r.i.p. frank

today was a difficult day for our little family. we lost a very close, very special friend.

frank the bunny was a gentle soul…a soft, furry friend to baby s, practically a member of the family. he was there for my baby every day for the last six months, offering himself up for cuddles, drool, and sometimes baby vomit. he even traveled halfway across the world with her. we loved frank.

after realizing he was gone this morning, i spent over an hour retracing our steps in the pouring rain and through crowded shops. nothing. i left my phone number with staff members at all the shops and considered making a poster. p told me to let him go.

i cried. seriously, i cried. crazy mom moment 23984612, considering s will never know he was gone (i’m already placing an amazon order for frank #2 as i write this) and has only just got the hang of object permanence. i just wanted frank to be HER TOY…you know, the one that she takes to sleepovers and school parties and college and has forever. ugh. the heart breaks. i guess it just wasn’t meant to be.

although our time together was short, we remember frank fondly.

p even wrote a prayer for the occasion:

dear father God, we thank you for the life and service of frank the bunny rabbit. his ears were floppy and ever ready to be sucked, his nose was soft and gentle, and he was always glad to cuddle, even when he had been thrown around, punched, or thrown up on. wherever he now may be, may he give joy and receive it back in return. amen.

in loving memory:

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date nights! or, i’m blogging and playing on pinterest while my husband watches gory films.

lately our little nighttime devil has become kind of an angel when it comes to going down at night. p gives her a bottle of expressed milk around seven and i pump, and we’re both usually finished before eight. it’s ALMOST as if we have our lives back! so this week we decided to go a little crazy with films…we’re thinking about exploring the world of lovefilm, and had a blockbuster voucher so have had a different movie every night. let’s just say it’s nice to feel back in the loop again after having to wait six months to watch the hunger games because it conveniently came out just after s was born. did i mention that before? sorry, i was a little pissed.

anyway, movie nights have been a really great way for p and i to spend a bit more time together. as you can tell by my current blogging, right? it’s not my fault, really i promise. he’s watching immortals (you know, the greek mythology bloodfest made by the same guys that did 300? me neither. i watched some guy get castrated and turned on the computer instead. ok so i made him watch one day the other night. let’s call it even.) and i’m catching up on the grownup world of facebook, online shopping, and pinterest. it actually feels really nice.

since we have only just come out of the newborn baby fog, we’re still fairly out of touch with civilization, so any suggestions for films/tv series/documentaries/etc. would be welcome! go crazy; we like anything and everything! ok, don’t get dirty, p IS a priest after all. 😉

pin of the day: loaded mashed potato cakes…if MODG approves then they’ve got to be good!

Source: justputzing.com via Kaitlin on Pinterest

 

adorable photo (montage) of the day: crazy baby enjoying lemon. what?!

mmmmm lemon!

ok, now for your suggestions…go!!!

blw week in review: week two

this week saw relatively little dining on s’s part…i felt bad, but most days her naps tended to coincide with meal times and, frankly, i wasn’t physically ready to get up and do breakfast at the table every day. but these things happen and we tried to give s the opportunity to eat as much as possible, so the practice is still there.

my lovely baby sister visited for a few days this week, since she’ll be studying ooop north this semester, so we went out lots. we let s try a pub chip (big fat french fry…don’t judge me, you know you’ve done it) and a wedge of lemon (which she LOVED! i thought she would make funny faces but begged for more as soon as we gave it to her) at the pub the other day. i think she felt genuinely excited to be considered a part of the group, rather than being stuck in her pushchair the whole time. that’s one of the main reasons we decided to try this whole blw thing!

other new foods:

lasagna: so yummy, and s loves it! the few times we’ve tried it with her the lasagna has been store bought so it’s fairly high on the sodium scale…i’m not too comfortable continually giving high salt content food, so we’ll plan to make it from scratch in the future.

yogurt: we tried it at the very end of last week, but since then have realized that s loves the mango fromage frais and hates the banana. takes after her mother, i think.

