Tori's new fascination

We have one of those barnyard magnets on the fridge for Tori. You know, the kind where you match up the front and back of the animals and farmer Bob plays his banjo. We also have her bumbo on the kitchen floor for when she used to sit in it while I gathered her bag for daycare in the morning. Well, this is what we witnessed on Christmas morning. She pulled off all the animals, one by one, and dropped them in her bumbo. She was so proud!


She does this more and more often now. We have the Playskool ball popper. While it's on, she pulls them all off and puts them on the floor next to her. Once they aren't coming out anymore, she puts them all back in through the chute they came out of. Same thing with her box of blocks. It absolutely fascinates me to watch it.

Tori's first Christmas

Christmas season started with pictures with Santa! As my sister and Shawna and we were getting out of the car at the mall, some random told us not to bother. Santa's elves were having computer problems, so the line was forever long. We agreed to eat lunch first then go check it out. We got to Santa while he was at break, but decided we'd wait it out. Yay, he came back! First kid goes...computer stops working again! But this time it was fixed much quicker. But by now, Tori's getting tired, so any chances of a smile were shot. Still a cute picture.

Later, I was wrapping presents while Min was out one day. Tori decided to help me. She's not so great with the tape yet...

On Christmas Eve, we went to church. We switched out the usual midnight mass for the 6:30 mass. After that, we went to dinner at Bash with Min's family. After such an exciting night, we had a sleepy baby on the way home.

Yay! Christmas morning. She didn't do as good with even the wrapping paper as I would have thought. But she still really loved all of her gifts. She was interested for literally a second, then decided it was too much work. But here are a couple of Christmas morning pictures.

These were her gifts from us.

We went to my sister's for breakfast. Shawna got a Zhu Zhu pet that Tori did NOT like. :( It came towards her. She pushed it away with 2 hands, screamed, and ran to Min. She kinda dug Tim's new socks, though! She got a Little People dump truck and SUV and a play phone from Aunt Denise and Uncle Tim.

Then off to mom and dad's for Christmas dinner. And more presents!!! She hasn't figured this out completely yet, but she got a cool walker toy. As well as some fun blocks and a xylophone.

We had a great turkey and ham dinner. Tons of desserts. Of course, Tori ate anything and everythign we put in front of her. Except for the second bite of watermelon. She spit that one back out at me. I guess she didn't like it so much...

All in all, Christmas was great!

10 Month Checkup

Has it been 2 months already?!?

height - 28 1/4 (53%)
weight - 17 lb, 13 oz (19%)

milestones - pulls herself up to standing and has started letting go; speaks a number of syllables non-stop; eating almost everything we give her and drinking water and a mix of grape juice and water from sippy cup; 2 bottom teeth and 4 top teeth; and loves investigating her hands and wrists and using them to wave and pull her fingers on either hand (her idea of the "more" sign, I think); mimics us with kissing, sticking out her tongue, and playing hide and seek with a shirt or blanket herself; eczema is showing improvement!!!

problems - still dry skin, but face is getting better

The appt went great. I think it's weird that her growth slowed down so much. She only grew 1/4 of an inch from last time, which explains why she's been in the same onesies for what seems like forever! But the Dr. didn't seem concerned, so I'm not concerned.

Our living room floor will temprorily be less cluttered as we decided to put away the Exersaucer, the play mat/gym thingy, and the swing. I'm sure something bigger will take it's place soon, but it will be nice to have some free space again!

Standing tall!

Ok, so she doesnt' necessarily KNOW she's standing. But she's standing. She'll start playing wiht whatever is in her hands and just let go of the sofa. She's doing it more and more. It's so fun! I'm hoping Santa brings her one of those push toys for Christmas. I'm excited for the activity table thing we got her. Maybe she'll be able to walk around it!

On a completely unrelated note, when did you guys start putting tv on for your kids. She's 10 months, and I've put cartoons on the tv for her almost never. It's not really a conscious choice...I just am not ready to give up our tv. :) So needless to say, she's watched a lot of Law and Order and Food Network. She's seen the Baby Bach dvd a total of 5 times.

And her first Thanksgiving was awesome! She ate turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes. :) It was so fun feeding her all that food!

