23 posts tagged “flora”
Flora has had an exciting couple of weeks. She's eating lots of different pureed foods now and we're introducing more as we see that she's not reacting to what she's already eating. She likes most of it, but it usually takes a couple tries of a food before she stops making a WTF face and spitting out half of each bite. She even did that with applesauce (today's introduction). That surprised me as I thought she'd like the sweetness after carrots and peas. Maybe it was a texture thing.
I have to say that six-month old babies are way more fun than newborns. Flora babbles lots and is starting to squawk and squeal, which is always good for a smile. She doesn't fall asleep instantly in the stroller or wrap anymore - she needs to see what is going on. Girlfriend doesn't miss a trick.
Anymore of this talk, and I'm going to be laying the "my baby is the best baby ever" stuff on a little too thick. I better stop and just let the pictures speak for themselves.
Flora turned six months old yesterday! Watching a baby grow really lets a person see how quickly time can pass. September feels like a lifetime ago, yet the time has gone so quickly. I think Sean and I have adjusted to parenthood pretty well. We have our little routines and rituals and we all get along most of the time. I think we're a happy little family. We've been lucky that Flora has been an easy baby - no colic, naps well most of the time and gives us lots of smiles. The smiles make me think we're doing something right.
Speaking of smiles, she is starting to ham it up for the camera now, getting excited and smiling instead of just making WTF faces. I got a few great smiley pictures of her yesterday, where I normally only get one where she is in halfway between smiling and serious. It's not a toothy grin yet though - Flora doesn't have any teeth, but she is chewing, drooling and sucking on her hands all the time, so teeth are probably imminent. However, my mum tells me that I didn't have any teeth until I was over a year old, so Flora's teeth could take their time too. As long as I don't discover her tooth by receiving a bite on the boob, I'll be happy.
I'm still breastfeeding, but Flora started on cereal almost two weeks ago. She is slurping it up like a champ, and I plan to start introducing vegetables by the end of next week. I'm amazed - and proud - that breastfeeding went so well for us. She was exclusively breastfed until we started cereal. When I was pregnant, I had hoped to nurse for about six months. Now I plan to do it for as long as I am able and she is interested. I do go back to work in mid-June though, so that may put a kink in my supply. I don't want to pump at the office. I'm not embarrassed to do it, but I don't think I'll be able to take enough time to pump enough milk to make it worth my time. By that point (she'll be nine months old), she'll be eating lots of solids and if I can nurse in the morning and at night, I think we can make it work. If I have to supplement with formula during the day, that's what I'll do, but I do admit that I will be disappointed - I like her being an all-booby baby. It astounds me that I was able to provide her the nourishment and nutrition she needed to more than double her birth weight in under six months. Now, if she could only stop taking that nourishment and nutrition at 3AM, we'd be all set.
She's very observant and doesn't miss a trick. She's starting to get chatty - mostly "ba", vowel sounds and the occasional "mah, mah MAH!" when she is frustrated. She also continues to blow lots of raspberries and has varied up her technique to include raspberries that sound like either purring or farts. (My kid makes fart jokes already! Awesome!) She's not quite laughing yet, but she makes noises and smiles at laugh-inducing moments so I think she is really trying.
She's starting to stay awake when we go out in the stroller so it will be nice when I visit both my and Sean's offices. The last time I visited, she slept through the entire thing and no one saw her eyes. We're looking forward to visiting both places when it warms up a bit.
I may be a little biased, but Flora seems to be shaping up into a good kid. I think we're going to keep her.
I can hear her waking up from her morning nap so I will leave you with a video I made yesterday to commemorate her six-month half-birthday.
My new favourite picture of Flora - at least for a little while. Girlfriend *is* pretty photogenic. :)
Yup, it's more pictures instead of words, but these pictures don't need much more explanation than what their captions provide.
Written content? Who does *that* anymore. It's all about pictures of Flora now. It's just easier to show the pictures than talk about them.*
Here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks.
