9 Months

In 3 months baby will be a year. Wow. I'm finding myself saying "I miss being pregnant."

But am always quick to add, "NOT the newborn stage yet, though!!"

(Anyone who had a newborn that slept and doesn't understand what I mean just needs to slowly move away from the comment button!!)

So, nine month stats:

She weighs 14lbs, 12(ish) oz. (That's 2nd percentile!)

No clue how tall, just that she's too long for her 6 month pants.

The 24 oz of solids a day has finally calmed down. We're down to 12-15 oz a day.

She fits some 3-6 mo clothes yet (mainly because I'm not ready to pack them away) and 6-9 fits her, but are generally very loose in the waist region.

She CAN sit up and did for two whole days. She must have re-set herself the second night, though, as she is back to refusing to sit up.

She can't crawl, just does this:

(She's lucky she doesn't have carpet burn on her face!)

She loves doing this:

Is horribly afraid of this:

And her newest trick is this:

As far as baby sign language goes, she recognizes the sign for "nurse" (and did it in her sleep once), can do "more" and "all done"- but I'm pretty sure she has them mixed up.

She'll do "yea" again when she feels like it, loves giving me her phone for me to talk on it and squeals with delight at pictures/videos of babies (especially if they are of HER-little narcissist).

Oh, and if I put my phone on speaker-phone, she goes nuts jabbering (especially if it's daddy)! SO cute!

Baby Cabin Fever

Looks like it will turn into a Spring Cleaning as well...

Typical Tuesday

Time for class participation folks!

The other day I almost got in a car accident. Long story short, a kid was texting while driving. When I re-told the story the immediate response was, "Did you honk?" My answer was a resounding,

"Heck yes!"

However, the car next to me, who this kid also almost hit- didn't. My assumption was that his horn was broken. I mean, hello!- the kid made a left-turn into oncoming traffic without seeing the two lanes of cars coming right at him! Who wouldn't honk?! That's what the horn is for, right? To tell the car ahead of you to go when the light is green, and to tell someone who almost hits you that they almost hit you and it was their fault!

Right?

Anyway, I'm still trying to figure out WHY the guy next to me didn't honk. When is it appropriate to honk? And if the answer isn't the same, when do you personally use the horn?

Allergy/Planning Update

I thought I'd update how the whole food intolerance thing is going.

For future reference.

You know,
for when I need to slather some guilt on the child.
I don't want such details to get foggy!

Just a recap-
We were dairy/soy/beef/tomato/chocolate free.

When chocolate returned, I think I might have over-indulged. Just a bit. Gaining 5 lbs in a week is considered just "a bit" right?

When tomato returned I lived off Jer's spaghetti sauce for a week. When we ran out of noodles, I just ate it like a soup. Yes, it is that good.

When soy returned- oh, how the possibilities (and my waist) expanded.

We're still dairy and beef free. She's allergic to cows. Which is funny, considering how much she makes me feel like one.

Anyway, people have asked me many questions. Some more frustrating than others.

"Wait! Don't eat that- it has bacon...can you have bacon?"

(Um...as in cow bacon?...)

"This has (insert 10 non-dairy ingredients). Can you have it?"

(Well, like I just said- just dairy and beef...so yes.)

"Can you have olive oil?"

"What about garlic?"

????

I'm not sure what the thought process is, and I know everyone is just trying to be helpful, but seriously- is the category "dairy" that unknown? Do people really think things like olive oil and garlic are dairy?

People (especially fellow mothers of food-intolerant babies) have also asked me how I know what bothers her.

It's simple, really.

I'm either taking care of this child all day:

or this one:

On the planning front:

Back in April I had these "plans":

Have the baby before we move- yep, made it by 12 days.

Find an apartment for $550 a month (or less???)- um...kind of. $575 but got $700 worth of new furniture we were planning on purchasing anyway...

Babysit, waitress and tutor to replace teaching- Well...tutoring is going well. Certainly doesn't replace teaching, but $120-180/week for 4-6 hrs of work ain't bad, right? Shaklee is certainly getting there too!

Become certified to teach NFP- Let's see if we can make it the first year postpartum without getting pregnant again and then we'll revisit this goal, k? Not that it isn't working, so much as I'm not as diligent as I was pre-pregnancy.

New plans!

