Sickness

The last couple days, TS hasn't wanted to eat much solid food. I figured it was a phase, probably related to teething, and that it wouldn't last long. Now I'm wondering if her poor tiny tummy has been upset.

Last night, she woke me up at 3am by nursing and then puking voluminously all over herself and me and the bed. She and I got up and I sponged us off and changed our clothes. We moved out to the recliner because I didn't want to lay her back down flat in case she was still "armed". She sort of dozed, but kept waking up.

The dog refused to stay in the bedroom and really wanted to go out into the back yard while we were sitting in the recliner, so I let him out. This proved to be a mistake (foreshadowing).

Finally, I took the baby back into the bedroom and handed her off to her Daddy for the second shift of baby-middle-of-the-night-awake-time. I fell asleep and they headed out into the living room. All was quiet until 5am when I was awakened for the second time by the noise of puking. I cleaned it up and locked the dog in the kitchen in case he was still "armed".

I slept until I heard the baby wake up in the living room, then Mike brought her in to nurse and we got up and went through our normal morning routine. I was tired at work today. And this evening, my stomach is upset. I'm hoping it's just the wine and pizza and that the tiny squee didn't pass some sort of virus on.

The box says it all.

Give that baby a hand!

She's started clapping. I've been trying to get it on video, but it's proving to be very challenging and I wanted to blog about it before it's totally out of date. She's been clapping for about a week now.

She's getting up on her hands and knees and rocking back and forth. Every time she does it, my brain sings "it's the pelvic thrust... really drives you insa-a-a-a-ane".

Stuff she's eaten

This morning, TS tried egg for the first time. Our Baby Led Weaning book says that there's not really a danger of her developing egg allergies since she's over 6 months old and there aren't any allergies to egg in the family.

Egg was a hit. So far, she's had:

• Avocado - this was one of her very first foods, but she doesn't seem to really like it anymore. She didn't touch her piece of avocado this morning.
• Roast squash - she likes squash. It's delicata squash and we left the skin on so it's easier to grab.
• Roast sweet potato - also tasty.
• Roast carrot - I think it blends in with the sweet potato and she's not sure which one she's getting. I roasted all three of these things together, so she's eaten a lot of them.
• Egg - totally a novel eating experience. Mike scrambled her an egg this morning and cooked it so it was kind of firm. We cut strips of egg for her and she ate several.
• Broccoli - I have a bag of frozen broccoli florets. It's handy because I can just microwave her a floret. She likes broccoli. She chews all the flowers off.
• Blackberry - extremely tasty. A big hit.
• Watermelon - ditto. 
• Apple - she likes microwaved apple (I haven't managed to roast one for her yet). She also likes to suck on raw, crunchy apples, but she can't manage to get pieces off yet.
• Asian pear - she tried this, but it wasn't cooked so she couldn't get much of it.
• Oatmeal - I gave her a spoonful of my morning oatmeal a few mornings ago. I cook it with raisins and banana, so it has a little flavor. She wasn't too impressed, but I think it might have been the texture. It was hard for her to grab and get into her mouth. She did enjoy smearing it over the high chair tray and her pants.
• Cucumber - she really seems to like raw cucumber. I cut a roughly 2" piece off the end and then cut it into quarters so she has cucumber sticks. I left the skin on so they are easier to grab ahold of. Somewhere I read that raw cucumber is good when babies are teething because it's cool on their gums and a texture that they like to chew on. She's able to chew off the seeds and make some dents in the firmer portion.
• Artichoke - Mike gave her a leaf and she chewed on it for a while. He says she did a pretty good job. He also gave her a little piece of the heart and she at it.
• Steak - I cut a section for her and she gummed on it for a while. Apparently sucking the juices out is good because they get a lot of the iron from it.
• Tomato - This was one of the first things that we found in her diaper.
• Lentils - she sampled, but didn't eat much.

