March 1st, 2009
Today Abby is 10 months old! She is such a delight to us as she continually grows. She is rolling all over – quite the speed roller actually. I think she is on the verge of crawling. She has two teeth and possibly some on the way – if her recent behavior is any indication. Abby loves people – she’s very mellow, laid-back and especially loves kids. The girls at church play with her and she is simply content. Abby is eating so much these days – I finally got her to like beans and rice.
This is a weird thought but hopefully I can get it out. Abby looks just like Paul; so much in fact that I have a hard time recognizing that she is really part of me. I get surprised actually when she exhibits a characteristic of mine.
In my head, it’s almost as if she is just a really great baby that I get to take care of and raise. And yet, she is of me. She is my daughter and will probably look more like me as she demonstrates mannerisms of mine. For now though, I have to remind myself constantly that she is indeed my baby girl.
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February 26th, 2009
When we were little girls, we used to get in trouble if we caught a sister with their eyes open during prayer…because of course, that meant our eyes were open too. When I pray, I like to close my eyes…I can block out all the distractions around me, try to connect my thoughts, “search me and try me o God”. I once tried hiking and praying with my eyes open and praying out-loud. It was a bit awkward for me but I was willing to try it until I ran into another hiker.
In past weeks, Abby has gotten a lot more mobile. During devotion time, she is constantly getting into trouble. Now I must pray with one eye open and less than half of my faculties working well. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us when our own prayers are less than coherent!
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February 22nd, 2009
I have a love/hate relationship with buffets. I feel like I always overeat at buffets in order to “get my money’s worth”. I mean, who goes to buffets for a nice gourmet meal? No! You go to buffet to get quantity. So, for the most part, I resist buffets. There are two exceptions to my rule. The first is Chinese. I love Chinese food – it’s my all time comfort food. I would never be able to pick only one dish and be satisfied so Chinese buffet is great. My other exception is indian food. I just love indian food – probably my favorite ethnic food genre. It’s the only place where if I leave feeling overstuffed, I’m okay with it. Since we moved here, we pass an Indian food restaurant every time we leave the apartment. Today we finally went there for lunch. We weren’t planning to go when we left the house for church so we didn’t have any food packed for Abby. She also hadn’t slept at church so she was tired. We decided to risk it anyway and went on in. Paul and I took turns getting our plates full from the buffet. The names of the dishes were the same as other Indian restaurants we’ve been to but the food wasn’t quite the same. It was okay. Probably wouldn’t go back to this same one. There was one dish with curried potatoes and cauliflower. I sliced them up and let Abby at them and boy! did she enjoy it. Her hands and shirt were stained that bright yellow curry color. I’m actually not sure if there was more food on the floor or that she ate. We became that family that left a disaster behind us. Thankfully we were in the back corner and maybe, just maybe no one else would even venture back there.
On a completely different topic – Abby is definitely learning the word “no”. She’s been doing this nasty whining that we’ve been working on with her. This morning when I said “no, ma’m”, she immediately started crying for real. Just a few minutes ago, I told her “no” when she was trying to reach for the computer. Again, she started crying. So….progress!
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February 19th, 2009
Today I went through Abby’s clothes to sort out what she can’t wear anymore. She’s still pretty small for her age so the clothes still fit her except lengthwise. Her pajamas are stretched so that she looks uncomfortable. It was time…past time for me to do this sorting through. It makes me a little bit sad everytime I go through the clothes. I love some of the little outfits. I pray that I will have another little girl someday who can wear these clothes.
As most of you moms probably know, the clothes start dwindling. When Abby was born, we were given so many clothes which was an incredible blessing. I even had a hand-me-down source but her hand-me-down source decided she wanted all the clothes back so ….anyone want to be my hand-me-down source?