Tori update...it's been awhile

We finally tried teaching Tori sign language this weekend. We'd show her how to make the more sign between every bite. She hates us! Hahah! We tried it every meal on Saturday and breakfast on Sunday. She would get so upset when we would make her do it. She basically cried between every bite. So we threw in the towel. Next weekend is another weekend.

On a similar eating note, eating is so much fun with her now! We give her everything! She had pancakes with us for breakfast this morning. She had edamame at the sushi place. What's funny though, is that she LOVED all those super sweet medicines and pedialyte when she was sick (as in, she would open her mouth like a bird when she saw the medicine syringe thingy), but she won't drink juice to save her life. No apple juice. No grape juice. Even watered down. So we're back to just water again.

We had to go to the doctor this week again for her diaper rash. After 2 weeks since we went in last, the ointment they gave us was doing nothing. We're now on an "air drying, baby powder, and different ointment" regimen. It seems to be getting better. We'll see how it goes when she goes back to daycare tomorrow.

This doctor was also concerned about her eczema. Of course we saw him the day we got the "cold front" so it was redder than usual. Regardless, he gave us a whole new set of instructions. Sigh...I really hope she outgrows this soon. Btw, oatmeal baths are NOT good for eczema, so don't ever let anyone tell you different! :)

We also got to put her on the scale (which I always love doing!). She's 17 lbs, 7 oz. Over a pound more than she was a month ago. She's getting so big to me. But the crazy thing is, she still fits in her 3-6 month pants. Yep, my 9 month old wore 3-6 month pants today and they're almost too big for her. I just don't understand those sizes...

Can this blog get anymore random? Ha! Good night!

Sign language

I know some of you have used it. I think we are going to do it. We've started a little bit but haven't been consistent. We need to work on that. Any thoughts or tips?

Also, did anyone send their kids to daycare while teaching sign language? I wonder if they would participate, too...

Flu Shot

Tori got her flu shot today. Seriously, I think she did better than I would. Not a tear. Not a frown or whine. Not even a flinch. It was like nothing happened. That's my big girl. :)

Scratching

As if Tori doesn't have enough skin problems. Lately, she's been reaching down and scratching and pulling at herself when we change her diaper. It's a real hassle when her diaper is dirty! I can't seem to find much online about it. The dr. checked her for any sort of infection (yeast or otherwise) and didn't see anything that led him to believe there was anything wrong. But it is getting out of control! We put A&D on her and we put Aquaphor on her legs around her diaper. We have to try to keep her attention on something else other than her diaper change, which is not always possible. Did anyone go through this and do you have any suggestions?

8 Month Checkup

It's been awhile, so here we go!

height - 28 (85%)
weight - 16 lb, 3 oz (20%)
milestones - crawls; pulls herself up to standing; speaks a number of syllables; eating finger foods and working on a sippy cup; 2 bottom teeth in and 2 top teeth breaking through; and this morning, she waved good-bye to Min (so freaking cute!!)
problems - surprise...eczema!

They took blood from her foot, which she handled like a champ! She didn't even flinch! We go back in 2 weeks to get a flu shot though. The Dr. said she wasn't recovered enough from her cold yet.

Baptism

Some of you may have known that we were taking Tori to Key West to get her baptized. The priest that used to be at the church in Plantation moved to Key West. He's a really great guy and pretty laid back, so I knew he'd be perfect for us. And in Key West?!!? It wasn't a hard decision. Unfortunately, I could tell when she woke up on Friday to drive down south, that Tori wasn't feeling well. Her temperature crept up all day long. So we went out to Duval to catch Mallory Square then some dinner. Mind you with my entire family. Getting 7 adults to agree on a plan and then to execute can be so painful. So it was pretty late when we left. (Side note: so we're waiting for the shuttle at the hotel. We get there 10 minutes before it leaves and find a bench to all sit on. 18 people get there after us, and what do they do? You guessed it, they get on the shuttle first, so we have to wait for the next one! Jerks.)

