Here comes trouble

Last Wednesday was Emery's 9 month checkup (on her 10 month birthday, go figure). I had expected to be told that she was still on her growth curve, to be yelled at for not getting her to eat solid foods, to be advised to wean her but that ultimately, she'll eat when she wants to eat. Why I think I know what to expect when it comes to kids I'll never know. Emery is 16 pounds 6 ounces, putting her squarely in the 5th percentile and dropping her off the growth curve we had been so dutifully following. And while she was in the 50th percentile for height 3 months ago, now she is in the 10th (oh, but maybe that last reading was wrong, maybe). The doctors were satisfied with what we have been doing to try to get her to eat, but deeply concerned that at 10 months she won't swallow anything. The fact that she is so dangerously close to being underweight just makes everything that much more urgent. And that whole waking up every two hours to nurse at night? Apparently the only reason she isn't malnourished. So, keep up the good work sleep deprived Mom! They couldn't find anything anatomically wrong with her and apparently the fact that she puts toys in her mouth, has never been hospitalized, is meeting and exceeding her other milestones and doesn't have reflux means that this isn't due to any of the usual suspects. The verdict? She's just smart. She knows what she wants and isn't willing to give in, even if that means starving herself for 9 or 10 hours. At least that's their guess, I'm going to go ahead and believe it is true and not believe they were just trying to stroke the ego of the poor, good meaning and exhausted mother sitting in the room. So, we have a recommendation in to an occupational therapist to try to devise strategies to trick her into eating, or something like that.

Yeah, this is going well

I'm surprisingly upset by this referral. I really didn't think this was a big deal. Everything I had read indicated that kids will eat when they're ready. Never, ever did occupational therapy turn up in any of my frantic Google searches. I guess I just associate occupational therapy with kids who have developmental delay and I'm not entirely comfortable with Emery being thrown into that group. But, we'll see how it goes. If they can make this transition easier on everyone then my bruised ego will be worth it. I'm also contemplating making unsweetened frozen yogurt so I can mix in random veggies. Yeah, I'm sure that will work.

First Steps

Emery took her first steps on Thursday. She still needs to be abandoned standing up in order to take any, but I'm sure independent tries will begin soon. Luckily, we have cameras with video functions to document the steps that occurred right after the first:



Also occurring on Thursday was another milestone: we signed enrollment papers to Em to start daycare next month. While we really don't need care until the end of September, when a place at our absolute favorite center opened up for immediate start, we had to grab it up. While I am very sad that my stay at home status is coming to an end, this will be a good thing. I can work on my thesis and maybe actually get that in a submittable state in the next couple of months.

On the list of things that totally aren't working: eating. The daycare assures us that they'll work on it with her, but if you had told me a year ago that I would be exclusively breastfeeding a 10 month old, I would have thought you were insane. I am pretty disappointed that I didn't get to feed her the way I wanted to. I have books with recipes for baby food, special ice cube trays to freeze food cubes, a steamer and ricer to make perfectly thinned and nutritious meals, I've read tons of articles about when to introduce foods, how to get kids to eat vegetables and be adventurous eaters. All of it is out the window. If I can get her to swallow one bite of anything it's an accomplishment. While I have run across a few moms in similar predicaments, most mommies are stunned and seem to believe I must be doing something wrong: have you tried rice cereal? sweet potatoes? apples? Gee, no guys, I thought she was supposed to eat dog food. I've switched out eating locations, spoons, bowls, textures, tried salty, sweet, bland, bold. Nothing. The list of things she doesn't eat? Pears, strawberries, ollalieberry, freeze dried strawberry, banana, apple and asian pear, broccoli, carrots, chicken, salami, avocado, guacamole (so much puking as a result), oatmeal, rice, noodles, bread, Cheerios, Gerber Graduates, cheese, yogurt, peas, sugar, cheesecake, cookies, churro, cake and everything else edible. Except ice cream. She'll gobble that right up. Baby yogurt that has been frozen and mixed with fruit that tastes just like ice cream to me? Of course not.

