Time To Eat

At Stella's 4-month check-up we were given the thumbs up to start

feeding her some "real people" food.

The doctor gave us a schedule of the order in which to introduce solids.

We were to start with rice cereal, and then move on to other white colored foods

and then move on to the oranges and greens.

I went right out and bought some rice cereal,

and Stella basically hated it.

She just would not eat any of it.

So we kept trying it every few nights

with no success.

We decided to give oatmeal a shot, and that went over a little better

Just this past week, we have put forth a concerted effort to introducing solids.

And it has been met with mixed reviews by Stella.

Daddy tried to feed her some oatmeal.



I think she wore more than she ate.

We also tried avocado, which she loved.

It was time to really kick this eating thing up a notch.

We had decided that instead of buying jarred baby food

we would be making our own.

I found this website: Wholesome Baby Food that was very informational and helpful.

I also had gotten this cookbook for Christmas.

I was ready to go.

So off to Whole Foods we went, and came home with

an acorn squash

and a sweet potato.

I already had the avocado, but it made it into the picture anyway.

I'm not a big veggie eater, so I had never before cooked a sweet potato.

But based on everything that I had read, you just cook it like a regular potato.

So I did.

It came out very soft,

Perfect.

It was also very moist, so I didn't even have to add any water or milk.

I just mashed it.

And divided it into small storage containers.

I can't wait to try them out tomorrow.

And then on to the squash!

I hope she likes it!

Proud Momma!

Last night was Parent-Teacher Conferences at Cole's school.

This can either be a good or bad thing for kids.

It is usually good for Cole.

He is a very good student.

Sometimes however, he lacks a certain...

...how do I say it....

attention to detail.

Often I get comments like:

his handwriting could use some work,

he could work on neatness.

You get the idea.

But last night was a little different.

I heard words like maturity, bright, and creative.

I had a couple of good laughs as well.

One teacher in particular is clearly in touch with who Cole is and appreciates him.

She told us that while he was doing some sort of writing assignment

that was going to be sent in for grading

by someone other than herself

she had spent quite a bit of time at Cole's table

making sure that his letters were properly formed.

She knew that his content would be great, but she was worried that the reader might be

"frustrated" by having to decipher Cole's code.

Ha! Don't I know it!

She also told Cole that a computer will be his savior in high school

because he can type things and they'll be legible.

Hint that maybe we need to invest in a computer for him next year.

Ha!

~and the funniest comment~

She asked Cole how he prepared for tests, and he said that he reviews the material,

but admitted that he could probably study more.

She said: "we'll see how that works for you in high school"

Ha!

I loved her straightforward nature and it was clear that she could see that he is going to be just fine!

Cole's school has so many wonderful teachers.

They clearly care about the success of their students

and love telling parents about all of the wonderful things that the students are doing each day.

I'm proud of Cole every single day,

but it's nice to hear that others know he's special too!

Got Milk?

**Warning- this post is about breast milk**

I spend a lot of time every day thinking about feeding Stella.

I don't nurse her anymore,

but she still gets breastmilk.

That means that 4 or 5 times every day I pump.

I didn't realize how much work it would be to be an "exclusive pumper."

Some days it seems like a full-time job.

I've kind of gotten it down to a science though.

I try to pump at the same times each day,

and luckily I make more milk each day than Stella consumes, so I'm able to freeze some.

There are some herbal supplements that I take that help in my milk production.

I drink Mother's Milk tea 3 times a day.

And I also take another herbal supplement.

It's amazing how well they work.

Here is our freezer.

Each one of these ziploc bags has about a weeks worth of milk in it for the daycare.

I currently have 15 bags.

My goal is to freeze enough milk so that I can stop pumping

and just use our freezer stash to get her to her first birthday.

I think I'll be able to accomplish that by the end of May.

I hope!

People keep telling me that I should sell the milk.

I actually looked into it because I was curious and it goes for about $1/oz.

I usually can freeze around 100 oz per week.

That would be a nice part time job.

But I also kind of hate pumping, so I'm not sure that I'd really ever pursue that.

There is actually quite a market for buying breastmilk though.

Who knew?

Phone Photo Dump Day

I take a lot of pictures with my phone

and then I forget about them.

As of right this moment, I have 420 photos on my phone.