Mallory Square was fun. Shawna got to see the robot/statue guys. We saw some tumblers and went to dinner. We rushed back to catch the shuttle back to the hotel that comes once an hour and I watched it drive away. :( Needless to say, I was not in a good mood at that point. We found a Walgreens to at least get Tori some Tylenol and all decided 2 taxis were well worth our money. Saturday morning wasn't much better. So my poor baby went to a non-air conditioned church in a hot white dress to get some water dripped on her head. As miserable as she was, the baptism was really nice. Father Baker LOVES my sister's family and is super great with kids. He made it very laid back and we ended up hanging around for maybe a half an hour afterwards. Here are a few pictures. The church has so much history and is absolutely beautiful! (The pictures are backwards...I'm not very good at this)

http://www.keywestcatholicparish.org/history.htm

So the rest of the weekend in Key West primarily consisted of Min and I staying in our (awesome!) hotel room watching football while everyone else played at the pool, took a glass bottom boat sunset tour, and had dinner. They did bring us back dinner from the hotel which was really good. On Sunday, the rest of the family went to brunch and Min and I (very much against his will) went to the southern-most point to take a picture and went home.

That night, Tori's fever got up to 104! I called the dr's office for the third time that weekend and since this was more urgent, finally talked to a doctor who made me feel a little bit better. I took her in on Monday and got her an antibiotic (slight/beginnings of an ear infection) and instructions for a Tylenol/Motrin alternating schedule. Good thing I can work from home because on Sunday, Min got sick too! What a disaster! So Monday thru Wednesday, I'm at home working on the sofa with both of them sleeping upstairs. I wanted to be sleeping upstairs!

Finally, though, I think everyone is better. Tori should be going back to daycare tomorrow. Min should be going back to work. I missed a work trip to Orlando for the Our & Equal Summit, but all is well. I really had plenty of work to do that I really shouldn't have gone anyway. Now I really need a vacation!

Oh! I almost forgot, her top 2 teeth are coming in during all of thi, too! My poor baby.

Trip to Jungle Island.

I went to Jungle Island (fka Monkey Jungle) with Tori, mom, my sister and Shawna, my aunt, 2 cousins, and my cousin's 2 year old son. Who knew that 3 hours at the "zoo" would be so exhausting?!?! They shut down the bird show early and ushered us under cover due to a tornado watch in the area. It seemed like the perfect time to eat, so we took advantage. We did catch the tiger show, though, which was great. Tori is just WAY too young to enjoy any of this. She had zero interest in anything...monkeys, the petting zoo, birds, tigers, nothing. (And as a side note, Jungle Island is probably not worth the $30 for adults, $24 for children that they charge to get in, plus $7 for parking.)

We did get some quality time with my cousins and aunt, though, so all was worth it. And the good news is, since Min didn't want to go, he's in charge of Tori tonight. I'm so playing that card!

Here are a few pictures from today. Strangely, not a single picture has Tori in it.

Dry skin doctor visit

I took Tori to the doctor today. Her poor dry skin was getting worse. It's all over her legs, abdomin, and even armpits now, and she is scratching everywhere (which appears to be very difficult when you aren't so good with your hands yet). The doctor is afraid it might be an allergy. He gave me Dermasmoothe to put on, so we'll see how that goes tonight. It is oil- and cortisone-based, but at least it smells pretty. As soon as we run out of regular formula, though, we have to switch to soy. He said it could be a milk allergy. I really hope it isn't. I feel like that might be an annoying allergy.

Anyway, back to the point of this blog. I asked about the Crisco, and he said it works. Another doctor in the practice often recommends it. But this prescription he gave me should do the same thing...it is peanut oil (among other familiar oils) based. So my friend wasn't crazy after all!

But before we got to use it tonight, she scratched her arm so much, she started bleeding. :( I really hope this helps.

Dry skin

Ok, so has anyone heard of this before? My friend's baby had very sensitive, very dry skin like Tori. Her mom suggested she do this. She asked her pediatrician and she agreed it was a good idea. My friend swore it worked after a week and it got better after that. So I'm dying to know if anyone else has experience with this.

After baby gets out of the bath, still wet, dip a washcloth in a can of Crisco and rub it on baby's arms and legs. Dress them in long sleeves and pants and put baby to bed. I asked if she would smell like a french fry and she promised me that she wouldn't.

It sounds gross. But is it one of those old wives tales that works??

Chapter 4.5 - Crawling for real!

