It seems that I pen the same things every month but it all remains true: Time is going by in a blink! Our baby girl is growing so fast (16 lbs 4 oz now), and Greg and I just couldn’t be more proud at all she’s learned and accomplished so far. Sometimes — especially when I get nostalgic and scroll through old photos, usually late at night after Delilah has gone to bed — I want to hit pause and freeze time, to keep my squishy little babe a baby forever. And yet, simultaneously, I can’t wait to see what our little girl will do next.
She fills our days with joy and purpose and we’d do anything to see her smile and hear her laugh. (Oh man do those giggles make my heart just soar!) Parenthood isn’t always easy (as any parent knows) and our everyday is not always a picture perfect fairytale, but I have to say that overall parenting Delilah is pretty damn good and the hard moments in between just make the good ones that much sweeter. Our little bird’s favorite board book is called “Will You Be My Sunshine?” and she most certainly is that light in our life.
“I’m so glad you are my sunshine, my rainbow up above.
My bright star and moonbeam. My sweet and precious love.”
We love you, Delilah! To the moon and the stars, all the way around the sun and back again.
__________
New and notable this past month:
The biggest change is that Delilah started solids! She is great with a spoon, and prefers it actually. We’re working on picking up finger-sized pieces of food. Sometimes she’s into it, and other times not so much. There isn’t much she doesn’t like (she’s even jumped on board the avocado bandwagon!) but I’d say her favorites are yogurt, banana and sweet potato. But she also gobbled up a pea and summer squash puree I made, as well as a bowl of apple cinnamon oatmeal.
I heard about a challenge called “100 foods before 1” and it sounds like a fun goal! We’re only a month in and so far Delilah has tried 23 different foods:
- avocado
- sweet potato
- banana
- salmon
- plain yogurt
- yellow bell pepper (raw)
- carrots
- black beans
- turkey
- egg
- wheat toast
- pasta (marinara)
- summer squash
- oatmeal
- strawberry
- bolognese sauce
- peanut butter
- raspberries
- broccoli (raw)
- flank steak
- apples (granny smith)
- peas
- zucchini
She’s also experienced several different flavors and spices: lemon, lime, cinnamon, curry powder, garlic powder, paprika, turmeric, chile powder, cumin, olive oil, butter and coconut oil.
Now that she’s been introduced to food, if you eat around her and she doesn’t have something to munch on as well, she gets mad. Luckily if we’re out at a restaurant she’s pretty content with a teething wafer. She loves them and it’s good fine motor skill practice! As far as drinking out of an open cup, she is still getting the hang of it, some days she is better than others and some days she even holds onto the cup herself.
The only thing Delilah hates about mealtime is… cleanup time! She cries every time we have to wipe her hands and face. Sorry, kid, it’s just part of the deal.
And while our little eater has been teething for four months now — and it’s quite bothersome to her some days, poor thing — still no teeth!
Aside from learning how to eat, we’ve very recently introduced sign language to Delilah to hopefully give her a way to communicate her needs even before she can begin to talk. (I can already tell she understands a lot of what Greg and I say to her, particularly repetitive phrases that we use often, she just can’t really reply.) I’ve mostly been focusing on teaching signs at mealtime — signs for “more” and “water,” as well as “milk” during bottle feedings — but I’ve also incorporated the “all done” sign into playtime when it seems that she is done with a toy or game. I’ve also been trying to teach Delilah to wave hello, and there have been a couple times where it seemed like she was really trying to mimic mama’s hand movement. Other times she just grabs my hand :)
We’re still working on sitting, but we’re getting closer! Delilah’s legs and hips are tight and she likes to straighten her legs, keeping them rigid and stiff as opposed to letting them lay wide and floppy to give herself a good base. So I’m working leg stretches into our sitting practice sessions. But when her head is up and she’s looking at something at eye level, Delilah can actually sit pretty well on her own for several seconds, so I know that she’ll master sitting up soon enough. Until then she still really enjoys rolling around on the floor and playing with her toys, which is a good thing because although it looks like she really wants to crawl at times, she needs to gain more strength first. She's is excellent at pivoting though!
The only real “negative” this past month is that sleep hasn’t been great. Delilah’s been more difficult to get down and many nights she wakes up after only a few hours… or at 3 a.m. She’s been getting a lot of cuddle time in the bed because often that is the only way to get her to go back to sleep. We’re hoping this development is just due to the leap she was going through or the infamous six-month sleep regression and that she’ll revert to her normal sleeping patterns soon. The wishful thinking of naive first-time parents? Maybe. She’s still in our bedroom, but that will likely change soon after we move to a new house in July (or sooner, hopefully!).
