Baby's First Halloween!

Happy Halloween Tegan!

It's been a crazy month so far, and it seems to have just flown by! But we have been busy enjoying the fall season. This year for Halloween we're not planing on going out trick-or-treating, but I'm hoping by next year Tegan will be able to grasp the concept of free candy and dress up. I'm definitely looking forward to taking her trick-or-treating when she's older.

Even though we aren't going trick-or-treating we're still having some Halloween fun. I made Tegan a turtle costume which she has been able to rock out to two Halloween parties so far. Our fist party was last weekend, the third annual Halloween party hosted by my sister and her family. I spent most of last week working on Tegan's costume giving little thought to what I might do...oops. Ha! I managed to throw together a costume for myself about an hour before the party. I went as the thing that goes bump in the dryer, static clings evil cousin, I was the dreaded sock monster! That's right, run away in fear! We perfectly fit the theme of the party NOT, which was scary.  Her cousin was a killer bee and absolutly adorable. I was a little worried that some of the costumes would scare her, but she took it all in stride. It was a really great time and even though Tegan stayed up way past her bedtime it went smoother than I would have expected. The ride home got a little hairy as she screamed the whole way home. At least until we were two blocks from home and she finally fell asleep just in time for us to wake her back up and go inside. Sigh! But considering we got home from the party three hours past bedtime she did really very well.

Me and my lil Turtle

Grandma with Sophie and Tegan

Our second party was at our ECFE class, which due to MPLS schools policies was really just a dress up day. But come on, who can say no to a room full of babies dressed up in costumes. I nearly died of cuteness.

Left to right: Turtle-Tegan, Lion-Camden, Punk Rock Star-Margo, Chicken-Betsy, and Spider-Gavin

And finally to wrap up the night our big plans are to have my parents over for a Jack-o-lantern pizza from Pappa Murphys and handing out candy. All in all, I say it's been a good Halloween!

8 Months!

If anyone happens upon the pause button, please let me know! While it still blows my mind that you are over half a year old, I'm really enjoying the stage you are in right now. You are so expressive these days, and seem to giggle at the smallest things. I don't know how to express it, and maybe other moms know experienced this too, but you seem to be becoming more of a little person and not just a baby. It's so much fun to watch that come out in you. As I've said all along you are going to have a stubborn streak a mile long, but you've also started to show that you are going to become one independent little diva. You are also just so laid back about everything, and almost always in a happy mood, and for that I am very thankful, and extremely spoiled!

Here's what else you've been up to these days:

Weight: I'm guessing you're still pretty close to 15-16lbs. It will be nice to get another exact weight for you next month. I am super curious where you're at but since our scale is not the most reliable (its typically accurate +,- 10lbs. Like I said not reliable) I guess I'll just have to wait. Or buy another scale.

Clothes: You're now wearing 6-9 months and 6-12 months clothes, but they're still a little big on you. Also what gives with some baby clothes going from sizes 0-3, 3-6, and then 6-12 months?! This just seems silly to me. Just saying...

Diapers: The size 3 diapers are finally fitting you nicely. I may have jumped the gun on moving up from size 2 before, but I swear the size 2 were getting small at the time!

Feeding: Breastfeeding continues for the time being, but it's gotten really painful again so we'll see how long I can hold out. You seem to get confused between feeding, teething, and just plain playing, and oh yeah, add a pinch of distraction and you have a recipe for a slightly abused me. And don't forget you're adding teeth into the mix now as well! Oosh! Like I said we'll have to see how long I can hold out. My best guess is you're still getting about 5-7 ounces a feeding, and you usually have about 3 feedings a day.

When it comes to solid food you eat like a champ! Well, you eat like a champ if its a fruit concoction. You'll eat a whole jar of fruit (4oz) in one sitting, but you make faces at any vegetables, and wont even open your mouth for the meats. We're currently trying to find combinations of fruits and veggies that aren't disgusting, everything so far has been a little like the V8 juice stuff. But hey, it gets the veggies in. We also just started upping your solids to twice a day. So far each sitting has been about a full jar, but it gets harder to tell now that we are mixing stuff.

