My Husband....

My new project is making Sadie Beth's baby food. I am amazed at how easy it is-- so much so that I've actually considered going into some sort of baby food making business for my friends/people that I know if they'd be interested, but I don't know that it would be worth it. More than 1 lb (16oz) of some veggies (peas, green beans, etc) cost only $.77 to make, where as a jar of the same baby food (2.5oz) cost anywhere from $.33 (on very good sale) -$.50 each. I'm sticking with the basics and not really doing any off the wall foods, but I'm totally into it.
So, on to my story...today I made my first batch of baby food peas. David comes in from work, looks in the refrigerator for a snack and gets out a piece of leftover Tombstone Pizza. He then sees the peas and says, "What are those?" He opens the lid as I'm telling him that they are peas and how gross I think they are. Peas are about at the top of my gross foods list. I can't stand them!!! While I'm rambling on about how I despise peas, my husband, who will eat anything, takes a big spoonful of the cold pureed yuckiness and exclaims, "Delicious!" After consuming several spoonfuls, he then proceeds to pour some of Sadie Beth's peas all over his slice of pizza and eats 2 slices this way! He thinks it's great. Many of you know that I'm blessed to be married to a man who is very easy to please when it comes to food. I'm actually a pretty good cook, but every now and then I have experiments that turn out not so deliciously. He will eat just about anything and he will eat the same things over and over and over again. Before we were married and he was living in Texas, most of his meals consisted of what I lovingly refer to as "1-Pot Wonders," where he put something from every food group into one large pot on the stove and let it cook. A few that he has described to me are pretty hideous. And so today we can add this new strange food experiment to the list...pepperoni pizza with pureed peas. How funny is this? He cracks me up.

Six Months Old!

My, how the last 6 months have flown by! Our little Sadie Beth is so much fun as she is learning and doing new things all the time. She now has 2, possibly 3 teeth. Either she has 2 coming in right now, or it is 1 tooth that is partially cracked - I guess time will tell. Sadie Beth sure does love her daddy. She lights up whenever he walks in the room. One of her new tricks is that she will "growl" back at you. She will do it for both of us, but especially for David. Sometimes, if I start laughing really hard, she laughs too....I find it really fun, so we laugh a lot!

I went in to get her from a nap one day and saw this - adorable little baby feet - minus the socks she originally wore. One day we were playing in bed and I was wrapping Sadie Beth up in this blanket. She thought it was real fun.

She's still a little wobbly sitting on her own, but has gotten drastically better in the last few days. She's getting good enough that I don't worry if I leave the room for a few moments.

During her independent play time I will often open our bedroom window. Sadie Beth LOVES watching what is going on outside. It's so cute watching her play in the pack and play.
She managed to get her leg out of the tub one day during bath time when I had my back turned. She was pretty proud of herself.

So, my baby who will have NOTHING to do with a bottle decided she was a big fan of sippy cups...for, oh, about 3 days...and then she decided to forget how to get the liquid out and realized how much fun it was to chew on them. Here, however, is proof that she was drinking from them. We have a soft-spout cup that she will drink out of sometimes still.
Very surprised Sadie Beth...in the midst of one of her favorite activities--feet chewing.
We got this fun mirror to put in Sadie Beth's crib, h0ping it would coax her to turn her head in the opposite direction. During one of our visits to the pediatrician, he commented that she has some neck tightness and her head is flatter on one side. I think it has gotten better and she enjoys the mirror very much. This is about the time she really started to enjoy some tummy time.
Yucky, yucky, yucky vitamins. They are disgusting. I gag smelling them, so I can only imagine how she feels about swallowing them. Most of the time she is a pretty good sport about it. Unfortunately I'm not very consistent about giving them to her - bad mommy! Check out those chubby little baby legs!

Sadie Beth still won't roll from her back to her stomach - I think she is probably perfectly capable of it but has very little use for doing so. :)
Doesn't she look like a cute little puppy with the sock in her mouth?

Chewing on things...
...makes me very...

... happy! (says Sadie Beth).
Sadie Beth's first big snow! It's hard to see it in this picture, but she has a huge smile on her face...until I had her touch it...and then she just looked perturbed with mommy.
So, Sadie Beth ate her cereal great for about a week and a half, and then she decided no more. Are you noticing a trend? She pretty much just likes Mommy's milk - from the original source too. Right now we are on a solids hiatus, but will resume our efforts pretty soon.
Happy girl bear!

Look how little...here she was just 2 days old! She's growing up too fast.

The "Poop" face

I have tons of smiles to post soon, but for now I will focus on the serious side of Sadie Beth. I never expected my life to involve so much thought about pooh...and I'm not referring to the silly ol' bear all stuffed with fluffy. However, since becoming a mommy, its become quite a regular topic of conversation...especially since my sweet baby girl isn't always so "regular." If you've been around the last few months, you might have learned that Sadie Beth is a sporadic poo-er. In fact, up until now it wasn't unusual for her to do her business only once a week or so. When it was time, it was important to set the "mood" and I'm only slightly joking. She wouldn't do it unless she was in a very calm, relaxed state. I guess she was just too busy and was afraid to miss anything otherwise. When I could tell she was getting to that point, I would turn the lights down, lay her down on the floor on top of the boppy pillow and she would go to town. The hilarious part of all of this was the faces she would make. I tried for a long time to get a picture of the "poop" face, but was always too slow. But now I have! So, enjoy the serious side of Sadie Beth....

However, times they are a-changin! Now that we have wandered into the wonderful world of cereal, my little bug is a machine. She has expanded her horizons and has found a new spot that works for her. Each day when I give her her cereal we have to take a little "pooh" break...

And because we have briefly shifted our focus for this post...many people will frequently comment about how happy Sadie Beth seems to be. And she is...the majority of the time. However, she has her stinker moments just like any other baby. Each day Sadie Beth has some independent play time (which she is doing now) in her pack-n-play. We started with about 5 minutes and have worked our way to longer periods. Most of the time she does great. Eg. She has been happily playing for the last 25 minutes...(don't worry I'll get her in just a minute - 30 minutes is the longest she goes). I think this is important so that she can learn to entertain her self, and it is also good for developing a good attention span/concentration/etc. However, this particular day, we decided to put her in her crib to play with her new mirror toy for awhile. I think she could hear David and I laughing in the kitchen and decided was not about missing all the fun!

The funny part? I would walk to the door and she would smile while fussing. :) Needless to say, we rescued her and all was right with the world once again. A more smiley post will come soon...I have lots of Sadie Beth cuteness to share.

The pictures say it all...

Really, these pictures are priceless, but for a quick commentary...today was the first day that Sadie Beth had any "solids" and she responded to them in typical Sadie Beth fashion. You see, from the beginning, our pediatrician has commented that it is likely that she has a little bit of a hypersensitive gag reflex. This is one possible explanation for the projectile vomiting we dealt with for the first 3 months or so of her life. Anytime she encounters anything "new," Sadie Beth responds with gagging....whether it be vitamins, medicine, gas drops, tylenol, etc. She might eventually come to like it (eg. tylenol and gas drops), but the first response is always a bit dramatic. And so it is with brown rice cereal...

Really?

I was getting worried...
"What are you making me eat?" says Sadie Beth.

oh dear...
Daddy gives it a try.
See, it's not too bad!

So I think she finished only slightly worse for the wear. The cereal must have gone right through her, because my baby who only poops every 4-5 days and then only in her "poo position" - (while relaxing on the boppy pillow in the morning on the floor) - decided to do her business before we even finished eating! what a riot. :)

I have a lot more to post, but this will do for now.