12 Month Check-Up

This morning we had Aria's one year appointment. She was a brave little baby for her 3 shots. The doctor said that she is healthy and thriving. The is 30.5" long and 22.5 lbs. 90 percentile for height and 70 percentile for weight. My little lady is long and lean (she will appreciate this someday).

Dr Auh interacted with Aria and said she is a very good natured baby, called her my very own baby doll. She said that she can tell that Aria is also very smart. She said she can understand most everything we are saying. She said we are going to have to keep an eye on her because it's the smart ones that get into stuff. Example: she'll see us do something and she will know how to do it, like turning on the stove. 

Apparently she caught up on her milestone and is now advances, being dubbed an early walker. I think this is so funny, because she refused to roll over consistently until she was 6 months and didn't crawl until 10 months. I guess she was building up all her brain knowledge during that time and now she is implementing it.

Shots always make me nervous, Aria is sleeping in her car seat right now and I keep checking on her to make sure she is alive. I have shots! She got MMR, Pneumococcal Conjugate, and Hep A. I turned down the flu and chicken pox vaccines for now b/c I didn't want to bombard her little body. I told the doctor what I was okay with and she said sure and didn't question me. I really like Dr Auh.

I talked to the doctor about breastfeeding and she said it was perfectly okay to keep her feeding. I told her I want to cut back and she said to cut out a day feeding but keep feeding at night and before bed if she wants it because that's what she needs for brain development. Guess this is why my babe is so smart, she still BFs 2 times a night. She also said when I do decide to full on wean her that I should go away for the weekend. This will help the milk dry up and I won't be there for Aria to rag on when she wants it. She said it won't be as satisfying when I come back b/c there will be less milk to have. She suggested starting her on whole milk 16-20 ounces a day. She may like the taste better than 2% and that she needs the fats that whole milk has in it. 

All in all she is healthy and happy, smart and advanced. The doctor said this is in part to the fact that I stay home with her. She said she probably wouldn't be as healthy if she was in daycare and not BFing. This was nice to get some positive feedback about my choice to stay with her. I always feel like I am having to defend the decision, so it was a nice change.

In other news, Aria LOVES her Yaya. She now screams with joy when she sees her and ol mom is chopped liver. I think this is b/c Yaya has been reading books to her. She's reached the age where she totally adores books and being shown pictures. It's really awesome! We have so many great books too, I'm so glad she likes them.

Another new thing Aria has started is acting startled. She never used to be phased by anything before but now when the dogs bark, she jumps and turns. This just happened and I was down on the floor with her and she threw her arms around me. It was soooo cute. She also loves to be chased and they when you catch her she has that happy frantic almost-fun-to-be-afraid laughter going on. She's my funny girl :)

Until next time, xo Rosie

Week 30!

Well hello there. Can you believe my little tiny is 30 weeks old! I know, me neither! She's officially made it to another year. 2011 will always be remember by me as the most amazing year of my life thus far. With all the ups and downs, no one, and no thing can take away the fact that my Aria Rose came into our lives this past year. That fact alone makes my life amazing and worthwhile no matter what.

Aria can sit! No help needed for my little peanut. The last 2 weeks she has made a huge leap from wobbly "omg she's tipping over" baby to "let me sit here and play with my toys" baby.

She loves to squeak her Sophie the Giraffe. I know it's usually used as a teether, but since there is not a tooth in sight (plenty of drool though) she seems to prefer just licking and squeaking.

Aria has a achieved 3 new uses for her mouth. She discovered how to lick her lips with her tongue. It's so cute to watch as she full heartedly plasters her tongue al far out as it can go on all sides. She also learned to gurgle in her through. She likes to tip her head back and let her drool collect and aid for some awesome gurgling. Lastly she learned to make "fish noises" with her mouth. She will open and close her lips so that they make that little popping sound. It's so freakin cute!

Aria finally had her doctor check up on Wednesday. I know, bad mommy, I haven't had her in since her 2 month check and she is now 7 months. I have many different reasons and excuses, but of course I know I should have made the appointment sooner. After much researching I decided that the Palo Alto Medical Foundation in Mountain View would be the best facility. It's big and has all the latest and greatest equipment. The doctors all interact with each other in all departments, there is online access to medical records and the pediatricians got good reviews. I was able to get in with the doctor I chose, Dr Jane Auh (sounds like "Oh") even though her practice was closed, I didn't beg or anything, see it doesn't hurt to ask. Aria did great at the appointment. Kevin had the day off work so we went together to the 11am appointment. At first we went to the wrong line and waited for a while then realized that we were in the lap section when we got to the front, oopsie. Hence when we just started filling out the paperwork our name was called so we went in and they said we could finish it later. Kevin thinks the nurse man was gay though I'm not sure why. He seemed rather un-personable, I guess my gaydar needs work. Dr Auh said her normal nurse Yolanda wasn't in that day so hopefully next time will be better. Stinky got weighed all naked sitting on the little weight machine. She was 18 pounds and 12 ounces (85th percentile) and she measured 28.5 inches (95th percentile). So she is going awesome!! The doctor said she is very strong and she won't be surprised it she is crawling by her 9 month appointment. She said it was fine that we missed the 4 month visit they will just delay then to the 9 month one since usually there are no vaccines at 9 months. Poor Stinky did great for her shots. She didn't hardly cry for the first one and wined a little more for the second. But the third one was the "burning" one so she did let out a sad little wail. Overall the doc was nice. She is a Stanford fan so she chatted with Kevin about Oregon as he was obviously wearing his Oregon sweatshirt. Aria hasn't had much bad effects from the shots, just a little grumpy.

