Our Tiny Extrovert

In addition to being our vegetable lover, it also appears Isabella is going to be the family extrovert.  JT solidly lives in camp introvert.  I hover in the middle and with age am swinging more toward team introvert.  But not Isabella.  No sir she LOVES people.  She loves when we go out to the store or restaurant and watch people.  She loves playing with mommy and daddy.  She especially loves when she comes down from a nap and there are kids in the living room.  She gets the biggest grin on her face.  She especially likes it when I put her in a jumper or something facing A.  They will "talk" to each other.  It is absolutely adorable!  One time though she laid a pterodactyl scream on him...he cried but recovered quickly:).

Baby Food

We introduced oatmeal way back in mid-August.  She liked it but had a hard time keeping it in her mouth!  With everything else going on frankly I did not have the time to mess with the mess so it's only been within the last week or so we've given it another shot.  While still messy, she has a much better idea as to how to keep a large portion of the food in her mouth so we began the foray into vegetables.  Avocado seemed like a bland enough stating point.  Fortunately a friend had given me an extra emulsifier she had because when I took out our food processor I realized it had bit it.  The emulsifier was awesome!  In less than 30 minutes I had made avocados, sweet potatoes and green beans.  I also used one of those steamable bags of frozen green beans so it made things
way easier.  She likes everything so far.  Maybe she will be our little vegetable lover:).

Formula Change

Now that we are "on the other side" of the whole colic/reflux nightmare we are rethinking the use of the soy formula.  It was not a bad idea when we weren't sure what was going in but research shows a correlation between more soy in the diet and increased estrogen.  Since we didn't have a clear cut dairy allergy we thought we should try to reintroduce dairy before an allergy develops through lack of exposure.  We got the green light from the doctor who didn't really provide much guidance as to how to make the change so I turned to the internet for assistance.  What bubbled to the surface was transitioning to a sensitive formula and doing a mixture of the soy plus the new formula gradually shifting the ration until it was completely new formula.  I jumped the fun a bit at first doing 1/4 new on day one and then moving to 1/2 new on day 2.  That did not go well.  So slowed things down and will make the ratio switch once a week.  This has worked much better and has gone well so far.

5 Months

Working at Full Steam

I have not actively sought a replacement for H's child care slot (honestly I don't know if I WANT another full time kiddo), but my part timers have now started.  There is B who is 3.  His dad is a teacher and mom is a nurse who works part time overnight at the local children's hospital.  He also attends preschool, so he is only here 1-3 days a week for either 90 minutes (if he has school) or about 4 hours (if he doesn't).  He's a sweet kiddo and likes hanging out with the babies.

There is also a pair of siblings K & K who are 3 months and 3 years.  They only come on Fridays and K3 will only come a few times a month if at all since dad is a firefighter and can rest while keeping an eye on her at home when he is off.  Another pair of sweeties.

Classes are in full swing too.  So far I am juggling everything pretty well.  It helps that Isabella is only waking up once or twice just long enough to eat so I am getting a decent amount of rest.  We shall see how this continues as the semester becomes more intense.  I think I envisioned more simultaneous naps than we are actually getting.  I swear there are days when Isabella and AJ must have a secret meeting and work out a schedule to ensure at least one of them is awake during the whole day-silly babies!

Saturday School

Classes started this past week.  I am taking four which is more than the suggested three recommended for full time students, but I don't really have a choice.  There are two core classes that are only offered in the spring PLUS they only offer the comprehensive exam (comps) required to begin your dissertation in the spring.  These two pieces mean that following their recommendation the fastest you can finish the program is 4 years BUT there is a big lag in the middle, so I'm going at an accelerated rate so we will see how that goes.


In addition to one online class and two traditional classes that meet on Monday and Wednesday evenings, I am also taking a Saturday class that meets once a month for 8 hours.  I did this last fall too and it was too much with working outside of the home too...it was like a 6 day work week.  Hoping this fall is not quite as much.  Unfortunately it is with a professor that I don't love, but whatcha gonna do?

Actually this prof earned some brownie points with all of us because after going over the syllabus, she let us leave!  This is a woman who routinely kept us until 4:00 even when she told us she would let us leave early last fall.  J.T. was at home with Isabella so I took a little advantage of this newly found "free time" to work outside on my assignments and treat myself to lunch.  I still got home early, but just not quite as early as I could have:).  It allowed for some daddy-daughter bonding time!

I did miss Isabella though and looked at her pics and videos a couple time for study breaks.  God bless technology, what did we ever do without it!

On a Roll

Isabella has been turning onto her side for a while now so rolling was bound to happen any day and....I missed it!  She was on her back on the activity mat, I left the room and when I came back she was on her tummy.  While I'm excited for this little trick it has caused some anxiety in the-you guessed it-sleep department. 

Turns out our girl is a tummy sleeper and when we lay her on her back in her crib she rolls on to her tummy, curls her hands and legs under her (butt in the air) and passes out.  This wouldn't be a problem EXCEPT she spent the first few days sleeping with her face IN the mattress (insert smack my head emoticon). 

After a few sleepless nights watching her in the monitor.  Discussions and google searches with moms who said their kid did it and survived AND a near miss of spending $200 on a breathable baby mattress.  We are out of the woods and she now puts her head sideways to sleep.  Phew!

She has slowly become a little rolling machine. This baby is on the move! In both pictures I had set her on her back on the activity mat head at top, feet toward the aqua piano on the bottom. The first pic is clearly a roll over. Pic 2...multiple rolls? Roll plus army crawl? Roll plus the puppies pushing her (ha, ha)?