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February 5th, 2009
On Monday, we took Abby for her 9 month checkup. She weighed in at 15 pounds, 1 ounce and is 25 3/4 inches long. I chose to go to the SIU teaching clinic. My thoughts were that an experienced pediatrician would be assisting a new doctor and wow! I would get really great medical care. Instead, only the resident came in, very nervous I might add, and seemgly out of his element. After asking me “Did she come in for her 8 month check-up?” (there is no 8 month check-up) he then proceeded to ask “What shots are we getting today?” (There are no shots scheduled at the 9 month check-up). Another weird question – is she gaining weight appropriately?” Well, in my “professional” opinion yes but isn’t that why we are here. Finally, after a barage of questions, we got to the actual physical. Paul was the one holding Abby and talk about awkward. Paul had never been to a check-up like this before so I don’t blame him at all. The dr. though, well eh should know better. He was trying to look in Abby’s ears with her sitting up. With a squirmy baby, not a good idea – one jerky move and that ear piece would go just a bit too far. I could tell the doctor was not comfortable with it and finally he said “why don’t we lie her down?” Most pediatricans that I have been to tell me what they are doing and giving assessments as they go such as “she has good reflexes” or “she has great eye movement”. Nothing from him. He started checking her hips and kept pusing her legs around to the point where Abby was screaming. Sorry but Abby doesn’t cry very easily – in fact she had blood drawn and DID NOT cry. But the dr. kept on and kept on. I could tell that he thoughts something wasn’t right. He slipped out to get the senior resident. During this little break, we tried to calm Abby down thought her little body is heaving with sobs. Senior dr. comes in and repeats almost the entire physical ending with the hip area. He showed jr. doctor how the fats rolls are identical on both the front and the back and thereofre everything was fine. Junior dr. finishes up with us and tells us we are free to go. Abby is still bawling at this point so after dr. leaves, I try to nurse her and comfort her. She still isn’t even dressed either. Well I guess we took too long because jr. doctor comes back in adn tells us that we can leave. Poor uncomfortable doctor. I thought we were finally done but as we were checking out, senior dr. runs us down and asks for our phone number “just in case we need to follow-up”. That evening, jr. dr. calls and tells us that he forgot to tell us that we need to get hemoglobin checked and then Abby should start taking vitamins. I said I had a couple quesitons. ”Did Abby need to take vitamins if her score was okay?” ”Yes, it is recommended” Then I asked what they thought was wrong with Abby’s hips. ”Oh nothing, she was just fighting me hard”.
So Tuesday we go to get her hemoglobin checked. I pick up the orders and see three tests – hematocrit, hemoglobin and lead. I wasn’t told by all these. The dr. promised me it would only take 10 minutes. 45 minutes later, we were finally called in. I told the “nurse” that we didn’t want the lead test. She argued with me and finally said “Well, it’s kinda required”. ”By who?” I ask. ”Well the state in certain areas”. I said I still didn’t want it done and she said “Well, I’ll just let the doctor know”. Okay, fine.
Wednesday afternoon, jr. dr. calls, Paul answers. He says Abby’s levels are “low” and go immediately and get the prescription which is already at our pharmacy. I didn’t get a chance to talk to him but I wish I did. The “low” level wasn’t actually in the bad zone – just above it. I would rather try to correct any low levels via diet rather than medicine. So now the question…do we get the vitamins and then just store them or do we just completely ignore the fact that the prescription is at the pharmacy?
Final irony. Jr. dr. says that Abby’s lead levels are fine. After I refused??
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February 1st, 2009
Abby is 9 months old today. I am sitting here watching her play on the floor where she is rolling over and over until she gets where she wants to get. This is brand new. It’s almost as if her body knew she was hitting the 9 month mark and said “Get mobile now”. I guess that means we have to babyproof the house now. I think she’ll find out soon enough that rolling is not an efficient way to get around and hopefully figure out crawling. Another fun thing Abby is doing is trying to mimic what we are doing when we talk. She can say bababa now. She used to do “k” sounds – I know – backwards. She has also figured out to do the “all done” sign with her hand but she does it all the time, even when hungry so no context for it yet, I guess. We’re only using three signs so far – “more”, “all-done” and “please”. Question for mothers out there. Is juice necessary for babies/toddlers? Do they really get important nutrition from juice? Abby so far does not like juice and loves water. I am fine with this and would actually prefer it. I don’t want to push juice on her unless she needs it. I was thinking that it has got to be better to eat your veggies and fruit than to drink it.