Tori finally got her big belly off the ground and is crawling. It is so cute because every now and then you see a random appendage just fly up into the air. :) She's not so great with control yet, but we're getting there. Video is on facebook.

My little monkey

I can't believe I forgot to post about this! A couple of weeks ago, Min put Tori in the crib after he changed her to go wash his hands. When he came back in, there were 2 little hands and a full head peering over the edge! So we dropped the crib down one level that night. No joke, the next day, the same thing happened again! She figured out how to use the bumpers to climb up so she could see where we went when we left the room. So the bumpers came out (and her crib looks naked). Well, here we are a week or 2 later, and this is what transpired last night.

You will notice she is only on her knees. I'm sure it is only a matter of time before she is all the way up, and we'll have to go down one more level. The sad part is, I have a hard time reaching it on the lowest level! Hahah! Looks like Min will have to be the one to put her in the crib when she's already sleeping. ;)

Splish splash

Some of you may remember from Hive that Tori was not overly fond of pool time. She didn't hate it, but she didn't love it. Well, we took her in this weekend, and she LOVED it! She managed to go in circles in her floaty. She had her legs kicking the entire time she was in the water. And the splashing didn't bother her at all. See the picture below...she did all of that herself!

Carseat Transition

We got Tori's new convertible car seat. We decided to go with The First Years True Fit. It has a removable head rest that makes it shorter while still rear facing in order to fit in a compact car more comfortably. And since both of our back seats are miniscule, this was a huge bonus. (yes, even the Durango...if you have a third row, you apparently lose second row space...who knew?!?) So here's my question now, she is about to outgrow her carrier and we want to switch her over, but losing the carrier means she has to sit in a shopping cart. Although she can sit pretty well, she's not perfect yet and I'm afraid she will fall sideways. Does this mean she just has to stay in the carrier carseat until she can sit in a shopping cart better?

Also, while on the subject of shopping carts, what do you guys think of the shopping cart floppy cover thingys? I looked at one because I thought it would be fun for her to entertain herself while we wander around a store, but is it annoying to have somethign else to carry around?

6 month checkup

height - 26 1/4 (75%)
weight - 15 lb, 4 oz (30%)
milestones - can sit up for a little while before toppling over; army crawls just about everywhere; pulls herself up in the crib to peer over the edge when we leave; makes all kinds of sounds; eating like a champ! cereal and fruits and veggies (still with 6-7 oz. bottles between "meals"); 2 bottom teeth
problems - surprise...eczema! We finally got a prescription to help the spots on her face.

Lots of shots today. She did NOT like them. :( But now she is done for 2 more months.

6 month birthday

Tori is 6 months today. That means that Min and I have laughed (or at least smiled) every day for 6 months straight. :) She's growing up too fast, but I love every moment of it.

Carseat AND STROLLER suggestions

I asked a week ago or so about convertible carseats and totally forgot to ask about strollers. For those of you that did not use a travel system, do you have any lightweight stroller suggestions? Same for any convertible carseat suggestions.

Chapter 5.5 - Feeding Help

I mentioned before that we started feeding Tori solid food. She now eats rice cereal, veggies, and fruits. Every 3 days, she gets something new and luckily, she hasn't disliked anything yet. Although, I am dreading the chicken in chicken broth. Yuck! Here's my situation though, how do you know how much to give her? Everything I read says, start with this amount and increase it. Great. When do I increase it? How much? When does food alone become a meal vs. a little bit of food with just a bottle?

Here is her current schedule:
7am - 6 oz. bottle
10am - 5 oz. bottle
1pm - 5 oz. bottle, some rice cereal, 1/3 of a small jar of baby food
4pm - 5 oz. bottle
6:30pm - some rice cereal, 1/3 small jar of baby food, a bottle (she never eats the full 5 oz here)
9pm - 5 oz. bottle

Should I replace her 1pm feeding with an entire jar of baby food? And the rice cereal...it seems to be just filler although I know it is fortified. Should she get it with every meal still?

It's too much!!

Chapter 7.5 - Actual teeth!

