They grow so fast. I have trouble believing that just over 6 months ago she was half the weight she is now, that I had to get up with her every hour and a half in the night, and that she slept most of the day away... As much as I want this to slow down and let me savour it, I am constantly pushing her to move forward. When she's rolling around the livingroom, I am holding toys out in front of her, just out of her reach in an attempt to make her crawl toward it. At the end of swim lessons I hold her hands to get her to "walk" out of the pool. I am surprised and SO proud when she does something that is considered a milestone for her age (like when I creep up behind her when she's looking in a mirror and turns around to look at me because she no longer "thinks I'm in the mirror", or how she looks for the source of a sound, because she knows it has to come from something). So I want her to stay young yet I am pushing her to learn faster and grow... figure THAT one out...
I've also discovered that the choices I make, as a parent, to give her the best opportunities possible blow my mind when they are already showing results. How at swim lessons, she no longer panics when she gets water in her mouth, how she doesn't really mind getting her face and ears wet or being dunked in the water...
The decisions I have made about introducing her to solid foods is part of what prompted my post today, and it's kinda a long story (short, if being told orally, but written it seems long), so bare with me. It all started when Rosalie was about 5 months old and I was preparing to get ready for when she was going to start solids. She had started to show the milder signs, like being very interested in what we were eating, but not the certain signs, like grabbing food off of our plates. I called a friend that owns the maternity store Mother's Melody to see what she had for starting baby food. She said that she normally had the "BLW" book but she was out right now. I didn't have a clue what BLW was, but I told her that was ok and when she got more just to let me know. She then asked a couple of questions about Rosalie and what I was looking for, once I told her, she said that she wouldn't feel comfortable selling me anything until I had taken the Vitae Baby Food Basics course. So I took the class and it was amazing. BLW stands for Baby-Led Weaning, and the class was all about how you really don't need to puree foods in order to feed it to your baby, if your baby is ready to eat solids, they are ready to eat SOLIDS. She pointed out that babies have an extremely overreactive gag reflex, so solid things that go any further past where their first molars will be they gag. This is extremely useful when trying to NOT choke on solid foods, however if you start them on pureed foods they lose that gag reflex before they get to real solid stuff, so then they are more likely to choke later. Also, one of the few things your baby has control over is what goes into his or her mouth, so what better way to assert your baby's independence than to give her foods that she can feed to herself! If you give foods that can easily be cut into french fry like strips (foods like bananas, cucumbers, avocados, apples, sweet potatoes, etc) then she can hold it herself and feed herself. With pureed food they are dependent on you to feed it to them, not to mention it's WAY messier... There were about a million other things that I learned in this class, but that's about all that's relevant to this post, so if you are interested in taking the course, let me know. I'll give you all the contact info and stuff... Or if you just want to read the book about the principles here it is!
So... the amazing thing: I had gotten a free sample of rice cereal sent to me when Rosalie was about 4 months, so I put it in the cupboard to use it when she was ready, but then I took the class and changed how I intended to feed Rosalie, so it was somewhat forgotten. Even though it wasn't part of my plan, I really didn't want to waste it, so I decided to feed it to her at lunch today.(Side note: Chelsea, the girl that taught the baby food class, said that these types of cereals really aren't useful, they have a bunch of preservatives and sugar in them, but they are iron fortified, but if you start on meats early enough you don't really need that either). So I made it up and got Rosalie all in her chair to eat it, and I put some on the spoon and moved it toward her face... but her mouth stayed shut tight and she reached for the spoon. So I pulled it back and tried again. NOPE! She reached for the spoon again. So I gave her the spoon and she totally feeds herself! Mind you, not like an adult or a grown child would. She was sorta putting the spoon sideways into her mouth (so vertical rather than horizontal), but she would suck off all of the cereal by herself. Then I would take the spoon and put more on, she would eat it, and then she started handing the spoon back to me when she wanted more! Only a few months ago I had to squish my boob into her face in order for her to eat and now she barely needs me any more! It is just SO amazing how fast they learn, and I love that the approaches I have taken are working for her. Granted, I won't be handing her the bowl of mush and the leaving her to it (MAN that would be messy), but I love her independence and watching her learn. LOVE IT.
Ok, now Part II...
DAY 07: A song for the day
So, when I read over this list before actually committing to do it, I thought the song I would pick would be one by The Zolas off their new album Ancient Mars, because that is what I had been listening to in my car lately. So it came down to two of those songs: Observatory and Local Swan. Observatory has a line that directly relates to me ("I want to read your book, but I don't want to break the spine...") but Local Swan is always the one that is stuck in my head when I get out of the car, even if it wasn't the last song to play ("When all your lights are starry blurs, will you remember me? When all your friends are photographers, will you remember me?")... So I picked Local Swan, but you should listen to Observatory too if you like this one..
BUT THEN, I popped in my iPod after bringing in the Zolas CD to put onto iTunes (yes, I am still one of those people that buys actual CDs), and Ellie Goulding came up. I LOVE Ellie Goulding's voice. And I knew who she was before they started playing her on the radio here... and before she was the "wedding band" that played at Prince William and Kate Middleton's reception... This one's called Under the Sheets
AND THEN, I was looking at the songs that other people had chosen, and Dani had picked a song from Cinderella. This made me realize that if I wanted to pick a song that would make people think of me, I should pick an Alvin and the Chipmunks song. I LOVE Alvin and the Chipmunks. This one was on Chipwrecked, so it came out after my wedding reception... so it wasn't part of the game we played ;)
So I cheated and picked three songs... sue me. :)
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