So I wanted to share some of the moments that I thought needed to be captured.

Here is Stella this morning.

First time wearing the red cords that she got for Christmas (size 6-9 month!)

She has a bit of a muffin top!

Here we are yesterday in the car waiting for Cole's guitar lesson to start.

She's wearing Mommy's hat.

Cole wanted to make her look like a rasta.

Oh, some toys I wanted to buy for Stella.

Knew I wouldn't remember the names of them.

The half-paci.

Doesn't really need it, but doesn't want to be without it.

Mr. Cole.

Ignoring his Mom.

I know this is a little blurry, but I thought it was cute.

This is what I get to see every morning when I hear this little lady waking up.

She always shares the biggest smiles.

I love this face.

I love this face too!

Stella Videos

Stella turned 5 months last week.

She has been surprising us every day with something new.

Now everyone in the house has had the pleasure of hearing her giggle.

She still doesn't hand out the giggles readily, but they are coming more often.

Stella has also found a new sound.

The Scream!

This little squeal is a mix between delight and something else.

It's not really mad, but if it goes unnoticed, it can quickly turn on you.

Stella has also become quite chatty lately.

She captivates us with her storytelling.

It seems she really has a lot to say about the way she sees the world.

There are 2 people in particular who Stella is always interested in engaging in discussions:

Grandpa Bennett & Grandma Barb.

I'm not ever sure what she is saying,

but it's very clear that it is important.

Sometimes it seems like she really wants to tell us something

but she just can't quite get the words out.

When Jammies Attack

Stella was attacked by her jammies!

Earlier this week we had what we thought was a bad case of gas.

She was happily sleeping in her bouncy while I was wrapping things up for the night

when all of a sudden she started screaming.

Not your typical hungry/sleepy/wet cry.

This was something different.

Painful.

Jim and I quickly diagnosed that she must have gas.

We had just tried oatmeal with her

and assumed it must not have agreed with her.

So we did what we knew to do, gas drops and aggressive back patting.

She did burp (who wouldn't)

and finally after about a mile of walking around the living room

Jim was able to get her back to sleep.

When she got up in the night she ate and then did the same horrible, painful screaming.

I happened to notice as I was trying, unsuccessfully, to ease her pain

that her sleeper foot was a little bit crooked.

I touched her foot to try to fix it,

and the screaming increased.

I tried again, with the same result.

I'm not so quick at 1:00 AM when I'm holding an inconsolable baby.

So, once more I gave it a shot- and still with the screaming!

Hmmm, maybe I'm on to something.

So I quickly began to get her sleeper off, expecting to find something horrible inside.

Maybe bees or spiders.

What I found was that her toe had gotten caught up in some string

inside the foot of her jammies.

There are some flowers embroidered on the feet of that particular pair of jammies

and they attacked her.

Here is her foot- it's the "ring" toe.

It was pretty red, although it's hard to see in this picture.

Again, I'm not so quick at 1:00 in the morning, but

I thought I better take a picture, just in case.

Just in case of what? I'm not sure.

Maybe I thought her toe would fall off.

In any case, I was quick enough to throw those jammies into the trash.

And put on another pair with no toe string.

And Stella's toe is still attached.

Whew! Disaster averted.

For today.

First Laugh!

Stella laughed on Sunday!

A real, true giggle.

I was getting her ready for her bath and I was blowing on her tummy.

I've been doing this since the day we brought her home,

and I kept telling her that someday she would think that was hilarious.

I guess that day was Sunday.

Of course no one else was home to hear the laugh.

I managed to catch one tiny giggle on the camera while she was bathing.

If I hadn't, I don't think Jim or Cole would have even believed that it happened.

We haven't ben able to get her to do it again since.

But not because of a lack of effort on our part!

We've all become like a bunch of circus clowns around the house,

just trying to do anything that might strike her as funny again.

Enjoy!

Snaps From The Weekend

I have a hard time getting the blog updated on the weekends.

It seems like we're always super busy,

and manage to take a lot of pictures,

but don't manage to do anything with them.

So here is a quick look into the randomness of our weekend.

Lucy loves shoes.

She particularly loves to stick her face into our shoes.

Thank goodness she is not doing that right now.

Yay! It's my niece Calyn.

We got to see Greg, Emily and Calyn on Saturday at my Mom's.

