Bouncing Baby

Mad bouncing in her chair

First Foods

Today was a big day. Maddy tried solid food for the first time (if you an call runny rice a "solid food"). Michael spent the morning putting together her high chair while we visited with Pam. This high chair was a gift from my parents and it is amazing!! It's got all sorts of bells and whistles including a toy that mounts to the tray and plays music and lights up. Very handy at distracting the little one while I make food. As you'll see in the video - she really liked the cereal. I was expecting her to reject it for a few days or even weeks but that wasn't the case at all.





The High Chair
Playing with the new toy

Waiting for food

First bitesYummy!

Visit with Zoe

Haven't been able to add to the blog since Michael has been messing around with the computer! On Thursday we had Rachel and her daughter Zoe over for coffee. Zoe is about 3 weeks younger than Mad but they're pretty much the same size and they seem to enjoy the same things....Sophie, Moms boobs, tv, sitting in vibrating chairs.

Here they are watching Rachel put on a puppet show (okay, they're really watching baby einstein).

Here is Madeline playing and then sleeping surrounded by her toys

The JJ revisited

Here's a video of Mad in the JJ. Today was the first day she really started to bounce. Winston also seems to come around when ever she's in this....notice how she gave him a pet.

Back to Yoga/ 4 month Dr Appt

Mad and I went to Yoga today. As some of you may know, in the fall we signed up for Yoga class. We only made it to half the classes for a number of reasons:
1. Maddy seemed to only want to sleep/feed/cry in the class
2. I fell and hurt my knee on date night
3. She started to sleep from noon-2ish

We were already signed up for the winter session so I was determined to make it today. It looked like she was going to sleep through it again. She was in her vibrating chair having her second nap of the day. This nap was passing the 2 hour mark (note: she napped for a total of 40 minutes yesterday!!). I think she sensed I wanted to go to yoga, so she wanted to keep napping. I turned of the chair and (surprise!) she woke up. So off we went (we were only 10 minutes late).

Now that she's older I thought we would have an easier time. She ended up crying most of the class, except when I was feeding her or singing "itsy bitsy spider". Seriously, what is up with her and this song!?! It stops her from crying no matter what is happening. So when i wasn't singing, I was whipping out my boob to feed her. Yes, people feed babies in yoga classes - it's the cool thing to do. I probably had about 5 minutes of actual "yoga activities". I don't blame her....it's the teeth!! Poor thing.

Monday was our 4 month Dr. appt. Mad now weighs 14lbs 7oz and is 25iches long. This puts her in about the 50-57th percentile for both weight and height. My reaction? "So my babie's average??". Nothing wrong with average. She also had her 4 month shots which were not so much fun. Once again, "itsy bitsy spider" saved the day. The nurse commented that maybe she's "musical".....I think she just likes to make her mommy look funny in public. Everywhere I go I'm singing that song....

So we're on night 3 of the sleep training. First night she cried for 2 hours, last night was 1 hour and tonight was 30 minutes. So it looks like we're seeing progress so far!! We're really enjoying the routine that it brings with it. We start around 6pm each night with a bath, then Michael reads to her and then she eats (either breast or bottle) and then I put her in bed. Hopefully it keeps working for us!!

Today we hung out close to home. We did some cleaning and took Mad for a walk along Queen St. Here's some pics from today.

Wo! rosey cheeks!!

Ferber, Resolutions & the Bumbo

It's Saturday night and night #2 of us trying to use the Ferber method to help Mad sleep at night. For the first night she cried for 2 hours (with this method you go into her room at certain intervals to sooth her briefly and then you leave again). Tonight she only cried for 1 hour. The main benefit was that instead of waking every 20 minutes throughout the night, she slept from 8pm-8am last night. She woke up super happy and well rested....chatting away to herself in her crib.
We took a little trip to Stouffville today to visit my family and to pick up the new high chair they bought Maddy. They also got her a Bumbo chair. I'll post pics for those of you who don't know what a Bumbo is. She seems to love sitting in this chair like a "big girl". For a few weeks now she's been trying to sit up in her bouncy chair....which didn't work too well!
Lastly, I thought I would post what my new years resolution is (that way there's more incentive to stick to it!). This year I'm going to try to eat mainly organic meat, dairy and produce (where practical of course!). It'll take a bit more planning and a few extra shopping trips, but I think it's worth it. I'm also going to try to work more natural/organic products into the house (cleaners, paper towels, soaps, detergent etc). We're pretty lucky to live in a city that has quite a few options for finding these products, which keeps the cost reasonable. Off to bed I go.