feed me
This little dude is going to eat us out of a house before we even own another one! He's moving right along trying new foods; so far we've tried sweet potatoes, acorn squash, bananas, green beans, apples, pears, and butternut squash. He's also randomly tried white potatoes and bread. He normally eats 3-4 cubes of food in a sitting, sometimes more, sometimes less but rarely. We're at an impass with milk. I think 6 months might be my internal limit or something; I can't be sure but I think he's not getting enough from nursing any more. So today I'm giving him bottles of pumped milk trying to see if he sleeps better at night because currently he's waking up three times to eat. Three. Mama is tired. We'll see!
coming up orange
We can check another one off the list! Dylan was all over the acorn squash today and finished it in about 3 minutes flat. And since I had already put the rest to freeze I had to improv with more sweet potatoes and cereal, but that didn't seem to bug him as long as it was something to eat. And I'm happy he liked it BUT I meant to give him butternut squash. Why you ask? Well I wanted to follow the orange sweet potatoes with what-I-thought-was a yellow veggie. First cut in, surprise mama, it's orange too! Even Adam knew butternut squash was the yellow one. I have nothing to blame this on other than I'm an dope.
Other news...none. The kids are good, Dylan is rolling over but only when he feels like it and Samantha is a little feisty but I think she's cutting another molar. Adam is busy. I'm reading the Twilight Saga, again.
take two
Dylan did amazing with his sweet potatoes tonight! He gobbled them all up in record time. I'm already trying to decide what to make him next, green beans or acorn squash, before moving onto bananas! Yes I know, boring to most but it's so crazy that we're already in the food making portion of Dylan's life. It feels like only yesterday I was whipping up batches of food for Samantha to eat. Speaking of, we found a good way to get some meat into our girl...disguise it! She's normally pretty touch and go with the meat section of dinner, but tonight she had three helpings of the stuffing for stuffed peppers - rice, ground beef, tomatoes.
Things are the usual around here. Play and eat, eat and play.
it’s all coming back to me
Dylan loved the sweet potatoes! Things were a little hectic around here last night at dinner time but I was trying to accommodate both my husband and my son...Adam wanted to be around the first time Dylan tried real food and I wanted Dylan to have it be fresh the first time, ie just out of the oven and pureed moments before. I'd say it was a success all around! I may have left it a little too thick, but he did just great. What a big boy we have : )
mommy fail
True story, good intentions don't always come full circle. I have carrots peeled and cut ready to be cooked and pureed. Little Dylan did not get to try a veggie today. Blame me. But I don't feel too bad about it, instead of carrots he got to meet Janelle's little princesses (twins Delainey and Danika) while Sammie played with her daughter Addison. All the estrogen wore the little man out, slept the afternoon away. As did Sammie.
hello october
This weekend was ah.maz.ing. I wish they could all be like this! This will be a bullet point list of amazing since the bears are on and it's been a long one!
*Saturday we spent a good part of the day in IN at an apple orchard picking apples and kid farming and eating. Adam and I picked apples while Samantha would take them from us and put them in the bag. She wasn't really interested in picking them herself, even after Adam accidentally ripped off the entire branch and was able to hold it within her reach. She ran up to all the animals in the kids farm mooing or neighing or clucking and pointing them out to us. She experienced her first taste of a fall classic, hot apple cider. Dylan was great the whole day, in the stroller or in our arms he was chill. And happy. The pics from the day are awesome, we'll post them soon!
*Dylan had his first solid, rice cereal! He wasn't nearly as messy as I was expecting and by the end he wasn't spitting any back out. We're right on track for him to enjoy Grandpa Homey's mashed sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving!
*Tia's baby shower was today at Maggianos! She was adorable and happy and it was so great to be there for them!
*Dylan tried out the jumperoo before dinner, success! Poor guy may have been overstimulated between the video, pictures, us, Sammie, and Grandma Rita all asking if he was having fun, bouncing him, showing him all the fun parts of the jumper, but he had a good time
miss piggy
I've upped Samantha's solids even more today. She ate a full banana at lunch and for dinner she had acorn squash and zucchini. Lots of it. Between a quarter or double of food she would normally get at a meal. Me, I've only had one cupcake today. Wahoo!!
my sweet string bean
I debated writing this because I really feel stupid and don't really want to talk about it. Then again I'm a new mom and allowed to make mistakes. I think. Anyhoo, here it goes.
