7 Months!

These monthly posts are getting later and later!  But I am determined to keep doing them and to try to get them posted in a more timely manner ... maybe once I am out of the ICU things will calm down and I will have a little more spare time.

Charlotte was 7 months old on February 3rd (so this post will cover January 3rd - February 3rd).  Our big events for the month were Charlotte's baptism and Alabama's national championship.

She LOVES Brutus! 

And the feeling is mutual!

Not crawling on all fours, but she rolls and scoots and manages to get where she wants to go

*Weight - not sure, no visit to the pediatrician this month - but last month's weight of 14 lb 9 oz was really a 6.5 month weight as we were late getting her to her 6 month appointment.  Maybe close to 15 lbs?

*Height - not sure

*Diaper size - size 2

*Clothing size - mostly 6 months, but she is filling them out and almost ready for the next size up!


*Eats - I stopped breastfeeding halfway through the month, which was a difficult transition for me.  I hated to give it up, but work just got too demanding and it became more of a stress than a positive experience.  My goal was to make it to 6 months and I made it a few weeks past that, so overall I am proud of myself.  Charlotte drinks anywhere from 5 to 8 oz bottles throughout the day with no real schedule.  We should probably aim to get her on a breakfast, lunch, dinner, bedtime bottle schedule, but for now she eats when she wants to.  She has just started eating stage 2 baby foods (chicken and rice, turkey and sweet potatoes, etc).  She likes most fruits and really seems to enjoy peas.

Eating a mum-mum rice rusk

*Sleep - Not even sure where to begin on this category.  As our child has become more demanding and begun to exert her personality, sleep deprivation and exhaustion have gotten the best of us and we are sliding backwards in terms of making her an independent sleeper and self-soother.  "The family bed" sums up sleep for us this month.  Invariably between midnight and 3AM, Charlotte works her way in between us in bed and happily sleeps until we get up for the day.  She usually starts off in her bassinet, then throws a temper tantrum until we give in and put her in bed.  We know the right thing is to let her cry it out, but we also know that putting her in bed stops the crying and gives us all a few more hours of good sleep.  Next month should be a little lighter at work, and we plan to have sleep bootcamp in our house.  Charlotte will be moving into her own room in the big crib!

This is how Charlotte and I spent much of our time together in January.  I was on hematology/oncology wards, and it was an incredibly busy month (or so I thought ... the ICU this month has been even busier)

*Likes - Brutus; taking walks in the BOB stroller at Jemison Park; "bamming" tables, pots, boxes, etc with her hands; sitting up and playing with her toys; eating her bib instead of eating her food from the spoon; the Direct TV remote; the cap of her bottle (this is more popular with her than any baby toy we own); baths (she has started splashing) 

*Dislikes - being left alone in a room; being put down (makes getting anything done around the house impossible - and she is getting heavy!) 

*What else Charlotte has been up to - This month Charlotte has been sitting independently.  We still leave pillows around her just in case, but she has really mastered sitting.  It gives her a whole new way to play with her toys.  Playing with toys has also become more fun as she can easily transfer objects from hand to hand.  Mastering sitting has also allowed us to use restaurant highchairs!  This has completely transformed our dining out experience.  She is close to crawling, but not quite there.   She is pushing up on all fours, but not making forward progress yet (she tends to go backwards).  She gets where she wants to go by rolling across the room.  In terms of verbal milestones, she started babbling at the very end of the month.  Her favorite thing to say is "da-da".


*Charlotte's Baptism

Proud parents, worn-out baby 

*Alabama's National Championship

January 9, 2012 - Charlotte is ready to cheer on the Crimson Tide to a 21-0 win over LSU!

*Iphone photo dump

Banging on pots and pans

Walk at the Botanical Gardens

Lunch with Scott McKenzie ... who is now engaged!

Our special lunch at Chez Lulu, where Charlotte fed herself a bottle on pillows next to Grandpa while we ate!  

Sitting in a restaurant highchair like a big girl!  (And our child really does have more clothes than this one purple outfit, even though these pictures would make you think otherwise!!)

Charlotte's Baptism

Charlotte was baptized on January 21st at 10:00 A.M. at St. Luke's by Reverend Richmond Webster.  Because our schedules have been so difficult to coordinate, we did a private baptism.  It was a wonderful event!  The weather, however, was not so wonderful ... but we managed to keep everyone dry.

Charlotte and her godparents, Corinne and Daniel Vrazel  

With Corinne and Daniel in the hospital

Charlotte was baptized in the same dress I wore 26 years ago!

