23 weeks.

It was a big week for our little girl...let's look at the deets:

• An impromptu visit with Grandma and Zaide! They got to do the bedtime routine for two nights and Hanna Lu was very happy in their company; very vocal too with lots of shrieking!
• The baby experienced her first Maryland crab feed, though vicariously, obviously.
• Baby tried rice cereal for the first time; though not all of it stayed in our daughter seemed QUITE the fan. I made it thicker yesterday than the day before and thicker tonight than yesterday. Tonight Ms. Lu even ate way more than the first two times.
• Our child kind of crawled; she pulled herself forward on her tummy and it was ever-so-deliberate. This was yesterday and the little stinker would not perform for us today but my goodness what a thrill! Her poor little knees get red when this happens and I guess I could put her in pants every day or start using those cute baby leg warmers we got. Today's activity was that HL would roll over to one side instead of inching forward and then not roll back. 
• Has shown a renewed interest in her feet...especially while in the bath!
• Hanna Lu had a new babysitter, a friend of ours, while we were out and about.
• We're still going to daycare each day. She hasn't gotten sick yet but I feel a tickle in my throat and imagine there's something around the corner for either or both of us.
• I have a work obligation one night this week so Daddy will do bedtime on his own for the first time and we're also looking forward to a weekend with friends.

More snacking.

It was a really fun weekend with Grandma and Zaide visiting and taking wonderful pictures for us.

Today we tried rice cereal again and made it a bit thicker which seemed to help it get in a bit more and she appeared a big fan of the flavor which is funny because it smells like nothingness.

We love her little orange high-chair...her feet happily/crazily swing/dangle down.

What a messy baby!!

We're looking forward to some real food in a few weeks' time.

A new snack.

Up on our roof today we let baby try some rice cereal.

We're going to start her on big chunks of real food in a few weeks {"Baby Led Weaning" in case you're curious...that "method" doesn't really preach/promote the rice cereal route but we had some and the doctor mentioned it as an option so oh well} but we're giving this stuff a go for now.

Baby Lu was very eager to have more and more but let it all fall out of her mouth as soon as she got it; kind of hilarious and really messy!

Maybe if it's watered down less {there was more milk to rice cereal} she'll get in more of it but it was fun to see her try something new. Honestly, the spoon was the biggest attraction to her and she did a great job of holding and sucking on it.

"Lemme have this spoon."

We love this funny baby!

22 weeks.

I made a lot of updates in yesterday's post but let's still think about being 22 weeks old, after all, it only happens once.

Kiddo tucks in her chin making it look like she has no neck; Uncle Fester Baby Hanna! {Any Addams Family fans out there?!} Also...I think it's safe to say that baby Lu will not have long dancer's legs? Maybe shorter soccer player legs? Long or short, I love every inch of them.

• Making wonderful screeching, gooing, cooing sounds.
• Goes to daycare from about 7 to 4 each day; I'm trying to remain positive about this but I miss her SO much during the day.
• Is still into her binkies.
• Still loves her playmat friends.
• Is a rolling over MACHINE...she usually sleeps on her tummy {rolls over almost immediately after being placed on her back}.
• Was taking mostly bottles during the day last week...now that's all she has during the day and gets to nurse right before bed some days and always in the middle of the night.
• Is exploring with some new sounds, especially this hilarious hissing sort of sound. There's a bit of a consonant in there {"g"?}. I love it.
• Thinks her "brother" is hilarious and loves the feel of his scratchy fur.

         She really does enjoy looking at this pooch and even laughs at him.

         He loves to lick her face and she winces now even if he just walks towards her...

That whorl of hair kills me.

         and though the hound is quite fond of the little one, he's still is own man and
         can walk away if and when he wants.

• Took some GREAT naps last week; I'm not sure how well that's going at daycare now but she gets a little "report" card each day and yesterday {her first day} said she took a couple of good ones.
• Got to lick a piece of a cucumber {thank you daddy} and really showed no reaction.
• Sits happily in her little highchair; it clips on to the edge of our island counter {which we use as our "table"}.
• Is more and more interested in what we're drinking or eating.
• Really enjoys the little crab toy on her exersaucer; she sucks on his ribbon legs.
• Adores Dolly Baby.
• Likes to scratch/feel things. I always think she might want something to hold onto because her hand opens and shuts but she never holds onto something for very long, I think she just likes the feeling of things.
• Is getting pretty good at sitting up for a few seconds on her own...as seen below:

         right before I let her topple over and hit her head on the hard floor. Baby and I
         cried together; it was awful.

