The Snack Trap

On recommendation from a friend, I went to Babies-R-Us and purchased a snack trap. Her daughter (a little older than Kelsey) uses this and it works great. Hopefully there is a short learning curve.As you can see she likes to hold open one of slats and then she likes to shake it. It's better than giving her a totally open container, I guess.

No silly..you don't eat the handles

Trying to put her hand in....Mission accomplished! (Now if she can just figure out how to get her hand out with only 1 or 2 puffs at a time)

Theoretically this will be a great buy once she learns how to use it correctly. As for now you can see the result of her "trying" to learn all over the floor.

(I just read that it's good for infants 1-5. So we have a few months until she should really be using it right.Highly recommended by a few of the mom's in my local mom's group)

How smart am I?

So, Lou was working outside in the yard and Kelsey and I were cooped up inside (at least that's how I felt. I'm used to working side by side with him) I finally got an idea!!! I bought this chair umbrella at Big Lot's {to provide shade for Kelsey when we went to the Beach Boy's concert} I decided to see if would attach to her walker and wallaaaah!!

It's over there....

Kelsey has a new trick:

This trick is sometimes hard to capture fully, because she doesn't hold it for too long. I finally caught it in the next picture as she was looking out in the yard.
She began pointing earlier this week. I think she got it from us pointing at her saying "I see you" It's cute to see her do it back.

Brusha-brusha-brusha

We have started brushing Kelsey's teeth (both of them) and her gums. We try to do it at least once a day (twice if we are good)

(check out that little belly)

Dead Tired...

This has never happened before:

We were almost done with lunch and she just couldn't keep her eyes open any longer!

Spice it up!

Something I didn't know is that after 8 months you can add spices to your baby's food. Obviously you don't want to add salt or sugar, but pretty much everything else is game. So far we have added cinnamon to her apples (the obvious of course) and nutmeg to her sweet potatoes. I look forward to making more of her food interesting too!

Big Top

We recently purchased a huge outdoor umbrella to provide some shade on our otherwise shadeless back patio. In theory we can move this by the pool to provide shade for Kelsey while she's in the water over the summer. For now it gives us an opportunity to eat at our patio table during the day, and the screen is useful for nights when there are mosquitoes out. It swivels 360 degrees and also angles...so Kelsey and I decided to take advantage of it the other day for snack time. I put a comforter on the ground and then maneuvered the umbrella around to give Kelsey good coverage (and me a little sun) and we both just hung out. It was so nice...I'm very glad we made this purchase

Swimming Time

A week ago it was beautiful and the water was nice, then a cool front came through. Even though it was really nice out this weekend, the water had cooled down a little. We really wanted to take Kelsey in, so we brought her down by the step and put her in new float. It was a little chilly, so she wasn't in for more than 5-6 minutes, but she did have fun. She just loves the water..she was splashing around like she does in her bath.

Food Updates

So, as a first time mom I have been very good at following the 4 day rule (after adding a new food you wait 4 days before introducing another new food to make sure there are no reactions), but lately I am getting antsy and not really allowing the whole 4 days. In the beginning I was on a role...every 4 days I was adding a new food, but then I quit. I'm not quite sure why. So now I am trying to get back on the train and introduce new foods...there are so many she has left to try that are approved for her age. This past week she had lentils (previous post), papaya, egg yolks (I just made hard boiled eggs and used the whites for egg salad for Lou and I), and grapes. Recently I laughed at my friend who told me she had peeled grapes for her son to eat....Go ahead and laugh at me T.... I peeled 2 grapes today and broke them up into pieces and mashed them before giving them to her. She chowed! Next I am going to try cheese (hopefully it goes better than yogurt) blueberries and cherries. I am planning on using cheese and grapes as snacks, since I have cut out a nursing session and need to fill in a gap between nap and dinner. We're also toying around with Kelsey and self feeding. Tonight I gave her 2 mango pieces (I put a little rice cereal on it so she could grab it). She picked them up and actually put them into her mouth. Man she is growing up so quickly!! I'm not ready for her to be so independent.

Feety vs Non-Feety

Lou has been asking me for awhile now when we could put Kelsey in non-feety pajamas. To me, there was no rush, it keeps her comfy at night, but Lou was concerned that she would get too hot (especially if she's like me). So after her bath the other night I put on some 12 month jammies I bought her a while ago, cotton pants with a short sleeve top. I don't like it because they make her look too grown up. She's still my baby in feety pj's....