Sleeping: You're still sleeping through the night, but you have started to slowly shift to an earlier schedule. Just this past week you've also started staying awake longer between naps, and shortening your actual nap times during the day as well. I'm certainly not complaining about the extra play time with you. You are definitely starting to keep me on my toes though.

Milestones:
Crawling: You figured out forward this month! It's not quite crawling yet, it's more an army crawl where you're just pulling yourself forward by your arms and your legs drag behind you. The Hubs was actually the one who saw you figure this out. I was really glad he got to witness a 'first' with you, he was pretty excited too. I think he said something like "So this is the fist time she's done this EVER, not just the first time I've seen it!" You were both pretty happy with yourselves, and pretty cute I might add. Just last week you managed to squirm wiggle your way all the way across the room. Progress we're making progress!

Teething: You are now the proud owner of a single tooth. Your front bottom tooth came in first and surprised us all! Immediately after that tooth broke through you not so subtly started working on a back molar. It's my understanding that molars take a while to come in, and they will work their way up in fits of starting and stopping, so after a few days of teething, you're now chillaxing with your one and only tooth.You were slightly more fussy as you were working on the molar, but with a little oral-gel you were good to go. Overall you were amazingly laid back about the whole ordeal. Way to go my little trooper!

Talking: You'll certainly gab up a storm these days, especially when we're getting sleepy. You have managed to say 'Mama' a couple of times by accident. You just happened to string the right syllables together, but they don't have meaning to you yet. You can bet though that I'm working on this with vengeance, and we're getting pretty close. You also still 'sing' all the time. The Hubs says we sound like screech owls, or even nails on chalkboard when we 'sing' back and forth to each other, but who asked him anyway! I think he's just jealous that he can't get his voice that high.

And finally, here you are at 8 months!

"Tegan- warier baby" S1 Episode 7.9; Accidental Discovery

Tegan, my little trooper, just cut her first tooth!! Color me surprised!! Which, okay fine, other than the milestone of a first tooth of my first child it isn't that uncommon of an event. Everyone has to get teeth at some point, it's how this whole growing up thing typical goes. So why the big font and italics drawing extra attention, and the theatrics making it seem like I just discovered how to achieve cold fusion, and oh by the way in my spare time I created world peace attitude?

Well fist off, she is my first, and it is her first tooth, so there deal. That alone is enough reason for a celebration. But the mind blowing part is that she didn't show any of the typical signs of serious hard core teething! No over the top fussiness, no bouts of uncontrolled crying, not even the hint of a fever, or even any extra redness on her gums where the tooth was trying to break through! About the only thing she did do was increase her 'chewing' on things. She put just about everything in her mouth I would let her, and she become very interested in her actual teething toys. Lately she's even been sleeping longer at night instead of the hellish nights you usually hear about from parents with a teething child.

I think this new development surprised her as much as it did me. There she was, minding her own business playing in her bouncer and gnawing on a teether when BAM! Out of nowhere she completely lost it seeming to be crying for no reason! To achieve maximum cry volume she had her mouth open as wide as it would go providing me with a clear view of her new budding tooth! Looking back I'm pretty sure she discovered her new pearly addition by biting her lip- thus providing a now understood reason for the before mentioned freak out.

This is turning into one crazy week! And it's only Tuesday! I might just be in trouble here.

Next up the rest of the in-laws come to town for a visit.

Mommy Milestone Moment

I'm still trying to play catch up on recent events, like a few weeks ago we took a trip to a friends cabin for the weekend (which was absolutely wonderful), and some words on the ECFE class we started, and just this weekend a trip to the zoo with the MIL...but this is worth mentioning out of order, and by far was the best part of my weekend! 'What has me so excited' you ask? Well I'll tell you...

Last night Tegan was playing on the floor in her nursery enjoying some Daddy time, after-all what are weekends for if not for as much Daddy time as possible! When I came in to join them I was greeted with a nice big smile (I'll never get sick of that reaction when I enter her room). I took a seat on the floor on the opposite side of her room from where she was and she immediately abandoned her favorite toy and proceeded to wiggle/pseudo crawl her way across her room to come and see me!!! She crossed the length of her room to get to me, which at the moment is no small feat for her! It was the best feeling ever to watch her excitement and determination to come and see me. It was like her way of telling me "I love you". It definitely warmed my heart.

