Angelica's First Thanksgiving

As you can see from this picture, Angelica's first Thanksgiving was a hit! She probably stuffed her face with more than I did (especially since I spent more time feeding her than myself). Eventually she got so excited over everything that I just handed the plate to her and let her have at it. It was hilarious because she knew exactly what to do. She grabbed stuff off of the plate with her hands and shoved it in her mouth. Then that got too slow, so as you can see, she resorted to picking the plate itself up and shoving it in her mouth. The end result, of course, was this...

That is what her Thanksgiving onesie looked like after she'd been stripped down for a bath. She was SO messy, but had such a great time. I'm so glad we were able to make her first Thanksgiving a success!






This meal was also, appropriately enough, the first time we introduced meats. She got a feast of turkey baby food with strained sweet potatoes (I took some of my own sweet potatoes and strained it for her.) I also introduced her to the wonderful world of cranberry sauce (to which she was indifferent) and pumpkin pie (which she loved!) The turkey also seemed to go over okay. She made a face with the first bite, but ate it anyway. I think we'll probably keep trying one meal with meat a week until she gets used to it!

Hope your Thanksgivings were fantastic!

Angelica put herself to sleep!

Oh man, here's a first!

I put Angelica down for bed tonight...she got her bath, we had a little play time in her bedroom, and then she got half-swaddled and got a bottle. She decided it was full and pushed away...I could see she was tired but was having trouble falling asleep.

So I put her down in her crib, put her lovey in her arms...went and sat down in the rocking chair and nary a peep came from the crib. When I looked back in on her, she was sound asleep, thumb in her mouth and lovey in her other hand.

Sniff...sniff...my baby girl is growing up so fast...just one in a series of things she'll no longer need my help with as she grows up.

Angelica updates...doctor visit, milestones, and more!

First of all, we had a follow-up with the pediatrician today about Angelica's UTI. We won't know if the infection is gone until probably Wednesday, but the poor thing broke my heart, screaming during the catheter again. She's still at 15 1/2 pounds...one week shy of her half-birthday!

The screaming she was doing sounded even worse because the two of us are fighting terrible colds. She came down with it last Monday and I started coming down with it last Tuesday. I think I'm finally starting to get better, and so is she, but it's been miserable the past few days. Just miserable.

And now for.........milestones!

I will have pictures of this to add later on (probably tonight), but our little angel is standing! About 2 weeks ago, I was sitting on the floor with her, and she lunged forward and grabbed the edge of exersaucer and pulled herself to standing. Then all weekend, whenever I'd try to sit her down, she'd get rigid and demand to stand up. So I put her next to the coffee table and she just held on and stood there...kind of cruised for a couple of steps but then fell onto her butt. The coffee table which is too tall for her to pull herself up on, but she can still reach up and hold on if I help...it's about mouth-level for her, so she can hold herself up and gum on the edge of it.

She also braced herself up against the edge of the pack & play, which didn't have anything to hold on to. She just put her hands against the mesh and used her legs and balanced...for a good five minutes probably!

Finally, we are probably going to have a tooth any day now. She has become a biter...she bites and chews on just about everything from her toys to the nipple on her bottle, to her own fingers.

Only 5 more days to her half-birthday. My how the time flies!

Angelica's first trip to the late night pediatrician

We had to run Angelica over to AfterHours for the first time last night. When I picked her up from daycare, she felt a little warm...I thought maybe it was because she was in their swing snuggling with a fleece blanket. So when we got home and she was still really warm, I was surprised.

So I took her temperature under the arm...101.1. Yikes. So then I did the dreaded rectal temperature....103.5! Yikes! So off to AfterHours we went.

(I have no idea how she could have had a temp. that high and nobody at daycare noticed. But we won't go into that rant.)

Three hours, one blood draw, one catheterization, one dose of Tylenol and two shots of antibiotics later we had our diagnosis. She has a UTI. Poor baby!!

Her screaming while being held down for the tests nearly killed me. After each one I would rock her to sleep but she would wake up to more torture.

She's better today...still a bit of a temp but overall in better spirits. We got a script to pick up more antibiotics and get her rechecked in 10 days.

We did get complemented last night on how calm we were...the nurses said there was no way we were first time parents. I try hard not to panic in front of the baby because I don't want her to pick up on it and feel worse, but I was scared over how high that temp was.

Anyway, it's time for me to drag myself to get ready for work after a long night...