• Is our light and joy - we LOVE this kid so much.

Five months.

Today was a big day; Hanna Lu is five months old, I went back to work, and babe started day care. I’m surprised we’re gearing up to do it all over again tomorrow; we were pooped! What a FUN month it has been. I’m so super grateful to have had time with our baby as a baby baby, not just a glorified newborn. She has been so interactive and fun to do things with and I’ve been soaking it all in and am already looking forward to next summer when the weeks lay ahead of us.

Let’s think about some details, shall we?

How old: five months

Weight: somewhere around 15 pounds is my guess. I’ve been trying to get the child used to bottles during the day and so I can really {somewhat} control how much she takes in and I think it’s helped her pack on a few more ounces than she usually does in a month. Though I could be wrong, who knows, our scale can be inaccurate, etc. But, around 15 pounds!

Likes:

• Dolly Baby! HL loves to gnaw on Dolly’s satin ballet slipper clad feet. It grosses me out that she gets so soggy so I wash this thing several times a week.
• Frozen milk in a mesh/silicone feeder; this was a big hit!
• Watching mom and dad do anything, especially drink anything…child is so curious!
• Sitting in her new “highchair”; it’s a clamp on for our counter/table and the new vantage point is pleasant for Hanna Lu.
• Her binkies; some days more so than other but little bit is enjoying the paci. I put her down to sleep with one and while most nights it gets spat out soon after, sometimes it’s in there for quite a while. This is also handy in the car whereas she used to shriek, she’s pretty chill now, though we haven’t done much driving recently.
• Babbling and smiling and cooing and making her parents and dog fall in love with her.
• Being outside and seeing trees.
• Sleeping on her tummy; this was a scary one for us the first few nights. Now we know she’s “ok” with it but even though she can easily roll in both directions now, she doesn’t know it when she wakes up and isn’t thrilled to be “stuck” on her stomach.
• Her bath; this baby kicks and splashes each night…we soap her up only every other night since it’s not like she’s really rolling around in the dirt each day, we just really like the whole bath time routine.
• Scratching/feeling things; the couch, the mesh sides of her pack n’play, and our dog Guinness are the faves.
• “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” by Eric Carle…the kid goes nuts when we read her this book and it’s hilarious.
• Library story/song time…especially Miss Gillian at our local library.
• The crab on her “Neptune” themed exersaucer. He has little ribbon legs that she obsessively sucks on. Again, like with Miss Dolly, this grosses me out to no end but we can’t stop her, she loves it, and I can’t even throw this thing in the washer.
• Facetime on the phone; this baby goes NUTS on facetime…she loves her grandparents and great-grandmother and really lets them know it!

Dislikes:

• Eating, if she’s really tired. It’s like all she wants to do is sleep but her mama insists she have a good meal before going down.
• Being left for too long…sometimes we get absorbed in getting things done around the apartment and Hanna just wants some mama/daddy attention but we try to leave her on her playmat or in her exersaucer {thank you Craigslist!}…she loves these things but not if she’s ready for some people-time.

Milestones:

• Meeting some of our nearest and dearest friends at a wedding in Milwaukee.
• Starting daycare!
• This is a prediction of a milestone considering she just started daycare – baby will probably have her first little cold/bug soon…fun times ahead.
• Taking more bottles during the day.
• SLEEPING – we let Hanna Lu teach herself to self-soothe and fall asleep alone and she went from sleeping maybe two hours at a time to 10 to 12, with a snack or two thrown in. It took a few nights for this and then a few more after our trip to Wisconsin. Naps were much harder but just this past three or four days naps were the same deal…baby can go into her little “room” with her binky and her sound machine on {falling rain} awake and {as of a week ago or so} rolls right over to sleep. Sometimes she may fuss a bit if she’s overly tired or something but this is it. Some naps are short, but she’s guiding it and I’m OK with that as long as she goes down…though we had several days of three-hour-ers this past week – AMAZING. With the starting of daycare I’m predicting some regression with her sleeping but it is what it is and our daughter has impressed us so very much with her progress.