In my little girls eyes I apparently rock!

Babys First...

State Fair! We took Tegan to the State Fair a few weeks ago. I know, I know I'm falling behind. Better late then never. Anyway, I had really been looking forward to taking Tegan to the fair so by the time we went I had a long list of things I wanted to do with Tegan while we were there. Most of the things I wanted to do with her involved visiting anything fury. Tegan is so fascinated with anything fury I thought it would be a big hit. Since we were going to be there on traditionally the busiest day, I wanted to get there early to make sure we didn't have to fight the crowds with the stroller, and so that we could actually get relatively close to some of the animals.  So we actually woke Tegan up bright and early and managed to get out the door close to the time we had set for ourselves. As soon as we got there we went straight for the furry things. She was a little more hesitant than we expected, but still very fascinated.

"Umm...Dad...That's not our doggy, not even close!"

We made it through most of the barns and the pet center before it was time for the Hubs to do his thing. He had been invited to speak on a panel for the DFL booth to discuss the media in politics along with a few other political bloggers. They were introduced as prominent, and influential bloggers (channeling Inspector Gadget- "Go-go wif-y pride!") It was a lot of fun to watch him talk on the panel.

Hubs speaking on the panel in front of the DFL booth at the State Fair

While he was talkin' and doing his thing I met up with my parents and tried to get Tegan to take a much needed nap. I did manage to get her to sleep for maybe about a half hour, but as soon as she heard Daddy's voice over the speakers she was roused from her sleep in search of where his voice was coming from. It was pretty cute, except for the missed nap part which came back to bite us in the ass.

After the Hubs panel, and with the Grandparents in tow we decided to try some more furry creatures while Tegan had a renewed good mood. This time around went more like what we were expecting. She was very curious about everything and was trying to reach out to all the creatures.

She really wanted to pet this guy, but he we were pretty sure he was thinking baby fingers make a good lunch.

Alas, around 4pm the little trouper told us she had had enough, and my feet agreed whole heatedly. Considering we woke her up around 6am, and only managed to get her to shut down and take a nap for about 20 minutes around noon, I was pretty impressed she made it anywhere close 4pm! With a parting visit to Sweet Martha's we were retreating to the comforts of home where Tegan promptly passed out in her crib...it took an additional two days to get back to normal (read- she was fussy as all get up!)

Not bad for our first State Fair, there was good company, great food, and fun for all!

*No fury creatures were harmed during their meetings with our daughter.

MIL Showdown

***Warning, very long, slightly boring, and very rant-y post to follow. Read at your own risk...

Recently we ran into a bit of MIL drama that just sort of bubbled over. It actually stayed pretty tame considering. So here's where it all started- the Hubs decided he was going to cook a big ol' ham that has been sitting in the freezer forever (as a side note 'Horray for getting freezer space back!'), and since it was going to be a big meal we invited the MIL over to have dinner with us and see her grand daughter.

From the very beginning of the visit things were off to a shaky start. When the MIL arrived I had just finished feeding Tegan her solids for the day and was cleaning her up in her highchair. And, well, the MIL was a little miffed that I hadn't waited for her to get here so that she could have fed her. If the timing had worked out for this, then I would have been fine with the her feeding Tegan, but with Tegan's current schedule you have to act fast to get things to fit in before she goes down for her next nap. Waiting for the MIL in this situation really wasn't an option. Okay. Fine. Moving on.

Next the MIL wanted to take Tegan out in her stroller for a walk. I had already told the Hubs before she arrived that I wasn't comfortable with her going alone with Tegan. She has a horrible sense of direction, I mean really horrible, words can't even describe how easy she gets turned around, and she doesn't know the area around where we live. Combine this with a host of other objections like some of the mental/emotional problems, and that she sometimes has trouble walking, and there was no way I was going to be comfortable with them going alone. Whether I was being reasonable or not was besides the point, it was how I felt on the topic. So when the MIL asked to go out, the Hubs was a real champ and insisted that he went with. This illicited another snarky comment from the MIL about how "(she) can't even take Tegan out for a walk by (herself)". To which the snarky voice in my head responded "HELL NO!!!" But again, okay. Fine. Moving on. And off the three of them went for a walk.

