Wednesday, February 04, 2009

More solids, poop talk and signing

BG is 6 months, 4 weeks old.
I’m exhausted. I’m fighting a cold that my husband has had for the last few weeks. His fever peaked at 102 a few days ago. I’ve been trying to take care of BG while avoiding him and let him recuperate. It hasn’t been easy as now I’m feeling worn down.
Between, work, family, outside family and the economy, I’m an emotional hodge podge.
I have a new found respect for my father though. I went to visit him a while back. I knew my dad was always running on half a tank of energy but as a new parent, now I know how difficult that was for him. My dad constantly made sure he spent time with us even though he was exhausted. Almost every weekend he took us to trips or outings. Every year, he would drive us up and down the east coast for vacation. He drove most of the time by himself both to and fro. He’d work crazy hours but still find the time to take us places on the weekend. It was that important for him.
I can understand his tenacity. There are some things I want to do with my child and come hell or high water, I drag my tired butt out of bed/stay up to plan to do. I’m sure it will be even more so as she gets older.
The other day, we went to the local mall and window shopped. I saw the cutest swimsuit for her and I nearly got teary-eyed looking at the small bathing suits. BG is nearly 7 months already. The 3 month old swimsuits were so tiny next to her. I can’t believe she’s grown so much.
On the food front, she’s had the following. Mind you, I’m going to add little notes on the output as this has completely consumed my conversations with DH. It’s pathetic.
Avocado: She’s pretty keen on avocado. The poop isn’t as nearly as bad as other foods and she’s still pretty regular.
Sweet potato: She’s loving the sweet potato. Holy moly, sweet potato goes right through her and possibly stays in the same form it entered her body.
Apple: She devours the baked apple. She doesn’t poop as frequently strangely enough.
Green Beans: She’s not a big fan of the green beans. Still she’ll devour it if I’m not exclusively breast feeding her all day, aka, she’s hungry. On the days where she gets a bottle or two, she’ll happily eat the entire ounce of green beans. So far the most heinous looking poop I’ve seen yet. Holy moly, not only does she not poop frequently but when she does, it’s hideous looking.
Next on our list is acorn squash, pear and banana.
She seems to enjoy sharing the table with us and has grown accustom to holding her spoon and knocking her toys off the table while we eat.
She still is learning to sip from her tiny cup which is interesting to watch as she has recently discovered that some of her vocal outputs illicits responses. So she makes the sign for milk and then stares intently at her little cup and tries to reach for it.
As for signing, she’s doing great, I think. We try to sign as much as possible to her. Diaper changes, bedtime, storytime, dancing, singing, thank you, hello, goodbye, mommy, daddy, milk, bath, jacket, blanket, giraffe (her toy), eating, drinking, going outside, going home are all words we use often. I think she does the sign for milk but it’s hard to tell as reading the signs is new to us but I’m fairly certain that she knows the sign for milk. Unfortunately, I think she sees the sign for milk as the sign for mommy too.
I’m actually having a good time signing with her. I hope to use it more often. I think my husband enjoys it too. He likes making the sign for objects like bubbles and ball.