Baby Updates

I'm in love with my baby. So far, this has probably been my favorite age with her. I've enjoyed her at every stage, but almost 6 months is just waaaay too cute and so much fun. Here are some updates on the babe and our family.

Adia is over 16 pounds now and is very close to doubling her birth weight. She's right on track. She has been having a great time eating solids. Up until recently, we had only been giving her cereal and a veggie after her evening feed. Now, we've started after every meal with the exception of the night feed. Her favorites are squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, prunes, and apples. The only thing we have given her that she doesn't seem to like as much are peaches, which I thought was kind of strange. She eats around 4-5 times per day and takes 7-8 ounces of breastmilk or formula each time. She usually has about 1 bottle of formula per day, just because I'm not able to pump quite as much as she needs.

Sitting up is the next big milestone that Adia is trying to conquer. She works very hard to sit up by herself. She can do it for about 20 seconds or so until she topples over. She's getting better at it each time. Adia can roll from front to back and from back to front.

She has 3 new best friends.... her right foot, her left foot, and Blossom. She loves to grab her toes. She's gotten them in her mouth a couple of times. She's also very fascinated by Blossom. She loves to touch Blossom's hair and often grabs entire handfulls of it and yanks it out. She loves Blossom, but I'm not sure that the feeling is mutual! Ha ha...

She's giggling a lot more now too, which is very sweet. She has a very girly little laugh. She still loves her bath. When we take her into the bathroom, she immediately starts waving her arms, kicking her legs, smiling, and giggling. She can't wait to get in the bathtub! It's so cute. She's also playing with her bath toys some and tries to move them around with her feet in the water. She sighs when she feels the warm water as we set her in the tub too. I love that.

She likes her playmat, but the exersaucer is where the real party is these days. She is very into textures and sounds right now, so any toys that she can hold that make noise or that feel different to her are usually a hit. She also loves to scratch things and listen to the noise that it makes when she scratches. She scratches the couch and her playmat all the time. She grabs our faces and my hair constantly.

Adia reaches for me and loves to cuddle now more than ever. She wants me to hold her a lot and loves to give me hugs. I don't mind. :) She is a friendly baby, but she prefers me, Micah, and the sitter over others. I was in the shower today and Micah was holding Adia while he was talking to me in the bathroom. He said to Adia, "Where's Mommy?" She reached out her arms toward the shower when she heard, "Mommy." :)

She is never swaddled anymore and she is all over the place in her crib. She sleeps in a different position every night. Her side, her back, her belly, on different sides of the crib, you name it. She's a wild sleeper. She usually sleeps for about 9-11 hours each night.

When she's on her belly, she often sticks her little toosh up in the air and pulls her knees underneath of her. It almost looks as if she could get in a crawling position. Because of this, I think she'll be an early crawler.

Adia will be 6 months old on June 4th. She is starting to outgrow her size 3 diapers and she's wearing mostly 6-9 month size clothes. She sometimes wears 12 month skirts/shorts, but has to go up to about a size 18 month for things like bathing suits. I didn't realize how small they ran.

Adia is very healthy but has had a bad rash on her back. At first, they thought it was ring worm, so we used Lotrimin for 3 weeks. He said it should've been gone in 2 weeks, but it only got a little worse during all of that time. They later determined that it was eczema and prescribed a stronger steroid cream to use for a week. It will be a week on Tuesday, and I'm glad to say that it is almost completely gone. We went back to the doctor this past Friday and confirmed that Adia has a terrible left ear infection. We've been giving her an antibiotic and Tylenol for the pain and all of that is really seeming to help. When the infection was the worst, she wasn't sleeping well at all and kept swatting at her ear. It was really sad to watch. She's been very congested and runny nosed too, which the doctor also attributed to her teething. You can see 2 little faint white lines on her bottom row that are trying to come in. She's constantly drooling and chewing on anything she can chew on, especially her hands.

As for our little family, we are just staying pretty busy. We are all very anxious for the summer weather and to have a break from work. I am thinking on taking on a new little venture here this summer that could potentially bring in a little more income for us and help us save a little more money. I don't want to say what it is yet until I know for sure that it's something I want to commit to. I'm really looking forward to the summer so that I will have more time to cook too. I've discovered that cooking/baking is a huge passion for me. For some reason, it actually relieves stress for me and gives me a time when I don't have to think about a ton of things at once. I can just focus on one task, and then, I get to eat that task! Ha. This past week, I made homemade applebutter. I must say that it was sooooo good and also very simple. I will do this much more often!

My husband is the most attractive man alive. Period. He's a huge help around the house and with the baby. Even through all the chaos of work, chores, and so on, he still manages to find time to make me feel loved, cherished, and appreciated. I love that I can be standing there in a robe with wet and messy hair, no make up on, no tan, and not quite the body that I used to have and he still tells me, "You are so beautiful the way you are right now." He eats the food I prepare for him and tells me how wonderful it is, he rubs my tired feet and back, packs my lunch for me every day, helps with household chores, and most importantly, he tells me all the time that he thinks I'm good with Adia. He is such a great father to our little girl. She adores him and she thinks he is hilarious. This morning, she fell asleep for a nap and I put her in bed with Micah. He was awake, but he was just so sweet the way he'd hold her and admire her. He loves her and cares for her perfectly.

Well, I'm going to go get the diaper bag ready for tomorrow. I'll update again after her next doctor's appointment. :)