New Roof

We're in the process of getting a new roof.

We figured it would be noisy but we really had no idea. The whole house shakes and it makes a ton of noise. I was sure she wouldn't be able to nap at all. But I was completely wrong.

All the noise seemed to lull her to sleep.


They're done for the day now and I put her down for another nap. She seemed to have more trouble going to sleep now that they're gone.
JR thinks I should blast some death metal to make some noise for her :-)

Videos and Pictures

I'm super excited that I can get her to smile for pictures now!

Beep! Beep!


We're going to have to break this driving while using the cell phone habit early.


She thought JR throwing this ring in the air was hilarious!


So then he juggled for her!

Random Baby Stuff

We tried Raspberries today. She was not a fan. Eventually she started spitting them out as soon as she tasted them, rather than waiting for the tart taste to get her.







She smiles really big at us every night when we zip her into her sleep sack. I don't know if she likes the noise or if she really likes going to bed but it's adorable.


I went to the Kid's Consignment sale at church today. It was really well organized. I got a bunch of outfits.


And a stand up toy that converts to a rider.



And since she can sit up in the cart now, and it was pretty cold today she wore this adorable snow suit when we went to the store.


And I took some cute pictures of a few of her diapers.

Locomotion, or the lack thereof

Kaida is doing very well with some of her finer motor skills, and according to the milestones chart on BabyCenter.com she's a little ahead for some things.
They expect them to master picking things up with the pincer grasp at 10 months and I would say she's nearly mastered that (at least with puffs, she doesn't seem to like to touch smushy foods like the grapes or raspberries).
she's been passing toys from one hand to the other for more than a month and that's an eight month thing.

But for the larger motor skills she seems to almost have stalled out. She got sitting and then standing while holding onto something super fast but she seems pretty content with that. She'll lean forward onto her hands but she has puny little t-rex arms that won't support her weight for more than a couple seconds. I read an article about crawling on BabyCenter and it said something along the lines of once they master sitting it's a short developmental step to crawling. But she's been sitting pretty well for 2 months now. So it seems like a very long time to wait. Crawling doesn't seem to interest her at all so we'll see how it goes.

This week she started pulling on her table and she can get to her knees or one knee and one foot. If we help she can get the rest of the way to standing. I kind of think she doesn't know that all she has to do is push harder with her legs. She thinks it's all in the arms since that's how we've always helped her up to standing, by lifting her with her arms.




She gets so excited when she pulls herself up. She babbles like crazy once she gets up. The funniest part is she doesn't know how to get back down. Sometimes she falls backward and it works out, other times it doesn't. And sometimes she just slides down the edge of the table and lands in her box of toys.



That right foot has an annoying habit of trying to get away from her.

Baby Safety

Our little Dragon playing with her little dragon.

It was baby safety weekend at Casa de Hagy.

Seven short months ago we put in our very first safety item, the cat door to the basement. Dad, Matt, and JR installed that the day after we came home from the hospital. With it we can keep the basement door shut but the cats can still get downstairs to use the litterboxes.

Since then we haven't done much. But now that she looks like she's going to go mobile pretty soon, safety has come to the front of my mind.

When I was at the little Babies R Us by the mall earlier this week I noticed the fireplace guards were on sale. The prices were $28 for the fireplace guard and $17 for a table guard. It seemed expensive so I skipped buying them until we could go to the big Babies R Us and look at everything all at once.

I'm glad I did. JR had an idea to stop at Vater's to see if they had pipe insulation that we could use for the fireplace instead. We bought some and it worked out great. They also had a cord cover for the nursery camera (which amazon had for $22 and Target had for $29). Our total was $5 and some change. So we saved $45+ just by using our noggins!


It's a good thing we saved that, though, since baby gates are expensive. We bought a portable gate that we are planning to use at the top of the stairs, or where ever we need it, and a hinged gate for the bottom of the stairs. With the stairs being front and center in the living room I decided it's better to be safe than sorry. Especially since I leave her in the living room sometimes while I'm in the kitchen. And since I leave her in the nursery while I clean her diapers a gate for the top of the stairs seemed like a good idea. I hear they can get into trouble pretty quick while you're not looking.

