Sleepy Eater

Here's a funny story that I guess happens to more babies than I realized.


Today while at a friend's house, I was feeding E her "lunchtime" solids of bananas and rice cereal. I hadn't been able to rock her to sleep successfully for her morning nap because of the being-in-a-strange-house-with-so-much-to-see curiosity that griped her. That meant she was really tired, but not fussy overtired, just simply tired.

So come time for us to all have lunch, I broke out her food... and started feeding her. E has been really good and eating a good half a banana at one "meal". This time though, I could tell she needed time to digest each bite. I figured it was because the bananas and cereal mix might be chunkier and harder for her tongue to slurp it down. Maybe, but maybe there was another reason. As I am talking to my friend, I am giving E as much time as she needed... not feeling there was any need to rush her in getting the food down. I'm nearing the bottom of the tupperware, surveying how much she's eaten and how much is left. Without glancing at her, I bring the spoon closer to her mouth and then as I look up to put in the bite I notice her eye lids drooping and her head slowly drifting to one side of the highchair. She's falling asleep!! while eating! I guess my droning conversation with my friend, a full tummy and the hypnotizing ceiling fan did her in. I promptly put down the spoon and call it "all done". My friend exclaims that one of her daughters did the same thing a lot. Funny thing.

So I carefully try to wipe her mouth without waking her... that doesn't really work. But she's soooo tired, she instantly starts dropping back off to sleep (after screaming about having her face cleaned). I think, "Hmmm, maybe I could just recline the seat and she'll sleep here." But in the end I decide to see if she'll take a full nap (an hour if lucky), so I unstrap her from the highchair, rock her very little and put her down for a nice long nap.

I didn't know that babies could actually fall asleep eating. I guess if they can fall asleep playing on the ground and crawling (I've seen some funny pictures of kids falling asleep as they were on the way somewhere), then anything is possibly. Too bad she can't fall asleep this easily (or this deeply) all the time.

Tasty 'Nanas

Today E got her first taste of real food (not out of a box in flakes)... bananas!! I mashed them up and then "watered" them down with breastmilk and boy did she like them. At first she pushed it all out with her tongue in a "What is this" sort of fashion. But once she got used to the mashed fruit texture she was gobbling it down. I actually thought it might be too chunky for her, but she gobbled it down without any trouble.

E has only been eating solids for about three weeks (off and on, not consistently everyday), but she sure can down a lot. Today she had a good 4 inches (I don't know how much it really is, in ounces) of banana mashed down with half an ounce of breastmilk for lunch, and then another two tablespoons of rice cereal mixed with another 2 ounces of brestmilk. Interestingly enough, she still wanted more so I made her another 2 tablespoons of rice cereal mixed with water this time... and she flatly refused it. Spat it all back out and proceeded to wack the spoon out of my hand and away from her mouth, all the while opening wide hoping to get more rice cereal with breastmilk. Good grief, a picky eater already!?! But since she already ate a bit before that, it waas ok. Just didn't really like the mess of flying food.

Oh, and for for those who don't know (and might find it interesting, if not... sorry) - breastmilk is actually quite sweet and fatty, so breatfed babies like their new solid foods to be sweet. It's probably why she loved the bananas a lot, but not so much the "plain" (water mixed) rice cereal. Go figure. I guess I'll have to find some time/way to pump a lot more in order to have something to go with her rice cereal, if I'm going to be getting her to eat that. I do wonder... what she'll do with vegetables when the time comes. At least it's soon to be the throws of summer and that means lots of tasty fruits to try and also this feedding gadget we have called the Baby Fresh Feeder. (Essentially a mesh bag to put food it that the infant can gnaw on and you don't have to worry about the child choking on huge chunks. I hear it works great with fruit!)

Just a few days later

It's interesting (to me) that when E was young(er) and not able to do much other than lie on her back, eat, poop and stare at us, I thought "Oh, it'll be great when she is more mobile and independent. Then she'll be able to entertain herself some and I'll be able to do more ____ (fill in the blank - work, cleaning, making meals, time to self, etc)." But now that E is getting more mobile, well at least more squirmy and trying to "crawl" (without actually being able to crawl), she needs my attention even more. Yes it's true that she can sit for hours on the ground playing with her toys, but she often wants us to still hold her all throughout the day. And if she is playing on the ground, she'll complain if we aren't sitting down right with her. Now in a normal home that would probably be just fine, but on our very hard linoleum floors, my body is just not able to do that comfortably for any length of time. Forget also lying next to her or even kneeling. This... all to say... it's been a while since I've had time to sit down and write a blog!

So what is the Spencer family up to?

Well, we had another whirlwind weekend. Hitting both grandparent's houses for Mother's Day and a slew of birthdays. (Happy Birthday Jordan, Gennie and my mom!)

