8 months ~Amelia~

Pictures were nearly impossible this month... someone doesn't sit still anymore

Growth
Weight:  Approximately 18.5 lbs 

Height:  Approximately 28”

All of Amelia’s 6-9 months items have been packed away.  She is primarily wearing 9, 9-12 and 12 month items.  She wears size 3 diapers and size 3 shoes (occasionally).

Get this sticker off my face mom!

 Mobility/Coordination:  Two days after Amelia turned 7 months she crawled for the first time (Thanksgiving Day).  For about a week, it was a little sporadic here and there but now she is a pro and crawling non-stop.  When she crawls, she leaves her left knee on the ground and puts her right foot underneath herself and pushes with her foot (“spider monkey”).  Not sure if that is a sign of early walking to come or not.   

There have been numerous instances where she had both feet underneath herself and both hands on the ground like she was doing the downward facing dog yoga pose.  We are occasionally seeing her crawl with both knees on the ground so I am not sure with method she is going to settle into yet.  She also likes to sit up on her knees and doesn’t need anything to balance herself.  She is starting to walk along furniture.  Yikes!  The other day she was playing at Grant’s train table and held on to it and walked from one end to the other to get a toy she wanted.  She’s mastered the pincher grasp and can easily snag cheerios, yogurt bites, and other bits of food and pretty accurately get them into her mouth. 

We have retired the exersaucer for the johnny jumper and jumperoo.  She loves jumping and really gets moving in those things! 

Language/Communication:  We have seen Amelia’s communication grow by leaps and bounds since her tubes (see below).  Literally, the day of the surgery she was already babbling more.  We have heard ba, mmm, ma, ga, and la sounds.  She is even putting together ah ba and repeats it over and over.  When she is babbling she moves her tongue constantly like she knows it is involved in the whole talking process but she doesn’t quite know how yet. 

Personality/Amelia-isms:  Amelia is so funny and very happy still.  If you smile at her, she lights up and smiles back.  If you wave, she waves back.  If you say “yay,” she claps.    She adores her daddy and every morning when she nurses she yanks herself off the breast to smile up at Matt and give him a big wave and smile goodbye.  We have noticed Amelia does not like being told no or redirected now that she is into everything.  She cries and gets so mad.  I would say just a smidge independent and strong willed… like her momma maybe.     

Sleep:  Nothing new to report here.  She is still napping 2-3 times per day.  She usually catches a cat nap on the way to daycare nearly every morning and a cat nap on the way home some afternoons.  Otherwise, she takes two longer naps mid-morning and early afternoon.  Night time is still the same with a solid 10-11 hours.  

 

Feeding:  Amelia is still nursing or taking a bottle 4-5 times per day and drinks 7-9 oz.  She is eating 3 “meals” a day now.  If she gets fussy while eating solids, it’s usually because she is thirsty or she wants to feed herself if you are trying to feed her something like yogurt or cottage cheese from a spoon.

I am not really keeping track of new foods anymore.  She eats what we eat 95% of the time with maybe a couple of things picked out of the dish.  She did have blueberries for the first time about 2 weeks ago and ended up throwing up at daycare afterwards but there were no blueberries in the puke.  We weren’t sure if she was getting a bug but it only happened once.  The cheese she ate with the blueberries was in the vomit but not the berries… weird.  I am going to try them again at home this week when I am off work to see if it was a fluke or if they really upset her tummy.    We also had stir fry that had been cooked in peanut oil and jambalaya that had shrimp in it so if she was severely allergic to either one of those I am pretty sure we would have seen allergy symptoms pop up after consumption but we did not.     

Nursing/pumping has really fallen off the cliff in the last month.  If I could exclusively nurse her, we would still be going strong with no end in sight.  It is the pumping that kills me and wears me out.  Work has been extremely busy the last month or so and I had to cut back on my pumping sessions to keep up at work.  So right now Amelia is still about 80% breastfed/20% formula fed.  Those numbers will probably change quite a bit in the next month but I do still have about one month of frozen breastmilk left in the freezer stash. 

Regardless of what happens over the next month, I know I have a bond with both of my children that no other person will ever share with them and I have shared the most natural, healthiest option for at least some portion of the recommended first year of their lives.  I should be proud and I shouldn’t be disappointed in myself that I didn’t make it longer.  That doesn’t change the fact that I am.  It’s my nature and I know I am too hard on myself a lot of the times.  If anyone has ever said to a new mother breastfeeding is not a lot of work (especially for a working/pumping mom) they are lying.  However, it is one of the most fulfilling types of work I have done as a mother to date… Not to mention I figured we’ve saved over $2500 for the baby formula we haven’t had to buy.  It’s a bittersweet moment coming to a close but I fully anticipate the pump being packed up and the nursing bras being stashed away within the next month or two.  Although I will say wholeheartedly I will not miss either of those things! 

Teeth:  No new teeth this month.  Her two from last month are completely through and so adorable when she gives a big smile.  We’ll see which ones make and appearance next.  It looks like there may be a couple more on bottom that are close.  

Illnesses:  Right after last month’s post we headed back to the pediatrician for an ear re-check (Monday).  I already had a gut feeling that they were still infected so I had also scheduled an ENT appointment for 2 days later.  Well low and behold, the pediatrician confirmed Amelia still had a double ear infection.  The left was still worse than the right (“moderate to severe”) with puss behind the ear drum and the right was “mild” with lots of fluid and a bulging ear drum).

Wednesday we headed to our ENT appointment and confirmed what we already knew.  Amelia was hearing essentially nothing.  Her tympanogram showed no movement in either of her ear drums.  At this point, we didn’t hesitate to schedule an appointment to get tubes.  We were scheduled for that Friday.  It went very smoothly and never really phased her.  She fussed a little in recovery, nursed and then we went home and she napped.  Upon waking, she was fine and you would’ve never known anything happened except for the goop that continued to drain from her ears over the next four days.  The doctor said he sucked tons of fluid out of there that was very thick like glue. 

As mentioned above, we have already seen a drastic improvement in her sounds and communication.  Whether it will really help keep ear infections away is yet to be determined but at least we know she is hearing properly.      

Brother/Sister Moment(s):  There was one afternoon when I was in the kitchen and Amelia was in her high chair in the dining room and Grant said “I’m going to give Amelia her medicine.”  I asked where he was going to get the medicine and he told me “My kitchen.”  I didn’t think much of it because he has play food and stuff so I assumed he would grab some of it and pretend it was medicine.  Well, I turned around to see Amelia gnawing on one of the dog bones with a big smile on her face.  Ha!  Needless to say I got a good laugh from it and snatched it out of her hands pretty quickly.

Brother/sister bath time is getting much easier.  Most times Amelia is still in her infant tub inside the big tub (she is way too antsy and curious to be in the big tub yet) but if necessary we can give them a bath together to save time. 

Firsts:  Tube surgery ~ Wisconsin Dells Fisher family Christmas trip (post coming soon)

Likes:  clapping ~ crawling ~ beans ~ jumper/jumperoo ~ pointing with her index finger ~ new activity table ~ musical, light up toys ~ pancakes

Dislikes:  being told no ~ laying still ~ being hungry or tired