Portland's Newest Foodie

Looks like the third time's a charm! After the first two hilarious but disappointing food adventures, Lucy has discovered that she loves to eat. So far oatmeal and baked sweet potato get a big thumbs up. Carrots weren't really her cup of tea, but she says she's really looking forward to trying some mashed up bananas.

So we take it all back, Lucy loves food. Now that she gets from her mama!

 

 

Friday Cute Shot

Six Months

Dear Lucy,

Six months has gone by incredibly fast. I love you more than I thought possible in that first long month after you were born, when you were crying and not eating and I was sure that I had birthed the unhappiest baby on the planet.

Here are some of my favorite things about you right now:

• You sleep in a blue hooded puffy sleep sack that I found at the thrift store, and when you're ready for naps we put you in your crib and you turn your head to the side and arch your back slightly and burrow in for sleep. You're so long for your age that your legs were starting to get crumpled up in the sack, but we couldn't find another, so I ripped out the seams at the bottom and sewed it back up open, and now your little stockinged feet stick out at the end.
• Now that you're older and at less risk for suffocation, we have a couple of stuffed animals in your crib with you. One of them is a very soft lamb with a little rattle inside, and sometimes when you're having trouble falling asleep or have just woken up, we can hear the little rattle coming from your room as you shake the lamb up and down for comfort or amusement. I love that sound.
• We go on walks every evening to help fill in the long stretch between your last nap of the day and bedtime, and you love love love those walks. You get a little fussy as we're bundling you up in your quilted red jumpsuit, but once you get strapped on to one of us and we step outside, your little arms and legs start pumping and you're ready to go. You squeal and coo and smile at people passing by, and you love the strong wind in your face.
• Peekaboo! You love to play peekaboo, especially when I hide behind doorjambs or beneath the rim of the bathtub, and then you wait for me, and then I pop out or up and you laugh and laugh.
• Lately you've learned how to give us kisses. You'll reach out to grab cheeks or hair, pull my face to yours and plant a big, wet, open-mouthed kiss right on my cheek, and then look at me and smile.
  
• You make the happiest face when I walk in the door after a day at work, or when your daddy brings you down to my "office" in the basement for a visit when I'm working from home.
• The look of anticipation on your face just before I get to the tickle punchline of jokes/songs that we've been playing for months. 
• Snuggling with you before bedtime, when you're clean from your bath and bundled up in pajamas, and single-mindedly searching for your mama's arms and breast so you can nurse yourself to sleep.
  
• Your one-sided dimple, which will probably be forever on this list.

When you were about 3 weeks old and we were still in the thick of it, your dad asked me if I liked being a mom (because he so obviously loved being a dad). I was confused by the question, and completely overwhelmed. It was taking everything in me to just be a mom at that point; wasn't it enough that I was doing it, and wasn't it a little too much to ask that I enjoy it too?

But Lu, in these months where your smiles light up a room and your giggles and squeals get happy looks at restaurants and your bottom lip curls up when you're angry and you snuggle in to my neck when you're tired or sad, I can happily say that I love being your mama.

Happy six months, my love!

Love,
Mama

On the Difference Between Fruit and Celestial Beings

Shaggy: She kind of looks like an astronaut. Too bad we don't have a moon blanket.
Amber: Well, the one behind her has stars on it . . .
Shaggy: Those are pears.
Amber: No, the other blanket.
Shaggy: Oh.

First Foods, Part 2: Hello, Oatmeal!

I think we might be breaking the rules already, since we're only supposed to introduce one food every couple of days to see how she reacts to it from an allergy perspective, but I'm justifying it to myself by being positive that none of that avocado from Friday got anywhere past the roof of her mouth.

Plus, we were pretty eager to see if a more traditional first food would better suit her palate, since the avocado was such a bust. (Spoiler alert: It didn't.)

So food number two was Gerber's Organic Baby Oatmeal mixed with breastmilk. Lucy had a variety of reactions to this concoction, including:

"What you talking 'bout, Oatmeal?"

"We don't need no stinkin' oatmeal!"

"Et tu, oatmeal?"

The box of oatmeal was careful to warn us that it can take a baby 10 to 15 tries to warm up to certain foods, so we'll keep going with this oatmeal thing for the next couple of days, and if she still makes these faces we might try a box of rice cereal.