We often give her a bottle of water with her meals, but so far she hasn't seemed very impressed. She likes to play with the bottle, but she's alway seems disappointed when she sucks on the it and it's not milk. 

We also tried giving her coconut milk when we were travelling back from the Treesort and had run out of milk. The lactation consultant said coconut milk would be a good beverage for her because it contains lots of good fats. We mixed the last of her milk with canned coconut milk. She seemed to like it ok, but she spit up voluminously once we got home. I can't prove that the two events are related, but we haven't tried coconut milk again.

Crawling herself to sleep

I am totally asleep.

Something interesting happened tonight and I wanted to record it to see if it's going to be a one-time odd occurrence or perhaps the start of something wonderful. I started bedtime at about 6:45. I gave her a bath (mostly to wash the smooshed sweet potato off her legs), then we put on the night-time diaper. I zipped her into her Magic Sleep Suit which is usually accompanied by a brief fit of crying as she realizes it's time for sleep and she voices her disinclination for such activity. We read 2.5 stories and then we lay down to nurse to sleep. She nursed and nursed. She finished one Lact-aid bag of milk (about 4 oz), so I added a bit more milk and she sucked that down as well (another 1.5 oz). Then I gave her a bottle of milk I'd pumped at work. That's a large meal for a tiny squee. She finally fell asleep, so I got up and walked the dog and watched her on the video monitor. This is what I saw. She didn't seem upset, so I thought I'd just leave her there and see what happened. I watched her crawl in a large circle around the top of the bed. She kept pausing and I kept thinking "maybe she'll fall asleep like that," then she'd start crawling again. When she made it back to roughly this point, she lay down for 20 seconds or so and I thought she was really out. She perked back up for a few more minutes, but didn't move far. Finally, she lay her head down and has fallen totally asleep. As far as I know, she's never fallen asleep on her own like that before.

Oh the things that you'll eat!

TS has become a pro at eating. She gets excited when we put her in the high chair and will immediately grab whatever is put down for her. She's still working on getting it all into her mouth. However, a big part of baby led weaning is that early eating experiences are about the experience more than the actual eating. She's experiencing the feeling of sweet potato squishing between her fingers, of banging squash on the high chair tray, and of watching the dog eat dropped pieces of carrot. All of those are equally as exciting as eating right now. 

It was a big weekend of eating for her. We visited her Meemoo and her Doodad in Corvallis and I wanted to show off her eating prowess. We microwaved her some apple, carrot, and asian pear at Meemoo's. Apple was a big hit. The carrot was a little chewy and the asian pear was still too crunchy. She had an asparagus stalk at Doodad's and then tried watermelon and blackberries for dessert. 

Mike has given her corn cobs several times now. He says she gets angry when he takes them away.

Trying blackberries and watermelon. She enjoyed both of them immensely.

A definite tooth

The tooth is all the way through. She used it to "eat" a quarter of a banana. Much of the banana ended up mashed on the high chair or in the dog via the floor, but she did chew up quite a bit of it and I'm sure she swallowed some too. She seemed to enjoy it quite a bit, perhaps because it was an accommodating texture.

First Tooth! Now, to use it to eat with.

Sterling has been working hard on the teething project and I think one finally broke through today! When I poked at it with my fingernail this afternoon, I scraped something hard instead of just gum. I think she's done it!

In other news, she's now substantially mobile.

She's also started eating solids with a more pronounced vigor than previously displayed. We've been offering her foods for the past few weeks. Usually she'll pick them up and chew on them a bit, but the past couple of times she's really gone at them. I'm not sure if it's a difference in the foods offered. We had previously given her: asparagus, green bean, broccoli, carrot, and a few other things I've forgotten. On Sunday, I roasted up a bunch of sweet potatoes, carrots, and squash with a little olive oil and thyme. Maybe she just likes those veggies better than the previous ones. Regardless of the reason, she got really into eating dinner tonight and last night. I'd estimate that she swallowed at least a couple of teaspoons of food, which is way more than she's eaten before.