The One Where She Spits, Sits and Smiles

I knew it would happen. I knew I'd be so ramped up about this blog and then it would slip away from me and I would go months without posting. How do people I know keep up blogs every day? Every week? I'm renewing my commitment to this and hopefully I can do better. Like anything - it's all about trying your best.

It's 2011 now and today is Andy's 7 month birthday! She's peacefully sleeping upstairs, on her belly (GASP!) and I'm downstairs remembering this night seven months ago. The emotion of it all is overwhelming. Seven months ago I was nursing her for one of the very first times. I was so nervous back then about everything breastfeeding my daughter entailed. What if she didn't latch? What if my milk didn't come in? What if she had an allergy? What if I got mastitis? What if we both got thrush? Tonight as I nursed her for the some odd thousandth time I thought about those early days of breastfeeding. I'm lucky. She's lucky. We're all blessed. She latched like a champ, my milk came in before we ever left the hospital, I can eat anything and she's never shown any allergic reactions and she's gaining weight like its her job - 90th percentile in weight. I'm happy that we're still committed to our goal of breastfeeding our daughter until she's at least a year old. Thankfully, Eamon (my husband) is on board with this commitment and continues to be incredibly supportive of my breastfeeding. Anyway: In an effort to catch you up quickly - we'll go through the S's - spitting, sitting and smiling.

SPITTING
We are committed to breastfeeding Andy until she's a year old but we have however introduced her to several solids since my last blog. Let's see - there's been: sweet potato, bananas, frozen apples, frozen mango, oatmeal cereal, peas, mashed mango, avocado, and the latest came tonight - carrots. She's done great. Accepting of our trials on pureeing our own baby food and eager to try new tastes. Our learning curve is like hers - steep but forgiving. After the first sweet potato trials we learned vinyl bibs are a must! A few days after the first mango trials - we learned it probably should be pureed more finely. She does love to eat though and for that, we're blessed. We also got this awesome mesh feeder thingy too that you can put frozen things in. She gets to suck out the flavor - all the while working on soothing her tiny swollen gums where her little teeth keep trying to push their way through. SHE LOVES THAT THING!
We'll keep up the solid food experiments and enjoy every time she spits something back at us (oh the peas!)


SITTING

Momma's Pearls

Andy's 6month Portr

Eamon has been anxious for Andy to hit her milestones. Especially sitting up and crawling. I wanted her to be sitting up on her own by Christmas (selfishly wanting pics of her in front of a Christmas tree sitting unassisted with her toys and gifts). She was so close at Thanksgiving - holding her cute fat hands in front her her - spreading her legs and balancing on those chubby hands. But one small excitment or one move of those hands and she toppled over and scared herself. Inevitably crying would follow and we'd go to laying on our belly or sitting in my lap. About 3 weeks before Christmas, we were in Boston and we realized we'd quit holding her up, we'd stopped worrying she was going to fall over. She was sitting up on her own. This made for some super cute Christmas photos.


SMILING

There is nothing that can bring warmth to your heart like the smile of a child. When its your own child, that warmth melts you. Since my last blog, we've enjoyed Halloween together: a trip to the pumpkin farm, carving those pumpkins, and a Halloween party at the Daycare. Thanksgiving: we traveled up to Baltimore for an amazing Coy, Deford, McAdoo celebration. First plane rides - including trips to Boston and Dallas and a visit to Texas Stadium. A 6 month birthday and portrait session. Christmas: trips to Nelson county to see the Coy's, Richmond to see the Johnson's and Pawley's Island to see the Reece's. We enjoyed New Year's on the beach sitting with our toes in the sand with lots of smiles and giggles and Andy's Aunt Suzanne, Uncle Bennie & Auntie Lauren and Grandma and Grandpa Reece.  

So, I'll close for now. I know I left out quite a bit since that last post (late October).
Like - my first meeting back at work since maternity leave, Andy's Christmas adventures, and much much more. 

I vow to keep my blog more updated and fill in the missing milestones as we go - for now, we're enjoying spitting, sitting and smiles over here at the Coy house.