10/8/12

12 Weeks and Going Strong

Oh sweet Emma, I can’t believe how big you’ve gotten.
So little baby Emma is now big baby Emma. She has officially hit the 12 week mark and is growing so fast. She holds her head so much better, although when she looks around it’s still the quick moving turns of the head. She can fit comfortable in 3-6 or 6 mos clothing. 6 mos is a bit big, but it doesn’t fall off of her so we are wearing them anyway. She’s getting to be quite the little chunker too. J

Hot topic in our household: Eating.
Emma is eating on average 36 oz per day. They say that a baby should eat 2.5 ounces of food per pound per day. I guesstimate that Emma weighs 14 pounds, so that puts her goal ounces at 35. If that rule of thumb is accurate, then we are on track. My friend Beth told me, “If she’s hungry, then let her eat.” And numerous people have told me that a baby this young can’t overeat, so I guess what we are doing is just fine.
I keep getting asked about cereal or oatmeal. I have different thoughts about this:
-          Emma is a big girl, but she doesn’t seem to be eating more than 4oz at a time (except 7am feeding). We’ve tried to do 6oz, to see if she will go from eating every 2 hours to every 3 or 4, but any more than 4oz and she yacks it all up. 4oz is the perfect amount for her I guess. If she ate her 4oz, and then was hungry 30 minutes later I’d start her on solids. *I did think about doing solids for her 7am feeding, but I cannot firmly decide one way or the other. Without a firm decision I will not say yes.
-          You’re probably saying that giving her cereal will help to stretch her time in between meals. However, I read that this is a myth. That solids do not affect time between feedings, or sleep time until they are 6mos and can start to get the “goods” from it. I actually read this a few places, not just one, so I’m thinking it may have some truth behind it.
-          My Mom has Celiac disease. If you’ve not heard of it, it is a gluten intolerance that 90% of the time is from overeating of gluten (wheat) or from introduction to gluten at a very early age. While rice is naturally gluten-free I am still very skeptical of introducing any grains to Emma. I mean, did anyone hear of Celiac 50 years ago? No, probably not. So maybe by the time Emma is grown there will be larger groups of intolerances to more grains than just wheat. I’m very grateful that the formula Em has been taking is gluten-free. J *Side note – Celiac is a GROWING disease meaning that more and more people are finding that they have it… why? Because they put wheat as a filler in almost everything!
I’ve decided to talk through all of my thoughts and concerns about food with Emma’s doctor. In my mind, what I’d like to do is wait until she is 6 mos, and when introducing, do a mixture of rice cereal and veggie (like peas or green beans – not anything sweet). I know nothing about cereal, I know nothing about babies, and I don’t have the slightest clue if I am off my rocker when it comes to all of this. All I know is that we haven’t talked to the doctor about it, and since Gene and I are novices we’ve decided to let the good doctor decide for us (within reason).
Play time:
-          I feel like I run out of things to do with Emma. Even on short nights, when I only get to interact with her for 2.5 hours I find myself out of things to do with her.  We do playmat time for about 30 minutes, crib/mobile time for about 30 minutes, and tv/swing time for about 20 minutes so Mommy can do things like wash bottles. Then what? I have no clue. I normally end up bouncing her around the room in my arms, or laying her on the floor to practice sitting and standing or even some tummy time (which she hates).
-          I like bath nights bc bathtime takes like 20 minutes. so that’s always something to do, but w do bathtime every other night.
-          I plan on going to Babies R Us to buy a “jumperoo” type thing for her to spend some time in, a bumbo seat for interacting without her flattening her head more, a sophie the giraffe and maybe some fun/interactive/learning toys. Idk. (Update: Bought Jumperoo and Walker from Craigslist, have yet to try out, but also bought Bumbo seat and Sophie.)
-          I feel like a bad mom when I get to the point to say “Now what do I do with you?”


