My Last Week

My woe is me moment:

This week is my last week as a stay-at-home mom. It is an emotional time. My wonderful husband has made it possible for me to stay home with Elliot for 6 months. I have loved every moment of these 6 months. It wasn't all sunshine and giggles, but it was memorable. That is the hardest part about going back to work, that I'm going to miss out on memories. Elliot does so many little things throughout the day that bring a smile to my face or make me laugh, and it makes me tear up even now thinking that someone else is going to see those special moments. Now I know that I will still get to see my silly baby girl and her quirks in the evening, but I still feel sad about it. I am hoping to save a lot this school year and start tutoring to earn extra money, so maybe I can stay at home again. My mom asked me, "But wouldn't you miss teaching?" Yes, I would. I would miss teaching the little kiddos how to read and how to be a good citizen, and being a part of that foundation that is their education. However, I would rather be at home with my little one and shaping her into an amazing little girl. And I know that women all over the globe make the difficult transition back to the working world, but that doesn't mean it is any easier for this little mom in her corner of the world.
It is going to be so hard to leave this face in the morning...
Looking on the bright side:

So there are some positives of our new stage of life. The pressure of getting ready for school has helped me put Elliot on a great feeding and nap schedule. Elliot will be 2 minutes from my school at an in-home daycare. She will be learning nursery rhymes and colors right along with the older kids, not just sitting in a bouncy chair all day with 16 other babies. Elliot will be well loved in a smaller (8 kids) setting. She loves other babies so I know she'll get the socialization that she needs. And best of all, I get to see the big smile on her face when I come to pick her up after school!
Something like this...
Tomorrow is Elliot's half birthday, so I'll try to get on the ball and have her 6 month pictures up this week :)

PS- We had a 5.9 earthquake today! So crazy! Tim, Elliot, and I were sitting in the office because Tim was working from home. We were chatting about the day, when all of a sudden we started to feel a slight rumble. Then out of nowhere, the ground started to move up and down and everything was shaking. My Midwestern husband put his tornado drill knowledge into action and rushed us into the bathroom (actually you're supposed to go outside). The whole thing was over in about 30 seconds. To be honest, with us living in the DC area, I thought it was a terrorist attack. Tim reassured me that it was an earthquake (who would have thought an earthquake would be the better option?!), and we turned on the news. 5 minutes later, CNN was announcing the breaking news. I cannot even imagine what a bigger one feels like! That was enough for me!

Girl's Weekend!

While the hubby is away, the girls will play! Tim went to Minnesota for a guy's weekend, so my mom came up from Florida for a girl's weekend. We had a blast! I love that when my mom comes to visit she doesn't have an agenda. She is perfectly happy hanging out at the house as long as she's with us and gets to be Nana. With that being said, we didn't just hang out at the house. My mom, Elliot, and I went for walks, baked yummy treats, drank sangria (just me and mom), bought baby girl some clothes, watched chick flicks, and chatted the nights away. Although Skype is great, you don't really get to see all the little things a baby does during the day that melts my heart. My favorite such moment was the hilarious laughing fit Elliot had when my mom started coughing!

She was also, of course, a big help around the house. My mom either took over certain household duties or entertained Elliot while I did them. Brinkley, our dog, also appreciated the extra attention from Nana! It was perfect weekend filled with lots of love! We agreed that visiting Elliot is good for her health and visit in the fall was in order :)

Sleeping Beauty

Elliot has started taking 2 great naps in her crib regularly each day! She takes a nap at 11am and 3pm, and each is around an hour. Now of course we do have some hiccups in the schedule. Elliot made a liar out of me when my friend Diana came over to scrapbook. There I was bragging about how she sleeps for around 2 hours in her crib, and baby girl decides to start screaming over the monitor after only 30 minutes of sleeping. So I guess I should say she usually takes two great naps a day. Before last week, she would only have a good nap if I held her or she was in the Bjorn. Now I have the weight of a baby off of me, two free hands, and I don't know what to do sometimes with the extra time! It's Amazing!!! I didn't think I could, but I love this little girl even more :)

