6 Months!

6 months old! Or half a year! Or OMG, half a year until my baby is one!  Time is going at lightning speed.  This little girl learns something new everyday.  She is so smart, funny, beautiful, special, and has such a little personality!  She is the light of my life.  

So here is what has been happening in Charlotte Mae's world:

She love walks.  We try and take walks everyday that we have nice weather.  We take long walks too, about an hour or so and she doesn't make a sound.  She just hangs out, rides along, and checks out her surroundings.  My mom was visiting this past weekend and we took Charlotte to a local park and went on a hike.  Charlotte loved being in the woods and checking out all the trees.  She loves to sit on the porch with me too and look around.  She is an outdoor girl!

I mentioned in my last post that Charlotte is now eating solid foods.  She loves them and they are making her grow.  She is in 6-9 months clothes and size 3 diapers.  She has really come around on apples and she is enjoying them.  She however is no long enjoying any green foods.  She gags when she eats them and makes throwing up sounds.  I have been trying to mix them in with other things so that she will get those greens in.  Plus most all of the other foods that she eats are orange and I don't want her turning into an orange colored baby!  She is now eating oatmeal cereal instead of rice cereal.  She is still having some constipation issues and I thought the oatmeal would help so we are trying that.  I also give her prunes, prune juice and apple juice to help her out.  We go to the doctor in 2 weeks for her 6 month check up and hopefully we will get the OK for stage 2 foods and maybe eating some bananas from her baby food holder things (yeah that's a good explanation of them, I know).  I am not sure how much I am supposed to be feeding her.  I am going to ask the doctor about that.

I also have taken on the task of making homemade baby food.  Charlotte has tried my sweet potatoes and bananas.  She was not loving them at first so I mixed them with their store bought counterparts and that seemed to work out better.  Butternut squash and apples are on the menu for this week.  We shall see how that goes...

She has been working with her sippy cup as well and I have been giving her mostly water in the cup.  Maybe the doctor will give us the OK on other fun stuff to try.    :  ) 

Charlotte is starting to get some serious hair!  Praise the Lord!  I was bald until I was 2 1/2 so grow baby grow!  She has some really long hairs on top and they are so soft and poofy.  They are so sweet.  :  )

Scotty and I had our first late night scare.  It was a few weeks ago, Charlotte woke up around 11 pm and Scotty went in to check on her and she had thrown up all in her crib.  He came and got me and while I was cleaning her up and cleaning up the crib she vomited again, and then again.  I checked her temp and she was fine and she would smile when she was done throwing up and she had no diarrhea but we called the on call doctor anyway.  He said to give her a very little bit of pedialyte every 15  minutes.  I called my sister-in-law after that and double checked with her and she said the same thing.  I didn't know what to do though because Charlotte was so tired and just wanted to sleep and my sister-in -law said to just let her sleep.  They both thought that she sounded fine, especially since she didn't have any other symptoms so we didn't take her to the ER but the on call doctor said we should think about it if she keeps vomiting and she gets dehydrated.  

Well we get off the phone with the both of them and Charlotte threw up 2 more times.  She was still just so tired so we decided to let her sleep and give her the pedialyte when she woke up.  She woke up a couple of times in the night and I gave the pedialyte and did that throughout the next morning as well and she was fine.  She was so hungry! She was mad that I wasn't giving her milk but she eventually got her milk and she did not throw up again.  Very weird. Those next 3 days she did not act like her normal self.  She was so fussy!  I mean so fussy! She had no temp.  Nothing. I gave her some Tylenol because I thought maybe her teeth were bothering her but that didn't help and to make matters worse, she was screaming on the couch and while I was sitting right next to her looking up how much medicine to give her, she rolls off the couch which just made her more mad.  Excellent.  Mom of the Year award right here.   