asparagus: adorable to watch her eat it, and she seems to really enjoy it!

nectarine: really difficult for s to keep hold of (which i find with a lot of fruit…it’s so hard to cut into big enough pieces for her) but seemed to like it, more or less.

at the top of the favorites list is still toast with houmous and cucumber. i’m happy to let her continue practicing with these few foods until she gets the hang of chewing and swallowing. also we are loving gill rapley’s baby led weaning book…it follows on pretty much exactly with how s is progressing and offers lots of advice. i’ve heard the cookbook is really good too, so we plan to use that on occasion after s starts properly consuming food.

on the poop front (WARNING for those of you not interested in hearing about poop…continue on to the next paragraph), it’s evident that some food is being consumed. girlfriend STINKS. also, the digestive system is apparently not as efficient in infants, so lots of what comes out looks just like what went in. ok, i didn’t get too graphic there. let’s just say i am NOT looking forward to the day that s’s poop looks like grown up poop. not ready to cross that bridge just yet.

CHANGING THE SUBJECT…TO SHOPPING!

since i feel the need to get out of the house pretty much every day, this whole blw lark has been great for my john lewis addiction. i bought s this splash mat and these forks and spoons…adorable! next week: rubber gloves. i have never washed dishes so often in my life.

i leave you with an adorable (almost) completely unrelated pin i found this week…and yes, i’m planning s’s first birthday party six months in advance. you can never be too prepared.

Source: amyrobertsonphotography.com via Kaitlin on Pinterest

six months

dear sophia,

today you are six whole months old. it’s your half birthday!!! when we met you exactly six months ago, frankly i never thought we’d get here. life was really hard for awhile when you were born, mostly because people aren’t meant to survive without sleep. but we made it through, with lots of tears, poopy nappies, sleepless nights, and unhappy mommy and daddy times. it was the daytime cuddles, lovely kisses, exciting developments, and so many more amazing moments that got us through it. i spent half of my time willing you to do the next thing, because everything you did was so incredible, and half of my time telling myself to soak you up just as you were. it’s already hard to remember the early days, but luckily your daddy is clever and has a much better memory than me. i’m sure he remembers our first trip out of the house (to starbucks, where else?!), the first time you smiled, the first time you threw up all over him (hey, all memories don’t have to be super adorable!), and everything else between then and now.

at six lovely months you have come so far! you chatter away all day long…and sometimes all night long, but you’re getting much better. you can sit up by yourself and like to play like that for what seems like hours, but in actuality is only probably fifteen minutes because you’re a baby and your attention span is still so short. you roll around the room like a pro, but only to the right. when you get angry you tuck up your knees underneath and push yourself along. you’re not far from crawling at all! you have two big fat razor sharp teeth at the bottom of your mouth, which you use to bite toys, food, and hands! you’ve just started eating big girl foods and sitting up at the table with us. right now your favorites are toast with hummus, cucumber, and pizza (but shhh mommy definitely didn’t give you any to try ;)). rough play makes you belly laugh, but you HATE getting dressed after a bath. you scream so loud when i change you that i’m sure someone will someday rush to our door asking if you’ve been murdered. you like watching television, and sesame street is one of your favorites. you still love listening to classical music, but enjoy a bit of pop on occasion too. your favorite books are goodnight moon, wynken, blynken, and nod, and the very hungry caterpillar. night times are not always perfect…you still wake up once in the night for a feed and sometimes it’s hard to get you back to sleep. we haven’t had the heart to sleep train you yet, but this month we’re going to move you to your nursery so we have lots of big steps in store for all three of us.

you are such a happy, smiley, lovely baby that everyone around us comments on your loveliness, and it makes me so proud to be your momma. thank you for giving me a fantastic six months. i can’t wait to see what you will do next.