[Edit] In my haste, I forgot to mention that she got weighed yesterday...15 1/2 pounds! WOW! She was only 14 lbs 4 oz a month and a half ago. This also means she's essentially reached the "doubling her birthweight" benchmark (15.6lbs is double her birthweight). Wow!!

Angelica's first time on the swing...also falling asleep eating!

Just a brief recap from the past few days...oh boy did we have a blast! First of all, notice this cutie wearing her daddy's hat? That was taken at the park this weekend, when Angelica had her very first ride in the swing! Now, she's maybe still a teeny bit small for the swing, but oh boy did she have a good time!



Angelica swinging:


I don't have any pictures of it, but she finally got to meet her Aunt Shannon this weekend! I had intended to bring my camera with me when we made the drive up to Palm Coast to visit (they were staying at Scott's grandparents house). His mom and sister Shannon drove down from CT this week, and then his sister Tarah drove down, and the three of them babysat Angelica today.

Below is some evidence of how much fun my dear darling daughter had with her Grandma Tammy and Aunts Tarah and Shannon...this is a baby who normally needs to at least be rocked to sleep, if not take a bottle, in order to go down for the night. So I'm feeding her nighttime meal (rice cereal and bananas) and she just falls asleep in her Bumbo seat, mid-bite. It was hilarious. So I picked her up and put her in bed, and she didn't even wake up when I took her out of the seat. She normally gets a bath, PJs, and a bottle but obviously those got skipped. I don't know what they did all day but it must have been fun!














In bad news, my DeQuervain's Tendonitis is back...we're looking at the "surgery" option instead of corticosteroids this time since it keeps coming back. Sigh. I'm putting that off as long as possible and seeing if I can keep treating with Advil and splinting...but it is making every thing I do extremely difficult.

Angelica's First Halloween!

As you can see here, Angelica enjoys Halloween today much more than she enjoyed the pumpkin patch yesterday. Look at this little smiling cutie! She's even been so kind today to take a nap long enough for me to practice some of my new photoshop skills.

Yes, that's right. We are going on hour 3 of her nap now. The sleep schedule keeps going back and forth, and I don't get it! For three nights in a row, she slept like a charm. Then last night she got up twice again. Now she's in the middle of a 3 hour nap? Makes no sense! But I am glad she's sleeping. Maybe she's going through a growth spurt.

Anyway...speaking of Halloween, it's our biggest Trick or Treating yet! We've had four...yes, FOUR Trick-or-Treaters today...a princess, a bumblebee, a pumpkin, and some teenager on a bike just cruising around asking for candy. (He was kinda stinky and didn't even have a candy bag with him.) These are our first trick or treaters since 2004, and that year we only got one. I'm glad I picked up a small bag of candy at Target today!

Happy Halloween everyone! Hopefully my little punkin' will wake up soon!

Angelica goes to the pumpkin patch

Cute, right? I would have loved to get more good photos of her with the pumpkins, because I was so looking forward to it...but she wasn't having it. She was in just about the worst mood I've ever seen her in.





But at least I got a couple of cute photos...including some of me and her. Like this one!





And then there is the most ironic photo ever...notice the "Happy Harvest" sign and the very notably unhappy baby. Oh well. It's still cute, and gives me something to show her friends when she's 16.

Angelica is 5 months old!

In the tradition of the monthly pictures, I tried to sit her on the sofa next to learning puppy, but she had other ideas. She kept rolling over, flipping herself onto her tummy, or just squirming until she was laying flat. So, this was the best one of the bunch. I still think it's adorable!

Seems like being 4 months old worked well for her. She learned to sit (though she still falls over sometimes), get up on all fours and rock, she learned to blow raspberries, touch her head, eat her feet, and move herself across the floor.

Today she also held herself up on the edge of the coffee table. I held her up next to it and she grabbed on. I loosened my grip and she stayed until her hands slipped (but my hands were right there to catch her). Wow!

Very nervous and excited to see what the next month will bring! I feel like she just turned 4 months and now she's 5 months. November 29 will mean she's a half year old. Wow again!

It's also getting cold out, which means Angelica's getting to wear her cute winter clothes! Check out this cute photo of her in her kitty corduroy overalls from yesterday. She also left the house wearing a hat, and just looked absolutely adorable. She's hanging out in her crib in this photo, but I also thought the one below was adorable too (despite the poor lighting...it's late when we get home and the lighting in my apartment after dark leaves a lot to be desired.)

And that's all for now! She's finally off to bed which means I can relax and eat dinner...I love my evenings with my girl but I'm starving by this time of night!