About a week and a half ago, we were at a baby shower and my mom was letting Tori suck on a piece of ice. She bit down and her gums started bleeding. Lo and behold, the next day, there was her little tooth sticking out. Now here we are 11 days later and I can see another one right below her gums! She's going to have 2 teeth by the end of the week! And as hoped, it has been pretty uneventful. She is slightly more fussy and while the first one was coming through, she required more effort to go to sleep. As in, I would put her down with her eyes closed and as soon as I stepped away from the crib, she was crying. This would go on for about an hour every night for a week. But so far, this one doesn't seem to be having the same effect. She's such a trooper!

Carseat suggestions

I am writing to solicit your opinions. As I watch her little feet creep closer and closer to the edge of her infant carrier, I am beginning to think of Tori's next carseat. Can you give me your experiences and opinions on the convertible carseat that you used (or that friends may have used)? I know I have some time still and am not buying anytime soon but would like to keep my eye out for some good sales.

Chapter 7 - Teething

I think the time has come. She's been drooling like a mad woman on and off since 2 months. I think we finally see the edge of a tooth coming through. Pray for me that we get through this ok! So far it doesn't bother her, although she really digs the frozen teething rings or sucking on an ice cube. Hopefully this milestone will be uneventful.

Chapter 6 - First "Word"

Ok, she's said it enough. I'm calling it. Her first word is "dada." She loves saying it over and over again. I know she doesn't know what it means, but that won't come for awhile. So does that really count as her first word?

We are trying to change dada to daddy. I have faith she can do it. :) Sadly, mama is still a ways away.

Chapter 5 - Feeding

This weekend was the big 5 months! Since the doctor gave us the ok, we made our first attempt at rice cereal. I have to say, it went better than I thought and was mildly uneventful. Of course, a lot of it came out of her mouth. There's a video on FB. Today is four days later, and I think a mouthful actually stayed in her mouth! :) Hopefully if we add some fruit or something to it this weekend, she will eat a bit more. Her faces are freaking awesome, though!

5 month checkup

height - 26 (85%)
weight - 13 lb, 5 oz (20%)
milestones - can sit up with support (sat at the Dr's office without support for about 5 seconds), sort of crawls (see the video on FB), imitates sounds we make, very soon to be off the boob (we're down to nights and mornings only)
problems - of coures, eczema

We got the go ahead to try cereal. Yay! I just put the high chair together. It is way too big. She looks ridiculous in it! And of course super cute. We'll try to feed her tonight in the bumbo with the tray. Pictures to come of course!

Otherwise, doctor is pleased with her development (socially, behaviorially, physically, etc.). She got her polio shot and we (with the help of the nurse) were able to distract her so that it really wasn't that big of a deal. She cried for like a second. I hope we get that nurse every time. :)

(I apparently use a lot of parenthesis)

Sick baby

Tori has a stinking cold. I think her little body fought it off as long as she could, but between daycare, Hive, and us being sick, she had no hope. Other than Hive, last night was the first time she's woken up in the middle of the night in a loooong time. She started coughing yesterday and had a stuffy (and a little bit runny) nose.

Doctor says it's just a cold...for now. Basically, I went in too early. He said it could very well develop into something more. He even said that babies with eczema and sensitive skin are also more susceptible to colds and infections. And, of course, that would describe my baby. Weird. But he also said since she's still breastfed, that might counter-balance that. So we'll see.

Hope she gets better and not too much worse!

Pool time!

I forgot to talk about Tori's first time in the pool at Hive. We took her in her cute little floaty with the canopy to keep her out of the sun. I don't think that she loved it as much as she loves the bathtub, but she didn't hate it either. She did not really like the splashing of the 1200 other people in the pool at all (Jason!). By "not really like" I mean taht she hated it! But the whole experience made for awesome nap time afterwards...where she proceeded to pee on me in her sleep because swimmy diapers do nothing to hold pee! Oh well, what are you gonna do? :)

Now that I'm thinking about this, maybe I'll take her to the pool this weekend. Yay swim time!

Chapter 4 - Crawling

At Hive this weekend, Tori made a very forward movement that we fondly like to call crawling. :) The first incident was about 6 inches to reach a towel on the floor. Of course it would figure that even though there were over 20 people in the house, not a soul was around except for me and Min. I got a video, but it's not that good. Luckily, though, we showed everyone later that day and she moved about 3 feet to reach a book that she just had to put in her mouth (because that's what you do with books, right?).