We last saw her at Thanksgiving.

That is too long to go without a Calyn fix.

"Hey Mom, check me out sitting in a high chair."

Uh, huh! More Calyn.

I can't get enough of that girl!

She's so busy and awesome!

Oh no, looks like Stella got ahold of a switch blade.

Hope nobody messes with her today.

She's a chick with attitude

(Mommy disclosure: it's a comb!)

Nap time with Daddy.

Looks like they wore each other out!

One last Calyn picture.

Smooching cousins.

Funny thing is, Calyn is 10 weeks older than Stella,

but they are almost the same size!

High School Preparations

It does not seem possible that this boy will be going to

High School next year.

I'm sure that you're going to hear me say that about 100

more times before August.

It doesn't seem that long ago that he was

starting Kindergarten.

Here is his school picture from Kindergarten.

Now we're receiving High School acceptance letters,

and invitations to the high school athletic events

and applications for permission to attend advanced courses.

I am so proud of Cole that he has put himself in this position.

He has worked hard all the way through elementary and middle school

in order to be able to have some choices in high school.

Currently, as an 8th grader, he is earning high school credits in

two of his classes. 

I think that's pretty awesome!

I realize that in a few short years, the applications laying on

the kitchen table will be college admissions applications

instead of Biology applications.

That will be shocking and very cool too!

I think every mother has a favorite school picture of her child.

This is mine.

He's a 1st Grader here.

I think the smile is priceless.

The Little Things

When you have a baby everything changes.

People tell you that all the time.

Especially when you have a teenager, and then announce that you're expecting.

People like to point out how crazy you are for starting over.

They especially find it crazy when I tell them that Cole will be

a freshman in college when Stella starts Kindergarten.

People also like to give lots of well-intentioned advice to pregnant women.

They tell you to sleep when the baby sleeps,

and that they grow up so fast (don't I know it!)

And they love to ask how it's going-

wondering if you're getting any sleep with a newborn in the house.

Wondering how Jim, a bachelor until his late 30's, is adjusting to parenthood.

But I wonder, why is it that people rarely share the real dirt about parenting.

Taking care of a baby is exhausting and frustrating sometimes.

Everyone who has done it remembers that- or maybe they don't.

Maybe, in an act of pure self-preservation, people's minds allow themselves to forget.

They forget the exhaustion, frustration, fear and pain that goes along with parenting an infant.

Instead, the mind remembers all of the wonderful little moments

that allow us to do it all over again, and miss it when it's gone.

Things like the snuggle naps....

We all love the snuggle naps at our house.

Also, things like first smiles.

Tiny fingers

And tiny toes.

We all remember the tiny yawns

and newborn milk breath

and the first giggles.

I want to preserve all of the memories.

Both amazing, and not so great.

I want to share them with Stella when she's bigger

and she asks me to tell her what it was like when she was a baby.

I like that I can share all of the everyday happenings with all of our friends and family

through the blog.

It forces me to take time each day to think about the little things.

Those little things that would otherwise get pushed to the back of my mind

and would likely be forgotten over time.

The Bennett "No Sleep Situation"

We're in a sleep funk at our house!

And Jim and I are walking around like zombies.

We were doing so good!

Just a few short weeks ago we had Stella sleeping

in her crib, with only one overnight feeding.

Sometimes she would go to sleep around 9 PM and sleep until 5 AM.

That's do-able.

And then ....

she got sick, and we moved her back into our room

and we can't seem to get our sleep back.

We have tried getting her back to her crib,

but she gets congested when we lay her

flat on her back.

I know we can prop the crib mattress up a little bit

but we tried that, and then I went in and found her slid

clear down in her crib and her head was covered

with a blanket.

I know you're not supposed to use a blanket in the crib

but I feel like she must be cold if I don't.

My rational self is completely gone now!

I think it's because I'm not getting any sleep.

The last 2 days at daycare she has been sleeping a lot.

Yesterday her daycare sheet told me that she slept from

9:30-11:15 (1 hour 45 minutes)

12:30-2:00 (1 1/2 hours)

2:35-3:10 (35 minutes)

3:30-4:15 (45 minutes)

Well, there's your problem!!!!

Yes, she is sleeping away her days at daycare and then

giving us fits at night.

Last night we finally got her to sleep about midnight.

