Growing Up Fast!

Mira turned 5 months old a couple days ago - how does time fly so fast? She's growing up and learning new things every single day and all I can say about that is it's so not fair. Babies need to stay babies just a little bit longer. Not much longer because there are things about having a baby that are really difficult and it'll be nice to move past that, but come on - can't they stay little for just a little bit longer? Is that really so much to ask? Just to illustrate the differences between how Mark and I look at having a baby, every time Mira hits a new milestone, I get a little teary and say, "She's growing up too fast!" Mark just gets excited that she's growing up and is able to do new things. Two sides of the same coin, I guess.

So speaking of milestones, Mira hit a couple of big ones in the last week. First, I finally caved and started feeding her solid food. Mark has been encouraging me to get her started as soon as she turned 4 months, and I've been trying to put it off because it's the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics that babies be fed only breastmilk/formula for the first 6 months of life blah blah blah and of course I felt that I had to follow that recommendation to the letter. How else was I supposed to be a good mom unless I did everything exactly the way the experts recommended?? But she's been showing an interest in food since she was about 3 1/2 months, my pediatrician said it was okay, and finally a friend of mine at work told me to basically just feed her already! And as I've mentioned before, I would like a little independence back. So I made up some rice cereal with my milk and gave it a go.

As interested as she'd been acting, a lot of my friends had said that when they first tried giving rice cereal to their babies, the response was lukewarm at best. I figured she would make faces, gag, spit it out, and decide she didn't like it. Boy was I wrong! She was so excited to be getting real food that she was shaking! She grabbed for the spoon with both hands and gobbled it up as fast as she could.

Mmm, yummy!

More! Faster! I'm hungry!

Thank you ever so much for feeding me!

 And of course, feeding time turned into bath time. I knew it would be messy but wow! I've played with the consistency of the rice cereal a bit and it's not as bad when I make it thicker. She's doing better about the actual eating part too. She still has a bit of a tendency to push the food out with her tongue but she's already a lot better about not doing that. After a few days of rice cereal once a day, I've been feeding her the cereal twice a day and I'm adding some baby food to the cereal now. I tried bananas the other day. She wasn't too sure about the bananas on their own but she loved it mixed with the cereal. I'll keep trying the bananas by themselves and hopefully after a few more tries she'll get used to it. I'm thinking sweet potatoes are next. I didn't realize it would be so much fun to introduce solids! It's messy but it sure is entertaining. Although now I can understand why there are disposable bibs. And I've been undressing her before I feed her. Why make more laundry for myself?

The next big milestone she hit was - she cut her first tooth! She had been acting kind of cranky the week or so leading up to the tooth breaking through - and by cranky I mean short-tempered. She was as good-natured as ever but she had a little diva attitude. I think what really helped is Mark massaged her gums so that the tooth could break through. She's been in a much better mood since then. :)

I've discovered that babies don't need toys. All Mira needs to play with is her feet. As soon as you lay her down on her back, she brings her feet up and grabs on. Diaper changes are interesting now. She's really close to figuring out how to bring her feet up to her mouth - any day now! She could probably go for hours holding onto her feet and be perfectly content. In fact she'll even hold onto them when she's crying. What is it about babies and feet?

Today I think I'll play with my feet.

Playing with my feet sure is fun!

Hmm, what to do today ... I know, play with my feet!

Of course she will play with toys - just tonight she learned how to hold onto a toy and shake it and wave it around. Very fun especially if the toy makes noise. Her dexterity gets better all the time, it's just crazy. She can pretty much feed herself a bottle now and she can not only get her pacifier to her mouth, she can (after much concentration and a few tries) get the correct part of the pacifier to her mouth. She definitely wants to do things herself. I'll put the pacifier in her mouth, she'll reach up, pull it out, and put it back in. Just to prove a point, I guess. She is so close to being able to turn from back to front. She'll get about 3/4 of the way there and then end up on her back again. She doesn't have much incentive to be on her stomach though - she's still not a huge fan of tummy time and besides, she can't reach her feet if she's on her stomach. :)

I'm starting to have to be really careful about what objects I put in her general vicinity. There have been several times I've put her down and put something near her but far enough away that I've figured there's no way she can reach it - and two seconds later she's got it in her mouth. She's mauled several receipts this way and the other day she even got ahold of an entire head of lettuce while she was sitting in the Bumbo chair. I'm still not sure how that happened. She can sit unsupported for a couple seconds at a time and then she'll topple over. I'm worried she'll skip over the sitting and just go straight for standing. She could stand all day if I let her! If you pick her up and help her stand up she gets a huge open-mouth grin - she can go from frustrated and unhappy to deliriously excited just by standing her up. She has strong little legs too. She just doesn't get tired of standing and she really doesn't need much support at all. She better not be an early walker. There are lots of exciting milestones (like starting solid food and the first tooth) but learning to walk is one that I would prefer to put off for awhile.

Watching the Pioneer Day Parade with Grandpa

I know I've said this before but here I go again - having a child is so much more fun than I thought it would be! It's not without its difficulties of course, but so far I have really been enjoying this little person.

Now I'm going to say something that will probably surprise no one except myself - I think I may have to admit defeat and go out and buy a whole new pant and skirt wardrobe. I'm only a few pounds over my prepregnancy weight but the vast majority of my pants and skirts will not fit. It's obviously not just a weight issue when we're talking about 5 pounds and I can't get my jeans up past mid-thigh. Mark told me (very wisely) that I couldn't expect my body to be the same after being pregnant and giving birth. I kept hoping that once I really got into an exercise routine and got toned again that I'd be back in my regular jeans and everything but I don't think any amount of exercise will get me there. On the one hand - this means a shopping spree and of course this is a very exciting prospect. On the other hand it makes me a little sad. I have a hard time with the idea of having to get rid of so many clothes that I love and realizing that working out isn't going to get me back into them. It shouldn't matter what the number is on the pants that I wear but psychologically it's kind of jarring. I realize this is going to get me about as much sympathy as I got when I finally started wearing maternity pants at 26 weeks and freaked out :) but I think any of my girlfriends who have had children can understand the sentiment. You get used to your body being a certain way and sometimes it's hard to reconcile yourself to what you end up with afterwards. I shouldn't be that upset - I mentioned this topic to friends at work the other night and immediately started getting teased about being a size 3 now instead of a size 00 and that maybe now I can shop in the women's section instead of junior's clothing. LOL! Anyway, that's my little self pity party. On the plus side, Mira's getting so fat I'm going to have some really nice muscular arms before too long, haha.

Just out of curiosity, would anybody be interested in a post about the birth story?