BellaBlog

Archive for the ‘Development’ Category

Growing up way too fast

It’s been forever since I’ve blogged about Bella. It’s pretty hard to wrap my brain around the fact that she’s three already.

Today Bella had her first bike ride. She’s gone bike riding with us before but today was the first time she’s ridden her own bike – OK, trike. We rode on a fairly flat greenway and covered about a mile – not much on a bike but just trying pedaling that distance on a single speed ride with six inch tires! Needless to say, she had a really good nap after that.

Rolling over

What’s new with Bella you might ask? She’s getting bigger every minute and we can’t help falling more and more in love with her every day. With Bella coming up on her 6 month birthday, we’ve heard that 6 months is when they can become spoiled by our reactions to her behavior–boy we are in trouble!

A few weeks ago Bella started rolling over on her side but last week, we would lay her on the floor on her back, leave the room for a few minutes and come back, then she’d be on her stomach having tummy time. On Friday at daycare, the teacher said she rolled over several times for her. Since then, we’ve seen her do it a hundred times and we all really get a kick out of it each time.

Bella Rose loves to stand for long periods of time in her exersaucer, playing with the toys and turning herself around in a circle-with very little support from the seat itself. I thought she might be ready for standing in front of the little piano we bought her and playing on the keys. While she isn’t tall enough to enjoy standing and playing, I did sit with her on the floor in front of it and let her reach to the keys and play with them. WOW! It didn’t take her long to get the hang of it and really start making some music. She got so excited, she would talk and squeal with every note-I mean sing with every note. It was a last minute thought of letting her play with it so no video (she was going ‘cool booty’ at the time) but the maybe we’ll try it again tonight and catch the beautiful smile, music and singing she does with her piano. I’ll try to tune it up first though-it’s about 60 years old…

Catching up

Last time Bella went to the doctor was for her 4 month well visit where she also received some more vaccinations. I gave her a little Tylenol before we left for the appointment and although she cried toward the last shot, after I picked her up, she was fine from then on. Even though she bruised up pretty bad and the area swelled up like a huge knot, she never once complained or fussed about it. We are blessed to have such a great baby! At that visit, she weighed almost 15lbs. and measured 25 1/4 inch tall. Her head was still small but the doctor isn’t worried. Besides, a small head keeps her looking cuter than all the other babies in the world:). She’ll go again for more vaccines and another checkup at 6 months, only 3 weeks away now.

Bella is doing so well with her development. She sits up really well with a little support from us–she enjoys it so much that when she is lying in her infant car seat, she’s constantly leaning forward trying to tell us she’d rather be sitting up than lying down. I think she’s gonna have the energy of her Daddy which would be wonderful. She’s rolled over a couple of times from her back to her stomach but always when we’re not looking so even though we’ve seen partial roll-overs, neither one of us have witnessed her doing a complete roll over. She’s not real big on the stomach to back thing but she’s done that too. The videos Paul has posted shows how she loves to talk with us and to herself. Someone said the other day that she probably loves the echo in our big house which is probably accurate because she loves squealing really loud especially in the 2 story living room area.

She can suck on her toes like a champ. It only took her a few days to figure out exactly how to hold her foot so she could grab it, hold onto it and still get her toes in her mouth. Now she’s such an expert, she even knows how to strategically hold her thumb next to her big toe so she can suck on both at the same time. Pure Genius! (and it helps her get rid of some of the gas she gets from her Daddy too-she doesn’t get that from me, not at all:)

When she first started playing in her exersaucer, she could barely reach the floor. Now she stands up straight and leans very little on the cushioned sides for support. She can also maneuver her way around in 360 degrees to give her legs a real work out. Of course, all she can think about it how many toys she can nibble on before Mommy comes to clean up her drool pool.

She still sleeps thru the night but occasionally surprises us with a mid-night feeding request, then she goes right back to sleep and wakes up at a normal time vs. the buttcrack of dawn.

So far a few colds have come and gone but nothing major (keep praying) so far. She started crying tonight when she got hungry and we noticed that her tear ducts have started working. We were so excited about that, we forgot that we were supposed to be figuring out why she was crying.

For Halloween, Bella was a penguin and I was a nurse (Paul and I went to a party the weekend before and we were dressed up as stick people (the kind with glow sticks). You can see videos and pics on the blog somewhere for October. Bella’s so cute with her little baggy and costume all ready. She didn’t complain about any of it at all.

The night of Halloweeen, I took her with a friend and her son and she was just a people person. While we were out, she started smacking her lips. Not really sure why but occasionally she’ll do it once or twice and it’s adorable. I call it her ‘kisses’. I’ve given her cereal a few times-a video is on the web showing how cute she was with spitting it out and then sometimes liking it. She loves grabbing for things like bottles (she can hold her own when it’s half empty by the way), glasses, earrings, noses, etc. You name it, she loves to hold it and shovel it into her mouth.

I guess that about does it for now. If I remember something else, I’ll post a quick note. Hopefully, I won’t get really behind, otherwise the small stuff slips my mind quicker than I’d like.