So now I guess I have to start vacuuming my house more and begin the baby proofing process. It's on!

4 month checkup

We went to the doctor last week and I totally forgot to post this!

height - 25 1/2 (90%)
weight - 12 lb, 14 oz (35%)
milestones - rolls from front to back, can grab toys and bring them to her mouth, can sit up with support
sleeps - 8-10 hours (starting to wake up at 7 on weekdays, but i can usually get her back to sleep on weekends)
problems - eczema, mild cradle cap, not loving formula

The doctor said that she is very strong for her age. He is always surprised at how much upper body strength she has and that he was able to pull her all the way up to her feet even at 2 months. I asked about solid foods, though, and he advised waiting until 5 or 6 months saying that there is really no rush. Since breastfeeding is all but free and we have a full supply of formula, I'm ok with waiting. :)

He said her drop in weight percentile (she had been 50%) is not a concern.

I should have asked about the pool, but I forgot. He told my neighbor no pool until about 6 months :( because they can't hold their heads up and support themselves very well yet. But see above about her strength. I should have asked...I want to take her swimming!!!!

Then she got those awful shots. :( I hate the months where she gets 3 shots AND an oral dose. We have quite the screamer! But she usually gets a good nap in afterwards, so all is well.

Daycare update

She is doing great now! She eats. She smiles. She only cries when a normal baby should cry. And I'm starting to actually get some work, so the days go by faster, and next thing I know, I'm home! (Although, I'd still rather be home with my baby girl.)

Back? Belly?

I realized tonight that they do a fabulous job of putting the fear of god into you when it comes to SIDS. I put Tori to bed tonight on her back like I always do, but in the midst of her putting herself to sleep, she rolled onto her belly. Now here's my dilemna...do I leave her or flip her?

There's that voice in my head (my mother and every other one of our mothers) saying that we were all put to sleep on our bellies and lived to tell about it. And I've watched her nap on her belly or roll over in the morning before I get her out of bed. But, although I know she can, I have never seen her roll onto her back. So I sit there and stare at the monitor for a few minutes, and now all I'm thinking about is what if I make a horrible mistake and pay the worst consequence (damn those nurses in childcare class and the books I read are good!). Yes, I went in and flipped her.

How long is the risk of SIDS really a risk? Would she have figured out how to get onto her back or would I have been woken up at 3am to a very upset baby?

Btw, she barely flinched when I rolled her over, so no harm, no foul. :)

Daycare week 1 complete.

She drank an entire bottle today!!!! Yay!!

Now let's see how she does next week being there full time. Good news is that a lot of the kids in her class are children of teachers, so they won't be there this summer. That means my baby girl gets more attention!

Daycare day 2

Daycare day 1 did not go so hot. Tori cried the 3 hours she was there until she fell asleep. Only ate half an ounce from her bottle. And was all in all not a happy camper.

I'm not sure today went much better. First of all, let's talk about me first. :) I was fine when I dropped her off. Much better than yesterday. When I got there, they had the babies out in the little buggy so I put Tori in there and never saw her again. When I left, she was happy. But apparently that didn't last long. I called to check in like an hour or 2 later and they said she was crying and still not taking her bottle. So I gave them some tips that work for us (because she still is not a huge fan of formula), and by the time my mom picked her up, she had eaten 2 ounces. So as my sister said when she asked if today went better, the answer really is, yes, today was better than yesterday. But still not good. Tomorrow is another day. :)

Daycare tomorrow!!!

Tomorrow is the first day I drop Tori off at daycare. Right now, I'm kind of ok about it. I went on Thursday and put her little sheet in her crib and dropped off her supplies. I had to go out of town last minute on Friday, though, so I did not get to get the pictures printed to put in her crib. That's a job for tonight. I'm going to drop her off and mommy will pick her up after a couple of hours. Wish me strength!!

