too early right now. pictures are better than words.

go mama go!

i am going out tonight! when is the last time i went out with the girls.. geez.. can't even remember! anyhow it should be a good time, dinner and drinks on the patio. very nice. bela will be at home tucked into her crib with daddy. i will try to not call to check on her too many times!

i know i am lucky...

i have a good baby and a good husband, i have a job, a car, an education and a good head on my shoulders. some are not so lucky. i encounter many people like this on a daily basis and for anyone who really knows me, you know this is the toughest part of my job. sure i am a cynical and sarcastic girl most of the time, quick to judge and point finger, but honestly i have the biggest, most sympathetic heart in the world. it hurts me to see people doing so poorly and living such hard lives. if you think that this is unlike me to say these thing, well then you dont know me at all.
the hardest thing for me to deal with is teen moms. sure there are plenty of women who get pregnant too early and end up in great situation and ahead of the game. in the demographics that i deal with, this is rarely the case.
very early in my pregnancy i encountered a girl who had just found out she was pregnant, she was 17, on probation and in a bad relationship. i remember calling my mom that day on the way home from work totally distraught. the first thing my mom asked me was, i bet you wanted to take her home with you. and i did. i just wanted to take care of her, tell her what to eat, how much to sleep and to take it easy. i wanted to take her out of the life she knew and put her into my own. of course we all know this wasnt possible, but it killed to me see this girl, that i had gotten to know so well, in such a bad situation. in the end this girl had an abortion. not because she wanted to, but because her no good boyfriend would have left her if she didnt.
two days ago there was another young girl here with her 7 month old baby. she seemed frantic and bewildered. i was talking to her about her baby, relating my experiences about bela with her. this little boy was just about the cutest little guy i had ever seen. very alert and smiley, but he didnt make a peep. you cant keep my little bean quiet, she is just like her mama. also this little boy, at 7 months, could barely hold up his own head. it made me wonder, could this type of delay be attributed to lack of parenting skills, or could be just be behind? i know all babies are different and hit their milestones at different time, i know this, but this seemed to be something else. i just sat at my desk watching the two of them together. i made me feel so bad. this girl of 16, i am sure she didnt plan this, i am sure she never thought it would happen to her, but there she was alone, unsure and with a baby. i wanted to just sit with her and tell her all i knew, all i had learned. i wanted to help her, but what could i do?
so all in all, i still feel like shit. i feel bad every time a teen girl comes in pregnant or with a baby. maybe this is too judgmental of me, maybe i shouldnt assume that they are unhappy or unprepared, but in my experience, 9 time out of 10 that is the case. i could go on and on with stories like this, but i am not sure my heart can take retelling them.
i just want to say thank you everyone in my "support system", i love you all and i couldnt do this without you.

bad mama!?

yeah whatever, she loves it. plus how am i going to be able to eat ice cream without sharing it with my little bean?

still going...

so we are still on this waking up between 5:00-6:00, eating a bottle, back to sleep until 7ish thing. i am for sure not complaining. i am gonna say this is pretty darn close to sleeping through the night.
during a recent conversation with mama chris, i found out that bela holds her own bottle most of the time when she is there. she never holds her own bottle for me and i have been trying for some time now. i almost didnt believe it until i saw it with my own eyes. i walked in to pick bela up on thursday and there she was just chillin with her bottle. she looked up at me as if she was caught red handed. she just kept on drinking and then paused, looked up at me and smiled like she had just pulled off the biggest prank of the century.
so since that day i have been trying extra hard to get her to hold the bottle. brett suggested that i tell her that she cant eat unless she does it herself. knowing my little booger that might just work. during our bedtime rocking session on saturday, she pulled the bottle up to her mouth and i just let go, but this only lasted for a few seconds. she stopped eating and looked at me as if i just wasnt doing my part.
so after a long weekend of struggling, she started to come around.
brittany and i had spent all day sunday running errands and the peanut was pooped. as i was putting her into the carseat after the last stop, i thought i should give her a bottle to make the car ride home a little better. as i went to put the bottle in her mouth, she grabbed it from me as if she had been doing this all along. i jump in the front and started driving. she did a pretty good job of feeding herself, but brittany had to help her out a bit.
so we are still struggling with this, at bedtime last night we took turns holding the bottle. i know this is not a big deal, but it is a milestone of sorts. i know she can do it, i saw it with my own eyes, its just that having mama do it is so much better.

almost

bela woke up this morning at 5:30. i woke up to her sweet little voice talking to herself. i knew that this early in the morning i had 3 choices. 1) let her continue talking to herself until she decides she is ready to get out of the crib 2) get her up now 3) feed her and pray that she goes back to sleep. i opted for number 3. i fed her and she went right back to sleep until 7:30. perfect. so i am not sure if this counts as sleeping through the night or not. i am going to say yes and carry on with this three day streak.

deep breaths

i am still keeping my fingers (and toes) crossed, but bela slept through the night again last night!!

good sleeper=good eater

so bela slept through the night last night. i am trying not to get excited because this might just be a fluke. it has happened before. of course i still didnt sleep through the night because it was hot as balls in my bedroom. is it bad that i just said balls on my babys blog? eh, its true so whatever. anyhow when she woke up this morning she was like a little pirana, she wanted to eat everything! pirana? okay maybe not. anyhow. normally in the morning she just has a bottle and then has breakfast when she gets to daycare. this morning she was not about waiting. she gobbled down a whole 8 oz bottle and also ate her yobaby and a ton of banana fruit puffs. i guess sleeping for 12 hours takes a lot out of a girl!