In six weeks Samantha did not gain one ounce. Not a singe ounce. Her weight check was today and we had the same pedi we did for her 6 month appointment. I really really like this pedi and am a little sad she'll be on maternity leave soon but back to my point. Turns out I probably still haven't been feeding her enough and there are still questions about my supply. For the next three weeks I'm going to increase the amount of food per meal (solids that is) and introduce a third meal if she'll take it. I'll give her rice (or oatmeal) cereal with two of those meals, not just one anymore. I'm going to keep tabs on my supply, maybe it is that I'm not making enough to satisfy her. That makes me really sad so I'm hoping that the increasing the amount/frequency of solids will help. Also, the dr said we can introduce meats which I'm a little hesitant about because the thought of puree-ing them makes me want to gag but I'll do it for my baby of course.
If we get to our appointment in three weeks and she's still not gaining weight we will have to start supplementing with a little bit of formula and run a few tests to make sure there's nothing wrong. I got tears in my eyes just thinking about the last part of the sentence but I'm hopeful that we don't get to that point. The next three weeks things will turn around and she'll start gaining some weight. It's not like she's not growing, in the same six weeks she went from 25 3/4 inches long to 26 1/2. WOW. That put her in 9 month clothes length wise per the tags. I noticed her sleepers seeming a little bit snug in the feet/shoulder areas but not too bad. I'll wash her 9 month ones and phase those in. She's one long slim lady. Slim with rolls on her arms and legs, haha. Thank god she still has some chub to her : )
New Adventures
I feel like we just registered again! We are (95%) going to watch the river dyed green tomorrow so we are making sure everything's ready to go on Samantha's big girl stroller. We've adjusted the straps, played with the foot rest, practiced putting on the rain guard which we are hoping will act as a wind guard, and have it sitting waiting to go. I can't wait to start using it! It's the exact same feeling that I had after our shower. Pure bliss at the thought of using the baby goodies we had been gifted for our daughter. Ha, I told Adam that she'll probably hate being strapped in and after all our playing around one of us will end up carrying her the whole time. Oh well, it'll be ready to go when it warms up and we walk to the park! And go to the zoo! And go to Starved Rock! And go on family walks at night! And...you get the idea. Tomorrow is only the beginning.
It got super late but we really wanted to give Samantha some sweet potatoes. I think it's safe to say she really liked them. She was tired but her mouth was open waiting for each spoonful. And she ate her peas this morning! Success with two solid meals today.
The blog - or blurb or blag as my dad calls it sometimes 
- is getting around to more and more people. I have two choices. Continue to be honest about all my feelings and not leave anything out as we go forward raising Samantha. Or pull a typical Kathy and get embarrassed and make the blog less personal. For a few reasons I choose option A. First and foremost, this is my journal. I'm not writing down anywhere else all of the things Samantha does on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. I want to remember these times as thoroughly as possible including how it felt to watch Samantha hit all of her milestones as well as every day life. And lord help Adam if somehow this gets lost in cyberworld somewhere. Also because it's not as easy to get in contact with busy family and friends so the blog can keep those up to date that want to when they can. Another reason is I'm trying to be a more open person. How more open can I get letting family, friends, anyone who stumbles across this online to read about our lives unfiltered?
Aftershocks of shots
Samantha was not herself today. I thought she was going to be sleepy all day because her first nap ran past an hour and I think the only reason she woke up is because I banged something in the kitchen. But after that first nap she wouldn't sleep in her crib. She fell asleep twice while feeding and I let her take a nap on me the first time. Fearing I would screw her up for the night I tried to put her in the crib the second time she fell asleep on me after eating. Of course she woke up. Good news is that she went down for Adam great.
The first day of attempting two solids meals = fail. I tried giving her some carrots this morning and she wanted nothing to do with it. While I was at Target around dinner Adam gave her some peas. She ate some but he said she wasn't too eager for them. I'm making more rice cereal tomorrow so hopefully we'll do that in the morning with fruit (once we start fruit) and then a veggie at night. I'm excited to start sweet potatoes so I may just do it tomorrow for dinner.
Mom and Dad leave tomorrow for Colorado. We are totally bummed out that we aren't going. Totally bummed. I wish it was going to be Samantha's first vacation so bad, especially since I have so many good memories there and Adam had a blast last year. It's the perfect place for us to have an annual trip. It would have been fun to tell Samantha she went every single winter she was little. Ugh. I have to believe that we'll(I'll) find a way to get us there no matter what next winter.