Installation of the hinged gate was quite the adventure. We bought one that can attach to a banister since that's what we have. It was a bit of trial and error but we ended up pretty much abandoning the banister attachments. It's mounted to the wall and locks shut with the carabeener from JR's rock climbing gear. There was probably a cheaper way to do it but we've decided to stick with this one since it's installed.


To top off our safety tour we bought outlet covers for the downstairs and the accessible areas upstairs, and corner guards for the coffee table. The table is pretty pointy and right next to where she plays. My hope is that this way, if she falls, it will be just a glancing blow rather than a skull fracture with brains oozing out.


Next all we need to do is lower her mattress in the crib. But since she can't sit up by herself yet I'm waiting on that one as long as possible. For the health of my back. And so I can keep leaning in to give her kisses. :-)

Now she can go mobile anytime she wants.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

We had lots of fun outfits to wear for St. Patrick's Day.

Lucky Jammies


Daddy's Lucky Charm


Sweater made by Grandma Metzger
It was warm out so we took a walk!


Cord Blood donation t-shirt

Dance! Dance! Daaaaaaance!

Kaida dances a little to the music of her table. She was being a little more vigorous than this but she's a bit camera shy.



Pretty good for someone who can barely stand up!

Baby News

Kaida has a nasty rash. So she's using a zinc oxide rash cream and wearing disposable diapers so we don't ruin the cloth.

She woke up last night at 11 and had a lot of trouble getting back to sleep. Today she started drooling a ridiculous amount and gnawing on Sophie like she was the first meal she's seen in a week. All signs point to teeth, except, of course, for the lack of teeth. I guess we wait and see.

She's started army crawling with a lot of help from us. I'm not sure she even understands that she's supposed to do it without us helping her yet.
*update since I started writing this earlier today*
Now she tries to do it without us but she still needs something to push her foot against. Next we'll try teaching her to use her feet and knees more to push herself forward. I think she's excited to start moving around on her own.
*End update*

We're up to two meals a day of solid foods. We dropped the early evening nursing session. She seems to be a fruit-etarian. She'll hold her mouth clamped shut and if you do manage to get a green vegetable past her defenses she starts blowing raspberries until her mouth is empty. She's a little better with squash and carrots. She started eating the bigger puffs. They're easier to get into her mouth but harder to eat 'cause they don't fit all at once.

Tonic will let Kaida do anything to him.


Belly rubs?


Oooh a tail!


Hmm? It's not stretchy enough to reach my mouth.


Bye Bye Kitty!


Trying on Daddy's backpack. I bet it weighs more than she does.


I don't know if Redford will use any of the pictures of Kaida for the ads but this is the one we liked best. They sent us an 8x10 of it.

We had a pretty big weekend

We went up to Buffalo this weekend. JR and I went to the CSH 35th anniversary party at RIT and we enjoyed the free lodging and babysitting available in Buffalo.

While we were at the party Kaida stayed with Grammy and Poppy and even Poppy by himself for a little while. They even had to feed her solid food.
I'm told:
She wasn't very hungry.
She really likes Les Mis (it was on PBS).
And she wouldn't go to sleep. But she did that to us the night before so it's not too surprising. I think she was just wondering why she wasn't in her crib in her nursery.

On Sunday we all went back to Rochester for a lunch on Sunday. It seems like we weren't the only ones who decided to bring our kids with us.

Photo by Bec Baxter

I told Kaida that this is where Daddy went to school and she could come here if she wanted. She just has to pay for it herself.

I had fun and so did JR and Kaida loves to see people so I'm sure she did too.

The sippy Cup debacle.
Who knew finding a sippy cup was so hard?
We have two sippy cups that we've had since before she was born. One doesn't have a valve at all so if you tip it the liquid will drip out. She doesn't like this one. I think it's because she doesn't expect to get anything out of it without doing any work and then all of a sudden there's water in her mouth.

The other one has a valve but I can barely get anything out of it if I suck as hard as I'm able. So yeah, she hasn't been successful with that one.

I bought another one that's supposed to be a good transition sippy. We couldn't figure out how to make it work for quite a while. But it's like a boob, you need to use compression toward the base of the spout and suck at the same time. I don't think she's gotten anything out of that one either.

So I bought another kind that came in a two pack. These seem really good. At least I can get something out of it. Now we just need her to actually be interested in drinking something. But we won't start juice until 8 months so I'm not worried about rushing her.