Tim leaves tomorrow for a guy's trip to Minnesota. Usually a bunch of couples get together, but we all had babies this year (crazy!) so only the 5 daddies are meeting up for the weekend. I am very excited for Tim to have some much needed guy time, but of course I'm going to miss him terribly. That's why I invited my mom to come visit for the weekend! She arrives tomorrow night and will be here until Sunday. I'm super excited to see her and for her to see how much Elliot's grown. We hope to have a fun and relaxing weekend...I hope you all have the same :)

5 Months Old!

Precious baby girl turned 5 months old last Sunday! Elliot is blowing us away on how much she's grown developmentally and socially in one month, which was a welcome change from last month. 3 months was heavenly and then 4 months threw us off. I had heard that the 4 month mark is when babies are not quiet themselves. During the 4th month, Elliot was not sleeping consistently, her evening fussiness returned, she would only occasionally smile at other people, and so on. She was still our sweet girl, but she was a little more dramatic than usual. So we gladly welcomed month 5 and embraced our maturing little girl. Elliot is still a drama queen, but it is small part of her personality that blooms more and more every day. Here are some new developments with Elliot:

• She sleeps from 7:30pm-4:30am (9hrs) and then wakes up again around 6:30am! Major progress!
• She still eats every 2-3 hrs both boob and bottle. I would like to get her on a bottle for the morning and afternoon, and then breastfeed in the evening.
• We don't know how much she weighs because there isn't a 5 m. checkup, but she weighs about 14 lbs and wears 6 m. clothes (still long and lean).
  
• She rolls over from her back to her stomach and stomach to back, although she is not happy about it. She still cries if she can't flip back over in lest than 10 seconds.
  
• She plays/explores toys! We went to Target the other day to buy her age appropriate toys because all she had we stuffed animals and a rattle. But don't worry, she has a bunch now :)
  
• She LOVES to watch you brush your teeth! So weird.
• She hates the pacifier and wants nothing to do with it (which makes me sad), and now wants to suck her thumb instead.
• She talks a lot! Now when I say talk, I really mean yell. This girl is so loud when she babbles that she woke up the sleeping baby next to us at New Mom's Group!
• Her favorite book is still an ABC book that I bought at the grocery store. We read it every day. Her favorite page is M for mouth because it has an up close picture of a baby boy who she likes to flirt with.

There is so much more that I can't remember that I'm sure I'll share with you soon.
Here are some outtakes from her 5 month pictures:

Zoolander Face:

"Chao Momma":
Happy baby:
Aanndd we're done:

What we have been up to lately...

Sorry I haven't written in awhile! We've been really busy lately as summer ends and work it beginning to rear its ugly head. The Reynolds family has had something going on every weekend almost the whole summer, and then I'm filling my week with play dates and back-burner chores. So far, this is some of what we've been up to...and there's more to come :)

Bouncing baby girl: Elliot has always had strong legs, and I thought maybe a jumper/bouncy chair would be a good purchase. We went over to our friends Rachel & Michael's house for Rachel's birthday, and Elliot got to try out Wilson's (their 2 year old) retired bouncy chair. She loved it! Sweet Rachel is letting us borrow theirs so we don't have to buy one! Right now Elliot doesn't bounce too much, she just enjoys watching everything from up higher and playing with the musical attached toys. She hasn't connected yet that she is making the chair move.
Here is a picture of Elliot, Tim, and Micheal minding their home bar and her new chair.

Solids foods: Why did we ever doubt that she would be a good eater? She is OUR child after all, and we know how to eat. Elliot loves fruits and veggies! She has had avocados, bananas (her fav), carrots, peas, and sweet potatoes. (Please note that peas have a lot of fiber so they make babies gassy, so don't serve them a helping of just peas, we found out the hard way). Elliot is our baby bird who now knows to open her mouth even before the spoon is in sight, and eats 1/2 cup of solid food before she goes to bed. Brinkley, our dog, has also discovered that hanging around Elliot during dinner time is a fruitful endeavor. Although he often gets in the way and distracts Elliot, he has proven himself as a good washer. Here are some pictures of Elliot eating carrots.

