Starting solids

We finally started Brianna on solids last Saturday, a week after she turned 6 months. We would have started a bit sooner except I got sick, and I didn't want to risk her having a reaction and not knowing if it was to the solids or if she was getting my cold. So far she's only had rice and oatmeal cereals, plus a bit of rye toast when we were out for breakfast. Next up is avocado and banana, once the 4 days of oatmeal has passed.

So far (5 days in!), Bri's been a champion eater. There was only one day she didn't seem interested, and today she got solids twice for the first time and finished every bite both times! Ever since the first time I've had to give her her own spoon or else she grabs mine, she's just so excited to eat! She's also started getting really upset when I eat in front of her but don't give her any. I plan to go looking for a safe finger food to give her something to play with while I eat!

Of course, this post is all about the pictures!

Get ready!

First spoonful.

Yum?

More!

I think I like it...

But I'm not quite sure...

Messy kid!

Open wide

Helping!

All done and cleaned up. Yum!!

More pictures

Some pictures from August:

At the baseball tournament, standing up with help.

Who needs two hands? Not me!

Standing up again.

Crawling away.
Look back.

Smile! Showing off her teeth!
I really do have teeth!!

Trip to Philly

On July 17th Brianna and I took off for her first trip, to Philadelphia. My dad was winning the top award from the AAPM (American Association of Physics in Medicine) and he flew the family down to watch him accept it. Unfortunately Chris was too busy at work to join us, but Adam flew down with Bri and I and Karine flew back. It was such a relief not to have to fly with her by myself!

Of course the trip started out on a rough note. We got to the airport 90 minutes before our 8 am flight. Air Canada was great, they brought us right to the front of the line to get our boarding passes. Then we were off to customs, which is where we ran into trouble. I had checked 'yes' for one of the questions about bringing in food. I had some snacks (cashews, licorice), some breast milk and some formula. And for this reason the custom agent decided we needed to head through secondary screening. We walked into the room and the one agent asked us for our flight. When she realized it was in 25 minutes she immediately took the tags of our bags and told us we'd have to find another flight. Even though we were in and out of the secondary screening in 5 minutes (the guy seemed a little surprised we had been sent in), it was too late. With only 25 minutes they couldn't check our bags. They needed 30 minutes.

So they gave us two options: either a 4pm flight to Philly (yay 10 hours in the airport with a 5 month old!) or a 9:35am flight to Allentown. Of course while they knew people sometimes flew to Allentown instead of Philly, they couldn't give us any more information than that. At this point I just about lost it. Thank goodness for Adam who pulled out his cell phone and called a friend who googled it for us. Turns out Allentown is about a 90 minute drive from Philly. So that's what we decided to do. We even managed to reserve a town car to meet us at the airport. Thank goodness for cell phones!!

So off to the plane we go, and it's TINY. A little propeller plane with one seat on each side of a tiny aisle. No door between the cabin and the cockpit. A grand total of 9 passengers (counting Bri). All told though it worked out really well. There was no one behind Adam and I, and two empty rows in front of us. Which meant I had no issues breast feeding Bri on take off and landing. She was a complete champ during the flight. Didn't cry once, had a brief nap and generally just enjoyed looking around. She even slept for the whole drive into Philly which was great as I had worried she would scream the whole way.

We got to or hotel in Philly and met up with Dad and Asia briefly. I ended up changing rooms to one with a fridge/freezer for the breast milk I brought and then Adam, Asia, Adam's friend Saee, Bri and I went out for lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. Where I learnt that chain restaurants in some States have to print nutritional info right in their menus. What an eye opener! There were literally only two things on the menu with less than 1000 calories, and some in the 3-4000 range. Plus some with over 5000mg of sodium!! I ended up having a salad with only (only!) 1008 calories! Crazy!!

After lunch we met up with Karine at the hotel and then we went on a walking tour of old Philly. We saw the liberty bell, Ben Franklin's grave, the constitution hall and a bunch of other historical sights. Unfortunately sight seeing was cut somewhat short by Bri's bedtime as we had to get back to the hotel for 6pm or so. Once she was in bed I went up to Adam's room and he and Karine went out and grabbed some Chinese food for Karine and I for dinner.

The next day we went to the Eastern State Penitentiary. This was the first penitentiary focusing on solitary confinement. I wasn't too keen on the visit but it was surprisingly interesting. If you're ever in Philly I strongly suggest you go: http://www.easternstate.org/


After the penitentiary we went to Pat and Geno's the two places that claim they invented the Philly cheese steak. They are little windows set up across the street from each other and when we were there the line ups were around the corner! However by the time we got there I was so hot and Bri was so hungry that we ended up eating at a restaurant instead, as I needed air conditioning. But Saee and Adam got cheese steaks and got us extras. I have to say I didn't really enjoy either, but Geno's was the better of the two.


That night I left Bri with a nanny and went out for dinner with the family. I found the nanny through a company recommended by the hotel and she was wonderful. Within 5 minutes of her walking in the room I felt comfortable leaving Brianna with her, she just exuded warmth and confidence. Unfortunately Brianna wouldn't go to sleep before I left as I'd hoped and the nanny wasn't able to get her down in her pack & play. She just slept on the nanny's shoulder for the three hours I was gone.

