Belly Sleeper

Well, it's now official. Hannah is definitely a belly sleeper and we have given up the fight to try to make her sleep on her back or side. It's to the point now that she sleeps completely on her belly with one leg and arm tucked up underneath her and her butt in the air. It's pretty cute to see, but still scares me to death. We've tried and tried to turn her back onto her back while she is asleep, but she now turns her immediately back over without even waking up. She did this 3 or 4 times in a row last night! The Ferbering continues for Hannah's sleep issues. I think it may be getting better, but it's hard to tell. I still hate letting her cry.

Hannah's been working really hard on crawling and can now occasionally get up on her hands and knees and wiggle her butt back and forth, but she's not consistent with it at all. She continues to search out other alternative forms of transportation and is getting quite creative at it. This morning she was pushing up on her hands and toes (like the yoga plank position) and then swinging her upper body over to the side and setting herself back down, resting, raising back up and shifting over some more. To move forward she rocks side to side over and over again and slowly inches forward. Of course there is always the old stand by of rolling all over the place.

Hannah's newest foods are green beans, peas, applesauce, and bananas. She's becoming a pro at picking up and depositing veggie puffs into her mouth. She's getting much better at chewing them up too! Sometimes she even relaxes her vigil with that extra finger and chews them with no fingers in her mouth! Her sippy cup skills are also improving and she's starting to get the idea that she should hold it with both hands and that she needs to tip it up to get more than just air coming from the spout when she sucks. Dropping things from the highchair has also become a fun game as has taking her arm and completely clearing the coffee table with one fair swoop!

Next week Hannah goes to have her 6 month hearing test done. Because of her exposure to herpes at birth she has to have it checked every 6 months until she is 3 years old because herpes can cause late onset hearing loss and we don't want to take ANY chances. We're lucky that one of the testing sites is the Purdue Audiology clinic here in West Lafayette so at least I won't have a long drive. The bad thing is that her appointment is scheduled for 12:30 and they said that she has to be asleep for the screen. I tried to explain to the lady that Hannah usually only takes 2 (at the most 3) half hour to 40 minute naps total during a day and that 12:30 is not one of those nap times, but she was not sympathetic. I'm not sure how much she knows about babies, but most of them will not generally just sleep on command when they are 6 months old. That has been my experience anyway. I'm not thinking this screen is going to be a good experience for either or us, but we shall see. Maybe Hannah will be super cooperative and go right to sleep. She IS a VERY GOOD girl, but that may just be expecting too much from her.

Well, I'm back. It's been a few days since I started this post. Now it's Friday and Hannah has hit another big milestone. She got her second tooth! She's been quite cranky today because of it, but thankfully this time it wasn't at night! Just to prove to me how proud she is of her new tooth she bit me several times today HARD. Kyle thought I was being a baby about it until she bit him just a little bit ago. He really hollered because it hurt a lot. :P That'll teach him to make fun of me!

For an update on the cutest baby contest I am happy to report that I chose the picture of Hannah sitting up wearing the reindeer antlers. I used the closer up version that Tina doctored for me. Thanks for everyone who voted to help me make up my mind! The deadline for submitting photos is next week I believe so I will be sure to put the link up to vote as soon as they have the pictures assembled on the newspaper website. I would appreciate all the votes we can get. A $2000 savings bond would really give Hannah's college fund a jump start!

Another new thing that Hannah decided to try today is pulling up from sitting on the side of the pack-n-play. I had been sitting her down in the bassinet part of the pack-n-play while I check my email or pay bills online. Well, today I heard her making some cute noises and I turned around to see that she had pulled herself from the center of the pack-n-play to the edge and was pulling and bouncing to try to stand up by holding onto the side of the bassinet! Well, that's the end of the bassinet. :( I took it out today and now she has to sit down in the bottom like a regular old play pen. We will see how she likes that.

Here's a video (it's about a month old) of Hannah practicing transferring objects from one hand to the other and practicing sitting up on her own. Now she's to the point that I don't even put up pillows to break her fall anymore unless she is sitting on something really hard like a floor without carpet. Just click on the link and enjoy the video. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7153612364983465505&hl=en

New Mommy-Do

Before Hannah was born there were two things I said I'd never do. The first was drive a minivan. We all know how that turned out. The second was get rid of my long hair. Well, Hannah had other ideas about my long hair and decided it was great fun to pull mommy's hair out by the roots. She's quite the strong little girl and extremely quick so, besides being in considerable pain, my head of hair was quickly thinning anyway. So, I decided to just get over it and cut my hair. It's not nearly as short as say Heather's hair is, but it's quite short for me. I think I like it and Kyle says he really likes it AND the best part is that it's much harder for Hannah to get her little fingers around.

As far as Hannah updates go, Hannah's sleep struggles have continued even though I haven't mentioned them much lately. Finally on Monday I decided enough was enough. So, I decided to Ferberize her. I'm not sure if that's how you spell it, but it's the name of a doctor who developed this method of teaching babies 6 months and older to put themselves to sleep. His method is pretty simple although it's easier said than done. He says that you should start with 5 minutes (or whatever you can tolerate and for me it's 3 minutes to start!) of letting the baby cry before you go in to soothe them. You are supposed to calm them by talking to them, patting them on the back, pretty much anything except picking them up out of their crib. Then, you leave before they go back to sleep. When and if the crying starts again you stay out of the room longer this time. I jump up to 5 minutes the second time. Then you go back in and repeat the process of calming. You continue these cycles over and over making the time you wait before going back into the nursery longer and longer until the baby finally falls asleep. Let me just say that it about broke my heart to do it to Hannah, but I knew it had to be done so I toughed it out. I had to do it again Thursday morning when Hannah woke up at 5:00am and refused to go back to sleep. On Monday night it took a little more than 2 hours of hysterical crying for Hannah to eventually fall asleep. Yesterday morning it took just over 1 1/2 hours. Hopefully this means we are making progress. It is SO HARD for me to hear her crying, know that I can immediately make it stop just by going into her room and rocking her, and not go into the room. Keep your fingers crossed that I can hold up in this battle and that soon we will have a peacefully sleeping baby.

I've finally got Hannah's six month pictures scanned and I must say that I think these are the cutest photo shoot yet. Our photographer at JC Penny's, Melissa, is amazing. I don't know how she does it, but she definitely has a way with babies and can get the very best out of them.

Hannah is getting quite good at feeding herself the veggie puffs. It's pretty funny to watch her though. She chases the puff around her highchair tray and then pens it up against a side. Then she picks it up with moist fingers and it sticks to her finger and resists being eaten as she tries to shove it into her mouth. Finally she gets it inside, but she keeps at least one finger in there as protection because she hates when it sticks to her tongue and gets too far back and gags her. So, she keeps that one finger in there and keeps pushing it to the side of her mouth if the piece starts to migrate too far back in her mouth!

Cutest Baby Contest

I'm entering Hannah in our newspaper's cutest baby contest, but I can't decide which photo to submit. She's my little girl and I think she looks absolutely adorable in every single photo I have of her so I need some objective advice. Here are the pictures I am considering. Please look at them, pick your favorite, and click on the link below to vote for which one you think I should submit. I really appreciate all of your help!

http://www.gotoquiz.com/poll/cutest_baby_contest920
Just click on the link to cast your vote.

PS. I've had some comments that the reindeer antler picture is very cute, but too far away. Here's the picture cropped closer. Does that make it any better?

Trying New Food

Hannah has really been enjoying trying new food. So far the only thing she really does not care for is barley cereal. She happily eats sweet potatoes, carrots, squash, green beans, rice cereal, oatmeal cereal, mixed grain cereal, and rice cereals flavored with apples. Her favorite seems to be squash which is really interesting because Tiffany told me that her son Chase's favorite food as a baby was squash! I was watching a National Geographic special on multiples in the womb and there was a bit about twins having similar food tastes because of the food they get to taste in their mother's womb that she ate while she was pregnant. I wonder if that is why boy Chase and Hannah seem to like squash? Maybe Tiffany ate a lot of squash while she was pregnant with both of them. I'll have to ask her and see. Hannah continues to get better and better with her sippy cup and has also now moved on to feeding herself veggie puffs. She's getting quite good at picking them up and popping them right into her mouth. Although, if she doesn't get one in on the first try and it gets sticky she really has a hard time because she can't seem to figure out how to get it off her fingers, nose, chin, or whatever it happens to stick to! She does enjoy feeding herself though and it's so fun to watch her. She's really been working hard to crawl and get herself into the sitting position from her belly. She's not able to do it yet and that really frustrates her. Like when she was trying to learn how to roll herself from her tummy to her back, she DOES NOT want any help and gets frustrated with herself quite easily. She's obsessive about her practicing and after she's been at it awhile with no success she starting the baby version of swearing! You can hear her muttering and grumbling up a storm with an angry look on her face. I try to make her take a break and roll her over or sit her up, but it does not good. She throws herself right back down on the floor and rolls over and starts to try again!

Well, I have several videos of her attempting to crawl and a little bit of the baby swearing to post as well as a video of Hannah petting Abby. I hope you get as big a kick out of them as I do! Most of the pictures are from a photo shoot Hannah and I did about a week ago for her 6 month birthday. I took over 150 pictures! Don't worry, I'll only post my absolute favorite (that's still a lot of them though!). There's also the promised picture of her new tooth. It's not a good picture, but it's the best I can do because you can only see if close up and if I get close enough for a photo Hannah grabs the camera lense!

Here's her petting Abby. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6017763007904431500&hl=en

These next few are all of Hannah trying VERY hard to crawl. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8751132350717752381&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3330074893361422687&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5181032669711524925&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4812604729765231532&hl=en

First Tooth!

Hannah had a bit of a rough night last night, but when I finally got her up this morning I discoverd why. Her first tooth finally broke through! It's hard to see and mostly looks just like a little slit with a grain of sand peeking through, but it is oh so sharp. She bit me with it several times today just to prove to me how sharp it was!

Hannah also had her 6 month well baby visit today and Kyle surpised me by being able to come after all. I was so happy to not have to deal with the shots by myself. Since I know you are just dying to find out I'll tell you her latest measurements. She was 18 lbs 12 oz and 28 inches long. As far as percentiles go, she's in about the 96th percentile for weight, and about the 98th for height. She really slowed down a bit on the length this time and was actually on the growth chart this time! Her head circumference was in the 98th percentile as well, but I can't remember the exact measurement and I forgot to write it down. She got all of her shots today including her flu shot which was an optional vaccine we decided to go ahead and have done. We learned that the next check-up at 9 months she won't have to have any shots! I'm very excited about that. Of course Hannah screamed and screamed after her shots, but luckily I remembered to give her Tylenol before her appointment this time so she really hasn't be as affected by it long term this time as in the past. We found out that Hannah is allowed to start trying very soft finger foods that disolve in her mouth like tiny pieces of bread or veggie puffs as soon as we think she's ready. Tonight she tries squash for the first time so we will probably hold off on the finger foods for just a bit, but we are both very excited for her to get to try them.

Well, that's all the big news for today. I can't wait to see what that tooth looks like tomorrow and I'll try to get a picture of it as soon as it's a bit more visible and Hannah is willing to cooperate for a picture!

Working Hard

Hannah has been working really hard this past week to learn lots of new stuff. On Friday alone she managed to learn several new tricks and kept me hopping the entire day. First off, she's turning into quite the eater. She's now had sweet potatoes and carrots and loves them both. Tomorrow she starts squash and then I think we are done with the orange vegetables and will probably move onto the green ones. Those won't be quite as sweet so I'm curious to see if she will still like them. I figure pretty much anything has got to be better than her cereal so they probably won't be a problem.

Hannah has gotten much steadier standing over the last week and really enjoys standing holding onto the couch. I was using the coffee table, but she almost cracked her head on it the other day so now I'm sticking with the couch which is much softer until she is just a tab bit more stable. Going along with standing, she's learned that she can pull herself up from either a laying or sitting position using my thumbs as something to grab a hold of. She needs absolutely no help from me at all to get up either. I was absolutely shocked the first time she did it. Of course I then tried to get her to pull up on the couch or coffee table, but she just can't quite do that yet. I think the difference is that if I offer her my hands to use, my hands are at the same level as her hands as opposed to the coffee table which is above her head and she has to reach her hands way up to grab it.

Now that she's a pretty stable sitter she's been playing lots and lots with her toys in the sitting position and doesn't like to be on her back playing as much. Yesterday while sitting she learned how to point at something she wants me to look at and look at something that I point at! She also started raising her hands up above her head as I walk by when she wants to be picked up. I nearly cried the first time she did it! She's been reaching for Kyle when I am holding her for quite some time now, but this was the first time she ever reached for me! She's really been getting some mileage out of that new trick. She's definitely learned that she can manipulate mommy to do what she wants if she does that. Along with the reaching to be held, she's also started to give hugs. That of course melts my heart as well.

She got a rock-n-stack for Christmas from Uncle Kevin and she's really been enjoying playing with it. Lately she's been running experiments with the rings. She's testing them out to see if they sound different when she bangs different ones together. Also, she's quite confused by them because one ring has balls in it that roll around and make noise when you shake it, but the others are just plain plastic. She can't quite figure out why it makes noise, but those other stupid rings don't do anything when she shakes them. It's funny to see her test them all out and get disgusted as one by one she tries them each and throws them to the side until she finds the one ring that does make noise. She hasn't quite figured out that it's always the same ring and which one that is yet, but I'm sure that will come.

Today she was running experiments on some balls that she got for Christmas from one of Kyle's aunts. They all make different noises when they are shook, dropped, or twisted and she loves to do side by side comparisons of them. She'll have a different ball in each hand and shake the right one first. Listen to it and think about it. Then shake the left one. Listen to it and think about it. And finally shake the right one again to make sure that it really was different! Then she drops them both, and picks up two different ones and starts the process all over again.

She's also been looking quite cute in her new Christmas clothes. Once again our friends and family really came through for us and managed to set Hannah up with a whole new wardrobe just in time. She was on the verge of out growing pretty much her last set of clothes that she had received from her multiple showers and then Christmas came around and she got lots of 12 month and 12 -18 month outfits. So, now pretty much everything she wears is size 12 months except for onesies which are nice and stretchy and 9 month ones still fit. It's so hard for me to believe that she's only 6 months old (today actually is her half birthday!) and already wearing 12 month clothes. At Clod Christmas we stood her up next to her cousin Makinley and she was already taller than her and Makinley is a year old. If she's this big now I can only wonder what size she will actually be wearing when she does turn a year old, 2T maybe!

PS. I just want to be sure that if you are reading this Becky that you notice that I finally got that picture up of you and Hannah playing on the floor!

Videos and Pictures

I finally managed to get some of the cute Hannah videos I've been collecting uploaded to google. So, now you have many minutes of viewing to enjoy! I also finally got Hannah's 5 m0nth/Christmas portraits scanned in too. Once again it took me until they were almost a month old to get it done, but oh well. They're super cute so it's worth it.

Some brief updates are that Hannah has decided that she loves her sweet potatoes, but really does not care for her new barley cereal. She makes an awful face each time I give her a spoonful of it. She's not to the point of spitting it out, but you can definitely tell she doesn't care for it. Today I mixed a spoonful of her sweet potatoes in with it and that seemed to make the cereal go down easier so I may have to make that little trick a permanent feature.

Hannah got her bangs trimmed again last night for the second time in her life. They are now really short and out of her eyes which is a good thing.

Last night Hannah gave me several scares because she has decided that she really wants to be a belly sleeper. Twice when I went to check on her she was on her belly. One of the times she had her head turned to the side so it would be easier to breathe, but the other time she had her head face down on the mattress with her nose and mouth buried. That really scared me. Then when I went to get her up this morning she was on her belly again playing with her crib bumper.

She goes to her 6 month well baby check up on Monday which will also serve as a follow up visit for her pneumonia. She'll get her next round of vaccinations and this time I'll be on my own since Kyle won't be able to get away from work. I must say I'm not looking forward to dealing with the after shot cries and pouting, but I am really curious to see how much she weighs now and how long she is.

This first video is of Hannah trying to catch the fish on the mobile of her swing. She's just about getting too big for her swing because she can now sit up independently and she leans way forward in the seat of the swing :( http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2926871892768037060&hl=en

This video is of Hannah helping Kyle read the paper. One of her new favorite activities is shredding and then chewing on newspapers and magazines. The Christmas wrapping paper was a huge treat because it was extra crinkly and shiny! http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4389020316505730343&hl=en

Here Hannah was just starting to be able to sit up on her own with just the boppy for support. It was also her first day with pig tails. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4526477670727385354&hl=en

Hannah kept nodding off and waking up as Kyle was trying to burp her on Christmas Eve. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8200162998367880362&hl=en

Here is Hannah opening one of her presents on Christmas Day. She really did enjoy tearing all the paper. She actually started to get a little bit annoyed with me because I kept taking the paper away from her as soon as she would tear it off and try to put it in her mouth. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7169215432916564006&hl=en

Hannah had been being a stinker about eating cereal for Kyle (or anyone else for that matter). She would only eat for me. But, for some reason this night she was SUPER excited to be eating her cereal from Dad. I think it was the newness of getting to eat on the couch on Dad's lap instead of in her highchair. She knocked both the bowl and spoon out of his hands more than once during the meal! http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3815120128174730283&hl=en

Hannah was sitting up on her own and talking to Sadie, our cat, as she walked around her. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3220053813599459343&hl=en

Hannah enjoys falling back onto the pillows when she gets tired of sitting up on her own. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6960692054879004897&hl=en

Hannah got a case of the giggles while playing with Kyle and her Nemo fish. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8817975315000823319&hl=en

If you listen closely you can actually hear Hannah sucking water out of her cup. She's much better drinking from it now than she was in this video that was taken close to 3 weeks ago! http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-675402535189831713&hl=en

To see the videos just click on the link and enjoy!