Working out

It has all gone down the drain! Once we got back from cape may, Eloise stopped sleeping well at night which means a very tired momma in the morning! I can't work out if I can barely keep my eyes open all day! So, sleep training at night will begin as I put working out on hold. But, I'll be back! Let's hope sleep training goes fast and I can get back into a workout routine because I'll be so well rested!


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6 months

A whole half of a year has gone by, and I am still amazed by you every single day. Eloise, you are by far the cutest angel baby I have ever seen. You even put a grumpy morning daddy in a good mood with your flirty smiles! You are currently in 6 month clothes and some 6-9 month pajamas. We spent some time this past month in VA with your Gigi and Papa and you did great! Then, we spent a weekend in Cape May ( without daddy ) and you did great again!! You are even loving Nan and Pop these days!! You let them hold you and babysit for a little without so much as a pout! I love watching every milestone. Here's what you were up to this month:

- you sit pretty well unsupported. You wobble a little but you hardly fall. I still sit with you though, just in case! But when I sit you up and you get your balance, a huge smile forms and you look so happy and proud of yourself!
- you work very hard to get things that are out of your reach. Whether it's a toy or my cell phone you reach your arms and bend in that direction until your goal is accomplished!
- you nap in your crib!!!! Sometimes it's only a 30 minute nap but lately they have been an hour or more! This makes me so proud!! You have your pink lovey and a Paci and you fuss for a little then you fall asleep like a big girl! Bed time is a different story and probably a whole other post!
- you do big time razz's with your mouth! It's super cute!
- you pass toys from one hand to the other!
- you eat solids!!! You've had rice cereal, oatmeal, sweet potatoes and pears! Soon you will be eating all kinds of things!!

-At your well baby visit you were 15lbs 2oz and 25inches long. You are 50% for height and weight and 50-75% for head size.

-You had your first fever this month. You had to take 'little fevers' and use a breathing machine. It was so sad! We have your re-check on Tuesday, so hopefully they will tell me that you are all better :)

We are so blessed to have you, little girl. I am really enjoying every moment I am with you :)

(the day of your six month pictures was the day you were sick, so we didn't get any good smiles. But, you were acting pretty OK for being sick my little trooper)

Eloise at 1 month:

Eloise at 2 months:

Eloise at 3 months:

Eloise at 4 months:

Eloise at 5 months:

Eloise at 6 months:

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Solids Revisited

The whole solids process confuses me. I like organized lists and definite answers. That is not how this works, my friends. I have more than one book on the subject and have looked on way more than one website and they all have varied answers. So, Eloise and I are going to find our own way to do it that works for us!

As of right now I have a pretty good plan. Each new food gets 4-5 days. I feed her after her morning nap and it's usually 2-4 Tbsp.

Here is the list of foods, in the order I plan on introducing them.

The First 7:

1. Sweet Potatoes
2. Pears
3. Avocado
4. Apples
5. Peas
6. Bananas
7. Green Beans

So far, she really enjoys the earth's best sweet potatoes! I haven't made my own yet but i plan on doing that after initial introductions. It's so exciting to watch her discover all this newness!! Soon enough she'll be eating all kinds of foods! My baby is growing up!

And here is some serious cuteness of my big girl sitting ON HER OWN in a bathing suit!






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Solids

We started sweet potatoes about three days ago. She loves them but it sure gives a whole new meaning to a stinky diaper!

This isn't the best picture


but it's the only one I have of my little sweet potato girl!

The state of my post baby body

I have never had a super flat stomach. But while pregnant I had a super humungo stomach. Eloise is almost half a year old and I would say I am pretty happy with my post baby body considering the above facts. My skin has some more tightening to do, and I'm sure I could help it out a little by exercising. I think I would fell a lot better about myself if I was bikini ready by the end of June.

I started p90x in January and did it for about four weeks straight. It is the mother of all workouts and it really is like a part time job. Any mom of a new baby will tell you, you can't dedicate an hour a day to a workout. So, this time around I'm starting a 30 day challenge. 6 weeks, 5 days a week I will do some sort of exercise for 20-30 minutes. Maybe one day I'll do a Jillian Michael's DVD and maybe another day I'll do a yoga DVD. The goal isn't to stick with one DVD program but to workout 5 days a week for 6 weeks. I'll update about my progress so I'll have some sort of motivation to keep going.

Bikini's here I come!!


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Sleep Training

I have never been a fan of the CIO (cry it out) method of sleep training. I have felt that nothing good could come from letting your child scream themselves to sleep. But, when you have many sleepless nights and days filled without naps you tend to change your mind.While we were in Virginia, we had some serious sleep issues. Besides the fact that Eloise would only nap in her swing, she wasn't sleeping well in her travel crib. Julian and I spent more than one night sleeping with Eloise between us. This was the only way she would sleep. I definitely don't recommend this and can't believe I even did it considering it can be dangerous and I'm a huge worrywart. But, desperate times call from desperate measures and a copy of dr. Ferber's book was waiting for me when I got home. His 'progressive waiting' method made sense. Put your child in the crib. Once they start crying wait 3 minutes before going in and reassuring them, then wait 5 minutes, etc. I was mentally prepared for this to be the hardest thing ever.