Monday morning was spent in our hotel room due to hangovers (on the part of Adam, Karine and Saee) and pouring rain (on the part of Brianna and I). We also had a bit of a breast milk catastrophe as I found out the frozen breast milk I had brought for that evening had fallen out of the back of the freezer and thawed the day we got there. Thus was garbage by Monday when I had to leave before Bri went to bed for dad's award ceremony. Luckily I had brought a can of formula just in case, so after a few tears (it had been a rough morning) I got over it.

The afternoon was spent doing some shopping and a bit more sight seeing. Then it was time to go to the awards ceremony. I fed Brianna before I left, but told the nanny I'd stop by during the reception after the ceremony just in case she wouldn't take the formula. This was a bit of a risk as she hadn't had formula since she was 5 weeks old. However when I got back Bri was sound asleep in her pack and play, which is where she stayed until after I got back from a late dinner! I definitely feel blessed with the nanny we had, as by the second day she and Bri were old friends!

The following morning we took a cab to the airport and luckily had a much less exciting trip home. Brianna was again a trouper, as she had been all trip. I was totally impressed all weekend long with how easy going she was. She handled the sight seeing, strange city and lack of daddy like a little star. The only time she was grouchy was Monday morning as she hadn't slept well the night before and we were stuck in our hotel room where there wasn't anywhere she could safely crawl around.

All said, it was a wonderful trip. I was so proud to see my dad win his award, and equally proud at how well Brianna handeled everything. The only issue I have is that I didn't take a single picture - but Adam took lots and I hope to get copies this weekend, to be posted when I can.

Pictures from Bri's 5th month

Here are some random pictures from Brianna's 5th month.

More jolly jumping

Standing up in my crib! See, I'm on my feet!

What's with the bars?

Happy prisoner



In these pictures I was trying to catch her one tooth grin. She only had the one tooth and her grin showing it off was just priceless. Unfortunately I couldn't really get a clear shot of it.

This one was just funny :)

Transition to crib

Right after Canada Day we finally made the transition to Brianna sleeping in her crib. Up to this point she had been sleeping in the bed with me. In her early days she would only sleep on my chest, she then moved to sleeping beside me in the bed. This was fine originally, as she would fall asleep in my arms downstairs while I watched TV or played on the computer etc. But then it got to the point where she'd only stay asleep if we were up in the bed. So I ended up having to be in bed by 7:30 every night. Not fun for me! Yes I got a lot of reading done, but I was a prisoner in the bed. Even replacing me with someone else wouldn't work, Brianna would just wake up within 20 minutes. So something had to give.

I was terrified of making this switch, especially after watching one of the women in my breastfeeding group try. It took her several weeks of getting almost no sleep and she was just exhausted! Plus, every time I had put Brianna down in her crib asleep she had woken up within 20 minutes. I figured I was looking at a lot of looooong nights. So my wonderful sister Karine came over for 4 days, the plan being that she would spell me during the day so I could grab some naps after my sleepless nights.

I did a bunch of reading ahead of time as I am really not comfortable with letting Brianna cry it out while going to sleep. From everything I read I knew it was important that she realize she was sleeping in her crib or else when she woke up a bit there she'd be scared and wake up fully. So basically the plan was to go through our going to bed routine, then let her get sleepy in my arms. Then I'd put her down, patting her back and "shhhh'ing" her. If that woke her up and if she started to cry I'd pick her up again until she settled. The first night it took about an hour and a half to get her to sleep in her crib. But once she finally stayed asleep when I put her down she actually stayed asleep for 4 hours. When she woke up, a quick feed and she went straight back to sleep in her crib!

The second night it took an hour and a quarter to get her down and the third night we were down to an hour. Every night she would sleep through the night with only one or two quick feeds. After eating she would go back to sleep quickly with no fuss. It turns out all the fear was for nothing! Brianna was definitely ready to sleep in her crib!

These days it takes anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour to get her down, depending on how tired she is come bedtime. However she's almost always asleep by 7:30 and often by 6:30. Some days she wakes up about 30 minutes after she goes down and needs a quick pat on the back to get back to sleep. Occasionally she'll decide that it's time to play after her 2am feed and I'll spend up to an hour getting her back to sleep. But the majority of the time she goes down between 6 and 7, sleeps for about 7 hours, eats and sleeps for another 3 to 4 hours. She never sleeps more than 11 hours which means we're often starting our day at 5:30 (which mommy could do without!), but overall I really can't complain! I have my evenings back!!!

Of course, what is a post without some pictures? So here are a few of her chewing on her crib bars while I wait for her to get sleepy, looking like a little fish. It's such a cute look :)

Swimming!

Back in June I took Brianna swimming for the first time with a few of the other babies we hang out with. At first she wasn't too sure about the whole thing, but after a couple of times she was grinning and kicking away. These days she loves the water, she's just not such a fan of getting out and dressed!

Gavin with mom Jodi and Asher with mom Christine.

Brianna and Carter

Brianna, Carter and Gavin with Carter's mom Katie. Guess who's oldest?!

Katie is a former life guard and taught us all the trick to dunking babies. Blow in their face to get them to close their eyes and mouth and then dunk quickly! Brianna's not so sure about dunking, but at least she doesn't cry!

Canada Day weekend

We spent Canada Day up at my aunt and uncle's cottage near Haliburton. Bri went swimming in the lake for the first time, but unfortunately it didn't last long and I didn't get pictures. I didn't manage to take many pictures actually, but here are the ones I took:

With Popa

Looking around

Playing with cousins Marieke and Taine, so much fun!

Roar!!

More play

Interesting book