We are starting Aria on some baby foods, I am making her sweet potatoes pureed and she gets one feeding a day for the first month. She is still not a big fan but we will keep offering it to her. I'm excited to make her more interesting and tasty foods.

On the Tuesday after New Years day Kevin and I took Aria to the zoo. It was so much fun to get away and spend time together with my little family. I think Aria enjoyed the animals and just riding around and looking at the scenery. She is so aware and curious of everything!

Well, I secretly starting writing this update when I was supposed to be drying my hair. I've got to go make sure Yaya is okay with the little princess her self.

Until next time xo Rosie

9 weeks old and smiling!

This past week and half has marked a huge increase in Aria's smiling abilities. Before I had to wait long and hard to glimpse a second of that precious grin. While always worth the wait, I am seriously enjoying my new girl who is easy to smile and never holds back. She flashes her adorable toothless grin to Mommy and Daddy, to Auntie Gabby and even to "Cousin-Auntie-Sister-Nurse" Brig.

Aria has also been cooing a lot. She likes to "talk" especially when you initiate the conversation. She'll talk about, just about anything, as long as you bring it to her attention with great enthusiasm and Jim Carrey-like expressions.

She also loves it when I sing to her. Ever since she was born, she has been soothed by music. I'm constantly playing the "Rock-a-bye Baby" station on my iPhone's Pandora app for her. Nearly every time I sing to her, I inexplicably forget the lyrics halfway through and sometimes even one line in. Poor little Aria is such a good sport, and doesn't seem to mind the philandering words I substitute as long as I don't miss a beat.

Yesterday Aria had her 2 month check-up. She ways a whopping 12 pounds and 7 ounces and is 23 inches long. The doctor who spoke to us said she is doing fantastic on her growth curve and overall is a perfect healthy baby. She said I must be feeing her whipping cream. After much thought and deliberating, we went ahead and got her all her vaccines. She was a champ. There were 8 different vaccines combined into 3 shots. I though I was going to cry from stress before the nurse came in to administer them. Aria only cried a little for the first one then stopped before the next two. The nurse warned that the pneumonia shot burned immediately and that she was doing that one last. I felt so bad for my little Stinks, she was taken by surprise and went from looking around the doctor's office happily to letting out the saddest baby wail I have ever heard. It was the kind where she didn't breathe or even make a sound for the first 5 seconds. She got lots of mommy and daddy kisses after that.

On our way home she fell asleep in the car. We stopped at Rite Aid to get her some infant Tylenol. The doctor barely said anything about the dosage/what/where to get it, so I talked to Nurse Brig, who came to our rescue. As I unsuccessfully searched in Rite Aid for the "infant Tylenol" I finally decided to ask the pharmacist for help. She took me to the aisle where it was kept then unfortunately informed me that they were out. I left the parking lot and went straight to the car where Kevin was waiting for me watching Aria. Apparently I was missing a braincell, because I went right to a light blue Honda and when I looked in the back for my sleeping baby, I realized that she was gone and there was some roll of white paper sitting on the seat instead. I turned around in shock and then Kevin tapped on his horn at me. I had forgotten that we came in his tan Camry not my blue Honda Accord. We drove across the street to Wallgreens and luckily they had the medicine.

When we got home Aria continued to sleep on and off for about 6 hours. I gave her the baby Tylenol every 4 hours, .4 ml. She and I snuggled up in Brigid's recently vacated bed and napped the rest of the day. Needless to say, I needed the rest because I have been exhausted to the extreme due to my little lady's unfortunate sleeping schedule. Kevin went out with the boys to play some golf because he had had a dream the night before that my dad took him golfing and he couldn't get it out of his head. They went out to Jakes for pizza and beer afterwards. When Kevin returned, I was able to clean my disaster of an apartment a bit and then we watched Source Code. I had already seen it, but Kevin hadn't and wanted to and hey, I'm always down to love me some Jake Gyllenhaal.

Aria slept fairly well last night. In comparison to how she normally is, there wasn't much change. She slept form 1am to 4:30am. I fed her at 4:30 am and then dozed and held her until 6am when she started her morning ritual of grunting, squirming and crying, basically what it takes to try and get a poop out.

Right now my sweet baby is sitting in her swing, she loves sitting in it in the morning time, which is amazing for me because I can actually get a few things done. I am a bit concerned because I've notices that the swing is not swinging a hard as it used to. I fear the batteries are running low and while I know I should fix it asap to keep my girl happy, I can't seem to find that D batteries. They are here somewhere, I know it. I need to continue my search for I am definitely not ready to give up my mornings that have recently dawned a lingering semblance of a time seemingly so long passed. What did I used to do with my time. You don't miss it till it's gone. Of course I did used to work full time, so my "time" was considerable less.

Another thing I would like to mention; Aria does amazingly well in the Baby Bjorn. I can walk/hike for hours, literally and she just leans to the side like an angel and using the the time to catch up on some snoozing. It's really awesome, because I am desperately in need of exercise and this is something we can do together. I feel so much better when I can get out in the fresh air. Today I plan on hiking our 6 mile trail at Rancho San Antonio again -Wild Cat Loop, otherwise known as "Edward's Twizzley Log Trail", hehe, it's a very Schmedley hike.

Until next time,

Rosie

PS- I dreamed that Aria had about 10 teeth coming in. It was crazy, the first thing I thought, was oh no I wanted to get a picture of her toothless grin and second, I guess that's why nursing is starting to hurt. hehe. Dreams are weird.