HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

From our Ladybug to you....

Z had a Halloween party at day care today...she was one of *2* ladybugs there (there were only 4 kids in all!). When I picked her up, she was in a great mood...apparently she really liked hanging out in her costume and playing around in it. After, we went to Noah's office to show off, and that she did! She played with all of Noah's friends, let people hold her, and showed off how well she can sit, scoot, roll, and one other NEW SKILL.....

Z has CRAWLED. She crawled a couple of steps, twice. THEN, she crawled at home again, without the costume on. Apparently, having a padded belly made it easier to try this new skill!

We'll try to get more costume shots tomorrow, maybe even outside if the weather is as nice as we hope for. Our baby is growing up!

Then...

8lbs 3oz..

And now....


probably close to 17lbs.

Z has finally doubled her weight. She's also about 6-7 inches longer.

It's so hard to believe she's grown SO much in over 8 1/2 months!

Recent pictures

Z's enjoying a snack of cheerios...don't get between her and those things...she might slobber on you!
The girls look a lot alike, but Z is trying to share her Cheerio cell phone (and other toys) with baby Emma, who is just 5 days younger than Z...this was at a recent birthday party!
Now that Z is more mobile, she is EVERYwhere....she's recently discovered all those toys UNDER her exersaucer that she keeps dropping!
This lasted a good 20 minutes before she decided to come visit me doing dishes!

Now, for some seriousness :). Unless I hear an objection, I'm going to start just using people's first names, instead of initials. If you do NOT want your name to be used, then please let us know. Otherwise, we're going to use your name...it's just getting too confusing and it makes it hard to read. There haven't been many complaints, but the complaints are the same--too hard to read with the initials. And, if no one has objections, AND I have time, I may go back to previous posts and edit WITH names.

Please let me know if you DO have a problem...otherwise I'm considering it okay. No last names will be used, though!!

Daddy's So Proud!

I was supposed to be changing Z into her pjs tonight, but she wiggled away from me, and before I could even blink, she had rolled over, sat up and scooted herself to the tv cabinet. Somehow she saw the Nintendo Gamecube controllers that were HIDDEN away under something, and got one out. Apparently, she wanted to know what all the fuss was about when Daddy plays!

HI!

Z waved "Hi" for the first time today. As we were waking up her Daddy this morning, we were at the foot of the bed and he reached up and waved to Z, saying good morning...she put her right arm out, hand outstretched, and slowly brought her fingers closed toward her and then opened. She's done it a couple of times since then, too...TOO CUTE!

New Firsts!

Today, Z had a couple of firsts--

First time in her "big-girl" bath tub....a blow up tub shaped like a duck that fits inside our regular sized tub. She wasn't so happy about the change, but when she realized that it still means she can splash in the water, she was ALL for it! We'll get pictures the next time she's in it!

First time eating chicken....the other night, I made chicken in the crock pot with some apples and a little apple juice. It was REALLY good, so I pureed the extra breast I had cooked up, and Z gobbled it up and wanted more!! I'll up her chicken amount when we know it doesn't bother her!

Just checking in!

Just wanted to check in on what our little Z is doing. She has gotten FAST with the army crawl. This morning, I was getting ready to leave for work, and I was in the kitchen. She was in the living room. The next thing I know, she's at my feet. Then, this evening, I'm in the kitchen cleaning up, and we hear Z squawking from the living room. We both look over, and where is she? UNDER the coffee table and on her way out on the side near the kitchen! What a silly girl!

Well, we never made it to Plymouth Plantation..the weather was just too gross for it. Another time! It's not going anywhere, and I'm SURE we'll be able to get there soon enough!!

Sleep has gotten better and better. Now, when we put her down for a nap or bed time, as long as she's sleepy enough, she'll go right down, with hardly a peep. Sometimes, if she isn't tired enough, she'll let us know as clearly as she can...but normally, that isn't a problem!

She continues to love going to and being at day care with Miss Laura and the other kids. I got to see what it was like to drop her off and her Daddy got to pick her up on Wednesday (I had training to go to). When I pick her up, most days, there are 2 other kiddos there....lately, they've been giving her kisses good-bye and even hugs. It's very cute to watch. They're very excited to see her come, yelling out her name, and just laughing and jumping up and down. Don't worry, Miss Laura is VERY good about keeping Z safe from these over-excited 18 month old and 2-3 year old kids...sometimes they just don't understand that Z is so much smaller and younger than they are. She, on the other hand, LOVES seeing them. She laughs, has a HUGE smile on her face, and even will reach out their faces when they get close to give her kisses (on her cheek). They don't mind. And, she can PINCH when she wants to.

