22 weeks / 5 months

Sorry for the slightly belated post. Once again, I'm sick. Blech! I came down with a fever on Friday, I've had body aches since Saturday (feels-like-I-just-ran-a-half-marathon aches), my ear pain also came back on Saturday evening, and now my throat is killing me! I'm eating fruits and veggies and soup like crazy, popping ibuprofen like it's my job, and going to bed around 8pm every day. Hopefully I can kick this thing soon.

Anyway, the big news of the weekend is that Rose turned 5 months old... and we "accidentally" started her on solids!

I know, I know - how do you "accidentally" start feeding a baby solids? You see, I had this great plan: we were going to wait until Rose was fully 6 months old (per the AAP and WHO recommendations) and then start her on avocado, followed by pears, sweet potatoes, and bananas. Great plan! But at her 4-month appointment our doctor gave us permission to start her on solids as soon as we saw the following signs: (1) ability to sit upright (with support), (2) a clear interest in what we do with food, (3) reaching for our food, (4) teething, and (5) ability to swallow food and not just push it back out. So with that in mind, we have been eating more meals with Rose at the table in the past month - usually she just plays with her toys, but we wanted to give her the opportunity to see us eating and to introduce the concept of family meal time.

On Saturday morning, Mike watched Rose for awhile while I tried to take a morning nap. Then we traded off and I took Rose while he made us smoothies - partly because this is our new Saturday ritual ever since we got an amazing VitaMix blender from my friend Nicole (thank you again!), and partly because I was hoping all the fruit would jump start my immune system.

As I was spooning smoothie into my mouth, Rose just kept staring at what I was doing. Great, I thought, she's showing interest in food!  Then she started reaching for my cup. Interesting, I thought, not only does she like to hold cold soda cans, but she also wants to hold cold glasses.  Then she pulled the cup toward her mouth and started sucking on the edge of the glass. Hmmm, I thought, she must be trying to teeth on the glass. Thinking that was not the safest thing for her to chew on, I tried to pull the glass away and give her a teether instead. She started crying and reaching for more! She would not be persuaded to let go of the glass! Okay, I thought, maybe she was actually licking the smoothie off the glass? To test this new hypothesis, I gave her a tiny, tiny bit of smoothie off my spoon... She loved it! So I gave her a bit more... She loved it even more! Every time I tried to stop, she started to cry. That's when I realized that we had officially started solids.

"Yummy smoothie!"

"I can feed myself!"

So, let's recap the many ways we introduced solids in completely the wrong way, according to the current guidelines. (1) we started before 6 months, (2) we started with multiple foods mixed together, (3) the food was cold, not warm, (4) the food was thick, not runny, and (5) we started with berries, not iron-rich fruits or veggies. Sigh. This is when I remind myself that the important thing is to follow Rose's lead, right?


So that afternoon as we were grocery shopping, we stocked up on some baby-friendly foods to try. First off: a ripe avocado! We mashed it up and Rose seemed to love it! That's my girl. :)
(and the #6 thing we did in the wrong way? Introducing multiple new foods on the same day)

"Wow! This is a new texture!"

"I think I like it! More, please!"

We tried giving her more avocado on Sunday, but she just wasn't as interested. Not sure if our little goldilocks didn't like the temperature as it came from the fridge, or if her refined palette doesn't like day-old avocado (like her Daddy!), so we'll try a fresh avocado again this evening.  I also did a little cramming online and in my baby books about what the next steps for food are. We've got a lot of great recipes to try from our baby cookbooks - purees, brown rice cereal, etc. This is going to be fun!

Yesterday was also time for Rose's 22-week portraits. As you can see, she is teething like crazy!

She is also enjoying showing off how she can roll on to her side:

But she promptly flips to her back again - she has shown no interest in completely rolling over again. Which reminds me - we got Rose's first "official" report card from school on Friday! It came with a full page-long disclaimer about how the marks are just a snapshot in time, they're simply looking for progress over time, and they understand that we may see different skills at home than they see at school - I think this is to calm down unruly parents like myself who see this and think, "Really, they think she's just beginning that skill? Clearly she has mastered that!"  But I will acknowledge that I think they were generous in giving her a "B" ("beginning") for rolling over! :)

We actually had to sign and return it!

