Look at me!

Audrey isn't crawling yet, but she spends a lot of time on her tummy. Whenever we lay her down she flips over onto her belly. She can spin herself around 180 degrees to reach for things and she moves her arms and legs like crazy. Unfortunately, she still can't figure out how to return to her back when she gets tired.

She still enjoys spending time in the jumper.

Audrey always twists around into funny positions to watch us.

Audrey can't sit up on her own yet, so I sit with her and she leans back for support when she starts to wobble. She really likes to spin this ball which plays music and sings the alphabet. And daddy likes to press the letters to spell curse words.

This is what happened after sitting supported by the boppy pillow for a few minutes.

Try, try again.

Vtech makes the most irritating toys! Audrey loves them and plays with them really well so of course we let her play with them all the time and even buy her more. I hear the music to this toy in my sleep! "Ring around the tree top wonder where it's going to stop. It's a yellow bee. Can you buzz with me? Buzz. Buzz. Red. It's a red lady bug. Count my spots. 1-2-3. It's a blue bird can you sing with me? Tweet. Tweet. Bye, bye." Go to hell Vtech.

Audrey still spits up a lot. Isn't she lovely?

All cleaned up.

I love how she looks like a pretzel.

Let's see...Audrey's had sweet potatoes, butternut squash, carrots, peas, green beans, zucchini, prunes (daily, for reasons we don't need to discuss), pears, peaches, rice cereal, and oat cereal. Fortunately, she's a great eater. I'm still making all of her baby food. I'm quite proud of the stash in the freezer. There are ziploc baggies filled with all the food that was frozen in ice cube trays. She gets 2-3 cubes plus cereal at every meal.

She's starting to really enjoy the exersaucer.

Look at that grip! Have I mentioned that she likes to rip out daddy's body hair? She get his arms, legs, back, chest, and beard.

Grandma and Grandpa Wood Visit

Grandma and Grandpa Wood came to visit this weekend. They couldn't believe how much Audrey had grown since they saw her two months ago. We had a nice time visiting and Chris and I went out on a date Saturday night. We went to Chili's for nachos and my first margarita in over a year. It was a perfect date night.

They also helped us make a plaster cast of Audrey's right hand and foot. Grandpa held Audrey while Chris held her hand and foot in the rubber mold for 2 minutes. Grandma distracted her with the glow worm. Audrey didn't mind it so much. We also did it when she was 3 months old, but there were a few tears and a bit of a mess that time. Afterwards, I filled it with the plaster and we let it harden for a few hours.

The left hand and foot were done at 3 months. The right ones were done at 6. Chris is going to take the new ones to work and put them on his desk along with his (literally!) dozens of pictures of Audrey. We wish we had done the casts when she was first born.

P.S.- She makes a fist and curls her toes when she's mad.

6 months old in the rocking chair

Sunny Day

We went outside and I played around with my new 50mm lens. It's fun to use it to make blurry backgrounds. I still need to practice more to get it figured out.

Happy Easter!!!

Aunt Jen, Uncle Allen, and Cousin Kylie (10 months) visited us for Easter. Of course we had to pay the Easter bunny a visit.









Audrey's Loot: Jen gave Audrey a green basket with eggs filled with money (she's too young for candy :-)), Grandma Izland gave her a singing and dancing bunny and a card, mommy gave her the purple bunny, inflatable eggs, and bunny ears, Grandma Wood gave her a pink basket with a puppet, a little bunny toy, My First Easter onesie, and a card, and Great Aunt Gayle sent her a card.











It was fun to see the girls together again. For the first time, they really seemed to notice each other and interract. Pulling feet, touching heads, staring at each other, and even lending a sympathy cry or two.

Gorgeous

New Favorite Things

Audrey enjoys chewing on this teether and hearing the fabric crinkle.

Audrey is constantly rolling onto her tummy, but after a minute or so cries because she doesn't like it and needs help returning to her back. I leave this baby friendly photo book on her mat and she rolls over to look at it. It distracts her and she stays on her tummy a little longer.

Woo Hoo!!!

Audrey slept through the night last night! 9pm-9am. I didn't go to bed until around midnight, but that still gave me 9 hours of uninterrupted sleep. I haven't had that since I was in my 2nd trimester. Man, that was nearly a year ago! I hope it wasn't a one time occurrence.

I made her some sweet potatoes today and she loved them. Our only issue is that she enjoys putting her fingers in her mouth while eating, then she touches everything...even her nose. Peas up the nose are not pretty. I switched to the sweet potatoes because I was tired of finding little flecks of pea skins everywhere. They don't completely disappear in a puree. I froze the leftover peas in ice cube trays and we'll try them again later. So far making baby food has been super easy. I think I'll stick with it.

6 month pictures (taken by Naomi)

Naomi (www.pitterpatterphotos.com) came over last weekend and took Audrey's 6 month pictures. Audrey refused her morning nap and was therefore in a terrible mood. I couldn't believe it when I saw how good the pictures turned out despite the drama. Follow the link below if you'd like to see them.

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0BYtGzhq1aMnKw

Infant immunizations for Rotavirus

Somebody (I forget who) was telling me that RotaTeq was unsafe and not recommended for infant immunization. This worried me, of course, since Audrey has been getting this one for some time.

I just checked the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) website and found their 2009 immunization schedule for children. This schedule is approved by the AAP and the CDC and recommends a variant of RotaTeq (Rotarix) for Rotavirus immunization during 2-6 months (depending on which variant you end up using).

This document by the CDC gives further detail on both forms of the vaccine and clarifies that the newer version, Roatrix, was added in June 2008 but that the "ACIP [Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices] does not express a preference for either".

So, in summary; nothing to worry about.

6 month pediatrician visit

Weight: 16 pounds 2 ounces (55th percentile)
Height: 26.5 inches (75th percentile)
Head Circumference: 43.25 cm. (75th percentile)

Vaccines: DTap, Hib, IPV, Hep B, Pneumococcal, RotaTeq

It's time to start Audrey on veggies. She's been eating rice cereal really well for a month now. I stopped at HEB on the way home and got her some sweet potatoes, peas, and carrots. I decided to try making my own baby food. She had peas today and really liked them. A 99 cent bag of peas made a ton of baby food, so I'll freeze a bunch of it in ice cube trays. He said to give her fruits in a few weeks after she's had several veggies, then give her meats at 8-9 months. She can have Veggie Poofs after she starts to get teeth. After I fed her the peas I remembered reading that they can cause gas and colic for really sensitive babies (although they are a standard "first food"), so I guess we'll se how she does. Right now she can have 2-3 tablespoons of veggies 2-3 times per day and she should continue eating rice cereal.

She's been really cranky for the last few days. Could either be teething or the reflux. She's fussy, crying a lot, chewing on her fingers, scratching her ears, and not nursing well. We don't feel any teeth yet though. She's old enough that she can take baby Motrin (1.25 ml) and the doc said he thought that it worked better than Tylenol, so I picked up some of that at the store too. Since she's put on weight we also adjusted her Zantac dose from 1.3 ml to 1.5 ml.

She had a hissy fit after getting her shots and took about 15 minutes to stop crying, but now she's in a really good mood. She also got pretty upset when he dug the wax out of her ear. He wanted to get a good look at the eardrum just in case she had an infection (which she doesn't). They just dug out wax a month ago and she had build up again, but not so bad this time. He said some babies just make a lot of wax.

There's a free program called Infant See (www.infantsee.org). They do free vision assessments for babies 6-12 months to try to catch any early eye conditions. We'll probably look into that in the next few months.

Texas Bluebonnets