By the time they were back from the walk Tegan was already showing signs of being ready to go down for the night. So off to the nursery they went for a few more minutes of play before bed. When I entered Tegan's room a few minutes later it was definitely time to get the little one ready for bed. The MIL asked if she could put her to bed, and I explained that there was a whole routine that we have to go through, and it would just be easier to show her how it goes than try to explain it (my snarky voice was now thinking "even though it is really unlikely that you will need to know the bedtime routine"). I also reminded her that she can't get Tegan into her crib because she can't reach. (It may just be me, but I think that could cause a slight problem...just saying.) So I scoop Tegan up and start getting things ready to put her down. By this point I was really trying to not let the MIL get to me since Tegan picks up on my mood really easily and if I wanted even the slightest hope of her going down without a fight I needed her to stay relaxed. I was working so hard on keeping myself calm I almost forgot to change Tegan's diaper, can you say sad baby with diaper rash by morning? Oops, slight back track to take care of my mistake, and again the MIL contributes a snarky comment about how "all you have to do for the bedtime routine is change her diaper?" I'm literally grinding my death at this point and thinking "if that's all there is to it you could have done it", but instead I opt for a simple "no there's more". After tripping over the MIL for the rest of the routine because she keeps finding a way to be in the wrong spot at the wrong time (and for a routine that only takes a few minutes this is impressive!) I finally get Tegan down and push the MIL out of the room. Patience and sanity reserves are hovering dangerously close to empty. Okay. Fine. Moving on.

Finally we move to the dinning room for adult dinner and incidentally start our final steps in the showdown. The MIL is a very direct person so it wasn't to big of a surprise that she brought up the topic about how she feels like we're not comfortable with her spending time with Tegan alone, and hows she's starting to resent this. To keep a long post from becoming absurdly long we ended up talking for a good 40 minutes about this and essentially reminded her that we had a conversation before Tegan was even born about how we weren't comfortable with her babysitting until Tegan was older because of certain issues. We clarified that by older we mean when she's like two years old. It seemed like she excepted this and was doing okay with it, even assured me that if I felt I was doing what I thought was right then I needed to listen to myself and my instincts. We ended the night on good terms and I thought that would be the end of it.

I was wrong. A few days later the Hubs got a call. The MIL wasn't okay with it and she wanted to talk about it some more. Awesome. Fine. Alright, come on over. It was clear at this point we needed to be a lot more direct about things. and make sure everything was crystal clear and out in the open. She wanted specific examples of our reasons for being uncomfortable with leaving her alone with Tegan, and in return we were brutally honest with her. I'm sure she didn't like a lot of what we said (and we certainly didn't like that she had forgotten some of her scarier moments that concern us, but seeing as this is one of my largest concerns it made a good case-n-point). Towards the end of the conversation I thought we were really getting her to hear and understand us. That is until she tried to sum up what we were saying by explaining that she thinks it was just different parenting methods- "when (she) was raising her sons it was really important to her that her family be involved in there lives, and that her family have a big part in helping to raise her kids". I may have lost my cool and yelled at her at this point.

In the end I hope we reached an understanding. There are things that the Hubs and I need to work on to be more comfortable, and there are plenty of things the MIL needs to work on. I'm hopeful that we can close this chapter and move on, or at least have less stressful get-togethers. Although history is not on my side.

On a final note (I swear I'm almost done); at one point the MIL made a comment about how she only gets to see Tegan every two weeks, and in her opinion that's not enough. Now Tegan only sees my parents about every two weeks and occasional little encounters during the week mainly because they live a lot closer and this seems to work fine. So my question for those out there that actually read this- How often did you visit your grandparents growing up? And if you now have kids of your own, how often do they see their grandparents? Is every two weeks that unreasonable?

7 Months

7 months! 7 months!!! I don't know why this seems different than the 6 months that came before, after all it is the logical procession of things. After 6 months comes 7 months. But for whatever reason I'm having trouble coming to terms with the fact that you are 7 months old now, over half a year old!!! Commence mini-mommy-meltdown...Okay I'm over it now NOT.