What else? Zoe is getting more and more talkative...babababa, dadadada, mamamammamama, and any combination is almost always coming out of her mouth! That and the sounds that make her sound like Howard Dean making those "Yeeaaaahhhh" sound...yeah, Z's a little nutty. We'll keep her though. She's developing quite the personality!

Birthday Parties and New Skills!

Today, Zoe had her first birthday party to go to, outside of family. My friend C's youngest daughter, A, turned 4, and we were invited as Zoe B___ and family. And so it has begun...we are no longer known as Amy and Noah but as Zoe's parents. That's okay. It's a nice label to have.

But, I digress. We got there, and Zoe took a little bit to get acclimated and meeting everyone. When she was comfortable, C wanted to hold Zoe, and then G (A's older sister) got to hold her, too! I wish we had gotten a picture of that, but we forgot the camera was with us. Ah well. That just means we have to get together with them more often to get more pictures!

Zoe spent some time creeping and rolling around on the floor, playing and chomping on her new favorite snack, Cheerios, and telling everyone all our secrets! At one point, she was on the floor with a little girl who was 5 days younger than her...they played very well together and shared their toys with each other. This little girl is already crawling, but we're sure Z is not far behind that!

The newest thing that Z can do is go from laying on her belly to SITTING UP. She's done this a few times today, and has just been moving all over the place. WOW! What a big girl we have!

Right now, Z is sleeping in the spare bedroom in her Grandma and Grandpa B's house. We're here so she can show off all her new skills, and possibly get a visit to the Plymouth Plantation. It's a big busy weekend with lots still to do!

Playtime Pose

Noah caught this picture of Z when she was playing yesterday. It's one of my favorites in recent time! Look at the big girl sitting up all by herself!

I knew I'd come up with some more developments!

Zoe can clap and make sound when she claps...she gets better EVERY day.

Zoe LOVES to stick out her tongue and shake her head (not at the same time, though) and get you to do it....she'll also repeat it when you do one of those things.

I told you yesterday that Zoe has figured out how to pick up her gerber puffs....well, today, she has figured out how to SHOVEL them in her mouth like some eat popcorn. We're going to have to watch her. I thought most would be in her lap when I picked her up, but I only found 3 wayward puffs! What a piggy!

So, do you think it's time for the Big-girl Bath??

We think it's FINALLY time to get Zoe out of her baby bathtub and into the big-girl bathtub. Yes, we know lots of babies don't make it this far in their baby bathtubs, but our Z is not like lots of babies, if you haven't figured that out yet!


Oh, and to keep from getting indecent pictures, I DID cover Z with a face cloth...Gotta keep things decent!




This is what she looked like on that FIRST bath in the tub...my how things have changed!!

Ever wonder what an 8 month old with 2 ear infections looks like???

Here she is. She has a fever of 101.5 at the last temp check, 2 ear infections, a SUPER runny nose, and a little fussy...but she's still our happy Z. The nurse practitioner at the doctor's office couldn't get over how happy she was (until she checked Zoe's ears!).

We went to the store to get a few things, came home and gave Z Motrin and amoxycillin and she played in her exersaucer for a few minutes so I could put away some groceries. Then it was off to a nap...normally she goes down very quickly. This time, she PLAYED for 10 minutes and THEN went down. Again, this girl is sick, and AGAIN, other than a temperature and a little fussiness, she's been great! No one even GUESSED she was sick in the store today!

We're so amazed at how happy and easy going Zoe is! We truly lucked out!

New Developments

In the land of Z, I realized that she's doing ALL kinds of new things, but I haven't listed what lately.