Emery's New Word

While adorable, this means "mama" has completely disappeared from her vocabulary. Sigh.

Emery has resumed crawling. While the fact that in two seconds flat she can completely disappear from the room is often heart-stopping, I like the crawling. It means that she doesn't feel the need to hold on to me every waking second, just most of them. Also, she stood today unassisted for like 30 seconds. She only fell down because she tried to take a step. Let me repeat that, she stood until she fell because she tried to walk. I still vividly remember giving her her first bath, marveling over her first smiles, how can my baby be starting to walk?

Too Much New Stuff

My Mom was here for a few days last week, so I'm behind on this whole blog thing. Oh, and I interviewed for Stanford's genetic counseling program yesterday, so again, mind not exactly on blogging.

Emery is now pulling herself to standing on every possible surface, sturdy or not. This is not as cute as it sounds. She refuses to crawl now and sits and cries until someone offers her their hands so that she can walk to wherever it is she wants to go. She is also not so sure on her feet and we've had more bumps and bruises than I can even count anymore. We had just gotten baby proofed for the crawling stage and are now desperately trying to keep up with all of the new places she is getting herself into.

She has finally started babbling. I was starting to get worried as all of the other kids at playgroup are expert babblers. So, in addition to raspberries I now hear "babababa" all day long. Every once in awhile she throws in a "mama" so I'm not too offended that her first babbles had nothing to do with me, or anything else I can identify. Possible explanations for what baba means from our friends include: 'grandma' in Japanese, 'water' in spanish, or she is just starting to sing 'Baba O'Riley' by The Who. She did start saying it while my mom was here, so I'm going with Japanese as a first language. Also, she makes kissy noises which are way cute.

Last Saturday we took her for her very first swim lesson. It was at a therapeutic pool where the water is kept in the nineties, so it was like a really big bathtub for her. She seemed to like the water although I'm not real sure that the class is helpful. It's almost worth it just to see her in her bathing suit though:

Play

Emery has had a very social week. She's just popular like that. Wednesday we went to play group and Emery impressed everyone with her mad mobility skillz. Because I am totally afraid of John's new camera, I have no pictures. So, imagine this but with more babies around:


Yesterday we got together with our other favorite baby for a play date. For the first time B and Emery actually looked at each other, like they maybe actually realized there was someone else there to play with. It was super adorable, but they of course stopped doing it as soon as the camera came out. This is the best I've got:


Today we had our music play group and Emery seemed to enjoy it much more this time. Everyone sang happy birthday to her, since she is 8 months today, and she seemed to have a smile from ear to ear the entire time.


I can't say enough about how much more sane play groups and play dates have made me. Having a forum to ask stupid questions, see other babies, and even sometimes feel like you're really doing an okay job at this whole parenthood thing is fantastic. It's too bad that it took me six months to resurface enough to realize I needed an outlet, because I think these experiences have given me the motivation and confidence to be a better mom.

In other sappy news our good friends Jeff and Michelle officially became parents yesterday. I'm surprised at how nostalgic this has made me. All the pictures of their beautiful little wrinkly, squinty newborn really brings me back to Emery's birth. I remember how empowered I felt by what my body had just accomplished but terrified by every little sneeze, cough and sound because I suddenly realized how little I actually knew about taking care of a baby. But she was just so beautiful and sweet and perfect, I knew I would do anything to make sure she was taken care of.

My little peanut seems all grown up now!

I guess I kind of miss the excitement of bringing home a brand new baby. Wondering what she'll look like once all that swelling goes down, how she'll behave, how life will change. On the other hand, Emery is just such a joy these days. She's exploring, showing us who she is and how much she loves us. How could you not be in heaven when you have this to look forward to every night?