Story Time
We finally made it to story time this week. Third time's a charm! I wasn't showered and I hadn't eaten but we made it! The last couple times she's woken up too late or too early so that her naps don't line up. Either she would need to go down while we're there or she wouldn't wake up until we're supposed to be on our way.
But it was fun and she was very good. We sang some songs and recited nursery rhymes. Then the librarian read a story and we did some more songs and nursery rhymes. She mostly just watched. She didn't even really look at the book at all while it was being read but I can't blame her, everything else was very interesting. She loves watching other kids. And some of them thought she was pretty interesting.
At the end she put some toys out so we watched the bigger kids play with them.
When we got home she was very talkative so that's always fun.
The librarian said that next week is the last story time in this session and the next session won't start until May. So that's a little lame. But maybe by May she'll be more interested.

Playing with my new toy


Looking at Daddy 'cause he called my name.


Waiting for the Doctor and playing with Daddy and Dragon.


JR took this video on our way home from Evansville. She learned to scream over that weekend and spent a good portion of the trip home perfecting her technique.

That's a lot of Poop and other news.

This baby seems to be pooping out more than I'm putting in. It's ridiculous!

Yesterday I took her up to change her and as I started to take her diaper off she started pooping more! I guess it's just more dramatic since it's like real poop now.

The good news is that this new solid food poop pretty much just rolls off the diaper. We typically only need to spray to get off little remnants. Prune poop excluded.

She picked up a gerber puff yesterday and managed to get it in her mouth. She's ben close again several times since then but they stick to her hands so they don't stay in her mouth once she gets them there.

I bought her a toy at Target yesterday. It's a table to stand and play at. There's a book, a piano, a computer, and a phone all with buttons to push. She likes it but when she's standing she has to hold on and focus on that and she couldn't play with the toys. So we took the legs off and it's a sitting toy for now. I felt like she needed something a little more stimulating than a rattle or a ring stacker and a little more interactive than the TV. I think I made a good choice.

I think we'll move the swing out of the living room since she doesn't use it anymore. Hopefully that will make a little more room for this toy. Luckily it's not too big.

Eating

Learning how to eat has been an adventure.

She's starting to catch on that she needs to open her mouth for me to put the spoon in. I usually say "Ahhh" until she opens her mouth ('cause she smiles and thinks that's funny) then once I pop the spoon in and deposit the food I say "mmm nom nom". So all together it's "Om nom nom" with a really long Om.

The thicker foods are definitely easier to feed her. But she sometimes acts like a mouthful of thick cereal tastes horrible and is killing her. If it's a really thin food, like pears, she just slurps it off the spoon. And then it ends up all over her.

The prunes were ridiculous. I try to do everything for three days since the Dr. said wait three days between new foods. So she has a new food for three days straight. But not the prunes. For some reason they were everywhere. And super sticky. And they stain. It was pretty horrible. And the diapers weren't a walk in the park either. So we only did two days of prunes.

She's had the Gerber puffs. At first she just drooled them back out. Then I put one on my finger and put it in her mouth. Since she always chews on my finger she just started chewing and now she understands how to do it.

A couple days ago she started crying the entire time I was feeding her. Actual tears. I got a couple suggestions on facebook and decided to giver her her own spoon to hold while I feed her. That seemed to do the trick.

Today I tried mixing her cereal with formula. That way I don't have to use my stored breastmilk up for cereal.

The math goes like this:

1.5 oz. breastmilk per serving of cereal x 2 servings a day =

3 oz. for ceral
+ 2 ounce bottle in the evening before bed
-----
5 ounces breastmilk per day.

I only pump 4 ounces a day so it doesn't work out.

But the formula went over like a lead balloon. She started gagging. She sometimes does that when the texture isn't what she expected but she kept gagging over and over again. I don't blame her, it smelled atrocious. I didn't even want what she wouldn't eat sitting near me on the table.
I ended up mixing a new batch with water that she ate without complaint.
I'd prefer she have the calories but I don't think I'm going to fight her on it. We'll do water for now and if I end up having a lot of extra expressed milk we'll use it in the cereal.

She's getting pretty good at standing by herself.



Today she seemed to grasp the concept of the army crawl (we arrange her arms and legs and then she pushes to make herself move). And she also started rocking forward onto her hands. So we'll see if she decides to crawl at some point in the near future.

She's doing everything out of order but whatever.