I started with naps. The child has been napping in her swing for the past three months so I knew this wasn't gonna be easy. I waited for her tired signs (eye rubbing, yawns). Then, I put her in her crib with a pacifier,said "night night, I love you" and left. She fussed for three minutes and I went in and put her paci back in and handed her a lovey. She fussed for about three minutes and then FELL ASLEEP! I couldn't believe it! She has done almost the exact same thing for three naps a day now. Granted, she sometimes only naps for 20 minutes but sometimes it's an hour and a half. Most of the time it's 45 minutes of a good nap. (even if she insists on lovey being over her head and driving me insane checking to make sure shes still breathing).

Picture of her napping on the monitor. I dare not go into the nursery to take a pic for fear of waking a napping baby.



Anyway, we are still doing our normal nighttime routine because we both still enjoy it. I nurse/ rock her to sleep. But I am sure when we are both ready to change that routine we will and it'll probs be no big deal. She's getting to be such a big girl these days napping in her crib. I am so proud of her making that transition without it being too hard on her mama.

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interesting links

Some more links for you all to enjoy....

This link gives you a list of the top 30 'superfoods'. These 30 foods are supposedly able to prevent cancer, ward off heart disease, and prevent aging. Lucky for me, Julian and I eat a lot of these foods regularly. Julian puts flaxseed in everything he ever makes me and we are both really into blueberries and avocados. I need to stock up in some of the other foods though.

Everyone knows the benefits of breastfeeding and you don't need me to get all 'breast is best'. Everyone knows that, what they need is some support in order to make breastfeeding work. This article is about just that. I found it a very interesting read.

This lady has my dream kitchen. Everything about it is exactly what I want. From the white cabinets to the stainless steel farmhouse sink, I couldn't have created a more perfect kitchen in my eyes. I will be carrying around this picture with me until we move and I get this kitchen of my dreams.

Trip to VA

Since Eloise was blessed with two stay at home parents, leaving for a weeks vacation (if you would call visiting your in laws for a week "vacation") is no big thing. Lucky for us it was a beautiful week weather-wise and Eloise got to spend some really great time with her Gigi and Papa. Let me wrap up our adventures with those Barkers.

Tuesday- We leave NJ 9am on the dot. Perfect Timing for morning nap. Little Miss sleeps for two hours and proceeds to have a huge blowout all over her traveling outfit and even her socks. I have no idea why it's on her socks but it is. We stop at our first rest area and do some cleanup. Blow outs are nasty to begin with-- but even nastier at a rest stop. Eloise isn't phased and is a perfect angel for the rest of the ride playing and laughing at Duke next to her and eventually falling asleep again. We arrived in VA seven short hours later (everything takes longer with a baby). We went to Keri and Joel's for pizza and Eloise got to hang with her big cousins.

Wednesday- I wake up a little weary because baby girl isn't liking her sleeping arrangements. I guess that is part of "vacationing' with a five month old. Naps are barely happening so Julian and I drive around H-burg so she falls asleep. Things sure have changed in the past 10 years since I started here at JMU.

Thursday- Julian plays golf all day with his dad and brother. Gigi, Eloise and I go for a ride and run errands for the party tomorrow. We see Kate in her little school program and eat Chilis for dinner. Eloise has an all out meltdown. I need more sleep.



Friday- the day of the graduation party! Julian and I pack up Eloise and head to Skyline drive for the day. We would have gone anywhere to get out of the craziness of pre-party stressing going on. The three seconds we are around Julians asked to put up a tent, move basement furniture and get cases of water. We enjoy our drive and brief time on the AT. We actually see a mama bear and a newborn baby bear on the side of the road. We took one picture but since our camera was on 'self-timer' by accident we didn't get a good one of the cutie baby bear. Duke growled at them.



We eat lunch overlooking the mountains and laugh about the party that's happening tonight. Julian drops us off and proceeds to hide over at Keri and Joel's before they ask him to do anything else for the party that we wish wasn't happening. Party is fine, Eloise naps through it all and I head upstairs at 10 to put her to bed and hide out. The music is blasting into our bedroom. Gigi is more than a little loopy and Julian gets congratulated more than once on graduating. Obviously these guests are Jordan's closest friends.

Saturday- the day of graduation and the day Eloise sits unsupported for the first time!!! Uncle Jo-bear let me off the hook so there was no ceremony for us! But we promptly went to his frat party and enjoyed some good ol' barbecue and beers and preppy sigma chi's. Who knew there were so many acceptable colors of pants on dudes? They were all super cute and we are so proud of Jordan! Eloise loved the frat party so much she slept in her stroller for the whole party.
Julian promises this is her last fraternity party ever.




Julian goes frat-mode and parties all night. I go to bed early and Eloise wakes up every two hours like a newborn. I decide that when we get home I am Ferber-izing her immediately!

Sunday-my first mothers day!
We took a nice walk and had outback takeout! Then made a fire and ate s'mores! I love being Eloise's mom! The homemade card she made me is priceless and a little impressive for her age :)

I'm excited about going home and getting back into real life. Even though this trip was a nice change of pace, I'm a homebody and miss my king bed and Eloise's crib.

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