The Great Cloth Diaper Switch

We are now (almost) full-time cloth diaperers. I went to my friend Sara's (www.busybeebottoms.com if you ever need cloth diapers) on Monday and bought enough cloth diapers to add to our collection to get us through full time. Well, except that we use disposables at night. We still have a few pack to go through, and I'm kind of afraid of a huge wet blow out if we use cloth at night. Maybe one day we'll go all out, but I'm happy with the arrangement we have now. I really love the cloth, but I've noticed a sharp decline in the frequency of John's diaper changing since the switch. Hopefully he'll come around. She looks super cute in them though:

Look at my moo cow undies!

The eating isn't going so well. I think the video speaks for itself:

The list of foods Emery won't eat: rice cereal, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, avocados, carrots, applesauce. I'm assured I won't still be breastfeeding her when she's in middle school...

Ice Skating and Updates

I am so totally on top of this blog thing. I don't completely forget about it and then have to try to remember what happened over the last ten days... no, not me at all. It's a good thing the only person reading this is my mom. Hi Mom!

Last Friday John's company had a morning get-together at our local outdoor ice-skating rink. I made cupcakes, because it's what I do:
I used a new cupcake recipe from Magnolia bakery and was unimpressed. The icing was interesting, very sugary, but the cupcakes were really dry. I am not crazy about those cupcakes cousin.

Because I think ahead and am a totally responsible parent, I did not anticipate that an ice skating rink would be cold. Luckily I had a hat for Emery in the bottom of the diaper bag.
My intellect is astounding.

All in all we had a good time. I got to put faces to the names of all of the people John talks about at work, we met Google celebrities and their families, and Emery tried to attack another baby bigger than her:Okay, so maybe she was being nice this time...

In other news, John sold his camera, so I have no more pictures of our adventures for the week. Hopefully the new and improved camera will be here soon. Until then I am forbidden from allowing Emery to do anything cute, lest we miss a photo opportunity. In response Emery has started crawling in the good, old-fashioned, all-fours kind of way. She still prefers scooting for those times when she HAS to get to the bird cage fast before Mom realizes where she is, but she is making little trips with her new crawl.

Yesterday she learned how to pull to sitting by herself. This skill scares me because she can pull to standing in her crib from a sit. I think the first item on the agenda today will be lowering the crib again. Because I am short, this stinks and means even more awkward bending over to get her in and out of said crib.

We put a moratorium on sleep training while Emery was sick and are now dragging out feet about starting again now that she is almost completely better (stupid cough...). Yes, it will be better in the long run. Yes, I might actually be able to start writing my thesis. No, I am not looking forward to losing sleep in the meantime. So, maybe she really is still sick, I mean that cough doesn't sound good...

Gah Gah Gah

Today is all about the freaking out. Emery and I are officially sick. There is only so much blind eye I have to turn to the goopy coughs and copious amounts of mucous everywhere. Emery doesn't so much sleep or eat normally, so you can imagine how much whining and not sleeping is going on in my house right now. So, naturally, I've decided to find as many things as possible to stress out about so that I am at completely crazy levels of insanity. This is not helped by the fact that admission of illness today means no play group, which is usually very helpful for me stress/boredom/sanity.

For some inexplicable reason I've become obsessed with the ideas of cloth diapers. Possible explanations for this obsession are as follows: I stumbled across the one cloth diaper we received as a shower present that we've never used, when I put said never-used diapers on Emery they looked freaking adorable, all of the Mommy blogs that I read seem to be talking about how awesome cloth diapers are, my Mom was awesome and collected about a million packs of disposables for us before Emery was born and we just now had to start buying our own and DAMN! diapers are expensive, I picked up a pattern and materials to make my own cloth diapers because they were free and I don't have enough fabric just sitting under my bed not being sewn, boredom. So, I got all excited about the idea and ordered one diaper from a company that the Mommy bloggers seem to love, then slapped the cloth diaper we had on Emery this morning with complete trust that we were "ready to make the change people" and then she immediately peed out the front of it all over herself. I'm hoping we're just cloth diaper noobs and made some silly mistake, or that the new diaper in transit will be even more awesome, but that was great.