Mother's Day was fairly "uneventful" for me.. no breakfast in bed, no non-mom duties, no special mother daughter time or even pictures, no extra special treats. If anything, my "present" was E only staying up three hours in the middle of the night and one hour of kicking me while she slept in my bed, and I didn't (sleep). (This was down from four the previous night and lots of scream-crying, which is her new thing to get our attention) Oh Yippee. I still had a hard time convincing Ian that because it was mother's day he should take all the responsibility of no sleep and baby caring for the night and day. Too bad, I guess I tried. At least now that we're home and E is back in her own bed, she's sleeping through the night again. A real YIPPEE. And she's also eating solid food dinners every night now. Soon, maybe we'll try some mashed bananas or other veggie/fruit food. That's pretty exciting. Oh, and if you could see that face of "hunger" on her right before we give her her food... it's priceless. I'll try to see if I can capture it for everyone to see.

Another exciting thing is seeing how everyday E gets more agile and stronger, so that she's able to get to where (and what) she wants. This means more vigilance on our part so that she doesn't get into things she's not supposed to be into. But it also means being able to daily see her grow. She's "talking" more with real babbling, watching us and things around us even more intently (and that's saying a lot because she was always a real observer), keeping a more uniform schedule for sleeping and eating and waking (along with longer but not as frequent naps - which is incidentally how I have time to write this post) and just able to squirm-move her body (mainly her back, legs and arms) so much that sometimes she's hard to hold. I won't be surprised if one day next week she just starts crawling. By the time July comes, she might even be cruising. But I'll be plenty happy if she stays in the crawling stage (a little easier to watch and keep her safe).

And lastly, our other nice bit of news is that we got a new replacement for our built in air conditioner (from our apartment complex). It means real air output and it does cool our living room (hopes for cooling the whole apartment were slim). So, hopefully when summer is in full force, E and I will at least be able to bunker down in one area of our apartment and hopefully ride out the heat. It is definitely better than suffering the 100+ temperatures INSIDE like Ian and I did last summer. If our apartment is still really warm (90+) with the new air conditioner, upper management said they might also consider some other ways of allowing us to cool or helping retrofit the outside of the apartment to keep us all cool. Let's keep our fingers crossed!

Report on E's "6 month" checkup

Even though her 6 month birthday has technically come and go, we just had her 6 month checkup today. Here's her digits. Oh and the doctor said that she was the most proportional baby he's seen all day, in other words she's growing just right. He also said that she was a precocious sitter (because she can now sit without arm support for upward of an hour... just playing with toys). Too bad her enjoyment of sitting up and being able to reach almost anything she wants has also decreased her desire (and need) for learning to crawl. We'll have to work on that.

Ok, well here we go... drum roll please...
Height - 26 3/4" (75%)
Weight - 17 pounds 7 ounces (75%)
And I forget the head circumference, but it's in the 50%.

Note, if she gets to be 2 1/4" taller, she'll be officially to tall to sit in her current carseat. And at the rate she's been growing.. that will probably happen before July!

She also got three shots today... which interesting she didn't react to till after the second set. And then she only cried for a little while until I picked her up. She's such a big brave girl! Later in the day, she didn't complain when we touched her thighs at all (where they gave the shots). In fact she curiously fumbled, felt the texture of and then promptly ripped off her two Bugs Bunny band-aids... and then of course immediately stuck in her mouth. Ha lol... both band aids... the same way. I think she's getting to smart for her own good.

First Real Meal

Yesterday E had her first ever solid food meal. She had the ever so tasty (actually I don't know if it is tasty or not... I didn't try it) Rice Cereal. We borrowed a video camera for the occasion and also had our digital still shot camera ready. I really thought she would get "the look" that most babies get when they try their first food. It usually involves some "What is this?", then "Confused" as the food swishes around in the mouth and lastly is followed with "Augh...". E though was more interested in chewing on the spoon. (Can you tell she is in the throws of teething?) And even though she ate the whole tablespoon portion of rice cereal (that was mixed with another 3 tablespoons of breastmilk, the recommended amount for the first feeding)... she never gave any look other than "Why all the cameras?" (Pictures will be posted here, when I get them off the camera.) Ha lol. I guess that means she really was ready for real "grown up" eating. Oh, I should mention though she did have a full feeding an hour before her eating excursion... and another full feeding just two hours later as she was headed off to bed. So pretty much she pigged out last night!

Other adventures with Elizbeth - In getting her first meal, I thought (wishful thinking) she would magically sleep better at night. Especially since the last week or so she's been getting up in the middle of the night and not going back to sleep for hours. This on top of the fact that I got sick this week with mastitis is really taking a toll on me (oh, it's also taking a toll on ian too, but differently). But alas, no such luck. Therefore, tonight (or in other words 2 hours ago... note the time stamp of this blog) we did our first "cry it out" with E . She only cried for 30 minutes... and mostly "I'm fussy", "I'm tired" and "Come get me" crying (if it was anything more, like "Where are you?" or "I'm hyperventilating because I'm crying so hard for someone, please come" then I think I would have made Ian get up and get her)... but still, it was very hard for me. Add on the fact that I think the antibiotics I'm on might be making me a bit hyper and the mastitis is giving me some pain still, it makes me very very exhausted but at the same time unable to sleep. Oh bother! E is finally asleep and sort of on her own (a grand feat in the Spencer household) and I'm sitting up with insomnia. Double Bother! Oh well, at least it allowed me to get this blog in about her first meal, right?