six months old

On Tuesday, August 26, Anastasia had her six-month pediatric visit. Her stats:

* weight: 15.3 lbs (38%...still skinny)
* height: 26.98 in. (88%)
* head circumference: 17.3 in. (88%)

Although I don't know why they always measure the head circumference. To make sure her brain is growing, perhaps? But I knew that.

In other news, today (August 30), she tried her first solid food. I can't say why I hesitated to let her try solid food until now; I just didn't feel ready for it. Maybe the same reason I didn't give her a pacifier for such a long time; I just love nursing her so much and don't want anything to interfere with that in any way. But today my mom was down to visit, so we thought we'd give her a little avocado to try it.

Except the avocados which we'd bought for that purpose (all right, it was a week ago, but still) had already gone bad.

Fortunately, we had some banana as well, so we decided to try that instead.

However, it wasn't much of a success. I mushed a little bit of banana on my palm and held it out for her to examine. She studied it thoughtfully for several minutes before dipping her fingers in it and stuffing her hand in her mouth. We weren't sure if she was actually getting any banana in her mouth, since she seemed to be putting a different part of her hand in her mouth than the part that had banana on it. Evidently Anastasia had the same concern, because after a few of these attempts she abandoned her hand entirely. She opened her mouth wide and lunged it at my open hand, where the banana rested invitingly. That enabled her to get a pretty significant mouthful.

She then sat up and mouthed it experimentally. For a minute it seemed like she was quite pleased with herself, but then she made a horrible face and started coughing and gagging. She was clearly still breathing fine, so we weren't worried, but she didn't seem very pleased.

I figured she was probably done with solids for now, but apparently the lure of the banana was just too much to resist, because a minute later she again plunged open-mouthed toward it. But again, it caused her to cough and gag; I guess she was gulping up more than she could chew! This time she started protesting and crying, so we picked her up, patted her back a bit to make sure nothing was stuck, washed her off, and nursed her.

Which made her much, much happier. She kept pausing while nursing to look up at me reprovingly. "Now, this is food, Mom!" she seemed to be saying. "I don't know what you were thinking with that banana stuff! This is the real thing. This is all I need." And with these thoughts apparently on her mind, she drifted happily off to sleep.

So much for growing up too fast. Deep down, I'm rather pleased. We'll try again in a week or so and see if she likes it better then.

a tooth at last!

Yesterday Anastasia turned six months old, and today she cut her first tooth. I can hardly believe she's grown so much already! The tooth is so cute...it's just a little edge peeking out, really, but it's definitely coming in. I'll post a picture when I can get one.

is this teething?

Yesterday and today have not been fun.

It started with something like a cold. Now that Anastasia is almost six months, that didn't worry me at all. Bit of a runny nose, some fussiness--no problem at all. Build her immune system.

Nor did it worry me when she continued to get more and more fussy throughout the day. But by late afternoon she was crying a lot until she finally fell asleep. Well, I thought, maybe tomorrow will be better.

The morning was better. She seemed cheerful and happy. We went to school--I'm teaching a writing workshop at my neighbor's little private school, and Anastasia's coming with me; yesterday was our first day--and she was happy to see the kids and even fell asleep in the sling toward the end of class. She woke up as soon as we got home, so she only napped for about half an hour, but she still seemed reasonably happy.

That was at 9:45 am.

By 1:00 pm, things were falling apart. She hadn't slept that entire time. She'd been crying for about two hours, and she'd pooped in her diaper (a completely unexpected and unusual occurrence these days, especially since I quit eating dairy). Worst of all, she wouldn't nurse. She would eat a little and then pull off and cry. I kept offering, switching sides, trying different positions...but no go. She clearly wanted to sleep, and usually she falls asleep nursing, but something was bothering her, and she sounded like she was in pain.

I've heard that teething can sometimes make it hurt to nurse. Something about the sucking when the gums are sore, maybe.

She finally fell asleep in my arms, cradled on my shoulder as I rocked her in the rocking chair. She tucked her little face into the hollow of my neck and slept at last. Poor little thing. I was so exhausted by then that I put her down and slept with her--and both of us slept for three hours.

Now it's 9:00 pm, and she's just fallen asleep again for the night. The evening was much better than the morning, but there was still a lot of fussiness and crying and refusing to nurse before she finally settled into sleep. Poor baby. I really hope a tooth comes through soon.

babbling, yes, but...is this possible?

Is it possible for a five month old to already be talking? 

Most people would probably say no. I would have a month ago. But now...I'm not sure. I think Anastasia might be talking.

The frustrating thing is that it happened so gradually, I don't even know when it started.

It was a couple of days ago...last Saturday, maybe...when she was babbling while Matt was playing with her. She's only just started moving her lips when she babbles--it used to be all "mms" and "aahs," but lately she's started to make consonant sounds as well. So Matt, naturally, started encouraging her to say daddy.

"Dada," he urged, laughing as she cooed at him. "Say, 'dada.' Da-da. Yeah, Da-da."

"Da-da," repeated Anastasia, and laughed.

"Right! Dada!" Matt was thrilled.

"Dada." She giggled again.

"You said dada!"