During the great cloth diaper search of yesterday I came across an article about how some daycares won't take kids who wear cloth diapers. So, I spent the morning looking up local daycares that we might want to send Emery to eventually so that I could poll them and see whether it was even worth thinking about switching over. I then discovered that all of the Stanford daycares are completely booked and recommend putting yourself on their waitlist multiple months before you actually want your child enrolled, but even then, they can't guarantee anything. I am now, of course, in complete freak out mode what with the "She'll never get into a good daycare and then she won't get into a good preschool and college and her life will be ruined forever." Melodramatic much?

Then of course there is the elephant in the room, codename: my thesis which will never be done. John and I agreed last night that he has to really take over with Emery as soon as he gets home so I can get a few hours of work in every day. I'm thinking of putting myself on some sort of billable hours system... 10 hours per week or no Fraiche yogurt for you! Of course I can't start this week because (insert 50 random excuses here).

Also, Emery is so mobile at this point that my failure to baby-proof is becoming a problem. She scoots forward, backward, rolls in every which way, and pulled herself up to standing in her crib for the first time today. I put some foam pipe insulation around the bottom of some of our furniture yesterday, and that seems to be helping decrease the number of head bonks per day. I also cleared out the bottom shelf of our bookcase (hooray!) and filled it with Emery's books and toys and only a few of my things that I couldn't find any other place for but am willing to sacrifice in the name of drool.

The silver lining: tomorrow is John's work from home day, John's company is hosting an ice skaing event Friday morning which I plan to make some rockin' cupcakes for, my mom is coming in three weeks to hang out and drink wine, and Friday begins our new play group composed of the same people we do Wednesday play group with, but with a different agenda. No playing for you today kids, Friday is music day, so there.

I have pictures of Emery pulling herself up in her crib, but I am too lazy to get them off of the camera. Instead, enjoy this picture of her all bundled up and ready for a jog with Daddy:

Busy Bees

Uncle Ryan came to visit us this weekend, so we were unusually busy. Before I describe, admire the adorable half naked baby:

"Oh, hello, I'm just hanging out here in my diaper looking adorable."

Proof that she does "crawl"

Emery received her St. Patrick's Day package from Grandma Denise. The highlight was a rattle shaped like "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", it has already been a big hit. I think she is starting to get the hang of opening up her packages:

Ooh, looks like a winner

I'll take that

We went up to Mill Valley to visit the in-laws and their new car.

The newest member of the Garcia Family.
John and I call her "Lady" because we watch way too much 'Scrubs'

A very happy Grandpa

On Sunday we went down to San Jose to go to the Tech Museum. Years ago my department at Stanford started an exhibit there and I've had lots of friends who were involved in it's development and maintenance. Since this was Evonne's last weekend working at the DNA gel exhibit, I finally dragged everyone down to check it out. We were really impressed at how entertaining, interactive and educational the entire museum was.

You're right Em, science is awesome

We had fun talking to the grad students manning the hands-on stations, even though we couldn't convince Ryan to try anything out. The first non-genetics exhibit we saw was a robotic arm that constantly moved and rotated wooden alphabet blocks, but could immediately spell out any message when prompted:

Next up was a robot that would take your picture and make a line drawing from it:

Emery's drawing in progress

There was a machine that would make a 3-D model of your head. Ryan tried that one out:

Ryan is not convinced that science is awesome

Emery was captivated by this touch sensitive lightning thing-a-ma-jig (the technical name).


She also had fun with this exhibit that responded to your shadow:

Butterflies landing on our heads

We can't wait to take Emery back when she is a little older.

Sleep is for the Weak

Sleep training sounds like such a great idea until you're pacing your bedroom at 2 AM trying to convince a baby that "No, you're really not hungry, it's only been 2 hours" and singing every lullaby that you can remember at 2 AM- which, as it turns out, is only two. I'm told that if I just stick with it things will get better, the bags under my eyes aren't so sure.

Tuesday we went out to lunch with Evonne, our friend who is moving to Europe in about 2 seconds. Emery scored an early Easter present which we let her open that night because we have no sense of delayed gratification.