Sleep and eat:

• For sleep, see above!
• Hanna Lu can take a seven ounce bottle every three hours, though six ounces really seems to be her jam…mama pushes those last 30 mL. Up to today, I had been nursing in the middle of the night and in the morning, and maybe right before bed, with about three of those five-to-seven ounce bottles during the day. Now with daycare, daddy will probably give a bottle when baby wakes up while I pump/get ready for the day…and then I’d like to keep nursing her at bedtime and during the night.

Miscellaneous:

• We’re still loving our cloth diapers and I hope that with the busy-ness and craziness of school/work/life balance we can continue to do so. Daycare today seemed OK with them and had her little wet/dry bag full for us when we picked up baby so I’m grateful for that.
• Hanna Lu is wearing mostly three-to-six month clothes; she can fit in six month clothes. I can get her into some 0-three month clothes but they really look like capris and quarter-length sleeved outfits on her so, yeah, maybe those can be retired.
• Baby is wearing size two or three in disposable diapers; she’s not in the weight suggestions for size three diapers but in the size twos while we were traveling we had a “blow out” each and every day, sometimes several times a day, and I’ve read that a high occurrence of “incidents” indicates too-small diapers. In her cloth diapers, Hanna Lu has only one column of snaps exposed and they’re on the smallest “length”; this might make no sense at all to those who aren’t familiar with the “Bumgenius” brand of cloth diapers but at least I’ll remember!
• We’re looking forward to some rice cereal later this month followed by “baby-led-weaning” beginning in earnest at around six months…more on that later!
• Also, we are excited to meet a dear friend in the next month and have an impromptu visit with grandma and Zaide just this upcoming weekend!

Just for fun: these may not be the ones I've used for each monthly post but same difference...she doesn't look too much different from month two until now but oh my goodness how she has changed since then. I also love how in her first picture those legs were tucked in tight - they're constantly kicking now!

xoxo, natty ♥

Paddling.

Hanna loves being with her Uncle Mark...here she is with him last weekend on our rooftop.

Speaking of the rooftop, today we enjoyed one of the last open weekends at our pool with friends.

"I'm unsure mommy!"

Hanna Lu and I got in the water even though it wasn't that warm. The baby also thoroughly enjoyed the company of friends who took turns holding her.

It was a lovely little last Saturday before school/work starts.
xoxo, natty ♥

21 weeks.

Our maternity leave together has flown by. Unfortunately, the school year always does too {even though at times it drags on for even the most energetic individuals} so we're staring down the barrel of a rapidly diminishing babyhood...but at least things just get funner and funner with our little one.

And, baby...this seems like it's been a big week development-wise:

• Major drooling this week, though I still see no real sign of teeth. She also started sucking on her bottom lip, as of this afternoon, like, pulling it into her mouth. She looks hilariously like a person who has taken out his or her dentures when she does this.
• We have a major roller on our hands now. Since last Saturday the kid has been turning over a storm. Even though she had been doing tummy to back since she was two months old, when she arrives at her tummy she gets pretty upset and wants back from whence she came.

So hopefully soon she'll figure out she can indeed go both ways and isn't stuck!

• And sometimes she sleeps on her side/tummy. This kind of freaked us out the first time and we're still not comfy with it since she kind of puts her face down. But, she has great neck control and just rolls herself back to her tummy if we put her on her back so cest la vie.
• Little girl is taking mostly bottles throughout the day now; I'll nurse her right when she "wakes up" {which is kind of nebulous because I always try to get her to go back to sleep when she wakens in the morning...mostly for my selfish sleep desires}, if she wakes up to eat in the night, and right before bed time, but I've been giving her bottles of expressed milk in the day. I daresay she might be wanting more than I can make for her {she took an eight ounce bottle this morning and then an almost seven ounce one three hours later} but while she sleeps overnight I pump so I can always use that "extra". I'd rather not supplement with formula, though it would be totally OK if we do since it wouldn't be that much extra {I'm cheap, that's partially why breastfeeding is so great}.
• She might be teething since she's been a bit fussy/easily "bored". I say "fussy" because if she's playing with something she's totally digging {her "dolly baby" is her fave} and she drops it or it's taken away, there's an unhappy baby. 

Meet "Dolly Baby".

         This is kind of hilarious and cute because it's new but I'm sure this routine
         will get old soon.