Yogurt Update

So, after having yogurt Saturday and Sunday and being up all night basically both nights, I decided not to give her any Monday and see what happened. Wouldn't you know it she slept MUCH better. So, whether it is coincidence or not, there will be NO more yogurt for Kelsey. Maybe when she gets older we will try soy yogurt.

A Lentil...what's that?

So, I have heard Lou's mom and sisters talk about lentils and lentil soup, but I have never had any myself. While reading about how it's about time to start giving Kelsey some protein, I came across lentils as a good source for vegetarians. While I am not a full blown vegetarian, I do not think I can bake chicken (or any other meat for that matter) and then put it in a food processor and puree it.. (Yuck!!) I had mentally decided I would not give her meat until she could start eating little pieces, but the lentil has come to the protein rescue. I bought a bag this weekend and guessed on how to make them, since the only directions on the bag were for lentil soup. I kept thinking to myself, self.... "here I am making something for my daughter I have never even eaten myself." Crazy, huh? Sunday I gave her a few (like 5 lentils) pieces mushed up and the pureed the rest and froze it in cubes. Yesterday she ate them mixed with sweet potatoes and today she had them mixed with butternut squash and loved it. Excellent! Now I really don't have to puree up any meats and can wait until she can chew those. That's a weight off my shoulders!

Quick Vent

We (Kelsey and I) go to the gym monday through friday. I am prefacing this post by saying I LOVE and Trust the girls who work in the child care room during the week. Lou and I decided we would go to the gym today and get a workout in together. We signed her in left her with a girl I think I had met once and another lady. There really were not any kids in there. When Lou went to get her an hour later,Kelsey was alseep in one of their laps and they said Kelsey had fallen off the table (Picnic table) and hit her eye and had cried. NO sh*t she cried..she was hurt. Questions..Why didn't they come get us when this happened? Why would you sit an 8 month old at a picnic table by herself? So, she has this shiner on her beautiful face now. ( I know I just posted the other day about bumps and bruises from when she's arouund me, but that's different) I've been watching her all day, just to make sure she doesn't have a concussion. AAAAAaaahhhhhh! I wish my during the week girls worked on the weekends too!!

Stop growing up already...

Someone recently told me (my mom I think) that most 1st time moms want their babies to get to the next stage all the time. I guess I am not like most moms. I don't want Kelsey growing up so fast. She just learned to crawl really good a week ago, then she was on her knees and all she wants to do now is try to stand. This was her on Thursday trying to pull herself up:

Yesterday I checking my e-mail on the couch while she was 3 feet away from me, on her knees playing with her leap frog table, the next thing I know I look up and she was doing this:

She was so proud of herself.

(I guess I was too, reluctantly!)

A new treat

Yesterday Kelsey got to try yogurt. I bought the yo baby plain yogurt (the blue carton) that says its good for babies 6 months and older. I detest plain yogurt, so I decided to mix in some of her pureed food(sweet potatoes and pears). She loved it...gobbled it all up and kept grabbing for the container. She was very gassy last night though and it was waking her up, so we are going to see if it happens again today. I can not eat yogurt, so Kelsey may be just like her mommy.

Time to clean the floors...

So, this post won't have any cute pictures of Kelsey, but it is about something we did for her. I'm married to a vary clean husband (and he is married to a not so clean wife). We find a compromise somewhere in the middle, but when it comes to Kelsey now crawling, I have to step it up a notch more in his direction. A little background.... our living area is all tile w/ a rug and we have a cat and a golden retriever (AKA shed machines) Our beloved doggy is also old and leaves what I'll nicely call "spots" on the floor that drip from his manhood. With Kelsey moving ALL over the place, we realized we need to get better about getting the hair and the "spots" off of the floor. So we had to figure out a way to make it easy, so we would both do it. (It took me over 30 minutes to mop the downstairs after vacuuming and I was drenched (no lie) in sweat).
We saw this stick vacuum on HGTV's I want that and found one similar at Bed Bath and Beyond (we eventually bought it at BJ's for $20 less) It is like a dust buster, but upright. We have been using it every night and it works great, is light and only takes a few minutes. Much better than dragging in the vacuum and plugging it in, then replugging it in in another room. While at BJ's we also saw this Steam Mop by Shark. Lou had been reading reviews of others online and had mixed feelings about steam mops, but we decided to try it anyways. We were definitely impressed. It takes about 30 seconds to heat up and then you are off. The one downfall is it does have a plug, so it limits your mobility. But even with the plug we can reach 98% of the kitchen family room floor without replugging it in somewhere else. In the past week we have "mopped" the floor 3 times, a feat unheard of before in this house. We can vacuum and mop the entire kitchen/living room in less than 10 minutes and all the "spots" are gone!! We highly recommend both of these products. Okay, done with my advertisement, next post will be a regularly scheduled Kelsey update.