 Out in the World:
-          Gene, Emma and I went to the Cardinals Kids Crew Party on 9/29 at Busch Stadium. While the plan was to get some autographs, I think we were too naïve about how easy it would be. We would have had to forgo some events and fun times to stand in line for over an hour for just ONE autograph. That wasn’t acceptable to me, so we skipped meeting the players to do things like go into the dugout and listen to a kids Q&A with Mike Matheny. We went with our friends Beth and Jeremiah and their son Jackson. I had a WONDERFUL time! Did I mention Emma had a pee blowout somehow in the Cardinals Team Store?!?!?! Lol.
-          Gene and I took Emma to the Taste of St. Louis in downtown STL on 9/30.  She seemed to enjoy it. At one point I think she got tired of watching only us eat so she started gnawing on her hands. Lol. I’m sure the hubs and I enjoyed it a bit more than she did, but she did tucker herself out there from looking around at everything, and she slept from the walk back to the parking garage all the way to an hour after we got home. About 2 hours. I tried to wake her as we were leaving, to see a horse, but she wasn’t having it. Lol.
 Other tid-bits:
-          My Mom watched Emma at our house on 9/29 so Gene and I could go party at Oktoberfest in St. Charles. We were gone from 4:30pm until 11pm. We had a great time, but we got home after drinking a bit too much and had to put Emma to bed. My Mom likes to have her sleep on her belly in the living room (so she can watch her), so when we got home we had to wake her, swaddle her, feed her and put her in bed. It’s hard to do after so many drinks and I was so paranoid. Crappy thing is that I passed out at 12 (midnight) and Em got me up at 3am, then 5am, then 7am. Needless to say I was hung-over and hurting.
o   OH! Did I mention that it was supposed to be my night to get plowed? But Gene did so I had to stay somewhat decent. Then, Gene has Emma duty on Sunday mornings, but on that particular Sunday he wouldn’t wake up. Huh, go figure.
o   I am so grateful though that my Mom wants to do things like that for us. It would get old never being able to go out together for drinks and partying.
-          Emma is starting to grab more. I’m not sure when they are supposed to really start grabbing for things and I find myself getting a bit perturbed at the fact that she isn’t reaching out to grab things already. It’s better now, but it’s still almost an accidental grab. I can sometimes see the wheels turning in her head (or so I think) to say “open hand, move hand forward, close hand” though.
-          Em had a case of diaper rash on her 12 week birthday. It wasn’t bad at all, but it was still red. We used Desitin at every diaper change. The reason I’m mentioning it here, is bc I thought it was so cute that she came home after Grandpa watched her, and she was COATED in it. I mean, it was globbed on! Lol. My Dad is paranoid about diaper rash so I think he thought it would be better if there was more on there. I told my Mom this morning to remind him that a little goes a long way. Lol. It was cute though.
o   Back-story: My Dad had a brother who had like 8 kids. They were probably under the poverty line. They would let the kids in diapers run around too long in the same diaper, and they would get such bad diaper rash to where they couldn’t even sit on their tush. He says that the potty scalded them. He said it broke his heart to see those kids like that… and it breaks mine to even type this out. I couldn’t even imagine seeing it. Of course I would NEVER, EVER let that happen to my Emma, but he just goes a bit over-the-top trying to make sure it doesn’t.
-          I made a free photo book from Shutterfly. It has probably 100+ pictures in there of Emma. Lol. While a lot of the pics are poor quality from my ancient iPhone 3GS, I still wanted them in a hard-cover book so that when she’s all grown-up she can have it to look at. I still am amazed at the things we can do today for our kids. J

I’m sure there’s a ton more I could talk about, but I should wrap it up and leave something for another day.

So, Happy 12 weeks Emma. I love you so unbelievably much. You made life better for your Daddy and me. J



3 comments:

  1. You and Emma will love the jumparoo!!!!

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  2. Love the jeans and hoodie outfit! Matt does the same thing with Destin. AR didn't like carrots plain but I mixed it with her cereal and she seemed to take it better. Happy 12 Weeks Emma, you're getting so big!

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  3. If you are nervous about introducing grains, try waiting until month 5 and just start with sweet potato!

    I love all her little outfits. She is so adorable.

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