14 weeks

I was staring at Bella tonight as she slept in my arms and it hit me- I used to do this when she was so much smaller than this-now I’m addicted to it. I have to pinch myself sometimes to realize that this sweet and beautiful baby is ours so of course I want to hold her all the time. I truly enjoy rocking her to sleep at night-which doesn’t take long since she takes after me and loves her sleep. She’s still pretty good about sleeping 8-9 hours a night on most nights too. Until I quit breastfeeding, I heard it’s not good for me to let her sleep more than 9 hours anyway so she’s working out perfectly for us all.

Bella has been talking up a storm this week. From the books I’m reading, the words ‘ma-ma’ and ‘da-da’ are coming pretty soon. I wouldn’t mind if she said ‘da-da’ first, she is Paul’s little princess after all. She is saying what we consider to be ‘HEY!’ so we say it right back and she loves it. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in one of her toys today that has a mirror on the back of it. When she did, she started smiling and then said ‘HEY!’ really loud. It was hilarious.

Paul and I haven’t had a date night in over 2 months now. I know we need to take the time and make the arrangements to make it happen at least once a month but right now, I’m not sure I’m ready for a babysitter. It was hard enough to put her in daycare and now this-when does the worrying end? –never, I’m sure. I guess it would be easier to ask one of her teachers at the daycare to babysit her. They do that thing on the side so it’s just a matter of asking and getting it on their schedule.

I think Bella’s finally getting used to the camera. I got some good footage of her talking this week and a few really cute photos of her smiling-laughing too. We’re hoping to get some professional photos taken in a month or so. Sears has this really cute set where they film the baby naked in a few different poses-we’re definitely gonna try that because we love letting her go ‘cool booty’ around the house right before bath time. By the way more photos and videos are coming just can’t say when. They’re at least off the camera and onto the computer-that’s a step in the right direction.

3 Months have passed, what!?!

Okay, so the last post was at 10 weeks and I just posted it today and she’s 3 mths old already-so sue me:). Ever since I started back to work, it feels like every waking moment not at work or preparing to go to work is spent soaking up all the sweetness and love I can get from Bella once we pick her up from daycare. Work is getting back to normal, although I’m still catching up from all the stuff they left for me (they just didn’t do while I was gone).

Let’s see now, what’s happened over the last month? Bella’s started to sleep thru the night on a regular basis. The bathtime routine we started over a month ago has really helped her sleep at least 8 hours a night, if not 9 or 10. Most of the time when she goes to sleep around 8-9 and wakes up 8 hours later to eat, she’ll usually go right back to sleep until it’s time to go to daycare. Her schedule during the day is pretty consistent of the eat, wake, sleep routine. She’s eating 6 ounces at each feeding usually and is getting into the habit of eating from both breasts (which she rarely did until a week ago).

She did get thrush on her first day of daycare but the two incidents were not related. We went to the doctor and got some medicine drops which she didn’t really mind taking. I called it her ‘banana milkshake’ since we had to shake it really hard before giving it to her and it smelled fruity with a yellowish coloring. She never showed any side effects from the medicine except for some diarrhea when she had to go on a 3rd bottle of medicine. Bella still has some thrush marks in her mouth but the doctor said since it hasn’t effected her eating habits, we’ll stop the medicine and see if she can just get rid of it on her own. I’m still taking some topical ointment on the nipples to keep from giving it back to her.

Paul just walked in and started playing with Bella on the floor, she just woke up from her nap so I’ll have to make this last part short. Paul is such a great Daddy-he’s been taking her to daycare and picking her up sometimes also to help with my work schedule. (Bella just burped a really good one-she’s definitely part of the Thompson family. Her teachers are impressed with her burping abilities too-she can outburp anyone in the room:) Back to Paul, he’s great with Bella. He gives her great baths at night, letting her swim around when she wants and splashing water all over the place. It’s really cute when he blows the water out of her belly button right before he hands her to me to dry off. Right now, he’s holding her while playing a computer game and I can hear them talking back and forth-it’s so cute and sweet, I wish I could take a video of every moment to relish it forever.

Okay, one more sweet moment before I close out. She’s been sucking on her fingers for a few weeks now, then it converted to just the thumb and now we’re back to just whatever fingers she can find. We don’t use a pacifier so I’m hoping she gets out of this phase soon, which all the books say she will. Anyway, Paul and I were joking the other day that eventually it will convert from the thumb thing to the thumb in the mouth and the index finger in the nose thing-we had a good laugh. Then on Thursday night, Paul was letting her swim around relaxing in the pool (Bella’s bath) and he said I to look quick-sure enough, she had her middle finger in her mouth and the index finger in the nose. Boy, did we laugh hard over that. She’s done it once since then and it’s funny every time. When she’s 1 yr old, all this stuff won’t be so funny but right now, we can’t help but laugh and enjoy every minute of it.

10 weeks

I started this post a few weeks ago so I’ll finish this and start a new one later… 8/3/2007–As I sit here watching Bella play on the floor, it’s hard to imagine 10 weeks have passed by.  We went to the doctor for her 2 month checkup last week (and her horrible vaccinations too-all 3 were hard for me to watch and not show anxiety over it).  She was 24 inches long, her head a little larger and her total weight being 12 lbs 2 oz. The doctor said she was developing everything as she should and was a very healthy happy baby.

Bella started daycare on Wednesday last week in preparation of my returning to work on the 6th.  Yes, I cried on the way out of daycare and could barely drive myself home.  There were a few hiccups with getting used to how the daycare runs and such but everything is going smoothly now. Starting back to work on 8/6/07.