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January 30th, 2009
In an earlier post, I admitted that I wasn’t doing cloth diapers for the double yuck factor. Well, we are now using cloth and it really isn’t that bad. We use prefold diapers with diaper covers and it is actually super easy. One of our most recent additions is a diaper sprayer which is attached to the toilet. You can use this to spray off the poop from the diaper rather than the traditional dunk and swirl. My husband loves using the sprayer so this is a double blessing for me 
Since we still have lots of disposables, we are using them at night. I haven’t quite figured out what we’ll do when we are out of them. Abby soaks the diapers pretty fast so not sure how to get through a whole night. I can’t imagine trying to do cloth diapers if I didn’t have a washer and dryer in house. A factor that I didn’t take into account was that the diapers add a lot of padding to Abby and her clothes don’t fit very well anymore. The onsies are barely snappable and her pants look like highwaters….oh well, what does a 9 month old know about fashion anyway?
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November 10th, 2008
. . .watching your daughter get shots. Today Abby had her 6 month check-up. All is well and she is growing right along the curve. She weighed in at 12 pounds, 12 ounces and her length was 24 inches. She was all smiles until the end. The nurse came in to give the shots and this time asked me to hold down Abby’s hands. Now that’s CRUEL! Abby looked at me with such a confounded expression like “how could you do this to me?” She’s been quite fussy all afternoon and actually sleeping a lot! I pray that she is able to sleep well tonight.
One thing that bothered me was that they popped the question of do I want to give a flu shot to Abby? I am a bit leery of flu shots in general let alone in such a little girl. I asked if there were side effects, etc but nothing out of the ordinary. I wish I had had time to check it out myself. I found out that there is mercury in a lot of the flu shots out there and that is what is bad for little ones. But just as in the past, I can not panic. God is in control and faithful with my family.
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November 5th, 2008
So those that know me know that I can be cheap. Not all the time. For example, I am using disposable diapers instead of cloth diapers. Probably only because I only have access to a washing machine once a week but I must admit that I like using disposable. You only have to deal with the “yuck” once. So I’ve been researching making my own baby food because I just can’t stomach the idea of buying those jars of preservative rich baby food. I’ve also been to enough baby showers where you have to smell and taste to guess what the food is. Gross!!! I am also a control freak. I want to know what I am really feeding my baby. So yesterday was my first attempt to mass produce some baby food. I steamed carrots in the new steamer bags (awesome by the way since to get the most nutrients don’t cook veggies in water). Then I added a bit of water and blended it into a smooth texture. Next I filled an ice cube tray with my carrot mush and froze them overnight. This morning, they popped right out and I placed them in good freezer bags. Now when I want Abby to have some carrots, I just take a carrot cube out and let it defrost.
My next goal is to start making my own rice cereal. Something just makes me cringe about the packaged cereal that I buy. Eventually, Paul and I would like to purchase the Nutrimill which would let us grind our own wheat and anything else such as rice to make nice rice flour. We’ll have to save up for that or maybe we’ll get enough Christmas money for that 
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July 11th, 2008
It’s amazing how quickly you can fall in love with a child. Abby is just so sweet especially now that she smiles a lot more often. She’s making cooing noises and almost what seems like a laugh.
Last night she slept for 6 1/2 hours….it was like heaven especially since the night before she was up at least 4 times. I think she is beginning to recognize Paul and I. I can tell that she knows my voice. She also knows that when I hold her that I am also her milk source
We take Abby everywhere with us. For the 4th of July, we went downtown to the local parade in Westcliffe and then also looked at the carshow. Later than night, we went out to fireworks at the lake. Right when the fireworks started, Abby had a bit of a meltdown. It was after all a LONG day!
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