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!

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!

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.

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...

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.

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.

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!

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...

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.

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.

almost

we leave for vacation tomorrow! the plan is to get on the road around 4pm. we are hoping that after a few hours on the road the babies will then fall asleep for the night. in a perfect world. then we can get in at least half of the driving that night. we plan on stopping at about midnight to sleep for the night. i will let you know how this plan based wholly on wishful thinking turns out!!

on another bad mom note, bela tasted ice cream the other day. holy buckets, she loved it! she just sat there with her little tongue out eyeing the cone! then she looked at brittany as if thinking, why you gotta hold out on your girl? it was funny. maybe i am a bad mom, but its not like she ate a whole pint of ben and jerrys.

can't deny it

rain rain go away

brittany and i took bela for a walk on sunday. at one point there was a sprinkler in our path. i figured i would just go through it, what harm could a couple of water sprinkles do? whoa. bela screamed like it was her job! so about a half hour later when a monsoon like rain storm came out of nowhere, bela was less than pleased. you would have thought this girl was in tremendous pain, she was crying out like a banshee! by the time we got home, after 3 blocks of rain, we all looked like drowned rats. bela was not a happy camper.

lazy days

not much going on with us this weekend. bela spent the night at oma and grandpas on friday night. she got to go to her first wedding on saturday afternoon with oma and aunt dee.
yesterday we hung out with michelle and the kids at the art fest on our street. it was so super hot. gross.
today is sunday and our only plans are an ice cream date with brittany. and a walk.
check out my bela, she is one tough cookie! she looks so mad, but was actually just tired.

jumper

she loves it, she is a jumping fool.

turtle

belas new thing is rolling over onto her belly. she has been able to do it for quite a while now, but she finally has it down. she doesnt just flop over, she has control over the speed and whatnot. well in the past week, this has caused bedtime complications.
last night after only 2 hours of sleep she woke up crying. i went upstairs and she looked up at me, on her belly, as if she didnt know how she got that way or why i wasnt helping her. i flipped her over onto her back and she passed back out.
about 2 more hours passed and she was yelping again. this time i went up and she was on her belly, but still fast asleep. i flipped her over and she didnt even stir.
hopefully soon she will become a stomach sleeper and we can all get a bit more sleep.

re: date night

we had a wonderful anniversary dinner, we just went to longhorn, nothing fancy, but close to home and to target!
bela was great for brittany. she passed out cold in her arms before she bedtime bottle. so for the rest of the night i kept waiting for her to wake up starving. this didnt happen until 11. not bad.
we will for sure have to do more date nights! i know brittany would love to babysit!

date night

brett and i are going out on a date tonight! i cant even remember the last time that we went out without our little bela! june 7th was our four year anniversary, gotta celebrate! brittany is babysitting tonight, which will include feeding, putting on jimjams and putting to bed. this will be the first non family member to put her to bed. i am sure she will be fine, she has been great at bed time lately. of course brittany will be fine, i have no worries when she is around.
last night i put her to bed and went to the grocery store at 7:30. brett was home of course, he said she didnt finally go to bed until 8:15. i blame the nap until 5pm at omas house. but she slept until almost 7 this morning so i am not complaining!
back to the date. no idea where we will go to dinner. i will for sure update on this tomorrow! all i know is that wherever we go, i am having a drink! crazy mommy out on the town!

friday night

so last night i was at my folks house still. they went out, i stayed in. bela was such a tired little monkey that she passed out at 6. i made myself some dinner and then took a bath. brittany called and decided to come out to hang with me for a bit. so nice! we made a tshirt for a friends baby. then we made a really cute tshirt for bela with daddys band on it! pics to come soon!
staying at my parents until sunday afternoon. kinda like being on vacation, my mom takes good care of us!
speaking of vacation, we will be leaving for SC in less than 2 weeks!

new shoes!

uncle brent and aunt michelle got bela some new cool kicks! she had a great time with them at her sleepover sunday night. they took her to see her new baby cousin and to the mall to get shoes. she is so spoiled!
today bela is spending the day with my friend michelle. when i dropper her off this morning she was very excited because michelles kids were there to play with her. she loves kids.

babyless

bela had a sleepover last night at bretts brother and his wifes house. i went out last night for wings and drinks, i felt so irresponsible, but had a great time! can't wait to see my girl after work though!
mama chris is on vacation and so bela is gonna be passed around a bit. brett is keeping her all day tomorrow though so that will be nice.
in other weekend news, we went to the zoo on saturday! it was a lot of fun and bela seemed to enjoy the animals, although she more enjoyed looking at all the kids!