Finally, here's Rose's official 5-month portrait. Not only am I making a Snapfish album of her weekly photos, I'm also making a collage of her monthly portraits as well. This has been a fun creative project for me to document her first year, and I'm looking forward to printing the final book out in April!
 

(Yay for a 7am no-show so I could get this all typed up!)
Have a great week, everyone!

(more) keeping it real

Here's another entry from the "keepin' it real" files... 


This morning Mike and I had a lengthy argument discussion about parenting ... and the "discussion" then continued this afternoon. And evening.  For the most part, we are totally on the same page. But today was a good "opportunity" for us to "debate" things like:

Can you spoil an almost-5-month-old baby?
When do babies start manipulating their environment (i.e., their parents)?
How do we respond to her cries? And how quickly?
How can we tell if she's really upset or if she's just "vocalizing"?
Is she equally soothed by both of us?
Can we be overly reliant on one calming technique?

Rather than re-hash the whole discussion here, I figured I would be best to just post those themes instead. We've worked through these issues as much as we can, and I'm feeling much better as a result (and hope Mike is too!). I'm sure other things will arise in the future so I'm glad to have a partner who's willing to work through this stuff together, as hard as it. Man, this parenting business is all sorts of tough work!

With that, I leave you with this snapshot of Rose from last week:

21 weeks!

Here's Rose's official portrait for the week:

And here we were at the park this morning! I was a little nervous about putting her in the swing, but we tied her in with one of her blankets and just pushed her gently and she LOVED it! :)

Happy Saturday!

Lots of exciting news in the Burcusa household...

First, not only does Rose have her first tooth, but her second tooth (also on the bottom) broke through yesterday. So cool! (Although, unfortunately, I still can't get a clear photo of them!)

Second, while I was taking a rest this afternoon, Mike had Rose on her playmat while he was reading email on his phone. She started making an unhappy noise, so he looked up and she had apparently flipped from her back to her stomach! Rose rolled over!!! Too bad neither of us saw it happen, but hopefully she'll do it again soon so we can see it happen!

Third, Rose started swimming lessons today! She's such a water lover that we thought it would be a fun activity for her. (Mike called dibs on getting in the water with her, and I called dibs on taking the photos - as you will see, I was the proud parent taking an obscene number of pictures during the 30 minute class!) At first we were placed on the waitlist for the class because we had to get special permission to sign up (since she's not yet 5 months old), but earlier this week we got the good news that she was able to officially enroll!

Here Rose was checking out all the big kids during the lesson time before hers:

Then it was time to actually get in the water... apparently it was just a bit chilly:

Next the students practiced "paddling" in a circle:

Then they all got to swim on little paddleboards!

And they got to swim with water noodles!

Mike helped her do some "flying" in the water, even though that wasn't officially a part of the lesson plan  :)

And at the end of the class it was time for "Humpty Dumpty" to fall from the wall:

It was so much fun! I think we're all looking forward to her next class next weekend :)


Finally, Rose got me a Kindle Fire for my birthday. So I can finally get caught up on some TV/movie watching after she falls asleep in my arms while nursing!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, everyone!

Rose's new favorite toy

A jolly jumper! (Thanks for the idea, Mom and Dad! And thanks to Mike's labmates for the gift card!)

Rose loves it so much that it was hard to get a clear photo with all her jumping!  :)

A tooth!!!!

After all the chewing and drooling she's been doing, Rose's first tooth just popped through today!!! She may be a bit behind with the rolling, but she's definitely ahead of the curve with the teething! :)

She was not thrilled to have me trying to take a picture of it, so please just take my word for it that her lower left tooth made its appearance today!

pain, pain, go away!