I do want!

Emmy's First Build-a-Bear/Bunny

A few weeks ago John mentioned to one of his co-workers with kids that I was getting pretty bored at home with Emery. She suggested we join a local parents club that has get-togethers and playgroups. We did and it has been super fantastic. They have a great classifieds section that we've already bought a stroller and some great toys from. But, the best part has been the play group. We get together with 8-10 moms every Wednesday and the kids play with each others toys and the moms talk and ask for advice. We're starting a music playgroup next week with some of the moms from Wednesday playgroup. We met a great couple with a little boy two months younger than Emery who live just a few blocks away that we are having lots of play dates with as well. I'm very excited to have activities to do with her even though she is a little young to really enjoy all the company. I feel much more sane having other moms to talk to and we're getting lots of really good advice for her sleeping and eating problems. Hopefully the playgroup stays together long enough for her to make some good friends in the area.

Emery and Friends

Sleep Training Day 3

A couple of weeks ago we moved Emery's crib into our room. She was fast approaching the 15 pound weight limit on our bassinet, but still waking too often during the night to make sleeping in her own room a real possibility. Around the same time she developed a stuffy nose, and well, the whole sleeping in her crib in our room thing has been quite the disaster. Like, I'm up every two hours disaster. John finally put his foot down and declared that we were going to have to sleep train her and just let her cry it out in her crib. I am fundamentally opposed to "crying it out", so we compromised on a no-cry sleep training regimen. Give her a predictable routine to signal bedtime, put her in her crib, pick her up and calm her down every time she cries, but always put her back in her crib while she is still awake.

We were terrified of this plan. Emery has quite the strong personality, and we were convinced that she would absolutely never go for this kind of imposed structure. But this is day three and things seem to be going pretty well (fingers crossed while knocking on every piece of wood/particle board I can find). The pre-bed routine takes about 45 minutes and the pick her up/put her down part has only lasted 30 minutes at most without much fuss. Tonight she was a rockstar and only had to be picked up once. And... she actually ate some oatmeal. I assure you she was very unhappy about the whole thing, but she honestly ate a good 8-10 small bites.

Mom, eww, this stuff is so gross!

Will you stop if I make the pouty face?

Forget it, I'm puking

The fact that these pictures represent by far the most successful feeding to date should give you a good idea of what dinnertime is like around here.

Just to prove I don't torture my child at all moments during the day, here are some pictures of her enjoying her pre-bed bath.

Mmm... crab

The best faux-hawk we can do with so little hair

Ha ha, I dare you to take an in-focus picture of me

UPDATE: The first two nights we put her down she slept really well. 4-5 hours at a stretch before needing to nurse again. Last night was not one of those nights. We were back to waking up every 1-2 hours to her screaming. Let's hope it is the little cough she has this morning and not a sign of things to come.

7 Months Old

Our little girl turned 7 months old on Friday. Time sure is flying by. She has turned into quite the little mover. She rolls quickly to wherever she wants to go, usually the speaker stand or receiver (she is into electronics, just like Daddy).

Turning the knobs is so much fun!

The XBox is Mine!

If you turn your back on her for more than a few seconds she is likely to have rolled across the room by the time you look for her again. She is also pushing up onto all fours really well. She has mastered the art of scooting backwards and is just starting to learn how to get onto all fours and fall forward to get to what she wants. This has been really great for us as she was getting very frustrated scooting backwards when what she wanted was right in front of her. She sits up really well on her own and is learning to play by herself for a few minutes.

Sitting and playing with the much loved Amazing Animals Choo Choo

Emery had her six month check-up on Wednesday and is doing well. The doctor is somewhat concerned that she absolutely refuses to eat solid foods, but we're convinced that she just isn't ready for eating. She is gaining weight well, though she is still small- 50th percentile for length and 10th percentile for weight- 14 pounds 11.5 ounces. She has reached all of her developmental milestones and then some, and the doctors continue to comment on how adorable and happy she is.