December 18th, 2014
My little one,          

Where time goes, I couldn’t tell you. I can’t believe we’re at your halfway mark to your first year. As usual, you’ve grown quite a bit this month… alright, maybe not size wise since you’re still barely in 3-6 month clothing (and still in some 0-3 month items!), but you’re development keeps on amazing us.

This month you’ve mastered the back to belly roll. Of course, you decided to roll for the first time as your Daddy boarded a plane for a conference for the week. By the time he was back you had mastered rolling across the floor. For a while you only rolled one direction, but every once in a while I catch you rolling the opposite way.

You also chose the day Daddy left to catch your first cold! Which you then passed onto me. You ran little fevers, had a super stuffy/runny nose, and every once in a while had a wee cough. The majority of the time you were feeling icky you were a sad panda. You hardly smiled, you never laughed, and you were all around grumpy. Sleeping was terrible! You were up almost every hour. It didn’t help that you learned to roll and caught your cold all at the same time. You tried rolling in your sleep and would wake yourself up, only to realize how icky you felt.

Since it was just you and me for the week, I ended up bringing you to the big bed where we snuggled all of those early morning hours. You finally found relief when I rolled you on your belly and showed you how to lay your head down to rest belly down. You almost instantly fell asleep and stayed asleep. Since it was your first time sleeping on your belly, I didn’t get much sleep since I had to continuously check to see if you were breathing. I slept when you started to snore. Another week or so later, you sleep mostly on your side or your belly. We now consider it your preference and sometimes during the middle of the night you’ve wedged yourself up against the side of the crib and need help rolling over.

You’re also more frustrated on your belly. You’ll roll onto your belly, prop yourself up on your knees, and then the rest is still a mystery to you. You always end up face planting into the carpet with a little, “thud.” You can spin yourself around, and now that you’re rolling you have some form of movement, but the crawl still alludes you for now.

You celebrated your first Thanksgiving this month! Grammy & Grampy came down with Auntie Julie and you tried your first taste of mashed potatoes. You got lots and lots of snuggles and you entertained them with lots of silly noises and smiles.

We’ve started letting you explore the world of food, and you’re quite the fan. You loathe baby cereal and want the good stuff. You have tried: toast, broccoli, carrots, sweet potato, honeydew melon, eggs, potatoes, green beans, banana and possibly more! You pretty much like everything except eggs. Honeydew melon in your little mesh eater has been one of your favorite things so far! I bet it feels nice on your tender gums.

You drooled up a storm this past month, and were ferocious about having something to chew on at all time. I could have sworn you’d have a tooth by now, but you keep me guessing. Your drool output has slowed down, and you’re not quite as vicious when you gnaw. For now we’ll keep enjoying your tooth-less grin.

We recently joined a gym – just you and I. Daddy goes to his gym at school, but we joined the one right around the block. You’ve had a rough couple of first days, object permanence is something you grasp now, so you know that when I leave the room I’m still somewhere. When I hand you over to the women who work the daycare room you get a sad, almost panicked look and you’ve begun reaching for me. You tend to fuss for a little but usually settle down. I think you’ll do great once everyone gets to know you and vice versa.

You recently got scared for the first time. We ordered a new big living room rug for you to learn to crawl around on, and the when Daddy was crinkling the loud bag it came in, you let out three short terror yelps, and then cried. It was the cutest sad thing to ever happen. Since then you have also gotten scared when Lauren ripped some wax paper off the roll during cookie making.

After a quick call to the pediatrician last week, we got the okay to start introducing solid food to Claire-bear. We decided to try giving her solid food right from the start; essentially it’s baby self-feeding. Opposed to spoon feeding something like rice cereal, where she learns to swallow first, she’ll be getting mushy broccoli stems and steamed carrots and things of that nature so she will actually learn to chew first and swallow second.

There’s no data suggesting either method is more effective than one another, so our pediatrician was on board for our “Baby-led weaning,” adventure. While I tried a few puree’s with spoons Emerson just wasn’t digging it, so it led us to giving her a banana sliced in stick form. She loved it! She would put it her mouth, mash it around, and spit it back out.

We tried broccoli next, and that was an even bigger hit! She was able to keep some florets in her mouth, and she just kept going back for more. The next morning she sucked on some toast strips and made a sour face when trying scrambled eggs, (I don’t blame  ya kid, Mommy doesn’t like eggs either!)

Over the past week she has really enjoyed exploring food on her own. I’m hoping it leads to an adventurous eater. Only time will tell. And if in a week she isn’t digging the whole, here’s a piece of food do what you will with it, then we can fall back to cereal.

Over the course of the past few weeks Emerson has entered the “I put everything I can in my mouth,” phase. While this is a normal phase for exploration of the world, it can also signal something else; the beginning of teething.

When babies start to teeth they turn from these sleepy, snugly little bunnies into these drooling, slobbery, mood raging monsters. A laugh can quickly turn into a cry, and little gnaws quickly turn into hard chomps.

While the past month Emerson has exuded these early symptoms of teething it hasn’t been until this past week that we really think a tooth is on her horizon. She has ferocious desire – nay, an urgent need to have something in her mouth at all times. Sometimes whatever she can find is sub-par and she makes her frustrations known. As she’s vigorously chomping she’ll expel these exasperated shrieks. She’ll rip her pacifier out just to turn it backwards to chew on the silicon sides and handle. If she loses grip (or interest) in her toys she luckily has her hands to soothe those achy gums.

Another sign that even I was unfamiliar with is decreased appetite. For the past few days it seems that Emerson went from eating every two hours to never wanting to eat. She’ll happily go 4 – even 5 hours between her meals. We still offer her milk every two hours or so, but we’re lucky if she takes even an oz.

It also doesn’t help that she’s at an age where she is easily distracted. If we’re nursing and she hears a new sound, or somebody talking she needs to stop and find the source of the sound. Half the time she won’t go back to nursing afterwards, so our nursing sessions have become very very short!

Since I’m on IV’s we’ve been doing a lot more bottle feeding, so she’s still taking in enough overall milk & formula, not to be concerned… she just likes to take most of her meals in the evening hours. Her prime time for milk guzzling is between 8 and 11 pm. Just yesterday she ate around 10-12 oz in that period alone, half of her daily intake need!

While Emmie may be a bit crankier here and there, we know it’s only because she’s working hard and soon she’ll have a small white cap pushing through her little pink gums. While it’s hard to see her in some discomfort we’ve been basking in the cuteness that is her gummy, tooth-free smile.

My Dearest Claire-Bear,

You’re starting to really enjoy signing. At clinic I have to wear a mask so you can’t see my face, and in order to entertain you while we wait for an hour I sign through all the songs I know. Your face lit up when I started signing ‘you’re happy and you know it,” and towards the end you even started giggling! It was amazing for me to see you recognize the signing since I know you weren’t reacting to my facial expressions since all you could see were my glasses-obstructed eyes. It’s great motivation for me to learn even more songs and more ways we can communicate using sign.