blw week in review: week one

this week we dove headfirst into the messy, sticky, and gaggy world of baby led weaning. i’m not exactly sure what made me (i mean us…sorry p, you’re so good at just doing what i want that it seems like we decide things together! ;)) want to wean s this way instead of the traditional route. i think what pushed me over the line was seeing a mother feeding her baby girl out of a jar and LICKING THE SPOON afterwards. i almost barfed. who wants to eat cold, insipid sweet potato puree?!?! not me, thank you. i have texture issues.

the first week went really well, considering s had never had anything in her mouth other than my boob and some toys (TMI? sorry). there was a significant amount of gagging on her end and an even greater amount of hand-sitting on ours. it took everything i had a few times not to grab s out of her highchair and slap her back. apparently gagging is good; it shows that her gag reflex is intact and that she knows something is in her mouth. most of the food she stuck in there came out, but there was quite a bit of sucking of mashed(ish) foods and some legit swallows. a momma has never been so proud!

i wasn’t very good with keeping detailed lists of her first foods, but this week we’ve tried the following to varying degrees of success:

cucumber – the first food we tried, and the all around favorite. cut into sticks with the skin on, they were really easy for s to hold, shove in her mouth, and gum (and chew! the girl has two teeth, after all) for a long time.

toast with houmous – a high-gag food, but s LOVES it. she sucks away all the houmous (or hummus for all you americans out there) until it’s soft enough for little bits to go into her mouth. she swallowed a few pieces once or twice…i think. it’s SO hard to tell whether anything that goes in stays in or not. my dining room carpet is evidence of this. on the shopping list for this week is a hardcore splash mat. preferably the size of the room.

rusk – these are twice baked biscuit/cookie things that can be eaten either whole or mushed up with water or milk. we gave them to s whole, but softened with a little bit of filtered water or breastmilk. i read some blog after giving these to s that says to STAY AWAY from rusks because they’re too sweet, not healthy, blah blah blah. sorry but i’m not that hardcore. they’re tasty, s likes them, and i bought the reduced sugar ones so i feel a little bit better about myself.

banana – i have no idea whether s likes this. just tonight she managed to bite off a piece and made the most hilarious face i’ve ever seen. she spat most of it out but didn’t seem disgusted so the jury’s still out on that one. also, it’s really slippery so hard to eat and so messy. how do you get food out of a baby’s nose? seriously, i have no idea.

s has also sampled corn tortilla, pepper, carrot, yogurt, plum, scrambled egg, zucchini, and grape (just sucked on it, they’re too small and apparently perfect choking size) so i’d say the week has been a success! i know she’s not really getting any nutrition from whatever she’s sucking/playing with/eating??? but it keeps her occupied, happy, and involved in family life. so i guess that means we’re loving it!

get back here, you slippery devil!

success!

what is this beautiful biscuit?!

mmm a taste of heaven.

baby led weaning…or, how everything in my house became sticky.

so tonight we officially started on our baby led weaning journey. we bought an AMAZING ex display stokke high chair from uk kid’s supplier kiddicare for £100 (normally £150ish for the chair alone)…it’s pretty badly scratched on the legs but came with a baby set and cushions in the price (which are normally £47 and £33 respectively!!!) so we couldn’t argue! we were anxious to let s have a go, since she’s been grabbing food off our plates and out of our hands for weeks now.

s’s first meal consisted of cucumber and cantaloupe, and looked a little bit like this:

enough with the photo shoot…give me the FOOD already!

dad, you’re funny. looking.

melon…not sure if i’m down with this flavor.

s LOVED the cucumber…chonked down on it for a good ten minutes happily, until she’d dropped it all on the floor and i wasn’t comfortable giving it back to her covered in cat hair. yuck. the melon was another story. i wish i’d captured it on tape: her reaction was hilarious! she sucked on it for awhile, but was less interested, and spat up a little afterwards. no gags tonight, thank you to the BLW gods (p would have had a heart attack…he’s not ready for chokey baby yet). tomorrow morning: toast!

i never ever thought i’d be this excited about food. ok, yes i did. but not in this way. i’m already planning her first birthday smash cake. gotta love the mess!!!