• Zoe sleeps 12-12 1/2 hours a night, pretty much straight through now (YAY!)
• Zoe is putting herSELF to sleep now...we put get her ready for bed, rock and read her a couple of stories, and then put her down with (usually) very little protesting...she's usually sleeping by the time we get downstairs!
• Zoe gets up on all fours for a few seconds...today she was lifting a knee like she knew what she was supposed to do next, but didn't quite know how to get all the parts moving!
• Zoe is just about able to sit up on her own...but she will get distracted and fall back (her Daddy would say that is just like Mommy)
• She likes to push herself backwards (I keep trying to get video of it, but when I pull out the camera, she just stops to smile pretty)
• She has had butternut squash, sweet potatoes, avocadoes, apples, applesauce, bananas, carrots, and green beans. The only thing she REALLY has had an issue with has been the carrots. All of the food is homemade. Her favorite, I must say, are the apples and applesauce.
• She's figured out how to eat those Gerber Puffs (sweet potato flavored ones are the only ones lil Miss Sensitive Stomach can eat), and LOVES them. Go pinscher grasp!
• Favorite toys at this point? Her hair brush, water bottle, nesting cups, and anything she can throw off her exersaucer!
• She's discovered the wonderful crinkle of plastic (including bags, so those have to be kept out of her reach).
• Zoe loves to play on her Daddy's computer...she loves to do what HE does (pound on the key board)
• She continues to be mesmerized by her friend in the mirror. Today, in a feverish fussy time, her friend was the only thing that got her to stop crying!!
• Zoe loves to tell us about her day, her dreams from nap time and bed time...it's usually VERY fun stuff she shares!
• And, I think we're close to dropping that third nap (much to my chagrin!)
• FINALLY--She has, with the most recent weight gain, officially outgrown the bassinet portion of her pack 'n' play!

I'm sure there's more things that she's doing on a regular basis. I'll try to remember to update this as soon as I know more!

Giving to others...

Today, even as I sit here sick with a cold, Zoe has a cold, and Noah is getting over one, we were able to give to another Mommy and baby something very special, and it made us all feel very good afterward.

In July, when we found out that Z had her allergies, one of my first thoughts had been, "Oh my goodness, I have a ton of pumped milk in my freezer...and she can't have any of it!" I was devastated, to say the least. If anyone has ever pumped, you know how long and how much work it is to build up a good stash. By good, I mean I had 261.5oz pumped. That's a HUGE amount, and would have had, if I didn't have to start over, over 300oz by the time school started, which was a goal of mine. This way, Zoe would have had plenty of milk if I couldn't keep up at work (it's hard to be able to find the time to pump more than 1 time at work), and she'd have plenty of milk for her cereal. But, that wasn't the case, and here we are doing what we ARE doing today (that's a different post for a different day).

So, I was pretty emotional about the whole thing with my milk. There was no way I could give it to Zoe, as it was making her sick. But, there was no way I could just DUMP it down the sink. Like I said, if you have ever pumped, you know how much that is, and how hard it is to build that much. It took up probably about half of our freezer. I stumbled upon MilkShare.org (thanks Becky) and posted that I had a one time donation for the Boston area. I had a few people email me requesting the milk (including people from out of state, which I politely declined). I wanted to see the person I was donating the milk to, and I also didn't want to go through the hassle of packing up frozen milk to mail across the country, if there was a need here in the area.

The person we went with, after much deliberation, was a woman who is in the process of adopting a little girl who is just a month older than Zoe. This little girl came from a very troubled background, and suffice it to say, needed the nutrients and magic of breastmilk. I won't go into the details, but it was heartbreaking to hear about. It was also great to meet the little girl and see how much she has been thriving in this new environment. She and Zoe seemed to click and "talk" to each other. We talked to the mother for a little bit and then emptied out the freezer with the breastmilk that Zoe can't have to give to this mom for her little girl. It was tough to see it go, knowing that my little girl can't use that milk...but looking at it every day wasn't making it any easier to keep it there, waiting for this woman to come and take the milk away. What made it easy to give to her was that she wanted the best for her daughter. It made it easy to hear about how hard of a time she had on the formula, but how HARD her mommy was working to make sure that this baby was having breastmilk, and for the length of time she wants her daughter to have it (18-24 months). That's going to be a lot of work, and I'm very happy to have been able to help that family out.

It's sad to see all of that milk gone, but it's good to know that it is going to help this little girl out and get her to be as healthy as she can be, given her circumstances. I don't know how much it'll last for her, but for Zoe, that was about a month's worth of milk (for day care only). I know the mother was grateful, and told me she'd put us on her email list for updates on her daughter.

Not Eggs-actly what we wanted to hear...

Yeah, yeah, corny joke...I know. I'm trying here!

I talked to Dr. S, the GI specialist who's seeing Zoe. The bloodwork came back, and while they aren't BAD, they aren't great. It turns out she is slightly anemic. A normal number is 33 (what I don't what the numbers mean) and she's 32.5. Does that mean we are going to be freaking out here? No, but that doesn't mean we can just take a wait and see approach. From what I've been able to gather, reading sources online and talking to the dr/nurse at the pediatrician's office....if you don't treat it, it could become something serious, so we are. The normal course of action is 3 months of iron, with a hemogram check in a month. This is a test to check her iron levels in her blood. We also need to see the GI dr in one month instead of 2. THis is because the dr wants me to go off of eggs as well. So, I'm off of eggs until further notice, we go back in a month, and hopefully no more blood in the stool.

