Life:
I'm so proud of my little baby girl! She is just doing so well with her sleeping routines! She hasn't had to cry herself to sleep since Sunday night and each night settles herself to sleep. She has been up more often in the night though. :( I'm not sure if this is due to teething, or her way of dealing with the loss of being nursed to sleep, but either way, it is decreasing. On Tuesday night she was up about ten times (although she would go back to sleep after getting her soother put back in her mouth) but last night was only up once. Her routines at daycare are excellent! I come down/up to daycare at 10:45 to change her, nurse her, and put her down for a nap, and she'll usually sleep from 11 to 11:30. Then I do the same at 1:45 and she'll sleep from 2 to anywhere from 2:30 to 3:30 (but napping til 3:30 is a rare occasion!).
On Thursday Harmony and I went to Wal-mart and got her 6 month photos done- what a little cutie! She behaved well for most of them, although we had some trouble getting the tummy one since she doesn't particularly care to be on her stomach.
Last night (Friday) I went out with Sarah, Krissie and Chesca to celebrate Sarah's 22nd birthday which was lots of fun. Tonight Sarah said she would babysit Harmony for me while I go and see this year's musical at my old high school.
Today I went and got a membership at the Y. There's one right down the street. I haven't ever been before because the membership was just too expensive and so was daycare, but I found out that you can get a subsidized membership, so I did! Now I can bring Harmony to the Y Playcare and go work out! I'm really looking forward to losing all of this pregnancy flab! I'm only 7 pounds less now than I was when I was 8 and a half months pregnant! I'm going to try to go regularly and stick with it. My plan is to go Friday morning (since I only go to Bethany & other programs Mon-Thurs) and Saturday mornings, and one night per week (maybe Monday, maybe Wednesday, or sometimes even both). My goal is to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight, and then maybe try to lose 5 pounds or so after. I can probably swing a 20 pound weight loss this summer if I really stick to it, the rest may have to wait.
The begining of the week was really tough for Harmony and I. I think she was teething really hard cause she was just drooling on everything and biting everything, and even trying to chew on me while breastfeeding (ouch!). It seems to have calmed down a little so I don't know whether that means the tooth has receeded a little and wont make it's appearance soon, or what, but Margo (public health nurse we see) said she thought we'd see a tooth sometime soon. Who knows when the first will appear! It's been very difficult for me to keep my patience with the baby, especially those few nights she was up a million times in the night. There's nothing worse than falling into bed after the tenth cry in 5 hours, only to hear another before you can even get a minute's sleep! Those two nights that she didn't let me get more than 4 hours sleep in a row were terrible, and I just didn't feel like myself. It's hard sometimes to remember that when a baby cries, all they know is that something is hurting or just not right, and they're just trying to communicate that need. Often I'll catch myself saying "Why are you doing this to me!!!???" and then I'll realize that no, she's not doing it TO me, she's just doing it because it's the only communication she has. Sometimes that helps me keep my sanity. Things are going a lot better now, since she's sleeping better, and especially since I had a bit of a break last night. Harmony still has her weird little screaming fits once in a while, but hopefully that little tooth'll break through soon and we'll get a few weeks of peace before the next one comes through...
Harmony's Growth:
Harmony was weighed on Tuesday and she's up to 17 pounds! That's a pretty awesome weight gain considering she's supposed to be slowing down, but it may just be because of what she was wearing or what she'd eaten, etc. If you think about it, babies at 6 months can eat up to 8 oz at a feeding- so if you weigh them right before one, they could potentially weigh half a pound less than if you'd weighed them after! This theory was sort of proven when I took Harmony to her sixth month checkup on Friday morning. Without her clothes on and having only eaten an hour before (and had a diaper change since), she weighed 16 pounds 12 oz. According to that weight, she is in the 75 percentile for her age! Combined with the fact that she is a little "undertall" for her age (at 24.5"), that makes her a chubby chubby baby! But we already knew that... :)
No new foods this week, but I'll probably start the squash today or tommorow.
No new skills, but Harmony is starting to experiment more with the different sounds in her vocabulary. She will often spend half an hour first thing in the morning, rolling around her crib and talking to her toys. This has been perfectly fine with me because "first thing in the morning" lately has been 7, 6:30, or even 5:30 am!!! It's so funny to wake up hearing those little babbling noises. They mostly consist of "a-ya-ya-aaaahhh-wuh..." etc. She also ocassionally makes little hissing noises when she has stuff in her mouth and blows around it- it's just the cutest thing! I can tell by the way she talks now that she'll be a very talkative kid- I suspect she'll be one of those toddlers that always ask "why?"!