6 months!

It's insane.  Daughter's already 6 months old!  I'm going to do a quick write up of how she's developing.

She can roll over both ways.  Though she really doesn't like being on her stomach, so back to stomach is a rarity.

She can sit!  For a few seconds unassisted.  She rocks the boppy.  And when mama's sitting behind her with my legs around her, she sits for upwards of a minute!

She's a content girl.  Not overly happy.  We really have to work to get her to giggle, but once she does, we can keep her going for 10 minutes if we just keep doing whatever goofy thing we did to make her giggle in the first place.  When I ask her to, she'll smile about 1/2 the time.

Sometimes, if she's really tired but not fussy, she gets giggly.  I love it!  Sometimes it's while nursing in public (when she doesn't want to sleep) and then she just pops off and looks up at me through the neck hole of the nursing cover and starts to giggle.  So adorable!

She's starting to abandon her beloved play mat... but now she has a jumper.  She can jump in that for 40 minutes and stay content.  We had to put a pillow under it at the lowest setting because she's on the short side.

She's been mesmerized by her hands a lot lately.  It's so cute!  She'll just be lying or sitting there and then all of the sudden- "woah... check these things out!"

She's now had carrots, apples, bananas, rice, venison,  and sucked on brocolli and pears.  My mom got me a magic bullet for Christmas so making baby food is so easy!

She usually takes 3- 1/2 hour or 45 minute naps per day.  She normally sleeps 12-13 hours at night with an average of one wake up.  But even when she does wake once, it's usually around 8 hours since she went to bed.

She's the most smiley when she first wakes up.  When she sees us over her crib, she generally has a big grin :)

Her mobile motor started buzzing so we stopped using it.  Now during daytime naps we just use her fish tank night light and her Ipod (yes, she has an Ipod!  Grandpa thought her toys played bad music, so he got her an Ipod!) and for night sleeps just the normal night light.

She loves being worn.  She loves when we dance while wearing her.  She doesn't like her Boba wrap anymore.  She needs to face out to see the world!  She loves to watch what we're doing... dishes, laundry, cleaning, cooking.

She loves to pull mama's hair.  Sometimes clear out of my head!

She's such an amazing blessing.  We thank God for her every day.  She's our Daughter- our gift from God.  He entrusted us to love and care for her.  Wow.  So amazing :)

Carrots and apples and pears, oh my!

Actually the third food (aside from rice cereal) she's had was bananas.  Of the three, I'd say she liked the apples most.  Which is awesome because we'll have a lot from our orchard in a few years!

We gave her some of our home canned applesauce and she loved it.  When there's a nice sale on some apples, we'll have to buy them and make her some fresh applesauce.  The apple sauce that we didn't sweeten (and therefore gave to Daughter) was made with Golden Delicious apples... we don't have that type in our orchard.  Hopefully she'll enjoy all apples!

There's a sale on pears this week so we'll get some for Daughter to try :)

I can't wait until our orchard starts producing!  Apples and pears up the wazoo!

Now she eats carrots, too!

So she's still eating rice cereal.  Getting better at it!  Last night, she had some carrots for the first time!

I steamed some carrots and sliced a few length wise for her to naw at while I pureed some more.  We were thinking of "baby led weaning" which is where you just give them soft solid foods from the get-go (no purees) and maybe we'll still do that a bit, but we're liking the purees, too. 

This morning I made some more rice cereal.  This batch I doubled the water so that it was a lot thinner... I tried it without milk and it worked!  She doesn't eat a lot, but she did swallow some. 

She gets food under her chin in her neck and it's really hard to wipe it out. 

For the next food I think we'll try bananas :)

6 month growth spurt?!?

I thought I had at least a couple more weeks... nope.

Yesterday she was really fussy, slept more than usual, and wanted to nurse at least every two hours.

She didn't have a fever, so I thought it was either cutting a tooth or the 6 month growth spurt.  I called our clinic and spoke with a nurse.  She thought it was the growth spurt and that we should give her some cereal.  She said she'd also have our pediatrician call back.

I got a lot of feedback from other parents on FB.  My mom called me with guidance, too (thanks mom and other parents!).  I decided it wouldn't hurt to grind up some brown rice to be ready.  So I got out our trusty Kitchenaide attachment mill and ground a couple cups of rice flour.

Then our pediatrician called back and told us it was a good idea to start solids. 

Mat texted when he was on his way home so that's when I started making rice cereal with this wholesome baby food recipe if you can call it a recipe... basically just boil rice flour and water.  But then I mixed about a tablespoon of the rice cereal with 2 tablespoons of pumped milk.  Mat got home and together we decided that we would try it.

Here's a video...

Daughter has discovered her hands

Well, she's been able to bat at and grasp things for a while now- but just yesterday it was like "Oh my goodness!  My hands are awesome!" Every time she didn't have something in her hands she was just staring at them.  So cute!

And yes, we are listening to the Joseph soundtrack... :)

That's not how adoption works...

People have been saying "oh she gets her auburn/red hair from *insert family members name here*"

Nope.  That's not how it works. 

Adoption makes us a family.  Genetics do not- least of all fake genetics.  Why does she have to get her red hair from anywhere?  It's her red hair... yes, it's like her daddy's red beard... or her Papa great's hair... or whoever else.  But she doesn't get it "from" them. 

I'm not angry with these people for saying this.  I just correct them.  Someone told us "oh, you can say that she gets her hair from this family member".  I just said "we're very open about the adoption."

What do you think, adoptive mamas?  Anyone else?  I know it bothers some adoptive mamas.  I'm not really bothered by it, I just don't see the desire to make so much about genetics when genetics have no affect on our family. 

Nursing mother's tax break

Modern Mom

You can write off pumps and other BFing supplies!  Between this and the hospital bill, we totally met the 7.5% of AGI needed to write off medical expenses!

Our little sleep ninja

If Daughter is in her crib alone, she'll fight sleep with the best of them about 1/2 the time.  Sometimes, if we time it just right, she'll drift peacefully off to sleep.  But other times we miss the cues or take to long to get her in there and then she is a tenth degree black belt in sleep fighting. 

Yesterday the afternoon nap was that way.  I started trying to put her down when she was rubbing her eyes at 3.  She fought it... got her out of her crib at 3:15 and couldn't actually get a nap out of her until 4:45. 

Her naps are usually only 30-45 minutes.  But I'm not going to complain, because she normally sleeps 12 hours at night.  Usually with one wake up to nurse, but still- 12 hours is awesome!

She stayed with Grandma and Papa over New Years eve and visited some relatives.  She was very tired New Years night!  Generally Mat gives her a bottle of pumped milk and then we do devotions and I nurse her to sleep.  She fell asleep during the bottle!