On a side note, I had to take a day trip to Tampa on Friday from some required training. I either took this one or waited for the next one, which was in Atlanta, and would have required an overnight stay. So, I took a 7am flight over and was scheduled to return on a 7pm flight. I have to say, my experience with TSA travelling with breastmilk could not have gone better. I had so much anxiety over it because there was no way I could go from 5am until I returned at 8pm without pumping. So I packed all my gear and was able to pump in our Tampa office twice during the training. On the way back, I had about 5-6 ounces of milk. I told someone before I put my stuff on the conveyer belt, but no one reviewing the x-ray screen even questioned me. It was crazy that no one cared! So much anxiety for nothing! So if any of you foresee this in your future, don't be nervous. Piece of cake!

Chapter 4 - Becoming mobile

Day 2 back at work and Tori figures out how to roll over. My mom put her on her back and she rolled from back to front and continued from front to back! I have yet to see the second half of the complete roll, but regardless, it is super cute. My mom said she did it all day long!



I'm kind of upset I wasn't there to see it, but not as upset as I thought I'd be. She didn't call me to tell me. She told Min when he picked her up. I might have been more upset if I was sitting at work thinking about it all day. It is what it is. :)



See the video of my breakdancing baby on facebook.

Chapter 3 - Returning to work

I'm at work. It sucks. This was only the second morning I have ever woken up Tori from her deep sleep. There was so much to do to get her ready and myself. Then to come to work and figure out what's been going on for the past 4 months. Laaaaaammmmmmmmme!

Good news is, I didn't really cry. She's at my mom's house, so it's not like I'm leaving her with strangers yet. Bad news is, it took me FOREVER to get from my mom's house to work. And of course I got to my mom's house later than I intended since my plan this morning didn't go as I had hoped. I didn't make it in until 9. We'll try again tomorrow with a few revisions to the plan...hahah! Good thing no one cares what I do this week and no one will be looking for me when I leave at 5 anyway. ;)

She's finally good with the formula with minimal fighting. But since I am still nursing her, I will still have to pump at work today. Finally get to put that privacy room we have in our office to use! Go women's lib! Hahah!

Please someone tell me that it's ok that my baby girl spends more waking hours (or close to the same amount) with people at daycare than she does with us. That she will be just fine and that my heartache will stop. Because I have to work.

Success?

I think we have success. After minimal crying, she took 2 oz. of the warm soy Enfamil. Then we switched and gave her 2 oz. of warm plain Enfamil. The funny thing is, she drinks stored breastmilk cold (or at least cool). And we even gave her cold water during an extremely hot outside wedding, and she took it just fine. Maybe it will pass, but for now, warm formula it is! Yay!!!

why is this so hard?!?!

Try to keep up...this one's confusing!

We bought soy Enfamil and tried that. No go. So we tried the soy Similac again (the one we had success with yesterday). No go. So then I thought, let's try to warm it up. Apparently I have a picky baby because she took the warm soy Similac. But she put up a fight over it. By "fight" I mean that she basically took 2 sips and cried her head off until she fell asleep. She was basically asleep and we slipped it in her mouth and she ate. Since I only made 2 ounces, we decided to warm up the soy Enfamil and she took it. Again, it was slipped in while she was sleeping.

Moral of the story...baby will eat warm formula. Make and model of formula still to be determined.

And the saga continues...

Attempts #3 and #4...

FAIL and SUCCESS!!!

We tried tonight to give her another Enfamil bottle. She wasn't interested. She kept making a face and taking the bottle out of her mouth. Then we called our neighbor and "borrowed" a few scoops of Similac soy. I think we have success! Now I just have to figure out if it's the Similac or the soy that she likes. So now it's off to Target to buy a variety to figure out what works!

Attempt #2...

FAIL.

We tried tonight before she was too hungry. No luck. So then I thought maybe if I feed her on one side, she won't feel like she's being shafted, and we tried to give her the formula bottle then. Still not interested.

Tomorrow is another day.

Chapter 2 - Formula

Attempt #1....FAIL.

Since I go back to work in one week, we decided it was time to start giving Tori some formula. It is earlier than I wanted to (I wanted to go 4 months), but close enough. I think we waited too long since we had to run that one last errand. By the time we got home, she was SCREAMING for food. Apparently, not the best time to try something new. She wanted none of it, but took my boob with no problem (after about 5 minutes of trying the bottle).

Take 2 will take place in 3 hours. Wish us luck.