Walker

First a thank you goes out to Lou's boss and his wife who gave this walker to us. While I know there is controversial data out there about whether or not walkers delay or help walking, I use ours occasionally. Kelsey loves to stand, and this way she can stand and occasionally move. She really doesnt move too much in it. But she does get happy when she's playing in it and eating her Mum Mums.

Can we say happy.....

Aaaaaahhhhhhh!!

Daddy and Kelsey (and just Kelsey)

Here kitty, kitty

So to be fair, Kelsey wants you to meet her kitty too. I am trying to teach her "nice" hands with the animals (and other people since she grabs hair and noses), but it is not working yet. She GRABS! Good thing I have 2 very patient animals. (Also a good thing that Lou used to pull kitty's tail all of the time so that now she likes it ;-)

Score 2 for craigslist

Here's a picture of another purchase I made on craigslist. I bought this for $10 about a month ago, brought it home, cleaned it up and cloroxed it and put it away. I realized, as she was pulling herself to her knees at the gates, that it was probably time to take it out. She loved it. Right away she was making sounds and turning the page of the book. All around another GOOD BUY for me!

Puppy Love

Her face will never be the same..

So, just in the past three days she has marked up her face with bruises, scrapes and bumps. This crawling thing is overrated! Below I highlighted the 4 marks (not including the dried up snot on the tip of her nose that I missed when she got up from nap)

Let me out of jail...

Since the gates have gone up, they are almost like magnets....Kelsey is drawn to them. When she gets there she grabs on, pulls herself up on her knees, (sometimes tries to stand against my wishes) and shakes the gate like she is trying to get out.

Kelsey's Hair

From day 1, Kelsey has been blessed with a very full head of hair. Almost every stranger we meet comments on how much hair she has. Most people thought it would fall out, but it has not I think she did lose a little in the front, but not enough to really notice. Since I always have a clip in her hair, some of you may not realize just how much hair she really has. Today I took a picture of her hair down and straight on her forehead....(this is prob why Lou thinks she needs a hair cut) Look how unhappy she looks with no hair bow in...

I know I have sent out a picture once before of Kelsey with a ponytail, but I really have not put one in her hair since that day. Today I decided to put a half one in, truth be told I probably could have put it all in, because her hair gets so sweaty now that it's getting hot. It was very cute. She only fidgeted a little as I was putting it in, but other than that she didn't touch it. As you can see I still put a hair bow in.

The short hairs in the front are where I think she may have lost it and it's growing back

If you look closely here, you can see how her hair is getting lighter. The tips are dark and it gets lighter the higher up you go.

...and she's off

So I've been meaning to video her crawling since the post last weekend because she is full on crawling now. No longer two or three little moves and then plopping on her belly. Oh how I long for the days when (not that they were many) when I could just put her down sitting on the floor and she would stay put. We went and bought gates this week, just to have on hand, and I think I am going to put up at least one today.
OFF TOPIC Poor Jay Dog (our blind 13 yr old golden retriever) is going to have to learn a new way of walking around, yet again. I'm sure he's been frustrated ever since Kelsey came because it's almost daily, if not weekly, that something has moved and is not where he remembers, so he bumps into it. For example...yesterday we gave in and got rid of (put in the closet) our coffee table and replaced them with 2 padded storage ottomans. BACK TO TOPIC
The reason being, I put her down on the carpet with her toys and walked into the garage (right around the corner) to get her food cubes out of the freezer for lunch. Literally 1 minute and I look over as I am shutting the door and she has crawled her way onto the tile to where her walker is (about 10 feet from where I put her) AHHHHHH! All I need is her crawling into the dog food bowl, hence the gate going up in that archway.