We've been out and about - the mall, the library and more recently, a playgroup at the community centre. Soon, we'll be trying the pool on for size. Whenever I put Flora in her snowsuit, I tend to start laughing. Not in a mean way of course, although running to get the camera probably does add insult to the injury of putting on a snowsuit. She's so puffy and marshmallow-like in it. I'm not sure if she realizes I'm laughing at her yet.
We wished Auntie Kyla a happy birthday.
We hung out with Thomas.
We took some family pictures.
We made some silly faces.
Auntie Kyla gave Flora a bath.
Flora tried on Grampy's hat and played with his duck decoy.
And...Flora sat up on her own for the first time! She lasted about 20 seconds before she tipped back over, but it's a start. Note the major WTF look on her face.
*Written content will hopefully return soon. And maybe it won't even *be* about the kid.
January has been a busy month. Here are some highlights.
We met our 8.5 month-old cousin, Aiden (my cousin's son). He is a sweet boy and looks a lot like my cousin did when she was young.
We met our new friend Thomas. Our good friends Jason and Amanda welcomed their son to the world on January 5th, four months and one day after Flora.
Don't mess with my kid. She will fuck your shit right up.
Okay, that is not a nice description for a baby, but she looks pretty thuggy here, so I think it's justified. :)
The rest of the pictures I took of her in that session were quite pleasant. She was having fun in her Jolly Jumper, smiling and getting licked by the dog.
We've put the camcorder my parents got us to good use. I've even got the hang of some very light video editing so you don't have to see the ten minutes of boring stuff to see one minute of hilarious baby. These videos were taken about a week and a half ago. I have a couple on the camera from more recently, but I think it's time to take some more video.
Flora's first Christmas went reasonably well. Sean brought Flora and I down to his mum's on the 17th to spend some pre-Christmas time with her and my parents. He had to go home on the 18th and finish his work week. The extra visiting time was great, but we were very happy to see Sean when he finally got back to his mum's on the 24th.
As usual, we split our Christmas celebration between Sean's mum's and my sister's place. Christmas Eve must have been hard on Flora because she spent most of the evening crying her little heart out. None of us could figure out what was bugging her, and it made me cry to see her in such distress. It was probably a combination of gas pains and too much stuff going on. Being passed around from person to person for comfort probably didn't help either. She finally fell asleep and we went back to Sean's mum's.
Christmas Day was much better. Her Christmas outfit from Grandma Janet was a big hit. Flora liked to chew on the fur trim and ended up getting some gravy on it when Daddy and Grampy Doug were sneaking gravy into her mouth (as sneaky as feeding her at the Christmas dinner table can get). I didn't think she should be having that gravy, but she seemed to like it, so I guess she'll like her condiments when the time comes! Grandma Faye gave her a Christmas outfit too. We didn't get it until Christmas Day, I wondered if I should be changing her outfit halfway through so that both outfits would be worn. We didn't end up doing that, but I did put the outfit on her on the 27th after we got home. Naturally, every time I tried to take a picture, she got cranky.
Despite everyone telling us that they weren't going to get Flora much for Christmas (since she's so little and won't remember it), she got spoiled with many gifts. I don't even want to list it out because it's a little embarrassing (and I don't want to unintentionally slight someone by forgetting something). Flora is lucky to have so many people who love her. Sean and I got spoiled too. My mom picked up a video camera for Sean and I, which was quite a surprise (she said she got a good deal when she went to the States on Black Friday). We're still getting the hang of it, but it's quite a neat little toy. It will be great to use to share video online of Flora doing interesting things.
We came home on Boxing Day, and after over a week away, I was glad to get home. Sean is off until January 2nd, and the three of us have just been hanging out and relaxing. It's been a great end to a very exciting year.
We smiled (a little bit) for the camera:
We saw a really big Christmas tree:
And we showed everyone how much we like to rock:
