Happy Thanksgiving!

Hanna Lucy celebrated her first Thanksgiving with her aunt Ellie's family in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

She loved the attention, her regular baby food, and the following at dinner: mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, and turkey.

We're very grateful for our little family this year!

36 weeks!

Hanna Lu is having her first set of holidays and not even realizing it! What else about baby Melamed...

Jazz hands!

• She is pulling herself up on anything and everything and will even take a few wobbly steps.
• Loves her daycare provider and will sometimes not reach out to me if she's being held by her; I find this glorious and not sad at all because it's a humongous blessing to have someone with whom we can trust our daughter and whom our baby so obviously loves.
• Doesn't like babyfood as much as she used to but is loving on her rice cereal again, though she'll do just fine with the food mixed with her rice cereal. She seems to eat best if we feed her, though, since she's super slow when feeding herself. I think we're destined to have a life-long picky eater...she seriously has never been that into it. This is funny considering how much her parents love food.
• Is hand/knee crawling everywhere.
• Is very curious about our bookshelf and tries to get up into it several times a day.
• Has her very first Christmas dress ordered.
• Inherited a ton of hand-me-downs from a daycare friend and is looking quite chic in them all.
• Babbles a ton and just the past few days has been really into saying "uhhh DA. DA. DA. DA. DA."
• Still says "hi" {"ahhhhhhh"} and waves and  she's started a two-handed wave though it could very well be her attempt and clapping which we've been trying to teach her and which she loves.
• Enjoys her bath but this week has been trying to climb up/stand up and we have to firmly tell her "no" and sit her down again.
  Has taken to biting her mother whilest being fed. They haven't been super hard chomps but it's not pleasant. I'm doing what I read should be done and saying something ridiculous like "I see you don't want to nurse anymore, let's take a break" and giving her a minute break or so. I don't think this means we have to stop, I just need to be aware of when she's bored/done which can be difficult since she's such an on/off eater and I've always just kept putting her back on in an effort to get her to keep going. It didn't happen today so that's good.
• Will celebrate her first Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania later this week, weather god willing, and we're so happy to do so!!

And one for the road.

xoxo, natty ♥

35 weeks and eight months!

Another week and BRRRRRRRR the cold has arrived! Today is a special day since Hanna Lu is not just 35 weeks old but eight months as well so we’ll have two updates!

 First for this week’s…

·      We are hearing the funniest espresso-machine-sounding noises from this kid; khiiiiiihhhhh, schuuuuggghhhh…

·      We’re still snotty but hopefully that’s going to go away soon.

·      We are crawling everywhere, even the traditional hand and knee crawling, but the babe is far more into pulling herself up to standing…on anything she can get to and we’ve had a few bumps and bruises because of this. The best place so far is her crib since she has a nice safe landing. In her crib the other day, she even took a few “cruising” steps on her own though she’s far too wobbly to stand on her own.

·      Not much else is new and I’ll talk more about little bit in the monthly update below but this baby is just SO adorable and amazing and wonderful to us; we love her so so much and are really looking forward to her first holidays!

How old: eight months old! 

Weight: I forgot to check but from recent at-home weighings I’d say almost 18 pounds. Slow and steady is the name of Hanna’s growing game.

Likes:

·      Standing up! This kid is constantly pulling herself up whenever/wherever she can.

·      Pureed baby food; she’s a fan of this and I think she likes it more than regular food because we feed her and it’s quick whereas she’s a slow self-feeder.

·      Guinness the dog…Hanna loves laughing at him. He’s not so keen on her these days probably because she makes unpredictable movements towards him and grabs his fur.

·      Children’s Tylenol, red-dye free and cherry flavored; we gave this to her last weekend because she was pretty miserable and it went over quite well.

Dislikes:

·      Being sick – hopefully we’re somewhat on the tail end of this thing or this most recent thing.

·      Being tired, though she might not realize it. Hanna Lu gets a bit high maintenance {fussy} if she’s tired.

·      The time after her bath and before getting on her pajamas…it takes having something in her hands to distract her. I had been letting her play with the bottle of lotion I put on her but one night she dropped it on her forehead and wasn’t a happy camper. It’s not heavy at all so she was mostly startled but now we know better and limit it to her lovey.

Milestones:

·      First Tylenol!

·      First really cold weather…that happened today! Though the babe only spent minimal time in it.

Sleep and eat:

·      Hanna drinks maybe 20 ounces of milk a day, perhaps a bit more or less? She’s still not big on drinking her milk much to her mother’s chagrin.

·      Hanna usually eats one to four pouches of baby food a day as well as milk mixed in with baby oatmeal several times.

·      Loves banana and lots of other finger foods but takes a long time to get in much so the purees seem to make baby happier.

·      Goes to bed between 6 and 6:30 and will sleep until we wake her up for the day at around 6 in the morning with usually one wake-up that happens between 2 and 5 AM for a snack. On weekends Hanna can be cajoled into sleeping until around 7 so, left to her devices, the child likes sleep. She usually rolls over and goes to sleep on her own as soon as we lay her down. She starts the night off with a pacifier that I believe is promptly thrown to the side. We have a white noise app on an old phone-turned-ipod that plays “rain” for an hour. I’m not sure if this does much for her but it’s just what we’ve always done and I imagine might come in handy when we’re out of town a lot next month and it can help mimic our at-home routine.

·      Bedtime’s routine: dinner, bath, story #1, nursing, story #2, kisses and goodnight.

Miscellaneous:

·      Hanna Lu loves waving “hi” and even says the word as “ahhhhhhhh”.

·      Baby is able to wear six month clothing and 9 month as well and if she’s in disposable diapers size three is perfect for her.

·      Our cloth diapers are holding up quite well. We use biodegradable/flushable liners to make clean-up a bit easier…otherwise we should be spraying the more soiled diapers into the toiled before we wash them in the dryer and what with daycare and everything, the liners are just so super easy. I’m debating the value in schlepping the set with us for the holidays since we’ll be gone for two weeks. When I think about home many diapers we go through over just a weekend I want to take them but they take up space and will need to be laundered when out and about so we’ll see.

xoxo, natty ♥

34 weeks!

The weeks is barreling ahead, as it usually does, and Hanna Lu is 34 weeks old...let's see what's up!

A pensive one for this week; her bruise is hiding right below the hair bow.bab

• She's still waving a ton and saying "ahhhhhh" as "hi".
• She's very intrigued by us clapping and seems like she might want to do so as well.
• Is loving baby food; I had these grand ambitions of "Baby Led Weaning" {look it up if you're curious} as a means to introduce regular table food to our baby instead of dealing with purees and after trying some store-bought baby food last week we realized it was a hit. Maybe she just likes the quickness of it all {she's not super efficient at eating regular food}? The texture? I would at least like to actually make some and have a big pureeing session sometime soon since it's so easy to make and freeze the stuff but for now it's just the pouches and jars we buy.
• Is trying so hard to stand/sit up on her own and she does so quite well. If she doesn't have much to grab onto to pull herself up then Hanna will just get onto her knees and sit there like that. 
• Crawls and tries to climb up on just about anything.
• Discovered this muscle rolling "stick" we have and tries to wave it around like some deranged group leader.
• She also figured out how to stand up on her own in her crib...that was on Saturday and since then she's been standing most times when she lets us know she's awake.
• HL has actually been a lot more active in her crib this week and even gave herself a gnarly forehead bruise by crawling and propelling herself forward straight into the railings in her crib. Our kind daycare lady made a mention of the bruise to us and we both realized we probably should've told her when we dropped off the baby...first time parents here!
• She is still so snotty and I'm wondering if maybe she got another cold or just never got rid of that first one but either way we're hoping for less congestion soon.
• This kid is amazing and wonderful and we just can't get enough!

xoxo, natty ♥

33 weeks!

It's November; next month we get to visit California and Arizona families and we're so happy about that! What else...

Wouldn't lay back for her picture. And I think that onesie is way too small, I just don't feel like fishing out a bigger one.

• Baby is still battling a bit of something, appetite isn't fabulous, sleep could be a bit better, etc....is this our new normal considering the nature of illnesses spread amongst small children in daycare and within families or will things look up soon?
• We officially have a waver; Hanna loves waving. I even think she makes a "ahhh" sound to mean "hi" because she only does it when waving but Michael isn't entertaining that thought.
• Tried some actual pureed baby food this week and loved it; I bought it on a whim and since it was successful I might make a few batches in order to use up some of the milk I have stored considering Hanna Lu doesn't drink as much as I can make for her.
• Hanna loves puffs; they're cheerios but made out of rice flour and she's had a "green" flavor and just had the sweet potato ones tonight. It's wonderful to see her little pincer grasp get the practice and she's so sweet because she does this whole body wave of excitement when she sees the container.
• Enjoys water in her sippy cup.
• Had her second visit to the pumpkin patch and didn't make a peep the entire time. It was also her first experience with being cold and totally bundled up and I think that had something to do with it.
• Is loving on Guinness the dog in a big way. He can elicit giggles just by trotting past her. We don't let her get a hold of him too often because hers is not a gentl grasp but we do let G-man give the baby face kisses which he gets really into and Hanna loves. I'm still super cautious about him around Hanna even though he's given us no reason to think otherwise, I just know that deep down he's still a dog so we keep a pretty hawkish eye on the two of them.
• Is crawling into everything; is very curious about our bookshelf.
• As of last Wednesday afternoon, can pull herself up! She did it at daycare and at home can do it really well on the couch and in her crib, though with gripping and how slippery our floors are for her, HL can't quite get it done on the floor in our living area.
• We're loving on this little girl so much and are looking forward to the holidays with her!

xoxo, natty ♥

More autumn shenanigans.

Today we ventured out with some friends for some late-season apple/pumpkin picking. We ended up at a place different from the one Rebecca and I visited last week and it was definitely kitschier - think: rubber ducky derby, hay bale jumping, a corn maze, tall slides, and a pumpkin toss/smash every hour.

Someone was awestruck by the wind and being bundled up; she didn't make a peep the entire time. And I'm not referring to myself.

We had fun, though, despite an entrance fee, and took advantage of the included-in-entry fee tractor/hay ride to the pumpkin patch for all-you-can-carry pumpkins; seriously. But, it was FREEZING!! Wind chill, I'm guessing, was actually in the high 30s...it was very gusty. The baby was bundled up and so were we but it was still chilly and nice to get into the wind-free car after our little excursion.

Honestly, we owned this maze and were out in less than ten minutes.

Have a great work week all and stay warm!
xoxo, natty ♥

Baby's first mittens.

Today was nowhere near as epic as last Saturday.

Baby is still recuperating and it was cold but we rallied for a late afternoon walk to CVS. Here's to sleep that's a bit better than last night's!
xoxo, natty ♥