Here are some recent photos of her experience with peas...it took a couple days for her to get used to them.

Crying it out: I know you didn't hear it here first, but "crying it out" SUCKS! It took baby girl almost 2 hours to fall asleep the first night. Tim and I tried to play a game of Scrabble, but I couldn't even come up with CAT, I was so frazzled. Since then it has been better. Now it takes her about half an hour to fall asleep, with full lung screams the whole time. Then she sleeps until about 5am. I hoping she can stretch it till 6 am and then we'll be really for when I go back to work. The best part of this whole thing is that she doesn't remember how awful her parents were the night before! So sweet Elliot greets us with smiles and gladly joins us in bed to grab a few more winks :)

A whole new world...of food

At Elliot's 4 month well checkup, the Dr suggested that we start introducing solids in her diet to boost her weight and extend her nightime sleeping. We were thrilled, especially Tim! Now Daddy could have a role in feeding! When I was pregnant, we decided when the time came we would make our own baby food. I had read some good articles and blogs about homemade baby food and decided it was for us. Here are the following reasons why(in no particular order):

• It's fun!
• It's way cheaper. 2 bananas made 8 servings which cost 78 cents. Gerber's 2 pk of bananas cost $1.20.
• It's healthier. You control how the food is made so you can make sure the peak nutrients are in each serving. Prepackaged foods are factory made and assembled quickly so some nutrients are lost. Also, prepacked food is made to stay on the shelves and in your home for awhile, which means they are packed with preservatives and unnecessary additives.
  
• It tastes better! Have you ever tried some of those baby foods? Yuck! If it doesn't taste good to me, why would I serve it to her?

There are more reasons why we are making her baby food, but I'll get off my soap box now :) So that night I made rice cereal (rice, water, breast milk) and Tim and I did the age old dance called "getting the food in the baby's mouth." She liked the spoon, but not what was on it. So we skipped rice cereal (there is no nutritional reason to start with it and it made her constipated) and moved onto avocados. These were a hit! Tim and I enjoyed yummy guacamole, while Elliot ate up all her pureed avocado. The next food introduction was bananas. I had a feeling she would love it since it was sweet. Well she didn't disappoint! Elliot became a baby bird dutifully opening her mouth and squealing for more. Here is a picture of when we finished:
I think our next food adventure will be peas. Since she loves the sweeter foods (don't we all), I'll save those for later to make sure she develops a pallet for veggies.

4 Months Old!

Last Friday, Elliot turned 4 months old! She is growing and developing so fast that we can't believe it! But I guess I say that every month :) She is still long and lean at 11 lbs 14 oz and 24.75 in long. Elliot is the tallest 4 month old in the New Moms Group we go to. She is starting to take a regular nap in her swing. Now it's no secret that my child doesn't like to sleep. Since day one she's always been alert and wants to be a part of it all. So this regular nap is a BIG step, and now you can rejoice with me. Elliot entertains herself with her little gym, taggie blanket, and rattles. This preoccupation sometimes extends to the car, which makes trips more bearable! She giggles and smiles at other people now, especially babies. Her favorite baby is the one who lives in the mirror and enjoys talking to her often :) Elliot is still a big wiggle worm and uses that energy on rolling side to side and front to back.

The USB drive that holds my pictures is acting up, so I don't have the outakes of her 4 month pictures. But hopefully I'll have those up soon. In the mean time, here are links to two videos. They are both about 5 minutes long, so I understand if you don't watch the whole thing. They are posted on YouTube, but under a security setting. So copy and paste the link into your browser to access them, if you just search for them it won't work.

Elliot's baptism video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUg6cI5nbLc

Elliot trying rice cereal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxSh7n-KPQY