Charlotte was really good for the actually ceremony, but was not in the mood to take pictures!

Exhausted, on the way to our celebratory brunch 

Charlotte was ready to dig into this cake!

6 Months!

{ Getting later and later on these posts!  I actually typed this out back on the 6th, but am just now posting it because I have had no time to upload the pictures ... }
I can't believe half a year has passed since Charlotte was born!  What a crazy 6 months it has been.  Charlotte's little personality is really coming out.  She is very strong-willed and not quite as laid back as I once thought she was.  She certainly knows how to make her needs known!  At the same time, she is quite adaptable and handles a schedule that changes on a daily basis as well as could be expected.  As long as she has what she wants, she is a very smiley, happy, and content baby.

Hard to get this little one to sit still anymore!!  She isn't crawling yet, but is constantly on the move ...

*Weight - 14 lb 9 oz
*Height - 25 inches
*Diaper size - size 2
*Clothing size - mostly 6 months, a few 3-6 months still fit

*Eats - mostly formula now.  I breastfeed her in the mornings and at night.  She is taking anywhere from 5-7 oz per feed, but still isn't on a good schedule in terms of her bottles.  This month we have introduced her to apples and squash.  She loved apples the first time we fed them to her, and did okay with the squash.  However, in the past week she has seemed uninterested in eating solid food.  She gets easily distracted and just wants to eat her bib.  On the other hand, she loves taking her bottle.  She can now hold it herself.  We will continue to practice with solid foods and eating from a spoon!

*Sleep - Her sleeping has regressed a little.  She goes to bed around 8 PM and wakes up around 6 AM to eat.  Throughout the night, she wakes up multiple times requiring us to put her pacifier back in.  Even though this gets to be exhausting and I really want a solid night's sleep, I can't complain too much because we never have to feed her in the middle of the night.  She quickly settles down.  This next month we plan to move her to her own room in her crib.  I think what has held this transition up is the fact that she still wakes up multiple times per night and it is so easy to put her paci back in because she is right next to our bed.  But I think it is time she learns to sleep in her crib and in her own room.  The longer the wait the harder the transition will be.

In the high chair she got for Christmas!

*Likes - dogs!  Nothing makes her laugh and giggle like dogs.  She loves them.  She also loves rolling across the room, her jumparoo, holding her bottle, baths, and walks in the stroller.
*Dislikes - when we try to lie her down for a nap ... she only likes to nap in someone's arms (which is becoming problematic), her car seat
*Our best attempt at a family picture this month (lighting wasn't ideal, but it captures the moment)

*First trip to the E.R.

On December 8th, we got a call from the daycare saying Charlotte's toe looked red.  We thought nothing of it, and were actually a little annoyed that the daycare called us at work about something so minor.  Later than night when I got home, I looked at her toe and it was the most unusual looking thing ... there looked like there was a tiny line / indentation wrapping around her toe and everything distal to that was red and swollen.  I went to my handy friend Google searched "baby red toe" and got all these pictures that looked just like Charlotte's toe.  She had a hair tourniquet which is an emergency because she could lose blood supply to her toe!  So Brandon had to take her to the Children's ER where they rushed her back to a room and numbed up her toe in preparation for taking a scalpel to the side of it to release a hair that none of us could see.  Thankfully, they were able to poke and prod at it and release a hair.  Now I compulsively check her toes for loose hairs!  The pediatrician Brandon saw the following day said in 10 years of practice this is only the second case she has seen ... continuing our trend of defying the odds for 2011
*Charlotte's First Christmas
So it wasn't exactly how I imagined it ... one by one we all got taken down by a killer GI bug, accompanied by fever, chills, and muscle aches.  But we made the best of it, and the best part of it was that somehow Charlotte never got sick even though everyone held her and her hands are constantly in her mouth!  I worked the week of Christmas and Brandon was scheduled to work Christmas Eve and Day, but had to take Christmas Day off because he was sick.  Thankfully I just had to go round both mornings and our service was really light.  The week of New Years I had off ... it was a MUCH needed break!

Getting her tights on for church

Family picture (minus Brandon ... who was the first victim of the GI bug)

Christmas morning

Our little tree at home with the few presents we managed to get wrapped before we all got sick

Charlotte reminded us of A Christmas Story ... a mix between Ralphie and his pink bunny suit and his little brother bundled up to the point where he couldn't move earlier in the movie