PS~I was further rewarded after this attempt with being spit up and promptly followed by the diaper from hell. The kind that can only be resolved with a bath. This better not be her revenge!

Mother's Day Weekend

We had a great Mother's Day weekend. First, we had a dinner date on Friday, and my mom watched Tori. I thought Chima (a brazilian steakhouse) might be worth the money for me while still breastfeeding with my massive appetite, so we went there for Mother's Day and for Min's 30th birthday celebration. I did better, but I probably still did not eat enough to make it worth it.
We left on Saturday to Orlando for a wedding. I was worried she wasn't feeling well on Saturday morning (I think she had a low fever), so I let her sleep before we left while we packed up what felt like our entire house. She woke up looking much better so we left (no fever at all). But then we had a wide awake baby for a 3 hour drive. I spent most of the ride in the backseat trying to entertain her. Saturday night was the rehearsal dinner at Maggiano's. So yummy.
Then on Sunday, we hung out by the pool at the hotel. We stopped by the Mother's Day buffet, but when they told us it was $60/person, we kept walking. It was a really nice Hyatt in Orlando. We tried to take Tori to dip her feet in the pool, but someone came down the slide and splashed her. She kinda flipped out. :) So we went back under our umbrella and hung out until we had to get ready. The wedding was Sunday at 5pm, outside. It was so miserable hot with the sun in our eyes. But seriously, when you have a baby, people bend over backwards for you. They were rearranging umbrellas for us to get her under. Min tried to give her some water, but I don't think she really liked it too much. BUt she was in a little sundress under her carseat canopy, so I think she was fine. We were way hotter than she was.
This was our first Jewish ceremony (other than Mike's psuedo Jewish ceremony). We didn't understand a lot of it. But the food at the reception was AWESOME. My fave course was 2 portabello mushrooms with angel hair pasta and boursin cheese in between them. OMG. Who knew Kosher food could be so good?!?!
Monday morning, we just had brunch and drove home. She was great on the ride home and slept the entire time. Oh yeah, except for when she woke up to eat. :) I love whipping out boob in the backseat of my car at a Turnpike rest area.
All in all, it was great to see the boys (and girl) from the band. Tori was the bell of the whole weekend. They LOVED her! I think there may be just as many pictures of her as of the bride. Little old Jewish women love babies. And our friends kinda dug her too. And she did great in the hotel. Slept fine in her pack n play, did fine at the wedding and the reception...no ridiculous outbursts.
Happy belated Mother's day, ladies!

Sleep has arrived!

I hope I'm not jinxing myself, but Tori slept more than 10 hours the past 2 nights. She wakes up at night, but now that I have a thumb sucker, she gets herself right back to sleep in 10-20 minutes. The sad part, though, is that I really have no excuse to be sleeping in anymore! But I feel tons more rested. The weird thing is, 3 weeks ago, she was sleeping 6-8 hours, 2 weeks ago she was sleeping 3 hours (growth spurt), and last week, 6 hours...she woke up at 5am every day. And now, all of a sudden, 10 hours. Babies are so weird.
We're going out of town this weekend, though. Let's hope that doesn't screw this all up!

Chapter 1.75

Ok, last one for tonight. Just so you all know that she really doesn't hate Min, here is a video showing that Min can make her laugh, too.

Chapter 1.5

Apparently Tori is really not a fan of Min's singing. Her face says it all.

Chapter 1

So, Tori rolled over today. Completely from laying on her back to laying on her stomach. As I watched Min spend 5 minutes coaxing her over but not actually helping her, I was so excited to be able to run to facebook and tell the world that Tori rolled over. Then I thought...who the hell cares?!?! Most of my facebook friends couldn't care less about the goings on of my 3-month old daughter. It was then that I realized the purpose and reason for a blog. So I came up with a catchy name. Catchy name.blogspot was taken, so Min and I put our heads together to come up with the address. (It's a Tori Amos reference, in case you were wondering...it has no bearing on the intelligence of our daughter.)
So here we are. I will try to keep this updated. It will mostly relate to me and Tori. I will also post my parenthood questions here. No more mass emails to all my mom friends. Just blog posts. Wish me luck!

Yay

My first blog post! Yay, more to come...