So I took her to the doctor because of the throwing up and then her acting so fussy and they said that she was fine.  So the next night she slept for 14 hours.  Yeah.  Girl was tired and when she woke up, she was good as new!  She ended up throwing up again about a week later but still no other symptoms so we are just keeping an eye on her and trying to figure out what we are doing, if anything, to cause this.  

Something that I have noticed Charlotte doing that I think is really cool is that she is no longer just cooing.  She is adding letters to her coos like "gah" and "bah" and is freaking awesome.  She is learning!  Right before my eyes!  She is also getting back into her raspberries.  She was pretty quiet with her coos for a few weeks and now she is noisy all the time!

She is enjoying her Johnny Jump Up!  She is starting to understand how to do it.  She practices at home and she also practices at My Gym.  She is really enjoying My Gym as well.  We have been 3 times and she seems very happy when we are there.  Me, on the other hand, is grappling with finding a balance of allowing her to play with things and get germy to build an immune system and not freaking out about the little girl who has a runny nose, sunk in eyes, and a terrible cough grabbing Charlotte's arm twice.  But these are the things that I will struggle with forever as a parent, right?  

Speaking of coughing, Charlotte has learned how to fake cough.  It is a new noise that she has discovered.  She has also discovered this sort of fake, deep, crying noise.  She has been making this silly face all day today that is new.  She is biting on her lip and it is very funny.  I posted a picture below. : )

We had Charlotte's 6 month pictures taken and I am dying to see them!  She did so well.  She sat up the whole time and she was just precious!  Hopefully they will be in soon and I can post some!

Charlotte is still eating and sleeping very well.  She did however bite me twice this week while nursing.  Not cool.  Anyway, she is sleeping from about 7:15pm-5:30am.  She then will wake up and want attention for about 5 minutes and then go back to sleep.  I am trying to get rid of that wake up and get her to sleep through until 7 or so and then be up for the day rather then sleep until 8:30am with a wake up.  I am so thankful that we got a sleeper.  She does so well with her naps and everything.  Woo hoo!

Something pretty cool happened to me today.  I have an app on my phone that I had all through my pregnancy called "What to Expect" and it updated me on what was going on with the baby every week while I was pregnant and now it gives tips and ideas based on Charlotte's age.  It also has a community board.  Mine is for moms who's babies were born in September 2013.  It is cool because you can ask questions and get tips from other moms whose babies are the same age as yours.  Anyway  - there was a post on there for a contest from the creators of the app and it was asking moms to post all the crazy, fun, odd places that you have used your breast pump and the best 8 stories would win prizes.  Well I wrote on there about leaving my pump tubes in SC when I flew to Missouri when Charlotte was 8 weeks old and how my friend Kendra and I went on the hunt for tubes and how I finally did get the tubes and I then pumped on the packed charter bus and in the first aid station of the football stadium all for that little Char Baby to be able to have the good stuff.  Well they emailed me today and I am one of the 8 winners! Out of at least 60 other people! Woo!  I have no idea what I won, but I guess I'll find out soon!  :  )  

And Scotty and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary! Yay!  Love him  :  ) He is such a good daddy to our girl!

Until next time, here are some recent pictures and videos!  P.S. These are taken on different days.  We just love to hang in our onesies when we are at home.  :  )

Char enjoying the Johnny Jump Up

Playing on the slide at My Gym

Char has the sniffles after a meltdown she had when I was at the gym

 

Using her sippy cup!

Sitting up!

The Belly Sleeper

Out for a walk

Fun at My Gym!

Kisses for Mama!

She rolled her way over there!

Happy Valentine's Day

At the doctor after throwing up

Her fussy couple of days

2 Teeth!

She likes to knock this over and play

Enjoying a little light reading

Snuggling in Mom and Dad's bed while they got ready for the day

My mom, me, and Charlotte.  Yeah, we are related.

Playing with Mom's hair

Sitting in the buggy!

Hanging at the park

We did not plan this.  I forgot Char was wearing pink when I got dressed then my mom came out in her pink shirt.

Hanging at My Gym

6 months!

The new biting of the lip