Car seats

I bought Emily her second car seat today after finding a great deal on a Britax Marathon. Funny thing is, this is the one that we registered for and now it is on clearance for $179 with free shipping! They are $279 full price.

I am so excited. She won't need to use it for another 6 months, but it is worth taking advantage of a great deal. They are the safest car seats on the market in my opinion.

Also, I will be keeping her rear facing for as long as possible. Babies need to stay rear facing until they are a year old AND 20 lbs, but recent studies and the Amerian Academy of Pediatrics now suggest that keeping them rear facing until they are 2 is even safer.

Here is an insert from the Carseat.org website:

Safety experts and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that children remain
rear facing as long as possible and never travel forward facing before they are one year
old and also weigh at least 20 pounds. This reduces their risk of serious neck or spinal
cord injury and lifelong disability. All new convertible seats available today allow
children to remain rear facing until they weigh 30 pounds or more, depending on the
model.
Babies have heavy heads and fragile necks. In a crash, an infant’s soft spinal column can
stretch, leading to spinal cord damage if he is riding facing forward. The baby could die
or be paralyzed permanently. This is true even for babies who have strong neck muscles
and good head control. The neck bones are flexible, and the ligaments are loose to allow
for growth.

This video was enough for me.

6 Months!

I cannot belive that my sweet little baby is 1/2 a year old already. Time has gone by so fast. She is such a sweet little girl and both DH and I are so blessed to have her in our lives. I thank God everyday for her. She is precious.

We went to the doctor yesterday. She is a whole 13 lbs 1 1/2 oz and is 26 inches long. She is low in percentiles for both height and weight, but she is gaining steady so the doctor is not worried. When she has parents who were barely on the charts themselves, Emily shouldn't expect to be "normal" according to the charts.

Usually DH takes her to the doctor and this was my first time taking her for a well baby visit. We were both fine until it was time for those shots. The nurse stabbed her little legs so fast, it took Emily 5 seconds to realize that she was in pain! She started screaming and I quickly scooped her up in my arms as soon as the nurse was done. It took her a while to calm down. There was no way she was going into her carseat after that! I had to carry her, the diaper bag and the car seat out to the waiting room. She let me put her in the seat shortly after and we were on our way back home. As soon as we were on the road, she was asleep. She slept for 2 hours!

Emily will be crawling shortly, I am sure. She has learned that rolling can get her places. Last night I put her at one end of the living room and about 15 minutes later, she had made her way t0 the other side of the room! She managed to take her socks off and bring a few toys along with her, dispursing them throughout the room.

I loved staying home with her yesterday. It was fun to be able to play with her and just take it easy mid-week. I wish I could do that everyday. Maybe someday soon.

First Ear Infection

My poor baby! It started Wednesday night. We gave her bananas and she was up every 1-2 hours screaming with terrible gas. No more bananas for Emily for at least a month.
Thursday night was not any better. We had to rock her back to sleep and finally by 3 am decided to just keep her in the bed with us. As long as she was sleeping close by, she was fine.
I thought it was the bananas still in her system. She had no fever and was fine during the day.
Friday night came and she was beyond miserable. She had a fever of 100.7 so I gave her some Tylenol and we went to bed. I woke up early Saturday morning and took her to the doctor. As soon as the doctor checked her ears, she started screaming.
She is now on amoxicillan two times a day. She doesn't like the medicine. It is raspberry flavored. What ever happened to bubble gum?
She is doing much better and sleeping through the night again.

Cereal!

On 1/8 Emily got her first taste of solids. We tried single grain rice mixed with breast milk. She didn't know what it was and frankly, didn't care! She didn't take to it well and kinda hates it. We give it to her for breakfast and then for dinner. She just spits it back out of her mouth. We only give her a tablespoon at a time, and she barely finishes that.
I really thought she was going to like it, because she LOVES to eat. I even tasted it. Not too bad. It is sweet from the breast milk. Maybe once she learns how to "chew" it and swallow, it will get
better. I am trying not to get discouraged over it or think something is wrong with her, because I know it is normal. I just hope she isn't like this with veggies too. I am all about veggies and I want her to be too.

Baby's 1st Christmas!

Lets begin on Christmas eve.  After doing some last minute shopping at the local mall, which is funny because before Emily, I had all my shopping done and gifts wrapped and under the tree weeks before Christmas.  This year, time just got away from me.  

I spent Christmas eve afternoon watching The Duggar marathon on TV while wrapping almost all of t

he gifts.  That evening, we headed over to my mom's house for a yummy lobster and steak dinner.  DH is a great cook and the lobster came out perfect.  Emily watched from her exersaucer as we ate.  She was busy trying to pull her bow off her head.  Then it was time for presents!  This is Emily opening 

her very first present from her grandparents. 

She was more interested in getting the paper in her mouth more than anything.  She was so bored after we finally got the gift open as you can see from the picture.  She got some onesies, outfits and a gift card to BRU! 

After gifts and dessert we headed home for the night.  We were all exhausted, especially DH who worked all day long.  Emily was 

out before we hit the road.  

She slept great that night and was up at 8am.  We got her out of the crib and went to the tree.  This was the first time she sat up all on her own!  What a great accomplishment for her.

We opened a few

 gifts with her and then opened ours.  We got her some paci's, a "O" ball, which looks more like a dog toy than a baby toy, Fisher Price Laugh and Learn activity table and Fisher Price gum ball machine.  These toys are for 6 months and up so pretty soon she will enjoy them.  

That morning we went to my side of the family for more gifts and food.  In the afternoon we headed over to DH's side of the family for more gifts and even more food!  

Emily did fairly well with everyone wanting to hold her and just being shuffled from house to house all day long.  She 

is such an easy kid I tell ya.  At the end of the day, we were all ready to snuggle into bed.