1) Be debt-free by Dec '11 (currently in the red 75K. 100% SallieMae--BLAH! Not sure how this is going to happen, considering we currently don't make that much in 3 years- so let's maybe re-label this as a wish?)

2) Hold off on baby #2 until debt free

God, I'd love it if your sense of humor made #1 happen sooner. Thanks!

Also, happy 1-year of blogging to me!

Now THIS is commitment

We've known each other since 5th grade.

Killed thousands of trees passing notes.
We had a 1/8 chance of having all girls- and succeeded.
We are...the babymakers!

January '09
(1st, 2nd, 3rd trimesters)
August '09
(1, 3, 6 months old)
January '10
(6, 8, 11 months old)
to be continued...

Sneaky Saturdays

Today's post is number two in the seven week series of Seven Sneaky Secrets Vitamin companies hope you never find out:

Secret Number 2 The Big Switch

Slightly similar to last week's post...
Underhanded companies switch the recommended milligrams down to micrograms. It takes 1000 micrograms to equal 1 milligram. These companies hope you are not too smart and not too observant.

If an expensive ingredient is on the label, the consumer assumes that the proper amount is in the bottle. Just having the name of the ingredient on the label drives the price up, even if there is not enough in the bottle to do anything.

For example, companies loudly tout that they have lutein in their formulas to help vision. They quote the scientific studies, but fail to mention that the studies were based on 6 milligrams, which is 10 times more than the 600 micrograms they use in their formulas.

Shaklee does not participate in the big switch. Their nutritional products are based on solid science, not on marketing hype. The amounts on the label are at the proper amounts for you to see health results.

Anything you can do I can't do better...

I've been quite frustrated with my camera recently. I see all these blogs with awesome shots taken and I think, "Wow, I wish my camera could do that." Then I get frustrated- we invested a good $200 in the camera this summer to be able to take (and store) photos of our new addition.

It's a Canon Powershot A1000is. It has lots of buttons and settings. I was so sure I'd have all these fancy photos- never needing to invest in a professional photographer. I even read a book by a famous local photographer, learning such sophisticated things as "rule of thirds" and what all the buttons and setting on the camera do.

Eight months later... my pictures...to be honest? They stink.

Seriously.
The camera may as well have one setting- "Auto"

I mean, who really has the time (or brain power) to flip the camera to the appropriate setting?

When baby is doing something cute, if I have time to grab the camera without her seeing me and then turn it on without her hearing it and then point it at her while cuteness is still in action- I call myself lucky.

So when baby decided to sit up AND play for the first time the other day (the combo is the key here) I grabbed the camera. She saw the infamous red light and ignored it- woohoo! Time for me to try and get creative.

Hm...which setting should I use? Wait- what do all these mean again?

What's this camera with a heart in it? Or the guy standing next to the letter A suppose to be? And the capital P? That's stands for "Picture", right? Then what are all the other ones?
ARG!

After 5 minutes, this was the extent of my abilities:

Flash off:

Flash on:

Or, check out these two talents combined:

Flash off:

Flash on AND camera rotated!:

Pathetic, right? You can see why I was so frustrated with the camera. "This stupid flash washes everything out!" I complained to my 8-month-old, who dutifully ignored me.

Later that same day I took the same child and same camera to my parent's place, where Amanda, my 14-year-old sister was chilling. I showed her Samantha's newest talent of being cute AND sitting up. I sighed and decided to take a couple of shots of them chatting with my pathetic camera:

Amanda's ignorance radar must of been triggered and after giving me this look

She took hold of the reigns.

After a couple of clicks she laughs and says, "HaHA! I love this! Check it out"

What the...?How'd she...?

I check the camera to see what magical setting combo she used...Hm...same I was using...surely it was a fluke...I mean, I knew she was talented...

How is she doing this?!?
I can't take these kinds of shots when I'm LOOKING into the camera...

*Sigh*

I did manage to take some better-ish pictures myself, but my talents don't seem to move beyond "point-and-shoot. I'd like to take the credit for these

but truth be told, they're only good because of Amanda's facial expressions...

So, obviously the problem is not with the camera...And really I should be excited to have a budding professional in the family...but the sibling rivalry in me just bubbles up to the surface wanting to scream,

"Yeah, but you can't bake, so THERE!"