Progress

So much going on with Cora this last week! She has been a busy little baby. We started her on solids last Friday. Her doctor said we could mix rice cereal with breast milk, formula, water, or even apple juice. For her first bowl we chose to do water. I probably should have done breast milk but I didn't have any already pumped. She really did not like it, but it could have just been the fact that she was trying to adjust to her first taste of something that wasn't breast milk. So I dumped that out and tried it with apple juice. I was a little hesitant at first since I've read articles discouraging using juice to sweeten baby food, but since her doctor said it was OK I decided it would be fine. It didn't really matter too much though because Cora did not enjoy that either! Adam thought perhaps it tasted sour to her. The day after that I tried mixing it with some formula we happened to have. She wasn't too keen on it yet again. Then the next day I finally pumped and gave it to her with breast milk and she responded the best to it of course. Unfortunately I don't have enough supply to pump and nurse her, so I don't know that I'll be able to keep that up. I think I got out maybe an ounce and a half. Anyway the whole thing probably lasted only 5 minutes and I doubt she even actually ate a whole teaspoon. It was still very exciting! We wanted to record the moment properly with a real video camera, but unfortunately our video camera refused to operate! So we had to just use Adam's iPhone to capture some video.



I was more excited to give her some "real" solids though, so after 4 days I knew I wanted to go ahead and give her something new. Her doctor said we just need to wait 4-7 days to introduce her to each new food. I don't know that I'll be able to wait a full week at any point. I want to transition her to sweeter foods slowly, so I am planning on doing 2 green veggies first, then sweeter veggies like carrots and sweet potatoes, and then fruit. On Tuesday we pureed up some sugar snap peas for her. I was planning on doing normal green peas but of course in my excitement I picked up the wrong bag. She responded much better to the peas than she did to the rice cereal! I think now we are getting closer to her eating a teaspoon each time I feed it to her, maybe even a little over. I wanted to only feed her solids once a day, but I am now doing it twice a day. She is so ravenous now! I am not sure if I've just awakened a monster or if she's going through a growth spurt. She has been wanting to nurse every 1-2 hours again, and for the last two afternoons she has wanted to nurse every 40 minutes! Hopefully it is just a growth spurt and her appetite will go down a little bit soon. At least she has been excited to eat her solids! After the first couple of bites she will grab the spoon and guide it into her mouth. It's so cute! I gave her rice cereal with water again this morning and she was a little more responsive to it. This weekend I'll be able to give her something new again! I'm not sure what green I'm going to go with. I found this great chart on a homemade baby food website that lists all the foods you can introduce by age. I am thinking either green beans or zucchini next!


Happier with her peas; Helping me feed her!
Adam let Cora try some of his water this week. She always grabs at my glass when I'm holding her and I take a drink of water and she's shown a lot of interest in it at the table too. Adam wanted to get a sippy cup for her to try it in but I've read that it's better to let them try and drink from a cup first. She was very eager to try and drink. Of course Adam held the glass while she tried to drink. I think she enjoyed it! We haven't tried to give her water since then though.


Cora has been working on her strength this week too. She can pretty much sit up on her own now! Of course she still has the wobbles a little bit and eventually topples over after a while, but I can tell it has become easy for her to sit without support! I just keep working on it with her every time she's awake and she just gets better and better every time. I don't really have to hold her anymore when we are on the floor playing. I just have to make sure to pay attention so I can stop her from falling over once she starts leaning! I am too scared to leave her side for too long in fear that she will fall and hurt herself, but I was able to snap a picture!


On top of that, she can stand while holding on to something! She actually did it the first time a few weeks ago but now she isn't too wobbly. She is getting sturdier! Our dogs are gated in the kitchen and she loves looking at them. I sit on the floor with her in the living room and we look at the dogs through the gate. Sometimes we actually go in to the kitchen to play with them or I let them out in to the living room, but if I don't feel like cleaning her up afterwards we will just sit in front of the gate. She gets so excited though that she wants to stand instead of sit and she grabs on to the gate. I could feel that she had a good grip and was standing sturdily enough so I backed off to see if she could do it without me holding her, and she could!


She has just recently started sucking her thumb again. After I posted about it on here she ended up dropping the habit pretty quickly. It's odd because I feel like a lot of stuff I post about she ends up stopping right away. For example, she hasn't said "Mama" in a while! She only does it when she's in distress though so I guess that's a good thing, haha. I guess she will phase in and out of things a lot. Besides phasing back into eating incredibly frequently, she has also started to wake up a lot through the night. All this week she has been waking up about every 2 hours. She will sleep 3.5 hours if I am lucky. I am hoping this is just part of her possible growth spurt too, but I suspect it may also have something to do with us trying to get her to sleep in her crib. We started it again on Sunday by having her fall asleep in our bed and then Adam moving her to her crib. I know she needs to transition in there soon. It will be good for all of us, but it is really so stinking hard! I cried about it the first night. It is silly though for me to be so sad about it because as soon as she wakes up she is back in our bed. I think this is going to be a long transition. We are just running out of room on our queen sized bed and no one is getting a good night's rest. Adam wakes up a lot from trying to make sure he's not crushing her, I wake up a lot from also trying to make sure he's not crushing her (as well as to feed her, change her, and general making sure she's alive), and she has been over heating sleeping between us. I really hate kicking her out, but it has to be done. At this rate though she probably won't be out any time soon, haha.

We went to a Brazilian steakhouse last Saturday to celebrate Adam's birthday with our friends. Unfortunately for me Cora was cranky for most of the evening, but that did not stop me from eating lots of picanha and those delicious little cheesy bread rolls! If you've never been to a Brazilian steakhouse I highly recommend it. We have done a tour of them in Dallas now thanks to my father! Anyway, after dinner we all came back to the house to hang out and play my all time favorite game, Cranium! If you've never played it before, it's a game that utilizes both sides of the brain so you get to express your artistic side and your scholastic side. I got paired with one of my very best friends (and one of the very first friends I made in Dallas!), Lisa. We ended up winning, even with a cranky and then sleeping baby in my arms. We all always have such a blast playing that game. I can't wait to play it again!

One thing I've kept forgetting to mention - I can wear my wedding rings again! I was able to put them on for our family photo shoot and was so ecstatic about it. They are a little tight still but I can finally put them on. I don't wear them very frequently though because I am afraid of scratching Cora with my engagement ring. So really I only wear them when we go out and about. Also, now I am only 4 pounds away from my pre pregnancy weight! I don't feel like I look like I'm 4 pounds away though, haha. I have to admit that I keep falling off the exercise wagon. I've started the Bikini Body Mommy Challenge twice and will need to restart it a third time soon. My lower belly pooch is just not a good look. I think a big thing that has contributed to my weight loss, besides breast feeding, is how much we eat in now. Adam has been losing weight too because of it! Now if only I could start working out again I would be well on my way to feeling good in my clothes again!