Some of you may have heard me complaining about the intermittent ear pain I've been experiencing ever since I got sick in early August. Some nights it's been unbearable enough to wake me (as if my general lack of sleep hasn't been bad enough!), and the thought has crossed my mind several times in the middle of the nights that I would need to go to the ER if it wasn't better in the morning. But every morning it's been marginally improved enough that I've been able to avoid seeing a doctor. You see, I have this terrible fear that my pain threshold is just low and that they will laugh me out of the office and tell me it's just all in my head. (Unlikely, I know. But still technically a possibility!) So it was a huge deal when I got up the nerve to visit the Target Clinic on August 30 to actually see a nurse practitioner. Since I've been prone to ear infections my whole life, I was pretty convinced that I'd be sent home back to work with antibiotics. Alas, the good news (or the bad, depending on how you look at it) was that there was no sign of infection! The NP said she couldn't see any reason for my pain (ugh), so told me to just use warm compresses and take ibuprofen as needed. (The only other options were sudafed, which I'm allergic to, and a million other cold medications, all of which are contraindicated when breastfeeding.)  Fine.  I tried to convince myself that I was better, but I've still been in pain most of the last ten days. So last night, as I was lying awake in agony yet again, I knew I needed to do something. Thankfully Mike was able to work from home today, so I was off the hook for picking Rose up and I was able to go to Urgent Care instead. (FWIW, I tried to schedule something with a primary care doc, but no one at my clinic had any openings. Please don't judge me for using urgent care!) Once again, I was nervous that I would be ridiculed for having a low pain tolerance and/or for having psychosomatic pain (I'll never forget the time that I went to the ER after my second D&C and the nurse asked if I was just upset about the miscarriage, when it turned out that actually I had endometritis - aka "childbed fever" - aka the thing that used to kill women before antibiotics were invented!!! So maybe that should tell me something about the likelihood of me presenting to an urgent/emergency clinic for no good reason!). Anyway, I went to Urgent Care this afternoon and was eventually diagnosed with "eustachian tube dysfunction." So there's a reason I've been in pain! Basically, something is aggravating my eustachian tubes, causing them to close, which leads to fluid build-up and/or air pressure imbalances, thus leading to pain. This also explains why the pain has gone back and forth from ear to ear and not just stayed in one ear, as would be the case with an ear infection. Whew! I'm relieved to not only have a diagnosis, but also a plan of action: I have to take Nasonex nightly for 21 days, followed by a modified neti pot ritual. The doctor didn't explicitly state this, but I'm also going to prescribe myself plenty of rest. I don't think I'd still be fighting off a sickness from six weeks ago if I hadn't been so stressed and sleep deprived recently. I'm hoping Rose will continue to show improvements in her sleep (yay, Rose!), and that I will continue to show improvement in my ability to ask for help (yay, Steph!). Mike has been a tremendous husband and father these last few weeks, and I've appreciated so much the outpouring of support that I've received from friends and family. (Thanks, Mom and Dad, Marsha, Mitra, Jane, Sara, Natalie, and everyone else!) I'm trying hard to build up my "reserve" so minor set-backs don't continue to have such a disastrous impact on me. So here's to me healing up in the next few weeks, getting some good rest, and building up some mental reserves so I can cope with whatever comes my way in the future!

Here's a photo of Rose, to make up for all the "whining" I just did.  She fell into a milk coma in my arms on Sunday morning. Awww.... :)

Last night she woke up at 1am, and I was so groggy that I just stumbled in to feed her. But as soon as I opened the door I realized she was just "talking," not actually upset. But she lit up when she saw me!! So adorable (or at least as adorable as anything is at 1am.)  She wasn't really hungry, but she ate a bit then fell back asleep. But then she "talked" again at 2am, 3am, and 4am - I think she kept trying to get me to come back in and play with her. Kind of cute, right? She outsmarted me at 1am, but I'm hoping I outsmarted her the rest of the night and she won't try that again tonight. I need some sleep!  :)