Friday, December 17, 2010

Eating our veggies

Good thing there were no dogs at home for Hallie to sneak her veggies to under the table Tuesday night. But really no dogs were needed....because she LOVED her first REAL meal! In the spirit of Christmas, Hallie decided to give peas a chance. We got the okay from Hallie's boyfriend (Dr. Stecklow) to start solids. YES!!! I had been waiting to hear those words for awhile now! This means I will no longer have to claw up this hill known as breastfeeding and scrape together every last ounce of milk I can produce. First I guess I should give you an update from her 4 1/2 month checkup: she is as healthy as a horse. Here are her stats:

Height: 23.5 in (25th percentile)
Weight: 14lb 5 oz (70th percentile)
Head Circumference: (85th percentile)

So basically, she has gotten taller, thinner, and smarter since her last visit. ;) My girl always turns on the charm when we visit the doc. She was playing around on the scale in her diaper as others walked by and stopped to laugh at her sillyness...she was rolling around and blowing spit everywhere. Daddy's girl definitely! After a little flirting on Hallie's part, the doc checked her over and gave a thumbs up. Here's an interesting fact for ya: it is normal for a breastfed babe to go up to two weeks without pooping. Poor babies. That just sounds like torture. So needless to say, he wasn't worried when I told him that my definition of constipation was "not pooping for 1.5 days." But I didn't have to worry about that anyways because her first meal has definitely cleared up that problem. Trust. Me. After the doc finished his baby talk with Hal he left us to wait for the big, bad nurse. Actually she is quite lovely and pleasant, but not when she is stinging my babe with shots. She was innocently playing around in the treatment room before the nurse came in to stick her with those evil shots. Poor girl, so innocent and sweet....
"This thing is cool mom."

"Why does healthcare involve such a long wait?"

We left with Taz bandaids intact on both legs and having only cried for ten seconds after the last of four shots. The shots may as well have been tranquilizers because she was out like a light. I was able to keep her for awhile longer before I dropped her off at the babysitter and returned to work after lunch.

Boo Boo #1

Boo Boo #2

I have a confession. I made a big mommy mistake. I will blame it on getting off of our routine when we went to the doc's office. I forgot to put a bottle nipple in her bag after I dropped her off for the second time at Mindy's. Later that afternoon at work I hear, "Ashley Fanning, line two" over the intercom. It was Mindy. And Hallie. Hallie screaming bloody murder in the background to be specific. So I was heartbroken to leave work early...NOT! I was thrilled to spend a long afternoon with my Hal gal and she must've been equally as excited because she was being quite the angel. We did some last minute Christmas shopping to finish off our shopping list and picked up some baby food while we were out. I may have gone overboard because I think I bought every flavor they had just to stock up. Greens first, then orange foods. Then fruits. I was dying to feed her the baby yummyness but wanted Riley to share in the moment so we waited patiently for dad to get home. I think it was well worth the wait to get to have her first big meal together as a family. Am I corny or what??!!








Num, num, num

Full belly and obviously ready for bed...but happy nonetheless

We are missing the other half of our little family this week. Lucy has been shipped off to Woodward, while her same sex soulmate, Emmi, has been hiding out in Enid at Grammy and Gmans. Thank goodness we have parents who want to put up with our crazy dogs as we make this transition. Most of you are probably shaking your heads saying "What transition?" Some of you already know. I will definitely spill the beans when I get the go ahead. But for now I am left with this secret that almost has be busting at the seams. Hopefully I can share the details very soon. First things first: shave Lucy. Nanny hates all of the accumulating hair just as much as we do. Lucy was completely traumatized after getting home from the groomer's. Maybe she felt like she was walking around naked?? We got both dogs cleaned up and ready to be shipped out to their vacation destinations. We spent Sunday driving around the state dropping of our canine daughters. First on the list was Woodward to drop off Lucy. Hallie got to spend a short amount of time with Nanny and Papa which I'm sure left them craving more Hallie time. Then it was on to Enid to drop off my best doggie friend in the world. I am kinda lost without her around. Nobody to give me kisses on command. Lol. ;) Emmi is now enrolled in doggie daycare with my dad since he is on vacation this week. So far, she has only chewed up four toys and is sleeping at the foot of the bed instead of hogging it like she does with me. Great! Hallie is now minus one new toy this week though.....

"Aww, a new toy."

"Oooo, so soft."

"It's about time you got my hair did!"

"Can you remind me why I have to leave again?"

One thing about parenthood, there is NEVER a dull moment. Hallie keeps us constantly laughing! Her hands need to touch everything. So of course there was no better tiny person to ask for help on our Christmas cards. She read the address to me while I wrote since my handwriting is neater than her's is.


"Remember mom, that person moved this year so you need to get their new address!"

"Here, let me help you with the stamps."

She has spent a lot more time entertaining herself as of late. I know the second that I type this it will change so I realized I may be jinxing this but oh well. The other day I left her on her quilt in the living room while I started a load of laundry and fully expected her to start screaming any moment, but surprisingly enough found her playing with her hands and feet while staring in a trance at the tv. She has started putting herself to sleep at night. We have been spoiling her for four and a half months and letting her eat herself to sleep (that sounds weird) but recently since we started eating solids she has been falling asleep on her own. The calmer side of Hallie has been captured in photos believe it or not....



Ok, so I think I have seen my new favorite picture of all time. All Hallie Time that is. I guess you could technically say that she sat up by herself for the first time last Sunday. It may have been very uncomfortable and soon made her scream, but for three whole seconds she looked like a 6 month old. ;) Ok, maybe she cheated a little and propped up on her hands but it was pretty dang cute either way. What a precious little bean...I just wanna squeeze her sweet cheeks in this picture...

Sittin' pretty

Her new favorite activity: making farting noises. She gets it from her daddy...



I think I mentioned last blog about Hallie's new found love for books. Well Gman took advantage of a stack of my old books and entertained his little grandlady with some reading time on his lap while Bailey and I reminisced over our favorite pile of Berenstain Bear books. Hallie just inherited quite the book collection. Now all she needs is a HUGE bookcase!

"Next page."

"I've got to at least be at a 3rd grade reading level by now."

Just loungin' around and sporting her onesie from Aunt Bailey

Everything her hands come in contact with interests her to no end. For example, this musical manger at my parent's house left her mesmerized....


Or something as simple as a plastic cup. A cup? Alright folks, you can return you Christmas gifts for this child. We have it covered....


 As I mentioned above, she constantly keeps us laughing with her antics. We always seem to find her in the most awkward positions....


And falling asleep at the dinner table wasn't just a one time thing after all....





But man is she a great helper though. Not only Christmas cards, but wrapping gifts. She did give me attitude the other night when I told her she was behind on wrapping and had a whole stack for her to wrap....

"I'm gonna need some help mom. I will wrap the presents that are for me and that's it."

The sound of a baby crying at 2 a.m. = exhaustion. The sound of a baby blowing spit and making farting noises at 2 a.m. = priceless. I actually find myself giggling in the middle of the night after already having gotten out of bed for two prior feedings. That girl has me wrapped around her finger so bad. I think Riley has the trick for convincing her that she wants to go back to sleep. I want a quick fix so I usually just go snatch her and feed her and put her back to bed. Riley has the patience of Job and can stand for thirty minutes holding her binky in while she decides if she wants to go back to dreamland or not. She has reverted back to her younger days and has been waking up every 2-3 hours. And for the life of me, I cannot figure out why. No teeth. She has a full belly of peas and milk. Clean diaper. WHAT IS GOING ON LITTLE LADY??? This lack of sleep has not paired well with lots of other events going on. I have never realized just now busy Christmas time really is until this year. Yawns are more frequent, naps are non-existent, but love is still overflowing.

Hallie had an extra special day today. She got to spend a girl's day with Aunt Kylie who stayed the night with us last night after finishing her last final. She had her car packed up and ready to head home for break but was sweet enough to come and babysit Hallie for the day. Hallie had to show off all of her new tricks and also decided to spit her food for Aunt Kylie too. I was wondering when she would discover that she could do that. Hallie was sporting her "I'm as cute as my aunt" shirt again in preparation for Aunt Kylie and her Great Aunt Sharon. The last time Sharon had seen Hallie girl, she was a mere two weeks old and was sleeping constantly. Hmmm, sleeping constantly...that sounds good right about now. ;) The twins stopped by after a doctor's appointment this morning with the surgeon who will perform Grammy's kidney transplant when the time is right. And who better to donate a kidney than her loving twin sister. Pretty cool, huh? Well I think from what I've heard, they came up for a pointless visit with the doctor because her kidneys are not functioning badly enough to even begin running Sharon through the battery of pre-op tests....but they didn't come to OKC for nothing because they got to play with Hallie. They did the unthinkable when they arrived.....they woke the sleeping monster. One milk snack later and she was all set for showing off her four month skills for Aunt Sharon.

"Is this my Grammy? She sure looks like her."

Still trying to figure out if she has two Grammys

T minus one week until we celebrate Christmas with our first child. I can't even describe how exciting this is for us. We have lots planned for this special time but of course I will let you in on every detail. Some that have stopped by the house have commented that my tree has too many presents underneath it. Not possible...there is no such thing as too many presents. I overheard Riley telling Hallie that "apparently we were on Santa's pre-Christmas delivery list" to explain why all of her presents were already under the tree. The more important question: who gets to eat the cookies that we leave out for Santa?




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