• She majorly grabs for anything we're drinking from. It's funny because she was so adverse to eating and the bottle when she was younger but now wants to drink from everything.
• Has taken naps a wee bit more easy {we got a two-hour-er earlier today} but this isn't always the case {she's currently screaming through her "nap"}.
• Got her sleep a bit back on track after our trip last weekend but then for several nights was waking at around midnight {she had been going from seven PM to around three or four [even six one day]} then going back to her old ways of up every couple of hours afterwards and we were not loving that. Current efforts to help her remember how to self-soothe are in full force.
• LOVES the dog; she really likes grabbing his fur and though we watch vigilantly for no reason other than being cautious, Guinness has been nothing but the gentleman with her.
• Will try daycare for the first time either this Friday {for a dry-run} or next Monday {for reals}; wish us luck!

Edited to add {I"m always remembering something later in the day!!!} -  

• Little girl seems to have more and more {light?!} hair each day...I'm loving it especially because she still rocks her mullet.
• Hanna Lu is majorly into grabbing/reaching for things if we put them in front of her...most specifically when it's dolly baby or a bottle. She's also been really into our water bottles/anything we're drinking. She's showing interest in what we eat if we eat in front of her, but not as much as the drinks. 

xoxo, natty ♥

Bye bye bassinet.

Tonight I sold our baby's bassinet.

She has obviously grown out of it and we have no space to store it so it was time. Plus, if we have more kiddos I have my eyes set on something else as the before-crib/pack n' play option {the rock n' play to be specific - more compact and cozier for a newborn in my opinion [we had a chance to use one when we were in Arizona earlier this summer]}.

Baby hasn't put on much poundage since she was born {maybe five pounds in five months} but she looks SO wee to me in this picture. And ooooooohhhhhhhhh how I adore that profile.

But I was a bit sad to say "bye bye"; our little one slept in this thing for her first three months. Those were heady weeks, I'll tell you that much!

In other "moving on" news, we finally passed on the keys to our old place tonight; we hadn't been in that apartment for weeks now but the new tenants are about to move in and need the keys; those keys saw us through two crazy years. So, let's look forward to the next two crazy years?!

xoxo, natty

20 weeks.

First off, a VERY happy birthday to my beautiful fountain of love Ellie-Fence. The past 11 years are so much sweeter for your presence in them. We love you dearly and completely. Thank you for being such a great aunt to our little Hanna bear

I'm thoroughly enjoying my last weeks at home with baby Hanna though we're still recovering from the weekend away...a bit more about little Lu this week!

• Blowing lots of "raspberries" and bubbles...so CUTE.
• Visited the midwest...where her parents first met! Baby flew quite well but it certainly didn't hurt that the flight was less than two hours each way.
• Got to meet lots of college friends and her aunt Ellie this past weekend in Milwaukee.
• Went to her first wedding; didn't get to dance because she fell asleep and slept in her stroller for the majority of the reception.
• Had her first stay in a hotel...it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and she even slept a portion of each night in the pack n' play. 
• Rolled over from her back to her tummy...this happened last week while wearing a disposable diaper which is much less bulky than her cloth diapers and I think that's why she tipped right over, though it did take her a few minutes to bring her arm up and around.
• Speaking of, the little one had many outfit changes due to inadequate diapers...I've read that it means a diaper is too small if there is continued "escapage" but she's not in the weight bracket for the next size up and we've successfully used this brand before so I don't think it's shoddy diapers...maybe she would need the next size up then?!
• Drooling lots; it's a good idea to keep a bib on her at all times especially if she's going to be taking a bottle. I'd always thought that drooling is a sign of teething but the pediatrician says that it's just a thing that babies do plus I see no signs of chompers, though I certainly look each day!
• Really enjoys frozen milk; I've made little ice cubes of breastmilk and I'll put one into a mesh feeder {a thing for babies - a mesh pouch with a rubbery handle so that babies can gum on things, usually chunks of food/fruit/veggies, but I thought that frozen milk would be enjoyable as well and I was right!}...

           the little bit makes such a desperate face if I pull the thing away! Her 

           hand-eye coordination is OK and she can often get it into her mouth on her 

           own but doesn't always and gets frustrated when that happens.

• We just can't get enough of this cutie! Even when she's crying at 12:30 AM...
• Edited to add: lots of "creaky door" sounds; this child seriously needs some WD40!! And she's totally grabbing for things, especially if we have a glass or bottle in our hands, she goes right for it...this includes lots of interest in our food if she's with us eating. We're going to hold off on food for her until another month or so so that's why I thought it'd be fun for her to have the frozen snack mentioned above...and I was right!

xoxo, natty