magnificentbliss

MANY FIRSTS… first thanksgiving, first time eating a ‘puff’ without gagging, first time eating chicken {gagged, of course} and the first realization that crawling forward is so much easier than scooting backwards.

wren caught her first cold and naturally came the discovery and thrill of all things associated – the panda humidifier, nasal aspirator, sucking on sweet clementines, waking up at the bottom of a propped mattress, sometimes upside down face first into the bumper {horrible, but funny!}. the top two photos are from thanksgiving. she was so happy to have daddy home that morning. i bought her the most adorable outfit for thanksgiving and completely forgot to take a picture. i also had plans of dressing her like a pilgrim but managed to forget about that too amid the last minute scurry to get food prepared for thanksgiving dinner.

moving forward…

9 months :: watch out belly from kristin sanchez on Vimeo.

AS EACH MONTH COMES AND GOES, i’m have a harder time recording every milestone, not because i’ve lost interest, i just don’t have the time to sit down to write much anymore. i’m now chasing after a baby who is into EVERYTHING. earlier in the year while she was still in need of a tight swaddle and nursing every other hour, this point in wren’s development {having teeth, laughing hysterically, screaming ‘DADAAAA’ for Tommy, dancing, crawling} seemed like centuries away.

baby girl is getting big – her tummy is big, her legs are big, her personality is huge {strangers are no danger, she sees them as an opportunity to smile and point her little finger at them}. if a movie was made about her, the narrator would open the trailer with: “those thighs…that sass…” as her squishy baby thighs are pulled across the floor while her arms do all the work.

and the adorable little bunny teeth finally came in. no pictures yet because she won’t open her mouth wide enough or long enough to grab a shot. little booger! the two weeks of teething was exhausting. up throughout the night, the drool, face rash, hourly diaper changes…oh, did that feel like the early days all over again. and one afternoon BEHOLD two shiny teeth. then she proceeded to bite my finger, cutting the skin. and that’s when nursing became terrifying. not so much now…she knows better than to bite. good girl!

finally, a video just for gamma {or anyone else who might care}…a display of her upper body strength:

8 months: upper body strength, part I from kristin sanchez on Vimeo.

IS PUSHING ONESELF BACKWARDS across the floor considered crawling? maybe not, but she’s moving, and getting stuck. she’s also been doing jazzhands and finger pistols. something tells me she’ll always be the life of the party. tomorrow marks wren’s 8th month — eight months of making us laugh really, really hard.

EVERYONE SAYS THAT MONTH SIX IS MAGICAL it was! it really was. virtually overnight this huge personality exploded from this little baby girl – laughing, squealing, babbling, cooing, interacting more than ever before. she even said her first word ‘keee’ {kitty}. her obsession with the cat is growing, along with anything else on four legs. whenever belle would come into the room we’d point her out and say ‘kitty’. even though she hasn’t said mama or dada, she’d search for one of us if we asked her ‘where’s mamma/dadda’. one evening tommy sat on the bed and i stood in the doorway talking to him while holding wren. the cat came into the room, jumped on the bed and wren popped out a loud ‘keee!’. we just sort of looked at one another and i think i said ‘did that really happen?’, our same reaction when she had her first hysterical laugh. developmental milestones don’t seem like such a big deal when you hear other people talk about their kids, but once you experience it yourself with your own little one, it’s the most amazing *floating in air* feeling.

eating solids is her new part-time job {and feeding her is practically my full-time job}. checked off the list of first foods, she loved everything: carrots, sweet potatoes, peas, squash of every kind, apples, bananas, avocados, peaches, and pears. the one and only bummer to the month was finding out during her six month check-up that she hadn’t gained any weight in two months and that she dropped from 25th to the 3rd percentile. up until this point she was exclusively breastfed with the exception of rice cereal. so one of two things had happened, either my milk supply dropped for some unknown reason or she started to wean herself and i hadn’t noticed, causing my supply to diminish. we started supplementing with formula and a follow-up appointment a month later showed that she gained 3 pounds, back on track. so now, not only am i still breastfeeding but also supplementing with formula AND feeding solids. was i ever so confused trying to figure out this new feeding schedule, and the new nap schedule because of the new feeding schedule, and when to leave the house in between it all {do i pack a bottle, and a jar of baby food, spoon, bib, the nursing cover, oy!?}. it took a month to get the hang of it, and yes it is a lot of work but it’s for the best.

a few other highlights from the month: she can sit up for longer periods of time before collapsing head first from exhaustion, still hates tummy time, no tooth yet but lots of biting, drooling and gummy puffiness. loves to give us hugs {by grabbing our neck} and kisses {by sucking on our cheek or neck}.

half of her first year is over. my goodness. it’s gone. time stood still those first weeks with her, but now we can’t slow it down and our time with her feels like water in our hands slipping between our fingers. every moment counts. we love her so much *happy sigh*