This last month has been a little slow, or at least blogging slow seeing as I didn't get anything up between your 6 month post and your 7 month post. But it has been a nice laid back month. We went to a family reunion of your Great Grandpa's side of the family, which was both nice and weird since we didn't know half the people there. But it made you're Great Grandpa really happy that with you there, his side of the family had the most generations present at the reunion. Here's our side represented:

4 Generations!

We also welcomed another member of our family into the world, your cousin Sophia Ann. She was born on August 31st at 6lbs 10oz and 19" long. She was only 1 lb bigger than you, so it was crazy to go and meet her and remember just how tiny you were. One more cousin to add before the year is up! We've been a busy family this year/last year, Ha!

Meeting for the first time!

Aunt Jenn, and Sophie (~1 month)

That's enough recap of what we've been up to this last month, now on to what you have been up too, after all this is suppose to be your 7 month update...

Weight: My best guess is 15-16 lbs. I have a feeling you might be going through another growth spurt though (crossing my fingers).

Clothes: You're still wearing 3-6 month clothes primarily, although I have been able to sneak in some 6-9 month clothes too. I still think it will be a couple of weeks, maybe even another month before you move on completely to 6-9 month clothes.

Diapers: Still rocking the size 3 diapers.

Feeding: Still breastfeeding, but my best guess is that you're eating a little less than you did before, back down to 5-7oz in a feeding. Although it's my understanding that this is to be expected when you're also getting solid food. Speaking of solid food, you're still eating just one meal a day. I think the middle of this month we'll up you to two meals a day. We have just a few more stage 1 basics we have to work through before we can start really having some fun and mixing things up, doesn't that sound exciting! So far you're top food picks are sweet potatoes and apples, these are the magic foods at the moment that will help you forget when we try to feed you the absolute lowest of lows which are any of the baby meats. You absolutely DETEST the meats (I can't blame you for this either, they smell worse than the rice cereal crap!!) Even the tiniest bit of meat on your spoon causes you to gag, and I'm not talking about a little baby gag here either. I'm talking full on body constricting gag that nearly bring tears to your eyes, which is followed by a look of pure hatred that seems to ask "WHY?! Why did you put such a foul thing in my mouth! GET IT OUT, GET IT OUT, GET IT OUT!!!!" Yeah, my babies a bit of a drama queen, HA!

Sleeping: You're still in a crazy sleep schedule where you're really only up for two hours (including feeding time) before you go down for another 3-4 hours or longer. And at night I think the longest you have gone is nearly 20 hours. No joke! I feed you around 4pm one day, and you went until 11am the next day. Honestly if we hadn't heard from two different doctors that this isn't a problem we would be worried. But we've been told as long as you're happy and alert when you are up this is okay, and you've been hitting all your milestones on time or early so clearly things are working out. Your regular doctor even joked with me that I should keep your habits to myself when talking to other moms if I don't want to be bludgeoned. Ha! You are starting to lean towards an earlier wake up time now though, more like 8-9am. This is great and I'm glad about the shift, my second cup of coffee in the morning might still be a bit bitter about it, but we're working on it.

Milestones:
Crawling: You haven't quite figured out the mechanics yet, but you've gotten really close to getting yourself where you want to go. At the moment you've figured out every direction but forward. You're a little like a Mexican jumping bean squirming all over the floor. It's really very amusing to watch!

Teething: No pearly whites making their debuts yet, but you're getting closer. I think i can feel one of your bottom teeth getting ready to cut through. I imagine this means there are some 'happy times' in our future.

Talking: You're certainly working on this right now. You're 'm' sounds are very clear, although in all honesty you figured this out because when you were learning to make raspberry sounds you would scrunch up your face and hum, it was so cute!!! But regardless of how it came to be, you're working on 'm' sounds and therefor I am counting down the days until I hear you say "Mama". You also 'sing' quite often. I'm always singing along to the radio when we're playing and you've picked up you're own version of singing now too. It's almost like an oscillating high pitched whining sound, but you do it when you're happy and it tickles you pink when I sing back, so I'm going to call it singing.

That's pretty much it for this month. This upcoming month should look more like our normal schedule. We have the State Fair to go to, and we'll also be starting an ECFE class which I'm so looking forward too. More on these to come

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for, drum roll please.....Your 7 month picture: