(or at least tried to before I intervened)
We had a fun day in the yard!
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| From Best of April |
Geneveve has her first ear infection and is being a trooper.
I have updates on her but it will have to wait as i have broken my finger! So don’t expect lengthy emails or letters for awhile.
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| From Starred Photos |
But life is good despite these bumps. She’s crawling quickly now and pulling up to standing easily. She loves avocados and potatoes. She thinks sneezing and laughing is hilarious. She is fascinated by beards and arm hair. She loves to splash in water. She still hates long car rides. She’s very friendly and will greet other babies or crawl in other moms laps. She’s into tunnels and finding tight spaces to squeeze through. She loves music (except jazz, but is tolerating it more) and is babbling more every day. She’s awesome at blowing raspberries. And I think that first tooth is coming through right now but she won’t let me feel for it!
It’s hard to believe that Geneveve is 5 months already!
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| From December |
The first month was a haze and last 4 just get better every day. I love watching her personality emerge.
She definitely knows what she wants when she wants.
I look forward to doing sign language with her because it will hopefully curb any communication frustrations that seem to be so common.
She used to put her hand to her mouth when she was hungry but now her hand is always in her mouth since she is starting the teething journey (and it’s fun to suck on fingers anyways)
Her newest adventures include sitting up on her own, sucking her thumb, being more conscious about reaching and grabbing things. She loves to hold my water bottle and suck on the rim, pretending to drink from it. She must see me drink out of that water bottle a million times a day, I wonder what she makes of it all. She reaches for food on my plate and the other day I gave her a pickle to hold and it immediately went into her mouth (as that is the destination of anything she can get a hold of). We’ve been holding frozen green beans to her mouth lately for teething pain and she really likes to nom on those. The pickle she enjoyed more than I thought. The cold of the pickle felt good but the flavor must have been interesting for her to experience. She nom’d on it a little but didn’t eat it, thank goodness! I am NOT ready for solids. nor crawling. nor walking. nor talking.
She’s developing such a sweet voice, sometimes she makes these little coos and other times she’ll go through all her vowels and some consanants. She likes to play with volume and pitch and is starting to babble to herself more.
At Christmastime we broke out the Johnny Jumper since that’s her favorite activity in our arms: jumping. This girl has Strong legs.
She’s now doing a complete upward dog pose (from the earlier cobra) and is doing the crawling motions with her legs but I don’t think she’s there yet in core strength and her arms sometimes get caught under her if she pushes forward with her legs. But she definitely understands the process and is working towards it.
I think it’s because she hangs out with the older kids at play group-most of them are already crawling and pulling themselves up to standing.
At her 4 month appointment we were told she has the strength of a 7 month old and I believe it.
She is very alert when awake, happy to share a smile and the giggles are a daily occurance (though we still have to work for them-she loves getting her feet kissed)
She loves playing airplane. She loves socializing and taking walks.
She reaches out for Ubu now and will happily pet her and is generally fascinated with everything dog.
She still is not a fan of falling asleep, naps or the carseat.
And she loves to reach out for the keyboard and I think she’s sent some emails and deleted files already. I don’t know how she pushes a few buttons and closes the browser and is opening windows!
She had her first Christmas at home and loved touching the tree and pulling on the lights. By far her favorite gift is the wrapping paper. Crinkly! Marty and Jan made the drive out for the weekend and got to have some baby time.
I try to take her to mom’s groups when it doesn’t interfere with morning naps (which has been the case lately) and she is Loving book babies at the library. It’s a free weekly group where you sing songs with your babies and there’s movement involved followed by some playtime. She loves songs!
Our next journey: road trip to Northern California to see some family.
My poor blog, once the baby decides to nap without me and longer than 20 minutes, I’ll be able to share our family’s adventures. For now, stay posted to our pictures here and facebook if you got it. But for now, I will share the most exciting news that may be unbelievable to some, a miracle to others, and just plain human nature to others.
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| From 11 – Geneveve 3 months |
My baby uses the potty!
I’ve been interested in this since before we had her and Matt supported the idea when we talked about how many diapers a day a baby goes through (about 10-12 for newborns…that’s over 100 a month!) Luckily for the environment and our baby’s bottom we use cloth and it is not much more work than disposables but that’s a completely different post. I started offering Geneveve the potty when she was about 9 weeks old, when I started to feel human and we were on our own during the day so I could pay close attention to her signs. She tends to pee upon waking and before nursing. So at first I only caught the waking pees but then she started doing a little different sort of fussy dance or sounds when in the Moby to let us know. At 3.5 months we’ve started offering her the sign for toilet (I know it’s early, signing “should” start at 6 months, but why not?)
We’re not the only ones out there, either. It’s called Elimination Communication by many, but it bases the idea that babies are born with body awareness and not wanting to soil themselves. A lot of cultures around the world practice this and it’s not a phenomenon there. When we were in China, all kids had split pants and no diapers, even in winter. If a toddler had to pee they just squatted wherever they were and did it. It helps to have dirt floors and live in the country where I observed it. But you don’t have to have dirt floors. I feel like my communication skills with Genveveve are only getting better. Now she wakes up between 7 and 8am most days with a fart that precedes a poop but some days she just smacks me with her arm and looks at me with her big eyes that are like “Bladder full. Potty now.” And she holds it until I get the potty ready and her in position.
It only took her a few days to get the concept and she started giving me a sign or fuss and most times would hold it until we got to the potty. I make a psst sound and sing her the same song and after a month, she’s now smiling and singing along with me in her babbling way. It’s Very cute (and we use less diapers and she’s spending little to no time in a dirty diaper which leads to a happier baby). When we first started I’d get about 3-5 pees a day but after a week it was more like 7-10. I think now she’s holding her bladder more and there’s more in the potty than before. It’s very impressive and fun and do-able! I know there are EC support groups and websites and books out there, like Diaper-Free Baby and Diaper Free. I just read a little online and talked to some people and have been winging it.
Luckily, Geneveve is pretty good natured and usually only fusses for a reason. Being able to offer her the potty reduces frustration on everyone’s part and since we have a cue sound and song, she has now peed in the woods! and in public bathrooms (I hold her over the toilet) which is helping with her ability to pee immediately upon being buckled in the carseat. Now we can offer her the potty before going in the car. All in all, it’s win-win. I don’t expect to get her on the potty every time at this point but I still think it’s pretty amazing that she’s not even 4 months and most of the time she’s using the potty. We bought a Baby Bjorn potty second hand at a consignment store and have it in the living room. Sometimes she’ll just look in that direction and I’ll know she wants to sit on it. Plus, it’s a high vantage point for watching the dog and we get to sing together.
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I’m sure most of you know, but haven’t seen our latest news. We’re growing a baby! Hence the lack of blogging and general keeping in touch but I thought I’d share a picture of my bump.