We really hope this takes care of things...the blood in the stool, the slight anemia, the spit up even. Keep your fingers crossed!

Look at the changes!

These are some things I had made up that I've used as signatures on a mommy message board I'm on. The first was done shortly after Zoe was born, the second one was this summer, and then this third is the most recent. I go to a website and submit the pictures, then this is what I get. When I get my new computer, I'm going to learn how to do it myself...they just use photoshop, and we have a copy of photoshop elements...I can't wait to play!

Update from the Doctor

Z's growing, growing, growing.....

26 3/8 inches
16lbs 1oz

The dr was VERY VERY happy to see how much she's grown. We needed to get some bloodwork done to rule out anemia because there was some possible trace amounts of blood in her stool sample. HE doesn't think that there is anything to worry about, but he wants to rule it out all the same. He was most pleased with the growth and how healthy she looks (she was showing off those pearly whites to him the whole time), and really doesn't think there's anything to be worried about with anemia...we just need to verify that. We'll be sure to update you as SOON as we know those results! Otherwise, we go back in 2 months to see the dr and I can experiment with some soy just before we go see him (provided things are normal with this bloodwork!)...YAY!

As promised...

Pictures from apple picking, courtesy of Grandma C...

Apparently, we weren't too excited to get pictures taken before picking apples...
Cousin Jacob was SUPER excited, as you can tell.
Z was too busy munching on her apple to pose with Mommy and Auntie J...
LOOOOOVING those avocadoes!
Saying bye! It was a lot of fun, and we'll have to do it again next year when the babies are running around!!

Anyone for some apple pie??

Or at least apples in a mesh feeder?

Zoe has something that we picked up. You can put pieces of food in it, and because it's just mesh, she can chew on it all she wants and get the taste of it, but we don't have to worry about her choking. Her first taste of something in it was a piece of apple..fresh off the tree. She loves apple sauce and apple juice, so I was sure she'd love this, and I was right. She sucked on it so much that it shrunk to half its size!!

Zoe decided that it'd be fun to take her Grandma and Grandpa C, Auntie and Uncle J, Cousin Jacob, and us apple picking today. We went to the Nashoba Valley Winery (where we got married last July) and had fun trying to find the PERFECT apple. That was particularly difficult to do this year because the apples had a run-in with some hail earlier, so a lot of them got damaged....but I think we found some winners. After, the adults enjoyed hunting around the wine shop, and we even got to see a wedding underway too! Zoe did a great job supervising us in her overalls and chewing on a piece of apple.

This morning, before we took off, we discovered that Z has 2 more teeth...not the ones I THOUGHT she'd get, but two more on the bottom. That makes 4 on top (with the eye-teeth threatening to pop through) and 4 on the bottom....she's not even 8 months old and she already has 8 teeth! I know kids who don't have any teeth yet and they're Z's age!!! Craziness!! Other than a little more drool and not really taking much from a bottle last week, we really had no idea she was getting teeth...they don't seem to be bothering her as much as some babies (thank goodness!!).

I'd like to point you to the right side of the screen, under the section "Blogs and Stuff". I added a link to Noah's Flickr site where he's uploaded all of the pictures and videos. Please take a look there! And, if you want to order any pictures, you're welcome to do so.

More pictures to come....we didn't manage to take any pictures of Z picking apples...but Grandma C is never without her camera, so she managed to get a LOT. Maybe she'll be kind enough to share them with us so we can post them!

Oh, and an update on the week?? Z still loves day care, gets excited when Noah drops her off, and just has a ball. She's sleeping much much better, including putting HERSELF to sleep (without us rocking her). The last few nights, she's slept a MINIMUM of 12 hours and WE have even had to wake her up before I go to work to nurse her! WOW! She's growing up before our eyes...when you look at those pictures on flickr, you'll see a huge difference!

What else? She's scooting everywhere, rolling where she can't scoot, and has begun to get onto all 4's. We saw it today...all fours and starting to rock for a few minutes and then slips back down onto her belly. Soon enough, I'll be making dinner in the kitchen, and she'll be playing in the living room, and I'll find her near me, I'm sure!!