Actually, to be more accurate, Jim got her to sleep about midnight.

I couldn't hang.

And I figured that I would have to get up to do her

overnight feeding, so I let him take the "early shift."

To compound our no-sleep problem,

Stella has come to expect some specific soothing techniques.

Jim used to get frustrated because he felt that he wasn't able to soothe

her quite like I could.

She likes to be snuggled up close, and she tucks her head into my neck.

That doesn't work so well with a Daddy who has whiskers.

So Jim started to do "the walk."

You know "the walk"

Every parent knows "the walk"

The thing that you try when nothing else soothes your sleepy child.

The next step after "the walk" is "the drive"

You know, this drive:

Well, we had never done "the walk" with Stella before

so she didn't know that "the walk" was an option.

Now "the walk" is all she wants.

I think that poor man walked about 5 miles with Stella last night,

and didn't ever make it out of our room.

I hate "the walk"

I can't do it.

My arm gets tired of holding her.

Plus I miss the snuggle time.

But she wants it, and fights sleep until she gets it.

So we're in a funk.

I hope tonight is better.

I miss this girl!

Fuzzi Bunz & Bum Genius & Rumparooz

Oh My!

We began our cloth diapering adventure last week,

and it went remarkably well.

I bought 4 diapers to start.

Just enough to give us an idea of the styles that we would like

and it was a good trial run.

So good, in fact, that I went today and bought some more.

Now we're working to phase out the remaining disposables that we have

and go cloth full time.

I didn't take the cloth-ies to daycare,

we just used them around the house.

And we only had one leak- on the first day.

I was a little gun-shy about using them at night,

but I gave it a shot and they held up without a leak.

Going cloth actually took quite a bit more research than I expected.

I found several websites to be quite helpful.

My favorite is the appropriately named All About Cloth Diapers

She does regular reviews and actually has quite a few helpful tips.

I honestly never thought that anything about diapering would excite me.

And yet, I found myself enjoying my trip to Circle Me today.

I'm sure the novelty will wear off

And after the 100th day of seeing this pile of laundry on my washer

I'll be less than thrilled.

But right now, I'm kind of digging it.

Random Thoughts Wednesday

Baby it's cold outside!

We have the JJ Cole Urban Bundle Me on Stella's car seat.

It kind of looks like a sleeping bag that attaches to her car seat

and she goes inside of it to keep her warm.

So normally Stella is able to stay pretty toasty in her car seat

without having to do any extra layers of clothing.

We just put her in there and throw a hat on her head and we're good to go.

These last couple of days, however, cause me to question whether we need to

provide an additional layer of warmth for our girl.

The "experts" say that you shouldn't put a coat on your infant in their

car seat because then you can't get the straps tight enough

in case of an accident.

So, we just continue on with our normal practice

and I keep her snow suit in the car just in case.

Looking at her here,

I'm not sure she would fit in the car seat

if I tried to put her in there while wearing the snow suit.

Stella is definitely interacting more with her toys these days.

A few weeks ago, it was mostly us holding up toys

and showing her how to use them,

making silly noises,

you know the drill...

Now she's got it down.

She's also becoming a little more mobile.

She hasn't taken that first roll over yet,

and she is doing a little scooting, though not on purpose.

But I did happen to catch her in this new pose the other day.

I don't usually strap her into her various seats,

but after I caught her like this I think I better start.

Occasionally she can get a little wild and get herself

scooted down in her seat. I'm sure I'll find her on the floor one of these days.

Cloth Diapers!!!!

I made the decision during my pregnancy that we were going to use cloth diapers.

I went to a couple of cloth diapering classes

and I did a lot of research.

I finally pulled the trigger on getting started.

Circle Me is the cloth diapering store in Lincoln

and they have a good selection of diapers and supplies.

I decided to start slow, with just a couple of different types of diapers

to see what works best for us before fully making the switch.

Here is what I ended up with after my first shopping trip.

I know it sounds crazy, but it was fun.
I really like a lot of things about the cloth diapers,

and the pros outweigh the cons for me.

We'll see if I'm still saying that after several months of the additional work.

I'm pretty sure this is going to be a familiar sight for me.

Today when we got home from daycare we were able to try them out for the first time.

Stella seemed to like them.

I think our little girl looks pretty cute in her new dipes!