Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Babies need their mothers!

Via Melissa McEwen, the following article:  

Keeping Mother and Baby Together – It’s Best for Mother, Baby, and Breastfeeding


The video "shows babies who, when left undisturbed on their mothers' bodies immediately after birth, find themselves, crawl to it and suckle with competence.  It observes also those babies whose abilities are either impaired or negated because of exposure to intrapartum meds, separation from their mothers after birth, or both."


Great information about how mom and baby should be together for at least the first hour after birth, and how important skin to skin contact is for the newborn baby.  Check it out and let me know what you think!

Friday, June 24, 2011

Fourteen months of Avery

Today is Avery's fourteen month birthday, and it also happens to be Adam's birthday!  Happy birthday honey! 

Avery at fourteen months is my exuberant little cherub.  She is developing quite an attitude lately!  The terrible.... ones?  It must be frustrating to be only fourteen months and be thwarted from doing what you want at nearly every turn and not be able to even complain about it with words.  The other day she threw an absolute FIT in the middle of Costco.  I put a container of dates (one of her favorite things) in the cart and she decided she wanted one RIGHT.  NOW.  So after trying to futilely distract her while enduring withering looks from other shoppers passing by the scene, I finally cracked open the container and gave her one.  Good grief!  I can't wait till she turns two.  Or twelve!  Haaaaaa.

She's making more attempts at saying words here and there.  If you ask her what a cow says, she goes, "Buahh" (moo, duh).  Kitty says "myuhm", doggy says "uhn! uhn!", milk is "mahm", and she even said bah-bah (bye bye) yesterday.

She's such a love.  She loves giving kisses and hugs, and getting them is the best thing EVER.  No, seriously, ever ever.  Just look how cute:


Untitled from Michelle Seiler on Vimeo.


This is such a fun age!  The best age so far.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Just when I was all set to give her to the gypsies

Ahhhhh this child.  Yesterday she only took one nap, so I knew it would mean an early bedtime.  Last night went like this:

7:00 - lights out, nurse to sleep

7:30 - in bed!  Yay, that was quick, now I can go downstairs and make my tea and talk to Adam.

7:50 - awake.  Dammit, that was only twenty minutes.  Haven't finished my tea.  She's going back in her crib for a while longer.

8:40 - finally asleep and in bed again after nearly an hour of nursing and walking.  At least I can go back downstairs and finish my tea.

8:50 - awake.  Again.  AHHHHH.  To hell with it, I'll just get in bed with her.

9:30 - finally.  Asleep.  Aaaaannnnd here comes Adam making enough noise to wake her up.

11:45 - yes, ELEVEN FORTY FIVE.  She finally went to sleep again after hours of walking, nursing and frustration.

6:45 - awake for the day!

And of course she was fussy and grumpy all morning.  I was seriously about ready to give her to the next gypsy I saw.  We had breakfast... well, actually, I had breakfast and she ate a few bites and kept signing "more" but then wouldn't eat anything I offered her more of.  And after breakfast I carted her upstairs to take a nap.

Nursing a toddler is like trying to nurse an octopus.  There are legs and arms flailing everywhere.  Well, I was already feeling a bit put upon by the previous 14 hours' ordeal, so nursing an octopus was kind of like the icing on the cake.

Then all of a sudden, Avery stopped nursing, pulled my face down and went "mmmmm-mmah!" (her kisses) and started giving me kisses over and over and laughing.  Oh my god, she can melt my heart.  I decided I would keep her after all.

I'm pretty sure she is popping another tooth out.  Two and a half down, twenty five to go.  Hold me.  Or better yet, send cookies! (For me, not the baby.  For the baby, perhaps you have some kind of heavy duty tranquilizer??)

Wednesday, June 08, 2011

Lately

Hard to believe our time in Vegas is drawing to a close already. Has it really been three weeks?! We leave tomorrow. It's bittersweet - bitter because we will really miss Yaya; sweet because we get to see Dada again.

Avery has changed so much even just since we got here. She decided the day before we came that she was done with crawling. She is now walking everywhere, as you could see in the last video I posted. We even went to Nordstrom's to get Avery her first pair of shoes! After which she went toddling through the mall carrying her Eeyore around by the ear and grinning at anyone who made eye contact with her.

She loves shoes and will go get her shoes and bring them to me to put on her. A couple days ago in Kohl's we were trying a pair of shoes on her, but then decided not to get them. She was very upset when I tried to put them back on the shelf! She carried them around for a while and would not even be distracted by toys when it was time to leave the shoes behind! She also loves adult shoes and tries to put them on her feet.

People are drawn to her when we take her out. So many people stop to say hello to her and Avery always obliges them with an adorable grin, or she waves or wrinkles up her nose. Are all babies like this? I have zero experience with babies other than Avery so I don't know if she gets an abnormal amount of stranger-baby-attention or more.

We took her to our favorite Mexican restaurant in town and she had the best time. Besides eating copious amounts of guacamole and chicken, she made friends with all the waiters and bussers in our area. Every time someone passed by the table, she leaned back in her high chair and grinned and waved until they acknowledged her.

We had a fun visit with Aunt Barbara too, who enamored herself to Avery by teaching her all kinds of cool things like how to sign "more" and how to eat ice chips. You can see her doing both at the end of the Thirteen Month video I posted: Barbara was feeding her ice chips and she kept signing "more"! She also showered Avery with toys including her now beloved Eeyore, a dolly and her very own purse!

We can never do more than one or two things when we leave the house because we have to be home in time for Avery's afternoon nap. This child does not nap in the carseat or the stroller like every OTHER baby in the entire known universe. So we mostly hung out at home and enjoyed the company and exploring the back yard. We did have a few adventures, including a trip to the MGM hotel to see the lions. Avery really liked seeing the baby lions and practically turned herself inside out to get to them (she couldn't because they were behind glass, but right at her eye level).

Avery is eating a lot lately, and one of her very favorite things is chili. She consumes entire bowls of the stuff! She also eats eggs, avocado and bacon for breakfast, fruit - especially strawberries and blueberries, and she even got to eat some peaches from Poppy's peach tree!, steak, shrimp, asparagus, cucumbers, zucchini and even a little bit of dark chocolate.

She doesn't say any words besides hi, Mama, Dada and Yaya yet, but she often tries to imitate what you say. I had a sore on my foot and she was trying to get it off of me by scratching at it with her fingernail (thanks!) and I said, "owie", and she tried to imitate me. She was also trying to imitate me saying "poop" (booo) and a few other words. If you tell her to call me and I'm in the other room, she'll start toddling to find me and say "MUM! Ah-ma! Mom-mom!" Oh, and she blows kisses. Yes it's as cute as it sounds.

Luckily Dada has a three day weekend, so we will get lots of time with him when we get back. Then it will only be a couple weeks before Uncle Blake and Inge come out to visit us in Hawaii! That is sure to be a fun time of beachgoing, hiking, restauranting and who knows what else.
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