I couldn't take it anymore. I was supposed to be napping, but I jumped up and ran into the room. Matt turned to me in excitement. "Did you hear that?"

"Yes!" I shrieked. "Did she really say that? She said dada!"

Anastasia smiled. "Begalumana," she agreed.

"Mama," I said to her. "Say, 'mama.'"

She just looked at me and smiled, and reached up her arms to be held.

But later that night, when Matt was getting her ready for bed, she started crying, and her wail took on a definite shape. "Maaaaaaaa-maaaaaaaaaaaa!" she cried. "Maaaaaaaaaaaaa-maaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" Was she calling for me? I jumped up and rushed into the room.

"Mama?" I asked her. "Did you say mama? Do you want mama?"

She spotted me, and immediately her crying stopped. She smiled up at me.

"Mama! Say 'mama'!" I urged her. "Here's mama!"

"Aaaaaaah," was Anastasia's only answer, which, in this case, definitely meant "I want to go to sleep now."

So what do you think? Is she talking?

this post is all about poop

You read the title. Consider yourself forewarned.

I think there's something about becoming a mom that causes you to be obsessed with poop. It makes sense if you think about it: you can learn a lot about your baby from their poop. It's the easiest way to tell if you're producing enough milk. It's an early indicator if they start to get sick. And it's something you have to deal with, like it or not, so you might as well get interested in it.

So last week Anastasia had some problems with her poop. I'll just put it bluntly, since I warned you in the title: she had diarrhea. Which isn't necessarily a big deal, and it isn't that unusual for a baby, but it's the second time she's had it, and she's only five months old. This struck me as a little strange. Add that together with the fact that neither episode was accompanied by any other symptoms like a fever that would indicate a virus, and I was starting to wonder if she was reacting to something I was eating.

So I started reviewing what I'd been eating lately, and the only thing that stuck out as different was the chick-fil-a milkshake I'd had the night before this latest episode. I did some online research and discovered that not only were her symptoms very typical for a dairy sensitivity or allergy, but the fact that she didn't have a fever or any other symptoms either time indicated that it probably wasn't a virus. I talked to my pediatrician, and she said the same thing. 

So that's it for me and dairy. It's just as well--I really shouldn't eat it anyway, since I'm sensitive to it too. I was really enjoying the ice cream though. 

baby houdini

I'm just laughing this morning at how active Anastasia is. She will not fall asleep without swaddling, but she can wiggle out of the best swaddle known to man. The other night I wrapped her in Matt's baby blanket so tightly that I even tied a knot to keep it in place. Then I put a swaddle blanket (the kind with velcro to hold it shut) on top of that...but by morning, her arms were out and waving.

Right now she's swaddled for her nap, but she somehow managed to turn over from her back to her stomach. Swaddled. How is that even possible? I have no idea...but I have a picture to prove she did it.



You can see that she's rolled over, because she started out lying on top of the pink blanket.

In other news, she didn't pee in her diaper at all last night. Not once. She woke up every two hours as usual, and at 2:30 am she was very restless, kicking her legs and squirming. It occurred to me that she might want to be changed--I've usually been changing her around 3 or 3:30. She's wiggled so much in that swaddling blanket that it now has a big hole at the bottom, so it was easy to pull it up and take her diaper off, so I did, even though it was a little early. Imagine my amazement when I discovered that her diaper was completely dry. So I held her over the bowl I keep next to the bed, cued her, and sure enough, she peed up a storm.

And then it took her less time than usual to settle back down to sleep.

And when I woke up at 7:00 this morning, she was still dry. Again, of course, she peed a lot. But wow! She's been wearing a new swaddlebees pocket diaper that I bought her on diaperswappers.com (she's starting to grow out of her newborn diapers, finally, so I had to buy some more), and I love it--it's very trim and cute. But I've barely had a chance to test it, because she's hardly peed in it since I started using it yesterday morning. I've been using it like a cover with a flatfold inside it, and I think she's only peed in it three or four times in the last 24 hours. At this rate, I'll never find out whether this diaper actually contains leaks or not.

becoming a mom

Lately Anastasia has begun to distinguish among people. More specifically, she's beginning to notice a difference between the two main categories of humans in her world: "mom" and "not mom." 

For a lot of parents, I hear, this stage is frustrating because she's less and less willing to be comforted by anyone who falls into the category of "not mom." Babies who could once be passed off to someone else for a while become more clingy. Moms get more tired as they become more in demand.

That's the reaction I expected to have, anyway. I was tired when Anastasia wanted to be held all the time; I thought it would be even harder when she insisted that I be the one to hold her.

But my expectations were--as is so often the case--completely wrong. The truth is, I love this stage.

I've spent a lot of time in my life with babies and little children. I'm familiar with the pattern: you play with the baby until it gets fussy or cries, and then you pass it off to mom. I never realized how strange it would feel when suddenly I was the one people were passing the fussy baby off to. (How does one know what to do at that point, anyway?) But even stranger was the moment when somebody passed her to me--and she stopped crying. Just like that. She stopped crying because I was holding her.

Which is something I've never experienced before.

But I guess it's only one of the first of the amazing things that happen when you cross the barrier into that magical, unique, one-woman category of "mom."